Arizhel: Farewell to a Friend

She sat utterly still. It wasn't the patient crouch of a hunting cat, but more like the stoic uncaring of a statue. The stone takes notice of the swift things that pass it by and simply chooses to ignore them. Nothing threatens the stone, and as yet, there was nothing to threaten her. So the Terran kneeled on the ground at a wide place in the trail. Only the misty white plume of her breath upon the chill night air gave her away as any more alive than the one who lay before her. She did not even shiver, though she realized on some level that she was cold. She was also oddly loath to reclaim her bloodied jacket from her departed friend.

It makes no sense, she chided herself as she looked down at him - or rather, at the jacket covering him. She was cold, and he did not need it. Still, she could not quite bring herself take it. A strange sort of emptiness washed over her at the thought, slightly different from her usual absence of emotion. She looked away then, letting her gaze wander where it would. It meandered downward until it rested on her right hand. There, a cold arc of steel glittered, lit only by her small light. It was a knife meant for throwing, but the finely-honed blade had served adequately nonetheless. As if to prove that, it was smeared scarlet from point to hilt, as if it had been cleaned only absently after being used. Both the blade and the hand that held it were tacky, the blood that was still there slowly thickening in the cold. The cloth of her pant leg was already growing stiff for the same reason, as was a good portion of her jacket, no doubt.

How long had she been kneeling here? The Terran was mildly disturbed to find that she was unsure.

Carefully, she raised her head to look around, stretching her perceptions out to include her surroundings. First came that which she could see, which did not take long at all, as the night was deepening and the forest was dark at the best of times. The weak circle of light from her little lamp illuminated very little - only enough for her to see about ten feet in any one direction. She went ahead to that which she could hear then, which was, truthfully, not much at all. A slight breeze brought a prickle of cold to the back of her neck as it sighed through the trees, but other than that, it was still. Animals were no doubt still wary from the scuffle, and it was a bit chill for insects. Thankfully, this place was far enough from any village or town that there was little chance of someone out for an evening stroll stumbling upon her. That would be unfortunate, indeed.

Of the second body, the one she was not kneeling beside, she could see nothing. There was some solace to be had there, she admitted to herself. While she was not necessarily disturbed by the way she had disposed of the assassin, neither was she pleased with her 'work,' such as it was. She had no desire to view the results if it was not necessary, in any case. There was neither honor nor artistry in what she had done to that man while he could not fight back - there was only a cold and ruthless efficiency. Still, it left her with the nagging feeling of a grave error having been put to rights. A dangerous way to look at it, that. A slippery slope to start down, if one was to recycle an extremely tired old adage.

She brushed a few stray locks of her hair out of her eyes as she looked down at him again, smearing them with scarlet. No, they had already been bloodied, she recalled. The droplets across her face, hair, and shirt bore mute testimony to the sheer viciousness of her attack. For all that, though, there really wasn't much of his blood on her. Ironic, she thought, that she wore far more from the man whose life she had tried to save than from the one whose life she had so coldly taken.

No wonder the Qua had seen her as a threat, she thought, looking herself over absently. He had wanted to shoot her - had it been written on his face, it could not have been more clear. He had wanted to shoot her but the girl - his sister, maybe - had stopped him. For that, and for stopping the assassin from escaping, she owed the girl much. Life and vengeance both. It would be a steep debt indeed. But there would be time enough later to think about how to repay the girl.

For now, she had to figure out how to move both bodies. She would much rather leave the assassin's bones to be picked clean by scavengers, but surely there was some protocol about such things. It seemed rather rude, at the very least, to visit a planet and then litter it up with bodies. Still, it was an option. Otherwise, it seemed likely that she would have to move them both by herself. There was no real use in planning otherwise, as she had no clue where her companion had disappeared to. Surely, she thought, the rifle shot and the ensuing fight would have brought him back. Perhaps he was lost. Perhaps he had gone back for help. She discarded those two possibilities as unlikely as soon as they crossed her mind. He might, however, merely be approaching cautiously. Yes, that seemed likely enough. So, she chose to wait awhile longer before planning too thoroughly.

Better that she take what time she had to say her farewells.