This chapter is a re-post, after I deleted one the other day. Yeah... I posted the wrong file (with missing bits and edits) by mistake, only to then misplace the drive containing the finished version. Grrrr. Anyways it's up and and staying up, to be followed by the next one coming soon.. parts of the same, but some of it is very different from the mess I'd posted up.
FL4K-C – Thank you for your kind words and helpful advice. Yes. I see what you mean about the game mechanics in stories thing. I don't dislike it, and they can work pretty well. But I absolutely love the realism angle myself. And I knew that was what I wanted to write. Haha I will admit Ben almost punched a tree near the river in the last chapter... not because it's Ark and he would have gotten wood and thatch from doing it - but because that's what made sense to do when he was frustrated. I quickly decided against it, because, yeah... no way that wouldn't become an unintentional joke.
Nateman364 – Aberration needed some love too in the fanfic world. I'm so far loving the challenge of writing for it. Rock drakes? Oh yes, I would love to work a nest raiding scene. We shall see just how it happens.
The vast network of zip-lines that sat anchored, in a crisscross network of cables, from everywhere possible in the vast underground world, so clearly belonged to no one - while it belonged as well to anyone and everyone. And this was a problem. Old lines were frayed and braking, with the oldest of them all snapped entirely, hanging from the cliff tops here and there, useless, and some with deadly, sharp hardware still fixed to the free ends, which swung wildly with the shaking of the ground.
It was one such line, snapped free at only one end from the among lower cliff at the widest part of the river, that made Jessie stop suddenly in the middle of a nearby line he'd in in the middle of crossing on ravager-back. Down, at water level, half way in and half out of the river, a parasaur lay, struggling and tangled in the fallen line. Jessie kicked his mount into faster motion at once. And with two other, unmounted ravagers still following his behind his own, he reached the river quickly before dismounting the creature and stepping to the ground. His heart sunk quickly at the sight of the blood that sprayed from the unfortunate parasaur's underside – from a gash it seemed, cut clear to it's innards, by the deadly hardware of the rusting anchor. And it dropped further at the creature's hind legs, both clearly broken and twisted in the heavy line.
"Holy... crap on a rooftop..." Katie muttered as soon as she'd descended the zip-line behind him and caught up as fast as she could, on the forth of their ravagers. For a moment she only stood, frozen, her mouth hanging half open in a sickened expression, as the poor creature bellowed and bit at the air in shock induced convulsions.
"Just a right damn mess, this," Jessie huffed back, and mostly under his breath as he instantly raised the shot gun – one he rarely left base without carried secured against his body by its heavy strap. Without another a second to inwardly debate it, he shot the dinosaur dead with one bullet to the side of it's head.
"God... damn," Katie mumbled. She took a step closer, her own gun now firmly in her own shaking hands. But her face so clearly showed every bit of her gratitude to him for being fast enough to have shot first.
"It's way too far to drag it back to base and process it," Jessie said, considering as he promptly re-shouldered his shotgun. "Still... better then its sufferin' for no reason."
Katie nodded, already busy with untangling the rusted hardware and metal line from the legs of the now still creature – showing no care at all that her boots were filled with water and her pants soaked to the knees and she stood in the river. Above them, still high up on the cliff, and working close to its edge, Vinny and Lorenzo – both of them strong and fit from their regular work of mining metal – had begin to tug up the heavy line with so little effort.
"You of all people really ought to know better then to be firing a damn shotgun, this frigging close to someone else's base!" someone exclaimed clearly angry, from a short ways down the river bank.
Jessie turned at once to stand facing a furious woman, as she leapt in one move from the back of a rock drake, to glare daggers at him. Her glare shifted another second to Katie and finally up the cliff to the two men still dragging up the snapped line.
"You're all nothing but a raging pack of inconsiderate, and reckless idiots!" she barked, shoving her well known long jet black hair – this time tied half carelessly onto a long braid – out of her eyes, as she shook her head.
"Lavinia, it was certainly not intended to be an act of inconsideration toward you..." Jessie answered, frustrated now as he gestured pointedly toward the dead and bleeding carcass of the wounded creature still halfway in the river.
"Halfway tore itself apart in that mess of scrap metal," he said, returning the glare when she refused to drop hers. Bending, he picked up the rusted zip line anchor, barely bothering to notice how well it was still coated in blood. And he waved his free hand toward it, increasingly annoyed. "This one of your tribe's lines?"
"No," Lavinia snapped in answer to his questioning. And she moved at first to grab form her own shouldered gun, before deciding instead to glare again at the pair of men atop the cliff. "And I know damn well it's not yours either. So prob'ly best best to leave it alone, don't you think."
"That..." Jessie waved a hand, now stiff with anger, toward the dead dinosaur still bleeding near his feet. "...could have so easily been a person. It could have have been one of your people. Not in fact unlikely to have been one of yours, considering this is your hunting ground."
"My people are plenty smart enough not to wander into fallen equipment," Lavinia spat back. And Jessie only found himself glaring harder in disgust for her dismissive tone.
"Things happen," He said firmly. And it was all he could do not to shout in the woman's face. "Of course things would be far less likely to just simply happen, if tribes like yours didn't continue endlessly with this attitude of letting everything that effects every one of us here remain someone else's problem!"
"That zip-line belongs to the Dashing Raptors," Lavinia snapped, referencing the largest group nearest her considerably smaller one – the Red Piranhas. Boris - one of few men of the opposing tribe large enough to make the impressively tall and broad framed woman look delicate - approached on foot from down the riverbank. And he stood beside Lavina, an arm at her waist just as though she needed protecting from anyone. "Randell Clark will be none too pleased to find that someone's taken away something made from his resources, and that he could have salvaged!"
"Tell Randy he can contact me anytime about the return of his broken junk," Jessie answered, fed up with the whole matter. He nodded for the two men – now busy loading the tight coil of cabling into a ravager's saddle bag – to simply go on doing so. He waved a hand toward the parasaur carcass again, muttering, "and take that if you want for the meat, and hide for your peoples' boots."
"I strongly suggest you learn to stay out of matters that don't concern you, Jessie," Lavinia warned clearly so fully determined to continue stirring a proverbial pot, long after the matter was reasonably settled. The woman looked around again at the small group, granting each of them another glare in turn.
"What are you doing at this end of the river anyway?" she demanded. And that was at least better, Jessie supposed than further ranting over the zipline. Even if she was now interrogating him.
"Scouting for new arrivals," he answered. Because it was hardly a secret after all, that he regularly rode the route. though any known places that seemed to serve as drop zones – searching.
"You've really gotta give this up, Jessie," Lavinia said. She gave a loud sigh and shook her head in disapproval – though her fellow leader was just fast enough to catch a tiny glimmer of despair too, just before she hid it behind a terrible smirk at him. "The daily patrols before the sun goes down. Of anyone that washes up here, most of 'em will be dead before you get to them. And if they do survive, why should you care?"
"Because it's the right thing to do, don't you think?" Katie interrupted. She stepped closer to her tribe's leader, dirty with river-bottom silt and dinosaur blood – boots filled with river water, and her pants dripping a small spreading puddling around her feet. But she smiled with the confidence of someone well past her still young age, as she looked up the huge woman. She stood quiet a moment, just considering. Before she reasoned out loud, "you must agree that it's right to help the newcomers. Because you've taken in enough to build your own tribe out here."
"I certainly save I those believe are strong enough to make it worth it," Lavinia snapped back. And her smirk became something close to a snarl.
"And... you leave the rest to die to this place," Katie said. It not a question exactly, but confirmation. They'd known it already about the opposing tribe. It was hardly a secret. And Lavinia had never tried to hide it. Even if this was the first time it was ever openly spoken about. "You ride past people, sometimes daily. People just like any one of us. And you leave them to die, on the river bank, like starving dogs. Because to you they look so unworthy of the right to even a chance!"
"How many of those starving dogs you insist on saving have died on you anyway, because it was too late and they were too weak?" Lavinia sneered. She took a couple of long and quick steps forward, closer to Katie, and so clearly trying her best to fully intimidate the girl. But Katie showed no sign of backing down, even when the large woman raised her voice. "How many have lived, as pathetic scared fools for you to feed and protect with no guarantee of gain?"
Jessie pushed Katie back behind him gently, instinctively protective of her, despite knowing full well that Lavinia was among the least intimidating of living beings he'd seen her face down barely blinking. The opposing leader was right, and he know it. He'd lost more newly found arrivals then he could have counted easily – most because they were indeed just too far gone to save. They were bleeding from gashes and bites, they shivered hopelessly from cold, vomited blood from the wrong sort of berry or the world's poisonous mushrooms... But still he'd dragged them to safety. And Stella had tried, until she gave a customary three rings of the bell outside her cabin door – a final show of honor to another one the terrible world had beaten, with nothing more to do. Because neither they, nor any other member of the growing tribe would hear of giving up.
But far more often than that, the outcome was different. They saved anyone they could. And that had been many compared to the lost. And he wanted terribly to tell the bitter, furious, and callous woman just how she was wrong. No one was worthless in that place. And even the most frightened and confused, the uncertain and weak... they all found a place somewhere and had a role to fill and to fill it well. He thought of little Katie, who now stood at his side – to him she'd never not be 'little' and it didn't matter how far she'd come – once sitting in the same place they stood now, at the river's edge. A lost and terrified girl – entirely uninjured somehow and fed on berries to the point of not staving at least – but silently rocking in place, naked and filthy with mud, as she stared up at the rock ceiling of the world. It was three days at least, until she even spoke a word to anyone. And to think for a second that Lavinia would have simply left the poor girl on the river bank to face certain death for her perceived weakness made him close to raging with fury.
"You'd best control that beast of yours a little better than that," he said, instead, when the rock drake - who had been huffing and growling all the while - finally showed it's deadly teeth. Because he knew full well that the stubborn woman could have cared less for his reasoning. He stabbed a finger toward the massive animal, then gestured toward his ravagers with his head shaking again. "Our pack here sure isn't growling at you. Your creature could so easily take off some lost newcomer's head for no reason."
"Perhaps for the best if he does," Lavinia said, with her face still hold in that snarling expression. She did however, to Jessie's surprise moved to silence the rock drake's growling, with a pat on it's head and a tug against it's harness. She climbed back on then, and slowly she steered her beast onward down the river back.
"Just... give up, Jessie," she called back's topping the animal again after just a few steps. And she turned in the saddle to glare again, her head shaking now in her plain and clear dismay. "Haven't you ever considered just how merciless it is to save the weaklings anyway? To let them live to face the danger later..."
She just simply left then, without another word. The rock drake ran forward, building speed on the bank, before it made turn and leaped into the air. The creature glided then at least a couple metres in the air, it's feathers fanning out for lift as it scaled the width of the river, to perch holding on with it's heavy clawed feet, to the side of the opposite cliff. Finally it climbed the cliff's sheer face to the top – high in the air- and disappeared from sight.
"That zipline is such a stupid thing for any sane person to have started such an argument over..." Katie said, muttering a little as she remounted her ravager. And she smiled, just a little shaken, as soon as Vinny and Lorenzo had rushed to join them on ravager mounts of their own.
"Your thinking certainly isn't wrong," Jessie answered. And he stood for a long moment, simply shaking his head, dismayed over the absurdity of the whole ridiculous incident.
"It's just such a completely silly reason for anyone to have risked an escalating conflict," Katie mused, reasoning it out through her own complete and utter bafflement. "Does she always talk to other tribes and their leaders like that?"
"That was just Lavinia bein' Lavinia," Lorenzo told her. He laughed a little, through clearly unnerved, and rolled his eyes slightly. "She's certainly got a big mouth, that one..."
"She's so wrong," Katie said. Her eyes were filled with determined conviction as she spoke. The strong have no greater right then anyone to survive here... or anywhere I suppose. Who is anyone to go about playing god and claiming the right to decide who gets to live!"
She was certainly young. Jessie had never been sure of her age exactly, because she didn't know for sure herself in order to confidently tell him, given the odd ways that time seemed to pass in that place. And her woven clothing and hide boots, all dyed in vibrant shades of red and blue, did little to make her look any older. But she was surely just as much a grown adult as anyone there, even if barely. And anyway, she was more then reliable, and loyal to a fault for her young age. And Jessie only smiled now a little to himself at just hearing her speak with such doubtless certainty.
Every evening, a large meal was prepared, then served up, in the dining room. And through the course of several hours most members of the tribe would wander in eventually – their days work done and put away – where they'd sit for a while at either of the two wooden tables large enough to take up a good deal of the room and take time to enjoy a hot meal.
Ben had discovered so quickly after his adoption into the tribe, that the food - when it was cooked with some skill and any ingredients provided by this strange world - was far from terrible. So often, as was the case that evening, it was thick hearty stew of some kind or other served with manner of grain flatbread. And though he was somewhat late to the dining room that evening, there was clearly a good deal left.
Jaxon, a gray haired old fellow that did so much of the cooking, nodded his usual silent greeting, handing him a still steaming bowl. Dodo meat tonight... he recognized the tender cooked poultry easily, as he sifted though the bowl with his spoon. Then there were potatoes – there usually were – along with carrots and more pieces of those big brown mushrooms in the broth of meat drippings.
Jessie sat at the farthest end of the table nearest the wall, conversing with that small red haired girl, Katie – who despite her young age and her usual childlike energy level – was often in his company. And at a slight hint of a nod from the tribe leader to join them, Ben nodded his polite thanks to Jaxon and walked toward them, careful not to spill the bowl's hot contents. He caught the smell of the stew then, as he sat down with it. And realizing how hungry he was, he went for a spoonful at once.
"Katie picked off three nice fat dodos on our way back to base yesterday," Jessie commented, his tone pleased as he nodded towards his own bowl. He chuckled a little, and nodded then to Katie. "Got each of 'em right through the heads too. Girl rarely misses a shot..."
"Nice one, Katie," Ben said, always genuinely grateful as any others of the tribe, to be eating calorie rich meat.
"Easy pickin's, just waddling around as you shoot 'em," Katie answered, shrugging off the gratitude with a laugh. Shooting 'em is sure a great way to blow off steam after dealing with the neighbors though.." she laughed again, now shaking her head at the same time in disbelief.
"Neighbors?" Ben questioned, keeping up the idle conversation far the sake of simple politeness far more then out of any real interest in complicated tribe relations.
"You'll run into 'em eventually," Jessie explained, his expression perturbed as he finished his meal. "The people are certainly alright for the most part. They very much like to keep to themselves. But their leader... I'm becoming increasing convinced, is insane..." He shook his head, brushing the subject aside, and looked at Ben intently.
"Lorenzo tells me, you're interested in a try at metal mining with the team of ankylosaur drivers," he said. Surprise showed clear in his tone.
"Possibly..." Ben took another large spoonful from his bowl, before explaining. "I figure some good and truly hard work will keep me... busy. It might be good for me."
"You just never looked to me like the kind of fellow I'd peg for a metal miner." The leader's tone was doubtful.
"Neither you nor I have much of a clue what I'm good at yet," Ben replied. And he sat, another spoonful balanced in his hand halfway to his mouth while his point was considered. Finally, Jessie nodded a little.
"I sp'ose you're right about that, Boy," he said. He pulled lightly at his reddish beard in consideration. "Alright... give it a go with Lorenzo tomorrow and we'll see. And don't let the ankys get ya nervous. They can be grumpy dinos sometimes. But they're plant eaters, raised by humans right from newly hatched babies. And they'll happily eat potatoes right out of your hand as a treat, when they get to know ya..."
"I think ankykosaurs are kinda cute," Katie said, energetic as usual as she spoke. "Well, the ones at the metal mine anyway. They're not nearly so grumpy these days. And the youngest one... she was hatched two years or so ago... will run right up to you for veggies because she's learned full well you've probably got 'em..."
She chattered on a but more, talking in that same excited tone of hers, about the need to regularly had feed any work dinos in that strange world – about how it kept trust up between the creature and its rider... about how few creatures really would ever bite the hand hand fed them... But Ben was only half listening as he watched Ellie wander slowly into the dining room.
It had been a few days now since they'd raced together down the river bank. And he was never less dismayed since then to notice just how every time he'd run into her since – both of them so busy with their own tasks – she only seemed to look worse. He watched her now, her already fair skin seemingly drained of it's color entirely, and her hands trembling as she carried her bowl – mostly just the meaty broth from the stew with some veggies. He watched her feet for a second, as she stumbled half clumsily over a loose floor beam. A tribe-mate walked beside her though. And he lead her gently by an arm, to a seat nearest the door at the other of the two large tables, before she had a chance to stumble again.
"Ellie," Ben called out, partly a greeting to his friend of course. But mostly just in his own shocked despair. But clearly she hadn't heard or noticed him, and soon enough she was clearly engaged in conversing with their tribe-mate. He'd sat down in a chair beside hers, and she was mostly just nodding slightly with interest as he did most of the talking.
"I thought those two might become friends eventually," Jessie mused. The small hopeful smile left his face then, replaced by a serious look, as he explained. "They are in the same.. situation. The circumstances are not quite the same. But still... Brendan is a good man. It makes complete sense to me that he'd be moved to at least try to help her..."
"No way he is..." Ben could not force himself anywhere close to finishing his thought out loud. So he just sat for a several long seconds, shaking his head in dismay while still watching Ellie in horror. That man had dragged him to his feet, shaving his gun back into his hands on the terribly day of the reaper encounter. He worked often, it seems on maintaining and repairing the buildings that made up the base. And he'd never seen the man close to falling... "He just looks so much more..."
"Not halfway to dying?" Katie guessed, blunt but correctly, when he again couldn't make himself finish speaking. "True, he doesn't. At least not to the point of it being so... horrifying. He's most definitely physically stronger then she is though, keep in mind. And... it was so much worse the first time..." She stopped talking then, so abruptly, as Jessie cut her off with a gentle wave of his hand.
"Are you trying to scare the boy to death?" the leader asked her pointedly, and with a slight shake of his head.
"She is most certainly not okay," Ben said, his focus mostly on Ellie again, and watching her as she sifted, clearly so barely interested, though her bowl with her spoon.
"Ben," Katie muttered back. Her tone was one of compassion, as she looked Ellie over from across the room. The blond haired young lady looked in their direction then, clearly noticing each of them for the first time since she'd come in. And she smiled, faintly though her obvious shakiness at them, before going back to the bowl and her conversation. "She doesn't look as bad as some I've seen at this point..."
"It's not unlikely this will get so much worse yet," Jessie said, his tone simply honest. He moved then to stand up, and nodded confidant yet still no less regretful in both Ben's and Katie's directions, with an explanation about some other business to attend to somewhere.
"I'm... sorry," Katie muttered after the tribe leader had left them. "I... wasn't trying to scare you to death..."
Ben nodded slowly, distracted by so many new and horrible thoughts that swirled though his mind. His attention wandered again to Ellie, who was back to sifting through her stew bowl, before she took a tiny spoonful. But she was still smiling now at least, as she conversed with Brendan.
"I just..." Ben muttered, his own thoughts still so jumbled. "Their.. situation... it seems like it's much less uncommon than I... or any reasonable person I would think.. would fairly assume!"
"Well... it's not exactly commonplace," Katie said. "But not an absolute unknown either. Let's just say... we are well aware enough out here, to have protocols in place..."
"What about you then...?" Ben started to ask. But he stopped again, his question entirely unfinished because of sudden worry over somehow offending her... and because he'd realized only once he spoke that he feared the answer.
"Me? No." Katie answered. She wasn't offended – or at least she didn't seem to be. Still, her expression changed so fast to one that was entirely serious.
She shifted her position so that she was sitting in the wooden chair now with her feet on the seat in front of her, and her hands resting on her bent knees, and appeared to consider her words well before she spoke up again.
"I know I'm pushing my damn luck" she said slowly. "I'm front line defense. And I've been here doing it for longer than you'd probably think." She gave the sort of short clipped laugh of someone who was not really laughing at all, because the matter was certainly not funny. And mused quietly, "The first lesson this place will teach you is to never be too confidant. Any one of us on any day, could be beating the daylights out of this crazy place with our human intelligence and that old drive to survive at any cost making it all just somehow come together. But in the next moment its all over and you're dying on the ground somewhere..."
"My only hope..." Katie paused again to sigh loudly, recalling Ben's question in the first place, "...Is that if it does ever have to be me, I can manage to face the ordeal with bravery and boldness."
"Do you remember who you were before this... place?" Ben asked, partly just to change the subject to something far less troubling. But just as much because his mind burned with a sudden need to ask.
"Yes," Katie answered. She smiled a little, as she considered. "Well... sort off. I'm aware of all the basics, or at least I think I am. But the details... the things that make me a person instead of just a set of statistics somewhere... they come back from time to time in flashes. It's the same for most of us I think."
"Not for me," Ben answered, now troubled all over again. "It's like... I know I was someone. And once in a while, something... any odd and random thing.. it will feel 'right' to me somehow. Like..."
"Like part of your old skill set?" Katie guessed, when Ben just stopped speaking, entirely unable to find the words he wanted. Slowly he nodded, grateful because she understood.
"You had a name," Katie mused. Her tone was hopeful as she leaned forward in her chair. "You were able to give it to Jessie and I, that night we found you by your fire with Ellie, remember? That means you certainly have something... Just..." she paused again, to look around at the wooden walls of the dining room, thinking. "Just.. keep on trying. You should start getting at least a bit eventually."
"How does this place work?" Ben asked.
He knew his question may well have been a bit ridiculous. And his need to ask it surprised him completely. He recalled how firmly decided his feelings had been, when he'd said he wasn't ready to begin to comprehend the place... his own circumstances... the reality of it all. Yet suddenly the need to know all of that and so much more burned though his consciousness, set off by a sudden tiny spark that had almost instantly caught fire.
Though it was only when Katie turned her attention fully back to him again, her eyes open wider and a look of absolutely baffled confusion on her face, that he knew, with a sinking feeling, just how overwhelming his question was.
"I'm... sorry.." she muttered, clearly half helpless. But she shook her head slowly, considering regardless.
"That's so impossibly big of a question," she said. And she laughed then, her head still shaking. "That's like asking 'what's at the edge of the universe?' or 'what is the meaning of life?'"
"How do you suppose we might have gotten here?" Ben tried next, understanding her point, and sure he was still asking to understand something impossible. Still he tried anyway, hopeful, as he waved a hand around vaguely trying to indicate the whole little world that was now theirs.
Katie, to no huge surprise, only laughed again and shook her head more empathically.
"I only wish I even had a guess about that one," she said.
At the back of the base - outside a far too light and creaking wooden door, that banged and rattled on its hinges with every shake of the ground – a rickety old wooden staircase lead down from a simple landing made of wooden planks surrounded by rattling safety railings. The steep steps wound around the side of the rounded off cliff that supported the base and its huge platforms, and led down to ground level and the short path to the animal pens.
And Ellie negotiated those steps, just as carefully as she could, with a woven basket of berries, leaves and vegetable scraps in her hands. She was struggling though, far more then she cared to admit, even after a decent break spent seated in the dinning room. She was in such terrible pain – not that she cared to admit that. And forcing herself to just simply function, when her mind and body both begged for just a short rest, was becoming a losing battle. She leaned on the railing, halfway down the staircase, her basket still supported in her shaky hands.
Looking down, over the edge of the railing, just above a point where the staircase turned to the left, she had a perfect view of the small underground lake, filled with deadly electrified jellyfish, that shimmered though the water under the blue glows of the plants hanging down from high above. Further ahead, past the lake and the bio-luminescent trees, and the leaves that seemed to try so hard to touch the ground there were mushrooms – whitish blue ones that gave off their own light too, and enough to serve as dull beacons in the darkness – that she remembered so quickly, would sap the health of anyone who even stepped to close. They grew, half hidden amid the shiny rocks along natural pathways that wound up and down, moving both higher and lower, to the left and the right. And the giant trees – mostly bare of leaves, but no less impressive... so big it was impossible to fully comprehend their massive size. Their branches, stretched across the landscape, high above the ground, reaching from one side of her field of vision to the other and well beyond that, winding and twisting sharply here and there.
Crack! Ellie stood up straight again, her heard instantly pounding with her sudden fight, when she heard the wood of the railing snap, close to where she stood leaning. And she stumbled forward, clumsily, managing, though just barely, to set the basket down upright a couple of steps above her.
"That rail is most definitely in need of replacing," Brendan said. He'd paused several steps down and ahead of her when she'd stopped. And now he turned to look up, clearly regretful to think she could have fallen. He climbed back up to below the step that Ellie stood on, set the bowl of meat scraps and bones he was carrying down, and gave the railing a firm tug with his strong hands. Sure enough it rattled badly now.
"I.. should have warned you not to lean on that," he muttered. And his face was sorry for a second, until it was decisive instead. "I'll request some lumber tonight from Frieda. And tomorrow I had better get busy."
"Freida is... the one that always works the lumber mill then?" Ellie questioned. Because though she'd seen her several times by then – a quiet older lady with one leg missing somewhere just below the knee, but hardly seemed trouble by that clear limitation as she sat smiling on a low chair most days beside her mill, feeding in logs from the pile that grew constantly beside her, thanks to the work of anyone on wood harvesting duty. She had come to know the quiet lady by her impressing strength despite her small size and her age... and by her usual smile at those passing by the little mill station, far up the path from the base.
"Yep," Brendan answered. And he laughed a little, making Ellie feel less bad somehow, for never having though to ask for it before. "It seems like you've been here so much longer than you have. It's so easy to forget you probably have yet to learn a few more names."
"I could help you with..." Ellie waved vaguely in the direction of the rickety rail. And again Brendan laughed, though so far from unkindly.
"I wouldn't have taken you for the builder type," he said.
"I could be a builder!" Ellie answered. And it was only when she spoke up that she realized she possessed the interest at all.
"Of course you could, Miss Ellie" the reply was quick, and confidant and perfectly assured. He turned to look at her for a long second, just grinning. "You could be anything you want to be."
He was quiet though, and standing still - watching with more then clear concern in his blue eyes – as she reached down and picked up her basket again. She turned away quickly to hide any sign on her face of the pain that shot through her body clear from her neck to her knees as she reached forward. And she bit back a cry of discomfort as it only grew worse when she straightened again. She never had told him an hour before over their bowls of warm stew just how badly her head pounded. And she turned back to him again now, her smile returned to her face, and the basket in her hands, ready to continue on their way down to the animal pens – at the end of the short path at the bottom of those creaky stairs. She felt him snatch the basket from her hands before she saw that he had done it.
"I'm fine," Ellie mumbled. She tried to grab the basket back, hopelessly stubborn and not ashamed to know it. But he already had both containers balanced fine, one in each hand.
"Let me take these down," He said looking to the pens below as just stared, blinking. "I can feed the animals. You just sit here."
"How.. gentlemanly of you," Ellie said, managing the joke along with a tiny smile, despite her misery. Obediently she sat though. Because her body would allow little else
"I'm truly taken aback that you would have expected anything less, Miss Ellie," Brendan retorted instantly in mock offense. The expression on his face, so very exaggerated and over the top in his shock at her perceived doubt, was just enough to make her chuckle with laughter even she leaned her head against the stair rail – carefully.
"Current mission..." Brendan mused out loud as he stood just simply smiling. "To make Miss Ellie laugh.." He faced her, with a grin now on his face. And that grin fast became a playful smirk. "Mission, successful."
"I want to say hello to Chomper," Ellie said, determined as she got to her feet again. "Plus, I've got a carrot for Charlie..."
She followed behind him for a few steps, before she quickly fell behind, her body forcing her to slow down again. Still, she climbed down the next few steps, well aware that she was only being fully stubborn then and not caring. She allowed herself a second in fact to feel pound of it.
"Hey, you ever hear what happened to those two guys that walked into a bar?" Brendan's question was so senselessly random and asked the pair approached the bottom of the stairs, that it made Ellie raise her eyebrows in confusion.
"Wha...?" she managed slowly.
"Silly joke, Ellie," Brendan answered. And she guessed he was grinning even with his back to her on the stairs. "Ah, come on. I want go for two for two here, on makin' you laugh.
Ellie let herself smile again, as much as she could manage then.
"So what happened to...?" she asked, dutifully playing along, until the low snarl caught her attention.
"Brendan!" she cried out. Her hands held tightly to the railing now, even as it cracked and then snapped somewhere above. And she took the next two steps down faster then she should have been able to do. Another, louder snarling growl came from another direction now. And the sound – which she'd come to know too well – make her stomach drop fast. Ravagers!"
"Stay back," Brendan said, his voice now a low whisper, as he backed up on the path at the bottom of the staircase. Ellie just nodded, silent. But still she grabbed clumsily for the first thing in her reach – a sharpened pick ax someone had left forgotten, resting propped against the lower steps.
A dark gray figure slinked, on four thin and lanky legs, from under the stairs, it's scraggly brown coat caked with dirt. And she watched it's long and pointed ears flicking slowly from the left to the right, as it searched something to hunt. She heard it snarl, the noise low and vibrating. Before another creature snarled a reply from the side of the animal pen. That one sniffed intently at the scent of the animals inside, its long tongue licked at its muffle. There had to be more of them, Ellie reasoned - her mind working quickly now. They hunted in packs and she instantly knew to look for at least another one. She spotted it! A nearly black ravager still under the staircase. She could see it's eyes, staring at her through the gaps in the steps. She could smell and dank stench of rotting soil and the fungus that grew there, in the dark, and that the thing that churned up with it's terrible paws.
Then there was a forth. Ellie was slightly slower to notice that one. But still quickly, she spotted the creature as it stood, it's paws perched on the edge of the pen's slopping rooftop, and poised to spring. She watched its mouth, as it barred teeth and snarled, thin lips pulled back and its tongue dangling. Its body tensed slowly – deliberately. And it's paws appeared to almost kneed at the edge of the wooden roof, as it assured itself of its footing.
"Brendan, watch out," Ellie exclaimed.
And at first her voice was utter hopelessness, echoing through her head as she watched the terrible creature leap down straight toward her tribemate. But then, the hopelessness was gone. And the scream died in the air around them. Instead she heard her own voice as she shrieked rage at the creature. The noise was so close truly inhuman that for a long moment she hardly registered that any living person – least of all herself – had made it.
But the ravager's attention was on her now. And it changed it's mind at once, turning from Brendan almost in mid jump. And instead it was barreling, teeth barred and growling, toward her.
'Wonderful,' she said in her own head. And she fully meant it, wanting to kill the thing before it could run. She raised the pick ax in both hands, every part of her body ready for the impact, as a creature nearly three times her own weight slammed into her. And she heard the sickening crunch as the ravager's head was shattered by a sharped point. Still it moved, not yet dead despite the blow and the resulting spray of blood from it's ears. And now it snarled worse then ever, it's teeth and sharp claws fighting to make contact with anything they could it its dying panic. Ellie hit it again, this time cracking apart the middle of its body. It instantly fell still – a mess of blood and mattered fur at her feet.
A second of the ravagers – the one that had been slinking around beside the enclosed pen – turned around in one fast motion. And this one leapt at her with far less warning, catching her badly off balance.
Ellie fell backwards, her pick still clutched tight in her hands. And she managed, though barely so, to catch the beast with it through the bottom of it's ugly face, shaving the tip up and away from her, forcing the beast back with it, even as it snarled rage and tried its very best to take and arm off. Her hide boots were thin, and light. But still, she kicked a booted foot anyway, planting it in the creature's ribs, hard enough that she immediately heard a resounding crack of breaking bones. The furious ravager snarled loader than she'd ever heard one snarl. But that only made her shriek again, far louder herself now as she yanked the pick ax free and slammed it forward again through the creature's face, Ellie only laughed now as she yanked the weapon free. Then she screamed her rage, and despair and every bit of the day's endless pain, as she proceeded to hack at the now unmoving animal.
"Ellie!" Brendan's voice called out to her somewhere behind her. And she barely registered that he stood nearby on the stairs She tuned him out though, even as he took a step toward her. And instead hacked again at the creature on the ground while shrieking again.
"Ellie!" That was Brendan's voice again. And more urgent now. She looked up at him, surprised to realizing how badly her entire body was shaking.
"I... I think it's dead," he told her as he laughed a nervous laugh. "And that one too." His eyes went to the one that had died first, still laying, in a spreading red pool, at her feet. "The other two.. they ran off."
"They... they were trying to get into the pen..." Ellie said, knowing full well that hardly explained a thing about the utter savageness of anything she'd done. "And.. and the one on the roof.. you.. you could easily have been killed..."
She stood for another second or two until her knees gave out and she fell onto the now blood covered ground. And for a anther moment she just stared, shaking, at her hands. They were bloody too – dripping with it. And somehow that only made her want to laugh again, until a second later when the idea sickened her.
"I just..." she said, her blood covered hands wiping away sudden tears, and smearing her face red in the process. "I just wanted them to die of course. But... it was so much more than that. A need to kill them... to rip them apart, and make something bleed..." She forced back a second wave of tears and looked up at him, her vision now hazy.
"Even before this place... I'm sure I've never, ever in my life..." she began to say, in horrified shock.
"Probably just sounds downright disturbing, but the next time you're so compelled to tear some creature into pieces, you'll only be be far more efficient at it..." Brendan mused. And his voice was horrifyingly serious.
"So, you've done...?" Ellie only looked down at the blood and fur to finish the question.
"Yes," the answer was so brutally honest. "Unusually unwitnessed, which is probably a good thing." He was silent for a moment looking down at the bloody mess of ravager carcasses, until he finally spoke up again. "I've... be told by the few people have have caught me and others at such moments, that it's always absolutely horrifying. I... I understand their point of view now..."
Strong hands pulled her up then, gently but firmly, to her feet. And she was seated again on a bottom step, before her thoughts finished catching up to her. Eventually she found herself looking into Brendan's blue eyes – suddenly so strangely amused at the wiry brown hair that fell into his eyes, and the ratty worn shirt made of thin hide, that fit him at least a size too big.
He gently cleaned the blood smears from her face with a damp scrap of cloth. And she knew he must have wet it from the tap just inside the doors to the pen... though she hadn't heard the door at all, or the tap. And she blinked slowly, willing away her confusion, hearing her voice say he didn't have to do that, while she was still not full aware of speaking.
"I don't mind," Brendan said. "It's just a little ravager blood." He tired to clean her hands too, but there was just too much to clean. The scrap rag was bloodied fast and he got all of nowhere. So slowly he pulled her to her feet again, and lead her to the tap, where she sat in the ground in front of it, washing up the best she could.
"You look so damn terrified, Ellie," Brendan said. Though his tone, as always was far from unkind.
Ellie only sat silent and starring as bloody water flowed down a crude metal drain in the floor, under the water tap.
He looked her over, obviously looking for obvious injury or blood that was not from a ravager. But Ellie only sat silent and starring as bloody water flowed down a crude metal drain in the floor, under the water tap.
"Will it always... be this bad?" she asked, finally looking up again when the water flowed clear again running off her hands. She knew her eyes had filled with pain again. And she made a halfhearted effort to hide it, like the last time. Though she knew full well it didn't matter anyway, because he'd noticed all the same.
"I.. I need to learn to be so much more like you..." she said, when he didn't answer – and the look he gave her said he simply couldn't bring himself to. She gasped hard against threatening tears. And instead took a slow breath and looked up again, determined. "To... hide it well enough that no one ever knows when I'm so far from okay. To just keep going... to be among the strongest people here..."
"Ellie, that's not a good thing at all," Brendan said. His voice was serious and sad. And his eyes studied hers for just a second before he stared into them intently, holing her attention. "It's dangerous and stubborn and I should damn well know better than to even try half as hard to hide so much. This can go so very bad, very fast, and I know I'm just lucky. But if I was ever in trouble, Ellie.. real trouble..."
No one might ever even know... he certainly didn't say it. And instead he just looked down, his attention far too intently focused it it should have been, on turning off the water tap. But she didn't need to hear him say it, to finish his dread filled sentence in her own head anyway.
Notes/ Offspring... +5 levels. Haha silliness and ark references aside. 'XP running' to 'level' a reaper baby is apparently a bit tricky to translate into not super game-y mechanics lol. I'm only hoping this... and the whole story is still working. I've got plans for it yet.
I'm not sure yet how I feel about advanced technology or weapons in this one either. The tribe certainly has electricity and generators (though of course that's not specially mentioned.) And they certainly have radios of course. I see this as somewhere between regular mid game ark, and primitive plus. I can't see ever bringing in any cryo pods... or tek suits, tek rifles, ect.