The Living Dead
Chapter 20
"Are you asleep?"
Gregor opened his eyes quickly to find Perdita standing over him, her own eyes staring down at him. "What's wrong?"
"There is nothing wrong," she said, taking a step back then. "Andromeda and I are going inland. Since you made such a fuss the time before, I thought it best to awaken you and ask if you wished to accompany us. If so, put your crown on."
"My crown?" he asked groggily.
"Yes. You must wear it in front of the scouts. You are a king now, after all."
Flux was casting a blue light again, which was giving Gregor a headache. The further he was able to get away from the boat, the better.
"You can watch the boat while we are gone then, Dorian?" Gregor asked as he got to his feet. The man was seated near the bow of the boat, once again organizing his bag. Ugh.
"Of course," he said, glancing up. "Kent, I, and the fliers shall be fine. If anything were to happen, we would fight to the death. Eh, Kent?"
He only grunted from where he was huddled up in a ball, clutching his stomach. Rolling his eyes, Gregor walked over to them and spoke in a hushed tone, as not to be overheard.
"Look, don't let Flux bully you guys into anything, alright?" Gregor told them softly. "Shiner's aren't too smart, but they will trick you if you let them. Just keep your wits about you until we get back, huh?"
Perdita was unconcerned with any of them though as Andromeda landed into the boat. Climbing onto her back, she quickly pulled out her map, checking it once more while they still had the light of Flux's butt before consulting Andromeda. Then she pocketed her precious map and Andromeda took to the air. Rushing then, Gregor waited for Nike to land in the belly of the boat before clambering on.
"You know where we are headed in the darkness?" Gregor called to Perdita as Nike headed after Andromeda. "Perdita?"
"Andromeda knows. I have shown her the map." Perdita did not look back at him. She was probably still upset with him. Sigh. "And it is not an exact location, Overlander. We must seek the scout out. Something that is much simpler to do when there is only the pair of us, Andromeda and myself. But if you two wish to accompany-"
"What would you do, Perdita, if you ran into some sort of trouble?" Gregor asked. "Trouble that Andromeda could not outrun? Then what?"
"I would fight or I would die," she told him then without emotion.
"With a broken arm? You might as well just die."
"What do you want me to say, Overlander? Every time we speak, you find something to scold me on. As if you were somehow better than me. I am not only your elder, but also uninterested in any opinions you might have. So if you would kindly leave them to yourself so we can finish this mission, all would be better."
Seething now, Gregor held his tongue as he leaned forwards on Nike's back, clicking slightly. Andromeda was flying faster, getting further away from them. Good. It would give Gregor a chance to vent.
"Look, I get that she's, like, in love with Solovet or whatever," Gregor grumbled to Nike. "But if she keeps this up, I'm going to go off on her. I mean, seriously? The whole reason I came was to keep her safe and now she's acting like…well, Luxa, really. And I only let Luxa get away with it because I, you know, love her. I certainly have no reason to let Perdita slide. Especially about stupid Solovet."
Nike paused for a moment, as if thinking, before slowly saying, "I thought so as well, so I spoke with Andromeda before, after you first fought. Perdita is not upset solely about Solovet."
"Then what else did I do?"
"It was her…well, apparently she did not take kindly to you insinuating that it was Solovet's fault that Hamnet broke that dyke."
"So it is about Solovet."
"Not exactly." Nike hesitated before saying, "I do not know the woman well, you know."
"Of course not."
"But apparently she once had a…partner and he was killed in the Garden of Hesperides. That would mean, if she followed your line of thinking, that her mentor essentially killed the man which-"
"That's not even what I was talking about! I wasn't thinking about-"
"People are very peculiar about death, Gregor. If Perdita was to imply that it was Luxa that led to the death of Ares, you would not be too pleased, would you?"
"I… No."
"Then you understand, yes, what the problem is?"
"I guess so," he said slowly. "So, you think I should apologize?"
"If you think that you did wrong. Do you?"
"Not really."
"Then do not. This trip shall be over before we know it and then we can all go back to life as usual." Nike was silent for a moment before saying, "And when we return, hopefully it is with proof that there is no Reclaimer, no one is back from the dead, and that we can all just be happy."
"When have we ever all just been happy, Nike?"
"It is not an impossible thing, is it? Happiness?"
"Achieved by everyone in our life all at once? Yes. Yes it is impossible."
"Well, perhaps we can knock a few off the list and just allow the rest of us to be happy."
"Who would we knock off?"
"Your wife, for obvious reasons."
"Yeah, she's pretty much impossible."
"And Aurora is rather dark as well."
"Meh."
"And Howard-"
"Maybe we just shouldn't try and please others at all," Gregor suggested then with a sigh. "And just stick to pleasing ourselves."
"Why, Gregor," she remarked with a slight sigh. "I thought that was why we were on this journey in the first place?"
Gregor took to clicking about that time, not exactly liking having to rely on Nike and Andromeda for safety. Not that he didn't trust them, but there was no one that he trusted more than himself. Just how life was intended.
"Andromeda tells me that we are nearing where Perdita thinks the scout may be," Nike said randomly at one point. "Then starts the searching."
Click.
"I'll be on the lookout," Gregor assured Nike who no doubt delivered the information back to Andromeda in their native tongue.
Click.
Gregor thought that things would be better if he and Perdita just walked along on the ground and investigated, but knew that it was out of the line and there was no way that Perdita or Nike would allow him to do that.
Click.
He knew though that he had promised Luxa that he wouldn't do anything too dangerous. The only problem was that he thought that that was the only way to get anything done. Danger was just a part of the job description.
Click.
And if Henry was running around, wouldn't it be best if Gregor went ahead and nipped that in the bud before anything too bad happened?
Click.
Still, the question was burned in his mind; how was Henry still alive? He knew that he had fallen to his death, back during the Prophecy of Gray without a doubt. So did that mean that the Prophecy of the Living Dead was implying, like, necromancy or something?
Click.
Or was it a zombie thing? Like a virus that brough things back from the dead?
Click.
Because each sounded just as bad as the other. Although necromancy would imply a necromancer and Gregor just didn't feel like dealing with that.
Click.
Still, the whole zombie thing sounded kinda of bad. And kind of impossible. Henry's body should have no doubt decomposed by that point and that person Gregor saw was far from decomposed.
Click.
Not to mention, Gregor was willing to bend his mind a little bit when it came to the things in the Underland, but things coming back to life? He cut the line there. He truly did.
Click.
But then, who had Gregor seen? He knew he had seen Henry. The only person possible for him to have seen was Henry. He was more raggedy, he had a disgusting looking beard, but he was definitely Henry. He was without a doubt Henry. That was the only person he possibly could be.
Click.
Not to mention, he had already fought with Luxa about it being Henry. So he was going to have to pretend that he believed it was wholeheartedly until proven completely wrong. It was the way things worked in their relationship. Make bold statements, refuse to retract them when you get all the facts, and then the other brags about it when they turn out right.
Click.
Yep.
Click.
"It is truly horrible in these parts of the Underland," Nike told him softly then as they flew along in the darkness. Gregor knew she couldn't stay silent for long. "The smells, the creatures."
"Creatures, Nike? Really?"
"What would you call gnawers, other than creatures?"
"To most humans, you would be a creature."
"And to us, you are all killers."
"Good point. I concede."
Nike made a noise. "You give in too easily, Overlander."
"I know." Then he frowned. "I mean, no I don't."
"Witty."
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
"So do you know any scouts?" Nike asked him eventually. Gregor clicked one more time before nodding his head in the darkness.
"A few. Not many. Most people are designated to be scouts young. That's what they train for in the military. I know mostly guardsmen and soldiers. Any scouts I know are from these past few months when Perdita was calling them back for disciplinary action, if she thought that they were actually traitors. Other than that, I have little contact with them. They're Perdita's project. Solely. Even Luxa doesn't have much involvement in it."
"Then Perdita must tell us her secret then, eh?"
Click.
"Do you smell anything?" Gregor asked randomly then.
"Over the rot and decay? Not particularly. Why?"
"I just figured you might be able to sniff out a rat or something," Gregor said with a sigh. "Something."
"If there is anything around, Gregor, I am sure that it would be impossible for it to get passed you, Andromeda, and I."
"I just think that it'd suck to get caught up with some rats here when the real important stuff is way farther off."
"In the Labyrinth? That seems more of a death wish than anything else. I do not know what sort of scout would even agree to go there."
"Not many. As far as I know, it's one of Perdita's top guys."
"Well, so were Helix and Namus, yes? And we all saw how that turned out."
She did have a point there…
"I dunno. I feel like Luxa is just giving Perdita a hard time with this one," Gregor said with a shake of his head. "She always thinks that the scouts are lying. She doesn't trust anyone. Unless the information's in her favor, then she believes them wholeheartedly."
"Barrett was attacked, Gregor. Someone clearly caused that."
"I dunno though. I mean, what if he, like, planned something with the gnawers? And then it backfired on him? What if-"
"Gregor, as much as you hate it, Barrett does care for Luxa. He would never do anything jeopardize the slight relationship they have now."
She had a point there. "Yeah, but-"
"He knows that Luxa is from Solovet. She might tolerate the gnawers a little more, but she does not care for them. Only peace. If she found out that Barrett was even speaking to a gnawer behind her back, he would be cut from her life, if not her military. Luxa is the only thing that he seems to ever be able to talk about. You really think he would risk that?"
Gregor only sighed. "I don't know, okay? It just seems unlikely that Barrett and his men were able to defeat those gnawers."
"Why? Their carcasses were found outside the gates, just where Barrett and the others said that they would be. After Barrett was knocked unconscious, the last man standing finished off the final gnawers. Why is that so hard to believe?"
"You're really pro-Barrett today," Gregor grumbled, but Nike only sighed.
"I am feeling rather agitated today, I suppose, Gregor. I am sorry."
"It's okay," he told her with a shake of his head. "I think this boat trip has us all on edge. And over what? This is just going to be a simple mission and we're going to go home after."
"I suppose it is the tension between us all that is causing problems."
"What tension? Yeah, Perdita and Kent probably, err, might have hooked up. And yeah, so I sort of said some bad stuff that reminded her of her dead fiancé. But compared to some of our misadventures, I'd say this is going pretty well."
"Considering during one mission we all got trapped in a cave in and then were forced to watch the gassing of a high number of nibblers and their pups, I find it hard to disagree."
Nike was closing in on Andromeda then, who was slowing down somewhat. Gregor figured it best to end their conversation there, instead going back to clicking.
They flew around for at least twenty minutes. The only time that anyone spoke was when Perdita asked Andromeda something. Not that Gregor thought they couldn't talk or anything, as anything in the Dead Lands would be able to smell and Overlander, Underlander, and two fliers miles off, but rather he thought it would look good to Perdita if he didn't make a joke out of the whole thing. She was clearly upset about him for the remark about the Garden of Hesperides and, even though he wasn't completely certain what he had done, he knew that in the end, he would apologize. Just because he was that kind of a guy.
Besides, he had kinda been wit Luxa for many, many years. He knew by that point that when a woman was mad at you, it didn't matter if she was just being irrational. You were wrong, so apologize. Either that or spend the rest of your days miserable and hated.
It really wasn't that hard to say sorry when you realized just how dim the other options proved to be.
Then there was light. A very, very slight light, off very far in the distance. The closer they got though, the brighter it seemed, though any light in pitch black darkness would appear extremely incandescent.
Perdita laughed slightly at the sight of it, shaking her head. "It is Maro. It has to be."
"Maro?" Nike questioned.
"My scout. Just where I wished for him to be." She was clearly in better spirits at the thought. "This is turning out to be a most successful trip. Luxa was wrong, once again, and my scouts are not to blame. Yet are we going to investigate her precious Barrett? I find it doubtful."
Oh God. Gregor was totally on Perdita's side. What was the world coming to?
They found the man, Maro, roasting fish over a fire in the opening of a tunnel. He seemed rather shocked to see Perdita, but only went to work preparing another fish for her to eat.
"When Hera said that she saw humans coming, I thought it was a scout to relieve me. I did not even have her speak to your fliers here," the man said as he began scaling a fish for his leader. "Tell me that you are not coming to me with bad news?"
"Not completely, no," Perdita told him, watching as the slight man moved around his fire. "But we will get to my reasoning soon enough. First I would like to ask you a few things."
"Of course." He glanced at Gregor then. The fliers had never truly landed and had flown off with another flier that was flouting around, no doubt Maro's bond. Hera, Gregor believed was her name. At least that's what the man said. Andromeda seemed the most pleased to see the yellow tinted flier and no doubt knew her somehow.
"You bring the warrior though, so I only assumed that it was something bad," Maro said. "I-"
"I forgot. You have been out here for a number of months." Perdita glanced at Gregor before back at Maro. "You must now address him by his proper title."
"Title?"
"In the most recent weeks, the Queen and the Overlander have not only become betrothed, but also wedded. You are now speaking to your king and should show him-"
He dropped the fish before rushing over to Gregor, though he immediately fell to his knees before him.
"I-I apologize, y-your grace. I had no idea that-"
"Rise," Gregor said with a frown. "It's fine. I'm not into all that, alright? Just call me Gregor. Or the warrior or whatever. Believe me, I like that a lot better."
"S-Sorry. I only-"
"Maro, I am not here to just introduce the King to you," Perdita sighed, slowly crossing her arms over her chest. "I said that there were a few things that needed to be discussed, yes?"
"R-Right." Maro stood to attention once more. "I shall have Hera catch more fish if-"
"Enough."
He nodded, keeping his mouth shut.
"Now," Perdita began slowly. "I would like to know first what business you have making a fire out in the open like this?"
Maro dropped his head, staring at the ground. "This area is deserted, just as I sent you in the messages. There are no gnawers to be found. I have searched for at least a hundred miles in each direction. I see random other animals occasionally, but gnawers have vacated. Forgive my lax behavior. It was not my intention, but I have grown lazy in precautions."
"The reason I have stopped in on you is because recently General Barrett was ambushed by a group of gnawers, yet none of my scouts were able to send me any word of such a movement. I am attempting to find the scout that let this lasp. Either that or find a scout that has sold himself to the gnawers."
"That is certainly not me," he assured her. "What would it take to prove to you? I-"
"Enough." Perdita sighed then. "Have you become relaxed with any other protocol?"
"No. Of course not. I only thought it fine to start a fire here because there is no one but Hera and I. Forgive me. From this point forth, I will never-"
"I have many others to attend to. As long as you know your duty and realize that at any time, I can come and check up on you, then all is done here."
"I thank you for your time, General. And King Greg-" He stopped himself. "Warrior. Thank you, warrior."
Perdita was clearly pleased with herself as they left the scout to his work. He even gave them a torch so they did not have to go back in darkness. Not that Gregor was all that thrilled. He far preferred darkness to light in most situations.
"Yet another proved correct," Perdita announced happily from atop Andromeda. Clearly they were out of their sour states.
"There are still many more to do, but I am certain they will all be the same," Andromeda agreed. "You do spend much time picking scouts. The chance of you being wrong-"
"I was before. With the banished. Vlad and the others were able to turn a few," Perdita said softly then. "But a gnawer turning my men? It is highly unlikely."
"If not impossible. No man would ever truly believe that once all was said and done that if the gnawers won, they would keep him alive."
"There was one," Gregor mumbled softly from behind them as Nike tailed Andromeda. "And he was planning to align himself with the most powerful gnawer of all. So it is not too out there, no, to think that someone else would do the same?"
Perdita did not even look back at him. "Yes, well, we will get to that when we get to it, yes?"
"Guess we will."
Kent was in better spirits when they arrived back at the boat. He hadn't puked once since they had left and had a little color back. Gregor just hoped that they didn't hit any rough waters.
It was technically Perdita's watch when they got back, but Dorian offered to switch slots with her so she could rest some. She declined, of course, though in the end it did not matter. Flux decided not to give off any light, instead taking to sleeping himself, which pretty much left Gregor to be the one on duty.
Click. Click. Click.
He was having a hard time remembering what day it was. It had been a few days, at least. Maybe. Whatever it had been, he just hoped that Luxa was okay at home. And Zander. And that his family got home. That was a big one too.
Click. Click. Click.
As much as he had wanted to leave, at the moment all he was wanting was to be back. He wanted to lay in bed with Luxa and eat dinner with Zander and hangout with Hazard. Maybe even talk to Nerissa. Or spend some time with Mareth. Drinking with York sounded cool.
He just wanted to go home.
Click. Click. Click.
Either that or he wanted to start killing things. And quickly. After what Barrett had gone through, he honestly thought that there was no chance that they wouldn't run into danger. As it was turning out though, they were completely safe.
Click. Click. Click.
Which wasn't a bad thing, of course. He didn't want the fliers or Perdita hurt. And though he wasn't certain about Dorian's abilities, he did know that there was no way he wanted Kent trying to protect anyone. If anything, Gregor had a bad feeling that he would be the one having to keep Kent out of harms way.
Click. Click. Click.
Still, his mind kept drifting to thoughts of Luxa. She was probably even more annoying now that he was gone. She had the a habit of worrying about him, after all. And with York around, she was no doubt on edge.
Click. Click. Click.
He heard someone moving around in the boat, but it was just Kent. He had to take a piss, peeing off one of the low sides of the boat. Rolling his eyes, Gregor figured he should just be glad that he wasn't puking anymore.
Click. Click. Click.
Movement again. Kent had already laid down, curling up again to sleep. He was already snoring, really. Who else could be moving?
Perdita. Gregor could make out her shape then, staring at her. She was moving to get up before heading over to the piles of food. All the perishable things had already been eaten by the shiner, but they still had some fish that the fliers had caught for them, as well as bread and some pastries. Those would soon be gone though.
He heard the sound of a sword being unsheathed or perhaps her dagger, more than likely using it to cut into one of the loaves of bread. Not a moment later she was settled once more against the side of the boat, eating.
Gregor tried a few times to speak to her, to apologize, but it kept sounding trite in his head. And if something didn't even sound right in your head, then it was never going to sound good.
The problem was that, yeah he felt really badly that he had made any insinuations about her dead fiancé that hurt her feelings, but he did not feel badly about the Solovet stuff. She wasn't a good person. She just wasn't.
But still, he knew better than to give a half apology. His mother taught him a long time ago that saying that you're sorry and yet adding a but on it didn't count. It just didn't.
"Why have you ceased clicking?"
Gregor frowned at the sound of the woman's voice. "Huh?"
"Why have you quit clicking?" Perdita repeated. "You are supposed to be keeping watch, Overlander."
"Oh. Right. I was just…distracted, I guess." He sighed then before deciding to just go for it. "Perdita, I shouldn't have said anything about the Garden of Hesperides or whatever. It was wrong of me. I didn't know…err, well, York mentioned it before the start of our trip that your…fiancé died during it. And I'm sorry that we were talking about you behind your back too. It wasn't any of our-"
"Overlander?"
"What?"
"Stop talking."
"I-"
"Wasting time on emotions is silly as well as a waste. What happened in the garden that day is usually far from my mind. And I would rather keep it that way."
"Right. Of course." He was really bad at talking to women. It stemmed from only having to ever really talk to Luxa. She usually kept other women far away from him. Especially women their age. "I was only, uh, trying to-"
"Do not. What is said has been said. It is all over now."
So they sat there for awhile in silence, save Gregor's clicking. He was pretty sure that all meant that they had made up, but he wasn't completely certain. Eventually, Perdita spoke again.
"What did…York say?" she finally asked. "About me? To you and Barrett?"
"I thought you said that the past-"
"What did he tell you? I need to know what he told Barrett, mainly, because-"
"Nothing, really," Gregor said, feeling awkward then before clicking his tongue softly. "Just, uh, you know. That you were going to be married or whatever and that he thought that he could best the man in a fight because he was a better all-around fighter or something."
She snorted. "That is what he told you?"
"That is what he told us."
Sighing then, she said, "Barrett will never let this go now. He will-"
"Luxa was thinking about, you know, sending some people to scout out the land in the village that the banished had. See if we could take that as our own." Gregor clicked again. "And we were thinking about, you know, maybe sending Mareth out there."
That got her to pause before slowly saying, "Were you?"
"Yeah. But I think Barrett should go. Either that or Mareth would need someone to go with him that was still, you know, able to get around well and stuff."
"Meaning?"
"…What if we sent part of the army with you to the Uncharted Lands to excavate the town with Mareth? Kinda like when you guys were going to the Fount, but better, you know?"
"I do not-"
"And I know that your mother would be part of the reason you wouldn't want to go, but Luxa and I would find someone to take care of her. It-"
"I do not wish for special treatment, Overlander. I-"
"Yeah, well, sometimes friends in power help their friends out. And considering you put up with Luxa constantly, you could just consider it hush money."
"…I do not think that Mareth would want me to go with him anyhow, considering."
Gregor blinked. Then he sighed. "You didn't really…sleep with Kent, did you?"
She didn't even think about it. "Of course not. He's a…child."
"Then why-"
"Mareth constantly flaunts girls the same age as Kent around, yet thought that he could treat me as a harlot for possibly having relations with a nineteen year old man?" She snorted. "It bothered me that he thought that he had any right when he knows that if I said anything to him, he gets angry. Just because I am a woman it does not mean that I do not have the same rights as a man."
Slowly, Gregor said, "I think he was just jealous. You know?"
"We are not… We cannot be involved with one another and he knows it."
"Yeah, I know."
"So perhaps…and I do not mean to come off as presumptuous when I say this-"
"Go ahead."
"Perhaps I could go alone. To the Uncharted Lands. With some of my soldiers, to make it inhabitable. And…govern it when it is."
He took a deep breath before slowly saying, "I always thought that you would want to be the head of the military until you died. Like, well, like Solovet."
"I did. I mean, I do. But I am clearly not fit for the job and it is selfish of me to-"
"What are you talking about? You do a fine job as-"
"We never had as many scout breaches under Solovet. We-"
"We never had a plague under you, either, but what does that matter?" He shook his head. "It doesn't. Because Solovet was not you and you are not her. You gotta learn to be your own person, Perdita. You can't constantly compare yourselves to other. Then you're York."
She made a noise of disgust. "I never liked him."
"Really? When I saw you that time in Hades Hall, you guys were fighting the gnawers side by side."
"Only due to our rank, I assure you. And he was very friendly with Calvus. He has always thought of him and I as friends. We are not. I do not like him."
"I think he knows that, Perdita," Gregor said, finally smiling. "I think that York just hangs around you when he can because he likes to annoy you."
"I do not see why he would enjoy such a thing. He-"
"York likes to make people laugh. You don't, you know, ever find anything funny. At all. So instead he tries to annoy you because it's the only thing he can get you to be. Annoyed."
She only snorted again. "He is a fine soldier, alright. But he is not humorous."
"You're kidding, right?"
"Perhaps only males get his humor."
"He makes Susannah laugh."
"He has Susannah trained to do whatever he wishes her to do."
"I wouldn't say that," Gregor said with a frown. "They just have an old style relationship. She likes to make him happy and he takes care of her. You make it sound a lot worse than it is."
"I make it sound like nothing it is not."
"You do realize that we are on the boat with not only his son, but also his bond?"
"Then I am sure they know exactly what I speak of."
Gregor clicked around for a moment before speaking again.
"Could York really do it then? Beat Calvus in a fight?"
"Mmmm. They used to spar together, when York was in the capital. They were around the same age." She paused before slowly saying, "Calvus was taller though. And he only used a single sword. I think that York gets a lot of people only due to his choice of weapon. If you gave him a battleaxe and told him to defend himself, he would die."
"I think most people are trained in only one weapon."
"Not Calvus. He knew how to use a battleaxe, could fight with a hammer, and a sword. But York did not tell you that, did he?"
"No, but-"
She laughed then, which was odd, but Gregor didn't say anything on it.
"Mareth hated him. He was older than both of us and was higher ranking. He was very…cold and calculating. He thought only about war. Mareth thought that I should not…"
"You don't have to talk about it."
She ignored him though.
"Mareth has tried to control my life for the majority of it," she told him softly then. "And if I went to the Uncharted Lands without him…"
"But every single time he tries to leave, you-"
"I just think if I went and got the village in the Uncharted Lands settled and protected, that it would give us a chance to be apart. Then, when it is complete, we could discuss him living there."
"Well," Gregor said slowly. "When we get back and all this stuff right now gets settled, then we can all discuss it with Luxa. Though I still kind of like the idea of sending Barrett out there instead-"
"I find it doubtful Luxa would ever go for that."
"Yeah," Gregor sighed, shaking his head. "I know."
Again, it was silent for awhile. Gregor clicked while Perdita sat there silently, probably thinking then on the village in the Uncharted Lands. She has seen it once, Gregor was pretty sure, right after he and Luxa were rescued, but other than that, he didn't think she knew much about it. It would be a beating to do anything with, as well as possibly dangerous, but if they were able to build walls around it, if they found funding for such a thing, then it might be a good piece of land to have.
Maybe.
Still though, Gregor never wanted to have much to do with it. Too many memories. And he wanted to keep it far away from Zander. Part of him was ready to just leave the place as a deserted town for the rest of eternity. It had housed cannibals, after all, some of which they still had the orphans of.
But then, they did need more space. And yeah, maybe they could start another town somewhere else, but the banished did already have a pre-made place, just wasting away. It was kind of like when a family got murdered in a house. Some would think it would be silly to leave it to rot or to tear it down while others would find it insensitive to live in such a place, if not downright spooky. Ultimately, Gregor wasn't sure what his opinion on the idea was.
It was something to think about though.
Wings were rustling suddenly, one of the bats waking up or something. It put Perdita on edge though as she called out.
"What is it? Andromeda?"
"It is I," Gregor heard Aether answer, his deeper cadence giving off his identity easily. "I…I merely smell something. Something off."
"Andromeda." That time, it was an order. "Awaken."
The bat made a noise, off to a far side of the boat. "Perdita, you must learn to take a softer tone."
"Aether smells-"
"I smell it too. It is…" Nike was up then, ruffling her own wings. "I cannot…"
"Someone is cooking something. It is not fish." Rhea was awake too then, apparently. "Yet it smells delightful."
Gregor did not have that great of experiences with strange roasting smells in the Dead Lands and held a hand over his nose, just in preparation.
"I swear, if it's some banished left over from the war and they're eating one another, I'm going to vomit more than Kent when he was seasick," Gregor grumbled. "Do you guys know where it is coming from? I mean, gnawers do not cook their fish. Do they?"
"No," Perdita sighed. "But we are nearing another scout. I do not know what could be roasting other than fish, but we are soon to find out."
"Again, if it's humans, I'm puking."
Suddenly, there was a bright yellow light. Flux was awake.
"What is that glorious-"
"We do not know," Perdita sighed, blinking in the suddenly brightness before getting to her feet. Then she looked at Gregor and nodded over at the fliers to which he nodded and stood as well. "But we are soon to find out."
Yeah, I know, it has been over a week, but I kinda got distracted with writing some other stuff. Not to mention, I did get an update out finally for the prequel story and start another story. Anyhow, I hope that the next chapter doesn't take as long to get out.