Sharley Corwin (sharleycorwin) wrote in thegiftofcurses, @ 2009-09-25 12:32:00 |
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Current mood: | ded |
Entry tags: | azarael, jary, nero, rp, sharley corwin, spocklar, tanya, the other, zombie horde |
Sharley-B-Ded
Nero was in a very, very foul mood.
He didn’t know how he’d got here. He didn’t know where here was, other than very much not where he had been. All he knew was that he’d woken up in a strange forest unlike anything he had ever seen.
The trees were all unrecognizable to him, though even he could tell they were mostly dead or dying, the needles varying shades of brown and very dark red. The sky was red, too, a deep dull, rusty red, unbroken by clouds of any kind and with no discernible sun. And it was hot here, hot and still, dry as Romulus’s deserts had once been, with the strange prickly feeling that usually heralded a massive thunderstorm.
Undeniably bizarre though his surroundings were, however, he was completely unafraid. It had been over a quarter of a Terran century since he had last feared anything at all, and though he maintained a sharp awareness of all around him there was nothing timid in his stride. The Teral’n made a decent walking stick as he navigated the uneven terrain, following what was barely recognizable as a track through the tinder-dry underbrush. The place was as arid as Vulcan had been, though not half so hot; Vulcan had been a legitimate oven. Sooner or later, he thought, he must run across some kind of civilization, and unlike a human it would be some days before he would need food or water. Worry was not in his nature, so he did not do it.
He didn’t know how long he walked before he reached open ground--Romulans had long ago lost the time sense intrinsic to Vulcans. When he finally did, though, he paused, surveying all that lay before him with a predator’s eye.
The ground was still uneven, but the trees rapidly gave way to a vast expanse of dead grass, brown and pale yellow and probably up to his shins. It was so thick that Nero had no way of knowing what might be lurking within it, but the faint track continued on, and so did he, watchful and silent as the wilderness around him. It was strange, he thought--that utter silence, unbroken by any sound of bird or animal. Whatever had once lived here had to be as dead as the landscape--it was a wonder the place still had a breathable atmosphere. Not that he was going to complain. Suffocation was not the way he wanted to go.
It must have been late afternoon before he finally found someone--a surprising someone, whose presence pleased him not at all.
He’d found trees again, sparse trees scattered along a gentle but very uneven upslope. And in one of them, calm as you please, was possibly the last person he would ever have expected to find--Sharley, that damnable blue-haired woman who’d sold him all that Jell-O and eventually hit him with both a bag of ice and a watermelon. Her hair was caught back in a long, messy braid, her face was extremely sunburned, and over her jeans and T-shirt she wore a long, olive-drab trench coat he could not have recognized as army surplus. And she was grinning at him.
“How the hell did you get here?” she demanded, swinging down out of her tree with practiced ease. “No way you came through the Institute.” Unlike on Earth, she didn’t seem the least uneasy in his presence here, and it struck Nero that this must be, as the Terrans said, her home turf. She certainly fit in much better her4e than she had on Earth, and he wondered if she was human after all.
“I do not know,” he said shortly, his hand tightening on the Teral’n without his even being aware of it. “I don’t even know where ‘here’ is.”
“The Other,” she said, tilting her head as she regarded him with those odd mismatched eyes. Nero knew such eyes had occasionally turned up on Romulus, but they were very, very rare, and he’d never actually seen anyone who had them. He certainly didn’t like them now, but that was likely because of who they belonged to. “I dunno how you could’ve got here, but you probably won’t get out alive, not this far out. Most people don’t.”
There was undeniable glee in her voice, and Sharley took no care to hide it. She really didn’t know hw he’d wound up here, since he was far older than most who were randomly pulled in--she didn’t know just how much older, but she didn’t need to. She was pretty sure nobody over fourteen had ever made it here by accident. Somebody must want him for something, though she couldn’t imagine who or what.
She eyed what Kurt persisted in thinking of as the stabby-stick. While she had no great hankering for it, she knew he did, and it really would make a great weapon in this place--maybe even better than her machete. Mindful of his unnatural strength, she knew better than to try and take it off him herself, but maybe she could follow him until something killed him and take it then. He looked like he’d probably last a lot longer here than most--he looked like a guy who was practiced at surviving--but he was a stranger in this place, and uneducated strangers never survived. He was miles out from New Echo, and even if he made it to Old Echo he’d never make it out alive. He’d probably try to skewer one of the Memories, and learn a very short and terminal lesson why that was a bad idea. For the stabby-stick she’d be willing to follow him in there--dangerous and terrible a place though it was, she knew the rules, and now that she hadn’t got Spocklar to protect she had a lot more leeway. The Memories would still kill her if they could, but she was pretty sure she could evade them.
Pretty sure.
Speaking of strangers, she could feel her Stranger stirring in her mind. Lifelong habit had taught Sharley to automatically recognize a predator when she saw one, and her few encounters with Nero had taught her how great a predator he really was. Even in the Other her strength was no greater than that of a human, whereas she knew his was on par with Spocklar’s. She knew he was fast, too, maybe even faster than her, but the point was that she knew it--knew it, and could anticipate it. And, if his body weight was anything comparable to Spocklar’s, she also knew there was no way he could climb a tree as high as she could--quite aside from the fact that she highly doubted he had as much practice at it as she did. And, useful though the stabby-stick was, he wouldn’t be able to use it in a tree, nor could he cut one down with it.
This entire appraisal took no more than five seconds to pass through her mind, and when the blades on that thing emerged and he swung it at her, her dodge was automatic. Out came her machete, but her own swing was a feint--she knew he’d anticipate it, so when she actually brought it around it connected solidly with the handle of the stabby-stick--
--and did absolutely no damage.
That started her, but startled or no her instinct wouldn’t let it pause her. She dodged again, hopping backward over the uneven ground--she had the advantage of knowing this area quite well, and she could see already she was going to need it.
So, it seemed, could the Stranger, for it now surged forward and took at least partial control of her hands. Its instincts were much faster than her own, truly inhuman, and they allowed her to get close enough to drive a kick to his knee without getting in reach of Nero’s weapon. She and it knew that wouldn’t actually fell him, but this time when she brought her blade around she caught a glancing blow to his shoulder. Only a glancing one, though; his lightning-fast retreat kept it from hacking straight into his chest.
She knew what she was doing--Nero had to hand her that. She fought like a Klingon, too, artful savagery without finesse, and at first she seemed to take almost as much joy in it as a Klingon--or, he thought ironically, as a Romulan. Watching and dodging her it struck him that, had he met her under other circumstances, he might have liked her, insane though she was. She had none of the hesitation he’d found in most humans he’d met, nor did she have any difficulty evading and returning his attacks.
It was that sudden change in her expression that gave him enough pause for her to land her superficial blow--he’d never seen anything like it, for he’d missed it during their first fight. It wasn’t just inhuman, it was unlike anything he’d ever seen on any sentient being--total, terrible concentration, without joy or rage or fear, and it increased her already admirable reflexes threefold. A saner being than Nero would have been horribly unnerved by it, but he was crazy enough to recognize it and respond with no further hesitation. He’d seen it before, he realized, and knew with complete certainty that whatever it was, whatever thing had possessed her, would hack his heart out without fear or pause if given the slightest opening.
So he didn’t give it. The Stranger had fought many things, but Romulans were not among them--it had no prior experience to draw on. Were it not for its inhuman energy Nero could have worn Sharley down quite rapidly, but it was not bound by any human limitations. It had been pushed much farther than this before, and though it would leave Sharley exhausted for several days to come, Nero would not defeat it by weariness. Though Nero seemed expert at using his weapon as a club as well as a spear, he landed only one hit himself, and that a light one.
Back and forth through the dead meadows they went, each gaining and losing ground until they reached what remained of the road out of Old Echo, the one that lead to the Swamp. Though Sharley still had the advantage of the terrain, it slowed Nero not a whit--he never so much as stumbled as she drove him closer and closer to Echo and its Memories. The Stranger knew what Nero did not--that once he was there, it need do nothing but watch. And, because it brought the Memories food, they would do nothing to it or to Sharley. Even the Memories didn’t tangle with the Stranger--often, anyway.
They were still fairly far out, however, when Nero finally did lose his footing and, with infinite irony, it was that accident that did it. The Teral’n had already been on a downswing, and the Stranger, whatever its prowess, did not anticipate such accidents--and its reaction time was a fraction of a second too late.
Too late to stop the weapon going straight into Sharley’s chest, burying itself to the handle.
For a moment Nero didn’t actually register what had just happened. Not until his stagger had driven Sharley to the ground, to a slight grassy rise beside the upheaved asphalt. Both his hands still gripped the handle of the Teral’n, as though he’d caught his fall with a walking-stick, but when his brain caught up with events he realized hands and handle were splattered with hot liquid red--
--and he found himself staring down at Sharley, her face gone deathly white beneath her sunburn. That inhuman intensity had left her expression, and her mismatched eyes stared up at him in horrible confusion. Blood had poured from her mouth, her nose, spreading dark through the faded green of her coat, and when she tried to speak all that came out was a wet, terrible cough. And with it more blood, darker this time--heart’s blood, as even he recognized. For what seemed an eternity he stood paralyzed, almost unable to believe what he was seeing.
As was usual with the Stranger, Sharley had no idea what it had been doing until her own awareness snapped back. Awareness, and a strange dull pain, thick in her chest, and it took her bewildered consciousness a moment to figure out why. And when it had it came with disbelief, a shock that dulled the little pain she could feel. She tasted hot copper, realized she was bleeding from her mouth and her nose, and almost welcomed the creeping numbness that so quickly took hold of her.
She opened her mouth to say even she didn’t know what, and coughed instead, a horrible gurgling cough that only brought up more blood. Her vision was fading fast, but her hearing was as acute as ever--she caught the voices’ horror far too easily.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Sharley, breathe--breathe, goddammit, stay awake.” Sinsemilla, more panicked than Sharley had ever heard her. “Fuck, Kurt, get the hell out of here--go find Tanya or Jary or somebody.”
Kurt needed no second bidding, though he knew--all of them knew--that even if he found someone right off there was nothing they could do. Not unless it was Jary, and who knew if Jary could help Sharley? Azarael could--he had to hold onto that, that Azarael could do something--but Az was so far away none of the voices could reach him. They were all still tied to Sharley, even in the Other. They could only go so far.
“Don’t die,” Layla whispered, sounding close to tears, if the voices could cry. “Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die.”
But Sharley was dying, and she knew it even through her dazed numbness. She was dying, and even her hearing was fading, and the last thing she saw before darkness took her was Nero, who looked, in the uneven light of the Other’s red sky, almost horrified.
And he was almost horrified. Nero had killed before, of course, but he hadn’t expected this battle to end so suddenly--and all because he’d stumbled. He had no idea why, but the sudden and accidental death of this adversary stunned him in a way he had not expected--and now that she was dying, he almost regretted it. He’d killed, but it had always been quick, instant--he’d never watched anyone’s life bleed away before his eyes. He watched her own eyes dim, unable to look away, and wondered, strangely, what it was she would have said had she been able.
He didn’t pull the Teral’n free until he heard the wet sigh of the last breath she would ever draw, until the pale glaze of death filmed over those strange eyes, and the sound it made coming out of her chest was one he would never forget.
He stood staring at her for so long that he was not at first aware of the bruise-dark clouds spreading like ink over the red sky, the sudden hot breath of wind in this breathless place. Not until thunder split the silence did he realize it, and he knew in an instant, without knowing how or why, that he’d just made a very, very grave mistake. A mistake he might not live long enough to rue.
It seemed almost obscene to leave her where she lay, but there was little else he could do, and he did not look back when he moved on. He didn’t look, and he wouldn’t think--but he couldn’t help but wonder how long this place, her home, would let him live.