Comfort in the Caves

[a_mere_child]

It took three and a half hours to get the displaced residents of White Forest settled in at Druid Cave. They haven't moved the Borealis yet; it's getting dark and there's enough snow falling to conceal the boat effectively for the night. Also, though Alyx would never willingly admit it, she's just too damn tired to think about moving the damn boat

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[a_mere_child]

"Yes, please," says Alyx. "I've never had rabbit befo--"

It comes on in a sudden rush; horror, longing, desperate hope reaching out to her from hundreds of miles away...

Her fork drops from her fingers and clatters against the plate.

"Gordon?"

[remindmeof_me]

Kate blinks, hand stopping partway to the pan handle. "Beg pardon?" she says cautiously. "You okay there?"

[a_mere_child]

As quickly as the feeling came on, it's gone.

"Y-yeah." She runs her hands over her face again, briefly. "Yeah, I'm okay."

[remindmeof_me]

Kate has a dubious look on her face, but she nods, and moves to add the meat to Alyx's plate. She also takes the step of pouring out a cup of the chicory coffee for Alyx while she's at it; the younger woman looks pretty shaken, and it never hurts to offer fortification.

[a_mere_child]

"Thanks," Alyx murmurs, taking a cautious sip. Hey, not bad.

[remindmeof_me]

"There's plenty more where that came from. Dried chicory keeps a good long while," says Kate. "Got some milk, too, if y'don't mind goat. We got those in another cave- take 'em out for pasturing when the weather's right, feed 'em on hay and forage during the winter."

[a_mere_child]

"Wow, you guys really thought of everything, didn't you? We were still just trying to get some seed crops established..."

[remindmeof_me]

Kate chuckles. "This is farm country," she says. "Or it was, anyways. Most folks 'round these parts were either farmers, miners, or worked for the lumber companies, before. Soon as things started gettin' bad with the damn aliens poppin' in out of nowhere, we started takin' steps to look after our stock." She sips her coffee and adds, "Mayor before me was the real genius, though. Aaron Lauvray had enough sense to go'n find folks who grew pot before things got real bad. Way he saw it, they'd spent half their lives workin' out how to grow heavy crops without anyone ever seein' them do it. We owe a lot to that."

[a_mere_child]

"And how much pot are you growing now?" replies Alyx with a teasing half-smirk.

[remindmeof_me]

"Enough to give folks somethin' to kick back and relax with, not enough to leave 'em stoned out of their minds or nothin'," Kate says. "Food crops git priority 'round here, but when there's space'n soil to spare..." She shrugs. "Long as they git their work done'n don't light up outside the smokin' tunnel we're all right."

[a_mere_child]

Alyx thinks about how much of their spare time the residents of Ravenholm put into their moonshine stills, and shrugs. "Hard to argue with that."

[remindmeof_me]

Kate nods. "It don't make up that big a percentage of what we grow, anyway," she says. "We grow what we can, forage what we can, 'n tend to our stock where we can. I don't mind tellin' you that's goin' a long way towards keepin' this place civilized, neither- a good chunk of the electricity round here's from methane generators, 'n we git the methane from manure. Everything left over winds up as fertilizer, so it ain't like we're runnin' the soil down too bad hereabouts, neither. I ain't sayin' we got everything, but we got enough goin' here to be happy about in between protectin' ourselves'n workin' towards whatever kind of future might be comin' once the Combine're burnin' in hell."

[a_mere_child]

"It's everything we've been striving for," Alyx murmurs.

Which is wonderful to see, but also makes her feel pretty damned useless.

[remindmeof_me]

"I dunno 'bout that," says Kate. "We're protectin' ourselves, sure, but I got to be honest. Most of us're still farmers at heart, or miners, or whatever. You're not gonna find a whole lot of soldiers here. Scouts, sure, but not fighters. Or scientists, for that matter. Weren't a whole lot of those here before the Combine to start with. We got us a couple of engineers'n some folks who've been teachin' themselves out of books, but all our science's goin' towards how to stay fed'n healthy without smotherin'. I dunno how far that's gonna carry us now that the war's heatin' up."

[a_mere_child]

"I can't speak for anyone else, Kate," says Alyx, "but I'm only a soldier because I have to be. Once the war's over, I want to be able to stop."

[remindmeof_me]

"Pretty sure most good soldiers feel the same way," says Kate. "Don't git me started 'bout Adrian, though, that boy's damn near as crazy as Canada Joe, bless his heart."