Chapter 20: Forget Me Never

Blurry vision was all that Raven could see as she started waking from her slumber. She grunted in agony from the pain she felt in her stomach and shoulder, but she forced herself to sit up. As she did, Raven noticed she was in a dark cave with the only exception of light being from a fire. By the fire was the silhouette of a bandaged man. Before Raven could utter a word, the man began to speak.

"We should have given you a better welcome on your first visit to Zion, but from I hear, the White Legs beat us to it."

Raven shook her head in confusion. "Zion? White Legs? What? Where am I?" she thought.

"I don't know if you were close to the other members of your group," continued the man, "but you have my sympathy. I pray for the safety of all the good people who come to Zion, even Gentiles, but we can't expect God to do all the work."

Raven took a moment before nodding to him and ran a hand to her forehead. She had the worst headache in the world right now. The throbbing was incredibly painful. "I came here with the Happy Trails Caravan Company to make contact with the New Canaanites."

"Happy Trails. I remember." replied the man. "They were good friends. I have bad news for your employers. New Canaan was destroyed, its citizens scattered. All because of the White Legs. And Caesar, of course. The White Legs want to join the Legion. Caesar's right of passage is the destruction of the New Canaanites, almost assuredly because of me. The good news is that we can help you find your way back. Daniel, one of the other New Canaanites, has made many maps of the region."

Raven sighed. "And there is bad news, I take it?"

The bandaged man seemed to make a chuckling noise. "Isn't there always? The bad news is that we can't help you right now. Not with everything that's going on."

"Ok? What exactly is going on?" she asked. The man began telling her of the war, of Zion, of the other tribes, and of many other things. Raven listened to every word he spoke, making memory of each sentence said from the man's mouth. The more she heard, the more she felt pity for the man. And when the man was done, she only had one thing to say. "I'm not going to leave without offering to help. What can I do?"

It had been nearly 3 weeks since Raven had arrived in Zion, and she had done so many errands for these people in that amount of time. In truth, she hated being here away from Freeside. Out of all the places she had been, Freeside felt like the most home. Maybe it was because of the atmosphere, or maybe it was because of a certain dark haired man with a robotic dog. Each night she spent in Zion, her dreams consisted of that certain man with the cool, gray eyes and the slicked back hair. Raven hated it. She was well aware that she now had a crush on the man, and she absolutely hated having that revelation. So the courier chose to ignore it. Bury it down deep inside her heart. She didn't need any distractions from her true goal.

As she kept wandering through Zion, she noticed a building off one of the cliffs. Strange, since it had been marked as taboo but it hadn't appeared on any of the maps that Daniel or anyone had given her. So, of course, she decided to go scope it out. She approached the rotted door and pushed it open, watching it crumble as it hit the floor. It was an old souvenir shop, from the looks of it. No, more like a...she wasn't sure what it was. But the stuff inside was unmistakable.

"Oh, you have got to be fuckin' kidding me." said Raven.