Somewhere, beyond the sea
Somewhere, waiting for me
My lover stands on golden sands
And watches the ships that go sailing.
If I could fly like birds on high,
Then straight to her arms, I'd go sailing.
- "Beyond the Sea", by Bobby Darin
All around is darkness, interspersed with some small reminders of life, like torches, tallow candles, and the flickering of fireflies by the river. To make up for this darkness, life stomps its feet, like a child's tantrum, and the natural ambience is filled with sounds of civilization. So loud are they, that she can't help but think that they're trying to compete with nature. They may as well be silent, because she's impervious to it anyhow, in this moment.
It's all she's thought about since Inculta left. If only she could utilize this single-minded, intense tunnel vision for other things, but that's immaterial. Inculta's gone, so she uses any and all drops of tactical thought to make her escape, because she's procrastinated for weeks now since she found the single most valuable instrument in her life, that fucking fork. It's pretty much the bees' knees now, she wouldn't be surprised if, in years from now if she lives through this, she dreams about it as some kind of emblem of reverence.
While she sits up in her cot, Lyra sleeps, ignorant of the utter chaos going on in her mind. Chaos may not be appropriate, though, but it's only natural that she applies familiar terms to her own situation. Maybe this is the only time, save for in Cottonwood Cove, that she's been this focused and able to compartmentalize all 'useless' things out of her conscious thought. It's well past midnight when she steals to the latrine, without asking for permission from Lyra. That simple act of rebellion did wonderful things to her soul, and she cannot and does not want to even consider spending even one week more living like this.
Yep. She'd rather be dead, and that's why she's willing to risk it all. She'd be stupid, or, even more stupid, if she didn't take such a golden opportunity – Inculta was out, so that meant he wouldn't be able to look for her immediately. By the time he returns, she'll be in Vegas, hopefully. Eris doesn't bother with the gritty details that he will also be there. If she left while he was here, he'd be on her within the hour she reached Hoover Dam.
And then? As Caesar had said, she'd be scourged and crucified. If Eris dies, she doesn't want to be nailed to a cross like the sorry sods down the hill. She would very much dislike being able to think while her hands and feet are nailed to wood, so hopefully it will be drowning in the Colorado River if death is certain.
Somehow, she doesn't think it is, which is a new feeling next to the adrenaline coursing through her veins. She has two options, now that she's at the toilet. The first, is to unlock it here and now, using her stowed tools and other miscellaneous pieces of metal. The second, is to take them to the kennel, and climb the cliff downward. She considers the first, rolling it around in her mind, and decides that anyone could catch her with those tools. Then, the whip and cross. The second is safer for all the reasons the first is not.
Eris knows next to nothing about what will happen when this device is unlocked – if it can remain on or not. If it can't be worn without being locked, then she'll have to hold it to her skin until she gets to the kennel, maybe even until she climbs down the rocks. Antony might be there, sometimes, he stays awake into the night, tending to the pups, and if he is? What will she do to secure her freedom? How far will she go? Killing Antony would be like killing a child, because he was a perpetual child. And, even a few months ago, that would've been too far even for her.
Picking the lock is extraordinarily trying with her hands shaking in anticipation. The standard deep breathing techniques have never been of much use to her, so she waits, and does the unthinkable, and visualizes Aurelius' face to try and counter the primitively satisfying feeling. Unsurprisingly, it works, and before she knows it, she is back to mumbling and fiddling with the lock, careful not to accidentally hit some invisible circuitry.
Even still, it isn't easy, but she's sharpened her mismatched tools enough for them to budge the lock somewhat, during her last few tries. She puts enough effort into stilling her hand, and just like that – with one movement, she hears three, very low beeps, and waits for the explosion that never comes. Her heart is beating out of her chest now, and she tries to move the collar around somewhat, hoping that it can be removed.
A breath of disbelief leaves her at the feeling of it loosening, completely malleable in her hands, and the flash having been turned off. Her teeth scrape against her lips, then a ghost of a smirk takes their place, the first genuine smile in months. It's been that long since she's sincerely felt this alive, and finally, she's willing to do whatever it takes to collect and save this euphoria.
She tucks the tools away underneath the toilet, and turns to make sure no one is watching. The camp is deadly quiet when she walks out, and she steals one last glance at Caesar's tent, before making her way over to the kennels. There are patrols, as per usual, but they pay her no heed, as familiar a sight as she is by now. They likely think she's going to the toilets, or perhaps getting started on breakfast early.
By the time she reaches the kennels, she's shocked that her heart hasn't given out yet. Antony isn't there, which means one less person who will be incriminated by the greatest misdemeanor in the Legion.
Fuck. Lupa's awake.
Lupa is a large scent hound, with long, floppy ears and big, brown eyes. Normally, she's sweet, but she's known for baying occasionally, even howling at the moon, and Eris can't predict what the dog will do if she sees someone climbing down the rocks behind. If she'd bark, it would be because she thinks Eris is in danger, which is the ugly truth. There are so many horrible ways Eris can die before the Legion could get hold of her – so many things to take into account, but she's an accomplished multitasker.
"Shhh, Lupa. You're a good girl, aren't you? Hmm?" She whispers, trying to placate, Lupa beginning to wag her tail at the telltale sound of a high-pitched voice, that sound all dogs have evolved to love. "Good." She adds in Latin, for good measure.
Shamelessly, she slides into the kennel with Lupa, said dog suckling her pups while keeping an eye on the strange, blonde-haired woman on all fours. Someone calls out in Latin, and Eris flinches, before checking behind and seeing that it's two legionaries patrolling a couple hundred yards away. She turns her gaze back onto Lupa, and crawls silently to the edge of the kennel, grasping the rocks in her hands as she does so.
All the while, she whispers to Lupa, placating her as best she knows how. She was never exposed to dogs enough to know the proper etiquette. A peek down below causes her heart to drop, but nonetheless, she's stupid enough to climb onto the rocks. As soon as she's out of Lupa's sight, she begins the slow climb down. The urge to look down is… unquenchable, and between lowering herself down, she looks. Her feet slip about a quarter of the way down, and she gasps, hugging the stones to her chest, while her knees scrape painfully, enough to draw blood.
That stings like nothing else, almost like the feel of the whip on her back a few weeks ago now. A stray thought occurs to her that she's too old by now to come home with scraped knees, probably a thought designed to keep her calm. But it doesn't work, her breaths are still labored, and she's using her negligible nails to keep a tight hold on the rock wall. When she looks up, the stars are brighter than she's ever seen, with all the lights out of sight. The moment is almost sacred, a kind of moment that could be the climax of some kind of hit in New Reno.
When only a few feet remain, she loses her grip, and falls onto the ground roughly, knocking the breath out of her. For a good second, or maybe more, tiny dots float around in her vision, reminiscent of that snow globe effect back in Cottonwood Cove. Her ankles… shit. Every derogatory word rushes through her mind, and she twists her ankles around, trying to see if they were out of commission. Even if they were, she'd still crawl out of here, or die trying.
One precious moment, that's all she allows herself to catch her breath, and after that's said and done, she searches the area for the nearest patrol, which is by the shore. It's late, and it's dark, and though she swore not to kill someone else, she might have to make some adjustments to that promise. Wouldn't be the first time.
Her back hunches, trying to keep low and in the shadows, and she doesn't even bother to look behind at the Fort. Good riddance. She'll be content to never see it again.
That legionary will have to be killed. He's a young one, guarding the only body of water that leads to Hoover Dam, and he's in the way. Like a good little slave, she's quiet on her feet, because a good slave is never seen or heard, or some such nonsense. There are others, too, but they're further down – maybe they aren't aware that this spot is where an escapee will go first. She wonders if she'll be the first person to ever escape Fortification Hill.
Quickly, she rushes him and pushes him into the water, wanting to get it done as fast as possible. Granted, she's lighter than him, and weaker too, but she caught him off guard, and she tries to summon all the strength she has to hold him underwater, even going so far as to knock his head against the wood of the dock. What if the cursor comes? She wonders. What if she sees him while she's swimming away?
The boy squirms beneath her, but she keeps her ankles latched onto his midsection, and her arms wrapped over his own as well as his windpipe. She tries not to think of the Weathers boy, tries not to concern herself with the reality that she is fated to be a murderess at every single possible turn. The self-hatred eats at her even still, and she cringes at herself when she feels the fight leave his body.
One day, she will retire from killing others. She's got about as much blood on her hands as a Legion officer by now. Ironic then, that she runs, or swims, from them, as if she is in anyway different. She stows the body away under the docks, hoping that he'll be found come the morning. Who knows? Maybe he was just unconscious, maybe he'd wake up later.
She's up to her neck in water by the time she rips the collar off of her neck, throwing it towards the shore for someone to find as a present in the morning. How she hopes Inculta doesn't return anytime soon, it'll be surreal enough to see him as a free woman, if she makes it that far.
Her muscles are weak, tired already, but she keeps swimming until she's far enough out to look back without fearing they'll come after her. Former Eris would've yelled at them, maybe taken her shirt off to wave it around, but she certainly knows better now.
The current of the river hadn't even been taken into account in her mostly-baked plan, and she hugs the canyon wall as tight as she can when it begins to rush, finally feeling a cold rivulet of fear drip down her spine upon learning how volatile the river really is. During baths, they're not allowed to go any further than neck deep, and doing so would place one so far out that their explosive collar would've triggered anyhow.
Swimming against the current is like climbing up a mountain while an avalanche is crashing down, it's the act of going against nature that makes it painful. Her muscles cramp up within a minute, and she grips the edge of the canyon wall, against the rush of water pounding against her chest. It splashes up against all the little cuts on her knees, and the strength she's exerting reminds her of that persistent, hollow ache of hunger deep in her gut.
Like always, she is tempted to give up and let the tide take her, but she remembers she still has a job to do. There is someone waiting for her, possibly, and even if it is a small possibility that he hasn't found someone else, it is still there, and she forces her body forward a few paces. To not have that thing around her neck is a mercy, a mercy unlike any else that she's encountered, and she sits with the comfort that if she drowns, it will be without that inane piece of tech weighing her down, making her feel like a spoil of war.
There is a shore up ahead, and even further, she can see Hoover Dam, and the surrounding rock faces. But, like with everything else, she hasn't thought it all the way through. The water will get more treacherous, but surely, there must be someone on watch up top, right? From here, she can't see anyone, the distance is still too great.
In her daze to see the proverbial carrot on a stick, she gets pulled underwater, and it is only by sheer stubbornness that she resurfaces, landing on a tiny shoreline to catch her breath, and cough up the silty river water. If her lungs weren't damned before, there's a good chance that she just sent them to purgatory.
Her wet hair clings to her skin, and like a child, she sits on that sand with her knees up and her back against the canyon, hyperventilating so deeply that her vision becomes snowy again, and it is a moment later that she 'snaps'. Really, it was much like a snap, and she figures that she lost consciousness momentarily. She decides that losing consciousness is without a doubt, one of the more eldritch feelings of commonplace things.
Looking at the sky tells her that she was out only for a moment, because all the stars are in the same position they were in last.
"I don't want to go in the goddamn water." She says aloud to herself. Besides that, it's cold, as chilly as the chilliest desert nice, and the water isn't any kinder.
Tears of frustration fall out of her eyes and down her cheeks, and a moment later her stomach growls, reminding her of how crucial it is to keep going. For Eris, it's never been easy to do things without being coaxed, as she was the foremost procrastinator in the post-apocalyptic desert. She aches all over, and if she could have anything right now, it would be a cigarette. She'd savor it, to be sure.
She swears that if the NCR don't fish her out of the canyon, she'll haunt them as a poltergeist and split the dam in half after she dies. It's that anger, just enough to remind her that she's human like anyone else, that gets her back in that cold water, which gets faster with every single stroke.
Every muscle, every joint, it feels like it's been washed in acid and then soaked in gasoline and lit on fire. The fatigue is unlike anything she's ever felt, even more so than in the Fort, because this time, the risk is great and the reward is even sweeter.
"Fuck it." She exclaims, letting go of the canyon wall and putting all her meager strength into the strokes.
For good measure, she tries to stick close to the wall and manages to do so, for minutes, hours, or however long it takes for Hoover Dam to be within sight, its patrols visible now. The current changes then, a whirl of water that she can't even calculate the direction of – it's so chaotic that it surpasses even her, but she'd be arrogant indeed to compare herself to a force of nature.
She's there. Hoover Dam and its flood lights flash down on her, and her gaze is that of a neophyte to a cult leader, like she's discovered religion for the first time in her life. Barely anything can be made out aside from the outlines of soldiers, but nonetheless, she waves her arms around as well as she can without plunging face first into the water.
They don't see her at first, and after a few minutes, she begins to lose hope that anyone will come. Were they not equipped to deal with escapees? Was she the first to ever manage to make that treacherous swim? Her arms are tired, and they're beginning to slacken, weak in the face of such… exertion.
A light flashes into her face, though, and she flinches at the first sight of artificial light in months. It's brighter than she remembers, but she's heavily biased by now. One of the rangers, it must've been one of them who saw her. They were watching for any signs of Legion activity, and she hopes she looks like a slave right now, so that they don't send her to a grave earlier than she's looking forward to.
Her eyelids threaten to close, and she's beyond tired. She feels like she's close to death, even. She hasn't slept in almost twenty-four hours now, and on top of that, she's starving, wounded, and anything else that's supposed to be painful. How had early humans done it?
The last thing she remembers is a voice echoing down the canyon, perhaps magnified by a megaphone of some sort?
A/N: Exciting stuff indeed, and I wonder if, upon freedom, she retains some of the lessons she learned after having it taken from her?