Notes/ Well there we have it! An update. I'm terribly sorry for my delay in posting anything on this story. Writer's block and self-doubt of anything I've written gets so frustrating. I'm still doubtful of this chapter... wrote and edited and redid huge bits of it and I'm finally convinced it's the best it will be and I like it. Hopefully, you will too. I also now have the next one plotted and will be starting it after posting up this one.
Jessie made his best effort to keep up with the others, as the little group fought its way through dense woods, tangled with tough and sticky vines. He knew it would have been a job to traverse that sort of ground at the best of times. But he was unwell, quickly growing worse and he knew it. And that didn't do a thing to help him now. He was falling behind again, for the third time now – the ravager he rode was trying her best to follow the others, just as she was so well trained to. But the vines stopped her steps as much they would have any human's. And the endless denseness of tall mushroom capped trees surely meant she couldn't even see her pack-mates, to know who to follow in the first place.
Jessie reached for the sharp knife he carried on his belt, bent on jumping from the saddle to cut the vines free when clearly his mount's feet were so hopelessly tangled in one of them. And he panicked silently for at least a few long seconds, before he understood – his mind so slow and sluggish – that he held it in his hand already, and had been for a while.
"Jessie!" someone called out through the trees – Jeremiah. The first friend he'd met in that place. He recognized his voice at once, despite the slowness of his mental processing.
"Where ya at, man?" the same voice called out, perhaps another half a minute later. And though Jessie was about to answer that he truly wasn't sure, he didn't need to, because Jeremiah found him in the next second, closely followed by the other two of their little group.
"The creek is just over there," Annalise said, waving somewhere behind her and to the far right – making Jessie understand only then that he'd turned his ravager around in her tracks someways back. And that he'd been tracking back for a while in exactly the wrong direction. But the entire landscape, his companions, and their own mounts were all spinning wildly now as his vision abruptly blurred in the onset of dizziness.
"Bloody hell, this could seriously be bad," Jeremiah muttered. And somewhere, in some direction that had become impossible to work out exactly, Annalise and Brendan mumbled dread-filled agreements.
It was bad. Really bad. That much was obvious at once. And Jessie - having fallen to the ground, barely able to remain sitting as his dizziness grew so quickly worse – took a good moment to note the still spreading mess of blood that soaked the lower right leg of his pants. And the pain that accompanied the injury was strangely spreading far further than only the leg, sending burning jolts and bursts of heat through his body clear to the bottom of his rib cage.
"Don't you dare go to sleep out here," Annalise said – her voice somewhere between snapping, crying, and shouting in alarm. Jessie felt her thumping just a bit too hard against his shoulder with her booted foot before she kneeled down in the field of his fuzzy vision and shook him hard. "Don't you frigging dare!"
He'd clearly drifted into unconsciousness anyway, despite his companion's urgent pleading for him not to do exactly that. Because when he snapped awake again, with a confused disoriented start, and still laying on the ground, there were people speaking near him in dead serious voices, along with the unmistakable clicking of ammunition being loading into the chambers of shotguns.
"Are you insane?" Jeremiah snapped at someone, somewhere. "Running into the camp of utter strangers... I could have blown your head off, woman, just thinking you were some raptor in the bushes!"
"Put that bloody gun down," someone else replied – a female voice Jessie had never heard before. And despite the shotgun that, he could see through the haze of his vision, still pointed at her face, she sounded more taken aback and offended, than truly afraid for her life.
"Not one step closer," Annalise snapped, within under a second of twigs snapping under booted foot toward the group. There was an audible clicking from her own shotgun, as she spoke. "I'll blow your head off, even full well knowing you're just another human being."
"Anna..." Brendan muttered nearby – his own weapon still over his shoulder. He motioned something to their angry tribe-mate, but the gun stayed pointed all the same.
"Is this how you nitwits treat anyone that might come along to help while one of your friends is quite possibly dying?" the unknown woman snapped. And something in the tone of her voice then made it more than clear that she was not afraid to knock the weapons from the hands of Jessie's companions in one fast and sudden move if she could find a second in which to catch them both off guard.
"What happened to him?" the same stranger questioned, her voice urgent but fully calm and caring now. Jessie saw, through the still worsening blur of his vision, that the guns had been lowered to allow her slightly closer.
"Damn Titanoboa," Brendan's voice answered, from somewhere amid a new wave of dizziness that made the entire landscape spin sickeningly fast in first one direction then another. "The ravagers were quick to kill it, but not before it got him in the leg."
"That bite itself won't kill him," the stranger said, bold enough to speak with the utter confidence of one skilled enough to make that daring claim. Jessie struggled hard to watch through his hazy vision as the dizziness retreated again – a far smaller lady than he might have guessed from her boldness, coated in a thin layer of dirt to indicate weeks at least of struggles for mere survival in that deadly world, thin cloth clothing thrown over her body and dark hair falling into her face in a messy look of someone trying her best to do something with it. A saddled raptor, that was presumably her mount stood beside her, protective, loyal, and letting out a growl now and then in reaction to the weapons still aimed at her.
"I'm far more worried about him bleeding to death," she said. She'd dropped to the ground close beside him at some point, while he may well have passed out again. And she now sat glaring down a shotgun again, before she barked out with barely a care for the barrel of the weapon, "put that gun down, instead of waving it around like you've actually got enough guts to shoot me. Make yourself useful, and find me something to wrap this with!"
Jessie woke up abruptly in his bunk, with the memory of someday so long ago, still so vivid in his mind. He forced himself to move, found it a strange effort to do so, and he realized he'd slept through the whole night – a rare feat for him those days – in the same position for much too long on the too firm bunk. He thought of his first three friends in that place – and he fought back a wave of crushing sadness, remembering that the last of the three had died so recently, and the others years before. He thought then instead about Stella, allowing himself to smile a little at her boldness as she'd called Jeremiah's bluff, clearly so sure all along that he never was about to actually shoot her, and neither was Anna.
He remembered then, with a growing smile, that she'd slept beside him. But his smile faded, when his hand, reaching out to her, without turning to look, felt only the coolness of the empty place where she should have lain.
"Well, good morning, my sleepy," she said, pleasantly surprising him. And with a quick look around his bunk-room, he found her easily, turning back to stand looking out the open window.
"Stella," Jessie mumbled, sleepy indeed. He watched for a second as she shivered just a little, in her thin sleeping shirt, in the early morning coolness from the window. He reached out to her at once. "Come back to bed..."
"I wish I could," Stella said sincerely. And she returned his smile easily before she sighed and turned to cross the room slowly. "It's getting late already."
"You think so?" Jessie questioned, knowing she was right, despite his denial and the lack of any true way to tell the time exactly in that place. Stella just laughed a little, nodding in his direction, before she moved to sit on the bunk so that she could learn playfully against his body after he'd slowly sat up. He pulled her against him without hesitation, trying hard to warm her as she shivered again in the coolness of the room. It was impossible by then to deny the noise of their tribe-mates as they hurried about all over the base, walking the hallways, shutting doors, and chatting with each other as they began their days.
"Let's go get some breakfast," he said, knowing that the morning meal would most certainly be ready by then in the dining room, and perhaps even down to the last few servings left to stay warm on the cooking fires already.
He would have much rather lay down again, with the love of his life held snug in his arms as the morning passed by into noon. But he knew very well he certainly couldn't do that, So instead, he got to his feet with some reluctance, fetched his clothes while Stella found her own, and left the room with her right behind him.
"Jessie!" Stella cried in laughing alarm, when he grabbed a hold of her on the landing at the top of the wooden staircase, hugging her tightly for a brief and wonderful second, before he let her good and promptly held tightly to her hand as he gently pulled her down the steps behind him. "Are we really going to hurry into the dining room, filled with our tribe like this?"
"I can't imagine why not," Jessie replied at once. He felt bold that morning, reckless and unconcerned, he led her on beside him. "Today may well be the day I simply declare to anyone bold enough to question us, that for all intents and purposes you're basically my wife!"
He questioned his own sudden boldness for a fleeting moment, wondering silently to himself, as he studied her expression if this was what she wanted. Because he'd never exactly paused to ask her outright. But she just smiled brighter, and her smile turned to a grin before she broke free of her momentary pause in which she'd obviously been too startled and bemused to move. And she was soon laughing loudly in excitement as she took another step down the stairs.
"Jessie -," Johnny said, his voice urgent the second the leader had left the staircase and appeared in the dining room. The boy hurried toward him, obviously having been rushing from somewhere else in the base in an effort to find him. And the leader knew from the look of intent in the boy's eyes that an unforeseen situation, and not a hearty breakfast, awaited him that morning.
"I'm sorry to interpret..." Johnny muttered politely, speaking mostly in Stella's direction for that moment, and barely appearing to think a thing of seeing the pair together. Jessie wondered, with some odd sense of relief, if the boy with either too young or simply too new, to even find it strange at all. He saw Stella nod her understanding at the boy before she stepped back to let him continue.
"There is someone here looking for you," he explained quickly, his eyes back on Jessie again. "Two people that told me they're from some other tribe – the Red Piranhas. They insist they have a word with you immediately..."
"Did they say what this is about?" Jessie asked his youngest tribesman, as he walked beside him in the direction of the front door of the building. He was uneasy for so many reasons but thought far better of mentioning in any way to Johnny that it was members of that tribe that had once attacked him with their pointed pikes. The boy just shook his head.
"They didn't say a thing about that," Johnny said, thinking. "Not to me, anyway. Ellie was chatting with them when I left to find you..."
Jessie hurried his steps at this new development, every bit as concerned for her alone with members of that particular tribe, as he would have been for Johnny. But reaching the doorway, he understood at once, and with an inward sigh of relief, that any real concern may have been unfounded.
The visitors from the opposing tribe were not the dirty, unkempt and wild, noisy, and threatening people he'd seen so often from within that group. These two – a middle-aged man and a far younger woman – stood just inside the door dressed in clean sets of cloth clothes and hide jackets and boots. They certainly had weapons – a stone-tipped metal pike each. But these were strapped safely behind them, clearly as a means of self-defense against creatures and a show of common sense, instead of held waving in threat in their hands without reason. The man was certainly a large fellow with a visibly strong build – most of Lavinia's men were. And the woman – though she was considerably small, at least for one chosen for her tribe – stood with some sort of confidence that would make anyone surely think twice before confronting her, regardless. And Ellie, who sure enough stood conversing with them, was in no obvious danger at all from either one of them. She was sadly so clearly more unwell that morning than usual, leaning on the wall behind her for stability, seeming to fear she might lose her footing in her own shaky weakness. But she smiled calmly, and even gave a small friendly laugh at some quiet comment, while she talked with the visitors.
"Ah, there's the man we're looking for," one of the strangers – the man – exclaimed. And he excused himself from the discussion with Ellie, with a simple polite nod in her direction, while she cheerfully excused herself to slowly walk away with Johnny.
"I suppose I am," Jessie muttered to the visiting pair, chuckling a little in his uncertain confusion over the entire situation. He eyed the two of them carefully for a second time and decided they were no more threatening now than they'd appeared on the first look. He decided to give them a fair chance, and quickly he spoke up again. "So, what can I do for you, then?"
"We were sent to bring you back with us to our base at the far end of the river," the woman explained, lacking the usual snapping and demanding tone of so many of her tribe-mates. "Lavinia wishes to speak with you."
"I always figured that's what radios were for..." Jessie answered, dismayed as he glanced down to his own device in his back pocket. Yes, he could certainly admit, it would be odd to receive a radio call from Lavinia of anyone. It had never happened once before. Still, it surely made good sense to reach him that way.
"She insists you speak in person," the man said. And beside him, his companion just shrugged to show that she so clearly knew nothing more.
"I will fetch a mount," Jessie replied, after a long moment in which he'd stood, silently considering. The possibility of being led into a trap of some kind or another was very real in his mind – even if Lavinia did lack any real motive to attack him. Nevertheless, he hurried away to retrieve his shotgun and its ammunition, and to lead his favored ravager out of the animal pen behind the base, He saddled her quickly, and gave the animal a quick pat on the head before he made a good point of rubbing her pointed ears when she looked at him with expectant eyes, that showed her excitement over a coming run.
"Surely you aren't really going off on some great adventure without me..." Katie's voice startled him just enough to make him look up quickly. The girl had come, seemingly almost out of nowhere, and Jessie let himself laugh just a little because she so often did exactly that.
"Ellie and Johnny know about as much as I do about what's going on at this point," Jessie explained. "I'm off to meet with Lavinia." He was relieved when she nodded understanding and seemed content to leave it at that – though she did give him a strange look of curiosity, before she walked away quickly to go about her own tasks, presumably to find the mentioned tribe-mates.
She stopped though after just a few quick steps. And she turned around to face him again, with some hesitation, before she pulled her sharpened hunting knife from its place on her belt. She offered him the weapon, urgently.
"You know I don't trust Lavinia or any one of the Piranhas any further than we could throw them," she said simply, as Jessie took the knife, hiding it on his own belt and under his hide coat.
"Ask Stella to please have a look at Ellie would you," he told her hurriedly. "Girl is definitely not looking well."
Katie nodded at once before she hurried away.
The little group set out just as soon as Jessie had returned to the visiting pair. And determined to not be caught off guard, he brought up the rear, steering his ravager easily behind the Red Piranha representatives on their megalosaur mounts. The pair of larger, and intimidating dinosaurs snarled far more than enough to make the most steel-nerved man uneasy. But at least their riders clearly tried their best to stop their horrible growling, with tugs of their heavy leather reins and pats to their necks.
"These fellas don't like strangers much," the man said simply when his mount snarled again as they reached the river. But he did make a point of tugging hard against the reins again, to regain his immediate control of the creature in the midst of its intimidating snarls. The young woman rider, close beside him, did much the same to stop her own creature before its snarling kicked off again in the first place. But she was silent and seemingly distracted, staring ahead of her at the path beside the river.
"Ya know... I've gotta hand it to you and your people, just livin' where you do," the man mused. He gave a friendly chuckle in Jessie's direction and went on to explain, probably intent on simply making conversation. "Down there in the bioluminescence... there are surely safer places in this world. Even if this whole damn place is a right shit show!"
"I certainly can't disagree with your blunt assessment of this place," Jessie answered. He allowed himself to laugh a little, seeing the irony of perfect timing, as a pair of raptors cut across the riders' path, ignoring them entirely to instead pounce on a hapless parasaur – who had, only a second before, been grazing from some bushes not a foot from the river, where a huge crocodile ancestor lay in wait and showing only the top of its head above the murky water.
The parasaur bellowed its alarm before its bellow became its dying call, and it promptly fall to the ground with a dull resounding thud. Blood sprayed from its neck – torn open by a raptor's deadly teeth, as the pair of predators shrieked and jumped about excitedly before they instantly set about tearing their kill apart. But this had attracted instant attention. And the raptors were sent fleeing away into the thick woods behind them - each of them with a huge bloodied chunk of meat in their mouths, as a massive spinosaurus left the river somewhere around the upcoming bend and pressed the raptors for many tense and gaining paces before it gave up with a ground-shaking roar and instead stole the remains of their abandoned kill.
"A right shit show indeed. let's just hope those raptors don't come back this way," Jessie muttered, cautious as he watched the pair still fleeing through the mushroom-trees. He looked next for the spino – though he was far less concerned about that dinosaur, who he know from experience was more or less likely to simply leave the group alone as long as they stayed back. And sure enough, the creature was already in the river again, its huge sail the only thing that still showed of it above the waterline, and trailing blood around it while it ate from the carcass it had dragged away.
The small group rode on, following the river in silence for a short while until the man slowed the pace of his mount's steps – the creature had finally stopped its growling, and was instead turning to sniff every now and then at the ravager that walked behind it.
"You need water?" the fellow questioned, stopping his own creature next to a usually safe point of the river, free of awful biting piranhas. And Jessie just nodded, grateful as he retrieved an empty jar from his ravager's saddlebag.
"Thank you for your consideration," he muttered, meaning it, as he filled the jar with cool water, took a quick drink, and twisted on the lid.
"We aren't a tribe filled with only inconsiderate barbarians, you know," the man answered, laughing just a little, in a clear effort to hide his concern for the known reputation. "Besides..." he paused again for a fleeting moment before he finished speaking. "Lavinia told me in no uncertain terms that you had better be protected. Though you'd likely never need protecting exactly... her words, not mine. Though... I can't say I disagree after having met you."
"Words of confidence, from Lavinia," Jessie muttered, unable to fully hide his doubtful tone, as he climbed back onto the saddle of his ravager. But as the group moved on again, riding at a decent pace along the riverbank, his attention fell on the young woman – still silent and looking ahead of her as she steered her mount with her face near expressionless.
"Tessa ain't usually so quiet," the man said, obviously having noticed Jessie's watching his companion. And he laughed a little when his words and the mention of her name appeared to startle the woman abruptly from her staring ahead. She looked at both of the others then, with a shake of her head, and drank some water from her jar while looked serious again.
"I was... just thinking about that girl," she said, slowly. And Jessie's momentary confusion was gone in an instant when she further explained. "The one back at the Lighted Dwelling. The one that stopped to talk with us..."
She looked at her tribe-mate then, concern and unease in her eyes as she rode on. "Everyone here is usually either alive and well, or they're dead..."
"I'd be damned if that girl ain't a reaper host," the man muttered in reply. And the young woman, Tessa, only glared at him harsh enough to make Jessie fall back a few steps, despite the look certainly having not been meant for him.
"It's too early for those ridiculous horror tales!" the woman snapped, so clearly far from amused as she shook her head a little while she rode on. "And at the expense of some poor woman that's obviously sick!"
The man however just looked in her direction while he rode on beside her, his face serious. He broke his gaze on her slowly, and instead sat looking around from his place on the back of his megalo – just as though he so clearly expected trouble to appear, running out of the trees beside them, or the river on the other side at any second.
"You haven't been here half as long as I have," he finally muttered to his tribe-mate. And his tone was so clearly one of sudden, and fast growing unease now, as he shook his head a little, presumably to shake off the feeling. "You haven't seen half of messed up and terrible shit some of us have."
"You can't possibly think..." the young woman began to argue, even as dread and terror filled her eyes while she tugged on her mount's reins. But she stopped speaking again so abruptly. And for a while she just sat, staring forward again, with the same distracted thoughtful look of before.
"The rumors say that some folks have actually survived..." she muttered. And Jessie could easily hear a familiar tone to her voice as she did so – a kind of all too cautious, not quite optimistic hope, all mixed in with a sort of sinking terror.
He couldn't say he didn't relate entirely. His own terror would surely grow into something would surely have seen so clear as day, if only he let himself think on it for too long. And cautious near optimism was the only thing still allowing him to believe that somehow, Ellie could be kept alive. But he just nodded slowly, without saying anything at all, as a simple means to assure the young woman – who's compassionate concern shocked him, considering her tribe's reputation.
The little group of three reached the Red Piranhas' base after what seemed like a far shorter ride than Jessie knew it really was. And he shook off the distracting thoughts that had made the time pass from out from under him so quickly in the first place, as he climbed off his ravager to wait outside the fence beside his guides.
He looked up at the high and imposing – and presumably locked – gate, amid an even higher and spike-tipped fence that surrounded a base perimeter that seemed to reach on until it was nearly out of sight. It crossed his mind to wonder, for a moment, if anyone inside the fence knew they were out there at all in order to let them inside. But he heard footsteps, not an instant later – at least a couple of sets by the sound of it. And the gate slowly swung open, to reveal two men – typically large framed for their tribe, and unsurprising armed with pikes that each of them held in their hands. The younger of the two snarled as Jessie followed his guides in through the gate. And he shoved hard against him, with a laughing smirk, as they stepped toward the first of three large stone structures up ahead of them.
The fellow that Jessie had ridden with the whole way there – a man just as large as the one that had shoved him – shot a glare at his tribe-mate, his civility all but gone at once as he mumbled something under his breath about how he might just kill him in his sleep. The snarling man with the pike in his hands waved the weapon around, with a menacing look in his eyes. But after just a moment of that, he pulled a knife – and this was clearly so much – from his belt. In the next second, he was holding it firm against his tribe-mate's throat.
"Friendship, with those of the Dwelling?" he growled, the blade in his hand dangerously close to slashing across the other man's face, before his arm grabbed by his opponent and the wrist twisted to the side far enough to make his gasp with pain. Still, though he fought hard, yanking his arm free quickly, and this time holding the knife, pointed tip first, to the bottom of the man's jaw.
"You should have killed that leader when you had a clear chance to, Ivan," he growled, barely blinking even as Jessie's guide, punched him square in the teeth, despite the threat of the knife blade.
"I can't say I disagree," said the older of the two. He showed no sign of violence, at least none that Jessie could see right then. But he glared at him with the contempt of the first for a good long moment, before he stepped forward and pretended to spit in Jessie's face, right along with his own growl of anger.
"Stop it, both of you!" the young woman, Tessa, exclaimed. Her face showed a horrified expression as she tugged on the arm of the furious young man, clearly trying to grab for the knife in his hand even as he waved it toward her with no sign of concern. The older of the men shoved her hard, sending her stumbling back. And she would surely have fallen to the ground hard if Jessie hadn't grabbed hold of her quickly – catching her shoulders as gently as he could, and holding onto her for several seconds as she caught her balance again.
"Git your damn filthy hands off her," the knife-wielding man snarled at once in his direction. And he moved the knife away from his tribe-mate, only to instead turn it on Jessie, who remembered only then that he had a knife of his own hidden on his belt thanks to Katie's logic.
He thought, with some hesitation, of reaching for it. But he just as quickly decided against it and the risk of a fast escalating conflict. Instead, he moved fast, flinging his hand up to grab that of the man with the knife, determined to simply disarm him. The crude sharpened knife indeed was sent flying a short way before it dropped into the dirt. But Jessie was repaid for that, with a firm kick to the gut from a large foot in a heavy leather-soled boot. The second of the angry men promptly punched him in the back, while Jessie stood gasping with the wind knocked from his lungs.
"Knock it off... please," Tessa begged, somewhere still close by. "Ivan and I were sent to bring him here, not get him beaten up!" And Jessie saw her appear again in his field of vision when she grabbed once again for the man that had kicked him – only to be flung back with a growl of annoyance in her direction. Jessie made a fast half turn, freeing himself from the furious man, clearly ready to kick him again, when he saw the second of the pair backhand the young woman, Tessa, hard across the face.
"Absolutely not," Jessie barked at the older fellow. And he moved to grab him hard by the shoulders before the man knew what had happened. "I could care less if you folks want to act like savage animals, but I will not stand by and let you hit a lady."
For that effort, he was kicked again by the still enraged man hard enough to send him crashing down onto his knees, and sending bolts of pain through his body from the sudden impact. In just another second, he was kicked yet again, and then punched hard in his face, snapping his head back with the force.
"There are few things I hate more than a man who can't mind his own business," the fellow spat, before his friend – that one that had backhanded the woman – joined in on the attack with another blow to the back of Jessie's body.
The third man – Ivan – had thankfully run to help Tessa, who was red-faced and furious, though not hurt. But he glared daggers at his tribe-mates regardless and showed every bit of his disapproval of them both.
"You Pissing idiots!" another voice snapped a few paces away, along with fast and stomping footsteps. Both of you, stop this off at once!"
Jessie looked up from his place, by now halfway to standing up again slowly, to see Lavinia – her face filled with every hint of her usual look of rage – glaring at the pair of aggressors as they silently backed away. Both mumbled something close to apologies, but she just waved them away without a word. Her own stone-tipped pike was held firmly in one of her hands. And Jessie thought, for a second of near dread, that she might actually throw the weapon at one of her own tribesmen before she finally gave up and turned away from them both. She just stood then for a good moment, shaking her head in Jessie's direction, while he got to his feet.
"Walk with me," she invited him, her voice so suddenly calmer. And Jessie nodded, wiry and cautious, eyeing the furious men, and hardly trusting their leader either.
"I trust you had no trouble from the pair I sent to bring you here," Lavinia said, as they crossed a grounds filled with work stations - most of them unmanned at the moment- and the odd wandering tame creature, clearly given the freedom to roam around out there. Jessie nodded.
"They are clearly good people," he said, turning back to look for them as he did so, but finding them gone somewhere out of sight already. A frown of disapproval filed his face then as he added pointedly, "The same can certainly not be said for the two that opened the gate."
"Trust me when I say I absolutely did not intend for you to be attacked by any of my people," Lavinia answered. And her tone was strangely near horrified at the actions of her men, as she shook her head again.
"It did cross my mind for a moment to think I may have been led into an ambush," Jessie admitted slowly. And it was only his counterpart's so clearly still horrified expression, that fully made him doubt the possibility.
"The reputation of the Red Piranhas has always been one of brutality and senseless violence," Lavinia muttered. Her voice was oddly quiet. And for a moment she stopped walking entirely, to instead just stand still, looking out across the grounds of her large imposing base in front of her as though she was barely seeing it at all. "I will easily admit I played a large role in that... seeking out the strongest and intimidating of new arrivals to this place... encouraging the violence to spill over outside the walls of the base. We were mostly left alone, and I liked it that way. But..." She had started to walk again. But she suddenly slowed her steps, and nearly came to another stop altogether, as she turned to took at Jessie. "It's all gone too far."
"Too far?" Jessie said in answer. And he realized only after having spoken, that he'd snapped at Lavinia when he certainly hadn't intended to. He struggled not to snap again however as he muttered, "I was told in no uncertain terms by one of the mindless barbarians that I found beating on a harmless and terrified sixteen-year-old new arrival, that you would have seen it only as decent entertainment."
He might have raised his voice again at that point – his anger in just thinking about that day again too quickly getting the better of him. He might have dared to insult her and her tribe at that moment, because at the moment it all felt like fair game, as he thought about Johnny, who needed protection in that dangerous world and had instead nearly had his bones broken for the crime of waking up confused. But Lavinia stood looking at him with a strange expression as she walked beside him – regretful, lost, and distracted as she walked as though without thinking of exactly where she was going. Her black hair, tied back carelessly, fell into her face in long strands. And she shoved them back, while she stared at the ground, having stopped walking again.
Lavinia...?" Jessie muttered, his anger fading quickly when he recognized the distressed look on her face. Reasoning told him in an instant that something wasn't right. And he knew in that same instant, that then was not the time to shout at her.
"Two of my people were shot dead yesterday," Lavinia said. And for a moment, Jessie just stood still, shocked because that was among the last things he'd expected her to say.
"Shot?" he questioned, dumbly. Because what else could he do? And he went right back to his shocked stillness again, as Lavinia appeared to consider her words.
"By members of the Dashing Raptors," she said. And for a moment she was silent again, every sign of her distress clear on her face again as she looked straight ahead of her. "The third one of my people was with the now-dead men. And she came back to me to tell me all about what had happened to the others in her hunting party. The Raptors let her go. I'm not sure why. Maybe they took pity on a woman and choose to spare her life..."
"Lavinia, that makes no sense," Jessie replied. Not because he fully disbelieved her – he had no idea what to believe at that point. But because it truly made not a hint of sense at all. "The Raptors have always been passive. Most of them are more interested in resource stockpiling and the challenge of the rock drake trench than in ever shooting anyone!"
Did many of the aforementioned tribe even carry guns? He asked himself the question silently, as he watched Lavinia just shaking her head in her own disbelief for a moment.
"I've failed my own people in allowing this to happen at all," she muttered, looking up again – but clearly unable to hide her look of regret when she did so.
Jessie – though he would never have imagined it would ever be possible under any circumstances – found himself feeling oddly bad for his counterpart. She cared for her people too. He'd known that of course. Why else would so many have made their choice to stay among her too often brutal tribe? But he'd never bothered to give that much thought. And suddenly he felt foolish for it.
"Do I know the men that are now dead?" Jessie asked, mostly for the sake of respectful politeness to his counterpart. But he was surprised when she nodded, slowly and thoughtfully.
"The two that assaulted your new arrival," she said. "And that later beat up that man by the river, the pair you confronted for both. It seems they never learned a thing even after that."
"They attacked a member of the 'Raptors," Jesse reasoned easily, even as he sensed at once that that could hardly have been the whole story. The tribe in question seemed far less likely to shoot men dead for a commonplace assault, than his own tribe was, even if they clearly would have feared for their people's safety as much as any other sane person. Again, Lavinia nodded.
"The execution of my men has been somewhat of a wake-up call," she muttered, pausing again much closer to her base now, to stand still looking at the building that was presumably still filled with at least some of her people as they went about their daily tasks inside.
Outside, much closer to the fence, a man walked a small juvenile megalosaurus on its training harness. He looked up from his attention on the creature and the scrap of meat he was boldly hand-feeding it, to nod a considerate greeting in Lavinia's direction.
"Those beasts are nowhere near so menacing when they're small," Jessie commented, making simple small talk to lighten the serious mood of the conversation. And Lavinia just nodded again in reply, before she actually laughed a little in agreement, watching the man pat the creature light on the head for simply not taking his fingers with the meat he offered.
"I am far from above thinking the baby creatures of this world are cute," she said lightly, surprising Jessie again. Her face turned serious though and she added, "if you truly like our megalos though, perhaps I'd consider gifting you a breeding trio, in exchange for your alliance."
Jessie said nothing for a long moment. But his disbelieving surprise must have shown on his face so clearly. Because Lavinia gave an almost amused look before she began to walk again.
Ellie was entirely confused upon first waking. But only for a brief and fast fleeting second, before she easily recognized the interior of Stella's small cramped cabin. She lay still on the bunk for what felt like a decent while, just glancing around at the familiar sight of cluttered shelves that lined a wall closest to the wooden door that sat so precariously on its hinges, at the small window that was much closer to her, and finally at the edge of the creaky and well-aged wood of the set of dangerously narrow stairs leading up overhead.
The cooking pot in the corner of the cabin was steaming away – probably processing some manner or other of sedative, or energizing brew or healing tonic – as it usually seemed to be. And Ellie found herself momentarily quite transfixed just watching as a steadily shifting billow of steam poured up from the top of the pot. She sat up slowly on the bunk then but didn't go nearly so far as to even put her feet onto the floor, as she truly was in no hurry to get up in the first place. She smelled a somewhat pleasant smell in the air by then and glanced again toward the steaming cooking pot.
Stimberries. She recognized the smell now when she tried to, of the small white berries that had so little scent and a mildly bitter taste right from the bushes, but seemed to smell so oddly sweet when tossed into a pot of water and allowed to cook into a thin syrup. So, the contents of the pot would eventually be used to make energizing brews then. Stella had been teaching her small bits and pieces of her work here and there – though it was never fully clear why exactly Stella often glanced toward the floor with a look of sadness on her face when she taught her anything. And Ellie smiled for a second with self-pride to think that she had surely guessed something right.
She found her hide boots on the floor, sitting neatly against the wall closest to the bunk, but she certainly didn't move to pick them up or put them on. And instead she took a good moment to consider the rest of her clothing. She still wore her pants – though she noticed only then for the first time, just how much her daily kneeling on rough ground in daily tasks had worn away the knees on the thin fabric. But her shirt was missing entirely. She looked around the bunk for it, suddenly somewhat urgently, and wanting to cover the clean wrapping over her upper body. But it was nowhere in sight. And she shook her head for a second, puzzled.
The cabin door opened, creaking just like most doors in the base did. And Stella hurried inside, dirt staining the knees of her thin pants and a basket filled with black narcotic berries in her dirty hands. Ellie remembered the little greenhouse - a miniature version of the huge one that supplied the base with fresh grown crops – tucked away neatly behind Stella's little cabin. She watched the older woman for a moment while she tipped the basket into a woven sack, only to then put that into the wooden cabinet in the corner.
"Oh goodness, dear," Stella said, her eyes on Ellie as she rinsed her hands clean under the tap by the door, letting the water run into a drain underneath it in the floor. Stella stepped crossed the room then, moving quickly as she shook her hands dry in the air. "I'm terribly sorry. I thought you'd sleep a little longer, so I went to do some gardening. You weren't frightened I certainly hope, waking alone in the cabin?"
"Of course not," Ellie answered at once.
The cabin was a place of safety to her. She'd supposed – and certainly hoped - it felt the same way to most people. And surely she felt that way for far more reason than just that she was there so often, thanks to circumstance. The creak of the door had never bothered her – in fact, she thought for sure she'd miss it ever didn't creak anymore. The sounds of the bare floor beams, as they rattled with every motion was somehow almost calming. And the ever-changing scents of cooking brews and medicines only served to remind her that life – and the hope of other people's lives - existed there.
"I would love to see your greenhouse sometime," she added, smiling through her weakness as she fought to keep sitting up, determined.
"You certainly may," Stella answered, her tone and smile both so unmistakably approving. "Perhaps I can show it to you later on. It looks like you may be well enough for that. It's mostly all medicinal plants in there. Oh!... I could show you how to choose and pick the smaller leaves from the narcoberry plants. Those can be used to make a mild sedative concoction instead of a full on knock-out drug..."
Stella stopped speaking suddenly, her words dying out in the air. And while she still smiled, her pride and approval at Ellie's ever increasing passionate interest still more than obvious, that sad look showed too, while she stood looking down and sighing to herself. She turned around again, so suddenly, and walked several steps back to the water tap by the door. She filled a water jar – one of several that sat empty on a shelf and hurried back to push it into Ellie's hands insistently.
"Thank you," Ellie said, grateful as she realized then just how much she needed the cool water. She drank a good bit of it quickly before she just sat silently and holding the jar in her hands. She began to look, without any success, for her cloth shirt again. And her returning discomfort about the matter must have been obvious, because Stella gave a look of sudden understanding, and crossed the room quickly to reach for something on a lower shelf and return to her with a new clean shirt that was clearly not Ellie's.
"The one you came here in might be unsalvageable I fear," she muttered, while Ellie pulled the new garment on, relieved that it fit well enough. Ellie was saddened for a moment then, remembering that she'd been wearing one that Katie – in her well known love of working with colored dyes - had recolored for her in a bright shade of pink.
"I've got it soaking in a pail of water outside," Stella continued – her look strangely concerned and uneasy. "Still... I'm not sure there's much to be done about clothing that well covered in blood."
Blood? Ellie asked the question of herself, silently in a mix of fear and confusion. How could she possibly have had blood – and seemingly a good deal of it – on her own clothing. And it was only then – when she tried hard to do so – that she finally recalled exactly how. She remembered chatting with visitors early that morning, then turning around to walk away after they'd left again, to lose her footing in a sudden bout of dizziness, and fall hard onto the cold stone floor. She remembered how she'd gasped for breath for a good moment, struggling and winded, and the large room still spinning around her so terribly. She'd finally gotten up again, more embarrassed with herself than worried, thanks to her own stubbornness. But the alarming pool of red that she'd left behind on the gray stone flooring, made her think twice about even trying to stand up on her own.
"Oh no... Johnny..." Ellie muttered. And her first and pressing instinct was simply to feel bad for the boy, as she recalled that it was him that had found her on the floor in that bloody pool. He'd yelled at once for urgent help of course. And then helped her to her feet. But it was clear all the same, that he was as much horrified as he was baffled over the entire situation.
"I had little choice but to finally explain this entire... situation, to the boy," Stella said. "It was certainly noble of you to want to protect him, but maybe not in his best interest all things considered..."
Ellie nodded, understanding as she reached to grab her boots, and then carefully got to her feet after putting them on. Her head began to spin again, in protest of her standing up. But she stood still for just a moment, her hand on the edge of the bunk to balance herself until it slowly faded.
"I feel a bit better now," she said because it was certainly true despite the near blinding pain that made her force back gasps and tears at a single wrong movement in getting to her feet.
Stella however just looked regretful and so strangely uneasy where perhaps she should have been relieved at Ellie's words. And she looked down at the floor for a moment, before she turned away completely, to spend a good long moment just staring, so clearly distracted, at the cooking pot.
"Help us!" someone screamed outside. "Please... help!"
That so obliviously had Stella's attention at once. And any hint of her strange despair. And she ran to the door in just a couple of steps, before throwing it open in a single motion to look outside the cabin. Ellie, struggling through the brand new stabs of pain such fast motion caused, moved to the door beside her. And instantly both women were exchanging looks of alarm.
Outside the cabin at the bottom of the several steps that lead up to it, a pair of utter strangers – a pair of large men, supported the weight of their blood-soaked tribe-mate between them. And beside them a woman, so clearly horrified and waving a crossbow she may have forgotten she still held at all, around dangerously with a stone tipped arrow still ready to fire. It was her that must have been shouting. And she shouted again for help, as she looked at the now open door.
"They are from the Red Piranhas I think," Stella said, muttering fast explanations as Ellie just stood beside her, shocked and nodding mutely. "One of Lavinia's hunting parties. I... can't just leave a man to die."
Ellie backed up, standing still against the wall beside the door, shocked and helpless to do a thing but watch and listen, as Stella hurried down the steps to question the small party.
"Raptor!" the woman of the group spoke up again. She wasn't shouting now. But her voice was shaky and high-pitched with her panic. "Came out of the trees not far from here. It tried for our kill, but Marty fought back. It... it tried to bite his leg off!"
"Bring him in here," Stella demanded at once. She was already gesturing in the direction of the bunk partly under the staircase before she even got back in the door. "Then everyone, out!"
The pair of men complied at once, struggling a little on the stairs with their tribe-mate's weight held awkwardly between both of them. And the woman, seeming to realize then that she held it, lowered the crossbow in her hand, so as not to cause the accident that had been nearly begging to happen. She stood for a moment just inside the cabin's doorway, muttering wordlessly as the others dropped the bloodied fellow onto the bunk. Ellie, thinking quickly, grabbed her gently by an elbow and lead her back outside, where she left her standing – still shocked and shaken – partway down the steps.
"This... should not have happened.." the woman muttered slowly. She looked down at her thin hide shirt – splattered badly with the blood of her injured tribe-mate – and then shook her head in her shock. "He should have known not to be so damn stupid..."
Ellie just nodded at the stranger – someone not unlike any other of her nameless fellow human beings just doing their best to make it in the world they'd been thrown into – only hopping her uncertain nod would look like one of understanding. And quickly, she turned around to hurry back into the cabin.
"I can help you," she said to Stella, when she found her shoeing the pair of men hurriedly out the cabin door, and knew at once that she too was about to be chased back outside too. "Surely I can be of some use." The older woman looked doubtful for a second – seemingly as long as she could spare to stand looking any way at all. Finally, she nodded, her face showing something that resembled thanks.
"Fill a water bowl," Stella instructed quickly, once Ellie had shut the door behind the pair of clearly distressed men. "And grab as many clean rags as you can find on the bottom shelf, closest to the tap."
Ellie's hands shook – with both her own unease and the pain that was catching up to her quickly again in her fast and frantic movements – as she filled the bowl as quickly as she could. But she did so all the same, then grabbed a decent handful of the needed rags, and crossed the room, ignoring her body's cries of protest at the speed of her steps.
"I've got the..." she began to say, stupidly and helpless. But she stopped speaking again, her statement of the obvious unfinished when she saw Stella just standing still with her head shaking slowly, a look of her own utter despair on her face. She grabbed for one of the rags in Ellie's hands, pressed it hard against the side of the man's leg, and sighed in something close to defeat when it was soaked through with blood in a matter of a second.
"The femoral artery is torn apart," she explained quickly, while she worked to wrap another of the rags around the bloodied upper leg and tie it tightly. Even then, and with a couple of rags folded underneath it, blood had soaked that one too in seconds. Stella just shook her head again, as she muttered, despairing, "I can't hope to fix this. Not in this place... in near primitive conditions. He'll be dead from blood loss in minutes..."
"You can't just give up," Ellie answered. Her voice raised out of nowhere. And though she knew far better than to shout – particularly at Stella, who had never done and single hurtful thing to anyone – she couldn't seem to help herself. And her eyes glared at those of her tribe-mate, in panic and anger, doubt and defeat.
"Damn raptor... is still out there..." a weak and trembling, mumbling voice made Ellie look at once, at the face of the injured and dying man on the bunk. And to her horror, she saw him looking back with his eyes wide open as he looked around the room slowly. Ellie tried to work out if he'd been awake all along. And she was entirely unsure.
"Someone will find it and kill it," she said to the man. Because he was clearly distressed about the creature's existence, and it seemed like the very least she could do.
She looked the man over then, finding maybe half a dozen other visible injuries aside from his partly severed leg. One of them – a deep and horrible gash across his arm, under which she noted with a terrible start she could see clear to the bone – appeared nearly as serious and devastating. She supposed then, in the next second, that it hardly mattered then all things considered.
"Please..." the men said. And his voice was serious and pleading, as his eyes locked on Ellie's. "Don't start to lie any second... and say it's all good..."
"It isn't," Ellie answered, only for it to occur to her in under a second that perhaps she'd said the wrong thing completely. Perhaps she should have done exactly what the man had begged her not to do and lied to him regardless. But he looked at her, blinking slowly, his face calm and showing only acceptance. And she understood then that she had been right after all.
"I... couldn't lie to you," Ellie muttered, mostly just affirming her own thoughts out loud – though her words were directed at him anyway.
"I'm Ellie," she added, seconds later, and giving her name only because it was something to say when she couldn't think of anything more useful than that. She watched the man nod silently at her, while Stella carefully offered him first a few sips of water, then a dose of narcotics. She watched, relieved, as the man compliantly drank both.
"You... surely deserved better than this place, Ellie," the man muttered at her. And Ellie was confused for a moment by his words until she realized with a start that he simply wanted to have a conversation with her – perhaps for little reason at all.
"I.." she muttered back, uncertain at first. But she gained her confidence quickly and continued on because he was looking up at her, curious and expectant. "I'm happy here."
Her answer was simple. But the man smiled his relief at the answer anyway before his eyes closed slowly, only to open again as he looked around the cabin, suddenly frantic and panicked.
"Janie!" he said, all but screaming as he looked around again, so clearly trying to see someone he couldn't see.
Close by, Stella, holding a water jar and about to give him another drink from it, gave a puzzled and dread-filled look. And Ellie let herself share the same dread, with a sinking feeling, until she remembered the woman outside. She wondered – with her heart pounding in her cheat in crushing discomfort - if that shocked and frightened woman loved this man. And she shot a glance toward the closed door across the cabin, relieved when Stella understood at once and ran across her little home in a near run to yank open the door and hurry outside.
"I think we understand..." Ellie said to the man on the bunk, forcing calm into her voice where she was sure she was instead shaking with her own shock and panic and terror at the all too likely chance of having been wrong in what had only been a logical guess.
"She... is..." the dying man mumbled, barely audible as he struggled just to explain something that somehow sounded so important. He was slipping away so quickly. Ellie knew that without needing to be told. And all she could do was to stand still beside him and listen. "Reason... love..."
Stella ran back into the cabin, with the unnamed woman right behind her. And Ellie knew in a second that they had been right after all. She stepped back at once, to stand beside Stella at least halfway across the cluttered cabin, watching with sadness as the woman talked to the dying man in hushed tones while she kneeled on the wooden floor beside the bunk. She watched, helpless, as the injured man appeared to say something back only a second before he was so clearly just... dead.
The young woman – Janie – stood up again, slowly and shaking, her face baring tears that she wiped away furiously with a sleeve of her hide shirt before she crossed the cabin.
"I should... notify Lavinia," she mumbled. Ellie saw the tears in the woman's eyes again. But none fell, and instead, Janie's voice only turned to something that sounded almost angry as she spoke again – clearly so desperate for any way at all to hide her crushing devastation. "She'll want to know she's out a hunting party leader..."
Stella tried to gently grab the woman's arm as she shoved her way past, clearly intent and getting out the cabin door. And Ellie – well aware of the visiting tribe's unpredictable and all too violent reputation – genuinely feared for a moment for her tribe-mates safety, when Janie's eyes glared with sudden fury. But Stella let her go at once, though so clearly reluctantly. And Ellie instead watched as the visiting tribe member fled down the steep steps and across the rocking ground toward her own tribe-mates, while sharing hard and seemingly dazed.
"Are you alright, dear?" Stella questioned, slowly and so obviously concerned. And Ellie understood, only after a good long moment and dazed and shaken herself, that she was speaking to her in the first place. She slowly nodded. Because she could think of little else to do.
Stella sighed as she sipped slowly from the cup of hot tea she held in her hands. And she watched Ellie – so obviously engaged in her work with the still so new arrival, nearby.
"Go on," Ellie said, her voice coaxing but calm and cheerful, while she pushed a water jar gently into the man's hands. "Drink up."
The man – though he was dressed in the simple cloth clothing common to much of the tribe, and with a pair of hide boots on his feet - was unquestioningly so unlike any anyone else to ever have survived in that place. He was so oddly quiet. And when he wasn't sitting motionless and staring at nothing directly in front of him, he was moving around far too much – walking in slowly endless circles, arms waving frantically at nothing clearly obvious, and rambling on about some utter nonsense in random strings of words. And Stella sighed again, grateful – in some way tinged with cynicism - that he could at least walk and talk, even if neither seemed to do him much good now.
"Frank," Ellie said, her tone firmly demanding his attention, even as she smiled. She held the jar steady in his hands, even as he waved them around, seemingly determined to wave in the direction of some wandering dodo, instead of drinking from the jar "You want to drink that water, not spill it everywhere!"
Ellie gave a sad sigh then and looked at the man intently. And Stella, taking another sip from her cup of tea and watching them sadly, knew at once what Ellie was so sad about. It was surely the very same thing that had made her so sad so often in the past days since the man had arrived.
"Of course you won't respond to 'Frank,'" Ellie muttered to the man, who now sat still in his chair just staring at her blankly. Stella knew she was right – she'd been right from the first time she'd stated her concern over that same thing. Frank wasn't his name. But they'd had to call him something – everyone needed to be addressed somehow. And to Stella and Jessie, in their growing desperation to have something to call the poor fellow, 'Frank' had seemed as good a name as any.
"We'll figure your name out eventually," Ellie said, speaking to the new arrival again while he finally complied in drinking from the water jar, and almost entirely on his own. She grinned at him then – just as she might have done at anyone else, even if he himself had never yet smiled back, and despite looking little better than she had that morning. And suddenly she was confidently engaged once again in the somewhat silly game she'd been playing with him now and then for the past three days – tossing out any random name she could think of, and so obviously hoping for some hint of recognition.
"Joseph?" she tried, pausing for a few seconds, to watch as Frank just stared at her blankly with the water jar still held in his hands. "Marvin? Travis? Franz? Jordan?" Ellie looked disheartened then, watching Frank as he just sat staring out over the lake below that he'd fallen into on the day he'd first arrived.
"If she were to ever guess right, would he even know the difference?" The question, asked by someone standing behind her, made Stella turn around in the chair she was seated in, to see Jessie – a curious and almost hopeful look on his face – standing and watching the familiar interaction.
"I don't exactly know," Stella muttered. But she smiled a little anyway, and added hopefully, " Ellie certainly thinks and hopes so."
"She's good with that fellow," Jessie remarked, watching as Ellie took the jar back from the man, setting in on the wooden table before she looked back at him again grinning.
"She certainly is," Stella said back, gracing the girl with a proud look in her direction – though Ellie, with her attention on the man, likely didn't see it at all. "She jumped right into caring for him. I certainly didn't ask her to. In fact, I've told her more than once she certainly doesn't have to. It's an insanely thankless and demanding job... Particularly so in a place like this..."
"One of Katie's ravagers had her babies yesterday," Ellie said to Frank, talking just as though he was anyone else in that place, and barely appearing to care that she got no reaction back. And Stella turned back to them again to listen
"Triplets! They're pretty adorable, for ravagers! Three little gray balls of shaggy fur, with feet that are way too big for them! We can take a walk to the animal pen soon if you want to see them."
"Ravager... babies...?" Frank muttered, snapping into the sort of sudden alertness that happened so rarely, for a moment here and there. His eyes were open wide now, staring at the girl intently. And the fingers of one of his hands tapped slowly on the top of the table, as he put so much of his focus and effort into just speaking sensibly. "I.. want to... see..."
Stella wondered to herself for just a moment, how she actually felt about letting the girl walk much of anywhere – even if it was just down the back staircase to the animal pen. She never had told Ellie, and certainly didn't plan to tell her, just how bad her condition really had been that morning when Johnny had found her. Ellie had nearly been just another one Stella couldn't save – her hands growing cold and her breaths slow and struggling as she fought with her own body over whether or not she should give up.
But then, she'd shown so much sudden strength later in the cabin, even if she still appeared just as horribly unwell as ever. And she'd gotten outside and to the table in the first place – even if she had done so without ever asking for approval. Stella knew at once, and with a resigned sigh, that she certainly couldn't, or at least shouldn't, stop her from walking anywhere if she insisted on trying. So she turned her attention back to Jessie instead, forcing away her endless worry for the girl, as she studied him and his own so clearly troubled expression instead.
"How did your meeting...?" she started to ask, curious. But she stopped speaking again, when her eyes suddenly caught sight of Lavinia – the very last person she would ever have expected to see at her own tribe's dwelling – standing quiet at the bottom of the stairs behind them. A very large man with a still and serious expression stood beside her, his hide coat fastened around his body and a pike in his hands as its tip rested on the ground.
"Lavinia decided to come back here with me after she received word of her dead man over the radio today," Jessie said in explanation. He looked so oddly causal about it. And in the next second he leaned in just a little closer, to add in a low and serious voice, "she's well aware of what it means to be on our territory, and she's promised me civility."
Stella got up from the table with a quick nod – the only thing she could think of to do when caught entirely off guard and startled. And quickly she turned around and hurried forward, closing most of the distance between herself and the leader of the opposing tribe in several hurried steps. With as calm and collected of a look as she could manage while still startled and doubtful, she extended a hand to the woman.
"I'm sorry for the loss of your tribesman," she said seriously. "I give you my word, I did everything I could have done..."
Stella wasn't sure what exactly to expect from the usually loud and obnoxious, and so often furious woman. The two of them had meet face to face only a handful of times in the many years they'd both been in that strange world, but it had never exactly ended in anything close to friendship or even understanding. Lavinia though nodded slowly. And she just stood for a long moment, gazing around her in a state of clear despair, before she gestured with her eyes toward the same woman Stella had met earlier – now sitting on the ground dangerously close to the lack below, appearing dazed as she watched the waterfall.
"Marty and Janie were about to be married," Lavinia explained, showing her almost unexpected ability to speak quietly. I shouldn't even have sent either one of them out with the hunting party, because they had a party to plan. But they wanted to go. They insisted because they always both loved the excitement..." Lavinia looked back at Stella again, then around her again before she looked back down toward her tribes-woman. Slowly and thoughtfully, she muttered, "hard to believe it now, but the first time they met face to face we all thought for sure she'd beat him to death in the dining room because he dared to call her irritating. Give 'em a week and they were inseparable..."
"Love is dangerous in this place," Stella muttered back thoughtfully and seriously.
She looked back at Ellie – still busy with Frank, and coaxing him to get to his feet without her firmly pulling him up to standing while he silently complied. She thought at once of Brendan – who had almost managed by then to fade from her thoughts - and the love he'd never gotten to proclaim to Ellie. She wondered if Ellie would have returned it, had fate given her the chance. And decided at once that it hardly mattered then. She looked then at Jessie – still standing behind the now empty chair, clearly patient while he let the women converse. She thought of her own great love and admiration from him, and certainty of his for her. And suddenly she was just shaking her head to force away the dread that had crept up on her, wrapping her up in a sudden horrible feeling of crushing anxiety.