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[rowan_narrators]

Midday on Sunday, the group reaches the Tombstones, long rows of naturally rounded rocks emerging from the desert sand. The shaman announces that they're clear of the siren's curse, and for the first time, the caravan forges on ahead, not bothering with the twists and turns of their prior route

Comments

Exploring; feel free to join.

[mutestronaut]

Guy can't rest.

He slips out of the fort -- no one stops him, not the human guards at rest in the barracks, not the sentries patrolling the top of the city wall outside. He pauses, in the middle of the empty street, in silence.

The city is silent like him. He likes that.

And he wanders away, down one of the narrow alleyways, keeping a ready eye out for possible building collapses, rock falls. He doesn't want to get trapped.

[simply_resume]

Robbie looked down at himself. He was well aware of how skeletal he looked. "I was in prison." He didn't feel particular need to hide this fact, as it seemed to be his near-perpetual state. "My captors were not particularly interested in my physical well-being." He hadn't started out in the best condition either.

[mutestronaut]

Prison.

Guy's expression then wasn't sympathetic, exactly. In his experience, people who went to prison usually deserved it. There were people who didn't, of course, but it was enough to make him a little more cautious.

[simply_resume]

Robbie almost wished he hadn't told him. That look on his face --

But it was nothing he hadn't seen before. He'd seen worse from people who he'd loved like family.

"I'm no danger to you or to anyone here," he told Guy, his voice quiet but steady. "But I'll go on my way if you like."

[mutestronaut]

There's a flicker of tension through Guy's frame. Vigilance, caution, the sort of thing that he can't suppress.

No. He can suppress it.

And he does, his jaw gritted.

He settles back on a low, crumbling wall, with a gesture offering Robbie a seat near him.

[simply_resume]

Robbie sat, leaving several feet of space between himself and Guy, and drew his arms tightly across his chest. He hadn't expected this, and he was sure the other man still had his apprehensions. Any reasonable person would.

"I was abducted by necromancers," he said after a few moments. "They wanted the power this place seems to have given me."

Another pause.

"That's the third time I've been in prison. I wish I could say I'd never deserved it."

Sorry about the present tense; this always happens with this muse.

[mutestronaut]

Guy's eyes drift closed. He doesn't listen to Robbie's words, exactly, but the tone instead. Pain, he can hear the pain. And he can hear the honesty too.

He opens his eyes, settling his gaze on Robbie. He nods, once, in acknowledgment of Robbie's words -- raises eyebrows, a little, in an invitation to continue, if he wants. If he needs someone to listen.

It's fine.

[simply_resume]

Robbie didn't want to talk about himself. He just didn't want Guy to look at him like that again. He would, though, if he found out about Arlen. Everyone except Cedric did. That was all right. He deserved it.

"Do you have a theory for the differing construction materials?"

[mutestronaut]

Guy shakes his head. Not a historian. The city looks like it was abandoned slowly, though. In stages. Like it was just the natural course of things.

Maybe the desert wasn't this far north before.

[simply_resume]

That didn't go anywhere. Robbie didn't particularly care. He was much less interested in the history of the city than he was in the people who had brought them here. "And our escorts? Any opinions on them?"

[mutestronaut]

What does he think of them?

He vacillates between vague distaste and gratitude; dependence and vulnerability and the low, sick feeling that Jack Royal invoked in the pit of Guy's stomach, back in the Red Cross camp.

The apprehension, the distaste is clear on Guy's face.

Guy frowns a hint, and gestures to Robbie. What do you think of our escorts?

Your present tense has infected me.

[simply_resume]

"I've only spoken with the prince," Robbie told him. It felt strange to call him that. Frederick was not like any prince Robbie ever imagined. "He does his duty, and he does it as honourably as he can. I have to respect that. The rest of them --" He shook his head. "That was no place to bring a child. Aside from that, I can't say."

Yeah, I'm virulent that way.

[mutestronaut]

Guy nods -- he can accept that. Duty, honor. The same sort of thing that --

-- that drove him to join the Air Force.

There's a flood of bitterness across his tongue, a little flinch. A strong emotional reaction, for a memory that hasn't crossed his mind in weeks.

I think I'll stop fighting it.

[simply_resume]

Robbie observes, raises an eyebrow. Guy can elaborate if he likes. If not, it's hardly Robbie's business.

[mutestronaut]

It used to be that silence felt safe. It was a shield. A cloak. The blessed cool of ice-water on a hot day. He doesn't know when it started feeling like a hand over his mouth, over his nose, softly and quietly smothering the last spark of life inside him.

He scratches a nail against the rock. Draws the symbol for radiation in the dust. Doesn't look up at Robbie -- this is just him, just forcing its way out of his hands instead of his voice.

[simply_resume]

Robbie leans over and examines the symbol, then shakes his head. It looks like a fan, or maybe a siren, but he doesn't know what meaning either of those things might have. "I'm sorry. I've never seen that before." It might not matter. He's not entirely sure that Guy is drawing it for him.