Kay so forgive me if some of these characters seem a bit out of character. I haven't seen Zoids since 7th grade. I'm now a senior in high school. Things happen.
Copyright stuff- Zoids belongs to someone else, not me, blahblahblah.
--------------------------O----O
What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt.
NIN- Hurt
Dead silence. Impending storm, Whatever you liked to call it. And whatever it was, it was there. It hovered in the hot, still air like some intense gaze from some heaven-ward bound god. And damn it, the heat was getting to her head again.
She leaned against the bars, her shirt sticking to her back and neck, unwilling to let her go like some jilted lover. She stank. Well... she thought she did. But that little seed of nausea felt it's way through the pit of her stomach every time she thought about asking one of the guards for a bath. Sexual innuendo aside, she wouldn't get back to the cell in one piece.
That's what happened in times of war. Trust was some highly classed, highly untradable object. Out here in the sands of some nondescript town, it was a rare commodity. The guard down the hall snarled noisily and spit, the third time since the sun rose. Already it felt as if an oven had been opened up on the unforunate world, and the sun wasn't even at it's peak yet. Still climbing, still teetering at the edge of the world. And where was she? Here, in this forgotten jail-cell, in this forgotten town, in a world that had fallen off the fortunate lists of the gods long ago.
Peace. It was a joke. She knew, she worked out in the field with the men and women who had lost their families, homes, and lives in order to fight for that delicate flower. And no matter how it has been cultivated, it still had been trampled underfoot. Now that she thought of it... it was a bloody flower, peace. It thrived off of blood until it matured, and then only flowered once or twice a decade. Suych a pity that it bloomed and then closed so fast.
Squinting eyes turned towards the bar cells, one pressing against her cheek and filled her senses with a metallic tinge. Her partner sat across the dirt hall, in a cell of his own, headband wrapped around one clenched fist. The eyepatch had been removed long ago, the guards eager to see if they could sell the trinket for some price. After all, they needed their smokes and booze.
He turned his intense violet gaze towards her, both eyes finally staring back at her, spiky hair matted down across his forehead and neck. The eyes were as sharp as steel, but the facial expression suggested he was half-asleep. Jack of all trades, master of none. Even with his emotions, it seemed. A small smile flickered like some dying bulb, and he nodded. It was a fraction of an inch, a small human gesture that seemed to cost him a thousand hardships. He then turned his back to her again, and the contact ceased.
They had both gotten into this mess, him for trying to be the hero, and her for trying to save his heroic ass. In the end, they were both captured like scientific experiments, unsure of the outcome but knowing that it was not going to be good. Chances were that their zoids had already been sold for scrap, or were going to be given (for some lucrative price,) to one side of the war or another.
She didn't even care anymore. She didn't even want to adopt one side or the other. she just wanted out of this stupid circle of lies, bloodshed, and anger. It was a whole new regime, and already it was going bad. She couldn't help but think back to Rudolph, the child casting a shadow over her as if he was standing on the other side of the bars, offering a helpful hand and smiling like he always did.
And she was glad she wasn't in his position. For all the bruises she suffered, she would take a thousand more to save herself from the doomed guillotine that was the body politic. He was young, too young to understand the motives that powered humankind. Greed, power, and wealth. He had preached the virtues of kindness, of grace. And yet he had never seemed to catch on with the rest of the world. Funny thing. That no-one would offer a hand to the emperor who had fought his way back to them in order to save them, who struggled with all manner of obstacles in order to bring peace.
But saving one's ass was key in war. If it didn't benefit you, it wasn't worth trying. Even she had let this philosophy wiggle it's way into her, in her weakest states, those of severe pain and loss. There were very few saints these days, they had been hunted to extinction, or very close to it. He seemed to be the last of his species, leading a struggling, bawling world and populace through a mine-field, with an equally blind stare. He couldn't see his own faltering steps, and luck had already jumped aside to watch the rag-tag group that was humanity pass.
And she.. what could she do? She was a grunt, a scum of the world, born and bred to do one thing, and out of her element if it wasn't included in her daily routine. The man across from her, in his own humiliating cage, surely thought the same, followed the same lines with his mind. He was a fighter, not exactly the purest of people, but compared to the new breed of filth that had taken power over the course of the war, he might as well don the robes of a priest and meditate wisdom on some marble stoop. Like he ever would. Robes would be "too girly" for him.
She would have laughed at seeing her muscular companion in that state of utter meditative bliss. The desert had, unfortunately, sapped her of her smile. It was currently blowing around in the hot air, along with her tears and prayers. She hoped that someone might catch them, and bring them back to her someday, when this war was over, and human-kind could see each other eye to eye.