SMG4:// Apocrypha

Part 4: Apotheosis

Ch 1: Swan Song (Saiko)

"This is as far as we can take you by car." Fuego informs, "Stay safe."
"Please," adds Chris, "...and take the jackets and backpacks, we prefer neither of you freeze out here."
The bustling asphalt highway we traveled on only a few hours ago is now only densely packed snow and permafrost. We're in a mountainous part of the countryside, blooming with rock and snow and forest. It wasn't too cold out tonight, but we were reminded by the guards that that could change in a heartbeat up here. Night should have fallen by now, but the sun stayed just over the tree line. I've lost track of time up here. Meggy was probably right to have taken a nap this afternoon; she seems as chipper and fiery as usual. Although, since we left the police station, she seemed discouraged – frustrated almost. Shuffling my boots in the snow, I begin to think about what she said to Tari...
"C'mon, Saiko," she says. We vault a log fence and ascend into an outcropping of trees under the eternal sunset. She set a pace that even with my own – clearly and obviously much taller – stature, I couldn't keep up. Of course, within 20 minutes, she found herself neck-deep in snow. Stifling a laugh, I help her up and she finally puts on the snowshoes attached to her pack.
We hike farther, eventually stopping in one of the shallower snowdrifts in the area. In truth, the only habitable snowdrifts in these mountains weren't snowdrifts at all. Rather, they were areas where the snow had melted enough to show the ground beneath our feet. This area looked a bit less like an arctic wasteland and more like a tundra. The permafrost was too thick to pitch anything, so without snow to burrow into or a tent to pitch, we could only rest under the sky. Meggy gathered some pine needles and ignited them in an old can. All the wood in the area was frozen, so we had little to burn except pinecones and needles. I Walked around the area, getting my bearings and gathering stuff for Meggy to burn. It was dark out, dark enough that we had to use our flashlights. We set up camp near a frozen lake. The fairly flat area was littered with huge trees and grass glazed over with quartz-like ice and frozen dew. Through the thick dark, I see a faint point of bright orange firelight, evidence of Meggy's success.
I venture out further toward the lake, listening to the faint crack of frozen dew under my boots. The ice on the lake looked too thin to walk on. This place in the middle of the mountains... It didn't feel nearly as snowed in as the place we came from. It was like an oasis of sorts. My focus is directed to a sudden rustling and squawking across the lake. In the flashlight's gaze, it looks like it came from a growth of bushes under a fallen tree. I wave my flashlight around above me, motioning Meggy to come over. She does, carrying the can of fire in her insulated gloves like a candle, unfazed by its heat. We march into the dark little growth, beckoned by the frantic birdcry and rustling of branches.
It was a swan, a mother and her cygnet. She was crushed by the fallen tree, wounded badly and bound to the earth by its branches. Most of its body was buried in the debris. The trunk lay snapped naturally and roughly, probably done in by a storm or fallen snow. There were paw prints in the snow, big wolfprints. It must have had to fend off a whole pack of them before they scattered when we got here. Now it just lay there, struggling in the company of its baby. It raised its long neck heavily and looked at us. It looked scared but too exhausted to move.
We stood there for a moment, feeling sympathy for the beast. Finally, Meggy hands me the flame, still burning through pine needles and refuse. She reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out an old-looking pocketknife.
"We don't have the resources to nurse the mother back to health," she said with certainty. This response surprised me for a moment. Meggy was always the one to buy a cone for a kid whose ice cream fell. She wasn't wrong though. What could we do out here? She picked up the cygnet. It was exhausted too. She again handed the child to me. It quickly fell asleep in my open palm next to the flame.
"I'm glad Tari isn't here," she said quickly, looking down at the swan. She opened the pocketknife. The swan looked up at Meggy again in desperate pain. Meggy walked toward it, knelt down, and mercifully ended its life. She stood up again, silently. There couldn't have been any other way.
We walked silently back around the lake. The area where we were was dry – covered by a dense canopy of trees, so were found a ton of dry wood. I handed the can to her, and she puts wood chips in the fire, one-by-one. She sets down the can under a huge tree that seemed to swallow up everything under it. Her padded gloves were visibly sooty and burnt from the metal. We sit down on the wet dirt under us. I set down the cygnet, took off my glove, and put it inside for warmth. Meggy opened a can of Vienna Sausages – our dinner – and set it beside the now roaring flame in a can.
We ate in silence, listening to a stray wind that made the trees shift. Their leaves shook, sounding almost like rainfall. I retracted my ungloved hand into my sleeve, holding it against my stomach. Meggy swallowed. There was a bloodstain on her other glove.
"I-," She started. I was aware of the stunning silence that filled the air in spite of the wind. Meggy looks down at her lap.
"I don't know what to tell you. I- I w-," she sighed and started again, "I can fix this. I will fix this." I said nothing. Under the sharp orange flame, she looked tired; she looked more tired than me. "Get some sleep," I said finally, "I stay up and keep watch."
She stayed awake for a while, ignoring me. Eventually, she turned over and fell asleep, head resting on her bulky pack. Neither of us got out our sleeping bags, it doesn't seem necessary. I gazed back at the little swan at my side. Its fuzzy little head was tucked restlessly in its wing. I picked it back up and set it on my lap. Warmth was what it needed right now. I looked back over at Meggy. Even while she was fully layered from head to toe in cotton and waterproof coats and garments, she shivered in her sleep.
~
Ch 2: Encroachment (Meggy)