They were just out of reach of the reaching, snarling flames, but Jim could feel them ghosting over his back, teasing parodies of those horrendous wounds not very long-healed. Jamie, he thought, but it was less of a thought and more of bone-deep ache that came ringing through his ears and pounding out his heart into his blood.
He was on his feet and he was floating, buoyant on fear and adrenaline, kill destroy stay alive tapping a steady pitter-patter with his heartbeat and matching the footsteps running behind him, children too young and too not hungry to see their home burn.
For a moment Jim was confused, because where the village should have been was a billow of choking black smoke. But it was already thinning, forming a thin coating over every structure and allowing the fire to glow through in frighteningly stark relief. There were screams and heaving breaths and the breathing was coming from him, great hyperventilations that ripped from his throat because he couldn't calm down and his eyes were crusted over with tears and smoke and fear.
He didn't pause and neither did the children, brave stupid children so young, and they were in the fray of panic and crumbling stone. Out of the corner of his eye, Jim saw a man pinned beneath a wall, a woman weeping over his lifeless body, silvery blood gleaming in the firelight as it pooled around his form. Jim ignored the scene, seeing nothing but the pictures in his mind's eye of a sweet baby girl with sharp little teeth and huge golden eyes.
In the center of the town he spun, surveying a landscape that was completely unrecognizable, nothing like the place he had come to love and loathe. Disoriented by the smoke and noxious, burning fumes, he forgot for a moment where he was- the dirt under his feet wasn't gray stained with black but was rich brown and there was food here once- and then he recognized the charred remains of the building to his right, and the rhythm shivering in his heart slowed.
Chenla's home had been nothing spectacular, nothing grand or eye-catching. It was a plain old stone building with spires and pillars that were engraved with faded images of stars and humans, not so much different from the buildings on either side. But Jim had spent many hours there, with Chenla, with Jamie, because the Frooliin woman had taken it upon herself to feed the baby. Jim wasn't sure if he'd ever be able to thank her properly.
Now that beautiful old house was a heap of rubble and it was crumbling, burning, an ocean crashing on a shore but without the beauty of the disaster. He'd heard so often about the powerful elegance of a wildfire, but he'd seen people burn and he knew there was no beauty in it. There was no glory in watching a home fall.
He pushed past a stone, smearing black over his hands and scraping abrasions on his palms, heat radiating all around him and smoke in the air and he heard wet, gurgling breaths, and saw silver on the ground, and his face felt cold.
Chenla's hand, even darker green now that the opalescent blood flowing through her veins was spilling out onto the ground, brushed against his ankle. He knelt, and for a moment he couldn't hear her, because there was a dull roaring in his ears and there was blood bubbling on her lips and a wall had her pinned, leaving only her head, shoulders, and one arm free. Her other arm appeared torn at the shoulder, managing to just barely hold the wall up several inches off her torso, muscle and bone exposed.
Her lips twitched, that dark hand rising enough to clutch his own. He held it tightly, kneeling beside her, fire leaping around them, and he was too cold to care. "Jim," she whispered, blackness rippling over her skin, those tiny chromatophores dying and leeching away her color. There was a fierceness in the gold of her eyes, a screaming exhaustion that made the flames look dim. "Lift the wall a bit, just a bit…"
He did as he was told, his fingers scrabbling on the rough stone, and saw that in the several inches Chenla had saved over her chest were two little shapes, protected only by the wavering, insurmountable strength of that one mangled arm. She shifted, pushing the dust-covered infants out into the open, ignoring the scream of terrified young lungs and wide, desperate eyes.
"Try to roll out, Chenla," Jim gasped, his muscles straining. "I can't lift it more, you have to get out."
"Jim," she whispered. "Put it down." She sounded exhausted and weak and satisfied, like her organs and legs weren't crushed and she wasn't dying and her yellow-skinned baby wasn't watching. Again he did as he was told, and she made no noise as the weight settled on her. Some long-buried instinct told Jim to run, told him when hope was lost.
For the time being he ignored the instinct, and knelt beside the now black-skinned woman, the fierce and sweet Frooliin mother who had taken in the baby and scarred young captain. He took her hand, grasping it tightly, the cold seeping into the burns on his palms. She smiled at him, the twitching of her lips offset by dancing shadows and silver blood. "You are so young, Jim."
Jim wasn't entirely sure what to say to that so he smiled and his eyes were dry because he needed to get through today. He needed to get Jamie and get out and he would grieve later when he had time and he could risk falling apart completely. "Your mother would be so proud," she continued, and he almost sobbed at that, but he kept it confined in his heartbeat where it took up residence beside the bodies of children. "Keep our babies safe, Jim," her eyes were sliding closed, but she was still smiling. "Keep my world safe."
Chenla died like that, the smile finally slipping from her face, leaving in its wake the most peaceful expression Jim had ever seen on a person who was dead. He dropped her hand, watched it fall claw-fingered on the ground, saw it splash in her silver blood. He scooped up the babies in his weak, weak arms that couldn't save her, and he stood.
Jim turned away from the body, not hearing the yellow-skinned baby's cries or seeing his hands reaching out to his mother. Jamie clutched onto him, content to burrow in his arms, away from the fire she had seen too much of in her short life. He walked as though in a daze, out of the crumbled building, into the center of the old village. Had another bomb fallen? He hadn't noticed. He was cold.
"I'll kill them," he heard himself say into the scorching air, heat distorting his vision. The villagers were fleeing, saving who they could from the wreckage, screams of anguish punctuating each death. They were streaked ghoulishly with blood and soot and burns and some pushed past him, telling him to get out while he could. "I promise, I'll kill them all, I swear." Who was he promising? Jamie, Chenla, Ki'one's unseeing eyes, everyone he couldn't save and everyone he would fight to the death to save. He'd kill who was behind this, tear them apart, starve them.
Soft fingers brushed his cheek, and he felt himself flinch as though struck. His weary eyes focuses on Zlinzee's solemn face, the hard line of her lips, the ash obscuring her skin's color and silver blood gluing one eye shut as it ran down from a cut on her forehead. "Come with me, Jim," she murmured, and whatever she saw on his face made her own crumple in sadness and pity. "No one will hurt them. I promise."
From his arms she pried the yellow-skinned baby, whose cries had tapered off to aborted half-whimpers of hollow grief. "We need to go," Zlinzee said urgently, nudging him in the direction where other villagers huddled at the edge of the forest, watching their home burn. "Walk."
He stumbled over stone and what may have once been an arm, and though he felt Zlinzee's hand splayed on his back he couldn't seem to find his balance while his vision swam and the world tilted underneath him. "I need to help," he protested weakly, "there are people trapped, they need us." His voice sounded strange in his own ears, like an underwater echo, scraping like glass and broken fingernails.
At the edge of the forest with the other villagers in a sullen huddle, Zlinzee pushed him down by the shoulders until he kneeled in the grass. She crouched in front of him and brushed soot from his cheek with her thumb, naked sadness etched in the lines of her face. "There's nothing we can do, Jim," she murmured, like she was apologizing. "But this isn't over."
"Come with me," Jim told the young boy hidden under a withered holly bush. He forced his lips to smile in an approximation of what it once had been. "C'mon, Ki'one. I know where to find food!"
"You're not James," the boy with dark, dark eyes and pointed ears said. He stared, seemingly impassive, calculations dancing like wildfires in his eyes. The fortitude with which he spoke was offset by the trembling of his small, underfed body, scraped and hidden from the elements.
Sharp pain sparked in his left thigh. They never did heal the brand. "No, I'm not. My name's Jim now." He kept smiling, held out a hand. "Come with me. We'll find the others, and then we can eat. Would you rather sit here and starve?"
The boy's teeth clenched. "You're not James," he said again, shaking his head. "They hurt you, and now you're not… you've been gone for weeks. What did they do, James? Why did they…?" Ki'one's voice dropped, cutting off abruptly like a choked sob. But he was a Vulcan, and no emotion showed on his face, just like his mother taught him.
"That doesn't matter," Jim insisted. The boy couldn't understand- death right now, quickly, was so much better than what would await him. He had to see- Jim had no choice, no way to let him know, nothing to say that would make sense in the boy's mind. "You have to trust me. They'll hurt you, too, if you don't come with me."
Ki'one shook his head, tears welling in his sharp eyes, grief for his friend and fear. "I'm sorry, James," he said. He reached out, ignored Jim's startled flinch. His hands splayed over his head, from his forehead to his temple, and pressed.
In just one moment, Jim remembered why he was so angry at those other children. And the memories still hurt, still reminded him of the burn on him, still made him quake and feel sick when he drudged them up again. But it was less important now, less consuming- it wasn't the only fate these children had. There was something else.
"I am not strong enough to bury your memories of these past weeks, James," Ki'one said when he had finally come back to himself. "But I have reminded you of why you always fought." He paused for breath, the mind meld having taken more out of him than he would have liked to admit. "Do you understand? We must fight."
Jim nodded, numb, but burning under his skin. The anger was new, and it was gasoline on the fire of his fear. He needed to fight and he needed to kill and he needed to save these kids. He needed to stay alive.
Jim awoke with a scream in his throat and blood in his mouth from where he'd bitten down on his tongue, trying to keep himself quiet. He sat up quickly and was met with Kress' dull, uncompromising stare. She watched him for a moment, then gestured to the battered bodies sleeping all around them, as though to remind him to keep quiet. He didn't bother asking why she was still awake. He knew why.
Reluctantly he settled down again, curling on his side around the undisturbed bundle of cloth concealing Jamie. The survivors of the bombing had managed to walk hardly a mile before exhaustion won out and they were forced to camp in the woods, huddled in family groups. Soft sobs had persisted for several hours until even those died off into dark, oppressive silence.
He'd felt the accusing glares on his back as they walked through the forest, heard the more superstitious of the Frooliins whisper heatedly about his arrival being bad luck. As was the custom of their people, they hardly went to great lengths to conceal their feelings, and some approached him directly to ask his intentions. There wasn't an answer he could think of, so he said he'd leave if he could, but he knew he wouldn't because Chenla had asked him not to.
Even Kress was colder towards him, resentment sparking off her skin every time their eyes met. But she had good reason to hate him; Canfir had been lost in the fire. Jim may have been able to save the boy, had he stayed with them, but so determined was he to get to Jamie that he'd left them to their own devices. Kress refused to say how he had died, retreating within herself, numbness overtaking the heart she had been willing to give over to her betrothed. Jim felt sick with guilt when he looked at her, so he avoided her gaze as much as possible.
The anger of his dream wouldn't leave him, even as he pressed his face to Jamie's blanket to inhale her sweet, smoke-laden scent. Zlinzee, who had been sleeping beside him, crept one arm around to grasp at one of his hands. Her thumb brushed over his palm, soothing the scrapes and burns he could hardly feel anymore. He felt her press her forehead into his back, and he wanted to push her away, didn't want to feel safe and loved when others had lost it all.
"What are we going to do?" His whisper was muffled by the blanket at his lips, but Zlinzee's tightened hold on his hand told him she'd heard. Her sigh was a puff of hot air against his back and it sent a shiver up his spine. "We can't just run from this."
She shifted a bit, nuzzling into the crook between his neck and shoulder. "I know," her voice was strained and dark. "I truly believe it is Janin who has done this. But I am… conflicted. And that confliction makes me guilty, for has my brother not taken more lives than I care to think about? But he is my brother. And I do not believe he is evil."
"I'll kill him myself." The words made the yijuuf stiffen, as did the sudden rage flowing through him. "I'll slaughter everyone involved with this, I'll rip them apart before they hurt anyone else I swear to God I will," so focused was he on the gruesomely satisfying images in his head he didn't notice he was trembling, or clutching Jamie so tightly to him that the baby was whining softly in concern.
"Jim," Zlinzee's voice was a dull, roaring echo, the hand stroking up and down his trembling bicep a distant tingle. "Jim, come back, you're safe right now, you don't need to fight."
"I always do," his voice was edging on hysterical even when it was softened by his scorched throat, every word burning like acid from the inside out. "I have to fight, I'll kill them all…"
She held him through the night as he shook with rage and fear and a thousand other emotions pounding in his blood laden with memories of starving children and a kind green woman.
And on that happy note, we end another chapter.
My lovely reviewers for the last chapter were as follows: Beloved Daughter, Eternal She-Wolf, Doodle0505, and Archer83 (who gave me quite possibly the nicest reviews I've ever received in my life. Like, I squealed as I was reading them they're so nice omg)
Please, please review! Ask questions, tell me what you liked, what you didn't like, who's your favorite character, threaten my life for killing Chenla, whatever! I love seeing everyone's opinion!