Disclaimer: T'Pren and Black Cloak (AKA It) belong to Carolyn Clowes from Pandora Principle; Ajeya, Diartr, their family, and Micar belong to Kerry (Kerjen).
Days after T'Pren's escape - Federation year: 2272
Hellguard colony, Romulan Star Empire.
The wind howled furiously, and the dust whirled around blurring the moonless sky. A shadow moved stealthily, ignoring the harsh weather. There was no light in the abandoned buildings the shadow left behind. It stilled and looked warily around, panting. Hidden behind a huge rock, it tried to find a safe place to move next. As the wind blew harder, the clouds opened for a single second and the starlight shimmered, showing the shadow's real colors. A young boy, naked and bruised, shivered from being exposed to the cold, night air. His long hair was in disarray, and his dark eyes darted wildly around, while his thin trembling hands clutched a small package. Darkness came again, and the child hurried to nestle himself in a tiny cave hidden between the rock formations.
But he wasn't alone. Another shadow moved, melting with the immovable shapes of nature, stalking him. It towered over him and before he could notice its presence, a small bony hand was pressed against the same rock that was his shelter, blocking his only escape.
"You gives," a child's voice hissed.
The boy knew that voice quite well and shuddered. He looked up, his eyes widened in fear, to meet the uncompromising icy stare that drilled on him. Now just a few inches apart from him, he could see the features of his chaser. The shadow was a small girl, younger than him; her body was completely covered by open wounds and old scars; famished, nude except for some rags, and battered as she was, she held herself with a proud authority that he never could match.
The frightened boy swallowed hard and gripped his only possession firmly. He had not seen the girl for days; he had thought her dead since the Romulans took her away, right after that Vulcan woman escaped. He had not really felt pity. But now the girl was back and he suspected her injuries were not going to stop her; even if he was stronger then, he felt weaker.
However, he was so desperately hungry... He just couldn't surrender his food to her. He had risked his life to get it by going into the Romulans' territory, and sneaking into their quarters. No one except him knew the way inside their base, and even if he dreaded them as much as the other children, sometimes, when he was starving, he entered their lair to steal. That moment, when he left their territory behind with his booty, was the only time when he felt powerful and special again, for he had found out long ago that he was not.
The only reason he had not eaten the food yet was that he was not safe so near the Romulans' presence. He did not dare to stay there even though he knew that this place was no safer. The ones like him awaited here, she awaited here, having discovered his hiding place long ago. Denied the knowledge of how to get into the Romulan complex, they had to turn their foraging to somewhere else or die. He was in danger, and even if the rational part of his mind told him to give the food to her, the irrational famished part of him insisted he just could not spend another day more without nourishment. He had to fight for it.
His answer was only a hardly spoken whisper, "No."
The girl scowled at his reply, surprised and displeased, her eyes flashing. Next, she grinned, showing her teeth as a warning, and moved closer to him.
The stars appeared again between the black clouds, and an object glimmered. The girl's eyes were still locked on the boy, but his gaze flickered nervously, looking for the glint. His hunter held a knife in her right hand. Its sight made him shudder, and he froze. Wasn't she dangerous enough without a weapon? When his look returned to her eyes, she still had her feral smile plastered in her face.
"You gives," she repeated, pronouncing the words slowly and menacingly.
"I... I can't," he stammered, "Saavik, I starve."
A sickened laugh escaped her lips. They all starved, and his choice to hold on to the food was a death sentence for her, and he didn't care.
Except, he hadn't known about the knife when he had decided to fight for the food. She raised her blade and pressed it against the boy's neck.
"Not care! Like you!" she snapped dryly. "You gives now!" she commanded again.
He heard the beating of his heart as it quickened. All his chances of fighting her were gone, but the blade's menace only made him more irrational and desperate. He gritted his teeth against her fury and blurted, "I know something you want. I know why we are here."
The boy closed his eyes, awaiting the blow he knew was coming, and just hoped it was not a fatal one.
The young girl, however, stood still, and a look of distress and despair crossed her eyes. When he dared to look, she stared at him in turmoil as if she tried so desperately to remember something, but only found an insuperable void. Her hand trembled slightly as she probed the other child with her gaze.
"You knows?" she asked, her voice softer.
He was surprised at her keen interest. He knew the girl always cursed the Romulans, and especially her unknown parent; he knew she wondered why their captors kept them alive, as if there had to be a reason for their evil. He had suspected she would be ready to listen to him, but not so willingly, and he had not missed her lost look instead of the enraged one he was expecting.
She was acting a bit odd, probably due to her capture by the Romulans.
"Yes, Thair told me and I'll tell you, just let me keep this food," he pleaded.
For a second, a war etched itself over Saavik's face: the part of her that wanted to know fought the one that had to eat before she died. At last, she chose.
"Not!" was her reply, "You gives." She paused. "And you tells or you dies!"
The boy cursed himself and the girl vehemently. He should not have tried to outsmart Saavik; he knew she was more intelligent. He had more education than she did since he was older and part of the project when the Romulans taught them things. Which was why he spoke the real language instead of the bastardized one the Others spoke.
But Saavik had been forced to learn well the other education the Romulans gave: survival. They were given no morals, no laws, only a choice of kill or die. What the boy thought to be an advantage over her had turned out to be a liability.
He put up a brave face and answered, "No, the food is mine."
He regretted his words the moment they were out of his mouth. What evil spirit has possessed me? Hunger, he knew, a terrible hunger that forced him to fight even if he knew the stupidity of it.
Stupid because the same hunger drove Saavik. Whoever had the food got to live, and he was the rodent that had just told the eagle he was forcing her to die.
He was sweating as he gripped his precious package closer, and his eyes revealed his terrible fear and mad determination.
Rage finally burned in the girl and her gaze became uncompromising. She lowered her blade, stunned, and insulted the other child using the harshest words she knew for daring to oppose her, for saying he had more right to food and life than she did. Then, when words got her nowhere except closer to starvation, she plunged her weapon into his belly.
"Tells now! You gives now!" she demanded, ignoring the boy as he doubled and curled up on the ground.
"I always helped you," he muttered.
That was a lie, and it made her lose control.
He did not resist her next vicious attack. Instead, he just tried to stop the blood that flooded freely from his open gashes. His eyes laid on his wounds first and then looked up at the wild girl. A mocking smile played in his face before turning again into an agonizing grimace.
"He always said your Romulan blood ran strongly in your veins," the child muttered, his voice getting quieter, "that you were like your-"
He trailed off, unable to finish. His gaze, fixed on the little girl, faded away until all light left his eyes.
Saavik's knife was still in mid-air, and for a moment she just stared. Her stormy eyes revealed the mix of fury, disbelief and despair that was her tormented mind. Then, again, she took hold of the boy and shook him.
"Who? Who?! Tells!" she shouted.
But he would not answer, for he was already dead. As it dawned on her, she let him go. Her eyes watered, because in her harsh words was hidden a desperate plea. She glared at his body showing also her distress. A mad unstoppable fury still consumed her, and she gripped her blade firmly.
"Sonabastard! Sonabastard!" she repeated as a mantra while she struck his dead body once and once again.
"Sonabastard..." she sobbed until, exhausted, she collapsed to the ground, nesting herself in the cave that had been his shelter.
She stayed crouched there only for a few seconds, before she got up and snatched the package still clutched in the boy's hands. She opened it roughly and devoured the food feverishly. Once she finished, she stole a glance at the other child's body and ran away.
Saavik lied curled up in her own cave, banging her fist on her thigh. She was not crying, even if she felt the urge to, for she feared her muffled sounds would reveal her location to the other predators. She was bleeding again as her still healing injuries re-opened while she tried to calm down and tried to get rid of her own rage. But she was feeling as distressed as she had been before, and as helpless, and that was such a disgusting sensation...
She could not remember almost anything. She tried to ask herself simple questions like where had she been yesterday or any day before she woke up, hurting from wounds everywhere, even inside her body. She had no answer. She knew some places and some faces... She had just killed one of them. Her instinct told her what to do, but every time she tried to look back at her past, at her own life, she only found silence and darkness. Her mind was a frightening void, the most desperate part of her miserable existence. She just wanted to know, and in the gloomy cavern, her ignorance turned into fear, and her fear into rage and hate. As her tormented mind asked infinite questions, two of them repeated more than any other: the one that had plagued her since she woke up - why I not knows? - and the one the boy had just put into her head: why was she here?
She didn't know why, but she looked up to the stars. Someday, she was going to ask every question she had, and somehow, she was going to find the answers.
But Hellguard's night mocked the noble pledge with the boy's blood on her hands, and her eyes dropped from the stars.