The Messengers of Sanctuary

46 - Chicory

Now that Chicory had something to do, now that she had a course of action, She found a skip in her step that had faded a while ago. In her pack she held a wealth of maps, filled with stronghold locations, dangerous areas, roads that bandits frequented, and old world cities that hadn't been completely looted.

Beside her were three Pyros and a cart that they'd liberated from...somewhere. Chicory wasn't about to ask how they'd gotten it, and they weren't about to tell her. The one disappointment was that they couldn't find any horses, and strongholds had been finicky about trading them long before Chicory arrived with her inadequate charisma score.

They'd put the tunneler inside what had probably been a fridge at one point. They chained it shut and made sure to open it and smack him in the head really good every couple of hours. Zombie healing was no joke. It was fairly simple to put the fridge into the cart, give chicory some really thick shoes, and tie her to the front.

Chicory was alright with this, she was plenty strong enough to make it simple.

The only real problem was light.

Apparently, pyros weren't classified as sane zombies, their sanity came and went with the sun, which was easy to get around if you had a lot of lights on hand. Unfortunately, they hadn't been able to find any solar panels, and battery powered lights were basically nonexistent at this point. Chicory had found an unholy amount of penlights in one store, and the pyros greedily hoarded them, but she wasn't sure if it was quite enough.

When they left, River had managed to threaten the remaining pyros into giving up their prized lantern, saying something insensitive about how he would, "kick their sorry butts whenever they lost it to make sure they wouldn't attack anyone randomly."

River certainly understood what he was doing, Chicory knew he had tact, he even used it on occasion. But the sparking nightstalker was too much of a jerk to ever be caught in the act of caring.

Chicory carefully ignored that one time he'd listened to her problems, that was in the past. Anyway she was getting distracted again.

Chicory glanced back at the three pyros, they were chatting about something in Spanish as they played uno. Their cards flowed smoothly, jolting every so often as they went over a pothole or rock. She turned back toward the road ahead, relishing the rhythm as her feet pounded against the asphalt.

The pyros seemed confused that she still needed a run before bed, but they didn't really object to the area being scouted. In the morning they kept moving, making relatively good time as Chicory could go at whatever speed she wished, without slowing down a bit for River's bad endurance.

It was so easy to pull a cart with three men and a refrigerator in it that Chicory was kind of curious why no one else did that. She would have to bring it up in a tips session once she got back to Sanctuary.

They could probably use handcarts like this to transport large packages or to let messengers do a bit of small scale trading themselves. If anything, it would help fired folks with getting survivors to safety, mmmm.

---

"And porque? What does that mean?"

Fen shrugged, "It means why or because. Depending mostly on the context."

Chicory nodded slowly, Fen was the one who spoke the best English, but he was also the one who looked the least like he belonged there. Chicory suspected that he knew more than just two languages, but that just made him better for teaching.

"Oh what about escuchar, I heard someone say that earlier!"

"It means to listen."

Chicory nodded absently, leaning back against the cart thoughtfully, "So pyros glow, right?"

He nodded, "Of course, it's connected to our fire. Why do you ask?"

She shrugged, "It's just weird I guess, you guys don't seem like zombies, you attack them whenever you spot one and everything."

Fen raised an eyebrow, "You don't know much about us, do you." it was more a realization than a question.

Chicory answered anyway, "Nope, we don't have any to the north. In fact, River's pretty sure there's a bunch of different strains running around."

Fen was quiet for a moment, presumably thinking about that, "Perhaps. I know there's some strange stuff out there. But to answer your question, pyros are more like yourself from what I have gathered. We don't crave blood, and we don't always have red eyes. But I think if someone is infected wrong they end up more like a feral zombie. We call them the 'lost ones'."

Chicory blinked, "Sparks, I definitely need to get Nina to look at you guys then. She can probably figure most of this stuff out."

"This Nina person, she is a scientist, no?"

Chicory nodded, "I went in her lab once, lots of sciency stuff."

Fen looked thoughtful for a moment, "I might consent to giving her blood, but I think she'd be hard-pressed to find a Pyro willing to be a test subject."

"Bad experiences?" Chicory gave him a sympathetic look.

He rubbed his forearm where that strange brand still stuck out like a sore thumb. "You could say that."

Chicory nodded slowly, "I understand that, though I don't think Nina is that kind of scientist. She developed a cure for the strain in her area, she made something to help sane zombies with the bloodlust, and I think she mostly makes medicine at this point."

Fen looked kind of doubtful at that, and Chicory could tell she'd lost him. That observation was only proven as he shook his head, "I'll have to see her for myself."

---

Chicory heard a snarl from the cart behind her at the same moment she...heard a strange sound. In a way it was deafening, it shook her very bones as it increased in volume. Strange enough, her ears popped as she stumbled to a halt and began looking around desperately for the source of the sound.

She glanced at Fen, who was apparently the source of the snarl. He was looking upward, straight at something that resurfaced old memories that Chicory hadn't even realized she'd had.

Chicory remembered simple times before the outbreak, she remembered playing in the garden with her father, squealing happily as they played some type of half-forgotten game. She remembered collapsing into the grass afterward, plucking a dandelion and holding it proudly toward the heavens.

She remembered her father picking her up and putting her on his shoulders, both of them looking up at the clouds, "Look Eve, there's a plane, isn't it majestic?"

She remembered looking at it with wide eyes, "Yes! So majestic, can I ride in it do you think?!"

Chicory looked up with wide eyes, Fen's low persisting growl resounding in her ears as the sounds of the passing airplane echoed through her memories.

As it passed, something fell from the sky.

It looked like a box with a large parachute.

------

Vote to make a functioning airplane :D

Or steal that one, you have no idea where this is going...