Untitled Sci-Fi
Sep. 13th, 2005 10:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflydreamingI suspect that this causes me more amusement than it will you. I didn't change all the pronouns, just the ones for character A. I sort of missed the spirit of the Mad Lib because it's not humor. Did you really expect funny?
Mad Libs: SF
The sphere crazed upon contact with the planet’s surface and broke open like the great, round egg that it resembled, spilling viscous impact fluid. Shadowquill waded, stumbling, out of the escape pod’s albumen. She crawled as far away from the wreckage as her strength would take her before collapsing onto the familiar but alien vegetation. Her half-open eyes tracked a streak of motion that glowed in the sun’s reddish light before the object vanished behind the tall trees. She felt the shudder of its blunt landing, then the boom wave that rolled toward her through the forest after a moment’s delay.
The second pod collided with a tower of porous rock and plowed a long trough before ceasing motion. Its shell split slowly into even hemispheres to reveal the two passengers that were then slowly carried out by the impact fluid’s flow. Cygna_hime made no move to shed her protective suit, nor to stand; she floated in a pool while it shrank, subliming into the humid air. Gloves, electrodes, and mask littered the trail behind Shiro_no_Wired as he pulled them off himself and stalked away from the remains of the vessel that had carried him away from his death. A dozen paces away, he stopped and stared out at the terrain.
When all that was left of the fluid was a thin sweat, Cygna_hime carefully removed her face mask. She projected her voice loudly toward Shiro_no_Wired. “Do you think anyone else made it?” The stoic geologist didn’t answer, which made her sit up. “Hello? Do you see any other pods?” He crouched, fingered the sandy soil in which they had landed. It was the grey-green color of overcooked vegetables. He gave her no acknowledgement of having heard her.
Cygna_hime tested the gravity as she stood. Except for the colors of the landscape and the things that she could not see, the planet had an Earth-like appearance. Though a native of Gaia6, during the few years of her marriage, she had lived on Earth . She hated the way that she had felt just slightly heavier and slower, robbed of the grace that came from a lifetime of dance. Though this planet lacked the clean lines of G6’s stone geometry, it had a gravity like her home planet’s pull. The small joy that it gave her was overwhelmed, however, by her rising panic. She muttered under her breath in aggravation while stomping up to the other survivor. She was about to speak again when the salmon-colored sky lit up with what looked like fireworks; the chrysanthemum of streaking lights was a cluster of crisis pods entering the atmosphere and heading planetward.
“Blessed be,” she said in thanks.
“Doesn’t mean any of them are going to survive the landing,” Shiro_no_Wired stated cruelly. He glanced back pointedly at their craft, then scanned the unpopulated landscape. “Doesn’t look much like the sims, does it?”
“They can’t be that far,” Cygna_hime countered. Uncertainty had crept back into her voice. “We drifted a little. That’s it, don’t you think?” Shiro_no_Wired’s answering bark of laughter angered her. “Well let’s just get moving then, okay? Is that okay with you?” She waited a moment for a response, and getting none, she turned away and started across the sand without looking back.
“Why that way,” asked the man flatly.
“Good as any,” Cygna_hime called back. She didn’t acknowledge him when he caught up to her. She kept her eyes ahead and up, searching the sky. “And it’s downhill.”
“We’re as likely to run into natives,” the geologist muttered.
“Not a problem if we do. At least then we might be able to get a message to Corporate.”
“Because you have a secret decoder ring for tentacle talk?”
“I am the secret decoder ring,” the woman hissed. “That would be my job. Or did you think I was the manicurist?”
Shiro_no_Wired grumbled. “You don’t have very good communication skills, for a linguist,” he accused defensively.
“I’m no good with human beings,” Cygna_hime stated. “Only other kinds of people make any sense.”
For a long period, Shadowquill lay dazed. She didn’t lose consciousness, as she both expected and hoped. As her mind cleared and she listened to the sounds in the forest, she felt a growing need to get up and far away from the wreckage of the pod…
…and the wreckage of the second passenger. She had known Elihice; Shadowquill had worked side-by-side with him since the beginning of the voyage out. She had not know about Elihice’s claustrophobia, the carefully censored fear that had, in the stress of the evacuation, burst in the confinement of the tight, two-person bubble craft. Elihice’s thrashing had threatened them both by threatening the stability of the gel. He had even kicked Shadowquill in the face and would have broken Shadowquill’s nose if not for the protection of the face mask. Shadowquill had not had a choice, unless it was to die herself. There had been nothing else that she could do. And Elihice had swallowed enough of the oxygen-rich impact fluid into his lungs not to lose consciousness under Shadowquill’s firm stranglehold. Sound was muffled while in the gel, but Shadowquill believed that she heard the bony snap when Elihice’s neck broke.
Shadowquill rose to her knees and hands. Still wearing even the dented face mask, she crawled in the direction of the pod that she had seen fall after her own. The mask’s filter struggled; it was not designed to mix breathable air from ordinary atmosphere. The ground was spongy and thick with something that resembled mushrooms. They were small, delicate things that crackled as their stems snapped under Shadowquill’s progress. Shadowquill, starting to have trouble breathing as the filter failed, pulled off the warped face cover and tossed it aside.
The trees that towered around her had peeling skins; pieces of their bark and needle-like leaves covered the forest floor. Most of the sounds in the forest were distant, but there was one that continued to grow closer; it was a cat-like screeching, an Spazzychic coming to investigate the disturbance in its territory. Funahiki had carried, among the wide range of specialists on the manifest, a xenologist named Stormflare who had enjoyed telling entertaining stories about the colonist’s future neighbors, including the inquisitive Spazzychics. Shadowquill knew that she had to get far away from the crash site quickly. Where Spazzychics hunted, scavenging Ghostly_Watchers followed. They were small, insect-like, and carnivorous. Their bite held a poison that only stunned native fauna but killed humans slowly and horribly.
Shadowquill wondered dispassionately if Stormflare had made it to an escape “gland” before it had been too late. She made herself stop wondering and pay more heed to her surroundings. In the homogeny of the trees it would be too easy to become turned around. Her wake through the undergrowth was obvious but not a straight line.
A screeching cry accompanied a feathered shadow passing overhead. Through a cascade of disturbed leaves, Shadowquill caught a glimpse of exquisitely beautiful plumage.
Bittersweet_Art kept a mental list in her head, adding to it as the survivors were identified and tallied. “Have we sent runners to the next closest clusters?” she asked Kinkami, who had been marvelously efficient at organizing the bewildered evacuees. Kinkami was a natural leader, but she had chosen to defer to Bittersweet_Art; paired, they were achieving community out of crisis.
“Artyartie, the machinist, and the Net engineer volunteered,” she answered. “Don’t worry,” she added with a smile.“LadyBugNixie’s in better fitness than her field implies. She flattened me regularly at courtball up until a trimester ago,” she assured, absentmindedly caressing the curve of her belly. “And we can spare both of them until we’re ready to set up more than just shelter.”
Most of the shells from the score of spheres that had landed in this cluster had already been turned into domed temporary shelters. They could have been running a simulated evacuation: the emergency escape pods had landed within sight of each other, but none closer than thirty feet from another “egg”. The gland had deployed a survival package of food, medical supplies, and simple hardware with textbook sim distribution. The passengers were shaken but mostly unharmed. Bittersweet_Art hoped for a medical professional of some kind among the survivors, but none had been identified yet.
There were minor sprain and cuts, but future contingencies were, Bittersweet_Art knew, a greater concern. Even if the company had already responded to Funahiki’s distress signal, assistance was at least a week out. The ship’s failure had been catastrophic and without warning, so Bittersweet_Art even had doubts as to whether a signal could have been sent. She didn’t know how those things were done.
Don’t ask me, I just cook the meals she thought with gallows humor. She watched Kinkami get the camp set up, delegating jobs with confidence to anyone with empty hands. And she’s just a librarian.
Cygna_hime sat in exhaustion and rested her forehead against her knees. Shiro_no_Wired dropped to the slick rock beside her. Sand had given way to weatherworn stone, but there was still no evidence of any other sentient beings.
“We don’t have any water,” said Cygna_hime. She looked up suddenly, theatrically pulling her hair in exasperation. “Are we the only two people _on_ this rock?!”
Shiro_no_Wired blew out a sigh in a long, slow breath.
“If you think I’m going to populate this planet with you, you’ve got another think coming!” Cygna_hime complained.
Shiro_no_Wired’s humorless reply to her weary joke was sharp. “I have a wife,” he said with barely contained anger.
“On the ship?” Cygna_hime asked softly. A brusque nod was her answer. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It was just a joke. I’m sorry.”
Shadowquill came out of the trees only to discover that the forest ended at a sheer face of stone. She was on her feet now, but a vertical climb was out of the question. She would critically need water soon, as well as shelter; night was falling. She stumbled in the direction of sloping ground, one hand against the sandstone wall for support.
“We have a message from gamma camp,” the librarian told the chef.
“All the way from there?” Bittersweet_Art asked in surprise.
“LadyBugNixie set up a communications relay,” replied Kinkami. “Do you mind if I sit? I’m feeling a little beat up.”
“You look a little green in the face. Sit.”
Kinkami eased herself down onto a makeshift bench by the fire. “A few of the first pods out went stray. There’s a weather specialist in gamma, and she was studying storm flows right before the emergency. Anyway, the story pieced together from a few accounts is that a set scattered before anyone caught on and made trajectory corrections.”
“Search parties, then. Tomorrow though, because there are only a few more hours of daylight.” She took a good, close look at Kinkami. “Hey, are you okay? You really don’t look well.” Kinkami’s face was dewed with sweat, and when her eye’s met Bittersweet_Art’s, they were bright with fear.
At the last she had to scramble up a steep slope, clawing into the crumbling sedimentary rock. She discarded the gloves, whose thin material had been inadequate protection, and carefully picked fragments of stone out of her bloodied fingertips. Though tempted to flick the shards and tiny pebbles over the edge at the indifferent forest below, she instead buried them with her tattered gloves, an attempt to cover her scent in case she was being tracked. She had no way of knowing if the Spazzychic would follow her, or how far; that sort of knowledge was not Shadowquill’s field.
She wanted to lie down and not have to move any more. She wavered when she made herself stand. Exhaustion was a state that she understood, she told herself, and then she forced herself to walk.
Shiro_no_Wired had a strange look on his face, and Cygna_hime was afraid to ask why. A few more paces caught her up to where he stood on a ridge of rock; he stretched a hand down to her and brought her up beside him. Wordlessly, he directed her attention to what lay below them.
Kinkami was afraid. There was blood -- not much, but some -- and she _felt_ that something was wrong. She lay on a bed of donated clothing and collected vegetation. Bittersweet_Art held her hand tightly. The expression on their default chief’s face did nothing to ease Kinkami’s own fear.
Bittersweet_Art was so intent on the pregnant woman that she didn’t notice at first that others had gathered closely. She finally paid attention to the figure beside her when Kinkami addressed him.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Kinkami said bravely. Tears welling and spilling from her eyes, she started to sob.
Shiro_no_Wired fell to his knees and pulled her into his embrace.
Bittersweet_Art, stepping away to give the couple a measure of privacy, noticed Cygna_hime. She took in the layer of grey dust that coated both of the newcomers. “We had a search planned,” she said with guilt.
Cygna_hime’s beautific smile did not diminish when she reached out her hand. “We’re happy to be here,” she said in understatement.
“Bittersweet_Art, I manage the kitchens,” Bittersweet_Art said while she took the handshake.
“Communications Liason, Cygna_hime.” She squeezed the other woman’s hand. “And he’s… her husband.”
Though night fell, Shadowquill didn’t stop to make shelter. She lost her way in the darkness, but though she knew that it was safer, wiser to stop for longer than a brief rest, she couldn’t keep herself still for long. She thought about her collegue. She could almost hear his ghost in the night around her. His wasn’t the first death at her hands, nor even the one she most regretted. It was close; that was all.
Some time before her reserves of will gave out, a glow of light in the distance appeared. It became her polaris. Uncaring of it’s origin -- there would be time to be wary when she drew closer -- she hastened toward it.
Bittersweet_Art was pacing the perimeter of her camp, too anxious to sleep. Another day of leadership was coming too soon, and she would have to carry the concerns of the day past into it. She had effectively lost her leutenant, or First Mate, or whatever Kinkami would have been called, in terms of assistance. Any further loss was unthinkable.
The shambling figure that moved into the light frightened her so suddenly that Bittersweet_Art nearly screamed. She stared at the woman who looked like something out of a horror tale for minutes before Bittersweet_Art came to her senses enough to speak.“Who are you?” asked Bittersweet_Art. Pushing aside a foreboding chill, she motioned the bedraggled creature further inside the perimeter. “Here, come closer to the fire.”
“Water…” Shadowquill breathed hoarsely.
Bittersweet_Art wondered whether to leave to get some or to call out for it. She looked around for assistance just as one of the colonists was already bringing a canteen to the thirsting arrival. “Don’t drink that too fast,” Bittersweet_Art cautioned. The other woman was bloodied and in pain.
Shadowquill nodded her head. “…doctor…” she managed in a slightly louder voice.
“I’m sorry. We don’t have one,” Bittersweet_Art explained. Frustration welled bitterly in her throat again.
“No,” whispered Shadowquill, “…I am.”
- - -
Mad Libs: SF
The sphere crazed upon contact with the planet’s surface and broke open like the great, round egg that it resembled, spilling viscous impact fluid. Shadowquill waded, stumbling, out of the escape pod’s albumen. She crawled as far away from the wreckage as her strength would take her before collapsing onto the familiar but alien vegetation. Her half-open eyes tracked a streak of motion that glowed in the sun’s reddish light before the object vanished behind the tall trees. She felt the shudder of its blunt landing, then the boom wave that rolled toward her through the forest after a moment’s delay.
The second pod collided with a tower of porous rock and plowed a long trough before ceasing motion. Its shell split slowly into even hemispheres to reveal the two passengers that were then slowly carried out by the impact fluid’s flow. Cygna_hime made no move to shed her protective suit, nor to stand; she floated in a pool while it shrank, subliming into the humid air. Gloves, electrodes, and mask littered the trail behind Shiro_no_Wired as he pulled them off himself and stalked away from the remains of the vessel that had carried him away from his death. A dozen paces away, he stopped and stared out at the terrain.
When all that was left of the fluid was a thin sweat, Cygna_hime carefully removed her face mask. She projected her voice loudly toward Shiro_no_Wired. “Do you think anyone else made it?” The stoic geologist didn’t answer, which made her sit up. “Hello? Do you see any other pods?” He crouched, fingered the sandy soil in which they had landed. It was the grey-green color of overcooked vegetables. He gave her no acknowledgement of having heard her.
Cygna_hime tested the gravity as she stood. Except for the colors of the landscape and the things that she could not see, the planet had an Earth-like appearance. Though a native of Gaia6, during the few years of her marriage, she had lived on Earth . She hated the way that she had felt just slightly heavier and slower, robbed of the grace that came from a lifetime of dance. Though this planet lacked the clean lines of G6’s stone geometry, it had a gravity like her home planet’s pull. The small joy that it gave her was overwhelmed, however, by her rising panic. She muttered under her breath in aggravation while stomping up to the other survivor. She was about to speak again when the salmon-colored sky lit up with what looked like fireworks; the chrysanthemum of streaking lights was a cluster of crisis pods entering the atmosphere and heading planetward.
“Blessed be,” she said in thanks.
“Doesn’t mean any of them are going to survive the landing,” Shiro_no_Wired stated cruelly. He glanced back pointedly at their craft, then scanned the unpopulated landscape. “Doesn’t look much like the sims, does it?”
“They can’t be that far,” Cygna_hime countered. Uncertainty had crept back into her voice. “We drifted a little. That’s it, don’t you think?” Shiro_no_Wired’s answering bark of laughter angered her. “Well let’s just get moving then, okay? Is that okay with you?” She waited a moment for a response, and getting none, she turned away and started across the sand without looking back.
“Why that way,” asked the man flatly.
“Good as any,” Cygna_hime called back. She didn’t acknowledge him when he caught up to her. She kept her eyes ahead and up, searching the sky. “And it’s downhill.”
“We’re as likely to run into natives,” the geologist muttered.
“Not a problem if we do. At least then we might be able to get a message to Corporate.”
“Because you have a secret decoder ring for tentacle talk?”
“I am the secret decoder ring,” the woman hissed. “That would be my job. Or did you think I was the manicurist?”
Shiro_no_Wired grumbled. “You don’t have very good communication skills, for a linguist,” he accused defensively.
“I’m no good with human beings,” Cygna_hime stated. “Only other kinds of people make any sense.”
For a long period, Shadowquill lay dazed. She didn’t lose consciousness, as she both expected and hoped. As her mind cleared and she listened to the sounds in the forest, she felt a growing need to get up and far away from the wreckage of the pod…
…and the wreckage of the second passenger. She had known Elihice; Shadowquill had worked side-by-side with him since the beginning of the voyage out. She had not know about Elihice’s claustrophobia, the carefully censored fear that had, in the stress of the evacuation, burst in the confinement of the tight, two-person bubble craft. Elihice’s thrashing had threatened them both by threatening the stability of the gel. He had even kicked Shadowquill in the face and would have broken Shadowquill’s nose if not for the protection of the face mask. Shadowquill had not had a choice, unless it was to die herself. There had been nothing else that she could do. And Elihice had swallowed enough of the oxygen-rich impact fluid into his lungs not to lose consciousness under Shadowquill’s firm stranglehold. Sound was muffled while in the gel, but Shadowquill believed that she heard the bony snap when Elihice’s neck broke.
Shadowquill rose to her knees and hands. Still wearing even the dented face mask, she crawled in the direction of the pod that she had seen fall after her own. The mask’s filter struggled; it was not designed to mix breathable air from ordinary atmosphere. The ground was spongy and thick with something that resembled mushrooms. They were small, delicate things that crackled as their stems snapped under Shadowquill’s progress. Shadowquill, starting to have trouble breathing as the filter failed, pulled off the warped face cover and tossed it aside.
The trees that towered around her had peeling skins; pieces of their bark and needle-like leaves covered the forest floor. Most of the sounds in the forest were distant, but there was one that continued to grow closer; it was a cat-like screeching, an Spazzychic coming to investigate the disturbance in its territory. Funahiki had carried, among the wide range of specialists on the manifest, a xenologist named Stormflare who had enjoyed telling entertaining stories about the colonist’s future neighbors, including the inquisitive Spazzychics. Shadowquill knew that she had to get far away from the crash site quickly. Where Spazzychics hunted, scavenging Ghostly_Watchers followed. They were small, insect-like, and carnivorous. Their bite held a poison that only stunned native fauna but killed humans slowly and horribly.
Shadowquill wondered dispassionately if Stormflare had made it to an escape “gland” before it had been too late. She made herself stop wondering and pay more heed to her surroundings. In the homogeny of the trees it would be too easy to become turned around. Her wake through the undergrowth was obvious but not a straight line.
A screeching cry accompanied a feathered shadow passing overhead. Through a cascade of disturbed leaves, Shadowquill caught a glimpse of exquisitely beautiful plumage.
Bittersweet_Art kept a mental list in her head, adding to it as the survivors were identified and tallied. “Have we sent runners to the next closest clusters?” she asked Kinkami, who had been marvelously efficient at organizing the bewildered evacuees. Kinkami was a natural leader, but she had chosen to defer to Bittersweet_Art; paired, they were achieving community out of crisis.
“Artyartie, the machinist, and the Net engineer volunteered,” she answered. “Don’t worry,” she added with a smile.“LadyBugNixie’s in better fitness than her field implies. She flattened me regularly at courtball up until a trimester ago,” she assured, absentmindedly caressing the curve of her belly. “And we can spare both of them until we’re ready to set up more than just shelter.”
Most of the shells from the score of spheres that had landed in this cluster had already been turned into domed temporary shelters. They could have been running a simulated evacuation: the emergency escape pods had landed within sight of each other, but none closer than thirty feet from another “egg”. The gland had deployed a survival package of food, medical supplies, and simple hardware with textbook sim distribution. The passengers were shaken but mostly unharmed. Bittersweet_Art hoped for a medical professional of some kind among the survivors, but none had been identified yet.
There were minor sprain and cuts, but future contingencies were, Bittersweet_Art knew, a greater concern. Even if the company had already responded to Funahiki’s distress signal, assistance was at least a week out. The ship’s failure had been catastrophic and without warning, so Bittersweet_Art even had doubts as to whether a signal could have been sent. She didn’t know how those things were done.
Don’t ask me, I just cook the meals she thought with gallows humor. She watched Kinkami get the camp set up, delegating jobs with confidence to anyone with empty hands. And she’s just a librarian.
Cygna_hime sat in exhaustion and rested her forehead against her knees. Shiro_no_Wired dropped to the slick rock beside her. Sand had given way to weatherworn stone, but there was still no evidence of any other sentient beings.
“We don’t have any water,” said Cygna_hime. She looked up suddenly, theatrically pulling her hair in exasperation. “Are we the only two people _on_ this rock?!”
Shiro_no_Wired blew out a sigh in a long, slow breath.
“If you think I’m going to populate this planet with you, you’ve got another think coming!” Cygna_hime complained.
Shiro_no_Wired’s humorless reply to her weary joke was sharp. “I have a wife,” he said with barely contained anger.
“On the ship?” Cygna_hime asked softly. A brusque nod was her answer. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It was just a joke. I’m sorry.”
Shadowquill came out of the trees only to discover that the forest ended at a sheer face of stone. She was on her feet now, but a vertical climb was out of the question. She would critically need water soon, as well as shelter; night was falling. She stumbled in the direction of sloping ground, one hand against the sandstone wall for support.
“We have a message from gamma camp,” the librarian told the chef.
“All the way from there?” Bittersweet_Art asked in surprise.
“LadyBugNixie set up a communications relay,” replied Kinkami. “Do you mind if I sit? I’m feeling a little beat up.”
“You look a little green in the face. Sit.”
Kinkami eased herself down onto a makeshift bench by the fire. “A few of the first pods out went stray. There’s a weather specialist in gamma, and she was studying storm flows right before the emergency. Anyway, the story pieced together from a few accounts is that a set scattered before anyone caught on and made trajectory corrections.”
“Search parties, then. Tomorrow though, because there are only a few more hours of daylight.” She took a good, close look at Kinkami. “Hey, are you okay? You really don’t look well.” Kinkami’s face was dewed with sweat, and when her eye’s met Bittersweet_Art’s, they were bright with fear.
At the last she had to scramble up a steep slope, clawing into the crumbling sedimentary rock. She discarded the gloves, whose thin material had been inadequate protection, and carefully picked fragments of stone out of her bloodied fingertips. Though tempted to flick the shards and tiny pebbles over the edge at the indifferent forest below, she instead buried them with her tattered gloves, an attempt to cover her scent in case she was being tracked. She had no way of knowing if the Spazzychic would follow her, or how far; that sort of knowledge was not Shadowquill’s field.
She wanted to lie down and not have to move any more. She wavered when she made herself stand. Exhaustion was a state that she understood, she told herself, and then she forced herself to walk.
Shiro_no_Wired had a strange look on his face, and Cygna_hime was afraid to ask why. A few more paces caught her up to where he stood on a ridge of rock; he stretched a hand down to her and brought her up beside him. Wordlessly, he directed her attention to what lay below them.
Kinkami was afraid. There was blood -- not much, but some -- and she _felt_ that something was wrong. She lay on a bed of donated clothing and collected vegetation. Bittersweet_Art held her hand tightly. The expression on their default chief’s face did nothing to ease Kinkami’s own fear.
Bittersweet_Art was so intent on the pregnant woman that she didn’t notice at first that others had gathered closely. She finally paid attention to the figure beside her when Kinkami addressed him.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Kinkami said bravely. Tears welling and spilling from her eyes, she started to sob.
Shiro_no_Wired fell to his knees and pulled her into his embrace.
Bittersweet_Art, stepping away to give the couple a measure of privacy, noticed Cygna_hime. She took in the layer of grey dust that coated both of the newcomers. “We had a search planned,” she said with guilt.
Cygna_hime’s beautific smile did not diminish when she reached out her hand. “We’re happy to be here,” she said in understatement.
“Bittersweet_Art, I manage the kitchens,” Bittersweet_Art said while she took the handshake.
“Communications Liason, Cygna_hime.” She squeezed the other woman’s hand. “And he’s… her husband.”
Though night fell, Shadowquill didn’t stop to make shelter. She lost her way in the darkness, but though she knew that it was safer, wiser to stop for longer than a brief rest, she couldn’t keep herself still for long. She thought about her collegue. She could almost hear his ghost in the night around her. His wasn’t the first death at her hands, nor even the one she most regretted. It was close; that was all.
Some time before her reserves of will gave out, a glow of light in the distance appeared. It became her polaris. Uncaring of it’s origin -- there would be time to be wary when she drew closer -- she hastened toward it.
Bittersweet_Art was pacing the perimeter of her camp, too anxious to sleep. Another day of leadership was coming too soon, and she would have to carry the concerns of the day past into it. She had effectively lost her leutenant, or First Mate, or whatever Kinkami would have been called, in terms of assistance. Any further loss was unthinkable.
The shambling figure that moved into the light frightened her so suddenly that Bittersweet_Art nearly screamed. She stared at the woman who looked like something out of a horror tale for minutes before Bittersweet_Art came to her senses enough to speak.“Who are you?” asked Bittersweet_Art. Pushing aside a foreboding chill, she motioned the bedraggled creature further inside the perimeter. “Here, come closer to the fire.”
“Water…” Shadowquill breathed hoarsely.
Bittersweet_Art wondered whether to leave to get some or to call out for it. She looked around for assistance just as one of the colonists was already bringing a canteen to the thirsting arrival. “Don’t drink that too fast,” Bittersweet_Art cautioned. The other woman was bloodied and in pain.
Shadowquill nodded her head. “…doctor…” she managed in a slightly louder voice.
“I’m sorry. We don’t have one,” Bittersweet_Art explained. Frustration welled bitterly in her throat again.
“No,” whispered Shadowquill, “…I am.”
- - -
