He woke up confused. Point of fact, he was troubled by the notion of waking up itself. The unexpected dysphoria that came from being thrown out of an unanticipated lapse of awareness, and realizing that you didn't know that you had blacked out at all, was disorientating, to no surprise. It wasn't something people liked to do. He couldn't remember the last time he felt so… scattered, couldn't really remember much of anything at the moment, honestly. He was… disjointed, lost, like he had left parts of himself behind. With not inconsiderable effort he tried to pick up the pieces of his mind and assemble them into something passable as human.
The first thing that came to him with some difficulty, was a name, his name, and the exertion to recall even that much was not something he particularly enjoyed.
Aleksander, a name given to him by his mother, Alyssa Fedorov, after great debate with his father, Vasilyev. The names helped piece some of himself back together. The many familiar and loving arguments between his parents and their good-natured rivalry was a grounding part of his memory that helped him reassert himself, just as much as the pain of their deaths helped reestablish reality. Another memory burbled forward, Ekaterina, his sister, so proud of him, of his B average in his exams, for his dream of becoming a doctor, a healer. She'd supported him the whole way. He wouldn't have made it without her.
They'd gone out to celebrate, fishing at the pond in the park she had loved so much. They hadn't caught anything, certainly not his shining moment. It might have been a kindlier memory if they had. But his sister hadn't cared. She wasn't much of a fisherwoman to begin with. No. She'd done that for him, because she knew no one else liked going with him. Not even Dad who had been an enterprising frontiersman in his middling age. That was just way she was.
Ekaterina had been kind.
Until September 18th, 2547, when a small probing fleet jumped into the Macedon System.
The covenant didn't care about her smile, or her kindness, her love for nature, for the forests and the trees, and the little woodland critters. For her dreams of becoming a veterinarian. No, they hated her for the simple fact of existing, for being human
For that unforgivable crime they turned her and the rest of his family into molten glass.
He remembered that.
He would never forget that.
He was Aleksander Fedorov, and he was the last of his family.
And he would really like to know where the hell he was.
He couldn't really decide on how long he had been awake staring at nothing, lost in the bitter memories that came back to him and shaking off the familiar grief with weary experience. Through intense focus he was able to concentrate his vision, to come back to grips with himself, though everything seemed… shrunken, reduced. His left peripheral distorted. Though everything to the right was clear enough, to where he could see that he was in a room, white washed plaster walls split vertically with embellished sheets of decorative wooden paneling along the lower half. A TV hooked up in the corner, silent with its lifeless black screen. A faint, familiar scent, sanitized, chemical.
The room was familiar in an unpleasant way, like an oily salesman or the night after Taco Tuesday. Even with his lapse of memory he quickly came to understand where it was, he had inexplicably found himself. It was a hospital room, complete with the acerbic smell of cleaning solutions and the distant hum of bustle outside the closed door, a strange thing, smooth metal with no discernable handle or knob. A passing curiosity quickly cast aside as he focused on other matters.
Despite his rushed training in the field of medicine, a reminder that slipped back into his muddled thoughts, Aleksander was not very much a fan of hospitals, regardless of his choice of vocation. He worked in the field, his patients lived and died quickly, crying, sobbing, pleading as they bled out from inoperable wounds or went into shock as their bodies burned with the evils of Covenant plasma weapons. On a good day they made a witty remark and lived to fight another die.
Good days were few and far between.
Most he saw again not much later, and there was no witticism then.
A pessimistic outlook, but he'd learned optimism to be a fool's drug.
People lived, people died, often unpleasantly.
He'd seen his fair share.
Still, to find himself in this situation was a novel experience, he couldn't remember the last time he'd been a patient. Even so, he hated it. Hospitals weren't places reasonable people wanted to be. Surprisingly enough.
Somewhere along the line he had again landed himself in a recovery ward. A part of him was not all that astonished to be here, even if he couldn't exactly remember why he was so unsurprised by the fact.
You're a shit magnet, Fedorov.
The words echoed in his empty thoughts, in a voice that was not his own.
An imagined face, shadowy and cragged with lines of age, or inexorable stress, came to him in that moment, before he shook the faded memory away.
A particular recollection he did not want to relive.
Aleksander's gaze wandered about the room, still brushing off his intense spell of brain fog. There was something… skewed, but he couldn't dredge the wherewithal to figure just exactly what it was, his thoughts struggling to claw out of the miasma of what he was sure was a side effect of whatever medication the staff had put him under. In doing so, he brushed his arm as a gust of chilled air sputtered from an overhanging air vent, skirting his hand along layered wrappings and down until his touch simply fell off and he was running his fingers across the dreadfully thin blanket.
The oddity of the abbreviated motion brought his wayward concentration down as he glanced at himself. Having vague recollections of not long ago wearing something a little more fortifying than this thin film masquerading as bedsheets, he was, briefly, confused to see himself in a hospital gown, as if the nature of his situation was not already apparent, the thin baby blue frock covering his nudeness. He struggled to remember why his lack of armor felt so alarming.
Spatters of memory flared like a guttering flame in a cooling hearth, passing like reels in one of those outmoded cameras collectors might have, a skyline in flames, the shuddering deck of a ship, and a glassy crater rimmed with jungle trees and littered with wreckage. He winced at the sharp pressure that rose up in his head at these filaments of returned memory, offering small parts of an increasingly greater whole, and no answer.
Irritation followed.
He moved his left arm to pull aside the sheets, determined to push through the coldness of his thoughts and find a doctor or nurse that could give him answers. Instead, he watched, numbly, as he dragged a smoothed stump across the linens.
He stared at the limb that now ended jarringly halfway down his forearm. Incomplete. Rounded and wrapped under a thick layer of gauze. The slowness of his mind needed several moments of processing, before he realized that the stump was, in fact, attached to him, that it was him, that he, Aleksander Fedorov, Corpsmen Second Class, 19th Battalion, 105th Shock Trooper Division, was missing his left hand, and part of the arm.
That, he certainly did not remember.
It… doesn't feel gone. He mused numbly as he waggled fingers on a hand that no longer existed. He brought the abbreviated appendage up to his face, taking a good hard look at this new change in his life. Phantom limb Syndrome. He'd studied it briefly, a minor segment of "A" school for his qualifications for HM. A lot of big words that didn't feel all that important to him in the moment. Knowing didn't help much to ease his tenuously restrained panic either.
Invariably, his eyes followed the bandaging as it continued further up his arm until it vanished under the sleeve of the gown, which he continued to trace with the hand that had not suddenly decided to disappear while he was not awake, his apprehension rising along with the staccato of his heartbeat as he found himself tracing up past his neck and to his face. He probed himself gingerly, touching at the gauze that wrapped around the left side of his head, covering his eye and accounting for what he realized was a noticeable lack in depth perception.
What the fuck happened? The question burned at the forefront of his muddled mind as things trickled back from the ether, more forcefully now as his heart began to pound in his chest. He remembered Reach, hard to forget the sundering of humanity's last greatest fortress. He remembered the Covenant, the ugly xenophobic genocidal mongrels, and there was… something more recent, more immediate, that jabbed at his thoughts.
Had he lost the arm on Reach?
Had they survived the pullout?
Was he back in the colonies?
Thankfully, he still had one of his hands, and so he tossed aside the thin blanket, only moderately surprised to see a leg wrapped up in a cast.
He could not help but sigh, and winced at the tightness in his chest, what was certainly the result of one or more broken ribs. He looked, and felt, as if he gone a few rounds with a brute chieftain, and got his ass beat.
The urge to sigh again, longer, and louder, was only just deflected.
Panic later, he told himself. There would come a time for that.
For now, he'd settle for some goddamned answers.
It was not an easy task to stand on his feet, especially since his left arm was about a foot shorter, and the process involved a lot of wincing, hissing, grunting, and whispered cursing as he cajoled his battered body from the rest it sorely craved, leveraging his stump to push himself up. With that struggle he was able to slide off the bed without falling on his ass by heavily favoring his better leg. He steadied himself, grabbing the machine that fed tubes into his arm and taking a moment to catch his breath.
Such a small action had managed to wind him, but he'd take mobility over a little exhaustion.
A flicker of movement out the window caught his eye and attention, drawing him over as he limped across, rolling the IV pole and dragging the strange EKG machine with him like a conga line of broken parts. Steadying his breath, he rested an arm along the guiderail below the bay style windows to look out to a sprawling metropolitan skyline that stretched long across the distance. Massive towers sprinkled like steel trees amidst municipal developments and sprawling industrial centers. An urban jungle of bleached monoliths and silvered blue steel.
The movement that had drawn his gaze had been the hurried passing of a sleek transport cutting across the side of one of the closest spires, before it was lost amidst the veritable cloud of air traffic. Thousands of small shuttles forming neat and organized skylanes, grids of colorful ships coming and going in a manner reminiscent of more terrestrial freeways, bounding across the horizon in a shimmering rainbow of color reflecting from a warm yellow sun loitering high in the sky.
Aleksander stared out in youthful wonder at the sight before him, momentarily overlooking the horrors of his condition. He leaned close, his breath fogging the plate-glass of the window, his solitary hand pressed against the cool surface, like a child lingering outside a candy shop.
He'd only ever seen Earth in videos, expensive export films ported to and smuggled into the barracks on holo drives, or from the occasional UNSC propaganda piece. Even then, it had looked nothing like this. Everything here was so white, so clean. Most of the earth's beauty and natural wonder had been shoved into the forgotten corners, replaced by urbanization and a rising military industry desperate to feed the locomotion of a crumbling empire. He'd not seen the homeworld firsthand, only in the stories shared by his fellow soldiers, or in the rare personal image or clip from the occasional earthborn marine.
But he'd heard.
Those born on humanity's celestial throne called it the Inverse Renaissance, sometimes in tones of disparagement and mockery, but mostly in quiet grief. A dying species had no use for beauty, or art. Great works from ancient poets and artisans had been taken from closing museums, sequestered away in deep vaults and bunkers, hidden from sight by paranoid collectors and wealthy citizens to be protected from an invasion most people now all but expected. The barren buildings leased as military offices and recruitment centers.
Old monuments and visions of splendor were disassembled and stored, broken down to make way for arms manufactories and clinical facilities designed to maximize the production of food and war material. Cities once designed for comfort and beauty had been crushed and contorted into fortified megastructures designed to endure orbital bombardment and repel ground invasion.
Those who had been born in the era of the insurrection, raised with stories by their grandparents about the brushfire wars, only remembered secondhand, the way it used to be. And those born right before the Covenant had only seen the shadows of what was. Even then that had been enough for them.
Aleksander would have liked to have seen it before the Covenant, before the series of wars that ravaged humanity since they took to the stars.
He imagined it would have looked something like this.
Aleksander drank in the sights like a blind man finally given the ability to see. Mesmerized by a glimpse into a past that might have been, even if only in a silly dream, a forest of metal towers like silvered horns of fantastical beasts.
This hospital was likely one of many such edifices, since he was looking out of what had to have been at least an 80th story window, offering a truly remarkable view. He'd not seen something like this since the rolling battle through New Alexandria's eco-towers. Something he would remember for a long time to come, barring any further lapses in memory. The novelty of beauty without concern for utilitarian form was something he had not realized he would've enjoyed so much.
Where am I? He wondered.
This city, this world, was nothing like any of the places he'd fought at or passed through in his life. The sheer waste of material that was a civilianized public airway simply boggled his mind. A mind brought into an atmosphere of genocidal war and survival, a youth raised on rationing and the glorification of the military industrial complex. While he was witness to beauty, of the wonder of this artful and stunning megacity, the part of him that had carried his sanity through the years of fighting could not help but be baffled at this blatant excess.
The UNSC could have operated a veritable fleet of gunships and transports or pressed in several cruisers with the excess tonnage he could see just within his line of sight. Which made his observation all the more wonderous, and bitter.
It was a world bereft of the looming threat of war.
He found it strange.
And distinctly inhuman, like he was watching through a canted lens. He couldn't place the feeling, a sense of disparity that itched at his good eye and tugged at his brain. A sense of inherent wrongness.
He did not know how long he stared at the mysterious city, only that the sun had started its crawl down the horizon when he heard a muted metallic thunk and whirl that drew his attention away from the futurist skyline and towards the featureless door as it hitched for a moment, drawing into the wall with the churning of hidden machinery.
Someone walked in.
Aleksander paused, his throat drying.
The term someone, however, turned out to be a conjecture of some dispute. The word he felt like using was something.
He stared, clutching unconsciously at his side where he might have worn a sidearm in more favorable circumstances, stump pressed against his chest protectively, as the creature absentmindedly walked into the room, focus drawn towards the glowing device in its furred hands. Fingers tipped with black keratinous nails scrubbed across the screen of the data tool, scrolling inattentively and looking like a deer that somehow learned to walk upright and had been handed a set of fancy scrubs to impersonate a doctor or RN. The strange animalian creature that entered his room and shattered all sense of calm and normalcy, did not at first realize he was up and about.
Perhaps if he was someone else, he might have made a pithy remark or whimsical joke.
However, he was an ODST corpsmen that had just woken up in an alien hospital with parts of his body absent. All his wonder and intrigue frothed into scarcely confined hysteria and dismay. He might have given a good account for himself, if his brain didn't feel like it had gone a few cycles in a cotton candy machine.
Instead, he stared inanely, until the alien arrived at the foot of his bed and finally looked up from its device. He continued with his silent observation, watching as it frowned, a distressingly familiar expression, and scanned the room, locating him nearly instantly.
Now, he could have certainly made comment on the way the alien froze and parodied him, and the similarity of the response found in its more primitive cousins that had been scattered across humanity's colonies for centuries. If the sight of the creature didn't cause a flash forward of something to surge through his head, rather unpleasantly.
He clutched at the sharp pain that lanced his skull and staggered, the action putting too much weight on his bad leg that had given valiant effort, but lost that battle. He felt it give out from under him but he could only let out an airless wheeze. He dropped like a sack of bricks. But, before his head could meet the pristine, sterilized floor, somebody, something, heaved him up by his armpits.
Okay, panic now.
The strange alien deer - doe actually -his semi-delirious mind clarified with the lack of antlers, huffed to itself in distress, struggling to keep him from hitting the ground, and shouting toward the open door in a strange and unfamiliar language. Within moments several other creatures rushed in, dazzling in their disparity, like a runaway menagerie from The Island of Dr. Moreau. There was a brief moment of strange familiarity before the onset of blind panic washed it away.
Aleksander struggled against his captors as they swarmed him, grappling at his weight in an attempt to hoist him back onto the hospital bed. He'd heard the stories of what the Covenant would do to survivors, and he had no intention of going out like that. To be meat. The machine beside the bed started screeching at his elevated heartrate, adrenaline dumping into his system as his body tried to run, unflattering and gangly flailing that did little more than frustrate the aliens manhandling him.
His chest flared painfully at his heaving breaths, gasping and choking down air as he tried to lash out, when he felt a pinch in his shoulder and then, he didn't feel much of anything anymore.
XX-XX-XX
Aleksander woke up an unknown time later with a raging migraine.
And feeling twice as irritable as before.
However, since he was again back in the hospital bed and not on an autopsy table awaiting vivisection, he'd elected not to fuss over the killer headache. These aliens apparently were not a fan of old sci-fi horror, not that he was complaining. He'd try not to let the lack of stereotypical alien tropes bother him too much.
He was as relieved as he was baffled at these cornholes and their frankly human aspects and mannerisms. They had yet proven to share an innate hatred of humanity that the Covenant gnawed over like an old bone.
Yeah, his memory had come back. Or at least, parts of it. He recalled the wreck of the ship, and the weirdo aliens that came to meet them. The spartan, ornery and suicidal, and the dead, laid to rest and buried.
He at least felt a little more put together this time when he awakened. Despite his head feeling like someone had taken a jackhammer to the back of his skull, this time when he woke up, he was no longer missing the vital context of his situation. That it had not come back before he tried to fight off several members of this hospital's staff and been drugged unconscious just fell in line with his usual brand of shit luck.
He groaned, rubbing at his tender head as his memories returned to him with more ease than before, offering some enlightenment to his predicament.
The name of this particular non-genocidal alien race had been about the only word that the canine woman had tried to impart on him as she assumedly worked on creating some kind of translation software. Or at least that's what it had vaguely sounded like to him. Corn… hole, there was a howling warble in her inflection that he just really couldn't grasp. It wasn't beyond him that he was definitely butchering the local parlance.
But was it for his own amusement?
Nooooo…
No way.
It certainly wasn't in any way fueled by his exasperation and frustration. That would just be immature.
Aleksander could only hope that her intention had been to offer a name for her people, considering she had kept repeating it at him like he was the least intelligent kid in a class of mouth breathing neandertals. That was also, his last and most recent memory, one where he still had all of his limbs and was only a little less broken than he was now.
He'd like for those memories to come back as well, but at the moment no such luck. Either way, he wasn't interested in laying despondently in a hospital bed, not while he had questions that needed answers. Like what happened to the Lieutenant.
They'd been in some kind of jungle with the wreckage of the Adjudicator last he remembered. The LT had been the face of their pitiable effort for answers, and trying to figure out what the hell they were going to do now that they were lost with no idea how to get back to… what? A different universe? Hard to think otherwise after the spartan had told him they were now on Tribute, a sister world of Reach, though it sure as hell didn't look like it. And that was if they were even still on the same planet. However, whatever slipspace fuckery resulted in that, was far beyond his knowledge. He was a healer, not a scientist, and even then, not much of one. His lack of knowledge was already known.
Returning him to his initial plan.
To make a nuisance of himself.
He tried to stand up, to maybe get out in the hall and flag down one of these aliens and sling some funtime words at the bastards. But his body was less than accommodating. His arms sluggish and barely responsive. Whatever sedative they'd stuck him with obviously had not run its course through his system.
Assholes.
A sigh of frustration blew pasty his chapped lips as he collapsed back onto the hospital bed. It seemed, that he was at the mercy of these cornholes, a concerning reality, but less disastrous than the situation could have been, given that they seemed to be not like the Covenant.
At least not yet.
They could have at least left some water. He grumbled internally, running his tongue across the roof of his parched mouth. He couldn't remember the last time he had water, or food for that matter, his gurgling stomach informed him with a well-timed growl.
The now familiar snap-woosh of the door drew his irritable attention toward the entrance to his hospital room to admit what was surprisingly, a familiar figure, and earned an unexpected exhale. The transitory relief he felt from at least recognizing one of these aliens lasted as long as it took for him to take a measure of them. Something really had gone down, and he couldn't fucking remember.
Oblivious to his frustration, the snow-white canine stepped lightly as she entered, favoring her left side gently with a caste wrapped arm secured to her chest with a sling. A rough sight she was, even to the colossal ass beating he did not remember taking. There must have been something crazy that happened, since he would not have been surprised to see the snowy canine in a bed alongside him.
The brown coat he remembered her wearing was now tied around her waist, and she wasn't wearing the jumpsuit, but a loose shirt and baggy pants with the logo of a winged fox on the on the arms and presumedly front of her shirt. The side she favored was partly wrapped in gauze, like himself, and the associated eye was tinged red and faintly bloodshot, and her… face… muzzle? Seemed rather… singed, the fur shorter on the worst side. Her injuries were, oddly, mirrored with his own.
The woman, (he decided as polite jargon), quickly made eyes for him, and he was bemused to see her worn expression break out into a soft smile as she walked over. The kind of acquainted smile reserved for a friend, he felt worth noting. Aleksander remained quiet, content to embrace even this small form of familiarity this alien provided before whatever godless surprise next reared its ugly head, as she folded out one of the guest chairs in the room and placed it beside his bed.
She sat down gingerly, wincing in discomfort as she settled in.
He eyed the canine somewhat askance, with holes in his memory and wondering what it was that happened to his once simple life. This was far more complicated than the usual killing aliens and looking sexy as fuck while doing it.
"Ugh…" He groaned 'inwardly'.
Maybe there was some brain damage riding along with his injuries somewhere. God but he would kill for a little Tylenol or even a cup of goddamn water. His insides felt dry. Like a beaten sandbag. Considering he woke up feeling like he had sucked on a grenade, he reasoned he was allowed some wandering inanity. He reckoned it still made him the most mentally stable ODST in his battalion.
Who were all dead, he was remembering, which was a mega bummer. He supposed it made the jousting for least mentally deficient trooper something of a blowout affair.
Soft breathing intruded upon his spiraling mental facilities, and pulled him out of his pitiable attempt at morbid humor.
Right, alien dog girl. He reminded himself, looking to the aforementioned oddity he had not yet quite gotten used to. Focus on the now. His usual piss poor attempts at humor could wait at least until he had a grasp on exactly how fucked he was. Which he hoped his recent canine friend might have the answer.
Well, best to be polite, best foot forward and all that. He'd been raised with manners after all.
Clearing his throat, he tried to offer his best and most sincere smile. "Hello, cornhole." He said with his most courteous tone, though he imagined he was a rather unbecoming sight, given he was trussed up in several ply of medical gauze. However, that she seemed to be emulating his good self, he'd figured that balanced out, leaving them somewhere on a middling ground of civility.
"Hello, Sergeant." The alien dog returned his platitudes with a warm smile.
He stared for several moments, his mouth no doubt flapping and ungainly.
"Ah…" He replied elegantly.
Well, he wasn't expecting that.
XX-XX-XX
As the phantom coasted over a forested ridge, Ju'das was able to lay eyes on this bastion of survivors that Thaza had guided them to, leaning outside the bay to look below as the dropship descended to land in a roughly hewn field not far outside the encampment. And though it did not look like much, seeing so many of his kin and fellows was a soothing balm to his troubled mind.
Lady Sudomi seemed in higher spirits as well, the young female conversing pleasantly with Thaza as they readied to disembark, the consummate warrior possessing very little of his passionate rhetoric and charm as he seemed driven speechless by the chattering female as she spoke idly of her work and findings, welcoming the distraction that took her away from the troubles of now. Nipnup, ever present and tenacious in his oath to protect his charge, waddled stoically at her side, as much as an unggoy was able.
The diminutive creature's spirits remained unshaken despite the trials they had faced, a reminder of the quiet strength inherent in their species. He was a credit to his people, and a surprising source of solidarity for an old marshal.
The sight brought a smile to the aged sangheili's mandibles in these dark days.
They descended from the lift, setting down gently on the grassy field below the humming drive of the troop ship, stalks of grass waiving under the gentle breeze created by the grave chute and shimmering resplendently in the sunlight.
"Marshal!" Thaza called out glibly, drawing his attention to the imposing form of the youthful warrior.
Ju'das noted that Sudomi had not strayed from his side and shook his head ruefully.
Ah, to be young again.
"I bid you take a few moments respite." Thaza implored, gesturing toward their refuge. "These days have been challenging on us all, a new trial for our Covenant. Grab a meal and sit for a time. There is much planning to be done before we can make our next move. I will have a brother collect you when the time comes for a decision to be made. For now, rest easy, you are again returned to the fold."
The field marshal mused on the words of one who should be his subordinate, and inclined his head in agreement. "As you say, it would do these old bones well to garner some rest." Thaza was young, but brave and not as foolish as many of his brethren. Ju'das felt he could leave things as they were. After all, it was Thaza who had taken control of their scattered remnant, and as far as he could see the young warrior was doing well bearing the reigns of command.
Nor, was he lying about his bones. He did not move, or fight, as well as he used to.
"I am relieved for it, Marshal." Thaza laughed gently. "Even the greatest warriors can be felled by the humblest of means." There was much in-between his kind words, a relief at the lack of usurpation of his command, and an appreciation for his support.
For a warrior of Ju'das' stature to show deference would do much to cement Thaza's position, a form of unspoken backing. It was fairly common in the realm of sangheili politics and the pivotable maneuverings of younger warriors.
Ju'das was relieved to see a return of the politically shrewd and confident adversary he had once debated in the forums of High Charity, what seemed a lifetime in the past. It boded well for their chances. He was not overly concerned about taking charge or showing dominance, such things were a young warrior's game. He did not mind playing second to another's ambitions.
As it was said. All great warriors started somewhere. His story, was over. His victories in the counting of decades spanning long before their war with the humans, living now in dusty old tales unfit for youthful exuberance but for perhaps nights at his family keep, had circumstances been different. Ah, but that was then, and this, was now.
It seemed the legend of Thaza Relamee had just begun.
"Perhaps foolish warrior." Jath interjected with a derisive squawk, beak chattering gratingly with mirth at his own humor. Ignorant or uncaring of the scathing stare from a few the lance warriors present. The creature had been largely silent for the duration of their trip, unusually reserved for one of his ilk in such a high position as he held, with his cutting jape being his first real words beyond noncommittal mumbling.
"I believe you have duties to attend, Enginemaster." Thaza reminded with a strained cordiality. It seemed, that even the largess of his charm and patience, was wearing thin for the abrasive creature.
"Yes, yes, much work to do. Leave it to kig-yar to save our most holy Covenant." He nattered dismissively, breaking away towards the camp with his pack of followers, prowling with the stilted walk of the predatory sky raptors that dwelled in the cliffs of his home keep. Soon, Jath was lost in a crowd of his kind, a less than flattering departure, but expected of a kig-yar.
There was a reason they were universally recognized as cutthroat pirates.
"It is strange to say." Thaza hummed with grim humor at the departing creature. "That Jath, that Quillick, may be the least disagreeable of his people."
"He is… unpleasant." Sudmoi offered carefully.
"Yes well, we are all brothers in sisters in the eyes of the gods." Thaza placed a gentle, fleeting touch on her shoulder. "We do not choose our family."
The young female did not react quickly, giving only a demure nod and a small smile as Thaza turned toward the marshal who watched with an unreadable expression.
"This is where I leave you, Field Marshal." Thaza informed him wearily, the warriors noble voice loud as it carried over into the encampment. "I must coordinate with the scouting lances and see about our supplies and take a new count for those who live." He hummed hopefully.
"I do not know where we are, for we have no contact with the fleet over the battlenet and the ship's salvaged spirit has been less than cooperative, a task I have set Jath to correcting. It is my prayer that we may have answers before nightfall."
"Of course, Thaza." The role the young sangheili had taken for himself was unenviable. This new foe, and this strange world, left their scattered people in the unusual position of being on the backfoot. That was not to say of the demon that lingered out there somewhere, a fact Ju'das had yet to reveal.
There was no telling how Thaza might react. He had not shown a desire to meet a demon in battle, focused as he had been on politicking and what was undoubtedly a future as a Kaidon. Even so, Ju'das did not want to risk the chance that he would be taken with the idea of proving himself in battle against a demon. A duel he felt Thaza fated to lose, and there was no telling how many would be lost in the hunt for the most tenacious demon Ju'das had ever faced in battle. More to say, they were not in any position for vendettas.
He and the demon had parted, amicably, anathema as it was to the faith. This once, Ju'das felt things could be left as they were. Best to let the gods sort it out. No matter how the absence of his family's blade left a hollow in his chest. Honor and discretion, were two sides of a coin. Honor dictated he avenge the slight of the demon taking a holy relic. Discretion assured there would come a time for action.
"By your leave." Thaza bowed low in respect before hesitating for a moment as he eyed the young female in their midst. "Lady Sudomi, there is little this disparate warcamp can supply a personage with your grace and beauty. But you may avail yourself of what little amenities I can offer. Hot food and cool refreshment may not lessen the troubles we face, but I give these freely."
Her hue tinted purple as she bent graciously. "I accept all that you offer within the spirit it was given, Commander Relamee."
The major's jaws closed into a smile.
"You are kind, My lady. If you would follow me, I will personally see to your accommodations." The male seemed to swell at her soft words, and gestured with a flourish as she fell into place beside him.
Ju'das chuckled as Nipnup waddled after with a parting exclamation of "Great Marshal!"
"To be young again indeed." He mused wryly, turning his own attention to the bustling encampment and momentarily away from gloomier thoughts. To see so many of their Covenant alive after The Last Psalm met its ignoble end was a kindness he had not expected.
The rally camp was a veritable hive of organized chaos. The jumbled herd of unggoy set to task by diligent sangheili masters, erecting lodging for their kind, rectangular barracks units filled with methane. A sight that alleviated Ju'das' unspoken concern for his small friend and made him curious how these had been recovered from the ship before its destruction. It seems that not all heads had been overfull of blind rhetoric. He could only attribute the foresight to the young major.
Past the toiling unggoy, the kig-yar loitered around the disorganized array of tents they had procured for themselves, chattering and squawking in their native tongue, a fusion of derogatory slander towards those they considered their lesser, and the merciless haggling and bartering so familiar to their internal politics. The colorful and vibrant nature of their shield gauntlets distracted as they flashed animatedly, disguising sleight of hand and concealing hushed transactions.
Stranded as they were, this only seamed to incentivize the natural mercantile proclivities of the kig-yar. The hushed mutterings of their dealings were something of a courtesy, to those who knew the species well. Had they deigned so, it would have been likely that few, if any, would have been aware. Polite, for the birds.
Ju'das nearly felt nostalgic for the war camps of old, before the regimented faith and fury of the war perpetuated upon the humans. The tenacity of their enemy necessitated a change in the old ways. Walls, motion sensors, circuitous patrols and enhanced counter espionage operations. The humans were an inferior, and yet admirably tenacious foe, intuitive, adaptable, in ways the Covenant was not.
Information warfare, a field they were unused to playing, let alone fighting. Yet one the humans appeared to live and breathe. Their fleet operations and colonies a jealously guarded secret that even their lowest warriors would fiercely protect unto death, under brutal interrogation and torture.
They hit hard in unexpected places and were ready to sacrifice entire armies and fleets for a moment's advantage. They fought with everything at all moments and in all places, from the smallest colonies to vast planetary fortifications. Their demons more than the equal of the average sangheili, spawning a mythos of invincibility that was rarely tarnished.
How could you not venerate such a foe? Their dedication, their valor, such defiance in unassailable odds would have seen tales spun around fireplaces in keeps throughout the space of Sangheilios and its colonies, had they shared blood.
Instead, they were reviled by their adversary, treated with no honor, no respect. They were afforded no mercies, no clemency, eradicated to a soul on whatever world they occupied, like vermin. Civilians… children.
How could any of his people not feel shame, as the cities of the humans burned and their people cut down by overwhelming might. How could they drown out the screams, the pleading. How could they not feel the helpless cries of a dying world.
He knew the answer as much as he reviled it.
Faith.
Faith offered vindication, empowerment, and to more than a few, a kind of pleasure. To kill in the name of the gods was to sup from a heady concoction, no different than a stimulant, if perhaps more potent. A drug he had imbibed freely for a time, until he could no longer drown out the wailing voices with benediction and prayer. Could no longer reminisce in keeps about their noble battles against the vermin, without seeing the faces of the innocent cut down by his family blade. Terror and rampant fear etched under the golden glow of his sword as he ran them through.
Pride had fallen away, his service carried only by the beneficence of duty.
Ju'das found himself walking up to a heating unit in time, though the forest was temperate and rustled by the errant breeze. No matter the terrain, one could always find warriors crowding around such things, like the campfires of ancient warbands. He was greeted by the relaxed sangheili with respectful nods and hushed murmuring. The soldiers of his people lounged at a makeshift table hastily cobbled with a few broken carbines and a sheet of metal from an old spirit transport.
The group muttered and hummed over an unfamiliar game that seemed to use small and colorful rectangles with shapes and human figures, casting furtive, falsely casual glances at the aging marshal. At the center a pile of gekz grew every steadily as he observed their dealing to and fro. Ju'das was surprised to see what was clearly contraband so freely in the open. Though he noticed that they were all young warriors, their worn armor in the bright blue of the minor rank.
It was an open secret that a market existed in the ranks, distributing items that were… received poorly in the eyes of the faith, illicit holos and satirical articles of the holy scriptures. He himself had traded for such things in his rebellious youth. However, the war with the humans had brought a new kind of material, a new guilty pleasure. The remnants of human culture taken from desolate cities and burning bases by enterprising kig-yar, or the rare sangheili, even perhaps a curious unggoy.
So it was that the edifying comforts of the enemy made its way into the grasp of their destroyers.
The act was heresy, as plain and blatant as could be. A depravity the Hierarchs would not allow to stand. An aspersion against the tenants of The Great journey. But as was often true with all living creatures, such minor sins were oft unheeded, and unspoken to those of rigorous faith.
And such as it was, he did not hold much piety in his heart for the whims of the prophets.
Ju'das, unbothered by the concerned eyes of the young warriors, sat at the table, pulling up an empty ration crate in place of a chair. One of the minors, eschewing the clearly human game for a moment, gave a look of uncertainty at the Field Marshal that had taken an uncomfortable interest in their activities. He could see the haggardness in the male's posture, and in the disrepair of his wargear.
These young warriors had been humbled, and lived, a rarity for their kind.
He imagined it was not easy, to face an enemy and be so thoroughly humbled. An important lesson, for the vigorous fighting spirit of a young sangheili. They were blessed to have learned this without the cost of their lives, as many of their more unfortunate brothers could attest.
"Ah… welcome, Marshal Rasumai. It is an honor." The young warrior greeted him hesitantly, and he could see in their eyes the same dread as if a prophet themselves had taken seat amongst them to play witness to their abject profanation. Even so, to be recognized even by such young warriors as these, swelled no small amount of pride in Ju'das Rasumai's chest. He had fought many years and won many battles, such that even the greatest of Kaidons would not fault his honor for the blood he had given in service to the Great Journey.
A respect earned that brought no shame upon his name, regardless of his old scars.
But those were old days, and this was not the time to be lost to memory.
"Be calm, whelps." He intoned with a faint inflection of mirth. "There was a time, quite long ago, where I had been young myself."
"O-Of course, Lord Marshal." The youngest of their number stuttered, his mandibles curled into a hesitant smile.
He returned the expression with a relaxed grin, making a show of himself as he divested his harness of its accruements, removing his rifle and placing it alongside the discarded weapons of the group of young blooded. "I sit here to rest old bones, young warriors, pay little mind to my presence."
The action sent ripples of ease amongst the worried youths and they hesitantly returned to their game. Ju'das remained content for a time, watching them ply their knowledge in this most unusual human game, and in time his trespass was excused, if not forgotten. And what a strange game indeed. The old Marshal mused inquisitively as he entertained his interest with curious eyes.
These… kards, as he had been informed after a passing question to an increasingly relaxed member of this little game, were many faceted, with a myriad of colors and iconography, some he recognized, crowns and spears, others were more obstruse, molded like the tracks of a wild animal, or a symmetrical, if semi ovoid shape. The cards with the humans seemed of more worth, as often the winner had a diverse set, or an assortment of the singular denominations.
The more questions he asked in his curiosity, the less reserved the minors became, easing into their stools, even such to the point where after the last hand, as he was informed such rounds were called, one of the younger warriors exultated triumphantly as he tossed his arraigned set upon the table and dragged his earnings towards him much to the groans and halfhearted mutters of the other players, the assorted gekz and rations would be highly prized to the rank and file warrior. Not an inconsiderable triumph, and an interesting concept for wager.
Ju'das observed, a mellow warmth content to linger in his hearts. And in that moment, an idle, bittersweet thought parted through the brambles of his gnarled mind. He wondered of the whelps he had sired in his youth, of which he was sure, with some lingering pride, there were many.
Even in his youth he was an accomplished warrior, and skilled with a blade, his legacy began at an early age, not long after he had left his home keep to fight across the stars. As a disciple of the sword, he had forgone genuine attachment, in order to ensure his line would have ample offspring, and he had sown many fields for the honor of his keep, and on occasion, for others, as one might barter the seed of a prized beast.
A hedonistic lifestyle he had found pleasure in as a hot blooded youth, but now, as he lingered in the twilight of his years, he could not say it had been without regrets. He often thought of the humans in regards to their rearing, he had learned over the years, in such ways that darkened his mood to recall, that they took pride in family, and bore a fierce love for their offspring and mates that was so uncommon for his people.
He had seen human fathers, bereft of even their primitive weaponry and armors face the likes of the greatest of his kin, legendary blades or venerable marshals at the vanguard of righteous armies. Always futile, struck down with contempt, and amusement by those who considered themselves to be betters, to be righteous.
Nevertheless, they fought, they struggled, to protect their progeny and their mates. And as they fell the females took their place, for as little as that had mattered.
What race could be so condemned by the gods when armed with such meritorious character? How could such cruel divinities be deserving of his devotion, his worship? As this farce of a war lingered onwards, as the deprivations of their armies and cruelty of their fleets reigned unending, Ju'das came to a realization that would have him butchered and condemned for arch heresy.
Such gods, if they existed, deserved nothing from him but spite.
He'd stomached his fill of their glories. The draught of worship had turned sour, the substance of their faith, putrid, like rotten flesh that roiled in his belly. Yet what he could do, as one soul? How could one swornblade stand against the unassailable might of the Covenant? What of his keep? His people, that would be reviled, cursed, had he taken a stand against this injustice.
They would scour his home from the cliffs of Sangheilios with sanctified bombardment, with but a declaration of his heresy. The whelps he had sired, even though he knew not their names, would be rounded up, slaughtered, he been part to such culling himself, when his faith was steel, and his will tempered.
Cowardice staid his conscious
"Lord Marshal?"
Ju'das, his thoughts clouded deeply, had been taken away from the world around him, and found his attention pulled back as he turned to the minor that had led the largess of conversation in his idle queries, the mandibles of the youth tweaked with anxious concern.
Ju'das wondered, what expression he must have been making, to draw such a fretful look.
"Tis nothing." He assured with a wry curl of his jaws. "Just an old warrior dwelling on even older memories, certainly not fit for conversation amongst such eclectic company." He joked with a dry chuckle.
His reassurance was met with polite amusement. The lingering malaise of uncertainty from these youth twanged at a disused part of him, and he found the want for words.
"Pity not this old warrior." He pressed on, leaving his musings as an errant shadow of the mind, gesturing instead toward themselves. "Such things are not for the talk of such young males as yourselves. Nor it is what might need be addressed."
He met the eyes of each of the five in turn, their hunched postures, their focus pulled toward the memory of their inglorious retreat that distracted them so even now, and allowed himself to straighten his back and jutted his jaws with the phantom of his old courtly days. Perhaps the time did not seem right for his words, but to see his people like this, stoked the embered fire in his chest.
He found his voice, staunch and proud as he sought to uplift battered hearts. "Rather, we find ourselves tested in such uncertain times, never before have you faced such a trial. I can see it in your eyes, in your bearing." He chuffed amusedly.
"Tis not like the stories aye? The hymns of battle were left unsung. The cacophony of war more a discordance than a righteous symphony?" He asked of them, his gaze empathetic as the five minors shared glances and under his understanding look, muttered low agreement.
"Yes, this is something all must come to their own in realization, the expectations often do not meet the desires. Reality is a harsh master, and has no care for the whims of those chained in its embrace. This is not what you expected when you joined our glorious army, no?"
"""""No Marshal.""""" They offered in hesitant unison, perhaps a remnant of their time in tutelage under the masters of their keeps.
"Yet here you are, here you remain, alive, uninjured." Ju'das' words felt like song beating in his chest, thumping a fist against his pounding hearts at each intended annunciation. "Despite these adversities, in the face of hardships none of our kin could boast of facing, lost in this new place, against a new, alien foe tenacious and strong, you persist." He avowed with pride in his voice, giving each minor a nod of recognition, of respect. And to a one they seemed to sit straighter, unhunched.
Unbowed.
"Against unknowable odds, against an uncertain future, you stood tall, you fought, you survived. You have learned of the realities of war, and now have become stronger for it. Let this old warrior not see the sallow wallowing of maligned youth. You each yet live, your hearts beat with the noble blood of Sangheilios." He spoke of the homeworld with reverence, with pride, and they thumped their chests with fervor at his call.
"Who are we but the mighty sons of a noble people? What say we when standing against our foes, no matter their number, their might? What words fall from our honorable jaws as we set upon our enemy with fire and faith?"
"""""Our will indomitable!"""""
"Our will, Indomitable!" Ju'das shadowed their stout cry with satisfaction. "Yes! There is no challenge in which we do not answer! Not adversity we do not face with eagerness in our hearts! Show me this courage, show me the will of our lineage."
"""""Yes marshal!""""" They shouted as one, standing at attention in their enthusiasm. The disillusion he had seen, the hapless despair, it no longer persisted, cast aside in their new conviction, their revitalized faith.
And for a moment, Ju'das envied these young warriors.
He might have no longer believed, he might have cast an aspersion upon the failures of their religion, but right now, in this moment, the hearts of these warriors had no need for his pessimism and disdain, of Ju'das Rasumai, the faithless, the heretic.
They had need of Field Marshal Ju'das Rasumai, legendary blade and hero of the Covenant. Demon Slayer, the Spirit of Victory.
They had need of their gods.
Even as he paid service to a faith he had abandoned, he was in the moment, comforted to see what his words could bring to these young minors. Faith could heal, as much as it could destroy. In that way it was more than he could ever be.
"Now then, warriors, come sit." He gestured to the seats they had forsaken in their zeal, to which they timorously reattained as they were brought out of their revere to see several other warriors casting bemused glances upon them across the camp. Such displays were likely uncommon for soldiers of their circumstances. Nevertheless, now that their dourness had been shorn from their thoughts, perhaps they might amuse the wandering curiosity of an old soldier. Lift spirits, and then distract, a tactic well used and always effective for the troubled minds of sangheili warriors.
"Explain to me this po-kar, I find interest in its complexities. And I would have the names of such stalwart warriors."
"Of course, Marshal." Spoke the one that seemed to be in charge of this band, given the deference of the others, his hide was a vibrant blue, so dark as to be nearly purple as it gleamed in the light of the sun, an uncommon coloration for the core worlds. Likely to be born in the periphery region.
"I am Lo'kal Durasamee, leader of this lance, with me are my brothers of blood, Dur'gek, Zee'k, Nurn'daur, and Kel'os." Each inclined their heads as they were called, an assorted bunch peculiar in their uniformity, similar in shape, size, and coloration.
Ju'das quirked his jaws bemusedly. "Blood brothers? You are of the same line?"
Unlike humans, it was considered unusual for sangheili to know their blood relations. The ethos of their people was founded in communal whelping. The rearing of offspring shared amongst the people of their respective keeps. Bonds of blood carried only the prospect of legacy, a practice originating in the creation of the Covenant. They were blessed with many mothers and fathers.
In his late age he often wondered if the creation of the Covenant had taken something from them that words could not accurately express. A fundamental aspect of their heritage.
"It is so, marshal." Lo'kal affirmed, heedless of his musing. "Our colony, Deios is small and on the far reaches of our people's domain. With such few prospects to offer the Covenant, and them in turn towards us. our communities have turned more… secular than perhaps most."
"I see." He offered in slow response.
He'd heard that the colonial sangheili in the outreaches were of a breed all their own, even so, he was taken aback. It was a simple thing to hear rumors, and another thing entirely for them to be verified. Nevertheless, the diminished devotion of the colonial born was a subject of little importance given current circumstance.
Neither was Ju'das a fount of piety himself. He had no hunting hounds in that fight, as the old saying went.
Before the silence could linger enough to cause the brothers to worry, Ju'das looked toward the game.
"Musings for another time. Now then, back to this Po-kar. I believe I have gleaned the nuance of this human game."
Lo'kal's jaws quirked adroitly. "If you say as such, marshal. Perhaps you might be willing to offer wager."
"Oh?" Ju'das hummed curiously at the young warrior's quiet confidence. The Durasamee line appeared of good stock. The manner in which the adolescent carried himself belied the style of a warrior seeped in sureness, and the marshal could not see the arrogance of the untested.
Whether as a cause of maturity brought upon by their plight, or something earned with skill, was a matter of interest for the marshal.
"The better of seven hands might ask a favor from the loser, should you find that agreeable, Marshal. Gekz have little use other than barter, and might be so for some time. Favors are the currency of warriors, are they not?"
Ju'das could not help the smirk that rose upon the young warrior's daring, even his brothers seemed to eye the eldest, seeming unsure whether to be awed or terrified at his brashness. To ask a favor of a Field Marshal, more so one of Ju'das Rasumai's repute, could be construed as an insult, given the low station of the supplicant.
The old marshal chuckled.
"I suppose should I be bested, there might be knowledge I might be willing to pass down to a worthy opponent. Though I caution, Lo'kal, the debt owed at your loss might be more than one could pay. Should your brothers agree, I will allow such a wager."
A silent debate wrestled through the minors until ultimately, they offered agreeing nods to their senior, who in turn offered a confident nod to the marshal.
"The wager is then struck." Ju'das affirmed with a smooth gravitas reaching out to grasp each brother's forearm, sealing the stake. "The brothers of Deios, let the gods of Po-kar bear witness to our battle." Matters of the future could wait. Thaza wished to prove himself, and this old warrior was glad for the chance to let the whelp test his mettle.
A brief respite from the unknowable would do much for his humors. Besides.
Ju'das Rasumai would not lose.
It was not in his blood.
AN: Been a long time but I'm back as always like that stain in your carpet you try so desperately to rub out. A little public service announcement for anyone interested. If not the TLDR is that I am not dead and I am writing when I can. The nit and grit is down below otherwise.
I've just been dealing with a lot of life this year. 2023 has a lot going on for me, just some personal stuff, not life threatening but certainly taking me away from writing fics. Most of what little time I have for writing has been on workshopping some concepts trying to see if I have the drive to get my own story off the ground, something all my own. So far I don't know if it'll happen but I've been plugging a little at it.
As for Legacy, not giving up on this, I'll finish it before I die by thunder! Part of the delay is writers block in regards to the Covenant perspective amongst other things. I want them in the story, as they are going to be the driving force for the human element and to give a push for Six and develop some pathos and ethos, and as a result are largely the focal point of the current arc, the vague outline for the story at the moment is the Covenant, the Remnant, and hopefully before I reach seventy, the Aparoids. I want more perspective in the story, for the moving parts in the background and for characters that will become important anchors in the future, such as Bloodmaw, Ju'das, and Aleksander, but it is difficult juggling so many diverse personalities while scavenging the net for information. What halo books I have read did not delve deeply into Covenant Culture, and wiki and fanon articles supply little coherent and supportive information. And I'd rather not spend a few months reading through all the halo books for scraps of passing detail. Not to mention the barebones information for Star Fox beside. There's a lot of research that goes into the background of this story, hours spent combing articles for info on planets, scrounging for pictures of the Star Fox planets and systems, reading information for Halo planets and systems, the halo timeline, reading on characters, creating new characters, whole new personalities interfacing with the current cast, preparing for future characters, all of this to thread together into a coherent story.
It's sometimes a chore that feels more like studying for an exam rather than entertaining my passion for writing, and it can be a real struggle to type in the document when I am distracted surfing like a dozen tabs for relevant details. Not to mention all the editing, correcting typos, ensuring proper comma placement, all the fun stuff a beta might do if I had one. A third of my time is editing, and that's not all that fun, and it takes the life out of your words when you read the same paragraphs hundreds of times, only to find a series of typos you missed a week after posting.
English language, I stab at thee.
Not that it helps that I often get lost in detail. I want this to feel real, like something you could pick up off a shelf and pay for, even if I do this for free. A world you could lose yourself into, for the characters to feel real, like people, for the action to excite, for the romance to warm the heart, to see it all in your minds eye. An ambitious project, and a source of stress as much as it drives me. Even so I can't give up on it.
This story began more than eight years ago, and has been through more than three revisions on various sites to get where it is today, back when I was a cringe teenager to now, a little less cringe adult. This all started because I liked a certain blue fox, and I wanted Noble Six to have a better ending than he had after Reach. No matter how bizarre the match up I vowed to make it work. And so far this idea has been a part of my life for nearly a third of it. Romance has always been the core concept of this story, of a Spartan, stripped of his humanity, have it returned to him by love. That's always the way it was going to go, and its how this story will end. I know that's not for a lot of people, and I've been told through many PMs that it detracts from the story, as if that wasn't the whole reason this story began in the first place. And that's alright. At the end of the day this story is for me, and I just post it because I feel like it and some people might like it. I am not a socially active kind of guy, certainly not on the internet, I always struggle with engaging people I can't see, from emails to texts, to online messages. I don't do this for some internet attention, I just like writing, I like stories, and I'm a sucker for romance, and imaginary women of a fuzzy variety. I'm not going to change that.
It's just the way I am.
Anyways, I'm rambling and it is way late in the super early morning and I got to get some sleep before I head to work.
Synopsis I'm still alive guys, and I am not giving up.
Drake