T’sala felt her mind drift in what felt like a dream. It had been so long since she had dreamt that it was as alien as a planet covered in ice to her desert mind. The idea was preposterous, but something in the back sparked a memory that she had been on an ice planet once. In the darkness, she could neither feel the heat nor the sand of her homeward, and she wondered if she was hovering in space. She tried to recall even the faintest memories of who she was. She was named T’sala, and she remembered her home-world. A ringing took over her ears, and a white-hot light was burning in her vision.
It came rushing back in a tide, being a child, dreading the mines but enjoying freedom while she had it. The loss of her mother, the taking of the baron and the years of transformation under Madam Zelsim. More years of the baron and his henchmen gawking at her aware yet frozen form. Then the off-worlder, her offworlder, Alec changed everything. Not only had he ended her suffering, but he had also given her a life of freedom apart from… the suit! That brought back the rest, rushing upon her until she remembered pulling the Rumsey to safety. The burning white light was still clouding her vision, but she was beginning to hear the sounds of battle.
The chatter was rhythmic, like the gun her battle warrior friend, Maywil, used. Soldierly and commanding, yet it somehow dissipated with each passing moment. Not retreating but one by one, the chorus of gunfire lost a member. Her vision cleared just enough to see the remaining soloist, a stern woman in baronhood soldier attire. She was firing the weapon into the air. At first, T’sala thought it was out of haphazard fear, then she noticed a small blue glow against the ceiling. There, the man, Alec, ’s boots clung to the metal parts of the roof while he ran and dodged in the cloud of dust kicked up by the explosion. Only the lights in his eyes betrayed him as he aimed a similar rifle to the one the soldier woman held. Alec’s called out in a duet to her solo, but even without tone, Alec was the quicker, deadlier one; and only one could survive the final crescendo. That was clearly Alec as the rain of bullets placed enough holes in the soldier's body that T’sala saw through her like a screen door. The man, Alec, detached and fell in a flip to land on his feet, perfectly balanced, before the woman’s corpse landed to face T’sala in an expression of shocked surprise.
The off-worlder dropped the rifle in his hands as T’sala’s sight and hearing returned to her. He made eye contact with her and, taking in that she was alright, let out a breath that felt like it lasted years and told the story of a long-lost love. She wanted to let one out of the same kind, but her frame was poised over the Rumsey, keeping the debris from crushing the small woman to death. She did, however, glow brightly and joyously as he smiled in relief, taking in that she was alive.
“By the look of the glow in here, that silly man you were mad at is somewhere close. It’s a deeper purple you see…” The Rumsey was ruining T’sala’s moment again, the Teretha woman let a little pressure release from her limbs, pressing the rumsey ever so slightly so that breath was difficult but not impossible. Difficult to speak, though perhaps. “ muphruphen filter camfrican…” The voice continued, but T’sala did not listen; she just basked in the look of the man’s joy at seeing her alive and his desire to be in this moment too.
The jacket they had made from the hide of the creature had been scored in many places by bullets so that it now looked like a striped hide. It had done its job, though very few bullets looked like they made direct contact with the man, Alec’s flesh or mechanical parts. She took him in from hat to boots, and that was when she noticed the red drips falling to the floor in front of her. She saw him concentrate the same way he had when he drew on her blood and saw the purple fluid in the vial stored in his arm visibly drain. One by one, the bullets that found purchase in Alec were pressed out of his flesh, followed by a brief purple glow and the flesh sealing over in a brand new scar like the ones that covered him. With the final bullet, the glow from his arm vial dissipated entirely, and T’sala could seethe man turn grey and sick. He reached into the bandolier around his shoulder and took another vial and smoothly inserted it. As he did so, he dropped a handful of empty vials to the ground, enough vials to… To fill a whole case, T’sala finished the thought for herself.
“I am fine, the Rumsey, she is under me. Take the rocks from my back, and she can crawl free.” The Man Alec was looking at her now with an anger in his eyes that T’sala did not like. She wondered what had happened in the eye-blink since the shared look of joy. All she had done was show him she was ok and uninjured. He moved steadily and focused as he lifted impossibly large sections of the bunker roof off of T’sala. She could see the effort drain from the vial in his arm as he did. He tried to not let her notice but she could see him checking this last vial in his arm out of the corner of his eye apprehensively. When it had lost near a quarter of the vital T’sala tried a test of moving her shoulders, and an opening was made for the Rumsey.
The small woman from the ice planet crawled out from under the much taller Teretha with a look of gratitude on her face. “Well, ain’t no way about it, darlin’. You saved my soul, until I do the same for you. I am Rumsey Dela T’sala now until your soul is saved. It’s tradition with my people here, honour is in our blood. Though I fear I’d be coming along anyway now that all but Thunder is gone. An’ finding him here, the General is gonna, but two and two together and ol’ Rumsey will equal four. Oh Thunder!” The woman popped to her feet and looked to the man, Alec, to see if it was safe. He gestured her through, but T’sala could see a look of pity on the man’s face. That was until he turned back to her, then the anger resumed.
T’sala had had enough. He had left her for his stupid vials; it wasn’t her fault that he had already eaten through them as the children did with a month's rations in days when the parents weren’t looking. T’sala thought that was just fine; maybe the man could starve like the children to remember to keep his hands from the ration bin. Then she remembered how cold and still he was in the cave. That made her, well, not angry, but she wanted to be, so she chose that. She glowed and pressed with an extended amount of Aamaranth strength. The result was nearly a second smaller explosion as the debris launched off her and behind them, crashing against the wall where the walk-in rift-portal used to be.
“What!” T’sala began heated. “I mean, why?” She looked at him again, trying to find the right word in his tongue and used it to enrage herself even more. “ I do not know what I mean, but I do know you have none of the rights to look at me with the disgusting face you have.”
His hands went up to his face in a mock hurt expression. But then they signed, with the use of both hands, the Teretha handspeak was crisp and clear. His voice box, however activated with it as well, creating a grinding, distorted noise that indicated his anger.
“Flazlerap glitzerfarg Shatlecrelp Snart!” The voice box chattered; the hands, however, were flying in anger. “ I told you, foolish one, that I could get the box and save us from the men above. You left! You just ran and left me! I told you…”
“ You told me nothing, you rock-brained, metallic moron!” T’sala felt proud of that one; she had heard the Rumsey mutter it when they drove after leaving the man Alec behind. “You said…”
Alec closed the gap between them and placed his hands over hers. She realized in that moment she had been signing in teretha hand speak as well as yelling in her own tongue. The off-worlder was holding back a smile. It looked like he was prepping his mind and hands for what words he could sign next when all of a sudden, he pulled her close. The suit kept her from feeling the embrace, but the gentle way his hands interacted with it on her back allowed her to feel the gentle pressure that assured her he was hugging her as close as possible.
“Szzzle scarap lizt Ura T’sala”. The last was genuinely her name, and they both broke off the hug to step back and look in each other's eyes. He formed words with his hands again. “I thought I lost you, T’sala, these fool hands may not have been clear, but I want you to be going forward. I’ve been here, on these rocks, for centuries, always and forever. Until you do not want it anymore, the always and forever of me now belongs to you.” The last was stumbled upon as he searched for Teretha words. T’sala pushed his hands aside and pressed herself into his chest, placing her head where she did so many times to feel his very real heart beating steadily. She pulled his arms close around her.
“Sizzle scrap list, you, Alec”. She said softly, mimicking his voice boxes glitching tones. They both laughed softly while they held each other, swaying in unison like the night of the dance she held so fondly in her memories. Her offworlder had returned, and he had sworn her an oath. Added to the Rumsey’s declaration, T’sala decided to remember this day as the Day of Oaths, and if she ever returned to her people, she would beg them to celebrate it with her.
“I’m going to kill you…” The Rumsey’s voice cut through the gentle moment like a drill bit grinding earth for oil. T’sala grit her teeth and fought every urge to turn her purple powers against the small woman she had just saved. They broke their embrace, and the man Alec, turned to face the small woman with a shrug and multiple sounds exiting the voice box like a digital manual glitching. T’sala wanted to laugh, seeing the woman who only came up to Alec's stomach causing such a look of desperation to leave the situation in the offworlders' eyes. “Or I’m gonna kill them…” The rummy’s tone softened only slightly. “But first you gotta tell me who did it! An’ don’t be lyin’, I’ll smell it on you. He wasn’t flesh and blood, but he was family well enough!”
The Rumsey was pointing behind her frizzy hair. There was still crackling in the open air, were the blazing remains of thunder. The back tanker had exploded into two pieces, but the skeletal remains of a driving cab remained connected to two of six wheels. The rest was scattered across the battlefield. Many soldiers lay dead under the debris. In his passing, he must have taken a great many with him. T’sala wanted to thank him for that. With nothing remaining alive on the battlefield, T’sala strode forward with confidence, a digitally sputtering Alec and enraged, tirading the Rumsey. T’sala felt the weight of her Day of Oaths, while it had ended in many happy ways, tragedy had been along the whole time. Seeing the bodies of the teretha and baronhood soldiers littered across the field, all T’sala could feel was loss.
