The sound of rushing water was always in her ears, even when she slept. Dredging mental imagery of the cascades of home, the drains that fell into carved pools to drain downwards and help keep terra firma green and flush.
Every time she heard it trickling, War felt homesick for the fresh clean air, the echo of torrential downpour across the enclosed walls, humming out the drone of life in the caverns. A backbeat, something to sync the heart and breath to.
Life.
The higher caverns rarely sported such wonders, such heavy sound. Ruin, once so perturbed by the constant noise that conducted everything in his first washing down into the irrigation ditches, had even started to show signs of missing it. She would catch the little Negashade also looking longingly at small water features, both man-made and natural, as they passed. Once or twice, she found him on the banks of such, reaching little arm toward it. A feat, to be sure, for such a small guy who had been terrified of water as a whole for so long outside hydration purposes. He was getting less and less afraid of it lately; she caught him bathing in a trickle once. When he gave her a sheepish look as though he had not wanted to be caught, she let him to it and congratulated him on passing such a big hurdle in his little life. She never knew Negashades glowed along those pretty light-blue markings until that point, when he offered up the biggest 'smile' she was sure he could muster to mimic the faint pulse in those swirls and dots. Learning something new every day…
Bucephalus was trudging on beneath her now, her mind filled with the mechanical drone of joints and pulleys, shocks and suspensions. Ruin was curled up against the crook of her neck, napping, as she leaned against the warhorse-mech's broad and elegantly-sloping neck. The mechanized stallion would follow the others; his GPS system was synced to Death's Ianmo at the head-point, and would alert her to rough terrain later.
Steady sway, rhythmic whirring and clunking beneath. Eyes closed, head resting on her lower arms. Somewhere, midst the metallic clunking and droning, came another noise. Soothing, low-key roar, something she subconsciously synced her breathing and heart-rate to.
Water.