#################################
Nothing Is True (Save For The Blood We Shed)
Chapter Two
Welcome Home
#################################
Drop Pod Crash Site
Linkon kom Trikru, warrior of his people and one of Indra's best scouts, carefully eyed the recently-enlarged clearing for several for several minutes, eyes and ears unceasingly searching for any indication of a threat to himself, his unit or, most importantly, his people. It had taken he and his team of three scouts (another Trikru, a Rockkru, and an Azgeda) nearly two hours on horseback to reach the impact site of...well, they would be finding out soon what it was. Like his Heda, he hoped it was the first sign of the Prophecy. He was a warrior, proud to serve his clan, but his entire life had been lived under the fear of being captured and being bled by the Mountain Men. Or, worse, turned into a Reaper and forced to fight his own family and friends, perhaps even deliver them to the same fate.
A birdcall echoed suddenly through the forest, drawing him from these contemplations, and he smiled slightly as he recognized a perfectly performed 'all-clear' signal from one of his subordinates, an up and coming Trikru warrior named Tris. Rumour had it that the young woman was on the fast track to become Anya's new second, something he actually knew for a fact. After all, he had been 'spoken' to privately by the general, who had informed him in no uncertain terms that he was to return with her whole and relatively healthy, or he had best not return at all. He believed her too, the general was not fond of gross exaggeration with her soldiers.
He warbled his own call in return, acknowledging the all-clear and ordering his subordinates into the clearing. Dropping from his perch in a massive, ancient oak tree, he silently slipped into the clearing and had to restrain a pleased smile as the other three members of his team filtered out of the trees simultaneously from the other cardinal points. Perfection, he mused happily to himself, was what saved lives.
"There is a single set of footprints heading towards The Mountain. A young girl, probably in her sixteenth or seventeenth year. Carrying a fair amount of equipment." Tris reported as they met at the start of the long, jagged trench that the fire had carved into the planet where it fell. Broken and smoldering trees clearly marked its path through the canopy, and Linkon was quite glad that the last few days had been wet. Otherwise, he was sure that a great conflagration may have broken out, and that would have put thousands in the path of death, either through fire and smoke, or the local wildlife fleeing the flames and leaving the area, consigning them to starvation.
"She must be one of them, somehow. We should hunt her down and give her blood to the soil." The Azgeda scout growled out darkly, fingering the long sword slung at his hip, and Linkon frowned at him in displeasure.
"The Mountain Men do not send their women outside, certainly not one so young, and never alone. No, she came from the Sky, and that means she may be the One Who Is Promised, the SkaiPrisa." He retorted firmly, and the Azgeda snorted in amused contempt, giving him something rather close to a pitying look.
"The SkaiPrisa is nothing more than a children's story, an illusion of hope to keep them strong until they can become warriors. It serves no purpose to the strong. Join the ranks of men, Linkon." He rebutted, his voice mocking, and Linkon's jaw clenched in anger at the insult as his fingers drummed on the hilt of his own blade.
"Enough, both of you. Heda wants us to find out what we can, so we search the metal from the sky, and we track the girl. Try to turn her away from the Mountain and towards Trikru lands." Tris interrupted the growing argument with a strong voice, catching Linkon off guard, and he smiled at her slightly in response, as she immediately looked nervous when their gazes fell to her. Yes, she would make a fine Second for Anya, if she was willing to involve herself in a quarrel of honor between two seasoned warriors like themselves.
"Why not just find the chit and take her back to camp ourselves? If she is the SkaiPrisa, we would know quickly enough. If not, we could kill her and have done with it. No need to wait for her to stumble across a patrol so that they can bring her in." the Rockkru grunted, folding his arms over his chest with a scowl of irritation, and Linkon shook his head. While it was a good idea, those weren't their orders.
"No, we have no authority to bring a stranger into our camp. We are here simply to find out what we can about her origins and purpose, and leave the rest up to the Heda and her generals. I'll not risk the Mountain Men catching up to us if she tries to flee from us, because you know as well as I that they will soon be here to investigate." He told the group at large, and the two males simply grunted while Tris nodded her head and began to speak. What she was going to say, however, was cut short by the deep, bone-shaking roar that billowed forth from the direction of The Mountain. A roar that all of them knew and feared.
"Pauna..." Tris whispered fearfully, and the three males nodded in grim agreement. The great pauna was the ultimate danger to all in this land, while for all the tribes feared the Mountain Men, they could be bested, tricked, avoided, slain. The pauna, in all of its towering, monstrous strength, was rarely even wounded. Once it began to hunt, nothing and no one could deter it for long. She was the apex predator, and all who heard her roar knew fear.
"She must hunt the SkaiPrisa, no doubt her ire was drawn by the noise and stench of fire and smoke created by the SkaiPrisa's arrival. Quickly, search the metal box." Linkon ordered, and the group scrambled to obey, swarming carefully over the strange object and ensuring they did not damage anything that the Heda or the generals might want to look at later. It was quickly decided that the only item of interest that was transportable by their capabilities was a small pile of heavily padded white armor of some kind. "Tris, put this in your pack and return to TonDC as fast as your horse can take you. Inform Heda that we are following the trail of the SkaiPrisa and the pauna. We will try to rescue her and divert its attention towards the Mountain."
"No, Linkon, I will not leave comrades to fight without me! I am a warrior of the Trikru, not a child hiding behind its mother!" Tris protested forcefully, glaring angrily at her clansmate, and Linkon nodded in agreement.
"You are a warrior of the Trikru, true. And that is why you must reach the Heda. You must tell her what we have found, and she must bring soldiers to claim this device." He gestured to the metal box, and Tris' gaze inadvertently followed his hand. "I do not know what, if anything, the Mountain Men might gain from this, but we cannot allow it to fall into their hands regardless. If you came with us and we all perished, our people would be helpless against whatever might come of all this. If you want to serve your people, you will do as I say."
Tris nodded in agreement, unslinging her pack and dividing her supplies up to the young men before refilling it with the white armor and helmet. She, like many, had read the ancient texts. She knew how advanced those who went to the Sky before the Last War had been, and she knew that any advantage the Mountain Men might gain could mean the death of her people.
"Maker keep you safe." She said stoically as she slung her pack back onto her back, quite convinced that she would never see any of them ever again. Only a handful had ever survived the Pauna, and even then they were the wounded survivors of large parties of warriors. Three warriors with only their blades would likely accomplish nothing, but they would do this task regardless, and so must she, lest it all be in vain.
"And you also." Linkon inclined his head in response, and she turned to flit into the trees towards where they had secured their mounts, and from there to TonDC. Squaring his shoulders, Linkon turned in the opposite direction and, with his back towards home and safety, marched to meet his death as a warrior.
######################################
Forest, A Few Miles From Drop Zone
Clarke snarled in frustrated anger mixed with fear as she vaulted yet another in what felt like an endless series of fallen trees and branches, breath coming in steady, even pants as she regulated her gait and breathing to textbook perfection. She would be sure to brag about it to her fitness instructors, provided she was still alive to do so.
She had been walking for several hours, taking her time to document what her five senses were experiencing, not only for posterity but also to help her cope with all of them. Spotting a flock of birds with shimmering, rainbow-colored wings (due to radiation exposure, she was sure) she attempted to draw them, her inner artist gleeful at the prospect of capturing so magnificent an image. However, the slightest of over-excited movement on her part had startled them into shimmering, magnificently beautiful flight, and oh, how she had wished she had a camera! Instead of staying on her course and finding them another day (as in, after she had secured shelter and supplies!), she had darted after them without thinking, turning away from Mount Weather and heading parallel, towards the Capitol.
The next thing she knew, a massive gorilla had appeared bellowing from the dense forest, smashing aside ancient trees that had weathered nearly a century of exposure and radiation as though they were paper. Blood was dripping from numerous small wounds, and the beast was very clearly enraged and looking for something to take its fury out upon. The moment it's eyes locked onto her, Clarke knew that she had to start running.
She had tried to trick it a few times, leaving small drops of blood on several trees from a scrape on her hand, but whether the gorilla had mutated to possess more intellect or a better sense of smell over the years, such measures had never done more than by her a little bit of time and piss it off even more. Quite frankly she was amazed she had managed to outrun it this long, but she thanked her instructors and her own radiation-altered body for that. While space radiation might not be as...horrific in its results as nuclear fallout, it did still affect the body, change it to become something stronger. Either that, or you died young as your body killed itself from the inside out.
Her mind was racing as desperately as her feet, creating and discarding plans at the speed of though. She could only outrun it or distract it for just so much longer. Even as fit as she was, it was both far more massive and far more strong than her own more-or-less human body, and those facts allowed it to move at literally superhuman speeds for a long time indeed. Not to mention the fact that this was it's home turf, and it had no trouble whatsoever finding the quickest route to its objective.
However, she did have one hope. In the lead-up to the Third World War, tens of thousands of nuclear-hardened fallout shelters had been constructed all across the United States, with the major cities receiving higher concentrations than the more rural areas. The nation's capitol had, of course, received not only more shelters than anywhere else, but both the shelters and their stockpiles were of significantly greater than other, 'less significant' areas. If she could find and seek shelter inside of one of those, she would be safe and supplied long enough for the beast to lose interest, allowing her to reach the Mountain and alert the Ark that earth was more-or-less habitable. She would have to remember to mention guns, though. Big ones.
Easier said than done, if course. She did know that she had to be fairly close to the outer layers of the city proper. While earlier she had been ever so savagely cursing The Ark for dropping her so far away from Mount Weather, she was now overwhelmingly grateful that she had been dropped near the city and thus the shelters. Besides, she might get lucky and find one that had a communications capability of some kind. She would be able to bring the Ark, and her friends, down that much faster.
Seeing a large break in the trees up ahead, her heart soared with hope and she poured her energies into a burst of speed as she vaulted one last tree and hurtled into empty air over what she had hoped was a large, grassy plain that would lead her to a shelter or a cave or somewhere else she could hide from her pursuer.
She was partially correct.
There was, indeed, a large clearing in the trees, and she was indeed now outside of the forest's main body. However, she discovered, she had just leapt off of a ledge over a significant drop, and a short shriek of surprise and fear was audible for a mere instant before she dropped, feet hitting the loose stone and dirt slope. They promptly went right out from under her, and she tumbled down, yelping in pain every-time her body impacted, even as she tried to curl up into a defensive ball. It even worked, a little bit, as the impacts on the vital parts of her body became more limited. The downside however, was that her limbs and back began taking more and more hits.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she skidded to a halt. Wincing at her scrapes and bruises and more than a few shallow cuts, she tried to push herself back to her feet, only to collapse with a howl of pain as her wrist collapsed, red-hot knives of agony stabbing at her. She must have broken it, or at the very least badly sprained it, during the fall. Trying again with only her right, she was relieved when it didn't do the same, allowing her to stagger to her feet.
Examining her surroundings, she found herself standing in the center of what seemed to be a fairly large crater, maybe one hundred feet in diameter and a dozen feet deep. Cradling her left arm close to her body, she carefully scrambled up the far side. Sapphire eyes scanned her surroundings carefully, before widening in shock.
At least another half dozen craters just like the one she had fallen into lay scattered before her. Though, perhaps scattered was not the right word, as there was in fact a very deliberate spacing, almost pattern-like, to the craters and it dawned on Clarke that she was standing in the middle what was once the target of a conventional missile barrage or bombing attack.
A faint gleam caught her eye, and she raised a hand against the glare of the sun and tried to discern what it was. Her heart leapt again as she spotted the source. A large, flawless metal door set into a squat, wide concrete bunker. It looked to be a few hundred yards away at most, even in her battered state she would be able to make it there, given enough time…
The sound of her pursuer exiting the trees made her wilt. She had barely been able to outrun the beast when she had been uninjured, well rested, and in the cover of the forest. Now it would be all but impossible.
A deep, harsh braying sound that was similar enough to old movies she had seen to be identified as a war-horn shattered the stillness of the air, and she spun around in shock only to find herself face to face with…a boy?
###################################
TonDC
"Heda!"
Lexa looked up, startled, as her successor to the post of Anya's Second rushed into her throne room clutching a bulging pack tightly in both hands. Fully aware that she had been a member of the scouting party Indra had sent, she set aside the ancient text she had been reading, the battered hardcover carrying a barely discernible title: "Off Armageddon Reef" by David Weber*. It was the first book in a series, apparently, one that she desperately wished she had the sequels for.
"Yes, Tris, what news do you so desperately bring? I assume from the lack of blood and how tightly you are clutching that bag that your unit found something important?" she asked with almost believably casual interest, little to no sign of her internal excitement showing. Not much garnered obvious emotional responses from her besides anger and contempt from her, not since she had taken her place as Heda. Still, the idea of being the Heda to meet the One Who Is Promised was more than sufficient cause to put a few hairline fractures in her façade.
"Sha, Heda. We reached the place that the sky-fire fell quickly and found a large metal box at the end of a fresh, deep trench gouged in the earth. There was little of interest to our knowledge save for the contents of this pack and the hour-old tracks of a well-equipped sixteen year old young woman." Tris reported, placing the pack on the ground and reaching into it to withdraw a bundle of white clothing. It unfolded to its full length in her grasp, and Lexa couldn't restrain a soft gasp as she saw it. "Heda?"
"This, Tris, is called a 'space suit'. It allows the people who live above the sky to breathe when there is no air, and to survive the rigors of returning to the ground. At least, that is what the ancient books have led me to believe it does. Regardless, this is certainly evidence that someone has come from above." Lexa explained as she uncoiled herself from her throne and descended to take the suit. Turning it in her hands, she reverently inspected it before forcing herself to refocus on other matters. "And what of the others?"
"The Sky Girl was being followed by a yong pauna, and they went to try and help her escape it, as well as keep her from going to the Mountain."
"I doubt the Sky People know that anyone still lives down here, so trying to find shelter in someplace like The Mountain would make a great deal of sense." Lexa mused , and Tris nodded in agreement. The Commander was opening her mouth to speak when Indra burst into the throne room much like Tris had, a decidedly out of character move for the reserved general.
"Heda, patrols report that the Mountain Men are already well on their way to where the fire fell! From what they were able to see and hear from cover, the Mountain Men know just what it was and who might be in it, and they injured and enraged a yong pauna before herding it in that direction. They mean to claim what and whomever fell for themselves!" the ebony general reported, and Lexa snarled angrily.
"Get every warrior we can on horseback and prepare to move out. Have another force escort a wagon an hour behind us. I'll be damned before the Mountain Men get their hands on the Sky Girl or the technology within the sky-box." She commanded, turning to her armor rack as Indra vanished to obey her commands. Her incumbent successor at Anya's side sprang into action, helping the founder of the Coalition arm and armor herself, pulling straps tight and tying leather ties.
"Tris, put the space suit into that trunk and lock it. Bring me the key when you've done so." The command was given with a gesture to a large, worn-looking trunk, a family relic from her mother's line that she used to keep what few artifacts of personal and sentimental value she had allowed herself to keep when she had become a blooded warrior.
Carefully opening the trunk, Tris absently noticed another, slightly smaller but no less worn trunk beside it, the faint words still carved into its cover reading: "General of the Armies, Skylar M. Griffin". Placing the space suit into the Commander's trunk, Trist put the second one from her mind as she closed it and locked it securely, before presenting the key to her leader.
Nodding her thanks, Lexa slipped its chain over her head, allowing the small piece of shaped metal to take its place between her full, though securely bound, breasts.
Settling her sword on her back and her long knives on her hips, the founder of the Coalition strode from the room and into the organized chaos of her army preparing to ride out or defend the village from possible attack. All movement stopped and the air itself seemed to grow still as the entire village turned to look at her, every ear waiting to hear what the supreme leader of the tribes would say.
"All of you know that a great flame fell from the sky not hours ago, and landed not far from here." The crowd murmured their agreement, as even someone blind and deaf couldn't have missed such an event, simply from the way the air itself shook. They fell silent once more as she continued speaking. "That fire was in truth a box from the sky, its inhabitant sent by those who live in the sky as an emissary."
Even her peoples' stoicism and determination couldn't contain their reactions to those words. Each and every one of them had been told the stories as children, stories of the Old World and the Chosen Few who had been taken into the sky until such time that the Sky Princess would lead them back and become the Queen of all who lived on the ground. Chatter and shouted questions filled the town, and Lexa eventually had to command them to silence, an absolute first in her memory, and it took nearly a full minute for them to pull themselves together again.
"Our task is two-fold. Ensure that the Sky Girl is unharmed and out of The Mountain's grasp, and to secure her metal pod before they can claim any secrets it might hold. I will take our mounted warriors and secure the area, then send for the cart to carry it here. We move out in five minutes." She commanded, and the camp scattered to finish their duties and preparations.
Five minutes later, three hundred horses thundered through the gates of TonDC, surging towards the place where the fire had fallen. Lexa, at the head of the column with Anya and Indra, could only hope that they made it in time. Not only for her people, but for her own future.
###########################################
"What the fuck…?!" Clarke's attempt at a scream came out sound more like a strangled gasp despite her best efforts.
The boy, who looked like her was around her age, was heavily tanned and wearing heavy black leather armor with black fur trimmings that added a menacing and almost intense feel to the armor. His dark, expressionless eyes were surrounded by soot-black warpaint of some kind. With the added touch of a sword on his back and knives on his belt, he cut a savage and imposing figure.
"I am Lincoln, warrior of the Tree Clan. I mean you no harm." He said in heavily accented English, and Clarke raised an eyebrow at him. She opened her mouth to respond in a decidedly skeptical fashion (ignoring for the moment that he was A) A human alive on earth besides her and B) he was speaking English) when there was another hornblast, followed immediately by the enraged bellow of the massive mutant gorilla and, shockingly, the stattaco chatter of automatic gunfire. He tensed, shooting a look over his shoulder and the woodline. "You must flee to safety. My companions may have led the yong pauna away and towards the Mountain, but its rage only grows. It will return for you soon enough."
"Look, I don't know who the fuck you are or what is going on, but if we can get inside that bunker over there we will be safe from the gorilla." Clarke responded as human screams and crunching sounds echoed from the woods. Lincoln looked again and shook his head.
"There is no time, SkaiPrisa. Flee while you can." He refused, turning on his heel and darting back towards the woods. Calls for him to stop or come back went unheeded, and Clarke growled in anger before limping after him. She would be damned if she just ran and hid while he died in some stupid, self-sacrificing manner. Drawing her firearm, she weaved her way through the trees towards the sounds of fighting.
When she arrived, it was immensely obvious that the battle against the giant gorilla was not going well, not that she was terribly surprised. A half-dozen men in some sort of radiation suits were in crumpled heaps, the assault rifles she had heard being fired lying near their corpses, as was another male dressed and equipped like Lincoln. He, along with one other, were busy ducking and weaving through the wounded gorilla's wild and powerful blows. It was obvious even to her relatively untrained eye that they were slowing down, each blow coming closer and closer to landing an impact that could end only in death.
Casting about, her eyes fell upon a tree with low branches and a perfectly placed V fork between two of them. Quickly shuffling over to it, she rested the long barrel of her magnum and cocked the hammer. Even as she took careful aim at the monster, Lincoln's companion was caught in a sideways swipe that sent him smashing into a nearby tree with a sickening splatter, his flying corpse clipping Lincoln just enough to send him to the ground, dazed and disoriented from the impact.
The gorilla slowly approached, confident and taking its time. It knew that this pray was to injured to fight back now, and in its anger and pain it wanted to savor this moment. One powerful hand darted down and rose again, Lincoln squirming desperately in its unyielding grasp. Massive jaws opened wide, jagged teeth gleaming, and…
Clarke's magnum boomed, sending a fifty caliber bullet into the gorilla's head. Although, to be honest, it didn't have a head anymore. In fact, when a fifty caliber, 400g hollowpoint bullet impacts anything at two thousand feet per second with over three thousand foot-pounds of force at a range of less than five yards, the target simply…disintegrates. And disintegrate it did, with…spectacular results, if exceptionally gory. The gorilla's head exploded in a welter of gore, showering the boy in its grasp with blood, brains, bone fragments, and shredded flesh. Feeling thoroughly exhausted, Clarke sluggishly holstered her gun before turning to rest her back against the tree. Her legs wavered beneath her and she collapsed, all the pain her adrenaline had been keeping at bay rushing back at once. Darkness consumed her vision and her head lolled limply to the side as unconsciousness claimed her.
############################################
The horns of her warriors had fallen silent not long ago, meaning they had either been knocked unconscious or (far more likely) slain. Lexa hoped that Lincoln was still alive, he was one of her best scouts and was something very close to a friend to her. She jerked in shock as thunder clapped, and she instinctively looked to the sky, though she knew perfectly well that there was not a cloud in the sky.
It had to have been one of the Mountain Men's guns, but it sounded nothing like the usual chattering sound that their preferred weapons made. Still, they were close enough now that they could catch any surviving Mountain Men off guard. Hefting the long, iron-tipped spear that served as her lance, she pumped it in the air twice, the non-verbal signal to attack, and prodded her mount into a gallop.
Her's was the first voice to be raised in a howling war cry, her warriors echoing her, and the first to fall silent in confusion as a ragged sounding 'all-clear' horn signal echoed from up ahead. Gesturing for the warriors to slow down and dismount, she gave hushed orders for half the warriors to remain with the mounts, and the others to spread out and search the area. She, Tris, Anya, and Indra led a small group directly towards the area the horn-blast had come from.
There, surrounded by a half-dozen Mountain Men corpses, two dead warriors, and a wounded Lincoln, lay the mostly headless corpse of a yong pauna. It was obvious a gun of some kind had ended its life, no sword, spear, or arrow of any kind could even hope to do such catastrophic damage, and no warrior had ever slain a pauna of any age.
"Lincolm, what happened here?" she asked softly, as she and Nyko knelt beside him, the healer pulling out his medicinal pouch, hands shaking slightly at the sight of his brother in all but blood in such a state. "Is this blood yours?"
"No…the pauna's. Was going to eat me, the Sky Princess killed it. She is hurt…over there." He grunted out painfully, clutching at his ribs in obvious agony before falling silent as Nyko began his work. Lexa's eyes widened and she spun to her feet, trying to keep her inner excitement and apprehension from being too obvious. Rounding the tree Lincoln had indicated, she felt her breath catch in her chest.
She was breathtaking. Tight black armor accentuated an athletically mouth-watering build, one she was sure would only look all the better without the bulk of the armor in the way of her vision. Long, golden hair spilled down her back in a tousled, curly wave, and Lexa also noted with approval that she had more than a few weapons on her person.
Reaching out with one hand, she prepared to gently shake the princess awake. However, the moment the lightest of touches fell on the girl's shoulder, eyes as blue as they sky she had come from snapped open, and her right hand blurred into motion. Lexa had a sheer instant to hurl herself out of the way before thunder boomed again. Shaking her head to clear the ringing from her ears, Lexa prepared to get back to her feet, but an ominous metallic clicking sound made her freeze. Slowly raising her head, she found herself face to face with the gleaming length of the biggest pistol she had ever seen in her life. A cracking sound distracted her for a heartbeat, long enough for her to look back and see a young tree, perhaps only a decade or two in age, go toppling sideways, the massive chunk ripped out of the trunk telling her just where the bullet she had avoided had gone.
"Well, I guess I know how you killed the yong pauna now." She said light-heartedly, and the blond eyed her appraisingly, gun unwavering and eyes full of steel.
"If you mean the giant gorilla, then yes. I couldn't very well let it eat Lincoln or whatever his name was, now could I?" she grumbled in response, and Lexa laughed softly in response, already liking the girl's fiery nature.
"My name is Lexa, Lincoln is one of my soldiers. I thank you for saving his life. What is your name, SkaiPrisa?" she asked, and the girl eyed her again for a long moment before responding.
"Clarke, Clarke Griffin." She said, finally lowering her gun, through she didn't holster it, Lexa was pleased to see. She also felt a jolt rush through her as she recognized the Sky Princess' last name, the same name engraved on a large wooden trunk in her throne room. One more piece of evidence that this girl was whom her people had been waiting for all these years. "So, what happens now?"
"Now, you come with us and heal. You are in no danger from anyone loyal to me, SkaiPrisa." Lexa assured her, receiving a scrutinizing, evaluating look in return before the blonde sighed and nodded her acceptance. Suppressing a pleased smile, Lexa settled for simply offering her hand, which Clarke took tentatively in her own. Lexa marveled for a moment how soft it was in her own. She couldn't wait to introduce Costia to their future lover and Queen. She was everything they had hoped for.
######################################
Anya and Indra watched as their Commander, their little Lexa, carefully helped the blond-haired, blue-eyed girl from the sky up onto her horse, before swinging up behind her. The pair exchanged glances and raised eyebrows when Lexa pulled the girl closer than needed (making the blonde blush in response) before nudging the horse into a gentle walk.
"Well, it looks like our Heda seems fairly enamored, doesn't she?" Anya said lowly, a devilish grin on her face, to her compatriot, who grimaced lightly in response.
"I never took Lexa for the type to fall into love at first sight. This may cause problems amongst the Coalition and put her safety at risk." She grumbled, kneeing her mount into motion, Anya beside her, as they moved to catch up to their smitten leader.
"Well, she is quite beautiful, you must admit. And she did save Linkon by slaying the yong pauna, even if she did do it with an absolute monster of a gun." Anya defended, and Indra grunted in begrudging agreement. While her taste did not flow towards fellow women the way Anya and Lexa's did, she wasn't blind either. The sky girl was very beautiful and, apparently, quite capable. Gun or not, she did kill one of the monsters that had claimed the lives of so many over the years.
"We drag the yong pauna back to TonDC! It will serve as the center of a feast to honor the SkaiPrisa and her first hunt amongst us!" Lexa shouted, and the warriors cheered enthusiastically, Anya amongst them. Even Indra, the ever-scowling, grinned. After all, everyone loved a good feast!
#####################################################
Hope you guys are still having fun with this story! This will be getting updated once a week on Fridays, so look forward to that!
*this is an actual book, the beginning of yet another amazing sci fi series by the same man, David Weber. Read his shit if you like sci fi action, its gonna change sci fi the same way Star Wars did when the movies start coming out for his flagship series, the Honorverse.
