Morality & Mortality (Artificer x Reader)

They Were Once Here

________________________

No, not again...

Not this dream...

Anything but this...

________________________

It was a sunny cycle in Garbage Wastes. The clouds above had parted ever so slightly to allow some rays of sunshine to radiate down from the sky.

This weather was a nice break from the dull and dreary atmosphere that hung about most cycles. The ground was still wet and littered with crushed garbage, blue plant life stood tall, stretching their organic limbs towards the sky in reverence to its pale light. 

They acted like veins, burying themselves into the incredibly rusted and crumbling sheet metal that acted like a wall.

The mother was busy teaching her children where the best places to hunt were, there was no better time like the present. Good skies meant good scouting opportunities.

"Look! Over here! Batflies!"

Truth be told, there was one flying about, heading east, towards the territory of the Scavengers. The child ran off into the distance, the sound of both mud and junk yielding under their footsteps.

"Let's go check it out together, ok?" The mother smiled at her child's eagerness to hunt. "Don't go by yourself ok? We'll race!"

"Alright then! Last one there is a rotten Eggbug!"

They scampered off and the mother watched her other child break away from her side to follow their sibling afterwards. Their eagerness to follow in her footsteps was heartwarming.

The tell-tale sign of scavenger activity rose high above the air, the painted mask was adorned with glistening white pearls, either acting as a warning or as a welcome.

The mother had seen those strange beasts before.

They were creatures marching through the junk filled wasteland of Garbage Wastes, pawing the ground for a sharp bit of metal to stick to their crude sticks and tribal masks.

The things were not hostile to her or the children, the few times the family had made contact with them was when the scavs merely gazed at both the slugcat and the pups with their bulging eyes from a long way away.

"Mom! Look! Can I have one?" The navy child pointed at the shining stones that the Scavengers treasured so much. The sign was much too high to pluck one pearl off it, and the mother didn't want to damage it with a spear.

Her children always fancied pearls, the way they glistened in the sunlight, and the uncannily smooth texture of them. They were fun to play with, until either Arti would have to use it to distract a lizard, or they'd lose it and the pearl would be swept away in the rain.

"Next time I see one I'll pick one up for you, but it's important to never steal, ok?" 

The child nodded, it was unknown whether half of the mother's information ever got through to them.

The family walked through The Wastes joyfully and carelessly. This hunt would be a nice time to bond, even if this region wasn't the safest place, the mother was glad her children thrived just as much as her in this unforgiving environment.

They still had to be careful of the many spears that were stuck in the ground though, a cut would definitely ruin the mood. Slugpups, for whatever reason, couldn't come back if they died.