The Messengers of Sanctuary

59 - River

River had long since decided that living inside of Wakefield was a terrible idea.

His family had no sense of personal space, every time he growled at somebody Silver would extend the length of his grounding, The bloodlust was only grating on him more and more as the days went by, and the stupid humans didn't seem to understand that introverts existed. Why spend the day in your room or doing work quietly if you could instead go to twelve million welcome home parties?

So River decided after the first day that he would just not be staying inside the fence. He'd managed to convince Silver that the same setup wouldn't work here as it had back at featherwood, and she let him just spend all his time patrolling or outside the fence. "But if anything happens to you mister, I expect to hear that scream of yours so I can send help!"

River had no idea why his grandmother was like this, but she was the majority of the reason he used to take off for several weeks at the drop of a hat. It really felt like that trend would be continuing...

So it was that River was outside of the fence when a truck pulled up.

Wakefield didn't have any working vehicles, so the scent of the engine running was the first hint he had that there were visitors. His first assumption was correct, and as he approached the stronghold he scented Chicory, three pyros, that sane terror from Ironwind, and the nightstalker from the same place. There were also two human scents which he identified as the crazy redhead and the scientist.

Apparently Chicory had decided to just take the solution to him.

That was actually a much better idea than ferrying all the weird zombies up there to get examined, which was what River had expected to be the solution. Perhaps Nina was a lot more invested in the salvation of humanity than he'd assumed?

Regardless, River approached the group as they were entering the stronghold, arriving just as they began to roll through the open gate. The sentries spotted him first (being better positioned for it) and gave him nods, after that the terror spotted him, and then Trinity, he'd been downwind so the air was a bit wrong for tracking, but she had a lot of experience under her belt.

None of them mentioned his presence, but it wasn't long till Chicory had leapt out of the truck bed and full on sprinted at him yelling something about how long it took them to track him down.

River tried to dodge it as he realized that she intended to tackle him to the ground, but she had heartfire, and sometimes she just had the right timing. He swerved to the side, but she saw it, twisting in the air to knock him over anyway. Ugh.

River hit the ground with a thump, Chicory sitting on top of him gleefully, "That's for not leaving a note or something at the old camp! I was worried!"

River grunted, "Yep. Probably should have." He shoved her off, and she didn't fight back as he stood up and dusted himself off. "Anyway, you should go inside. There's a...There's a lot that happened while you were gone."

Chicory nodded curtly and marched back toward the gate, River at her heels, "So what kinds of things happened?"

River shrugged, "Well my grandma appeared."

Chicory blinked, "She passed us on our way up there! She was on foot, sparks! How did she beat us here?"

"Well, she's a terror."

Chicory blinked at that, "Huh. That explains why all the pyros had a panic attack when they smelled her."

River smirked, "Yeah, they don't like the smell of terrors." He nodded at the sentries at the gate and followed the group inside. A woman stood up from the back of the truck, giving him a calculating stare

"You must be the person I've heard so much about! I am Song Yijun, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance!"

River blinked. Yijun was clearly asian, she was of relatively average height with long black hair and ivory skin. Her eyes were a piercing red and her scent gave her away as a pyro. Everyone was giving her kind of odd looks as she introduced herself.

River nodded at her, bowing slightly, as she was clearly older than him, "And to you as well." He deliberately didn't include his name, no sense in letting her know that he knew how chinese greetings worked.

She frowned slightly, but didn't let her momentum fall through, "What is happening here? My nephew made it seem that the humans wanted to destroy us."

River glanced at the only person that could possibly be her nephew. He didn't remember the guy's name. "Huh, well they did. Probably would have succeeded too if my grandmother hadn't appeared." He scowled.

Nicky perked up in a concerning manner, "You have a grandma?"

River had no idea what she planned on doing with that information, so he gave her an unamused look, "She's a terror, don't bother her."

Nicky gasped, "What? Now I definitely have to meet her! I need to know if she's as easy to annoy as Daniel is!!!"

Trinity adopted a strange look, "the terror I've been smelling is your grandmother."

River nodded, "She's probably going to appear in a minute and yell at me for no reason."

Nina got out of the truck when it was parked, rushing over with a curious expression, "There were other zombies that Trinity smelled, what are they?"

River sighed, "Just get out your notebook already, I can introduce you to Gloria and Matthew. There's like...a bunch of sane regular zombies too somehow. I gave up on figuring that out weeks ago."

Nina made an excited noise, "Naturally occurring sane regular zombies? They haven't taken any sort of medications or chemicals that might have brought their minds back?!"

River shrugged, "You'll have to ask them yourself. But I think Matthew will be interesting too."

Nina nodded vigorously and River sighed, pointing the majority of the group toward an approaching aunt (he was pretty sure it was the one that was Jace's grandmother) "You guys figure stuff out. I'll show Nina the sane zombies, alright?"

He walked off, Nina following after him. To his surprise, Chicory came too, apparently curious. Everyone else gratefully allowed the aunt to guide them to a room to stay.

A few minutes later, River entered the zombie building, wondering if anyone would get mad at him for letting a couple humans inside and getting their scent everywhere. Humans came inside sometimes mostly just Jace, but usually it was just a find and retrieve mission.

River knocked on Matthew's door first, figuring that he might as well get the shock of his hybrid nature out of the way sooner rather than later.

Nina waited patiently nearby, giving River plenty of personal space. After a moment River knocked again, "Matthew, are you dead?"

There was a groan from inside and the sounds of someone getting out of bed, "Ughgh just a minuuutteee."

River gave the door a confused look, it was nearly dinnertime. He wouldn't have been surprised to find a nightstalker asleep at this hour for no reason, but River had been pretty sure that whatever Matthew was wasn't nocturnal.

The door inched open after a moment, revealing Matthew's bright red eyes glaring at River, "I was sleeping."

"Why? It's like four in the afternoon."

Matthew opened the door the rest of the way, revealing his feathered hands and wrinkled clothes. "Are you judging me?!"

River raised an eyebrow. "Yes. Very much so."

He sighed, "What do you want, River?"

"We need to interrogate you."

Nina and Chicory were staring at Matthew's arms, Nina's hands twitching as if she wanted to grab her pen. "Interview," she corrected. "But we can come back at a better time." She suggested.

Matthew finally looked at Nina, yawning, "I was just about to get up anyway, come on, Gloria will kill me for letting you guys stink up the hallway for longer than necessary."

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