Days rolled by. And while the first week turned out obscurely relaxing for the two, eventually the point came when Ascelin was assigned to help around the place as well. Usually with Jake. The hulk of a man turned out to be not as bad as Ascelin had originally thought. He was a teddy bear of a brute, for sure.
Generally it was just supply runs or taking shifts in keeping an eye on the place or checking up on everybody. Patrols around at night every so often too. Nothing was nearly so dangerous though, since Pyro was always curled up and fast asleep by the time he had to get up and go.
He'd either move him into Lexi's and Hex's room to continue sleeping next to his younger friend, or just let him be. Depended how hard out he was most nights.
Otherwise, everyone seemed to be doing well last time he did a round inside. Even Pan was slowly warming up to him, and the longer he stayed here the more curious he honestly was about her story. Not that it was anything that would surprise him, he was sure. She was just another frail little thing, a typical fading glimmer of life lucky enough to have been saved before she went out all the way.
And Harmony was the absolute sweetest little thing, with her cherry red hair, dimples, freckles, and deep brown eyes. Ascelin had talked to her a time or two, and she said multiple curious things. A little philosopher, that one was it seemed. She was smart as well, too much so for her very young age.
Ascelin woke again one night, to a hand slightly shaking him by his shoulder. All the calm of surviving here with these people had his reflexes a touch rusty. Opening his eyes, he looked up expecting to see Jake's familiar form.
"Sugar? You awake honey?"
"Trish…?" Ascelin murmured back, confused and sitting up slowly, careful as not to dumb the sleeping ro-boy on his chest off. "What's up?"
She laughed quietly, "Get up and dressed. We've things to discuss with the group."
"Right," he responded and she headed promptly out.
Pulling jeans from the prior day back on after placing Pyro softly back down on the bed, he did up an old leather belt that was mostly intact. It had a few extra holes and rips perhaps, but it did its job still.
"Big Brother…?" came the boy's quiet mumbling; so he wasn't too hard unconscious right now.
"Sh," Ascelin whispered, sitting back down and pulling him back up onto his lap. "It's okay Pyro; stay asleep."
"Where'd the ball go?"
A small smile graced Ascelin's lips at the sleep talker as he pulled him up further, the boy's head on his shoulder and arms slack as he stood up once more. Carrying him out and to Lexi's door just down the hall and around a corner.
The door opened before he could take the knob in hand.
Lexi blinked at him a couple times before opening it further for Ascelin to carry Pyro in.
Settling the child down again by Hex on his bed, Pyro murmured again about a ball and Hex responded in his own sleep. "Look in the bush, Pyro…"
"But the thorns…"
Smiling once again as Lexi giggled from where she waited in the doorway, Ascelin tilted his head at her upon stepping back out and closing the door. "What are you doing up, Lex?"
"Trish woke me. It seems everyone is supposed to be around for something," she answered with a small shrug, heading towards the main meeting room, the same one where Ascelin met everybody again.
Sure enough, everyone was up and around there. Even Pan had been stirred for this meeting.
"Miss Lexi! Ascelin," Jake waved them over.
Ascelin waved lightly back as they obeyed and closed the distance, a little worse for wear at the realization that there were a few too many bodies in the room. Extras were present. And seeing them…they were obscurely familiar….
Ascelin's eyes widened lightly at the realization, seeing the baby they had with them comprehended the realization easily enough. The family, the very same one he met awhile back. The day after he and Trish met the first time.
There weren't seven this time, however. Their numbers had dwindled down by a single couple. Five remained, however, the main group.
The redneck father and his ro-girl first daughter, the mother and her ro-girl child. And still in her arms, the still totally human, completely innocent and unaware of what the future held in store for him infant. The baby boy that had managed to completely swipe his attention for as long as it took them to get out of sight.
"We've returned from the trip to Daidil with…regretful results…." the man murmured as his wife looked down. Tears in her eyes as she rocked the sleeping baby boy in one arm and tucked her ro-girl's hair behind her ear.
"It's in total ruin. Disaster… There are virtually no survivors and the people still there…they're too crazed to even speak. Guardians were…turning on their own bonds. Civilians were cannibalizing others… We lost Troy and young Kenneth amongst the chaos and thick air…"
Troy and Kenneth, the cousins. "So Daidil…was burned down to the dirt?" Ascelin inquired of them.
All he received was a good minute-long stare from the father until finally he shook his head. "Young man…it was much worse than that. Everything smelled and blood littered just about everywhere in some shape or form. Footprints, smears, draining from fresh corpses of the gone…"
The woman choked up at the memory and covered her mouth, sobbing lightly into it. Both the girls hugged to her sides, whimpering.
Trish stepped over, taking her shoulders to keep her steady. "Oh darlin'… I'm so sorry. Nothing can ever express the sympathy we feel for your loss…"
"But Mom," the older Ro-girl, the father's bond, muttered. "Troy and Kenneth are angels now, remember?"
Ascelin paused at that. This girl was certainly close to turning 16, and she still had the faith of a more youthful mech kid.
The other, the girl perhaps half her big sister's age, bounced lightly and nodded, looking up anxiously. "Yeah Mommy. They can fly now…"
"That's right, sweet things," Trish murmured down at them with a small but genuine smile as she rubbed the woman's arms assuringly. "Beautiful and smart, your kids are Kaelyn…"
"Yes…" the lady nodded, wiping her eyes. "Thank you, Trish."
"This is bad…" Tanya muttered, holding her own arms as if failing an attempt at preventing goose bumps. "What could have happened?"
"Good question…" Derek responded. "People actually eating others… These are desperate times indeed, but that's just sick," he toyed with the single earring he had in his right ear, a nervous habit Ascelin realized the 26 year old man had developed since a long time ago.
Vaughn shrugged, "Perhaps a virus? A new – or old – disease that we've rather lost immunity to over the generations? They got sick?"
"How does that explain the mess that the settlement is in general, though?" Lexi wondered. "People going nuts, okay. But…what could they do to make everything crash so suddenly and hard?"
"Explosives are another possibility," Jake seemed to be reminding her and Lexi nodded slowly.
"True… There have been numerous war heads and dud bombs discovered everywhere since the beginning of the Mechanization Era… Maybe one was just delayed? Something disturbed its centuries old dormancy and set it off?"
"Small earthquake could do it," Vaughn nodded. "If it was erupted from underground, that is. Enough to shake things up without giving the town above much of a warning."
"Maybe both," Derek suggested.
Tanya looked mostly confused so he continued, "The bomb went off. The radiation and things it kicked up could have made any possible survivors ill and crazy."
Trish held up a hand to recapture the attention. "We know nothing. The only theories are those just conducted and while our own youngins are tucked away in their beds; we have a whole family here who are suffering two very undeserving losses. Ascelin, honey, can you please escort them to a big room? One where they can keep each other company within for the night?"
"Yeah, sure," he answered automatically, waving for the newcomers to follow after as he headed out. They all slowly, stiffly obeyed.
The father took his baby son from Kaelyn to offer her limbs a touch more relief and as Ascelin rounded a few corners and climbed some stairs, finally he opened a door to one of their largest extra bedrooms for them.
The man and the girls slipped right in past him. The mother, Kaelyn however, stopped.
Turning to stare directly at him, her cheeks flushed and heated from blood within her skin, her eyes sunken, bloodshot, and perhaps a bit swollen from the mourning she'd been doing on the journey here.
Ascelin raised an eyebrow, "Ma'am…?"
Everything began to twist – there amongst her dark eyes. Her pupils, as he watched, seemed to expand and sink into the rest of her gaze. In seconds, everything in the background became blurred and unfocused, Ascelin himself felt disoriented and suddenly nauseous.
Two black orbs watched him and the sorrow that had been there, the utter depression and loss, faded to anger and…hate? Mad at him? Hating him?
She lashed out with a snarl and all he could do was release the door handle he'd forgotten he'd been gripping for balance, throw his arms up, and glimpse the many, narly and pointed teeth extruding from her bloodied gums.
Her hand caught his arm in a vice grip and it burned, her touch, like the very flames and depths of hell. Not that Ascelin much knew what that felt like, this gave him a pretty good idea.
And just before he could give out a shout or jerk away, everything snapped and he found himself blinking hard, rubbing his eyes. Opening them again, looking to her, Kaelyn's eyebrows were scrunched in worry. A delicate pale hand extended as if to grab him if he were to fall.
"Sir…? Are you okay?"
"What…?" he murmured, watching her skeptically. "What?"
"I…was just thanking you. For you and your group's hospitality… And wondered if you could pass that back along to Madam Trish?"
"Uh, yeah. Not a problem, Ma'am."
"Thank you, Ascelin."
He watched after until she closed the door on him, leaving him alone in the hallway to ponder.
No one had ever mentioned his name whilst standing before them.