A/N: Your eyes do not deceive you, this is actually a chapter.
When the colonel woke up with a gasp, he was covered by sand. It was eerie and unsettling to wake up buried underneath the ground. Thankfully he had his rebreather and goggles on when he went catatonic because they kept him from a whole new can of worms. It was easy to get out, the covering layer of sand was not deep, only a few centimetres. That was probably just a nightly sand-drift, which said a lot about his surroundings if such substantial amount of sand could drift freely.
He tried to stand up after digging out, but the movement was stopped by searing pain that forced him to hunch over while his hand shot to where he had been hit by the autocannon shells. As always, the phantom pains wracked his body. The physical injuries were long gone, but the pain stayed as a reminder. It was always like this and he knew that there was nothing he could do about it, he could only wait for it to pass, as it always did.
In his opinion, it had something to do with his curse and the fact that normal people died when they are killed. His body, however, always recovered, no matter the wounds inflicted, and he popped back up. It was a vicious, never-ending cycle of death and renewal. Sometimes it took days for him to regain control of his body and at other times it took centuries to reconstitute his body cell by cell from atomic particles scattered by solar winds. One of the few consolations he had was the ability to occasionally control the place of his reappearance, but that happened only sporadically. Nevertheless, certain parts of the cycle were always the same. Sudden awakening, sharp breath of air into burning lungs and phantom pains of mortal injuries long since healed.
As he was sitting there and recovering, the implications of his predicament dawned to him. Given the layer of sand that had covered his body it was clear he spent only one night lying there. It was most likely the shortest time ever needed for recovery. One night had to be a record, at least he could not remember otherwise. His memory was excellent and allowed him to recall many things, even some he would rather forget, but even it had its limits. Recalling his early years of life was difficult, the memories themselves far too vague and hazy.
Knowing that drowning himself in old memories would serve no purpose, he cleared his line of thought by a vigorous shake and few jabs to his helmeted head. He clenched teeth stood up and soldiered on through the pains. After all, the pain was only the illusion of the senses, far more dangerous things might lie around him in wait.
By looking around a few times and scrutinizing every detail, he came to the conclusion that he was standing in-between two sand dunes which limited his view by a considerable margin. From what little he could see; it was not promising. He also spotted a particularly tall dune, which could give him nice elevated position to find out more. In situations like this, benefits of high positioning were the most crucial factor in formulating a plan that had at least some chance of success.
With some effort he managed to struggle uphill to the top of the dune and looked around once again. This time he could see far and wide without hindrance, especially with the use of his hellgun's scope. It didn't help his already plummeting mood. It was more than clear that he found himself in a beige coloured pickle. There was desert to the north. There was also the desert to the west. Southern scenery was made up of unending sand dunes and to the east was nothing but a sea of sand. Because he lacked any better ideas, and staying there was definitely not a good idea, he deemed it prudent to set out. It was hard to choose in which direction. Ultimately it was settled by a coin toss. So, in the end, he slung his weapon over the shoulder and set out in brisk walking pace to south, a direction good as any.
By his estimates, he carried assorted collection of rations and water in his webbing to last him at least ten days, if he were strict with rationing water. It would not be easy, but it was within the realm of human abilities, and he was truly well aware of the limits of his body. The fact that he had no idea what to do and was not particularly fond of sitting on his ass in the middle of desert to wait for a miracle, may have helped him in the decision-making process.
During his walk, there was not that much to see, only varying shades of beige, russet, brown and blue of the sky. There was also nothing to occupy his mind during the walk. The only memorable thing was the sun doing its damnable best to boil him inside of his armour. He in turn, was not fond of the idea of leaving the armour behind for added comfort. Besides, the armour itself was designed not to be heat conductive. That, however, did not stop its top layers from heating up so much that he swore it was possible to cook on it.
Humanity is the most stubborn species in existence, and he was the prime example of said species, and there were only two ways this could end, victory or death. Thus, he became locked in a battle of wills with the sun. A battle that he eventually declared won when the sun set down and he got to enjoy the freezing temperatures of the desert night for a change.
Next several days carried in much the same manner with one exception. He would wake and get up, walk while cursing in every single language he knew, which so far allowed him to not repeat a single curse, then collapse out of exhaustion after two or two and a half day of steady walking. When one has night-vision equipment with enough battery, light is not needed to cross a distance. Night was also a welcome reprieve from the heat of day. At the same time there is much to learn from the cycle of light, if one has nothing better to do, and he didn't.
He learned that wherever he was, it seemed to resemble closely an earth-like planet. The sun rose and set in almost the same azimuth relative to what he assumed was planetary north, and each day was ten hours long, followed by eleven-hour night with remaining three hours of twilight scattered in between. This meant the planet had a mostly stable rotation that showed a promise of a better biome somewhere. That thought was only a little consolation though, because for now he had to bear the monotonous rhythm of a desert trying to drive him mad.
The exception happened of fifth day, which began as any other, until noon when something tried to eat him. More precisely it was some kind of burrowing worm, maybe a snake. It wasn't hard to see it coming, not unless you were blind or criminally incompetent. As a result, when it burst out from underneath the sand, he was not surprised by it. What he was surprised by was the method of the attack. The snake burst out a few meters away from him and then tried to attack him, instead of bursting out underneath him and gulping him down in one fell swoop.
The snake didn't look particularly menacing, even with its rather substantial size, at least not when his frame of reference included literal daemons. It was black with a few exposed white bone plates, and had multiple places the sand stuck to it, creating some-sort of improvised camouflage. As it burst upwards, he in turn dropped down on one knee and took aim. Neither the sand nor bone helped it any when he got a bead on it with his unslung hellgun. Before the snake could slither and close the distance, at least a dozen high-intensity lances from his hellgun impacted it. Each impact tore out a chunk off it or turned the sandy camouflage to glass. The final blow was a direct hit to one of its eyes. It dropped dead at his feet. He found it strange to have encountered such creature in what so far looked like arse end of nowhere. Therefore, he theorized that something, an oasis perhaps, must be relatively nearby for it to loiter in the area.
Before he could develop this idea further, he noticed something peculiar. A thin black mist was carried away from it the wind. As he studied it further, he realized the mist was the creature itself; the corpse was sublimating.
As any proper guardsman, his reaction was a fast and instinctive one. Such violation of natural laws could have only one explanation in his mind. Warp-fuckery. He reflexively put on his rebreather, performed a sideways combat roll and scanned his surroundings through the scope of his hellgun. Nothing happened, nothing tried to attack him, and the creature, now some sort of hellspawn in his mind, completely metamorphosed in the meantime. Not wanting to spend more time around it, he set off without a second thought. Disappearing snakes were way above his pay-grade, not that he had gotten paid in a long time, and he didn't really care what it was, so long as it stayed dead.
He put at least twenty kilometres between him and the place of the encounter before he allowed himself to relax a bit and slung his hellgun over his shoulder. He kept a careful eye out for any additional snakes trying to eat him, but none showed up, and he walked onwards.
The first welcome change to his monotony happened with the dawn of eight day. In the early moments of daybreak, just as he could turn off the night-vision equipment, he realized that horizon in front of him was slightly different than what he had gotten used to over the last few days. A coast appeared from the first rays of sunshine. Another highlight of that day was a particularly obstinate scorpion trying to sting him through combat boots.
Desert made way to a slightly less inhospitable arid terrain with less sand and more firm ground, even a few bushes, in one or two kilometres wide belt along the coast, suggesting the possibility of the presence of desalinated water underneath. That along with the tablets in one of his pouches meant the ability to refill his dwindling water reserves. A beach with a few palm trees was a sight that truly welcomed by him, the shade underneath the trees was even more so. The sight that took the crown was something else. Footprints, someone had passed through the area relatively recently. Either earlier in the morning or during the night, because their footprints in the harder sand of the beach still weren't washed away or hidden by wind-drift.
He carefully looked on the horizon to his left and right in the hope that he would see some indication of which way to go. Left, backtracking the footprints, showed only beach stretching on for kilometres on end. Right didn't look any better, but when he squinted, he believed he saw a glint of something. Looking at it through maximum magnification of his hellgun's optics didn't help much. It was hazy and shimmering, but there was something that stood out from the surrounding sand. Thus, he set off once more. This time with a clear destination in mind. Hoping that whatever it was in the distance, it was a part of a civilization, hopefully a friendly one that would help him get somewhere colder, more humid, with nice drinks and with working plumbing.
***** LINE *****
Amaranth was worried. She had heard a rumour that a small group of disfranchised Faunus was planning something. It wasn't hard to figure out what it was about. There had been a catastrophic collapse in one of the mines on Mantle recently, and, because most of the workers were poor Faunus trying to make out a living for themselves, certain individuals took it as a targeted attack. She was not sure whether or not it was an accident herself, but even if it wasn't an accident, then it had hardly anything to do with racism. Most likely it was some greedy pencil-pusher who didn't want to waste money closing it down or something along that line.
The near lack of progress since the Rights Revolution made the situation even worse which was slowly growing even worse with each passing year.. People wanted an instant change, a fix-it-all-miracle. They did not want to struggle and suffer for it; they weren't even willing to change themselves.
Menagerie itself was the great example of that, with the vast emptiness of the entire continent that was given to the Faunus in the aftermath of the Revolution. She wasn't so naïve that she didn't see the insult in the act. The ruling councils wanted them out of their sight and Menagerie was an ideal solution for them. But that solution gave the Faunus an unexpected chance, a potential, to forge something greater, something better. Unfortunately, only a few others felt the same way.
Then there were things that most people had forgotten. Menagerie was not the only thing that was gained by the Revolution. The equality laws were passed, making Faunus and Humans equal in a court of law and in life. No longer were they preyed upon like animals, no longer they were forced into indentured service, they had freedom of choice at last. There were still some humans who held grudges because of that, and they lashed out with words and acts of racism, but in her eyes it was a small price to pay for the greater victories gained. The resentment would pass over time.
Yet, for certain people, those accomplishments were not enough. They saw themselves as those who were scorned, and did not want to acknowledge the gains because they were born with them. They did not have to fight in the Revolution for those rights. They did not suffer for them, like her grandfather suffered for them, and her father when he was still young. It was her father who made her see the bigger picture. He had taught her what he and his father had to suffer through. In her opinion, a few harsh words and the refusal of a few vendors to let her shop was nothing compared to the injustice and discrimination they had faced. Her mother didn't see things in the same light, but she mostly deferred to her father, because he was older.
When the White Fang had been founded, with a hope of bridging the divide between the Faunus and the humans, her father welcomed it. He knew it was going to be a slow process, but they were making progress nonetheless. With each gathering they changed a few minds of those who would listen. It was pointless trying to change mind of those who wouldn't want to listen, whose beliefs were not founded in any reason, who hated simply because their parents hated.
In Amaranth's opinion those kind of people didn't matter. Those who could see the truth did see it in the end. It was philosophy of her father, hearts and minds, one man at the time. Her father always said that if one struggled long enough, it was within his power to change the world.
But her father was dead now. Ravages of his youth finally caught up to him nearly a year ago. It was up to her to carry his torch. He didn't ask, but he didn't have to, she did it gladly. In her mind there was no other path than inheriting the burden of one's forefathers.
Her mother's way of coping with her father's death made Amaranth wary, because she detached herself and did more work for the Fang, to the point that the two of them rarely talked nowadays, and even when they did, their ideas were slowly becoming more and more different. It was clear they were drifting apart. It weighed heavily on Amaranth, but she knew that staying in Menagerie and Fang was not her path.
At the same time, she could not bring herself to leave. It was still her home and as such it was hard to leave. One day she had finally worked up the courage to leave, but then the news hit and spread through Faunus community like a wildfire.
The accident on Mantle. One of the Dust mines exploded. It wasn't hard to guess that it was an SDC mine, after all they had the monopoly on Dust mining. That alone would not stop her, it was the rumours that followed. The rumours about a few who would not let this perceived attack on the Faunus pass. Not because it was a tragedy, but because the vast majority of miners there were Faunus.
Amaranth knew full well what it could mean. The Faunus RIghts Revolution was long enough ago that a new generations could grow up untouched, and the old ones could forget what they were trying to forget, but it was not long enough to forget all of the injustice. There were still people who remembered what most tried to banish from their memories, and those people made Amaranth uneasy. It would be precisely this group that would keep the cycle of violence going. Her insides froze at the thought that this retribution for the accident could set the whole precarious balance of the world, paid for in blood, reeling.
So, she negotiated with a captain for a spot on his next return and went back to Kao Kuana to find the origin of those rumours, and find it she did.
***** LINE *****
Amaranth was careful. She may have had feline ears, but that didn't give her feline stealth, it only made her painfully aware how much noise she was making by slowly creeping to the encampment. Every time her belly touched the ground and rolled a few loose pebbles she froze. When she was sure no one saw her, she continued onwards until she neared the edge of the shadows thrown by the fire in the middle of the encampment.
A few tents were pitched around the firepit on one side and a supply laden truck on the opposite, right between the camp and Amaranth herself. Amaranth chose to approach from a direction which was hidden from observation by the truck. Then she crouched from the prone position and when she was certain that sentry wasn't looking her way she dashed to the truck and hid under it.
She had a view of the camp from her hiding spot. There were two Faunus sitting by the fire, Amaranth knew that a few members of the group were missing. Just as she finished her observation, the sentry called out to someone nearing the camp. It was the rest of the group, and they had someone with them.
Four more people, three Faunus and an armoured figure, joined the three from the camp by the firepit. Two of them threw the unconscious armoured figure on the ground, in the middle of the gathering.
"Who's that?" Asked Brass, the group's de facto leader.
"Don't know, some Atlas's thug, sent to spy on us most likely," replied Sino, who dragged the spy to the camp with the help from Reol.
"Yeah, that sounds like them." Zar voiced her agreement. The rest of the group had similar thoughts.
"Where did you find him?" asked Grull.
"Stumbled into a nest of Beowolves and Ursai, swarmed him good, pity they didn't get him," Reol started explaining, with sadistic glee in his voice.
"Butchered most of them, but it looked like he ran out of ammo for this and had to use this fancy sword here," he continued as he handed the confiscated weapons to Bole and Zar. The two were already thinking about personalizing them for themselves.
"While he was busy with the Grimm, Reol and I agreed that we really should not let an Atlesian spy sniff around freely," Sino continued the explanation.
"So Reol used his semblance to sneak up on him and, when he killed the last Beowolf, hit him hard," Sino finished, her eyes looking at Reol with lust.
"His aura must have been really low, went down immediately," Reol added his bit.
"Hmpf," Brass simply grunted.
"Guys, what was he doing here?" piped up Zar.
"Where exactly did you find him?" asked Grull. Sino pointed towards the Great Banded Desert.
"That is weird, there is nothing there," wondered Grull.
The discussion diverged from there, the entirety of it devolved into theories and rabbit trails.
Amaranth on the other hand wasn't as convinced as they were about the man's supposed Atlesian origin. It simply didn't fit the way she knew Atlas operated. She was there once at a rally; it was where she saw the Atlas military first-hand. The figure slowly stirring to life by the firepit didn't look the part. Atlas uniforms had a few easily distinguishable parts.
The figure, had none of those. The slate grey fatigues didn't match the black ones worn by the Atlas military. The armour was also different; not only by its almost midnight black colour rather than stark white of Atlas, but the design was different too. Every single Atlas soldier she saw wore light smooth-edged plates to protect their upper torso and upper arms. The armour she was looking at was as far from it as possible. The obviously angular and boxy thick heavy plates covered the entire torso along with both arms and legs, where it ended in gauntlets and heavy boots. It was separated into connected segments, perhaps to save mobility or ease in its repair. She was sure it had seen exceedingly heavy use, in some places the black paint was chipped away exposing the gunmetal material itself.
The figure stirred and tried to stand from where it was thrown down. The gathered Faunus around it noticed and stopped bickering on wild theories. Reol and Sino didn't hesitate and grabbed it by arms, twisting them behind its back and forced it to its knees in front of Brass.
The movement gave Amaranth a chance to see the iconography painted on its right armour pauldron. Whereas the rest of armour gave a positively used feeling, this piece looked well cared for. Marks were still there but they were clearly repaired and repainted.
She had never seen a coat-of-arms like that before. It was composed of bronze two-tailed lion standing on its hind legs superimposed over a silver snarling wolf head in the background. The lion also held some sort of golden sword in its paw. She didn't know what it symbolized, but it she was certain that it had nothing to do with Atlas.
Zar tore its helmet and mask off with the snap of a torn buckle. Amaranth could clearly see from her position that figure had face of a man. It had been hard to say before, with the thick armour obscuring his body shape.
The man was clearly still dazed and tried to get his bearings. Shaking his head to clear it, which caused his short-cropped dark hair to swish back and forth revealing few silvery strands gleaming in the firelight and squinting his dark brown eyes, contrasting with scarred sickly-pale face. He looked up at Brass towering above him. There wasn't a hint of fear in them, only disdain, indifference and loathing.
That surprised Amaranth. She was sure if she were in the man's position, she wouldn't be as collected as him. With aura broken and dangerous people baying for blood around her.
"What are you doing here?" demanded Brass
"Sightseeing. You should try it," the man replied, his deep voice a bit lispy from drowsiness.
The slap was unsurprising, Brass had a notoriously short fuse, as fitting with the stereotype of Bull-Faunus.
"Someone here is, sure as warp, cranky today," mumbled the man back and spit out blood.
That earned him another slap, even though he almost whispered, it was still loud enough for Amaranth to hear in her hiding spot, same as Zar.
"We know you are an Atlesian spy." Stated Brass.
The man's only reaction was a blank look.
"What was your goal here?" he continued.
"Trying to find a new way to oppress us?" shouted Zar. Brass silently gestured her to let him handle it.
"Take a guess," the man almost hissed.
The pulsing vein on Brass's forehead was clearly visible.
"I will ask again, what were you searching for?" Brass demanded.
"Something to eat. I am feeling a bit peckish," the man replied, perplexing as before.
"How did you get here? Airship?" Brass pushed on, his patience running thinner by the moment.
"Nope, I got shat out of reality's butthole," said the man with a straight face
"What's this? Some new Atlesian experiment?" asked Brass, wisely chose to ignore the last answer, and motioned to man's robust weapon.
"That's my laser pointer, you moron, medically prescribed," the man quipped.
"Fine, have it your way."
Brass could not handle it any longer. Amaranth could literally smell his growing urge to kill the man.
"You were trying to sabotage Kao Kuana and have Grimm destroy us for you! Admit it, Atlesian scum!" Zar shouted, spit flying.
"Zar that is enough!" Brass snapped.
"Brass…" Zar tried to argue, but Brass silenced her with a stern look "Fine." She whispered.
"I know you are an Atlesian spy," Brass stated, slightly more composed.
"Spy? That's a good one," the man actually laughed.
"Humph," Brass grunted.
"Let's just kill him," cried out Grull. "That will teach them to mess with Faunus."
"Yeah, Atlesian scum," Bole agreed.
"If you are done, I would appreciate if you could hurry up. I have places to be, you know," said the man, sounding impatient.
"Don't test us human. Do you think we don't have the stomach to kill you?" Brass asked.
"Do you want an honest answer?" the man asked back.
"Let's make it slow, like they made the miners suffer," Bole voiced what few desired.
"Yeah! I want to hear him beg!" exclaimed Grull.
The group spiraled into ferocious debate despite Brass's best efforts. As they were bickering among themselves Reol and Sino still had enough sense to keep a firm grip on the man.
He was not idle in the meantime, his eyes darted left and right when no-one was looking. He looked at the truck and then into the darkness below it. Amaranth knew he saw her, his eyes lingered on her, then flickered to the group and settled back on her. She slowly shook her head and mouthed No. One of his eyebrows rose a fraction. Eyes keeping contact with her and keeping the bickering group in peripheral vision.
Amaranth weighed her possibilities. Could she leave this unknown man to die? Should she try and save him, was it even possible to do that without killing anyone? Could she live with blood on her hands? What about the path she chose, would it still be possible to become a huntress?
In the end she had decided to act as her gut told her. Strangeness and mystery followed the man like a particularly bad stink. He was not Atlesian, no matter what the group believed. She knew he could fight; she saw it in his eyes, in his armour and in the way his body tensed and coiled at every single movement of his captors. Should they try anything for real, Amaranth believed that he would lash out like a coiled spring. His captors didn't notice, or they would have reevaluated their approach. Right now, they thought him disarmed and harmless. Disarmed he was, but she had a suspicion that he was far from harmless.
So she decided to help him escape. It was a risk, but it was one she was willing to take. Her instincts told her to, and she believed them. They hadn't let her down so far.
A slight nod was all he needed. He blinked, breathed out and even without any other action, Amaranth knew that he thanked her.
The few minutes it took them to find a way to kill him that was painful enough for their satisfaction was not enough time for Amaranth to figure out what to do. She frantically searched for anything that could give her advantage but couldn't find anything. With each passing second, she grew more distraught, until she once more caught sight of the man. There was a slight wrinkle on his cheek. It was strange how he could smile without actually moving a muscle. His eyes urged her to calm down with their intensity, so she did. She knew that he had a plan, something only he saw. She left it to him to make the first move.
The group gathered around him, Sino and Reol still holding his arms, Brass towering above him.
"You have no idea how much I am going to enjoy this, human," gloated Brass.
"Don't know, don't care," the man replied, sounding utterly disinterested.
It confused his captors a bit more. Few of them were throwing each other questioning glance.
"Do you have a death wish, or what the hell?" asked Grull incredulously.
"You don't know the half of it," the man sounded on the verge of laughter.
Brass finally had enough. He growled through clenched teeth, pulled out a dagger from his belt and prepared to strike. His irritation overpowering his desire to make the human suffer.
The man didn't wait for the telegraphed strike to land. Amaranth saw him jerk backwards, utterly surprising both Sino and Reol holding him. Both of them staggered and released him, he promptly went down on the ground, reaching for something Amaranth could not see.
Not waiting, she lunged out of her hiding spot. Brass didn't even see her coming. Before he could utter a single syllable, her grappling hook sent him head first into the truck she had been hiding below moments before. He couldn't will his aura in time and was knocked out. Bole reacted quickly; threw the weapon he has been holding at her and rushed her.
Amaranth evaded the thrown weapon and ducked under Bole's punch aimed for her face. Then she spun around Bole and kicked him in the back, sending him on the ground. He tried to get up, but the quick three-round-burst broke his aura and he dropped unconscious unable to handle the exhaustion.
A sharp crack made her look back to the man. Just in time to see Reol drop on the ground unmoving. Sino was impaled on a knife held in his reverse grip and stabbed into her jaw from below, and, like Reol, she was unmoving, blood turning her clothing crimson.
The man himself stood up from his crouch, lowered his smoking pistol and pulled the knife out of Sino who collapsed on the ground, dead. He looked around, alert and searching for the last two members of the group, Zar and Grull. She couldn't see them. They were gone, ran the moment first trouble appeared. They were still children, far too young to truly understand and easily frightened. Amaranth could make out their fading footsteps in the distance.
***** LINE *****
They didn't talk much during their rather rapid withdrawal from the encampment, stopping only for the colonel to recover all of his gear. The girl who helped him escape was worried about some sort of creatures called Grimm appearing, the same creatures his captors mentioned, as he recalled. His worries were of a different nature, two of his captors escaped, the young pair, and could have run for reinforcements. He admitted that from the last fleeting look he got of them in the scuffle, it seemed that they were terrified. Still, that was a possibility he was not willing to risk, so they run away, leaving the bodies to rot. She had been reluctant to do that, and he understood, but in the end he didn't even need to talk her out of it, as her fear of Grimm was stronger than her desire to offer a form of closure to the dead. So they run, she leading him somewhere. He didn't know where, but he reasoned he would find out sooner or later. Eventually they made camp for the night under the handily located overhanging cliff.
He stroked the firepit with a stick, threw it into the fire, sat down, and studied his rescuer in detail for the first time. She was sitting across the firepit, staring into the fire with absent minded look.
She was young. Firelight danced on her kashmir-olive sun-kissed skin. Her golden eyes had a bestial touch to them, just like the eyes of varagyr did, though not as pronounced. Her dark hair with a goldish tint cascaded behind her in several braids, reaching to her hips. A few strands freely wove in the wind as she tilted closer to the warmth of fire.
From what he could see of her figure, she was in good physical shape. Muscled, but not overly so. Her muscles told of someone who worked physically challenging tasks rather than someone who purposely tried to gain strength. He also knew that she was spry and agile above the norm, as she demonstrated during the fight.
Her clothing was designed with that in mind. Mobility at the cost of protection. Light and breezy, fitting for someone living in such high temperatures. Her upper torso was covered by three white bands of cloth, two at the front and one in the middle of her back, attached to some sort of golden circlet around her neck, and tucked underneath a reddish-brown underbust corset. The remainder of it hung out the bottom of the corset, reaching her knees.
A similarly attached translucent white veil covered her shoulders, upper back and arms, held in place by intricate golden metallic biceps armbands and vambraces to which they connected. Reddish-brown fingerless leather gloves protected her hands.
She wore form fitting leather pants of the same reddish-brown colour. Intricately carved golden metallic shin guards were her only other form of armour. Her shoes seemed fitting for long treks and sudden bursts of speed, holding her feet tight and protected by thick soles.
Her most striking feature, however, were the large brown-furred feline ears with a few golden piercing rings on top of her head, in addition to the human ears occasionally peeking through her hair. Coupled with the red tattoos on her arms, she sported a strange reminiscence of a tigress. Right now, the ears were dropped low, corresponding to her look. He had seen the very same look far too many times in the eyes of new recruits on the plethora of battlefields he walked.
The colonel assumed it was the first time she had seen someone kill another living being in cold blood. Normally, he would let her to work it out on her own, but given the fact it was his actions that caused it, and her aid with his escape. he felt obligated to do something. He leaned closer to the warmth of the fire. With reluctant sigh, he begun.
"Thank you."
She was visibly jerked from her thoughts and gave him acknowledging nod. Now that he had her attention, he pushed.
"First time seeing death?"
Her eyes bore into his own.
"No."
She sounded angry now. He just arched an eyebrow.
"Alright, first time seeing someone killed?"
Her stance shifted in a second to a more sedated state, she just hung her head low. It was exactly as he had thought. It was going to be hard to snap her out of it, but he had already started and it was too late to have second thoughts.
"I know you don't want to hear this right now, but it wasn't your fault. I did it. There is nothing for you to feel guilty about."
She looked up once more, voice still wavering.
"How? It was my decision to help you that caused it."
He couldn't agree with her on that, because he was fully prepared to fight his way out. He didn't want to waste this time so soon. He shook his head.
"No, it was not. I was ready to fight, and that will never be pretty."
Silence once more descended between the two.
He tried to steer the conversation in a different direction, so he facepalmed. It was unexpected and perfectly served its purpose. The previous argument was kicked right out by the sudden movement.
"I am an idiot. I have just realized that I haven't introduced myself, how rude of me."
The almost jovial tone in which he stated the comment elicited a small smile from her. She shook her head.
"No, you didn't."
He stood up and swept away the sand clinging to him. With all the false politeness he could muster he went for the handshake.
"Name's Harkness. Sieriy Harkness," he introduced himself.
She eyed the outstretched hand for a second, then stood up and took a firm grip.
"Amaranth Khan," she introduced herself in turn.
He did bow courteously and they both sat down. Then he coughed off into his fist and looked her in the eyes.
"Miss Khan, I am certain that you have many questions," as he paused, she gave an acknowledging nod.
"I promise to answer at least some of them; however, I would prefer to do so somewhere more civilized," he finished with a smile.
She couldn't agree more with him, but there were few problems.
"As would I, but we can't go to Kao Kuana, some of your captors had rather short-tempered friends there," she said with a grimace.
"Then where do we go now?" asked Sieriy. Amaranth had thought about it as they ran earlier that day and formulated a plan.
"We need to get away from Menagerie," she replied.
In his opinion that was a good plan, one he could get behind. Still, the way she said it, there was bound to be a problem.
"Where is the catch then?" he voiced that thought.
She deliberated for a while then answered, "The only port is in Kao Kuana, the capital, and the news of the fight would have surely reached it by now."
He was surprised, because in his view that was not a big obstacle, certainly not as big as she made it out to be. If all they needed to do was sneak aboard a ship through hostile territory then their escape was almost guaranteed.
"Well then," he began, "we had better get some sleep before we start tomorrow morning. After all, we will want to get an early start."
She nodded in agreement and moved slightly further away from the fire, lying down and curling in on herself to be as comfortable as possible for the night.
Seiriy laid down himself, gazing up into the starry sky. I wonder if these Grimm attack you in your sleep.
