Wearing the armour that Tymon had fallen asleep in the night before, he and his eldar captor were well on their way to her camp for what seemed like hours to him, but was in actuality little more than thirty minutes. Every step the guardsman took required at least twice the effort of a normal footstep as he withdrew his boot from the viscous shin deep mud only to plunge the other right into the sludge again and again, yet the eldar's boots seemed to effortlessly wade through the mud. But unbeknownst to Tymon, she was being assisted by her armour's stealth systems. To make matters worse for him, she was moving at an almost hurried pace causing the panting Tymon to come to a stop as he, between breaths, had to almost beg for the eldar to slow down.
"Wait… Wait…" The eldar came to a stop, turning to face Tymon as he was slightly hunched over, resting his hands on his gently crouched thighs.
"I need to rest…" He panted, almost all in one word. While patches of sweat grew beneath Tymons arms from trying to keep up with the almost speed walking eldar, she seemed entirely unphased by their terrain, aside from an irritated glare that started to form on her face accompanied by a quick eye-roll.
"How the frack are you so quick..." Tymon asked nobody in particular after having caught some of his breath back. While she understood that everyone needed rest, she expected the guardsman's stamina to last at least a bit longer than what she was seeing, though it had slipped her mind that she was being aided by her suits' stealth systems. The eldar decided not to dignify Tymon's half voiced question with a response, opting instead to impatiently ask a question of her own:
"How long for you to rest?" Once again, her accent and relatively poor understanding of low gothic syntax came through as she inquired.
"I dunno… Frack I should have brought water…" he practically coughed up as he stared at the ground. Again, the eldar granted him an irritated eye roll while otherwise maintaining her glare on him, though this time she decided to answer his proverbial call for help.
"There will be water at my camp"
"Could I have some?" The guardsman almost excitedly perked his head up at her, only now noticing her irritated expression, but only for it to quickly turn into a dumbfounded look of confusion at his response.
"If you need water you will drink!"
"Alright! Alright! I was just asking!" Tymon shot back, though it took him a couple of moments to realise how stupid of a question his truly was. The still dumbfounded eldar scoffed at him and turned back around.
"Tell me when you are ready" she commanded as she began to observe their surroundings.
Unassisted by her helmet this time, the eldar did what she could to maintain at least a decent situational awareness, though she was regularly interrupted by her thoughts on the situation she now found herself in. The 'Mon'keigh' was starting to seem more like a liability than anything else, needing rest while she did not. In fact, so far the human had lost her her helmet and was asking stupid questions. Though these thoughts were quickly overshadowed by that little part of her mind that had yearned for company before she met him as it consistently rationalised keeping the primitive being around. Though she listened to none of these thoughts, opting to put them all aside as she waited for Tymon to catch his breath which did not take him particularly long for him to do so as he straightened his back out, ready to wade through the mud again.
"Alright, let's keep going." said the guardsman, no longer speaking between his breathless panting. With that, they continued their way to her encampment, though she moved at a slower pace this time, mindful of the fact that Tymon did not have the same equipment as herself.
Another half hour of walking brought the pair to their destination as the mud began to shallow out on their approach to her camp. Though Tymon was no longer panting, his legs, from the second half of the hike they had just taken, were aching with a fiery sensation that was his muscles screaming at him for a rest. He caved in to their proverbial begging as he with no words and a groan, let himself fall to the ground on all fours, quickly rolling himself into a sitting position with his legs stretched out in front of him, not exactly pleasing the eldar he was accompanying:
"What you are doing? Get on your feet!" She yelled impatiently, not in the mood for the guardsman requiring another rest, but Tymon was not in the mood for any more of her demands.
"I've just walked.. An hour at least.. And my legs.. Feel like FRACKING twigs…" He yelled the swear word as loud as his vocal chords let him.
"So please... Give me a break… Also where's the water!?" He quickly adopted an impatient tone of his own as he followed up on the eldars promise that he would be able to drink when they got to her encampment. Taken aback by his suddenly very defiant and stubborn attitude, she simply stared for a moment despite Tymon not noticing or caring, though she quickly turned around and crouched slightly as she entered the overgrown tunnel where she had stashed the majority of her survival equipment. Moments later she returned, holding something which, to Tymon, looked nothing like a hydration kit, or any kind of water bottle for that matter but, to his confusion, she held the oblong shaped thing to her now agape mouth as it released a jet of water straight in. Confused, he stared at the device as she stepped towards him, holding it about a foot away. Before taking the device from her hands, he stared at it for a moment, then turning to look at the eldar who eventually bore a similarly confused look until she impatiently moved it closer to his face:
"Take it!" She commanded. Tymon took the eldar's 'hydrator' out of her hand, his confused stare once again turning back to the device as he inspected it.
"Well... how do I use it then?" Scoffing and rolling her eyes, she wordlessly pointed out a small button on its side. Instinctively Tymon pressed said button which immediately caused water to jet out of the end facing away from him. He recoiled slightly, turning the hydrator around and almost hesitantly opened his mouth before he pressed the button again while his captor put her head in her hands, covering up a gentle smile and slight chuckle at the whole proverbial display she was witnessing. Tymon quickly stopped drinking when he noticed her poorly hidden and amused expression:
"Are you laughing at me?!" Tymon asked, still sitting on the floor and now filled with disbelief, but she answered with yet another small bout of withheld laughter as he drank some more and got up with an insulted sounding:
"Frack you!" while handing the hydrator back to her.
Once she had stowed the hydrator and stopped chuckling, the pair were simply standing there and Tymon was waiting for something to happen:
"So what now". Again, with no words, she went up to the entrance however instead of going inside this time, she picked up the solar collector that was resting upon the roof of the tunnel's entrance. But to Tymon, this simply looked like a random piece of xeno technology. She then placed it on the floor, folding its wide, black, reflective yet fragile looking panel in half before disconnecting it from the larger component it was mounted to, giving Tymon a better look at what he believed to perhaps be some kind of battery. Compared to her armour, the half that Tymon was able to look at appeared much simpler; a cylinder with a small control panel or readout of some kind as well as the mounting mechanism that held the panel in place on top, though before he could get a better look, his captor, with that now typically demanding voice, told him to:
"Pick it up" Taken aback by this, he stammered out his response:
"W-what?"
"You are taking it back, pick it up" Now he knew what she wanted and, more than anything, it insulted him.
"You really brought me out here so I could carry your gak back to prospector 3..." As far as Tymon was concerned, he was about to be reduced to a braindead cargo servitor with the addition of a superiority complex ridden xeno giving him orders.
"JUST pick it up!" She reiterated. The guardsman saw no way out of this situation, she was armed and he had practically no idea where he was so an escape would not be viable. Reluctantly, he walked up to the disassembled solar collector in front of the eldar and, with a grunt of effort, picked up both parts of the device with his mud stained hands and started walking again, though he did not get very far before his captor decided to comment.
"That was not complicated yes?" Tymon did not have to fully understand what her stunted sentence said to know how downright condescending it was and he had had it. It was bad enough that he was only being kept alive because he could be of some use to her and that she seemed to have the patience of a flea looking for blood to suck, now she was being condescending. With frustration, he tossed both pieces to the somewhat harder ground her encampment rested upon and, as he did, the panel opened up slightly and hit a rock beneath, denting the whole surface outwards. The eldar suddenly looked terrified, tensing up as she saw the collector fall to the ground.
"NO!" The eldar screamed before Tymon's inevitable tirade began.
"Alright if I am to become your FRACKING BOOTLICK for the duration of my stay on this MUDDY EMPEROR FORSAKEN WARP HOLE, then THE LEAST you could do is treat me with THE SMALLEST MODICUM of respect!" He screamed as the eldar's face turned from one of mild irritation to one of almost extreme distress as Tymon most likely badly damaged the device.
"WHY?!" she yelled with all her might, gesturing at the device but doing nothing to intimidate the pissed off Tymon.
"Oh I don't know maybe it's because you're treating me like a FETHING HALF WITTED SERVITOR!" He shot back as his sarcasm rapidly turned to anger.
"I should END you here and now" The eldar responded, while drawing her shuriken pistol and pointing it to his face, but he barely reacted to the slim yet wide barrel now staring at him, in fact he borderline provoked her.
"GO ON THEN! You've had PLENTY of opportunities earlier yet I'M STILL FRACKING HERE!" He screamed in response. The eldar was taken aback, he had called her bluff. She had no intention to kill him, he could still be of use, though that was starting to seem like the most viable alternative. For seconds, Tymon stared down the barrel of the eldar weapon, waiting for something to happen as fear for his own life finally started to set in, yet to his surprise, she lowered her weapon and spoke with an angered reluctance.
"Would it be better if I carry too?!" It was the one thing she was trying to avoid, yet it was starting to seem like the only alternative besides putting a shuriken through his skull. Surprised at the eldar's question, Tymon stammered momentarily as he tried to answer.
"W-WELL!..." He started off, tone raised, expecting another screaming fest to ensue, though he trailed off as he fully processed what she had just said.
"Yeah!.. It would be" Still surprised by the direction this conversation went in, Tymon waited for an answer and for things to progress.
"Alright!.. I will carry the star collector.. And you will carry something else" That reluctance that was previously in her voice remained as she, with an expression of both despair and aggravation, went to pick up the pieces of her solar collector.
"Star~ what?" Tymon had no idea what she meant by 'Star collector', though this earnt him more yelling.
"I DON'T KNOW THE WORDS!"
"Jeez! alright!" Tymon shot back after he recoiled at her somewhat sudden outburst, contrary to contributing what would inevitably become another fight.
"I'm gonna go pick something up now!"
"Quiet!" While there was urgency in her voice, all that Tymon heard was another insult and so, he answered in kind.
"Oh you be quiet!" But she very quickly gestured at him to get down as she ducked to the ground, staring at something in the forest. Then he saw it too; in the somewhat near distance, a mechanical creature with a certain familiarity, yet lankiness that the spider creature did not possess, slowly but gracefully crawling over the surface of the mud ridden planet.
It took Tymon perhaps a second to find cover on the other side of the cave entrance, as the eldar remained motionless and stayed where she was. While she knew the creature as a Canoptek Wraith, Tymon knew it as nothing and she was desperately hoping that the 'mon'keigh' would not do something as stupid and brash as attack it, though he seemed to know better as he stayed out of sight. The wraith slowed down, its body raising slightly and turning over towards the two survivors, revealing its somehow coherently twitching head, scanning the entire area with an unliving speed. It then slowly and silently advanced towards them. Tymon, trying to get a better look at the wraith, peaked out from behind his cover, only for long enough for a quick glimpse, yet he regretted it instantly as its twitching head momentarily looked its eye on him. With that he hid, yet the wraith seemed to take no interest as it continued to scan the area for what seemed like minutes. The striking scorpion, expecting an engagement that the pair would most likely lose, had her pistol not directly pointing at it, but ready to aim, primed to pierce a shuriken right through its robotic eye, though she would not need to. Just as the wraith had stopped its slow advance, it began a similarly slow retreat, turning its strange body away from the pair again and by proxy, its unblinking eye as it continued its previous path, low and gracefully, then she waited until it was a good distance away.
"It's gone" The eldar called out to the cowering guardsman who, after a second of looking around, came out from his position behind the outcropping tunnel entrance. While she was calm, Tymon was not. His stunned and almost terrified face darted around for a moment before eventually getting itself together.
"One of those things took out my squad" was all he could say at their encounter, though the eldar would not answer this statement of his and, after some moments of waiting, she renewed her 'orders' from previously.
"Pick up some items to carry" Still shocked from the close encounter, he wordlessly obeyed this order of hers.
It was not long before both were once again trudging through the rapidly deepening mud on their way back to prospector three, though this time her stealth gear was inactive as she was trying her best to conserve power after Tymon had destroyed her solar collector. Just like their route towards her encampment, the flow of time was distorted to the guardsman as he carried an almost precariously piled stack of her various items, yet as they marched, the words of his fallen brother in arms 'Andrukas' came to mind again. Still somewhat stunned at what had happened not even an hour prior and with the objective to take his mind off of his calves which were slowly starting to ache again, he decided to break the silence between them and get his questions answered:
"So the things on this world then… Are they necrons?" He inquired as his boots slapped through the mud.
"Canoptek" was her emotionless answer.
"Canoptek?" Tymon repeated, but there was no reply.
"The feth are canoptek?" This ended up being a question she answered.
"They…" she paused, slowing down for a moment.
"They are… like your servitors, but necron" She finally managed as she combed through her mental dictionary of low gothic which was based almost entirely on communications she intercepted with her vox piece. Though she was not hopeful that her explanation made sense, to her surprise, Tymon seemed to understand.
"So they're like… repair things? Maintenance things for them?" Once Tymon answered, she was back on the move.
"Yes" She gave no thought to this response as she reached her previous pace again.
"Alright…" Tymon answered under his breath. So it was true, all the paranoid ramblings of Andrukas and how the imperium was hiding information about the necrons and who knows what else. At the same time he asked himself if the 57th were truly just canaries or poking sticks for the imperium. They had been his family and his home since he left his birthworld of beta fortanis, he could not fathom the fact that they were that borderline worthless to the imperium. Quickly he pushed this aside as he decided to ask something else, not one of interest, but one to simply avert the other questions his mind began to ask.
"So what's your name then?" He asked between breaths.
"Reason?" She answered, almost dismissively.
"What, my reason for asking?" Confused with the eldar's somewhat broken speech. The silence from her was almost an affirmation as the pair continued walking without a condescending or correcting comment from the eldar.
"I dunno... I mean... you probably don't know my name" He was about to continue before he was interrupted.
"Tymon Kim" This answer stunned him.
"What?!"
"From your communication" She followed up, with that Tymon rapidly understood what she meant.
"Right…" The guardsman was again, almost embarrassed at his stupidity in that situation, though he persisted.
"Well, ain't it only fair that I know yours then?" He again spoke between breaths as the pair hiked on.
"You don't need to" Once again, she was bearing the same condescending tone that caused Tymon to throw her collector to the ground. But this time, he was not that close to throwing another proverbial fit, opting instead to find his own name for her.
"Alright then… knife ear" He said, calling upon slang terms he had heard before. Though he was not necessarily expecting a reaction from her, she did slow down for a moment. Tymon could not see her face, yet as her pace slowed, she felt hurt. Her stoic bastion of a facial expression suddenly retreated for a moment, only to be replaced by one of sadness as he struck that nerve, though she quickly stowed this feeling and continued to march onwards.
"I'll call you knife ear." He reiterated, a bit quieter than moments ago. By this point, the eldar's typically irritated demeanour had returned as she continued wading through the mud but, almost just to spite her human co-survivor, she sped up slightly as she stowed and suppressed her sensitivities.
She maintained her accelerated pace for the entire route back to prospector three, but she was still getting used to no longer having a helmet. To make matters worse, the fact that the end of the day was growing ever nearer was rapidly being made apparent by the relatively bright sky starting to take a darker blue hue while the air around them grew colder, not that it slowed their progress. Despite their somewhat stunted conversational moments prior where the eldar earnt the name 'knife ear' from Tymon, the pair were still somewhat shaken by the close encounter with the wraith and, after another short rest at what Tymon believed to be the halfway mark, the pair continued throughout the evening until they arrived. Once again, Tymon's calves were killing him and, when they finally crossed the designated landing area where the lights had since turned off from a lack of charge, he sought to put the various items he was carrying down as soon as they reached the tents.
"Home sweet frackin' home" Tymon muttered to himself as he sat down beside the pile of items he had made next to the medical tent. 'Knife ear' on the other hand seemed very much in shape, putting down the broken solar collector next to him.
"What are you saying?" she asked him confusedly, having overheard his muttering.
"Nothing…" he mumbled, glancing at her as she asked, only to quickly look away again, stretching his legs out on the floor with a pained groan.
"Are you injured?" though the question was typically one of concern, her voice conveyed no such feeling, earning her a somewhat snarky response from Tymon:
"Why the warp would you care?" She scoffed at his response as she went over to where the pair had first greeted each other with weapons fire, seeking to find her helmet while Tymon had nothing further to say nor the energy for another drawn out argument, however his rapidly drying throat began to demand water. After some moments of giving his legs a break, he got up and went over to the crate with 'preserved H2O', opening the box and pulling out an actual water bottle from the dozens that were within, completely ignoring the empty hydration kits as he opened it and drank at least half of the bottle in one go. Following this, he strapped the bottle to his survival kit and went over to the place where she had told him to leave his weapon, earning him an encounter with his co-survivor as she was carrying the remains of her helmet. Tymon's fatigue and the eldars lack of spatial awareness as she inspected her helmet caused them to bump into each other, the components of her helmet falling right out of her hands and cluttering to the floor while an irritated glance shot across her face.
"See where you are going!" Her lack of knowledge in the language of Low Gothic was now starting to shoot her in the foot as this time, he did not know what she was trying to say.
"Wh-..." A stammering Tymon struggled to find a response, however his stammer devolved to a sigh and a sarcastic: "Sure!" accompanied with the most ingenuine smile he could possibly muster to which the eldar simply rolled her eyes and made her way to the stockpile
'Knife ear'; the two words continuously resonated in her mind as she walked, the pieces of her helmet in hand. Once she got there, she laid them out on one of the crates apart from her face piece which seemed to have suffered the most. Picking it up, she tried to inspect the damage that was done to her helmet by Tymon's lucky shot. The bolt had carved its way right through one of the sides of the faceplate and, while the damage seemed to be largely superficial, it in actuality had struck one of the main connection points for the helmet's HUD. She still had control over her suit through backup neural interfaces, however she no longer had the helmets threat detection capabilities or any more direct readouts. Annoyed at the damage she had let happen to her helmet, those thoughts were rapidly swept aside by the words 'knife ear' again searing through her mind and each time it spoke those words, she would feel an almost childish self-consciousness about her ears. She reached her left hand up to her left ear and, brushing her hair aside, ran her hand up the delicate and sensitive skin with her finger and thumb, though quickly stopping as she almost protectively cupped her whole hand around it.
'Knife ear' The words brought an almost distressed sigh through her lips as her mind repeated it again and again.
Enough
She suppressed the feeling the words brought on as she went back to inspecting her helmet, now was not the time to allow her emotions to take hold. Further inspection of the face piece revealed more and irreparable damage; even if the connection point worked, the projector crystals that allowed her HUD to function had fractured, if she tried to use her HUD now, it would be a static filled mess. Annoyed, she put the face piece down on the crate and stared into the middle distance. Then a footstep, something was threatening her, it was armed, she knew it. With no hesitation, she spun around on her heels, removing the shuriken pistol from her hip mount and pointing it at a stunned Tymon, who quickly aimed his lasgun at her in response.
"woah-woah-WOAH!" Tymon exclaimed a couple of times as he was suddenly greeted by 'knife ear' holding her weapon to him, hastily Tymon shouldered his lasgun from the relaxed idle position he was originally holding the weapon at.
"Put it down!" was all she answered as Tymon stepped back twice, his heart beating out of his chest.
"I'm not gonna shoot you! I was just getting my weapon!" This did nothing to calm the paranoid eldar down as the pair pointed their weapons at each other's heads.
"Okay?! Look!" With that, Tymon slowly lowered his weapon, he considered taking this opportunity to burn her face off with a single shot, though, to him it always seemed like she was one step ahead. He decided not to risk another fight as he continued to lower his weapon. To the guardsman's relief, the eldar did the same, albeit somewhat slower than him until she finally holstered her's against her hip. Though now the pair were once again, just standing opposite each other, Tymon carrying his lasgun and 'knife ear' leaning against one of the crates, as their eyes looked everywhere but each other. Eventually a somewhat silent Tymon pointed back towards one of the tents with his right hand while the left kept the weapon against his chest:
"Ummm… I'm gonna go to bed now…" Not waiting for any sort of response from the eldar, he began to step backwards however, before he could turn around, she impatiently interjected:
"We need to carry more!" However this was met with a relatively uncaring voice from Tymon.
"Not today I won't" He said as he started making his way over to the medical tent.
"Yes!" Again, the impatient eldar interrupted. This finally got Tymon to stop walking as he turned around to face her again, preparing for another argument, though he ended up sighing.
"Look… I don't know if you even feel the cold, or if you've got some gizmo in your suit that stops you from freezing your tits off, but it gets ridiculously cold at night and my ballsack will be frozen off before we even get halfway" The exasperated guardsman finished and, while she knew very little about what words he was using, she got the general idea and had nothing further to say as she simply stared at him for a moment, but then it hit her, she had no method of power generation, her armour had limited charge and, just like Tymon, the lower temperatures would affect her just as much if not more.
Tymon was turning around to walk off again but the eldar interrupted.
"Wait!"
"Hm?" Tymon turned back to face her, but she could not even look him in the eye as she realised that she was about to ask for his help. He had clearly survived at least one night, the question was how and the other question was whether or not it would work for her too. Now all she had to do was find the right words, though once again, this is where her lack of low gothic hit her. A few seconds passed and the confused Tymon simply turned around with a sarcastic:
"Good talk"
"Wait I…" Again, Tymon turned around, though now bearing a confused and aggravated look as the eldar still could not even look him in the eye.
"My armour stops me from…" she stopped, knowing what she wanted to say, but not how to.
"From what?" He responded, looking slightly less aggravated now.
"From…" With that, she wrapped her arms around herself, making a shivering motion and, thankfully Tymon knew what she was trying to say:
"From… getting cold?"
"Yes yes but it uses… energy" The embarrassed eldar managed to say. While she could not fathom the fact that she was about to ask a 'Mon'keigh' for help, Tymon had no idea yet where this was going and remained entirely confused as to why she could not even look him in the eye.
"Right…" He answered slowly.
"And… there is not much and you broke my star collector~" Tymon interrupted with a scoff, again she mentioned the 'star collector' and Tymon did not want to listen to broken ramblings about how he damaged this 'star collector'.
"Ugh… is that all this is about?!" Now she had no trouble looking him in the eye as she decided to give up, scoffing.
"FORGET IT!" She yelled as she started to storm off, leaving Tymon even more confused than he was moments prior, but with that he started to realise that by 'star collector' she might have meant solar collector, so he decided to take a shot in the dark.
"Wait, you mean solar collector?" This quickly brought her back with new hopes of getting Tymon to understand.
"Yes! Yes! Yes! Solar Collector!" The embarrassed expression nowhere to be seen as a sudden bout of enthusiasm appeared on her face.
"Right, right and your armour keeps you~ oh..." Tymon interrupted himself as he just came to understand her situation, her armour kept her warm and now she has no way to recharge it.
"Yes! Yes! Do you understand?!" That completely uncharacteristic enthusiasm remained as she eagerly awaited his response.
"Yeah… gak" For a moment, Tymon felt sympathy for the eldar who was slowly turning from his captor to someone who may actually need to depend on him and it was not long before he realised this.
"So you're asking me for help?" As soon as those words exited the guardsmans mouth, her enthusiasm drained from her face as she once again could not even look him in the eyes. With a deep embarrassment in her voice, she answered:
"Yes…" As she did, she realised that she would more than likely still have her solar collector if she had not tried to use him to her advantage. Though once again, that small but loud part of her mind yearning for company began to rationalise the situation, despite the fact that it had already happened.
"Okay… I'll help you, but only if you just…" Tymon trailed off while the eldar grimaced at what he was saying, looking at everything but the guardsman.
"Just… just treat me with at least some respect! Alright?" She was uncaring of the condition he was setting, but the thought of needing the help of a human was borderline demeaning to her.
"I know we're both stuck here… but I'm not your fething servitor!" Simply wanting to get this, for her, uncomfortable conversation done and over with, she quickly and with that same impatience as earlier answered.
"Yes! Yes!"
"Alright then, let me just get the heater" Tymon answered, realising that he at least seemed to have gained some ground with his co-survivor as he made his way over to the stockpile again to get the heater that was still beside his vox-box.
The eldar, still trying to process how the tables had just turned on her, simply stood there as Tymon made his way around the stockpile to where he had set up his vox-box. Moments later he came back around, holding both the heater and the power cell that kept it functional with his lasgun slung over his shoulder, however the eldar did not follow him, barely paying any attention to the human as her mind continued to rationalise.
I'm just manipulating him to help me, this still increases my chance for survival.
Satisfied, she eventually decided to follow Tymon into the tent where she saw him taking off his flak vest and helmet. The guardsman, standing beside his makeshift bed, saw her, but paid no attention as he focused his efforts on taking his equipment off:
"You can use one of the stretchers if you need to," he said, gesturing at a corner on his side where there was a stacked pile of them.
"Stretcher?" she asked, not knowing what he meant, though Tymon simply absentmindedly kicked his 'bed' in response:
"One of these" again, what Tymon was saying had her stymied as she simply stood there, staring down at the stretcher. The guardsman was quick to notice the fact that she had yet to act on what he had recommended.
"What, you're sleeping on nothing?" again, that same confused expression, though this time she could manifest a response.
"You sleep on that?" She asked, almost dreading the discomfort that this would inevitably result in. Previously, she simply slept on the grass, using her arm as a pillow while wearing her armour to keep her warm, though this would not be possible anymore due to her power situation.
"Any better ideas?" Tymon retorted as he stepped past her and over to the heater which he had left on her side of the tent. Reluctantly and without words, the eldar stepped her way over to the pile of stretchers and haphazardly picked one up, accidentally causing the remainder of the pile to slide to the floor. This caught Tymon's attention as he kneeled in front of the now active heater, swivelling around to see what happened, only to see the mess the eldar had created.
"Good one knife ear" was all he said as he got up and made his way over to his stretcher bed while the heater got to work. 'Knife ear' decided not to dignify that with an answer as the still armor clad eldar put her stretcher down closer to the heater than Tymon and laid down upon it, putting her head right next to it. Tymon did the same on his stretcher and before long, they were both ready to sleep as the blue hue had turned many shades darker while the temperature, like yesterday, plummeted too. But the heater did a well enough job of keeping the pair warm as they lay beneath the tent's roof with Tymon already halfway asleep.
I'm just manipulating him to help me.
The thought continued to linger in her mind as she, lying there, simply waited for her sleep to come, yet she could not help but cup her ear again with that same self conscious feeling as those two same words echoed in her mind.
