Across the Sands

[Light Ice]

The answer to her question was a long one. In the light he saw the glint fashioned in her eyes and recognized it. The cavernous confines of the room did little to dampen it. He had spent his time with women in battered, filthy rooms with broken doors and scorched walls. There had been an instance on the dusty ground of the hard pan. Love, or in his case fucking, had never been free of the New World's desperation. It had been a gritty, rough claim forged amidst the dust and grime-ridden shadow of the ruins. He'd never had a woman in his home. It was new and it excited him. The spark in her eyes excited him far more.

"Come on." He said and turned his back on her there.

It was not his intention to leave her question unanswered. Their rapport was a twisting, growing bridge to which they'd both forged tentative holds but his prick ached and his mind blurred. Words, never his ally, failed him now as he fought to tear his eyes away from the look he had caught in her own and the shape of her in those modest clothes.

They ascended back towards the bunker in silence. It was an uphill climb that served a merciless distraction, assaulting his aching legs and reminding Owen of the hard day's hike they had endured. His erection faded, not slipping entirely, but faded so that his thoughts sharpened more properly on the inquiry she'd made and slowly the words came.

"I'll tell you tomorrow." He said at last. The hallway was a constricted place of painted steel and they were close, close enough that the sweetness of her skin assaulted his senses and threatened to intoxicate him once again. Still, he made no attempt to escape. His eyes crawled their masculine path along the shape of her body. "We have to get up early and see where to start our work."

 

[DarkWarrioress]

Her mood lingered, there in the dark that surrounded them. For a pace of time she felt like they were the only two left in the world. In a split second, Owen had snapped her back to reality with his words. The physical reality dawned on her when he gave her his back. She didn’t stir at first. Then, with the faintest of sighs, she moved, slightly behind him and to his left. It was a habit that died hard within her. She always stood slightly back and to the left of her father in case he needed to draw a weapon.

The only sounds she heard were their footsteps on the stairs, the drip of water along the walls and their breathing. It was their breathing that disturbed her the most. They worked in sync with each other. Eventually, it was that breathing that saved her from herself. It was an uphill climb and it tested not only her muscles but her lungs.

Her question hung between them. He hadn’t answered it immediately. She wondered if he would. His short reply put paid to her thought. They stopped, in sync yet again, in the hallway that suddenly felt too small, too compact. Not only for her, but for him as well. She could see it in his eyes. She stood rigid beneath his stare. His words penetrating her silent observations. She gave him a curt nod. Her voice was a soft lilting thing. It spoke of visions of a mother softly singing to the babe in her arms as the wee one fell asleep.

“Sleep well, Owen.”

There was a huskiness in her voice every time she was near him. She despised her weakness. Turning swiftly away from him, she walked toward the room she had chosen for herself.

“Dog.”

She tapped the side of her leg with her hand. The wolf opened his eyes, got up and padded over to her. This time, it was she that walked away from Owen, showing him, her back. At her bedroom door, she moved a rug from her room and set it in front of the door and pointed to it.

“Dog, stay.”

Normally she would have let the wolf sleep at the end of her bed. However, this wasn’t her house or her rules. She was thankful Owen let her keep the wolf. She had parted with a lot. The animal she would not have. They had forged a bond that was not easily dismissed. She rubbed Dog between the ears briefly. A small smile on her lips. This had been the first time Dog has let her out of his sight. She had accompanied Owen below without her beloved pet. That spoke volumes. For Owen.

She fetched her toiletries, such as they were and closed herself up in the bathroom, seeing to her nightly ritual. On her return trip to her room, she squatted down to ruffle Dog’s fur and give him a hug before she stood up again.

Jessica closed her bedroom door with a soft click. She didn’t lock it, hadn’t even checked it for a lock. The thought simply never occurred to her. She pulled another of her father’s shirts from the drawer after stripping down and hanging the others she had worn that evening. She didn’t even unbutton the shirt but merely pulled it over her head and began rolling up the sleeves. The ends of her night shirt brushed against her upper thighs as she retrieved the brush from the dresser, brushing out her hair, a hundred strokes, like her mother had taught her, like her father had done for her when she was younger. She missed that, having someone brush her hair for her. It was a luxury she hadn’t had the pleasure of enjoying for some time now and she was resigned that it was something she wouldn’t be enjoying for a long time, if ever, again.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she was again faced with the momentous decision she had impulsively made. It had led to her being here, alone with a man who was a stranger to her. Life was about to change radically for her. Hell, it already had. She hadn’t kept company with anyone in a long time.

Sometimes, one had to seize opportunity with both hands or forever wonder what if. Setting the brush on the small night table beside her bed, she got up, pulled back the covers and slid onto the bed, on her back, lacing her hands behind her head as she stared up at the ceiling.

 

[Light Ice]

In the hall it had been hard to breath, to focus, to stay rooted there when the feminine shape of her brushed against him in a rush of silken hair and slender strength. The days had been long since he'd last bought a woman and he'd forgotten how good they smelled and how gracefully they could move. Catlike, quick and lazy all at once. For a moment he lost himself in the compulsion to snake his arm around her lean hips and pull her against him, feel the crush of their clothes and the heat of her through them. It was enough of an urge to steal his attention and to keep him from saying goodnight as she offered her parting while he struggled to keep his desires safely restrained.

He found himself wandering into his own quarters, spartan and bleak as they were. There existed between them a magnetic quality that on the surface reflected what they both knew - it'd been a long time since they'd been with someone. Beyond that, though, lay a more complicated attraction that he could not entirely understand. He found the smallest things about her intoxicating. Her presence was a potent distraction, here or otherwise, that invaded his mind and clawed at it until he acknowledged it.

She was becoming a microcosmic statement on the duty to which his life had been charged. It bit at him that he had not answered her question, not taken the time. There was inside of him a great, lurking fear that he would in some small way fail or disappoint her. She had been, after all, doing well on her own and her decision had reflected a great hope or curiosity that there was something more. He'd never promised her that was the case, not in words, but his water and his life were filled with small utilitarian luxuries that may have written their own checks.

It would be his duty to cash them.

In the end his desire to see her twisted itself with his duty to her, wound the two distinct feelings so tightly together that Owen knew without question he would yield to them. There would be no wrestling with it, in bed or otherwise, until inevitably his justifications outran his sense and he was at her side dishonestly. So, instead, Owen undressed down to a pair of salvaged nylon shorts and crossed the cold hall towards the room that was now hers.

Dog laid out across a rug she had made and lifted a head, pensive but not entirely untrusting, to consider him as he neared. It was enough to give Owen pause. It was enough to make him think and allow, in that moment, creeping doubts and misconceptions to take hold. Owen took a breath and pushed through them, hand finding the door's handle unlocked, and strode beyond across the threshold.

Darkness greeted him and the air was warm, warmer than his own cabin. It smelled of her already, her things. Her skin. It took a few small seconds before his eyes adjusted and small shapes distinguished themselves from the room's near black. He found a chair and pulled it beside her bed, eyes unashamed and masculine as they ran up the long stretch of her legs until they vanished beneath the soft fabric of the shirt.

"We were one of the first groups to pull from the Vaults. I wasn't born, of course, but there were many of us." He began at her bedside, words low and private in the dark.

There was nobody around to hear, nobody to pay mind, and still he could not help but speak to Jess as though the secret was dire. In a way it was. The stretch of one strong hand found the shape of her calf and held it, warm silk under the rough stretch of his palm. It'd have been enough to drive him to distraction minutes ago but now, here with her, the grip he claimed grounded him to the moment and forced him to focus.

"At first, when we came out, we tried to colonize the hard pan and establish order. Democracy, if you would, and concepts of the Old World were embraced. They failed. This land is hard, too hard, and we lost many. Other people could not buy into the ideals when so many were starving or dying of radiation sickness. Others refused and preyed on those that did."

He could hear her skin pass beneath his fingers. A soft, seductive sound.

"In the end, we failed. My people retreated to their Vault, and others they had found, and dug in. It was decided to aide the People of the hard pan indirectly until things improved enough for us to come out. We do small things. Keep trade routes open. We thin our the raiders when they get too big. We work on machines, sciences, and maintain the knowledge. Everyone has a job. Mine, here, is to watch Dodge City and guide its growth as best I can. It's an ambitious and dangerous post."

His words trailed in the darkness as his fingers did the same across her skin, aware and unaware all at once of the liberty he had taken. Still, the caress was anything but casual. It was not something a man took lightly. Instead, as he felt her eyes on him in the darkness, he closed his fingers on her calf and worked the thick pads deep into the lean muscles until the tightness in them began to melt away.

"There are not enough of us left to really influence things much."

 

[DarkWarrioress]

In the darkness of the room, the silence fell around her like rain. It soothed the weariness that had invaded her body, accumulated from the day’s journey. Jess consoled herself that it was only one of such days to come. She allowed herself to feel it, to embrace it. Her eyes were just staring to drift closed or perhaps they had when that tingling sensation rolled through her. Owen.

The enigmatic man was her future, at least for the moment and all the moments defined by Destiny. She had chosen. Now, Destiny would make her path visible. It would be up to her to walk it. The way he conducted himself, carried himself, she wanted to know more. She wanted to siphon his thoughts, his knowledge and soak it up like a greedy sponge.

The soft click of her door opening made her eyes open, glancing toward it without making a sound. He had gotten past Dog. Another sign from the wolf. Interesting. The sound of a chair being moved, set close to her bedside made her shift her head slightly toward it. Jess was suddenly exhilaratingly, aware of his eyes on her. It was his voice low and masculine, that drew her senses from the carnal. That was, until his hand found her calf. He continued to talk and she focused on his words, what he was telling her. It was as if touching her somehow did something for him. It wasn’t consolation or reassurance. He didn’t need that. She was, however, disturbingly aware of his masculine presence again.

He continued to talk. She listened, unmoving. His touch electrified her, made her skin and senses come vividly alive. At the same time, she could focus on what he was telling her. Only the two of them were in that room, yet he felt compelled to keep his voice low. She followed suit. His fingers unerringly finding the tight muscles in her calf and working them until she could feel them start to loosen and relax.

“You’re wrong, Owen.”

Her voice crept through the darkness, reaching out to him. One hand came from behind her head to rest lightly on her thigh. Her intent had been to reach for him, but at last minute, didn't.

“Even if there is only one person left. One person who cares enough to do something, no matter how small, it does influence things, people. It changes the world, no matter how minutely and causes a chain reaction somewhere, at some point.

Did you choose Dodge City or was it chosen for you?”

She felt decidedly calm despite her awareness of him. Her tone, the calmness, the reassurance, the confidence, seemed to well up from a deep seated place inside her that she didn’t know she had.

Now, if only she could ignore this need to touch him and be touched by him.

 

[Light Ice]

The dark was everywhere, encroaching. Behind him, as though of its own mind, the door slowly settled closed and stole the last hints of light from behind him. He wondered briefly what the wolf thought, how it felt, out in the strange metal causeway on its own. And then the long, graceful shape of her calf flexed beneath his fingers and brought him to the moment. She was soft beneath his fingers. The dark did not hide her beauty, didn't enhance it. Some women, most women, were benefitted from the mystery of the dark. Pretty to start, it gave them the seduction of the mystic. He imagined men, like him, were much the same. Dark, imposing figures in the dark. Exciting. Primitive, block-jawed apes by day.

But to him, she'd all the mystery of the world regardless the light. Her beauty transcended what he knew of from this world or the one before.

His hand strayed, roamed up her calf, found tension above the delicate turn of her knee and set to it. Crept further, selfish now, as silk ran beneath his rough fingers and the confines of the room shrank upon him. Flesh, hot to the touch, spiraled sensations sharply through him in a twisting chain reaction of curiosity and desire. She was hypnotic. Her words, soft and measured, lulled him until his own came again. Her question answered. More. And all the while her skin was beneath his fingers and the dark encroached on them, swelling with the tension. His breath escaping him and nearly ragged.

"I was given this position after my Trials, assigned here. We function in a means not so different from a Knighthood. The arrangement involves a long training from childhood until maturation, eventual assignment. Eventually, taking on a young one to train when the Order allows us."

Secret things, obscure things. They were like grains of sand between your fingers, promising the existence of a beach somewhere and at the same time telling nothing of where it was. They passed between them like a promise as his fingers wound their way along her shape, appreciated every inch of her. Memorized her. The outside of her thigh passed by him, running out, and he was left holding the round of her hip. It was far from innocent, passing from that place where his company had been given as a means to answers and to where it was asking something of her.

For a moment he let his grip linger, strong fingers clutching at the delicate round of her hip, imaging what it would be like to pull her across the bed's sheets and against him. In his mind her long legs would spread across his waist and they would collide in the dark, a tangle of clumsy and unpracticed lips until nature stripped from them the lessons of the New World and they fell into the primal cadence of nature. He would fuck her here, make her body fit to his, lay the claim a man made upon a woman, until they made their ragged sounds and absolution came in a thousand shards of sensation.

But instead, his hand lifted. The air was not cool between them. It was hot, unrelenting. The pound of his pulse in his ears sudden and ferocious and afforded him no respite from his want for her. Owen could hear his breath, its ragged pulse, and knew beyond knowing that she could too.

"Goodnight." He said and meant it.

But it was hard to rise quickly and he lingered.

 

[DarkWarrioress]

It was odd. Lying here in the dark, in a strange room with a man she knew next to nothing about, but there was only one way to learn and he certainly didn’t rebuff her question. His touch, for the most part, held her silent. How long had been since she had felt the touch of another human being? Even longer it had been since she had felt a man’s touch. Mentally she corrected that. One had been a boy. Owen was a man. Even the pressure of his touch, the way he touched her, emphasized that. A thought suddenly occurred to her.

“They won’t like the idea of you training me, will they?”

Maybe it was the atmosphere between them, maybe it was the night itself, maybe it was his touch, but whatever it was, made her keep her voice low and soft. Her fingers reached for his, finally.

“Don’t go.”

Her words came out even softer than before. She had said them. She didn’t want him to leave. Not yet.

 

[Light Ice]

The words would not have kept him, empty as they were, paper thin amidst the dark and fragile against the undercurrent of feeling sweeping through it. Had it only been words he'd have gone, into the cool air of the hallway, free from the intoxicating confines of her quarters and the shadowed shape of her beneath him. Owen had never been a man to which conversation had come easy. Sometimes, as his teachers had learned when he was very young, the rambling dialogue between people dulled him until his mind sought outlets elsewhere. He'd teach himself before being lectured. He'd find a solution before being propositioned. It wasn't her words that kept him.

He stayed because her smaller fingers curled around his, grasping them, trapping them in the smooth warmth of her grip like a child's. There was such an earnest, unhurried plea in the movement that he found his seat with steady, mechanical ease, as though there was nothing else to do but rejoin her at the bed side. For now, as he reclaimed that place where she had unknowingly taunted him with the sleek line of her body under his hand, he was mercifully released from the spell of her. The conversation was reborn with easy exchange, strengthened by her sincere curiosity, and the depths of the desire she expressed for understanding.

"No." He agreed.

They would not be pleased. Within the Order it was not entirely unheard of to take in Outsiders. It happened, from time to time, but always with great forethought and discussion. If there was any "sin" within the structure under which they built their lives it was impulse. She had been, purely, impulse.

Owen looked through the darkness, narrowing his pale eyes onto the smaller hand that grasped at his fingers. She had not relinquished him, yet. This conduit afforded a gentler, slower build of feeling. It did not course through him, but pulsed, softly growing beneath the surface of his understanding. In many ways it felt like an echo of the waves she'd provoked earlier. Stirring him. Tricking him. Lulling him in the places of his mind where he was relieved to not smell her hair, or her skin, or suddenly feel the overwhelming silk of her thigh beneath his rough fingers.

Owen did not go. It seemed out of the question to now.

 

[DarkWarrioress]

They had been just two words, simply spoken. Don’t go. She had meant them. She didn’t want to be alone. He was warm to the touch and there was something…. something in just touching him that reassured her she wasn’t alone in the world. She knew she wasn’t. She had Dog and Owen was very real. It was more than that. Something she couldn’t define. She was also unapologetic for speaking the words. Jess didn’t see it as a weakness, this feeling. It was a need. There was no shame in a need. Denying a need made it a weakness. The carnal thoughts were there, in the back of her mind. But the reason for her words transcended those.

“Then why did you make the offer, Owen?”

There was honest curiosity in her voice. He was an enigma, this man who had appeared on her doorstep one day. He seemed to her as one who was hard, honest, unrelenting when he had set his mind to something. He may blur the edges of the Rules, but he always lived by them. He reminded her of steel. But even steel needed to be tempered at some point.

 

[Light Ice]

Time, always the world's most valuable of currency, was being spent slowly amidst her room. Outside there was work to be done. He wondered, just briefly, if it'd been unfair of him to invite her to this. The question of motive was an easy one to answer on the surface. It was a matter of strategy in an elusive and dangerous game. The Gangs were, while not altogether united, wise enough to know when to move to the same ends. The control of water and trade, the two things most vital to continued life upon the hardpan, dictated all things.

She'd been perfect for what he'd needed. Sharp, civilized, cunning. There was a predator's quickness in her eyes when they'd met, an understanding that she'd shared with Dog in the dark of that first night. With work, hard work, she would be a formidable partner.

There were preparations to make. Weapons to cling. Arrows to fashion. The bow that she had carried had sparked ideas in the dark corridors of his mind, flickering games that he had learned that the world above was not ready for.

"Because I need you to be what I see in you and I do not have time to find it in someone else." He answered.

And for once he was pleased with words, how they came from him. Her fingers yielded under his touch until his hand was drawing up the narrow of her wrist. In the dark he took hold of her, trapped her hand against the cushioned surface of the cot at her back, and bowed his face over the elegant lines of her own in the dark. Pleased, with everything, he found humor.

"It did not hurt that you were a beautiful woman, either."

 

[DarkWarrioress]

She considered his words. Her eyes boring into him through the darkness. His words were acceptable. If they hadn’t been, she would have gotten up at first light and left with Dog, back to everything she had given up. No harm, no foul.

His fingers, like the steel she thought him to be, chained her hand to the bed as his face loomed over hers. She could barely make out the contours of his face without light to illuminate it. Jess didn’t need light. She saw his face clearly in her mind. It was imprinted there.

He thought her beautiful. Inwardly, she was amused. She didn’t see herself through his eyes. She didn’t know him well enough for that. They weren’t intimately entwined. Mind or body. However, her lips twitched. Amusement came to the fore.

“Beauty makes for a deadly distraction, Owen.”

 

[Light Ice]

"All distractions are deadly." He cautioned her.

The sparring left him looming over her, aware of her shape beneath him and its promising softness. She was woman beneath that thin attire, girlish in shape and function. For a moment he considered press his mouth to her own, stealing affection, making a silent promise for trade in whatever pleasures her body could give. There were many things that he could give her to make good; though, he could not think of them now. Owen warred with himself, his eyes searching her own through the dark space between them, his prick hardening to steel down the stretch of his corded thigh. They would find a fine function as lovers. There was no fear in her - no apology.

But something stirred in him as he considered her mouth, the pliant shape of her lips, and he realized he was afraid. The fear gripped him low in his belly and did not relent, but spread, as his thoughts twisted to how greatly he would fail her if he was to make that claim.

For all that he offered, Owen knew that it was temporary. Sooner or later, perhaps later, she would strike out from his side to forge her own path across the hard pan. Their exchange was for knowledge. She would give him the extra hands and eyes he needed to see to his task and she would take from him that which would make her better. That was their exchange.

Changing the terms at this point was not in the cards, not planned. And so suddenly, he rose from her side, his fingers affording her wrist a delicate squeeze.

"Sleep. You will be grateful that I made you in the morning."

And with that he was gone into the corridor and the door closed behind him.

 

[DarkWarrioress]

His words were a reminder. She wouldn’t forget it. The growing tension between them grew deeper. She could feel the desire shimmer between them like a tangible thing now. Undeniable. For both. He wanted her mouth. She wanted to accept it. Take it. Drown in it. Her fingers itched to touch him there, between the legs. But something intervened. Some thought. Of his. The shift was sudden. Sharp as a blade’s edge coming between them. She felt him withdraw.

The soft click of the door was the final punctuation to this exchange. She laid there, her eyes fastening on the ceiling of the sterile room that she had taken for herself. Her body was a taut plane. Knotted muscles lay just under the surface of her skin.

It was an automated act. The reaching for and pulling up the covers on the bed until they covered her warmly. She turned on her side, her eyes closing as she willed relaxation into her body and soul. She took comfort in the fact that she wasn’t alone. Owen had been just as affected.

Tomorrow, the learning would begin.

In more ways than one. For both of them.

 

[Light Ice]

That night hung within the shadowed confines of the past. Looming, but never visited, in the weeks that followed. For Owen, trapped within the urgency of the now, he was a man burdened with the necessity of duty. Her beauty. The bond beginning to forge between them? A casualty of his purpose. A sacrifice. It was left in some safe place in the back of his mind until they could afford it, until their trade had been made good and a new one negotiated. She'd been left to sleep in peace and woken in the morning, before the sun's rise, for the first in the series of many days.

He had been pleased to discover that teaching agreed with him and that learning was equally acceptable to her. She had roused, surprised but anxious, and faced her introduction to their partnership ambitiously. They ate together, quiet and hurried, before she began to shape her body under his watchful eyes. It would not fail her when they were through. It would be a tool, reliable and strong, for her to call upon.

Always, he pushed her. In her ear. The words were often short. His looks more pointed, still. And in time a set of twenty chin-ups because habitual and a few miles run in soft sand routine. They would work together, sweating, until the sun was high and it was time for food, weapons, and history.

It was all business for most. She ate. She cleaned, assembled, disassembled, and repaired firearms and bows. It was an endless machine of information, pushed into her, ground on her. And at times, without warning, he would test her. The punishment for failure was harsh. The affection of his hand upon her in the dark absent from them now, veiled under the visage of a teacher.

But what she drank up more than anything, more than skills of survival and tracking, was history. He taught her of the Raider clans origins, their habits, their gear. He taught them that it was more than simple barbarism in some cases, but culture, adopted over decades and sharpened into some bestial but efficient machine. He taught her of traders, companies, and what they carried. They went on day long excursions that took them miles into the hard pan and along the twisting road until she knew the maps by memory and the landmarks along them by site.

She was relentless in her hunger to understand. He was relentless in his desire to prepare her.

Today, though, was different. The routine was broken. In the evening, after supper, she had often recited to him the day's lesson. One last test amongst so many others, one last chance for her to fail. They were in the cramped, tight quarters of his work room when he spoke to her. Consciously breaking the almost intent silence that lingered between them when they were not working. He spoke, uncertaintly, with his words stiff and robotic. Beneath his fingers an old rifle was being stripped down, taken apart. She was seated nearby. Watching.

"You've done well, Jess. It's almost time. Do you think you're ready?"

 

[DarkWarrioress]

Jess hadn’t asked. Countless times she thought about doing so. Each and every time, she didn’t. She was going to though, maybe. It was just a matter of time before intent became a spoken thing. He pushed her, hard, thoroughly and swiftly. She soaked up the information like a desert parched for rain. When she failed to give her all, he somehow knew it. He wasn’t kind and gentle about it. He was crisp, sharp, commanding. And those looks he gave her. Anger gnawed at her belly. Sometimes at him, but mostly at herself.

~~0~~​

Her eyes watched his hands on the rifle, taking it apart. Each piece of it to be checked for wear and tear then cleaned, oiled and reassembled. His words caught her unawares and she shot him a startled look. The look lasted several minutes with no words to punctuate them. Her eyes lifted to his face, scanning his features. It was hard, as always, to discern his thoughts. They shifted back to the rifle he was disassembling. Her words, when they finally came, were steady, clear and firm.

“I’m ready when you deem me ready, Owen.”

 

[Light Ice]

As a boy he'd often spent his limited time away from classes and training with rifles. They were inelegant weapons. Simple machines. There was a certain peace he had always found in their care. Machining, while not his particular strong suit, attracted him. He had spent long hours dragging his fingers across the components and imagining how they had been conceptualized within the mind of their creator. The practice of their disassembly, cleaning, and assembly had become ritualized therapy for him. One of many minute coping mechanisms that he had developed during his time alone.

She'd not answered his question. Not directly. Their relationship had changed. The first two nights they had been partners, of sorts, bound to one another by an agreement of peers and the unspoken attraction beneath it all. He had looked at her and seen soft curves, true beauty, and the will and intelligence beneath it all that spoke to him. Then, after a night's sleep, she had become a student and he a teacher. It was a transformation that he could not muddle. He'd given his word to prepare her. And so, she answered, not as the woman he had met but as the girl he was teaching. She sought to please him.

The rifle came together before he abandoned it, lying there, some inelegant and simple spectre of the world above. She was close, close enough that he could feel the warmth of her skin through the space between them, perched upon a stool. The exterior clothes they had abandoned were hung and cotton clad him now, wrapped his torso in the form of a simple gray T-shirt. His pants were light, windbreaker fabric. He was not terribly fond of their look but favored their comfort.

"You have not answered my question."

 

[DarkWarrioress]

Her words were truth. She had no way to gauge her readiness for what he intended for her. Once again, she turned her head, gazing upon his impassive countenance. He expected an answer. Did she think she was ready? The counter reply was obviously, ready for what? If she wasn’t ready, would he have even asked her the question? But then, maybe his words meant something more. Something deeper. This time she gave more thought before she answered.

In the time that had passed, filled with knowledge, filled with training to hone mind and body, she felt it. Subtle. It was only when the evening fell and the lines shifted again, they becoming just Owen and Jessica again, that the tremor of awareness between them became a more vibrant thing. She had found the established lines easily enough. Jess further ascertained a determination in Owen. Just what that determination was, she couldn’t be sure. She did, however, get the feeling it had to do with her.

“I’m ready.”

She clarified boldly. That answer stood on a few levels so let him pick whichever ones he wished to apply it too.

“Now, let me ask you a question. Ready for what, exactly?”

 

[Light Ice]

His work room existed as a bridge between the old world and the new. Here, broken and battered, the remnants of what was were turned in his hands into that which would safeguard what had yet to be. The rifle was one of many things scavenged from the wastes. Plucked from rubble and ruin, they were reshaped and repurposed here. They were given direction and measure. They, like the girl seated so near to him now, were forged until they were keen to what must be done. For that, though, there was one catch. Most had purposes before. Long forgotten, certainly, but purposes all the same. She was no different. He had chosen the proper tool for the job.

"There is a government, of sort, struggling within Dodge City. A mostly broken thing. They are ambitious men of limited moral integrity but they are survivors and know enough of it to value those that are beneath them. It is imperfect but it is tolerable.

The Raider Clans have come together under the banner of a man they call Goliath. It is their intention to sweep Dodge City away and claim it for their own. They bring with them the means of the slavers. Death. In all reality it will not be stopped. We cannot step out and simply let those men in Dodge City know. They won't believe us and even if they did they would not go about it the right way. They would attempt to beg, borrow, and steal fate. In this moment, against this tide, they can do nothing but stand. So, we will lead them to stand. Or fail. And stand for them. In what small way we can."

The rifle he had set beside was a Browning. Old. Somehow, through the centuries, the wooden stock had survived. All of it, forged in the country whose grave they now stood upon, had survived and now shined with new life. It was a hunter's weapon. Elegant. Simple. It would be his companion now as they took to the road. It would be his confidant beyond even she. Left where it lay, however, there was only her. And he reached now, felt it prudent as the moment came. The words that fell from him were the most he had spoken in a year's time to anyone.

But this was different now. She'd taken up his cause and tethered herself to his fate. There was so much she did not know. There was so much she would never know. But for now, as her soft fingers slid through his own and he felt the beauty of her on the calloused hardship that had forged him into what he was, he found more words with an easiness and conviction he could not remember ever having before.

"It starts with a hunt."

 

[DarkWarrioress]

"It starts with a hunt."

His words hung in the air between them. She had sat quietly, her eyes watching him with the rifle. Watching as he took apart every single piece, memorizing where they came from and where they went back to.

His hand sliding over her palm, his fingers gliding between hers. She was startled. It showed in the eyes that raised to his suddenly. Jess still didn’t speak. She simply measured. Mutely.

Her fingers slipped from his effortlessly. They curled around the rifle, lifting it from the table. Her father had taught her never to touch, let alone pick up, another man’s weapon. It was a personal thing. An invasion without an invitation to do so. She never forgot that, not even right this moment. This was something she was driven to do. Jess didn’t even stop to think about it as her fingers closed over the wooden stock. She didn’t even glance his way as she began to take the weapon apart, rapidly. Assuredly. Each piece reverently set on his work table. When the whole thing was no more than parts, she reversed the process with the same confident determination. Her fingers flew from the work table to the precipitously forming weapon in her lap. Agile fingers checked and rechecked the fit, insuring everything fitted together correctly. A few minutes later, she set the reformed rifle back on his work table. Her head turned, until her eyes met his. In hers was the calm before a storm. Eerie patience that most would find disconcerting. Her own hands rested in her lap. Still.

“When do we begin?”

The words were simple. The meaning behind them, not so much. She had thrown in her lot with him. They lived or died together. She was young. Hadn't seen nearly as much as he had. She would learn. That's what she was there for. To learn. There was a bittersweet feeling to her decision. It would have been better if she hadn't felt the pull between them. He wanted her. She could sense it. Feel it on her skin. Like his hands. When the time came, he would have her and she wouldn't stop him. He would make her cry out in the darkness. Her fingers would dig into his flesh. They would strain against each other. Both taking. Both giving. When the time came.

She was young. She would learn. He would teach her.

 

[Light Ice]

He grunted. Low. Earthy. Half-aware of it as he took the rifle from the table and left her there in the dark. Suddenly, watching her little fingers slide metal together, he'd remembered the softness of them under his own. There was a shadow creeping through him. It slid like a storm cloud across the sky, chilled the air as he passed. He felt the weight of oncoming rain and moved topside quickly. There was no obstacle within that he could not clear quickly. He vaulted up stairs. Defeated ladders. There were bulkheads and steel corners and then there was only the entry corridor and the world beyond.

Even now, with it on him fully, he was not so foolish to step outside. He knew, more than he knew to run from what was stirring, that out there was death and doom and that there were people who could not afford recklessness. By the door, though, he waited. Listened. And closed his eyes as his forehead touched the chilly bulkhead and gave to him the faint tremors of rain outside.

Rain, on the hardpan. It'd happened only twice that he knew.

The water was a gift that would last precious minutes. It'd run in streams along the sand after the sand had gorged itself upon the fall. It would bring feeble hopes and a fool's madness. Men and women would die. Some, in the dark, scattered desperately for water and paying no mind to the raiders that would find them first. Others, later, after they'd gathered water off the rocks and sand and drank it down without thought to the radiation it picked up once it touched the ground. Some would die in days. Others weeks. The least fortunate, or so he felt, would grow sicker and sicker and linger. Losing teeth. Hair. Bleeding from their ears, noses, lips, genitals, anus. They'd become husks. Ruins.

When did it start? She'd asked. He hoped by now she knew the answer. Hunts, even lesser hunts, began when they first were born as thoughts. They inspired plans and preparation. And this hunt, this hunt that she was joining, had begun months before they'd met when he'd first realized the dangers growing. The rifle in his hands was no comfort. The cold steel of the bulkhead a sharp reminder. It soothed what raged inside of him now. Or so, at least, he hoped.

 

[DarkWarrioress]

She sat there, in the darkness, where he left her. Not a word had passed his lips since she had asked.

“When do we begin?”

Not where. Not how. When.

All things started with a thought or an emotion. It was simply just the way humans were. It’s what made them tick. She barely knew a thing about Owen. She knew he was a thinker. But there was a lot more to him. He was a doer. Something needed doing, he got it done. This complex of his was testament to that.

Jess stood up, glancing up at the stairs he just jettisoned up like a scalded cat. Her head tilted to one side slightly as she ceased breathing to listen. Something. Her brow furrowed. Listened. She wasn’t sure what it was. She moved quietly, located the stairs and climbed them. She hesitated at the top. At the entry way. Cautious. She spotted him. His back was to her. His hands gripped the rifle. His forehead was pressed to cold steel. Her eyes shifted around, taking in everything at a glance. Dog wasn’t there. That meant there was no immediate threat. Her glance went to the man standing with his back to her.

She moved again. Silently. Deftly. Her fingers touched his arm.

“Owen?”

It was only his name on her lips but there was so much more. The intonation of her voice spoke of unvoiced questions.

What’s wrong?

What do you need me to do?

 

[Light Ice]

"Sleep." He said.

The thin veil of a command stood stark between them as he lingered, briefly, by the bulkhead. Her touch. Electric. The beauty of the girl he'd plucked from a desert homestead and ripened. Ripened. Like her breasts against the chill, nipples tight through thin fabric. He did not have to see it to see it. The picture clung in his mind, pulled from memories, as the nights had fallen upon them and they'd lived amongst one another here in the place that he could no-longer call home. The safety of it, the dream of her, seemed frail and brittle and fading.

He could have taken her.

He wanted to take her.

But instead, he moved past her. The great shadow of foreboding having slid across him, around him, and through him. For all the dangers of the hardpan there remained little doubt in him that things would change entirely, and soon, with the arrival of the hordes. Goliath was, from what little he had seen, a scourge of darkness this tired world could do without seeing. Life, fragile life, clung to the ruinous remains of the world that was with thin and shaky fingers. It seemed cruel that such a man would rise up now. His command simple. His measure clear.

Through the dark corridors he moved and wound. His quarter would be found. His rack claimed. The dog did not appear to trouble him. He'd half expected it to. Between the pair had always been the thin veil of a truce. A begrudged respect. The animal, despite his concerns, had fallen in with the way of things.

When sleep came it was fitful. Filled with dreams. Red hair. Soft skin. Girlish whispers in the dark. And then, as the warmth of want crept through him as he slept, there was screaming and blood and the jagged mask of the barbarian Goliath. Hell, teeming, swirled black and violent at his heels.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Dawn had just started to creep lazy above the horizon. Colors, bright and brilliant, splashed along the barren wastes and lent them for precious moments a blush of color other than sand's own. He stood by the vault door of his home for what was most likely the very last time. The attire that draped him familiar. A faded duster, battered and worn, and the bindings of light armor beneath. When she appeared he said little. There was nothing to say.

Instead, far different from his own, he presented her a gift and an expectation.

A mask.

 

[DarkWarrioress]

He moved. Her fingers fell away from his arm. He didn’t look back. He simply disappeared into the darkened interior of his home. She stood silently and a short time later, heard a door open and close. Sleep, he had said. All of a sudden she felt alone. Very alone. In the interval of seconds that ticked by, she missed her home. Missed her parents.

“Dog.”

The animal lifted his head, got to his feet, stretched and padded to her side. She reached down to ruffle his ear, his fur. Then she followed in the man’s wake. Progressing through his home until her hand found the knob on her door. It paused. Her eyes looked down the hall where she knew his door was. She could open that door, walk inside and to his bed. Would he have turned her away? She wondered. In the end, she opened the door to her room, closing it quietly with a soft click. Dog brushed past her leg to take up his place on the rug at the foot of the bed. Jess smiled in the darkness as she listened to her companion turn twice then settle down. His muzzle resting on a paw with a soft huff of breath.

Her fingers found the buttons of her shirt, pushing the small white plastic orbs through the openings until the shirt hung open, draped across each breast. She sat on the edge of the bed and removed her boots, setting them on the floor with minimal sound. Her socks followed, tucked into the boots. Standing quietly, her fingers found the fastening of her jeans, unbuttoning, unzipping. Palms sliding across hips, skimming over panties and down her legs until they pooled around her ankles. They were removed, set in a pile on top of the boots. Shirt, underthings, followed. The covers were pulled back and a slender body slid beneath them before they were pulled back up, over her chest. She lay on her back, one hand slid behind her head as she stared up into the dark. It wasn’t long before her eyes closed, her body relaxed and sleep was beckoned and claimed.

~~ ~~​

She was awake and up before the dawn. Fresh clothes were donned. An old checked shirt of green and black. A pair of faded jeans that had seen better days. The same boots were worn. Jess stopped at the spartan dresser and drew her hair brush through her hair, then braiding it. There was a moment’s pause of consideration before she opened a drawer and drew out a scarf. She wound it around her neck. Fingers closed around her coat. Donned it. Her eyes fell on her bow and quiver. She moved toward the door and took them up, shouldering both. She opened the door and looked over her shoulder.

“Dog, come.”

He was up in a flash and at her side. She lingered a moment. Glancing around the room. Her eyes found the pack at the end of her bed. Noted the brush she had just replaced on top of the dresser. She stepped through the doorway, holding the door open for her four-legged companion before she closed it with a silence that spoke of something, she didn’t care to examine.

Her boots made noise on the floor until she adjusted her step. Her feet took her back into the part of the house she had been in before and paused as her eyes searched for him and found him standing by the vault door. She stood utterly quiet as she took in the faded duster that seen older days and under it, the armor he wore when he went outside. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His hand extended and her eyes fell to what was in it.

A mask.

Her eyes rose to his face. She studied him. Taking a step closer her fingers closed over it and took it. Her eyes shifted to the mask. A small row of buttons on the right side. A slightly larger one just below them. She donned it. Made adjustments so it fit snugly to her head. Fingertips floated along the buttons, she pressed one and felt the subtle vibrations against her forehead and on her temples, as if something had turned on? Then she remembered Owen's mask. Computerized. That was it. Her mask had a computer. The front part of her mask was a high density plastic and it was clear. Another button pressed. Something popped up before her eyes. It was a mark. A dot and beside it was information. She read it. Owen's rifle. Her head gear had located his rifle, marked its location and told her what and where it was. Interesting. What else could this thing do? She touched the buttons again and the computer powered down. Removing the mask, she turned it, studying the side with the buttons.

"I'm guessing here. This one below the rest is my air? And the third one up here with the rest? What does it do?"

She glanced up in time to see Owen's hand outstretched again and there was something in his palm. She took it from him, turning it over in her fingers. Her eyes silently questioned.

"A camera. For the dog."

His voice was clipped. She was getting use to it. He thought of everything. Used everything to his, their, advantage.

"Dog. Come."

The command was softly spoken. The animal had been standing just behind her and at her command, came obediently to her side, looking up at her curiously. Jess knelt and secured the small flat object to his collar. It looked like a small, dull adornment. Standing, she donned the mask again. Powered it up. Another touch to her mask and she had a view from Dog's collar right before her eyes. Her FOV was now extended, thanks to the camera.

As simple as that, it began. In truth, it had begun long before she had met him. It had begun with this man. His thoughts. His beliefs. His task, now hers. He would lead, she would follow. In time, she would walk with her own thoughts. Her own beliefs. But not yet. She had so much to learn and she would until she could hold her own at her teacher’s side. Then, well, by then, things would speak for themselves.


(author's note: FOV: Field of View)