Day Five: Do you trust me?

"Cmon, Maur. When have I ever lied to you?" His voice echoes across the moors, setting a flock of birds somewhere in the distance achirping. It's an eerie atmosphere, even in the daylight. In the dark night, the only light torches and the pale glow of stars slowly flashing out. Well, it's almost unsettling. She can hear his footsteps, somewhere out there. See moving figures, out there in the grey, but the last time she'd tried to throw a knife and hit a deer, and then lost the knife. Well, now she was more careful with how she handled the things that went bump in the night.

Still, she looked around like it would do anything. The flickering torchlight (oh gods the battery was close to running out), because it had to stay on, illuminated her path. She heard buzzing, baying, noises from beyond the beam that filled her with dread. Flashing green lights, glowing eyes even. After Miranda, she'd carried a backup torch, in a holster on her left side. Blades were one thing she could die to, but that? No.

She nearly bumps into him. Literally. She falls back, knife ripping the sleeve of his jacket an drawing a wince that suggests maybe he isn't left entirely without injury. A well placed shot, especially considering she isn't standing stable when she throws the knife. He doesn't yell, he isn't an ass, he does give her a smile. "Miss me?"

Ajax pops off a salute, every inch the perfect soldier for the 23rd. "Ready and reporting for duty, Ma'am. Now, how's the torch?" She doesn't want to admit it, not with things this late, but she gives a sigh. "Not good. Yours?" He holds his own up, smiling. "Basically full. Trade?" She doesn't know what he's playing, but hands over the torch in exchange for his own. This draws a smile, and he points at a flickering light. "I have a fire up over there. Keeps them at bay. You can go at your pace, I'll make a run.

Appreciatively, she smiles at him, and he returns it with a half-real smile. It's tinged with something else. After he'd run, refused to group up with her even though it was the right thing to do. Well, she'd expected him to keep being the problem. The fact he wasn't was heartening, to say the least.

She wraps him in a hug, and his hand lingers on her left side for a moment before he returns it. Maur's eyes are wide, appreciative as she pulls back. "Ajax... thank you." Staring at her for a moment, he finally nods and steps back. "I... Go, Maur. I'll go in a different way, at least one of us can make it out. See you at the fire, yeah?"

"Yeah," and before he can say anything else they've split up. She's running one way, feet pressing into the moss and grass and hearing the footsteps after her of things in the dark. He's running the other, his torchlight flashing as he moves in a great arc towards the fire. She's running the opposite arc, forming a shape (if they were being tracked) she expects similar to a heart.

It's when she slips into the stream that it all goes wrong. The torch falls, and she hears the cover of the battery go off as her limbs sprawl. She grabs it after a second, enough to see the canine form leaping at her twist and whimper, repelled by the light. To see the green lights dancing in, the flashing eyes of a dozen, two, three dogs.

The light of the torch flickers, but stays. It's enough to entice terror out of her. Mauretania doesn't stay calm. She doesn't feel for the backup torch until she does, and gods he must have taken that. Still, there's that glimmer of trust. He wouldn't have traded out his full-beam torch with her half shit one, not when he knew she'd trusted him, intending to betray her. He wouldn't do that. Would he?

But the torch battery cover had fallen off, and she checks it. 'SLFB'. Short Life Full Beam. The batteries they'd been sent as a sponsor gift, as a stopgap to make it the final minutes back to base if their numbers were slightly off. Enough for a handful minutes of survival, at least ten. Not enough to last her all the way to the fire. Not even close.

The torch flickers off, and like the mist they're there. Hounds, baying as they eye her with a hunger. The buzz of those flies, heavy and droning, waiting in the mist. The murmurs of other things, deep below the ground. Things she's only seen when they've dragged a screaming child down, in the broad day. Her knife flashes in the guttering starlight, slashes the throat of one dog before she's bowled over by another. Sees those orbs, of the purest green, before the dog bites down into her cheek.

An agonized wail echoes over the heather and grasses. Her own, Mauretania dimly realizes. The sensations, of biting teeth, are dull now against her stomach. She can feel something entering her arm, needlelike, without the strength to bat it off. Then another, and another, and her voice is hoarse. She can see it in the sky now, a certain shining glow. She thinks it's a rescue, something, maybe the other cannons had fired, but after a moment maybe she's hallucinating. She doesn't think hovercraft have smiles, certainly not that half-real half-mocking smile he'd given her.

She hears him yell, the pain subsides for a second. "Sorry, Maur. Good Game, yeah?" Whatever he says next she doesn't hear. All she can hear is herself, until she can't hear anything at all.

Author Notes:

Mauretania you did not deserve this. Too trusting, you blundered right into this, but nobody deserves what happened there.

I'd also like to thank everyone who's dropped kudos, commented or read! Y'all the real MVPs here. As an aside, if you haven't seen I'm not the only Careertober writer, and I'd strongly encourage you to check out the others, they're all dropping some fabulous material!