Concern Poker

Julia's team beat her to Ouroboros by a week and a half, unaware that she had been slowed down by a very pregnant companion. They had marched double time the whole way, without stopping, for two whole days. Once they arrived they had to just wait around for their captain to return, nervously telling the Goddess that Julia had dismissed them all and told them to meet her back at Ouroboros. They were following orders.

After a week went by of following orders Avata was at her wit's end with worry, but the team tracker, Bella, wisely advised her that Julia could hold her own, and she would be embarrassed if they went out to find her.

"If you rode out into the wastes to 'rescue' me because I was gone for a week, Avi, I'd kill you," Bella said, then added, "And Jules is much prouder than I am."

So Julia's girls all sat on their hands and sweat bullets; after Avata's embarrassing outburst none of them were willing to admit their concern for the captain, fearing a display of doubt in their leader would make them all look weak or undermine the captain's authority. It was a game Julia's girls all played amongst themselves, a sort of poker where all their faces betrayed nothing but confidence and their cards all held nothing but doubt. Julia didn't know it but in this game of one-uping poker she'd gone all-in.

Avata had already lost. The game had precipitated with her loss of the game. Without a loser there could be no winners. Gillian, Marceline, Tiegan, and Bella all put on their faces for four days, made it very clear they had absolute faith in their captain's ability to survive in the wasteland with little to no supplies, that whatever was delaying her return was not difficulty but distraction, idle games she was playing. Julia's arrival assured her the pot, she was the only winner of this game she didn't know she was playing, everyone else was just playing not to lose.

So they went about their days idly. Tiegan worked non-stop in the machine shop, re-coding the Daughter's robots to be more efficient. The Goddess had expressly established the Daughter's robot division specifically to counter Caesar's technophobia. Julia's Maenads had been dispatched to the Burning Springs with orders to pillage and plunder, returning with a generous bounty of robots without any programming practical to the Daughter's needs. A coalition of mining robots equipped with thick armor and rock-cutting lasers and with absolutely no concept of a reality outside of the Springs. Tiegan was busy.

The other girls were not so lucky. Gillian continued to work as a medic, acting as a nurse to the Daughters, but she just ended up supporting the phalanx of medical robots the Goddess already deployed. She did not appreciate playing second-fiddle to a Mr. Orderly.

Bella and Marceline busied themselves with patrol duty, but because of strict orders to not raise any suspicion they couldn't kill anything, and were forced to simply sit and watch the Legion make camp not six hundred yards from Ouroboros (give or take a few rock formations). Bella grew so bored she lured a bunch of giant desert frogs to the Legion camp but they mostly just killed slaves. In any case it was enough to get the Legion to leave, but she was chastised for inspiring curiosity.

Avata, having already lost the little bluffing game the other girls were engaged in was free to express herself fully, able to voice her concern and wait for Julia at the gate. For four days she sat and worried, worried and sat and occasionally drank a bit. She had no busywork to distract her but she was the only one who didn't feel the need to be distracted. The other girls would visit her periodically and tease her, secretly jealous that they too could not sit with her and wait for their captain.

Bella saw her first, rather than Avata, but that had always been her and Marcie's secret plan. They patrolled every day but patrolled most heavily where Julia would make her approach. So it came that Bella was the first to see the captain come back, the first to meet the captain's new guest.

"Did you miss me?" Julia asked her as she shifted Atia over to Marcie's shoulders.

"Not at all captain," Bella smiled.