The Seven Revels

Wasteland

(Author's note: Okay guys, so holy shit this is really exciting for me. I've only got one more chapter planned for this story and then it'll be done! First novel I've ever fully written, start to finish. Thanks for sticking with it this far! Hopefully I'll have the final chapter written in the next couple of weeks. It'll be short (sorry) but I would like to put some more thought into it before I write it. Anyway, here's the new chapter. Please don't forget to rate and comment!)

Indigo was sitting on the floor beside the pilot's chair, where Garrett reclined, his feet propped up on the console. Indigo shuffled through the cards in her hand before selecting one and sliding it, face up, onto the console. Garrett glanced at it.

"When are you going to let me teach you how to play poker?" he asked her, swiping the card off the console and tucking it into his own stack of cards.

"When we have something other than crackers to bet," Indigo retaliated. "Kings?"

"Go fish," Garrett said with a chuckle. "But really? 'Go fish', again? Don't you know any other card games?"

"A couple. I'd suggest 'Speed' but you've got kind of an unfair advantage seeing as I only get one arm."

"Eh, bullshit," Garrett said, leaning further back in his chair. "It's been, what? Two months? I know for a fact that your shoulder is getting better."

"Yes, you're correct in saying that," Indigo told him. "However, my Nana said not to move it too much until I'm sure it's healed."

"But isn't exercising it a vital part of healing? Seven."

"Oh, seven. Damn, I knew I should have asked for sevens." She slid three cards across the dash. Garrett grabbed them and chuckled. "I'm working on it," she continued. "It's just... with 'Speed'... I mean... You gotta move fast... That's the whole objective of the game. I can't really move my shoulder very fast yet."

"But see, you don't have to be fast with poker. C'mon, just let me show you how to play."

"Believe it or not, I know how to play poker. I used to play it with my Nana back home all the time."

"So then why won't you play it with me?"

"Two's. Because I suck at it, that's why. Nana beat me out almost every game. And the games I did win, which were rare, mind you, I'm pretty sure she let me win."

"Aww, come on. I'm sure you're not that bad." He flicked a card down to her.

"Trust me. If you could ask anyone I know, they'd tell you. I suck at it."

Garrett groaned. "Fine. Threes?"

Indigo laughed. "Go fish."

That was how most of the time aboard the Nightjar was spent. Card games and story telling. There was no planning to do be done. Not for months. They told stories about their lives on Earth, their families and friends. Once they ran out of those stories, they started making new ones up. It became a sort of daily routine. They would all eat dinner together, then sit in the cockpit and swap stories, slowly petering out as they fell asleep, one by one. Indigo had spent more nights on the cockpit floor than she had in her bedroom. Eventually, Garrett and Psi helped her move some blankets into the room and set up a sort of carpet to make sleeping more comfortable.

It was one of the good things that had come out of everything.

The ship was set for autopilot. They'd flown at top speed for as long as they needed to, then shut off the MaxOva for fear of using up their fuel supply. They glided gently through space, feeling more at peace than they had since they'd left Earth. There had been no more announcements from the ISA. That didn't mean they weren't still searching for them. It might have meant that the ISA had no leads and weren't jumping ahead with no information to go off of. It did indicate to those aboard the Nightjar that they weren't the ISA's most pressing matter anymore.