Σ П I G M Λ , c.a.

✧ P R O L O G U E ✧

✧❂✧

"How much longer do you think we need to keep watch?"

  Two figures were positioned in the same place they had been for the past two hours. Well almost two hours, in reality it had been one hour and 47 minutes and both were exhausted, hence the impatience the boy felt for the time consuming job. The boy, whose name was Karias Nemik, was scruffy looking with a faded blue eye color. His matted curly hair had been hidden under a hand-made hat. The girl, whose name was Maren Daeo, who was accompanying him on this watch had her voluminous hair pulled back into a lower, neat- well as neat as she could get it in the living circumstances the group was in. Her dark brown eyes that most would mistake for being black, scanned the nearby imperial base, looking for any weak points, as she does once every other day.

Maren let an exhausted sigh fall past her lips as she removed the binocs from her tired face. She thought for a moment, thinking about the outcomes if they did indeed leave early for the sake of the long walk back.

"I think if we were to leave now," she started, hesitant to disobey the daily shift they always make, "it shouldn't make too much of a difference."

Nemik let out a sigh of relief, almost to say Thank God. "But, this will not happen often. Ok? I'm only giving in because nothing much will happen in the next few minutes, seeing as they're switching posts now. We can't start slacking the closer we get to the day of the attack," Maren emphasized, still feeling uneasy about leaving early.

Nemik nodded his head eagerly in agreement, ready to start the long journey back to the camp. "Yes ma'am," he mockingly saluted, however she knew he understood. She chuckled as they gathered their things or lack thereof. 

✧❂✧

As the two started the journey back over and through the valleys and rolling hills of the planet, the boy started on his ideas, his long, passionate ideas about the cause. She thought back on how she used to feel that passionate when she first started rebelling with Vel. His thoughts were all jotted down on the notebook he carried around with him constantly, all explaining the thoughts that hit him in the middle of the night and caused him to wake up and scribble them down before they left to the deep depths of his quickly moving brain. Maren feigned listening to the ramblings of Nemik throughout most of the walk, and she did listen when he first started, however when he started to repeat things, it became her job to fake the action more than participate.

The wind blew loudly in both their ears, drowning out most of the younger boy's droning. Maren admired the way the grass moved with the wind, blowing and flowing as if they were impersonating water. This peace however, did not last long and she was unwillingly ripped away from it when a faint screeching noise was heard through her subconscious. She stopped short and stretched her hand out in front of Nemik, signaling for him to do the same.

"What is it," he asked, slightly confused. He must not have heard it yet, however Maren did, and she knew exactly what that meant. The screeching could be heard getting slightly closer and her keen eyes scanned the area for something to hide their presence. She caught sight of a rock and she pulled Nemik with her as she shifted into a sprint to take cover. Her ears, still perked and listening for any noise, heard the screeching get quieter as they dove behind the large rock.

The terrifying moments where the pair held their breath and strained their ears to hear any small noise near them and waited for something, anything, to happen. The peace was briefly back when the noise disappeared, the grass still moving in the same way it had before, unphased by the terror slowly rising over the hill. However, this time the peace was different, it had changed drastically. The peace in diguise in these moments was this time screaming in suspense. 

Neither boy nor girl moved. They didn't dare to breathe or say anything, petrified to make a single small sound. The wind howled loudly in their ears and moved the blades of grass in different directions underneath them. Maren shifted her eyes, now widened and prepared for what will happen next, to Nemik who looked equally as prepared and simultaneously looked panicked.

Almost as soon as the sound disappeared it returned, only this time impossibly louder, so loud that it practically ripped through the sound barrier. A TIE fighter soared straight over the rock they took cover behind, completely blind to the fact that they were even there in the first place.

At the same speed the TIE came over the green hill it flew farther into the valley below. Maren waited until the TIE became significantly smaller before removing her hands from her ears, both of which flew up to protect her ears from the nearly damaging sound, and Nemik soon after copied her action. Both stood up and watched as the TIE climbed in height and went over the next mountainous hill. Once it was out of sight, the two stared at where it disappeared, both in despite for the origin of the vehicle, but one in the nature of someone who is still calming down from the sudden adrenaline rush and the other in the nature of someone who has the confidence to take down the Empire on her own if action wasn't taken soon. For that's exactly what Maren was all about. She was persistent and determined, so much so that she was willing to be a one man- or woman in this case- army if the situation called for it.

Maren was the one to break the deafening silence between the two. "We better keep going if we want to get back to the camp in time for dinner." And with that closing comment, the two continued in silence, due to Nemik's fear and adrenaline clamping his mouth shut and silencing any thought he had previously.