You open your eyes to a heavy darkness. Your breather just finished up its last viable recirc before waking you. That means you’ve got more than just dark on top of you. You try moving and find it less difficult than you might have expected given the circumstances but substantially more so than it really should have been. Remembering the events of the night previous (or had it been day?), you start swimming your arms cautiously about, bringing yourself slowly to a seated position as an arm’s length of ash moved its way off of your chest. After a milliday or so, your breather puffs out a tiny cloud of ash as it releases its now oxygen-depleted air reserves, allowing new air into your lungs for the first time in several centidays. You smile softly and gulp down the air as if it had been years since you last breathed of your own accord.
Grateful for the unique properties of your plasma-shielded goggles, you look about without having to rub any ash clear of your view, and you see that you were right to insist that Keri actually sleep inside the room whose door you had slept before. Even standing perfectly straight in the ashbed that was like so much filthy snow, she likely would have been enveloped before waking and suffocated without realizing it before it was too late. Looking to the small display on the underside of your left gauntlet, you realize that it’s been at least twenty-five centidays since you went to sleep. Deciding that that was enough time, given the circumstances, you gently push open the door, watching some of the ash pour in and onto the marble floor you had so meticulously cleaned only thirty centidays before.
Before the door is even entirely ajar, the young Keri is at the doorway, looking expectantly to you as she awaits instruction for this new day, her smile slightly wider than her tired eyes. “Is it time to go now?” She asks the question in a way that conveys an understanding that there can be only one answer, but you nod anyway, your lightly armored hand resting on the linen of her nightgown. Her hair is cleaner now than when you met only two days before, and its almost entirely aqua locks fall more neatly about her small face. There are the beginnings of curls, or perhaps they’re the ends of them, but they’re scarce as her hair falls almost perfectly straight in all but her bangs, which seem to have a life of their own.
You had never really thought much about your own hair, but seeing hers falling to such lengths as it did made you a bit sad that a Valkyrie pilot had to keep her hair short to distinguish her from the other sisters. It had been only a few years since that hair had fallen from its long-held position at the terminating points of your head, but you had always been satisfied with the collar-length hair you were permitted until now. Seeing how much this young child had, though…
“Are you ready to go?” The words make it out of your mouth before they register with your own brain. Nevertheless, they are the appropriate words, and Keri nods, her smile fading into a weary grin. You can hardly blame her. It must have been hard enough getting all the way out to the edges of the city by herself, even if she was a Valkyrie, but going back through it all, well… It makes you grateful for her sake that there was so much ash spread around to cover the bodies that still riddled the streets, hands holding one another, arms wrapped around wives and children. In all the marvelous efficiency of the Valkyries, only one person in millions had been spared, despite there being only two attackers and three days for execution, and you still suspect that that fact may have been inadvertent rather than intentional.
After about a centiday, you head out and onto the road, moving once again toward your goal, the large building that now looms close enough that the buildings around you seem to be dwarfed in comparison, their ten- and fifteen-story structures like sandcastles before the massive, 240-floor residential complex in which Keri claims to have lived with her father for the past three years, which happens to be about as far back as she can remember at her age. You wonder, looking at the largely blasted apart structure, if her home is even intact and, assuming it is, if you’ll be able to get to it safely. You may be able to survive a 200-story fall in your armor, but not even a Valkyrie could stick that landing without breaking several bones, and Keri doesn’t have armor designed to assist one in falling-type circumstances.
Keri, however, seems to barely notice the wanton destruction so expertly crafted around her as she counts quietly. It’s a common enough affliction among Valkyries, really. So many of the finest minds and bodies of the Valkyries went nearly to waste due to encroaching madness. You hope that this, instead, is merely a coping mechanism for the vision of death itself laid out so perfectly in front of you. You’ve grown entirely too fond of this child to see her go the route of madness that consumed so many, usually at a much later age, at such an early point in her development. You write a mental note out to yourself and set it among all its brethren, reminding you to get her to a Valkyrie Trauma Counselor as soon as you make it back to Thor. Your face tightens as the girl loses count, stamping her feet in frustration as she begins again, tracing back her steps to the last intersection first.
Eventually, you reach Keri’s complex, and you approach the entrance with some anticipation. She should remember the location well enough, but what if it isn’t there anymore? “What floor did you live on, Keri?” The question makes it out of your throat, but only just. You hope she didn’t notice that you had used the past tense, counting on her age to restrict her knowledge on such matters. The flicker of narrowed eyes that darts toward you for no more than a milliday’s fragment, however, tells you all you need to know.
Keri takes a deep breath before saying, “Keri lives,” Her eyes catch yours, even through the mirrored pseudo-surface of your goggles, as she pushes the word, “on this floor.” She points to a door only just inside the entrance, and your eyes widen as you realize the implications of a ground-floor home in a complex like this. You head into the building and head straight for t
he door, which is reached within a milliday of meandering about distractedly as you look at the wreckage of what had once been a monstrously impressive lobby. The ceiling towers above you at nearly fifty floors, and the ten-story-tall light assembly that is now sprawled on the floor and rests partially in the ornate fountain in broken shambles once clearly levitated at a much higher perch.
After a short trot and look-about, however, Keri makes her way to the door and licks a finger before placing it on the bioswitch that activates the door. Your eyebrow raises at the notion. Bioswitches are fairly commonplace on military ships and facilities, but the technology was expensive enough that very few actually use them in the civilian sector.
The door slides open, revealing a residence that stands in firm contrast to the ornately decorated, stone and glass lobby. The entrance hall, just long enough to keep people outside the door from gazing nonchalantly into the main room, has two pairs of shoes sitting neatly beside each other, one several times larger and less girly than the other. Looking to the walls, you see a few pictures of a mustachioed man with shoulder-length, glossy gray hair and Keri. You conclude reasonably that this must be her father. You also notice that there are no pictures of anyone else even as you make your way into the main room, which holds a wireless and an istringr interface, fairly common for a family room. You work your way quickly to the kitchen, which is gratefully just as clean as the rest of the apartment, which seems to have been magnetically suspended to protect it from seismic disturbances and hermetically sealed to shield it from biological contaminants. Whoever designed this place had either a very paranoid or very wise eye, given the current state of the world you’re on.
Keri sits on the small seat beside the table politely as she waits for you to prepare the food. You notice that she has followed the proper etiquette to a tee, which is remarkable for someone raised on one of the outer worlds. “Do you want Skell eggs, Keri?” You ask tentatively. You would love some Skell eggs right now, and you’re incredibly hungry. Keri nods enthusiastically, and you start cooking, pouring each of you a crystal cup of water from a jar in the chiller while you wait for your pan to warm up. Keri gulps the water down as gratefully as you do, pausing only to thank you for the cup.
After you’ve finished prepping the eggs and a few greens for lunch, you set them out on plates and bring them to the table, turning off the stove and washing the pan before you do. Before eating, you each sign the Sword of Drigan’di and say a quiet prayer to the Great One. After you finish eating, you look beside you at the young lady carefully masticating each tender piece of egg before swallowing gently in a manner almost disturbingly proper. Someone went to great lengths to train this girl to act in a manner that anyone else could deem acceptable, and that’s a dangerous skill at her age.
“Keri,” you begin. Keri’s eyes train steadily on yours as you continue, “You mentioned that your daddy had pictures of a woman, didn’t you?” She nods carefully, choosing not to speak with a filled mouth. “Where are they?”
Keri holds up a tiny hand to tell you to wait a moment while she uses the other to dab her lips clean of any oils from the eggs. Once she’s finished, however, she says simply, “I’ll go get them,” and scampers off into one of the side rooms.
A few millidays later, she returns with a small box and sets it on the table before you before scurrying up onto her chair once more and reaching across to open the box. “Daddy said Keri shouldn’t look in this box, but Keri knows it’s ok, anyway.” For such a well-behaved young girl, Keri’s tone in disregarding such a rule is positively flippant. You blink incredulously once or twice before returning your attention to the inside of the box to see something you never would have expected.
In the box are hundreds of pictures of that same man and a somewhat older Valkyrie woman you seem to recognize faintly. You can’t quite place that face, but you set it aside as you make your way through to the older pictures, the man’s face losing more and more mustache and hair. They all seem to have been taken on Thor. You recognize the city of Qzcivden in the background of a picnic picture, and finally, you see a picture of the woman pregnant with Keri sitting next to what is apparently that same man with no mustache and the clean-cut look of an Armadian in uniform. The man looks familiar now, too, with only streaks of gray in his more softly wrinkled face. This gives you pause. You feel like you’ve seen this man and the woman before, but you aren’t sure where or when.
You work your way through more pictures, hardly noticing the clack of metal on ceramic as Keri eats her eggs. The man and woman get progressively younger and, with it, more familiar. The pictures now have to be almost twenty cycles old. You’re almost certain you’re right about the suspicions sneaking up on you now, your eyes making their way through the next picture set. In these, the couple are in a hospital, holding hands and eating together, their smiles as wide as children’s. Finally, you reach the bottom of the box and see a picture of the two of them in hospital beds beside one another, their heads thoroughly wrapped and their bodies mangled wrecks. Still, you haven’t seen the other woman.
“Keri,” you started, again. “Where are the pictures of the other woman? The one you said wasn’t your mommy…” Keri’s eyes grow wide as she realizes she brought you the wrong box of pictures and scampers off back to the other room. There’s an audible thud as she drops something, but there’s a quick dismissal of the urgency that makes it to you even before you finish standing. Moments later, Keri comes rushing back in and sets a box in front of you with a broken lock on it. It has one word written on it: Goddmunr. Good mind. It’s written in childish block letters, and yet you suspect it wasn’t written by a child. Cautiously, you open the box and pick up the first picture.
The first picture is a wedding picture of the man and woman at a much younger age. His uniform is much less decorated, and her hair is a more vibrant blue tied up in Maerskor. There’s a light in both their eyes that you hadn’t noticed in the other pictures, and you’re fairly certain it’s nothing to do with age. As you pick up the next picture, tears begin welling up in your eyes before you even turn it over. You know who these people are now. When you flip the picture over, the tears make their way down your face. You wish for a moment that you hadn’t taken off your goggles to cook and eat. Then, Keri wouldn’t have seen you cry.
As you pick up the next picture, however, you no longer care. You stifle a heart-wrenching sob as you look at a picture you have used as a bookmark for the past twenty cycles of your life. That same young Valkyrie woman is holding a young baby with glowing green eyes of her own against her hip, smiling joyfully at the man behind the camera. On the bottom of this picture is written, in much neater handwriting than the word on the box but likely by the same hand, “Zhilo’di, half a cycle, Qzcivden Gardens.”
You had been picked up for the Young Girls’ Academy for the Blue at a very early age, shortly after your parents had gotten into a shuttle crash. You had never questioned whether or not they were alive. You had always just known they were dead. Now, though…
A small hand makes its way into the crook of your arm. “Shilo,” the now somehow much more dear voice of your sister says. “What’s wrong? You’re crying.”
Blinking a few times before looking back to her, you wipe your eyes and say truthfully, “Nothing’s wrong, Keri. Nothing’s wrong at all.” The worry written on Keri’s face melts a bit, and she smiles hesitantly. “Now,” you say, your arm opening up so she can climb up. “Would you like to look through these pictures with me?” Her smile grows stronger, and she quickly climbs into your lap, pulling a few pictures out of the box, herself. She starts indicating her favorites, and for a few moments, you both let yourselves forget the fact of the destroyed city all around you on this decimated planet, both exhausted and both very happy to cling to something wonderful for a short while.
A few centidays later, however, that time comes to a close as you hear the cry of a vengeful pack of ice wyrms let out a rallying cry from inside the building’s lobby.