These eyes are blind
This is a pure thing
These hands I kiss
Tragic as anything
These eyes are blind
This is a pure thing
All splash and hiss
Beyond my measuring
-From the song "Faded Flowers", by Shriekback

Memory Lane

Somewhere along the way, Accord made the suggestion of seeing the stasis chamber that had kept him suspended up until recently. Leah had only seen the one room of the underground Forerunner facility, most of which had been a wreck, so the suggestion surprised her, yet at the same time it did not. She should have known that Accord might want to see what he could salvage, if anything, and since he knew the technology within the underground facility he would have far better chances of doing something with the various pieces of long defunct tech. It was decided then, for lack of anything better, that the group would go to the old mining town where the excavation site was located, and there they would both scour the Forerunner facility before organizing their next course of action, whatever that might have been. It was not much of a plan, but it was all they could really do, short of returning to Deckar's Stand and trying to find the means to get off-world there. Their attempts to get Jak'Talva's freighter had failed, and from what the Colonel had told Accord, it seemed that their enemies had anticipated their intentions.

The drive to the mining town was done mostly in silence. It was a fair drive across mostly barren terrain, the gravel roads providing a somewhat rough journey. Jak'Talva had fallen asleep in his chair, his arms crossed and his head down, while Davam gazed quietly out at the surrounding desert. Accord did much the same, and Leah's concentration remained set on the road ahead. The afternoon sun lowered gradually, and by the time they finally arrived at the town the sun was well on its way down, putting them on the verge of late afternoon becoming evening.

Slowly, Leah brought the Warthog into the town itself. The Covenant forces here had cleared out, leaving behind crates and equipment near the tunnel entrance. There were no actual living Covenant here, which was a good thing, as Leah was just about tired of fighting them for today. The town itself was a small collection of ramshackle wooden and brick buildings, all of which together resembled something out of one of those centuries-old Western movies. Despite the deserted nature of the town, the group remained alert, and even Jak'Talva was awake now, his eyes scanning their surroundings for any sign of trouble.

She brought the Warthog to a halt outside an old hotel. There was a well near here, boring deep into an underground deposit of water. This was a good thing, as water was something they were running short on. That, and general food supplies. There was not likely to be much in the way of food around here, but it was worth a look nonetheless.

"We'll take a look around," Leah said, as she stopped the engine. "And we'll take stock of everything inside the hotel." She was the first to climb out of the Warthog, with the others following suit.

"I'm going to find myself a bed to sleep on," Jak'Talva said, as he left the Warthog. "I don't know about anybody else, but I'm tired. It's been a long day, and I'm starving."

He went into the abandoned hotel, with Davam following him inside. Leah went to go in after them, but Accord put a hand to her shoulder, causing her to turn around.

"What is it?" She asked him.

"I want to search the underground chamber." Accord's eyes went down the dusty main street, towards the excavation site. "I might need some help."

"It can't wait, can it?" She smiled at him. Despite her weariness and despite the grimness of the situation, she for once found it within herself to smile.

"I might be able to find something useful," Accord replied. "And I may be able to show you some things that you may be interested in."

Leah nodded her head. Accord lead the way, despite never having really been here before. He had been unconscious that first time, and before that it had been well over one-hundred thousand years in the past. The place had changed substantially since then, this much was obvious. Still, he seemed to know the way, and he took her down into the excavation site without any problems.

The Covenant had cleared out much of the excavation site. A lot of the rubble from inside had been piled up near the entrance, and a computer terminal had been erected that beeped and gurgled frequently, as if attempting to make a connection to some greater network. Leah followed Accord into the tunnel, and he paused for a moment as he entered, as if struck by a sudden memory. He had been here before, many, many years ago. The place had certainly changed, and what had once been jungle had turned to desert, but even then the Forerunner recognised it.

"You said your sister was with you?" Leah asked, as he followed him inside. The tunnel was lit up by lights that had been positioned at intervals throughout, casting yellow glows over what would otherwise have been a deep gloom.

Accord seemed to think about this for an unusually long time, likely recalling his sister and what had happened here during his own time, before he had woken up to a vastly different galaxy to the one he knew.

"Yes, she was," he replied, his voice distant. "I never thought much about the purpose of such a place. I was a soldier, and I followed orders, I did not ask questions. But I have had some time to think, and I know that this facility was used to research advanced stasis technologies. The very thing that saved my life, and kept me suspended for so long. It somehow saved me from the fate that befell the rest of my people."

"Well, if by 'stasis' you mean some kind of suspended animation outside of time and space, then it wouldn't be a stretch to think that something of that kind could save you from the Halo array," Leah said. "I don't think even they could kill something that didn't technically 'exist' in space-time. I'm no scientist, so don't take my word for it."

Accord nodded his head slowly. The explanation made sense to him, even if it was just speculation on Leah's part. The pair entered the main chamber, which was mostly free of rubble now, and Covenant-made equipment littered the place, among them another portable computer terminal that had been connected to one of the defunct Forerunner terminals. Somehow, they had got it working, although the display flickered sporadically as they walked inside.

"The Covenant cleaned the place up," Leah said. She made her way over to the Forerunner terminal, and she tried to make sense of some of the symbols that danced across its flickering display. "I take it you know what this stuff means?"

Accord's eyes went from the opened stasis pod to her, and he walked up alongside her before setting his attention upon the terminal.

"Yes, I do." He reached over for the holographic display, his fingers tapping at some of the keys, causing shifts in the readings that flowed across it. "As I said, experimental stasis technology. The sort that likely never saw the light of day, because it was buried and I along with it." As he read the information on the terminal, a realisation dawned on him then, albeit one he had been suspicious of ever since waking up. "No search party found me, because my life-signs were undetectable. I did not exist, as you put it, within time and space. The stasis chamber put me in a bubble that placed me outside time itself. No easy feat, certainly not for something this small. Only our largest ships would be capable of such a thing, and that was only ever for reconciliation from lengthy slip-space voyages."

"Reconciliation?"

"Moving through slip-space for months at a time can create problems, problems we were able to solve through technology even I do not understand." Accord turned to Leah, wearing his usually stoic expression. It must have been a Forerunner trait, to look so unfazed even when under duress. "I think it is ironic, that so many people now want to capture me for my knowledge, when I myself do not know the things they would likely want to learn."

"Ironic, and dangerous. They've tried to kill us on more than one occasion."

"I believe Colonel Carson wishes me alive. The same for your ONI people."

Leah shook her head. She had made her decision in that regard, and she was not one to dwell on it.

"They're not 'my people', Accord. They never were. Until recently, they were just another assignment."

"You threw your life away for me, Leah. Something I would never have asked of you, nor is it something I can easily return…"

"You don't need to 'return' anything. What we need to do is find our way off of this godforsaken planet. And I'll help you do that without question. The sooner we're out of ONI's reach, the better." Leah was not too confident of her chances, the more she thought about it. ONI were renowned for their 'reach', the sort that made its way even as far as Sangheili space. They had eyes and ears everywhere, although a planet like Thrace was decidedly too backwater for even them to have properly covered. She had learned as much during her time working for them here, as one factor that had affected their operations was their limited surveillance coverage and distinct lack of willing informants. No local here wanted to rat out anyone for ONI, or for the UNSC in general.

"I suspected this place may have been larger," Accord said. "I appear to have been correct."

"Larger?" Leah glanced at the screen, but saw nothing but elaborate alien symbols, some of which she had seen in Forerunner sites in the past. Accord clearly understood it all perfectly. He tapped a few more holographic buttons, and something large and metal clunked from behind them. Part of the wall began to shift, and a sliding door, unopened for over one-hundred thousand years, began to gradually move, shifting dirt as it did. The whole thing groaned in its housing, the mechanisms on the verge of falling apart, but the door finally made it the whole way after about half a minute of grinding. Behind it was a rubble-strewn corridor, and without saying anything further, Accord turned around and started into it.

Leah hurried after him, startled at the way the lights set into the elaborately decorated walls switched on. They were bright white lights, spaced amongst numerous complicated geometric patterns so common to Forerunner architecture. Some of them flickered randomly, as even Forerunner technology was not expected to work properly after one-hundred thousand years. The fact that so much of it was intact after all this time was remarkable, and it was clear that the Forerunners had built things to last, to outlast even themselves. Accord moved with purpose, striding through the corridor, which ended after several metres in another chamber similar to the one they had come from. It was also littered with rubble, onyx chunks and rocks that had fallen from the ceiling during the orbital bombardment that had buried this place.

"What do you hope to find here?" Leah asked. There was a circular set of terminals in the centre of the room, and a set of what she could only assume were sleeping pods at one wall. A living area of sorts, or what would pass for one to the Forerunners, who apparently did not need the comforts of home as their armour would have sustained them. She wondered what that would be like, to have a suit of armour that sustained you in that way. Even her MJOLNIR armour was not capable of something quite that sophisticated, and she had to eat and sleep even when wearing it.

"Nothing that can help us," Accord replied, honest as ever. "But there is something I would like to show you. I think the computers here should allow it." He walked into the central bank of terminals, and his fingers worked deftly at one of them, which in turn brought up a holographic projection. A representation of the planet, albeit one that was over one-hundred thousand years out of date. Here, Thrace was a world of greens and blues, with only patches of desert here and there. Leah had seen plenty of maps of the planet as it was now, and it was practically the reverse. The greens were the small patches, and the browns of the desert covered much of the surface. Hardly a place anyone would want to call home, yet plenty of people did just that. Sometimes she wondered if humans were either adventurous, or stupid. She had seen plenty to suggest both at the same time.

"Step over here, Leah." He motioned to where he was standing, within the circle of computers. "I'd like to show you something."

Leah did as he requested, coming to stand just to his right as he worked the computer terminal. She watched as the out of date holographic representation of Thrace disappeared, and Accord put his hand to a glowing set of controls before him. The white lights flickering about the room seemed to fade, and Leah almost jumped when she saw the entire room around them shift. The walls and floor and ceiling disappeared, replaced with what she could only assume was an entirely different location. Specifically, a mostly grey and blue room with a wide-open balcony ahead, one that looked out onto a sprawling vista of dome-shaped structures of varying sizes and rolling, forested hills. It was certainly not an image of Thrace.

One thing that struck her was the fact that it was no mere image. It was a moving picture of sorts, with the way the trees outside swayed in the wind, and how a flight of exotic alien birds appeared against the orange-purple of the twilight sky, wings flapping occasionally as they glided through the air. Leah was stunned, at least for a few seconds, before she collected herself.

"What is this?" She asked. It was beautiful, she went to add, before she stopped herself. That would likely have been the first time she had said anything was 'beautiful'.

Accord looked to her, and for the first time since she had met him she saw a smile creep upon his face. Such a foreign gesture to him, one that most of his kind had considered a much too 'human' thing to do. Seeing it from him stirred a sensation in her that she had not felt before, and it was not something she was certain on what to make of.

"My home-world," Accord said.

"The Forerunner home-world?"

Accord shook his head.

"One of many colonies," he replied. "This was my home." He had his hand on the large glowing half-sphere, something that Leah noticed. Accord appeared to register her interest. "It's being drawn from my memories. This is what I wanted to show you. Some of the world I knew, before I ended up here. This balcony, and the view, was one I knew for many years. I would often sit out there, maybe read, but often I would simply watch the view. One of the best within the entire city. It's not a view I saw much of, after I came of age."

"How old are you?"

Accord gave the question some thought.

"Discounting the time I spent in stasis, I am one-hundred and twenty-four years old." He seemed to find her reaction to this amusing. "You have to understand, Forerunners are capable of living on for millennia. I am a child compared to some. My father, for instance, was well past three thousand."

"You don't look like a child," Leah commented. No wonder the Forerunners built such long-lasting structures. They had to be long-lasting, since they themselves were long-lasting.

"I'm a first form," Accord replied. "That is, I have been through my first mutation. By your standards, I am an adult, but in the eyes of my elders I am still very young."

"Mutation?"

"A form of ageing, you could call it. I became a Warrior-Servant when I completed my first mutation, making me something suitable for my rate. Before that, I was a Manipular, belonging to no rate in particular. I followed in the footsteps of my parents to become a Warrior-Servant. It was essentially my coming-of-age." He paused for a moment, allowing his words to sink in. "Now that I am here, well after my time with little of the technology I know, it is likely I will age at a faster rate. I will probably outlive any human by centuries, but I am unlikely to live to one-thousand." He sounded almost melancholy, as if now he was only just realising what it was he had lost.

"I wish I could live to one-thousand," Leah said, half-jokingly. "Even if I could, most Spartans don't hit the age of fifty. Some only get past half that. For all our training and our enhancements, we have a habit of dying."

"You're still here." Accord looked at her, and their eyes met. "That must mean you are doing something right."

"Accord, I don't do anything 'right'. Not until recently. Before I made that choice for you, I did what I was told, and I didn't question it. There are a lot of things I regret doing, and I've seen so many of my friends die over the years, yet here I am, still alive and kicking. In a way, dying might have been easier, because at least then I wouldn't have to live with the memories I have." She had never said this sort of thing to anyone else before. She had had very few proper friends to tell it to, and even less now that Nolte was dead. Telling it to a Forerunner she had known only for a few days might have been strange, but to her it felt right. She needed to tell someone, and Accord seemed like someone who would understand.

"I was trained from the age of seven," Leah continued. "I knew how to shoot someone's head off at a kilometer's distance by the time I was ten. No ordinary human being is put through that kind of thing. A lot of people think what I went through was wrong. And it was, really, when you think about it. Even you had a childhood, judging from this 'Manipular' stuff you mentioned."

"That does sound unusual," Accord said. It was about all he could think to say, regarding the matter.

"Most of my life has been nothing but killing. I've killed people, I've killed aliens, after a while it gets to be all the same. I didn't have a chance to properly develop into a normal person. I can never live a normal life. Maybe that had a part in the things I've done recently, turning against ONI and saving you. Nolte said it best, I think. He said I'd grown a conscience. I guess that makes me a little bit more 'normal' than it used to." She took a breath then, realising that she was rambling. Accord had watched and listened carefully, and she thought she saw some genuine sympathy in those crystal blue eyes of his. "You had a normal life, for your kind."

"Maybe." Accord did not sound too sure of this. He adjusted the controls at the terminal, and something appeared in the scene around them. A Forerunner, albeit a much larger and older looking one, with a set of armour on and a flowing cape behind him. Several smaller, child-sized Forerunners milled about him, and Leah realised that she was looking at a family.

"My brothers and sisters," Accord stated. Leah felt it odd that he was showing her all of this, yet at the same time she was humbled. Accord trusted her enough to do this, as it was unlikely he would do so with simply anyone. Certainly not any human, given the history between their two species. She thought she recognised a much younger looking Accord amongst the group, as they darted around their father. Some carried blunt wooden swords of some design, and the father cheerfully used his own to bat away their playful strikes. Warriors in training, even when they looked to be no older than ten.

"All of them are dead," Accord added, more solemnly. "My parents outlived their children. Some say that should never be the case."

"You must miss them."

"I have many memories of them," Accord replied. "I like to think that they can never be truly dead as long as someone remembers them. Me, for instance. And now, you."

Again, Leah felt that humbling sensation. Never could she have dreamed that she would be standing here right now, with a Forerunner of all things showing her a few choice memories of their lives. Literally showing them to her, in a holographic representation that looked as real as reality itself. The wonders of Forerunner technology, once again apparent.

"What are our chances, Leah?" Accord took his hand away from the glowing half-sphere, and the holographic scene dissipated, revealing the rubble-strewn room around them. Leah looked at her Forerunner companion, startled by the question. He was so blunt, it was both admirable and irritating, all at once.

"If we can get off this planet, they'll be a whole lot better than they are now." Leah figured she should be honest with him. There was no use lying, not when it was clear that he already knew the answer.

"And if we can't?"

"That…" Leah trailed off. She had no answer for him there. "I don't know. With ONI…they will pursue us for as long as we live. We'll never be able to get away from them completely, and even if we find some backwater planet to hide on, chances are they'll show up there eventually, even if it's years later."

"So we can never rest?"

"We'll have plenty of opportunities to rest," Leah replied. "What's probably for the best is if we focus on the now. It's getting late, and I'd like to get some sleep. What about you?"

He seemed to consider this for a moment, before he nodded his head in agreement. Leah had changed the subject, as deftly as she could. Accord probably realised this, but in good faith he did not bring it up. Thinking too much about their current predicament was likely to sour their moods far too much.


When they returned to the hotel, they found that Jak'Talva had already fallen asleep on an old couch in the front lobby. The interior was dusty and the wallpaper was peeling, but so far both Jak'Talva and Davam had managed to scrounge up some old supplies. That included some bottles of old liquor, among some canned goods that were likely well past their expiry dates but nonetheless might have been edible anyway. Leah helped herself to some water, and to one of the MREs that had been stashed in the Warthog they had taken from Carson's compound. Other than that, she decided against trying any of the baked beans from the dusty cans that Davam had unearthed. As for the Sangheili, he sat on watch near the front door, his rifle in his lap. He stirred as both Leah and Accord walked in, but upon seeing who they were he relaxed.

"You have returned," he said.

"Keeping guard?" Leah asked. She looked about the mostly dusty lobby, her eyes going to the bar counter at one end. The bottles of old liquor were there, one of which Jak'Talva had apparently helped himself to, as he clasped it in one hand while he snoozed on the couch.

"Of course," Davam replied.

"You could leave, you know." Leah narrowed her eyes, trying to work out what the Sangheili might have been thinking. Their faces were often hard to read, save for when they had a fit of rage. It was obvious in those cases as to what was on their minds. "You don't need to stay with us. Neither does Jak, but I get the impression he hangs around because he's got nowhere else to go."

"I have nowhere to go," Davam said. "One thing the Skirmisher and I have in common. That is, of course, only one part of the reason. The other part? It is because I owe you my life, Leah. And the same goes for Accord. You rescued me from the prison, and even if that did not work out in our favour, our staying together ensured our survival up until now. It would be dishonourable to abandon you all, not when there are tasks to be completed. Accord requires my help, as do you, Spartan Leah." The honesty was clear in his level, almost eloquent, tone. The Sangheili were strange, in the way they could enter a bloodthirsty rage, yet just as easily make themselves sound like Shakespearean actors. "I will stay with you until the end."

"If it comes to that," Accord said.

"Indeed." Davam returned to his watch, and both Leah and Accord made their way past him. Jak'Talva did not stir, he was well and truly asleep, and Leah did not feel like waking him, despite the urge to do it just to annoy him. Instead, she started up the stairs, and found her way to one of the rooms. Like much of the place, it was reduced to the bare minimum, with only a mattress on a frame for a bed and a dusty dresser at one wall. The windows were boarded over and the floorboards creaked underfoot, but it was at least a roof over one's head. That made it better than the kind of accommodations Leah was used to when out in the field.

She realised that Accord had followed her. She turned around to face him, and she noticed the intent look on his face.

"You want to talk?" She asked.

"I thought you might want some company," Accord replied.

Leah smiled at him. Had she been anyone else, she might have caught on to what he was referring to. Instead, she was a Spartan, and the finer social graces often escaped her.

"Like I said, you want to talk?"

Accord stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. He regarded her carefully for a moment, and without warning he darted to her, striding those few steps between them quickly with his long and powerful legs. He put a hand to her shoulder, a gentle grip at that, and he looked down into her eyes with his own crystal blue ones.

"After everything you have done for me, Leah, I want to do what I can for you. From what you've told me, you have lived an unusually difficult life. As you said, even I had a childhood, like what you saw in the hologram." Accord tilted his head slightly, an inquiring look to the movement. "You say you have no friends, no family. I would be glad to call you my friend." He paused, and Leah felt her breath hitch in her throat. There was something to the way he was looking at her that stirred something powerful within her, a sensation that had lain dormant for most of her life. "Perhaps more than a friend, if you would allow."

Leah knew what he meant now. It was something that had never really crossed her mind, such as it was with most Spartans. Their enhancements had repressed whatever natural reproductive urges they might have had, although naturally some still remained, and occasionally such things could seep through to the fore under certain circumstances. They could even be reawakened with the proper medication, or simply through sheer concentration. Now, it seemed, they were stirring within the veteran Spartan simply because a Forerunner had a hand on her shoulder. The look in his eyes made his intentions clear, and Leah, normally not one to open herself to anyone, did so for the first time in as long as she could remember.

"I've never…" She trailed off, embarrassed. "You have to understand, it's something I've never thought about. Not much, not since I got enhanced."

"The last thing you should be is ashamed, Leah." Accord took the hand from her shoulder. He then took both her hands into his somewhat larger, six-digited ones, and caressed them gently. "A warrior of your calibre should never feel the need to be embarrassed. You would have made a fine Warrior-Servant. And an excellent wife."

This statement startled Leah. That was about all she could think, until she realised that the Forerunner had put his mouth to hers. A kiss, a gentle, loving one at that, with Accord leading the charge. Uncharacteristically for a Spartan, Leah was anxious, but this was soon alleviated by the soothing presence of the burly Forerunner and his unusually gentle hands as they roamed her frame and worked at the buttons and zips that kept her clothing upon her.


For the first time, Leah felt at ease. There were no frustrations, no regrets, not now, when it was just the two of them, the feel of his heat against her own, the caresses of his hands and the attentions of his mouth as he admired and took in every inch of her form. He practically worshipped her body, and she his own, running her hands over the iron-hard muscle that covered it, and the peculiar white fuzz that was in patches on his chest and back. A Forerunner thing, she surmised, smiling at the thought.

They took their time, with Accord proving to be every bit as gentle as he was strong. Even when he was inside her, he took it slow, before working her to a frenzy that even he became embroiled in, and they hit their peak together.

They made the most of the time they had, all the more so as tomorrow may very well have been their last. By the end of it, Leah fell asleep in the arms of the Forerunner, perhaps the only human to ever have done such a thing.