Dormant

21

Sharing secrets with another world,
Rubbing shoulders with some unknown lover,
Making waves through the universe,
Staring wars with anonymous brothers,
Trip switch, Trip switch.
Make a wish and I'll count to three,
Press the button and we'll both be happy,
Sending signals is a dirty trick,
I get my love in a digital packet,
Trip switch, Trip Switch.

Nothing but Thieves, Trip Switch

21

"Damn, I need to take a break."

Fury glanced over her shoulder, partially surprised to find Zakee slipping his bag from his shoulders and throwing himself down onto the ground with a loud thump like a young child who was having a bad day and had given up. She paused, calling out to Carina, who was somewhere in front of her in the sea of grass, and cautiously approached him. Taking in his exhausted form as he hung his head and ran his hands through his short sandy colored hair, Fury asked him, "Zakee, are you alright? That's the fifth break you've taken in the past two hours."

Instead of responding, the large man grunted and only pressed his face even more into his palms.

Frowning, Fury ran her hands along the straps of her own backpack, checking to see if Carina had made it to them yet. She hadn't known the man long enough to comfort him and feel comfortable doing so. She knew some things about him; he liked working out, he was quite the gentleman, and he acted like a big, tough man when he was really a big softy. How many guys had she met like Zakee who spent the majority of his time with the children in Andrew's group, somehow managing to play tag and fitting himself into insanely small spaces during hide-and-seek for someone like him? She could probably count on her fingers. However, the Black Horsewoman had noticed how stressful that he had become the last few days. The majority of his injuries had began to heal -his black eye from the beating in the cave had managed to turn into a sickly light yellow in color and the cuts along his arms had scabbed over- but she could tell that his mental state had yet to recover. Loud noises frightened him still; one child had screeched once and he had straightened, hand dropping to the knife he always kept as he had whipped around to stare at the child in surprise. He wasn't sleeping; he was always on one of the watches at night, leaning against a building with a dull gaze. And he was always scratching at his bandaged chest as if it still bothered him.

When Fury had mentioned Zakee's current state to Shel, the other woman had just shrugged. "He's going through a lot right now," Shel had explained. "We lost plenty of good people on that battlefield, many that were his good friends. It's the anniversary of the death in his family, too. Just give him a break and try to take it easy on him. He'll be over it in a few days." While Fury secretly doubted that it was grief effecting Zakee like this, she made sure to always smile and make sure that he was doing okay when she saw him. The camp, though surprisingly large, made sure that they crossed paths a lot more than what she liked, truthfully.

The only reason why she was even out of the camp at the time was because Andrew had assigned her to scouting duty with Carina as leader, her, Zakee, and Anin as the back. His active role in the camp had shocked her at first; despite having several Commanders (as they called themselves), Andrew choose a job for everyone to do each week, even giving himself something to do. She had been disappointed when she hadn't been placed with him in the same scouting group. He had been rather flirtatious with her the other day, saying that her pale yellow eyes were beautiful to look at, and she had been hoping to spend more alone time with him. Besides from extremely handsome, which was definitely a plus, Fury was curious to how a human warlock could gain as much power as he had.

Glancing around to check to process of the others catching up or trailing back to them, Fury let her bag fall from her shoulders softly, rolling them back slightly to loosen her tight muscles. Andrew had suggested the bag before they had left; "Helps build muscles and plus you can take weapons and food if you stay out longer than expected." Fury had seen Carina and Zakee training one day and she seriously doubted that they could get cornered outside of camp. There wasn't even much around for them to get lost in with golden grass surrounding them. Just standing where she was, she could see easily for a mile about. The grass hardly reached her waist and, when she sat about an arm's distance away from Zakee, her head just barely stuck out. Zakee's shoulders were more than tall enough to clear the height of the grass even with his hunched appearance.