Chapter Two

Time of Life

“How long?” Is always the first question they ask, like an impulse to hush the alarm on a waking clock. Know now that any answer you give may shock them and make them unpredictable. It is therefore advised that you avoid answering for as long as you are able. And if possible, gain some rapport with them before you do.”

~ Ruin Guard Handbook

A fuller belly brought new vitality but did little to soothe Tzera’s aching muscles as she followed Yishel upward through the ruins, both clothed in the white bead laden garb now stained with the dust and dirt from the trek. Their steady stride left little time for small talk while the two assisted each other up and over each massive slab. Keeping with Yishel’s steady pace, Tzera’s every move hanging on the orders she gave. They had been climbing for a while, the beast had long ago moved ahead on its own path and the air was getting warmer. Differences in biology became even more apparent. Tzera soon realized these creatures walk on their heels with her skinny ankles sliding around inside the oversized, odd-shaped boots. Having any footwear was strange to do in a place where you could breathe easily. Most places she normally traveled had surfaces specially crafted to make barefoot navigation comfortable. Probably socially designed in such a way to prevent people from straying where they shouldn’t. Hiking inside this pair, two sizes too big and the wrong shape, was swiftly draining her with the forming of blisters that peeled up the scales between her two toes. And the need for some answers was starting to itch.

“Wait!” Tzera yelled ahead, propping herself up against a shard of ruined floor or ceiling, with conduit material exposed and still humming with electricity; nearly shocking her as she laid against it. Yishel removed her rifle and took a perch on the ledge just above. Also, out of breath. “Ok.” She approved through several heavy pants. Drawing a smaller, equally intricate silver sidearm and resting it in her four-fingered grip, pointing the business end safely away. “We can take a break here. I think I’ve asked for your trust and kept you in suspense long enough. So... ask away.”

Puffs of warm breath began to dissipate in the wetter, heavier air as Yishel calmed and readied her answers for the questions expected of any awakened to ask. There were so many Tzera had prepared beforehand on the trip up, but her indecision still left her with the worry that she could say something that would put her in danger. Especially with the lavender-haired lass being so heavily armed.

Unexpectedly, the beast of burden popped its head out of the hole in the ceiling that drew closer but still lay just out of reach. Twisting its tri-antlered head jestingly from side to side with a playful grunt and prompting a shared laugh from the two onlookers resting below. Tzera gazed over to Yishel with her orange eyes still watching the animal goofing about the cavern's mouth. She seems like she has done this before. I don’t think I can say anything to offend her.

“Who’s your friend?” she decided to ask first. Ultimately, it was unimportant but she sensed Yishel was as worn out as her while she watched the purple, curvier woman shift around to find a comfortable seat amongst the wet pile of metal, stone, and rust. Maybe best not to open with a history lesson. Yishel let out a small giggle with her answer. “That’s my Kimpra. The ruin guard tames and keeps them for us. They are stupid animals but quite hearty as you could no doubt tell from my travel sack.”

“Is that its name?” Tzera asked next, continuing the idle chatter. Yishel’s warm fiery eyes drew back onto the lime-scaled girl, and she smiled. “No. That’s what the creatures are called. I do have some regulars, but the ruin guard goes through them so fast that most of the time I don’t bother to learn their names. I just call them all kimpra.”

Tzera’s eyes briefly broke contact, looking away from the purple woman. Yishel’s tone wasn’t condescending, but she couldn’t help but feel embarrassed by her own ignorance. Her next question was going to be about the ruin guard she mentioned but with the small talk turning awkward it was time for a subject change.

And she had waited long enough.

“What happened to...you know. How long?” the muzzled reptile asked motioning her hand around the rubble pile they sat in, shuffling to condense as many of her questions as possible. Yishel didn’t need any further specification.

“Don’t know, you darkborn, as we tend to call you here, have been popping out all over the planet since as far back as our records go.”

“So, there is more like me?” the pale scaled girl questioned enthusiastically, her blonde eyes open wide and heart thumping in eagerness.

“Sort of.” The purple feline claimed, scratching behind her ears with her golden jewelry making a soothing chime as she brushed through the black braids. “As far as lendari goes, yes. There are a lot of you around; almost all of which you will find were born into this time and do not recognize themselves by that title. But having one of you wake up, that has become a rare event. Especially around here.”

“Last one from Sesui Hazdin I heard of was around...nine, maybe ten years ago” Yishel kept on as she reached into one of the pockets on her chest and pulled out several small pieces of an auburn dried fruit, a more mated shade than her eyes but glowing almost as pure when held to light. Preparing for a catch, she then tossed one down to the pale green girl. Tzera’s three scaly fingers fumbled with the malleable, orange oval, bouncing it around in her muted green palms an almost comical amount.

“Last one from around this area was a lot further back. Maybe around sixty or so. “She answered. Taking a bite of her own juicy ball.

Even with the tentative situation, she found herself in Tzera could barely contain her relief. Her people were alive, thriving even. With nourishing food, bustling cities and thick atmosphere, never having to worry about the cold dark consuming everything. But what about her? Tzera thought, quickly breaking her fantasizing, and turning attention towards the new person she was now following out of the caves. Throughout lendari history she remembered and lived there had never been “other” people. Not unless you counted the strange higher-ups, and maybe the albino caretakers. This was an unknown, one they may not be able to simply sleep past anymore. Imaginings returned quickly and the lizard mused through fantasies both utopic and dystopic. Lucidly adding the feline, alien form of her new companion into her daydreams of the new world laying just overhead.

“What language is that?” she asked, still subconsciously trying her best to avoid being offensive while twiddling with the fruit between her fingers.

“Velshen. Most civilized places around the planet speak it but there are more than a few other languages depending on where you go.” Yishel responded through her loud chewing. The black braided woman seemed to be well-informed, Tzera had come to recognize her intelligence in the short time they had been together.

She took a risk.

“And are you a Velshen?”

“Davran. Or Davrani.” Yishel replied adding a phrase after that rang in Tzera’s own tongue, pouring through the headphones in a truer tone without P.A.R.E.A having to mimic the purple lady’s voice.

“Ba hasd lidri tan, et nari shivir.”

"But I do speak Lidri, if the need arises."

The second language confirmed Tzera’s suspicions about the davran’s intelligence, not only did she speak multiple languages, but was also quick enough to understand how the sage lizard was cheating to do the same. Warnings of danger rose again, fearing a person this different, smart and charismatic could be leading her into a trap. She needed to ask something that helped relieve it, where would she go and do if not for continuing to follow Yishel? There was no choice but to remain trusting.

“Do we...get along? Davrani and Lendari?” Tzera asked hesitantly from her dew-covered rock, and still staring at the snack moving around in her scaly hand, reluctant to take a bite. It was a difficult question, even back in her time lendari didn’t always get along with each other, often over very petty or phobic justifications. But the answer could tell Tzera so much about this stranger and her intentions. Would someone like her lie and attempt flattery, or would she be honest and finally give her a glimpse of her fate no matter how magnificent or cruel. For several long moments the caverns went silent as Yishel thought her response over. “It’s...Complicated” the purple cat answered.

Tzera’s mind went blank, and she listened closely.

“This time is...churned upon itself, with its own history set apart from yours, you will learn it in time. Every day ancient actions bring about modern consequences. New wars erupt regularly and fade in stride with longer conflicts that take all kinds. People don’t get along for a lot of different reasons and some grudges run long. This is true of any people, horns, fur or f..." she paused.

"Or anything else."

So, she is holding something back.

“But getting along is up to us...as my mother would say.” She added. Kind tangerine eyes caught Tzera’s concerned yellow once more and she took notice of her distressed face.

“There are places where we do live in peace side by side. The city we are heading to...it tries its best to be one such place. To be a beacon of civility. And, if I can, I’ll make sure you end up heading towards somewhere you can make friends.”

Maybe she is just having trouble describing it.

The lavender feline hoped she was convincing, though she had overseen awakenings before with her mother that was in another time and place. She recalled the reports she had studied throughout her career. Filled with foolish, scared awakened fleeing into the wilderness and vanishing or not following orders, making noise, and attracting trouble. Though her own experience had been different, there was always that lingering danger. And Tzera was the first one she had done without any expeditionary assistance. But the sage scale seemed more observant and cautious than some of the others she had researched and met personally. Cleverer as well. Even though she just woke up a day ago in an alien land she recognized when she was asking stupid questions. Asked some smart ones too. At least she was lucky the green girl had a machine on her head that could translate into more modern tongues. Not that it was needed at that moment, she could speak the language just fine, but it would make things easier to deal with once they reached civilization. If they could keep it hidden.

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Amongst the rust they both rested a few minutes more. With fruit still in hand Tzera muddled over the proposal, her mind still too lost in thought. She had felt no dishonesty from Yishel. Though her answer was rather broad and vague, she did feel some satisfaction in the added wisdom and quickly realized her impatience would continue to run for a while regardless of the answers the plum davran could provide. With her brain burnt out, too tired from her daydreams, she stopped herself abruptly. Quieting her ideas to instead focus on the rustling wind and dripping water, finally drinking in the company and tranquility. Enjoying the song of an unknown nature just out of sight and reach.

Let’s just wait and see. She decided.

Petrichor reached Yishel’s black nostrils, and she pulled herself to her feet, eager to move aground as quickly as possible.

“We should probably get moving. I smell rain and we don’t want to be in these shallow caves once it starts.” She instructed, reaching her hand over the short ledge to Tzera. The fair-scaled girl grabbed the arm in trust, swallowing another stupid question about rain as Yishel pulled her up to meet her.

P.A.R.E.A’s slot opened as Tzera lifted the fruit to her lips, eager to at last taste the bouncy treat. Juice exploded with blissful sweetness and puckering sour as she threw the whole pearl in her mouth. Finishing with a slight sting in the nose. Then her teeth hit something hard, like a rock caught in the fruit and she moaned in pain having bit through with full force against the soft flesh. New food and it still carried the danger of breaking her teeth.

“Omnomnom” P.A.R.E.A chattered, once more flapping the slot open and shut.

“Sorry. There are pits.” Yishel apologized through a brief chuckle.

“We are getting pretty close to the surface and might run into somebody. It’s probably best you cover that.” She informed, pointing to the fluttering robot on Tzera’s face, her other hand to her side still grasping the silver pistol with its embedded apricot stone glowing faintly against her white gown. Tzera pulled the head covering she had stuffed down her neck up and over P.A.R.E.A, struggling to affix the unusual head covering. The violet lady assisted her, snickering all the while. With the talking stone concealed Yishel pulled a small metal wand from another one of her chest pockets. Vivid light and heat flared from the iron tube as it expanded with a droning hum and the violet guide brought it to light the expanding hallway nearby. Illuminating the new path upward and outward.

“Let’s go.”

Light from the brilliant torch leaped across familiar features as the two made their way out through the old hallways of the buried city. Once recognizable smooth stone floors and encircling walls were now littered with torn open, corroding access panels amongst the new rubble of soil and roots now swallowing the rooms. Everything was drowning in the earth encroaching from above. The walking pace was a welcomed respite from the climbing they had been doing all day but the two stayed as quiet as possible. Looks like the recent cave-ins moved the squatters closer to the road. Yishel thought noticing several long-doused fires and abandoned camps along the path. Remaining vigilant, though no danger turned their way.

Tzera slipped on the smooth floor as they followed a brook they found trickling into the crumbling building through an opening, seeming to be a way out. The two moved to the sides to avoid further stumbles, squishing into shallower areas that widened and calmed after a short while. Tzera hadn’t even noticed that Yishel had doused the torch several minutes ago, her focus on the careful foot placements through the ankle-deep shallows only broken by the soft peach glow leaking around the last corner.

Alone, she stood there for a moment watching the specks of dust drift through the sunrays. Cries of creatures just outside called to her, waving a welcome she both desired and dreaded. Her heart and mind raced each other once more, freezing her in trepidation. Yishel slid her sidearm back into its holster and removed her gloves as she slowly approached the awestruck Lendari. Her four black, soft fingers reached out and grasped Tzera’s hand, bald palms slightly sticky with sweat. Interlocking with the reptile's three scaly digits as her encouraging orange eyes met Tzera’s amber hued. Their orbs burning with the tangerine of early dusk.

“Come on,” Yishel encouraged, saying nothing more as she led the sage fair through the shallow pool, out of the grotto, and into the summer afternoon.

Striking sunlight reeled against a scarlet and silver veil that shrouded the purple and orange evening sky, growing from the black, blue, and brown woods surrounding them. Bulbs of more variety and color grew from vines and stems, red leaves fell from the living ceiling, contrasting against the blanket of blue grass coating the ground as if floating upon the surface of a deep lake. Creatures of different shapes and sizes jut about wildly from petal to petal and even larger animals scratched and chattered as they flew through the clapping branches. Singing with the voices of shifting, creaking woods, and harmonizing with the rushing water and rustling leaves.

The lavender tiger could only imagine the gaping mouth hidden under Tzera's veil and rusting machine as she watched her unblinking, amber eyes scan every aspect of the painted landscape. This made the job worthwhile. To see that expression of a first sunlight was rare and she had seen it more often than most. Memories fed her reminiscing as she compared her new, fair friend’s experience to the few other awakened she had helped before. The heirloom hunter and his brother, a few others from far away and even fewer close by. Back during her youth alongside her mother.

Tzera was the first one she had come across since her passing.

The lime-scaled hand gripped hers tighter and she squeezed back assuredly, basking in the sounds of the forest for a few minutes. Yishel caught in her own memories and plans while Tzera took in the alien scenery, with every sense overpowered. A familiar grunt crooned from over the hill that swallowed the caverns and the decorated Kimpra reared its head over the crest, with several identical, naked friends in tow. Yishel tore Tzera from her stupor and pulled her up the hill towards the antlered herd, their hands still grasping as Tzera’s gaze moved from the forest onto the expanding grassland at the top.

Blue pastures grew taller up to their waists in the open sunlight, spinning and swaying in the gale as the field expanded further onto the horizon. The forest behind them reached around, meeting the mauve granite mountains jutting through the drifting clouds towards the gradient sky of the evening. Masking the setting star that barely peeked through the crests. Tzera’s eyes wandered across the horizon following a milky comet tail racing the vista. Chasing a dazzling, shimmering icy moon that drowned out the first twilight stars. Her sights wandered back down the hill behind them, rolling over the treetops and following airborne creatures upward as they took flight. The whole forest rolled and crumbled into sinkholes, descending to the other horizon with a pale sphere dominating its skyline.

Divinely, the massive gas giant overlooking the jungle below stole Tzera’s focus from the world around her. Hypnotizing her with its seafoam green swirls and magenta waves growing brighter in the fading daylight. Yishel released her to sightsee, returning to her mount lying in the tall grass, with her mind moving on to their next step. It was getting dark, and they probably couldn’t move very far once night set in. It was better to make camp near the cave at the bottom of the hill and having already cleared the grotto; the nearby Kimpra herd could keep watch as the two took a much-needed respite. With her charge's golden eyes still cemented to the heavens, she set up to two bedrolls on some soft, level turf just outside the mouth of the cave, and then turned her attention towards a fire.

Some time passed before Tzera wandered away from her stargazing down to the camp below. Mute with the fatigue, her aching muscles, hunger, thirst, and galloping mind unified into a weariness that kept her from speaking. Yishel remained close the whole time. Busying herself with the fire and a stew that was coming to boil, with the smell finally cycling through P.A.R.E.A’s filters, making the green gal's mouth water.

The purple-furred woman poured out a bowl and handed the hot liquid to Tzera as she settled in on the bedroll and coiled her tail around her legs, warming against the fire.

“Is it ok to take this off?” Tzera asked softly, pointing a free hand to the white veil on her head.

“There is nobody around so no worry,” Yishel replied blowing on her own bowl to cool the soup and Tzera removed the head covering, revealing P.A.R.E.A still attached to her face. “That has to be hard to eat with. Can you take it off?” Yishel asked, having nearly forgotten about the droid. Tzera hadn’t tried it yet, but she remembered how painful it was going on and hesitantly she reached to remove it. Sure enough, a sharp sting rang through her skull the moment she began to pull, like a toothache aggravated by someone shouting in your ear. “No” she replied, yielding to the pain immediately.

Her attention returned to the warm stew steaming in the bowl in her lap and she brought it toward her mouth. The heat and flavor of the concoction hit her tongue and nose more fiercely as P.A.R.E.A opened the slot covering them, spitting out the pit.

She took a sip.

TOO HOT! She realized with the first taste, dribbling the singing soup from her mouth. “Omnomnom,” P.A.R.E.A said. Sloshing the burning stew back across Tzera’s muzzle and into her nostrils with his flapping craw, causing her to cough. Yishel’s self-control crumbled with the show, and she choked on her meal as well.

The coughing harmony faded into the luminous night sky, quickening in rhythm then building in volume, giving way to shared laughter. Yishel was able to recover first, struck by an idea of how to assist. She crawled over to the nearby pool still gasping between chortles. Then dove her hand in and grabbed a small, jagged rock from the water.

“Hang on a sec.” She requested, drawing the shale out of the lagoon and over to Tzera. “Hold still” she instructed, prying the robot's jaw open and exposing the reptile’s green mouth underneath.

“You’re not going to cut it off?” Tzera nervously responded, her native words spewing from the open mask. Still dizzy from the laughing but no less concerned about the razor-sharp rock being wielded by a grinning alien swiftly approaching her face. Yishel responded in velshen, “No I’m just going to wedge it...”

P.A.R.E.A’s flap closed shut like a hunter’s trap and the purple cat yanked her thumb away before the snapper had his opportunity to free it from her hand.

“Hey!!”

Bright, sunny light pulsed and throbbed along the robot’s body. Specterlike blue glow strobed through the tendrils ensnaring Tzera’s forehead and thorny cheeks and the pocket droid hissed angrily back at the davran like a cornered animal attempting to threaten away a predator.

“What’s wrong with that thing?” Yishel asked shaking the pinch off of her fingers.

“No idea, he has been glitching since I woke up,” Tzera replied but was barely understood with the old and new vocabularies alternating with the motion of the flap and somewhat muted by the robot’s shrieks. Yishel handed the stone to Tzera as the machine calmed. Saying softly to her in the old dialect,

“You try.”

Carefully Tzera wedged the stone in the slot, forcing it completely open. She could hear the buzzing of small motors in PAREA’s internals like a coo coo clock that had just been reset. Chomping away at the rock, still trying to close the mouthpiece even as she finally took a sip of the stew. Warmth filled her all over, instantly relaxing her sore muscles and aching joints, clearing her clouded mind as she swallowed the savory, peppery gravy and chewed through the starchy roots. It was far more delectable than the synthetic meals she had consumed throughout her life, felt more energizing than the near unpalatable rations and vitamins sewn together from grown proteins, and manufactured amino acids.

It was real and it was delicious. If a little salty.

Melodies of the nocturnal wildlife filled the quiet as they finished their meal around the crackling flames. Weariness seized both all over, but Yishel instructed Tzera to get some sleep, taking the first watch atop a nearby rock and barely visible to Tzera in the night shade but for the reflection of the glowing blue insects off her rifle. The uncertainty of the next day faded away as the lizard pulled the heavy warm fur cover over and curled her tail in the space at the feet. Mind running wild with the imaginings of the city they were headed to, populated with new faces both lendari and davran, all far younger than her. More answers were wanted, but the full stomach and warm bed finally claimed her. Pulling her fantasizing into dreams with the closing of her golden eyes.

We did it. We actually did it.