Korfel, Luza District...
Hibiki stared out at the city as it went by through the passenger window, often slowing in traffic snarls around rubble or cratered streets as work crews directed detours around the construction sites. Each was attended to by a crowd of penal laborers, distinguishable by their shock collars, their nudity, and the fact that almost every one was not a Necrian. That role was reserved for the Night Guard soldiers and the police who watched with carbines cradled in their arms, cordoning off each zone while officers barked orders at the workers. The heat simmered over the pavement despite the twilight, distorting her image of straining bodies hauling debris into bins, heads down to the passing traffic. She watched the last group they saw until they were out of sight, turning away and staring into space, looking without seeing.
She came out of her revere as they approached what had once been Korfel's spaceport. The defenders had completely destroyed the port and everything within a half-kilometer radius around it, leaving nothing more than a dark, yawning crater in the middle of the city. No one knew how many had died. She had heard that it "only" went 500 meters down, but she had seen it from the air and it still looked eerie, unnaturally circular, and utterly black. They passed by an automated garbage truck that had backed up to the rim of the pit with its rear hatch open, having just deposited a load of trash deep into the earth.
Once they got a few blocks away Korfel seemed to liven up again. Daliha had to stop behind a lumbering long-haul bus as it halted next to a hotel tower, and waiting there under the awning was a crowd of robed Necrians. Priests and priestesses, Hibiki supposed, though she didn't know enough to tell of what sort. Two streams of people began to disembark, some heavily bundled or hauling luggage and others with barely any clothes on their backs, but all gaunt and trudging from mothers cradling infants to wizened elders. She realized as they were embraced that these must be refugees from Tamarow -luckier ones than those who ran into the trigger-happy NFP members Elad had mentioned.
As they reached Base Six and the convoy rumbled past them Hibiki watched it go, wondering if the massive trucks were full of prisoners now or if they were leaving to pick up a group. Daliha parked in the long shadow of the commandeered stadium building, and as she let herself out of the car Hibiki reflected that while this moon might be important to the SIN for now, it was still a grim place. Passing by the clinic for wounded prisoners without looking, the scent of blood in her nose, Hibiki followed Daliha to the prefabricated building serving as a temple, slipping inside to stand silently near the back of the building. While she was no worshipper of Necrisis, the vixen nevertheless bowed her head in respect. She knew a sermon dedicated to the dead when she heard one.
Try as she might not to eavesdrop on the exchange between the conscript and the priestess, Hibiki couldn't help it. A sharp sense of hearing was not always a blessing. The young man didn't look up as he hurried away, probably not realizing who Hibiki or Daliha were, but the vixen watched him intently until she could only see his back, committing his face and his scent to memory. Turning back, she bowed to Mother Aesalmba, forced to shake her head when the priestess mentioned her lack of memory. She hadn't remembered the nightmares, either. It was as if she had been dead for two days and hadn't realized.
“How can I be of service to you two?”
"My wounds are healing well, thank you, Mother. And thank you for tending to me. I could have died without your care," Hibiki gave her another, deeper bow. "Daliha and I are here to render service to you, in fact. It seems like you have plenty of help here, but we've seen the Temple helping people all around the city, and we'd like to volunteer for that. We were also hoping to check on a few of the prisoners here for a worried friend. Do you know if they're holding a kitsune male named Kazuki, a Necrian female named Sanjia, or a halfbreed kit called Aroji here?"
Downtown Korfel, Luza District, The Revelry...
Standing in the corridor outside of the bedroom they were using to detain Kelaetra, Kurshina listened through the door as she watched Fusae tend to the elder Tyrass down the hall. The Imperial medic was doing hir best, but exactly whatever was afflicting the Thane was beyond hir powers to cure. Looking away from the woman slowly wasting away, she focused on Sork instead. He was getting desperate, she felt, but they were in a desperate situation, and they couldn't hide in this penthouse forever. Something had to give.
Hearing the crash from inside the bedroom, she knew it was time. Kurshina threw open the door, eyes quickly adjusting to the dim conditions, stepping inside as Sork dropped Kelaetra's chair against the floor again. "Sir. Sir!" She grabbed his arms, bodily hauling him back with a growl as she pulled him away from their captive. "That's enough, sir. It's time for you to go." Keeping his arms pinned for a moment, she waited until the Necrian sagged before releasing him, watching him whip around and stalk away to slam the door behind him. Letting out a long breath, the vixen turned about and stepped over to where Kelaetra lay, still strapped to the chair.
Reaching down, Kurshina slowly tilted the chair back upright again before sliding a wheeled stool over for her to sit on. Pulling her canteen off her belt, she unscrewed the top and pressed the tip to Kelaetra's dry lips, letting her drink as much as she wanted. When she finished, Kurshina pushed against the floor with her feet and rolled around behind Kelaetra, one hand on her bare shoulder as the other went into the officer's pocket. Running one hand through the woman's dark hair, she put her comb to it and started to undo the knots and snarls in it, brushing it into smoothness with methodical care. Her touch was gentle, teasing the tangles of hair apart without pulling and brushing softly over Kelaetra's scalp and down to her bangs.
After she had sat there in darkness and silence for several minutes, doing nothing but brushing the Thane's hair, Kurshina spoke. "My family thought I was crazy to come here. I could have gotten a job in Tenfour, or Kel, or the capital, or pretty much anywhere. But I came to this tiny colony that most people haven't even heard of. It was because of my brother. He fell in love with this Necrian girl, an artist who ran a tattoo parlor here in Korfel. He was completely hopeless, learning all of the traditional ways of courting, buying her all these expensive inks, he even tried to join the Temple, though he didn't actually follow through," she shook her head, chuckling.
"I came here to look out for him. In your traditional Xiscapian family structure, a lot of the time the older siblings stick around once they become adults to help take care of the younger kits. I was the older sibling for his litter, and when he was little he was always running up to me to show me this thing he found or some fact he learned. I made his lunch and took him to practice and helped him with his homework for years, so when he came of age and ran off like that, and my parents cut him off...well, who else was going to pull his tail out of trouble? So, I followed him, and when it seemed like things were getting serious, I decided to stay."
She worked at the front of Kelaetra's head now, brushing down her bangs. "They were to be married next season. I didn't think it would last a month, but that shows what I know. But the thing that really surprised me was how readily her family accepted him. There was no shunning or screaming or anything like that. The worst things they did were ask him some awkward questions and fool him into thinking the vesherno 'fruit' was an expensive delicacy. The last time I saw him, two days before the invasion, he was in a temple, singing hymns."
Kurshina smiled. "Despite everything, I know there is goodness in Necrians. Even you. And I don't believe that you're a bad person, Kelaetra. Your husband still seems to care about you, and your mother is still alive. You still have hope."
