Saxifrage Fire

008

A Pyro team had recovered her motorcycle. Despite Alexius's best efforts in begging, she'd opted to ride alone beside the company of trucks. It was a long ride through the twists and turns of the devolving mountain slopes. What had once been steep mountain peaks of granite and pines rolled into golden hills scattered with drooping oaks until finally, the company parked in a hidden meadow and began to unload.

Alex was laughing when she hopped out and she was followed by Ezi, Hitoshi, Kaleo, Pa, and Ember.

She watched her sister hold her stomach as she giggled, tears welling in her eyes.

"It wasn't that funny!" Ember snapped, yanking the back open to grab a crate of rations and stomp off towards their designation.

"It was pretty funny actually," Hitoshi grumbled casting them a sideways glance.

Thea eyed him curiously, noting how keenly he assessed his surroundings as if he were in a constant state of being hunted. She quickly turned when he caught her staring. She pretended to be busy studying the rest of the company unload crates of rations for the townspeople, hoping he wouldn't address her.

He patted her arm as he passed her and spun on his heals to instruct.

"Scarf up, Atlas." He gestured for her to cover her face with her silky garment. "People will recognize that striking face."

Thea attached her motorcycle to the back of the truck and pulled the scarf over her mouth and nose, then followed the others, finding that Ezi was waiting for her.

"You okay?"

She pointed to a stack of crates where children in ragged clothes had gathered to snatch cans of fruit and beans. Father said it was a mystery why the breeding grounds didn't talk- mystery solved.

"If I were a mother of ten children, all who were being worked to death in a mine or factory, and Alethea Atlas stepped into my poor excuse for a town where I'd starved and rotted all my life... I'd shank her."

Ezi grimaced.

"You know, we primals aren't as primal as you seras think."

Thea grimaced. That's not what she'd meant to imply.

"I... didn't mean...." She stuttered, fluttered by the sense of doubt Ezi's words inspired. She had in fact assumed she was walking into uncivilized, dangerous, grounds on the pretense that they were Primals. She sighed. 

 Ezi squeezed her shoulder and shook her gently.

"Relax. If anyone's gonna shank you, it's gonna be me."

She stopped walking and gawked at ehr Was she kidding? She was kidding... right?

Ezi glanced over her shoulder and laughed. 

"Come on, Atlas!"

They paused at the top of the hill and studied the settlement.

She'd never been so far from Eirene. The town was in shambles. The cramped wooden buildings leaned with the slopes and the dirt roads generated clouds of dust as chaotic foot traffic kicked it up.

She hung back and kept her eyes low, listening to the chatter of locals who brushed by- it was rations day and everyone was talking about what they'd earn, or what they'd buy from illegal sources with their Sera-administered ration tokens. Apples from up the hill seemed to be the exciting new option.

These people seemed to be made from the earth itself, they were so covered in it. Soot and dust-stained their white Sera-administered clothing. Their hair was either shaved or in dreads that caught pieces of leaves and twigs.