The ABC game.

[a quantum of frou frou]

. . . when it was obvious, from her shift of attention, that she'd espied her father's sword where it lay, only a few yards distant. This would be a terrible, terrible moment of truth. Azure didn't want to trust this unheroic-seeming stranger just moments before. She seemed proud of her tenacity, to have survived so long. If she were to lunge for the blade, mistakingly thinking it some match for the gravity armor, perhaps, after all, it might be . . .  

[Vendaval de la Luz]

...viable, if her father were some sort of inventor. The blade may very well be more dangerous than it appeared. Azure swings her legs around and attempts to reach the blade with a determination that takes June by surprise. The injuries, though tended to, should still make so much movement extremely painful. With a resigned sigh, he places a hand on her shoulder and retrieves the sword. "If I return this to you will you promise to take it easy and allow me to help you." Azure's gaze shifts from the sword to his eyes, indecision the frontmost emotion but he feels as though she is also...  

[a quantum of frou frou]

. . . watching for her chance, and it determines him to interrogate her, as rudely as he could make himself be heard.
"Who is Peter, really? It's a code name for your commander? You are a spy. . . ?"
Then the story recalled itself to his mind, and he staggered at his own naiveté. Her dad taught her to pilot a spitz! He almost cried, he was such a dupe! She was an ornithopter kamakazi, and he'd almost given her an admiral-spitz of her own. He was crying now, from shame and rage. He'd the blade in his fist, her "father's" sword . . . code name for Beagle command. He'd seen these executions before, been horrified by them, but it was easy to imagine himself decapitating the traitor with a single stroke.
"Last words?" . . .  

[a quantum of frou frou]

(Yeah "X" is difficult; maybe we should agree to use "ex-" as a sub.)  

[Vendaval de la Luz]

"Xanthophyll on that hilt hasn't reacted...it would have changed color if you were with them. We are on the same side. I'm grateful...although...some of what you said is true...and based on what you just asked you must believe I'm horrible. My father had originally worked for them, but when my mom was killed in a...a...well, I'm sure you can guess. Anyway...he told me that all my training was to be used to right the wrongs. If you had been with them...and trying to take me back...the stuff that coats the blade would have chemically reacted and poisoned you. I may have died before you succumbed, but it wouldn't have mattered." Azure looks at the man holding the sword. "If you believe that I must be held accountable then so be it..." She leans forward and bows her head, awaiting the final judgement that she is sure will come.

(My own mistake...not sure why I went back to v. Also, I'm trying my best to follow you stuff but...well, I have to go with what I guess and do my best.)  

[a quantum of frou frou]

(no worries; I think we should apologize to this guy though:

Demon Slayer Nick

Nick is awesome.

That's pretty much how the thread started out, and it might go back. . . . )


"Yeah . . . That was enough excuse for trying for my head! Do I look like an a**? Xanthophyll?! More lies!"
June was convinced. But it was hard for him to wreck judgments. He was a medic, and a volunteer, and hated the task that was thrust upon him today. He was disgusted too by the saber he held. Overcoming his impulse to dispatch this alien in anger and haste, he thrust the blade instead into the rubble. He would bring her before his superiors, if ever he lived so long, but they had to get away from here fast. . .  

[a quantum of frou frou]

Zero response on the cellular radio. . .
zero response on the shortwave. . .
zero response from the emergency beacon. . .
June was facing the possibility that he was himself the only "superior" to remain, and the sun setting low, he faced a trail with this unaccountable stranger, whom he befriended, but did not yet befriend him in return. . .  

[Vendaval de la Luz]

Azure looks over at her...what...savior...captor...she had hoped a friend but, as he had already determined her to be an enemy, it was most likely that he would be her executioner. It didn't matter, if she could do nothing more then see to it that he got out of this area alive and back to , she would accept whatever he choose to do to her. Suddenly, off in the distance, a  

[a quantum of frou frou]

. . . baby grunny pokes its head out of the rubble, followed by others, probably its orphaned siblings. Night's falling, and they'll need to feed. Azure is affected by them, and runs apace to pet and coddle the infant beasts. She who had attempted my life, after I'd healed her, and tried to blind me with her confabulations, is suddenly a picture of tender mercy, petting and kissing the grunny-lets . . .  

[Vendaval de la Luz]

Collecting each one onto her lap and drawing them close against the inevitable night chill. Hesitant about asking, but knowing she has nothing to provide the little ones, she turns, staring at the one person who could possibly have any sort of sustenance, the one who had almost taken the life he saved but hoping these tiny creatures were young enough still to avoid any of the blame she herself was saddled with. "Sir...do you have anything for them...please." A half sob and giggle passes her lip's when one crawls up on her shoulder and licks her cheek. She smiles, pulls them closer and cries, head down so they can copy the first and...  

[a quantum of frou frou]

. . . demurs to June, so plaintively, so prettily. June feels the color rush to his cheeks. Her intonations, of mock-pathos, echo uncomfortably in his brain, "Sir . . . do you have anything . . . please."

"Oh kind sir, help the baby grunny, and hand me back that sword, with your skull on it, please . . . "

Alert now, studying her posture and attitude for its flaw that would bely her real intentions, he typed "colostrum" into the cyber-canteen and shook it gently . . .  

[Vendaval de la Luz]

Empathy for the tiny creatures taking over. Azure looks up as June comes over with his canteen...slowly...eyeing her. 'He doesn't trust me...as though I've given him any reason to. Like he'd believe my mother was born and raised in this very town...before she was kill...murdered and it was leveled.' "If you wish...I'll move back and let you feed them." 'You wouldn't want me anywhere near you.' She takes a deep breath against the lingering pain and goes to move away and allow June access to the little ones when the...  

[a quantum of frou frou]

. . . forceful clasp of June's fist about her upper arm arrests her. She's half surprised, enough to gasp, and she's alarmed at the proximity of his stare, and the steam of his breath in the chilling dusk air.

"You'll sit and feed your grunnies, if you like. You'll not take another step toward that sword."

It was an overburdening cruelty, to have proven his suspicions by her innocent gesture of submission, and she felt her cheeks burn and tears welled in her eyes. She wished Peter were here, for her sake now, to corroborate her story, before June did something dire. Peter was just a child, not a code-name for any hostile command. There was just no way to prove it without him. Even worse, June notices, where he grasps her, that the leather sheath of her dagger is concealed in her sleeve.

"Ah, more tricks," June coldly assays. "I should have known . . . "

And Azure knew she should have surrendered it before it was discovered this way. It's her prize possession, she'd scavenged it from a dead pilot, and she was an ace at throwing, but it's identical to the ones carried by the Beagle assassins, and there were three amps of their neuro-poison left in their tiny billets.

June was righteously enraged now.

"What else are you carrying, grunny girl?!"

She couldn't speak now for her sobbing, but June dubs them alligator tears, as he ordered her to doff the tatters of her jacket and camos . . .  

[Vendaval de la Luz]

Glowering at her. Shocked and mortified by this, Azure can only stare back at him. Knowing all she had left was a small vial of poison concealed at the small of her back that she would use on herself if They tracked her down, but certain that, if he found it on her, he would use it as further proof that she would have tried to use it on him. She was so stupid. She had planned on her things staying hidden if she came across a scout or something for Their side, but she had not anticipated someone on... on her side, finding the items and presuming that she was intending to use it on them. All she can do is shake her head at her own foolishness, unaware that he saw it as...  

[a quantum of frou frou]

. . . hesitation, her hope and expectation to find him off his guard.

June tuned the laser-scalpel and the shreds of her garment fell away, until he'd discovered her secret. He inspected the hypo-syringe and spring-needle, vindicated in his suspicions, and finished his work, leaving her bare in the thickening chill of night fog, and only the grunnies to look on in pity.

"We're not heathen, on this planet, like you are. I've seen the kind of mercy you take on our children."

The way June pronounced "our children" made her melt. He was a man of compassion, he had bandaged her, she was a heathen, she wanted to be one of OUR children . . . wait, she was one of our . . . . . . she couldn't remember any longer who she was. Where was Peter?

"I've got to march you to the next compound, if it takes all night. They'll interrogate you there. . . just do as your told. . . "

But she had already fainted from her exhaustion and emotional strain, and June had to heft her, wrapped in a salvaged tarpaulin for the entire night's trek.