Wide Awake and Waiting

After a day and much of an evening traveling through the jungles, across the Stubtooth Mountains and over the unforgiving dunes of the Sand Mother Desert, Tuftcheek and Snowmist come ultimately to the shimmering field of black glass that conceals the cryogenic facility where Longvision and his compatriots were stored in deep-freeze centuries ago. A flashlight attached to the barrel of Tuftcheek's rifle casts a beam that shudders back and forth as he leads the way down the ladder into the tunnel.

Tuftcheek gets his bearings, shining the light down the nearby passageway. "Well," he says, speaking in rather reverent tones, "much seems unchanged about this place. I have not returned since my awakening."

Snowmist has had little to say over the distance and time that wasn't strictly utilitarian, and even everyday motions have been pared down to the bare necessities required to function, all other things too much effort to consider. But now, as they begin to descend beneath the faux-lake, a small measure of extra alertness begins to leak back into her expression, ears pricking within the confines of the helmet. "Are all the Demarians gone? Or are there still some in cryo-freeze?"

"All were awakened," Tuftcheek replies. Unsuited, unprotected from microbes that already are working their way into the fundament of his genetic structure, the male Demarian shifts the weight of the rifle and peers back up the ladder toward the starry heavens. "But the equipment still functions, I believe." He lowers his gaze once more so he can see Snowmist - and himself, reflected in the faceplate of her helmet, his snout and one eye glittering in the glow of his flashlight. "They may serve, if we must choose some Demarians to await a cure, if one does not come quick enough."

Snowmist's gaze, glazed and forlorn for so long, finally focuses fully upon Tuftcheek, and other emotions slowly sneak into the blankness that has occupied her features. Bewilderment. Grief. Resignation. "T'wait again. Our numbers pared down once more. If there's not 'nother panic, Demarians tramplin' each other for the chance t'live in some other time."

Tuftcheek blinks, whiskers twitching as he hears the surrender in Snowmist's voice. He shakes his snout back and forth. "Our hope isn't on this world anymore. It hasn't been since the Kretonians violated it centuries ago." He points a clawed finger toward the stars. "Our hope is out there, beyond the nexus, on Pansheera. It is where Stumppaw Sandwalker longed to reunite the Sanctuary survivors with the descendants of our noble ancestors. It is where we must go again if we are to truly flourish as a people once more."

For a moment, Snowmist seems swayed, her eyes uncertain, mouth opening - perhaps on a protest. But then her gaze drops, and she can only mumble, "That's fine. They can go there if they want. Doesn't matter t'me...Sharp was always the leader type, an' look what it's got him. I was never even really a true Demarian, was I? Mixin' with the other species on the stations for over half m'life. Just...just..." Her weight shifts, and her shoulders bow even more. "The militia. Silvereye. What're they gonna do? They were so proud, defeatin' the Nall...an' now they're at odds with the very citizens they had protected. Those citizens took my mate an' might've even hurt my kits! How dare they turn int' my enemy!" Her lips peel back, and yet even that has become only a reflexive response, with no real heat behind it.

"They didn't turn against you because they wanted to," Tuftcheek replies somberly. He drops into a crouch next to the passageway entrance, rifle braced across his knees. His tail shifts and his ears swivel as he glances up at Snowmist through the shadows. "They did it because the people who really hurt them ... hurt us ... fled the planet. They were enraged. They chose the most obvious and available target they could imagine. I believe, I *truly* believe, that when the Great Watchers rose above the Sand Mother this morning, those who did this must have awakened to the realization that what they did was horribly wrong. The intoxication of rage and fury gone wild in a mob." He sighs, whiskers sagging as he concludes: "It felt personal, I know. But it wasn't."

Snowmist turns a stony, unblinking gaze upon Tuftcheek. "We'll see if they apologize t'my mate an' gimme an invitation back int' my city. In the meantime, where's this weapons cache?"

"If they are true Demarians, they will not bother to attempt an apology until they have exiled themselves into the embrace of the Sand Mother - as you and I have - to determine their worthiness for continued existence," Tuftcheek says, exhaling and flaring his whiskers as he straightens. He gestures down the passageway. "Down this way."

Tuftcheek leads the way into the control center, where the lights still glow and the systems still function according to programs set into motion in 2651. His lips curl back from his fangs in a feral approximation of a smile. Tuftcheek switches off the flashlight on his rifle and then makes his way toward a sealed locker embedded in one of the walls.

Snowmist's bearing straightens as they enter the control center, automatically lifting her nose in an attempt to scent the air but which proves just as fruitless as her previous attempts while within the suit. Chuffing in disgust at the muffling of her senses, she resolutely distracts herself with a quick, visual inspection of the space before she concentrates on Tuftcheek's action, striding after him with eyes narrowed in anticipation.

Tuftcheek taps in a sequence of numbers in a keypad built into a gray panel to the left of the locker. K-CHUNK. The door unlocks. He clutches the latch and pulls it open, revealing a series of racks bristling with rifles and drawers loaded with charge cartridges. "Still here," he observes, mastering the obvious.

Snowmist's eyes widen for a moment before she slowly smiles, walking up beside him to run an almost possessive gaze over the cache. "Almost 'nough t'rival Stormtemper's hoard," she notes with a dim glimmer of her old humor. Reaching out, she picks one of the rifles from its rack and gives it a quick an expert examination, cradling it with only slight awkwardness from within the suit's confines to sight along the barrel. "All well an' good if I pull a full out assault. But what 'bout somethin' that I can pretend t'slap with the label 'subtle'?"

"Like a grenade launcher?" Tuftcheek chuckles, then opens one of the lower drawers in the cache. Contained within it: A shoulder-mounted rocket-powered grenade launcher and a series of twelve bulbous missiles.

"Sounds 'bout right," Snowmist muses without missing a beat, experimentally squeezing the trigger to test its feel while safely targeting a blinking light upon a computer console with no power pack chambered in the weapon's stock. Resting the rifle's butt upon her hip, she turns to eye the grenade launcher and its payload with a crooked, mirthless smile. "Males an' their big toys. S'there an army I can borrow t'use all this stuff if I manage t'track Volari down in the next week or two, Tuftcheek?"

Tuftcheek sighs. "You bring us a cure and I will lead that army at your side, Mistress Shadowstalker." He clacks his fangs together, then says, "As to getting you offworld, we should proceed at first light to Altheor's Hope in the mountains. Your transportation will meet us there."

Snowmist nods as she replaces the rifle, restoring the rack's pristine rows, and turns to face Tuftcheek. "I'll take the chance now t'give you my gratitude then, Tuftcheek. Long indeed is your vision; longer'n mine, though that's no great feat accordin' t'most people," she notes sardonically. "Maybe after all this's over, you should be the one t'take over. The true Demarian philosophy was never mine; not since I left with barely a dozen gleamings o' growth t'me. An' Sharp...we're both products of a time when cooperation with others an' modernity was more the rage than keepin' up old customs an' rituals." She shrugs, turning back to the array of potential destruction. "I'll bring ya a cure if I can, thought it'll be from those offworlders that you - that *they* - hate so much. An' no strings attached. I don't want any connections; not me owin' others. Not others owin' me."

The warrior lifts his snout, pondering Snowmist's words. "I may help rebuild. The Sand Mother, the Great Watchers, and the people will be left to decide whether I lead. But if the offworlders help bring a cure to us, then it will mean that those who were slaughtered did not die in vain. Much can be forgiven, even if it cannot be forgotten." He gestures to one of the empty cryocubicles, currently open and inoperative. "Get some rest. I will take first watch."

Snowmist turns to look at the cryo chamber, eyes narrowing, before she taps her head with a gesture at him in a Militia-trained motion to pass the role of lead to him. A last wry and self-deprecating smile, and then she is heading toward a more warded corner, wordlessly shunning the cubicles while positioning herself so that she can be up and alert with reasonable shelter at a moment's notice. She had denoted her trust in him when she had formally passed the lead...but already, her habits have shifted to more primitive concerns in consideration of the present and anticipation of the future.

Tuftcheek bobs his snout, observing Snowmist's actions. He closes the cache hatch, but does not lock it - so they will have easy enough access when morning comes. Rifle in hand, he approaches another locker, enters a code and swings it open. Inside, a containment suit made of bright yellow fabric. "Gaudy," he growls, setting the rifle in the cryocubicle next to the locker. Nevertheless, he starts getting into the suit. "You can free yourself from that suit for a while, if you want."

Snowmist gives a reflexive snort at his comment upon the fashion before she pauses, eyes softening, turned vulnerable for a moment with gratitude for the chance to peel off the distancing suit and overwhelmed with all the wrongs that it has come to embody. But then she closes her eyes, shutting it all away, and with quick and efficient movements, shucks the thing aside. Taking a few deep, cleansing breaths through her nose to fill her senses again with an immediate awareness of her surroundings, she stretches luxuriously with her new-found freedom of movement before sliding down into a comfortable slump in her chosen cul-de-sac. "I'll wake in four hours t'take my turn," she mrrs, checking something in the side of her boot...then a place just beneath her back collar...and finally, reaching behind to the small of her back before she finally decides to withdraw one of her customary knives and closes her eyes, dozing off with its comfortable weight hidden within the loose cage of her fingers.

"Very well," whispers Tuftcheek as he finishes fastening the helmet on his suit. He takes his rifle from the cryocubicle once more ... the bed that served as his coffin for centuries before his rebirth into a world much changed. And then, eyes wide open, awake more than ever, he walks over to the passageway entrance and drops into a crouch, peering into the shadows. Watching. Wondering. Waiting.

See also Last Flight out of New Alhira, Overrun, and The Imperator Fallen