Halloween Entry, Flint and Tinder
Title: Flint and Tinder
Author: GoddessofBirth
Entry: Halloween Entry
Word Count: 6, 053
Fandom: Firefly/Chronicles of Riddick
Pairing: Vaako/Sade
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't profit
Other oneshots and stories in the Spiral-verse
Timeline: Sometime during 'Salvation'; Between 'Fire' and 'Peace'
A/N: This story was inspired partly by this picture and the song 'Soldier' by Bitter Ruin. (Listen to this song, for serious!)
* * * * * * * *
The worlds had gone up in flames.
A match had been struck too close to ready tinder, and the tension between the Alliance and the people that longed for Independence had flared, burning bright and strong as every hour, every day, new reports came out of uprisings and slaughter, stretching from Londinium to Persephone to Boros.
The real tragedy, Sade thought, as she slung her small pack over her shoulder and made her way from the ship into the dark of the night, was that the 'verse had no clue that this was just the prequel, just the appetizer. This collapse was just the symptom of the approaching destruction.
They hadn't even entered the first circle of hell.
She passed wordless Necromonger sentinels at the bottom of the ramp. They made no move to halt her, but she knew that it wouldn't be many seconds before one of them peeled away from their ranks to report her departure to the zhanshi. He had closeted himself from her for the last month, since that moment in the practice halls when fire had leapt between them and he had stepped back as if she had burned him but he couldn't let her know it.
Since then, she had only seen him in passing, huddled in conference over star charts, moving through crowds on planets, tracking down leads that had, so far, proven useless. But even when he wasn't in her sight line, she could feel him, always there, always watching. Sometimes she would catch him; standing on a catwalk overlooking her practice, or almost glaring across the mess hall tables from where he sat, surrounded by soldiers.
More often than not, though, she would spin on her heel and there would be no one there, just the lingering feel of his eyes across her back.
She missed him. Missed how they had begun seeking each other out for random, meaningless conversations. Missed the way he would sometimes look at her inquiringly, seeking her advice on some more or custom of the 'verse. Missed the small, almost invisible smiles that had begun to escape without his permission.
There were no more smiles now; it was as if whatever spark had been lit inside him had been ruthlessly extinguished. As if there were no Vaako anymore, only the zhanshi.
She shook her head to clear it, the midnight moon high and full as a pumpkin overhead. Her fate, even the zhanshi's fate, was of little importance now; not when the fates of all the Worlds hung in balance and the maze through suddenly seemed dark. She worried that she had lost her way. They had been searching for months now, and what had been so clear before seemed increasingly ephemeral. She feared she had become inattentive; missed some clue. Perhaps in trying to untangle the knot of things the zhanshi had created inside her, she had mis-stepped; angered the Goddess.
She needed answers, clarity. Needed to be assured she had not gone astray. She needed to beseech their Mother for a sign. That the ship had touched ground on the day of one of the seven High Holy Nights of the year could be no coincidence. Tonight, when the veil between this world and the Other was whisper thin, she would attempt to draw her out, ask her to take pity on her daughter and again point the way.
The woods were thick, but she didn't turn on the flashlight she'd grabbed as a last minute thought, not wanting to disturb the gathering weight in the air. Instead, she wandered on silent bare feet, trusting the Goddess to lead her. Her faith was rewarded, moments later, when she broke through a clearing.
It was a fairy ring, almost a perfect circle underneath a sky full of stars - the city and docks were so far away now she could pretend they didn't exist, and the ever present rains of this world had cleared for just this night.
She set her satchel on the ground and quickly turned to gathering stones, using them to form another, much smaller circle in the center of this one, then added stacks of deadwood inside it She pulled a small jar from the bag and flung powders of incense about the clearing, the heady smells making her throat tighten with a homesickness that would never be cured, so she swallowed them down hard and lifted the larger, steel canister from her bag.
A double handful of flash-powder on the branches ensured they would burn bright and hot for hours, despite their dampness and the heavy humidity in the air. She knelt in from of the makeshift pyre and, just before inserting a long, thin match into the center, bowed her head and whispered up a prayer. At the first touch of fire to powder, the entire mass flared up into flames, and she dropped the match into its hungry maw and stood.
In a smooth, economical move, she unlatched her cloak and let it fall to the ground. Underneath, she was completely nude, except for the metal girdle around her waist, draped with looping chains and tinkling bells. Naked she came into this plane; naked she would leave. And naked and unarmored would she come before the gods and goddesses. She pulled pins from her hair, and, unbound, it responded to the humidity in the air by curling wildly into an untamed mess.
By rights, she should be accompanied by the women of her tribe, one or more of the men beating out the steady tempo of the dance on the old, animal skin drums they carried wherever the People moved, strapped securely across their backs. But there was no one else left to give honor to their traditions, to their memories, only her - and it mattered little; she knew these steps by heart, any girl past her first flows did.
The chimes at her waist rang as she began. It was always slow at first. Step, step; hips moving wide and long. Arms out to the side and careful toe lifts. It was a supplication, a moving prayer to the Goddess. It could last for hours; sometimes the ecstasy lasted for days, new dancers coming in as old ones dropped from exhaustion. She didn't have that kind of time, of course, but she didn't need it. The beat in her head quickly picked up speed, and soon she was spinning, whirling, body undulating and writhing as she entered frenzy, bells singing songs of praise as her head whipped from side to side, shadow dark in the steadily climbing flames of the fire.
She felt his presence, knew the second the zhanshi entered the ring, but she was too caught up in communion to care; she could feel the divine in the trees, in the ground, in the flames, in the bones. The zhanshi was a part of the dance now, and it was not discordant at all.
A part of her mind always conscious of his eyes steadily following her, she spun on.
* * * * *
Vaako stared at the star charts, unseeing. He had stripped off the majority of his armor in the privacy of his own suites, leaving just his arm shields over his long sleeves and his pants tucked into his boots.
They were running out of time; he could feel it in his bones. For every rumor they chased down, the Usurper was consolidating his hold, and if he found the Lord Marshal before Vaako did, the consequences could be disastrous. He slammed his fist down on the table in frustration. How many more planets could this insignificant, backwater system have? And why was his Lord in hiding even before the rebellion happened?
He had a suspicion that Sade knew; but it was one more thing she had never deigned to share - even in the beginning, when he had subtly threatened her with actual harm. He couldn't bring himself to do that again.
He idly wondered if he just asked her, whether or not now she would tell him. Of course, that would require him to talk with her, and he had already realized she had somehow become a weakness he must excise, like a faulty plate of mail. Until it was repaired, he wasn't sure he could risk her presence.
He determinedly ignored the telling ache the wound of her absence had left.
So now, now it was his soldiers she infected, moving among them with smiles and laughing words. He had seen even his most hardened men relax under her spell.
He forced his hands to unclench from the fists they had curled into. He had made sure his entire battalion understood the cost of touching what they shouldn't. He should never have let a Breeder on his ship, regardless of her message, should never have let her into -
He ruthlessly quashed the thought. Nothing good came of that road.
He almost believed it.
A subtly cleared throat, the dull thud of fist against metal caused him to refocus his blank stare on the door. Nero was there, whom Vaako had almost started to hate for his daily training sessions with Sade, his fist held over his heart as he waited for Vaako's acknowledgment.
'What is it?'
'The woman has left the ship, my lord.'
Vaako found himself standing in front of Nero without remembering how he got there. 'What are you talking about? It's almost midnight.' he snarled. Midnight on an unknown world, with no idea how the populace would react to an unescorted woman, especially when almost anything was a spark to the smoldering tinder box of civil war. Midnight with no idea of where she had gone or what she was doing.
There must have been something in his expression, because Nero was watching him warily as he replied. 'You gave no orders that she should be detained, Lord Vaako.'
Something he would remedy post-haste. He had made the mistake of thinking she had sense. The suspicious part of him wondered if she had been playing them all along. Working with the Usurper, maybe waiting until she wore their defenses down before opening the gates - some kind of Trojan Horse.
He was surprised at how quickly he dismissed it for the unworthy thing it was, which meant he had somehow come to trust her. The thought was nearly as frightening as the pull he felt toward her.
'Was she armed?'
Nero shook his head. 'The sentries reported no weapons on her person.'
He hadn't finished the sentence before Vaako was pushing past him, striding quickly down the corridor. He shoved open the door to her room, and true to Nero's word, the pulse rifle he had convinced her to learn was sitting, abandoned, on the desk next to her bed.
Any previous discomfort he might have felt was nothing compared to the fist in his gut at the confirmation that she was out in the night, unescorted and unarmed, and would hesitate to react to an assault with any sort of violence. He returned to his quarters only long enough to grab his own personal weapons; he didn't take the time to bother with his armor before he was off the ship and into the darkness.
Under-verse! The woman didn't even bother trying to hide her tracks. He could clearly make out the prints of her toes and soles in the slightly tacky dirt around the ship - he had never seen her wear shoes against the earth. Anyone with a modicum of skill could follow her.
Anyone.
His anger only increased as her footprints entered the woods. Humans weren't the only danger here, and quick and unwelcome visions of finding Sade mauled and still flashed through his brain. He kept his finger on the trigger of the pulse rifle and his other hand rested on the knife strapped to his belt.
He didn't like it, this fear for her that waged war with his anger at her, this imperative to protect her, even at the cost of his own mission. Every cell in his body recognized how dangerous this road was; had his life with Jenata taught him nothing?
When he got her back to the ship, he would ensure she was confined to her room - she obviously didn't have enough self preservation to be allowed free reign. He steadfastly ignored the voice in his head that pointed out she had survived thirty some odd years on her own, in circumstances that were less than conducive to survival. Her somehow managing to stay alive this long was obviously an aberration. Luck was a fickle mistress and he would not depend on it to keep her alive.
The reasons she must stay alive were ones he couldn't afford to think about, and yet somehow he couldn't avoid them bubbling up, unbidden and unwelcome.
He wasn't more than 100 yards inside the cover of trees when he smelled smoke, spiced with an unknown scent. He quickened his pace as he followed the signs of her passing, the smell intensifying as he followed it further in. Smoke meant camps. Camps meant people. People meant danger. His fingers tightened on the pulse rifle and the brand of adrenaline particular to the Necromongers flooded his body, causing him to see death. It was an unarguable truth was that he was made for aggression.
There were flames in the distance, some kind of bonfire, and he moved as swiftly as he could toward it, only the realities of the danger of injury on an unseen sinkhole or trap keeping him from flat out running. He slowly became aware of an almost inaudible chiming noise, and as he approached, he brought the pulse rifle to his shoulder, preparing to fire as soon as he could see the threat.
After far too long, he finally burst into the clearing, and then immediately froze. He had found what he sought, and his weapon dropped from suddenly nerveless fingers as his free hand dug, white knuckled, into the branch of the tree that somehow seemed to be supporting him now.
Sade was alone and she was dancing, and she was completely bare from head to toe, excepting for some belt of delicate metal work that hung low on her hips, the bells interspersed on its surface the source of the chiming he had heard. He didn't need to be told that she was speaking with her gods; it was All Hallows Eve, and her movements brought to mind the frenzies of the Ecstatics of his own system.
The Ecstatics had never looked liked this, though.
Even in its lack of control, every turn, every twist of of her body was sensuous, a writhing dance of shaking hips, head throwing back, arms alternately beckoning and pushing away. There were steps here, he could see that there was a definite rhythm, a definite order that led the chaos.
He couldn't stop staring. The look on her face was pure, open joy, and centered completely on what she was doing; he was sure she had no idea he had even arrived. Shadows and firelight flickered across her body, decorating her like so many pagan symbols and he saw, for the first time, the curve of her hips, the line of her leg, the full weight of her breasts, tipped by dark, rose colored aureola.
There was the tattoo of a snake wrapped all the way around her waist, its head rearing up her torso, ending just below the slope of her breasts, and the glint of metal at her naval made him think she had some sort of piercing there. Her hair, completely freed from constraint, made a wild halo around her face, and ever inch of her glistened, testament to the exertion of her body.
It had never been more clear just how much she was everything he was not, and he felt a kind of despair he hadn't shaken hands with since that day, far in his past, when he had traded his life for the life of an already doomed world.
He wanted to touch her.
He wanted to chain her.
He wanted to run away.
Her dance was picking up pace now, her movements close to blurring. He could almost imagine the beat of drums behind her, and he knew there was no way she could sustain that kind of rhythmic speed for any length of time. He remembered now that the Ecstatics sometimes died for their prayers.
He had taken a step toward her, intending to force her to stop before she hurt herself, when, like some invisible string had been pulled, she froze mid-step, her back to him. Arms above her head, one foot poised on its toes, she canted her hips one more time, a sharp metallic chime from her belt punctuating the end. The light of the fire clearly illuminated the ruined map of scars on her back, and stretched and shivered as she drew in gulps of air.
Then, in a slow, deliberate move, she turned her head to look over her shoulder, staring him straight in the eyes. He had been wrong. She had known he was there all along.
There were only two ways it could go, and he chose to let his anger win. He strode toward her, his features and body tight with fury, pausing only to bend down and sweep her cloak from the ground. He flung it at her.
'Put your clothes on, woman,' he harshed out.
She wordlessly shook the cloak out and draped it over her shoulders. She didn't bother with the hood, but she did pull in closed, and he felt like he could breath again.
'What goes on in this head of yours?' he hissed. 'Have you no care for your safety? You are not ignorant of the worlds, woman! You know how dangerous the tide is right now and yet you go out unescorted, parade yourself around like a flesh fair!'
She watched calmly as he snarled and spit, the most emotion she had seen from him in days, and pulled her cloak more tightly around her. 'I'm hardly at the center of civilization, zhanshi. The only things watching are the night and the trees.'
'I found you.'
'Yes. You came.' The tangle of confusion that had always surrounded her attraction to him was gone. She was too well versed in the voice of her Goddess not to recognize the form her answers took. He had come, and he had irreversibly become a part of her prayer, a part of her weave.
'If I found you, so could another. You were lucky it was only me.'
She took a step toward him, wanting to soothe, but he took a matching pace back. She narrowed her eyes.
'You didn't even bring a way to defend yourself.'
His ignorance was astounding. 'It would be the greatest blasphemy to approach the Mother with tools of violence, zhanshi. Our way would be cursed.'
'And will your mother -' he mouthed the word like it was foul tasting. ' - somehow protect you from harm? I think your past should be answer enough, woman.'
Her irritation rose to the surface, if only because he couldn't see that of course She protected her. She had brought him. So she flung the challenge down deliberately.
'Tell me, Lord Vaako. Does it bother you more that I might have been hurt, or that a man other than you might have seen me like this?'
He froze in his pacing and his head snapped up to glare at her, his nostrils flaring as breath hissed harshly in and out of his lungs. For a moment all was still, and then something around him shattered, so palpable she could almost see it. He was on her in two steps, fisting her hair in one hand and yanking her head back to look up at him. This close, she could see that his pupils had blown black, the hazel just a tiny rim around them.
'Both,' his admission came in a harsh tone that would have made her flinch if it hadn't immediately been followed by his mouth crashing into hers, ravenous and desperate. This was no first kiss, hesitant and shy and asking permission - this was claiming and consuming and branding, and she didn't hesitate to respond in kind, letting all the pieces click into place. She wanted to take every bit of him and twist it around every bit of her.
Gods, he was lost. His hand had slipped inside her covering and he palmed the texture of her hip, feeling it slide over his battle worn calluses. There was a danger here. For him, for her, but he couldn't focus on it, could only taste this maddening woman against him, could only sense her stealing into the cracks in his armor he had offered up, could, finally, only feel the whorls of his fingerprints brush over the soft under-curve of her breast. She shuddered into him, and he slowly withdrew, sure that if he could see better, he would find he had left ink stains on a pristine canvas.
He reigned himself back in, gentling the kiss as best he could. There was the tinny taste of blood on his tongue and he realized somewhere in his possession he had broken skin. It was that that reminded him of all the reasons he had tried to stop this from happening. He had broken ranks, though, and retreat might be impossible.
He let loose of her mouth and carefully closed her cloak over her. When he tucked loose tendrils of hair behind her ears, they promptly escaped again; apparently all things were choosing disobedience tonight.
Her hands rested on his chest, trapped between them, as she watched him, simply waiting.
He sighed and shook his head. 'This can come to no good, my lady. I will only darken you.' If he couldn't retreat, then maybe she would.
He should have remembered she was fearless.
She brushed a light hand across his cheek. 'I have more faith than you. Perhaps I will bring you some light.'
He was a soldier; he accepted his inevitable surrender and responded the only way he knew. He cupped the balls of her shoulders, rubbing his thumbs across the soft skin of her clavicle and whispered, 'What would you have me do?'
'I would have you do nothing for which you are not willing, zhanshi.' Her hand on his cheek curved to hold it closer.
'I fear, my lady, that I no longer have a choice.'
'Don't fear me; don't fear us. The 'verse has made far stranger pairs.' She had asked the Goddess for a sign, and She had sent Vaako. Whatever reservations she might have had about the match had been settled in that. Well, that, and the way he had kissed her, like she was salvation itself.
Vaako quirked an eyebrow at her, and she realized she was grinning widely. 'See,' she laughed breathlessly, 'I'm nothing for you to be afraid of.'
He barked out a return laugh, not nearly so light. 'You scare me down to my bones, woman.'
She slid her hands from his face to wrap her arms around his neck, lifting up on her tiptoes until their faces were nearly even, very conscious of the fact that her cloak had fallen open and bare skin pressed against his clothes.
'Is this really so scary?' Her lips were moving against the skin at the corner of the left side of his mouth. His skin was cool, something she had noticed in their previous interactions; not like ice, not like winter - although he tasted something like snow, she thought - but more like he'd been out too long without a coat. Since the night was balmy in an almost tropical way, she knew that wasn't the cause. She wondered if this was just the way the Necromongers were, and if he missed the warmth.
Her lips drifted to the right corner of his mouth. 'Am I really so frightening?'
His eyes had fallen shut, and he shuddered. 'Under-verse, yes.'
His answer caused her to drop back down and take a step back. 'Vaako, I am not her. I'm not going to betray you. I'm not going to hurt you because I can. It's not always weakness to let someone else have power.'
As if he didn't know that. His whole life was a balance between serving and leading. He caught her hand and drew her back against him, reluctant to let her go, and answered her seriously.
'Perhaps it's not me I'm worried about.'
'My heart is my own to risk, zhanshi. I make that decision, not you.'
He was anathema to all she was, just as she was to him in return, and he wondered at her, how she could stare down this abyss with so much courage, without even flinching. She would have made an excellent soldier. The image that brought up, of her being marked, Converted, changed, made his stomach roil violently.
His face grew grim.
'I'm not simply speaking of your heart.'
His expression was carved from stone; this was something that deeply concerned him. He had never directly told her, but he had hinted at things, and she suspected his statement was bound up in the Necromongers use of the un-converted, or 'breeders' - the pejorative whispered behind her back - some kind of ritual she had overheard the men speaking of, but had never heard explained.
She knew instinctively the telling wouldn't be pretty, and wondered that if it was what she thought, would it be one more thing she would have to accept as part of him and his past Somehow, the killings were easier to forgive.
She didn't move away but she had to ask, because she needed to understand.
'The breeders. You rape them, don't you?'
He actually flinched, something she wasn't sure she'd ever seen him do, but then he steadied; answered carefully.
'Not anymore; the Lord Marshall has forbidden the act. And no, never personally. But yes, it was what was done. The women...sometimes they did not survive.'
Probably less survived than didn't, Sade surmised, taking into account the forces that seemed to drive these men.
'And why not you? Because of your wife?'
A faintly bitter tone entered his voice and the hand on her arm tightened unconsciously, digging into her flesh. 'No. Necromonger women cannot carry children to term; the Conversion renders them sterile. The right to take part in the ritual - to force your seed upon a Breeder - it is considered a mark of rank, of privilege. An honor. My choice not to partake...displeased Jenata. In her eyes this was weakness; it made us vulnerable, diminished our stature, slowed our rise within the ranks.'
'And you loved this woman?' She hadn't intended to voice the question, but she disliked Jenata more with ever bit of information she learned.
'Very much. Dame Vaako and I...' he cast around, seeming to look for the right words, and then he abandoned the thought all together. 'I loved her, yes. And then I killed her.' His voice held no inflection at the bald statement.
Even though she'd known, the repeated confession of the execution should have at the very least bothered her, but the only thing she could think was that the bi had deserved it.
Instead of addressing his statement, she curiously asked, 'If not for the sake of your marriage, if the action was expected, why turn away?'
'Some things, my lady,' he said coldly, 'are beyond even me.' He suddenly seemed to recognize the strength of his grip and he opened his hand, rubbing his palm over the reddened skin. He didn't quite meet her eyes when he added, 'As unlikely as it seems, I had sisters once.'
She covered his hand with hers and slid fingers alongside his. 'And there was a light, shining in the darkness.'
He abruptly pulled his hand away and shook his head. 'Whether I participated or not, the desire, the instinct, is always there. Something in the Conversion imprints it upon us, just waiting to be triggered at the smell of a Breeder, at her sounds. At her ripeness.' He shrugged. 'The Priests say it wasn't always so, that the ritual used to be a choice for the Breeders, an honor to be carried out, with eventual Conversion as their reward.
'I don't know the truth of that; I only know how it is now, and I have never tested to see if it could be otherwise.' He stepped back into her and cupped her face, running calloused thumbs along her cheekbones. 'I could hurt you. Very easily take what you are not willing to give. Pleasure and pain have always lain close together for we Necromongers. The gods made us to dominate the races, and we do that, no matter the means.'
'Your gods are a pantheon of power-hungry, sadistic, dictators,' she snapped.
'Our gods are your gods.'
She shook her head, movement arrested by his hands still holding her face. 'Not my Goddess, zhanshi. She does not ask us to dominate, only to endure.'
He bowed to meet her eyes. 'Then she is weak, and ineffectual, and the gods will yoke her when Under-verse comes.'
'Strength is more than just the power of the arm. Might is more than force.' She tilted her head to the side and, keeping his gaze, deftly unbuckled his arm shields. When she had removed them, she pushed up the sleeves of his shirt, exposing his forearms.
'You have more strength in your muscles,' she acknowledged, and then ran her fingertips up his skin to his elbows, causing him to break out in goosebumps.
She grinned, 'but I can make that strength shiver.'
The sound he made was full of aggravation. 'If it happens, I won't care what you're - '
And then she was pressed against him again, her cheek nuzzling against him, and whatever he'd been about to say fizzled out.
'Smell me, zhanshi,' she murmured, and the man who had held worlds in his palms was powerless to do anything but obey, letting that summer-sun-turned-earth-green-grass scent fill his nostrils, heady and intoxicating, feeling blood pound, rushing through his veins.
She laced her fingers across the back of his head and pulled his mouth to hers, her breath drifting across his lips. 'Taste me, Vaako.'
She was right; she was far stronger than he was. With a groan, he opened her lips underneath his, angling her head to the side to better fit them together. The few minutes that had passed since the first time he'd touched her like this had done nothing to diminish the effect she had on him, the dizzying feel of her tongue against his, the texture of mouth, the taste of pure light.
He could feel it thrumming down deep, the ugly aggression of conquest, but it was no more than background noise, almost lost in the heady desire to claim her as his and his alone, to fall down on his knees and beg her to own him.
She made a small, gasping noise into his mouth, and he pressed further in, threading hair through hands and drawing her bottom lips between his teeth and nipping down carefully. She returned the action with a need that seemed to mirror his own, and then his mouth migrated across her jaw, to play along skin like silk, and then to her ear.
He licked along the shell, a rumble escaping his chest when her breath picked up and went ragged as he worried at her earlobe. His own breathing was hardly better, and with great effort he reminded himself this was not the time, nor the place to press further, although the vision of how she had looked, the lights of the fire flickering across her bare skin, burned hard across his eyelids.
He released her lobe and as it often did in her presence, a fragment of memory from his life before floated up in his brain and he murmured softly, 'Your slightest look easily will unclose me, though I have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself.'*
She drew back, a smile playing across her lips. He never stopped being caught off guard by how easily she smiled. He was too used to the rare, cold smiles of the Necros, that never came without a bite.
Sade tugged just barely at his shorn hair. 'So many mysteries. What other things do you keep hidden from the rest of us.'
The tiny, self-deprecating smile that had blossomed in response to hers disappeared. 'Ugly things. Things you should never see.'
She played her fingers over his lips. 'You are more powerful than what they made you, Vaako.'
He pulled her hand away and brought it to rest on his chest. 'You believe too much, my lady.'
Something flashed across her eyes and the air between them seemed to chill. He could almost see her withdraw and he was confused as to what he had done.
'I told you I didn't want what you weren't willing to give, zhanshi. If you choose to turn away, I won't stop you.'
How had she not seen that he had already lain down arms?
He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger. 'Sade -' her eyes widened and it hit him that he'd never said her name out loud before, only dared to speak it in the privacy of his thoughts. 'Sade,' he said again, 'I am your soldier. What,' he repeated, 'would you have me do?'
She was smiling again, and it did not unpleasant things to his insides. 'We will be stronger than what they made us. Stay the course, zhanshi. In this, and in your search. We are on the right path.'
'We're running out of time.' It was something of a relief to finally share the worry that had been plaguing him. 'We will not have many more chances.'
She just shook her head. 'No. We will find them, and we will do it first.'
'Even with your faith, you cannot be sure.'
She hummed noncommittally. 'I asked Her for answers; for a sign we weren't lost in the woods.'
He looked doubtfully around the circle before answering, his skepticism clear in his voice. 'And you expect me to believe she responded?'
Her hands were rubbing long strokes up and down his forearms. 'She sent you.' Her voice sent a caress down his spine and he shivered again. Then her volume increased and she spoke loudly over his shoulder.
'And them.'
He pushed Sade behind him as he whirled around, cursing himself ten kinds of fool for leaving his pulse rifle lying on the ground, yards away. He relaxed somewhat when he identified the pair of men. Custom dictated he get to his knees, but he didn't know how they would react to Sade's presence, and he wasn't willing to expose her to that unpredictability, especially that of the Bond brother's.
Instead, he inclined his head, keeping a guarding hand on Sade's arm and banging the fist of the other against his heart. 'Lord Marshal.'
'Sorry ta...interrupt...' Jayne said, looking anything but, and Vaako bristled further at his tone, 'since ya seem ta be having a moment or somethin', but Riv says you been lookin' for us.' He bent over and stage whispered to Riddick, in a voice meant to be overheard. 'You think she mighta got the stick outta his ass?'
Vaako sneered at him, watching carefully as Jayne casually flipped and spun his knife. Vaako wasn't fooled, he'd seen him use the blade.
A corner of Riddick's mouth turned up at Jayne's words, but he didn't react otherwise.
'Vaako,' he drawled, his eyes shining as he slung the long rifle in his hands over his back and into its holster. 'Didn't think I'd find you keepin' time with a Breeder. You wanna fill us in on what's going on? Tell me why you let a crazy Necro lose on my Fury's system?'
* * * * * ** * * *
* e.e. cummings