"Often when we guess at others' motives, we reveal only our own." -Mara Sov
--
Neither Ysolde nor Valthyx recalled how much time they'd spent together the day of that first contact, sitting warily on opposite ends of a crackling blaze. What began as a bizarre encounter had now transformed into a weekly ritual. When the sun set behind Europa's craggy geysers, Valthyx would gather debris for the fire and Ysolde would scout the surrounding area to assure their privacy before, at last, they could sit and talk.
Generally, their discussions were amiable. Although they were cautious of revealing anything dangerous, neither fought to gain more information than they shared, neither approached with the primary intention to deceive, and hell, even Ceres had warmed up to the Eliksni enough to appear and zip around whenever she would tease him - a habit to which Valthyx was clearly having a hard time adjusting.
Discretely, Valthyx peered in the little human's direction as she hurry through their makeshift meeting place. Ysolde must have finished her tasks quickly tonight, and Valthyx swore there was something different in her demeaner today - something less reserved. Something he liked. It was as if she struggled to tether her excitement. Valthyx grinned.
In Ysolde's arms, she clutched a loose collection of parchment bound by leather straps, fingers tapping eagerly. Eventually came the clang of plate on frozen rock as Valthyx descended with a contented exhale - their fire newly born.
"Remember how I told you I would find you a book from before?", she began, "Well... this isn't that", she averted her gaze to her possession in what appeared to be disappointment. When she raised her head once more, her eyes were back to beaming, "but this is close." She released her charge, placing the bundle between them, and set to untying the various straps. The once constrained sheets adjusted in response to their newly begotten freedom. As Ysolde spread the pages out on the floor, illustrations of strange creatures emerged. Reaching a timid hand forward, Valthyx touched one such page. This one conveyed a proud, four-legged creature, covered in wool like the bugs of Europa, two long points spiraling from the peak of its skull. Below it was another animal, also four legged, but more squat, with spikes covering its back like the ones The Spider's associates donned. He felt Ysolde's grinning gaze on him as he continued gingerly moving the papers. With his hand being roughly the size of each page, he was cautious to not damage them.
He paused at an anatomical illustration of two human beings and his face contorted with confusion. "Your kinddd - is not originally Earth. Yesss?"
"What-" Ysolde answered, suspecting she had misunderstood, "what gave you that idea?"
"All these animal are four leg. You are two leg. All these animal have fur. Have scale. Have horn. Have wing. You have not thisss. Yet, you evolved on same planet? You have so little alike with these animal. Yet you are related to themmm?"
After a somber pause, Ysolde searched through the pages and removed one displaying what Valthyx could only describe as a squat, muscular, and certainly hairier human. She pulled free another page with another human analogue, smaller in stature but with a tail extending behind it. He could not easily tell from these depictions if these animals used two or four contacts with the ground but he certainly could see the similarities. "These use to fill the jungles - both in and below the trees", Ysolde's finger outlined one especially colorful human-like creature, with a very... 'accented' red and blue behind. "They're believed to be gone now. But they were known to use both two and four legs depending on the need. There was such a variety - I wonder what you would think had you seen the worldbefore." A grin came to her during this reminiscence before she was snapped out of it, "oh, by the way. I wanted to know how you learned the human tongue. Wasn't it difficult? I've heard of Fallen capable of communicating with us, but I had never personally known of one."
"No, no. Thisss was not difficult. I have learned many harder. When we were following The Great Machine, we once stopped planet with creature who livvve beneath the ground. But, these creature could tell how is weather - have assstrange sssense to know if stormssss, if cold, if ssscorching, even if they could not see or feeeel this thing," the sense of astonishment was still fresh in Valthyx's voice, "See, this place had very dangerous weather. Never livable above for long. Every word these creature usssed changed depending on weather. If planet sssurface was burning, the word for 'I' was ohikltbut if sssurface is flooded with sssulfuric acid, word is now yraf. THISSSwas tough language for learn. After that, human speak easy." Ysolde's eyes betrayed her amazement and awe as Valthyx chuckled.
Without warning, the their banter was interrupted by a clang sounding in the chamber adjacent. Ysolde naturally turned her head to meet it. When she did this howevet, she caught swift movement in the corner of her vision as Valthyx lunged toward her. His armored shoulder slammed into her chest, sending them both backward. As she reached out to gain purchase, his palm appeared to cover the entirety of her face.
This. Absolute. Fuck.Why?! Was he waiting for backup? Does he know who's coming?
Betrayl stung but she did not have the luxury of soaking in self pity. In the midst of the struggle, her searching fingers met and wrapped around a branch meant to feed the fire. Gathering light beneath her skin, she mustered her will and swung it into Valthyx's head, Ceres taking this opportunity to flee into the shadows. With a thump, the blow tore away a chunk of flesh, out of which ether slowly began to seep. This gave Valthyx a moment of pause and he pulled his grip from her face. Seizing the moment, Ysolde made distance and faced her once friendly acquaintance. The noise from outside sounded louder and she caught the slightest hint of Eliksni language.
Recovering from the daze, Valthyx met her eyes from their distance, his face was... pleading? He raised the hand that once covered her face to his mouth in a hushing motion. 'Pleasse. Hide,'he mouthed silently, hoping his intentions reached her. He then initiated a nervous inhale and turned his back to her, facing the direction of the approaching sound.
Ysolde didn't even have the time to spare to feel stupid. She surveyed the room anew and sprinted behind a nearby grouping of steel barrels and canisters. Though she could surely kill this intruder, along with Valthyx if her hand was forced, she did not wish to ruin this arrangement or to endanger Valthyx without reason. This being especially true after all the effort he had gone through to warn her - even if his attempt was an, er, especially clumsy and misconstrued one. She felt a tinge of guilt at the situation since it was her task to scout and secure the area but, admittedly, she had rushed the job in her excitement to show Valthyx the pages she had brought.
She could not be certain how other Fallen would take to one of their kind being friendly with the enemy, but she imagined it would not be so warm a response. She stifled her cringe as she caught another glimpse of the head wound she had inflicted.Ether was still leaking, albeit slower, from his skull. She would definitelyneed to apologize for that later - but the way he had looked at her, so desperate to be understood, frightened even - kept returning to the forefront of her mind. Squeezing her eyes shut momentarily, she made a wish to no one in particular that they would have many more weeks discussing alien worlds and extinct creatures ahead.
--
"There is nothing more ruthless than compassion" - "Karuna, Falling"
--
Valthyx focused on maintaining a firm stance but behind the mask of confidence, unfettered thoughts raced in his mind. Perhaps the actively leaking head wound had something to do with that, who could say. He could almost laugh if he weren't so nervous. The voice that came was unmistakable. Radax. If they were found, let it at least be by him.
Regardless of his good fortune, intrusive thoughts flooded over him as he called back to his friend. If the situation went south - what would he do? Could he turn on his friend? Surely not. Though, could he turn on the human?
You're a coward Valthyx, he thought, gritting his teeth before forcing a welcoming expression.
They spoke in their mother tongue. "Radax, my friend! You are all the way out here? I thought you hated the blanket of darkness that is Europa at night." Radax stood nearly equivalent in height to Valthyx, though carrying, perhaps also supported by, an arc spear. The slight curvature of his back betrayed the truth of his age that was otherwise well concealed by a physique maintained by battle. Stepping into the room, he nodded amicably to Valthyx, though he appeared a bit distracted.
"Valthyx - so this is your sanctuary away from the bureaucracy," his voice rumbled deep with a raspy overtone, "why not invite me! I would never give you away". Radax winked and stepped toward the center of the room, where the fire, though still alight, began to dwindle without proper care and attention.
Steeling an unsteady resolve, Valthyx's stare followed the fellow Eliksni, giving rare glances to the grouping of metal barrels littering the corner of the room. "Radax you bold bastard. You forget what happened to my little oasis on the EDZ?"
"Bah!", the older Eliksni grumbled, waving dismissively, "You still blame me for that? No, but of course you won't remember the kindness I did for you on Venus, if you had any sense left in that oversized head of yours -"
Radax paused.
Lifting his chin, the air around him stirred as he pulled three, quick, successive sniffs.
Silence.
In that silence, Radax's head, still raised, tilted over to look to Valthyx.
"It smells in here..." he began, taking in one last, long, sniff.
"What-", Valthyx voice was quieter, smaller than usual, "what do you smell, Radax?"
Radax lowered his gaze to the illustrations scattered across the floor, "Valthyx, my friend, you see, that is what is most peculiar," using his arc staff as a support, Radax bent down to examine the hairy human-like creature, before his eyes shot up to meet those of Valthyx, "why does it smell like human, dear friend?"