Hunter
Night was falling, and the sky was pale, washed red against ash-grey.
Bad night for hunting, but hunters couldn't be choosers on Gauda Prime. He'd been stuck on this hellhole for long enough to know he had no choice. And the role of hunter, rather than hunted, had come naturally - too naturally - after the Debacle.
That's what he called it in his mind, in a voice that echoed, maliciously familiar. Avon... don't think of Avon. Avon and the others were the past.
This role was the present. This role was ugly, but no longer uncomfortable - it served a purpose, and he could hide within it.
He ran his hands through thick curls, coarser now through neglect and dirt. Life had been coarser, harsher, for too long now - his ideals and high idea of himself gone, rubbed raw by the tragedy that had washed him up here, left him broken in mind and maimed in body, and so very alone...
But bad night or no, he had to hunt. Bounties still paid, and would for as long as the world remained wild. And that was unlikely to change, whatever the self-elected leaders in their fortressed towns liked to believe.
He stood, checking his guns and sliding it back into the heavy, badly worn holster. He straightened the heavy jacket that carried his basic needs for working: ammunition, manacles, shockstick, stungun, knives... names, a list of likely prospects. Just one would do for tonight, would pay well enough. He was good at what he did, he had always been good at what he did, not matter what Avon... don't! Don't think of any of them. Don't think of the past.
But he'd been good at killing, all right. Now he was better. Now he needed to be.
He kicked the fire dead and glanced around the shattered hull he used as a shelter, to see if he'd forgotten anything. The ship had once been his hope off this hell, after the Debacle, but he'd been fooling himself that he would soon leave.
It came in useful as a night shelter now, it meant nothing more.
He would probably never leave. And the knowledge burnt, still dully, every day. But at least - being good - he was alive.
With a harsh, rusty, coldly humourless laugh, the bounty hunter who called himself Tarrius Dell turned from the wreck of the Scorpio and vanished into the forest of Gauda Prime.
-the end-