Peak 18: Nin

"So... Where are we?" I ask Hrurim with as much of a whisper as I can make. My hat comes off and I slip the cloth mask I've had to make do with. Our eyes pass over Heiya and she hops out of the car, slamming the door shut with silent rage. My jaw tightens, my whisper clearly not enough. Too loud for ears as sensitive to sound as Heiya's...

I'm doubting she's even gone far enough to escape our continued whispers.

"This." Hrurim starts to speak, his usual habit of finding a cigarette not even coming about. He loses himself in his thoughts, and I turn to look out the window. A selfish mist covers my eyes and I try to keep my head clear of it.

Some lonely old house in as close as one can get to the wooded outdoors in this underground land. I suppose all this time this is what the pair have been looking for. The jobs they've been dragging me on. Prodding me along to help with. The way home is a hard walk, not one to be found without a guide of a carat shined making. 

It's a wreck, a carcass still bearing the marks of all the vicious teeth that tore it down. Nothing's made its home here, nothing squatting or large enough to scurry away. Bullet holes everywhere, the black marks of fuel-fed fires. The work of the mafia as they have come to be revealed in my time with these two. The mafia of Don Gamtambo.

I frown, looking back Hrurim's way as a noise squeaks out...

"It's Heiya's old home. Her first home. This is all that remains of her childhood. The innocent little girl that existed before Don Gamtambo's revenge," he explains and we get out of the car, making a more silent affair of it. The human lingers at my side, hands in his pockets. Nothing rattles and nothing shakes. He's as idle as a man can be.

"Looks like it's been ransacked." I remark, noting a change in the terrain that feels out of place compared to everything else that lingers here. Unlike the casings that still cover the road and peculiar subterranean grass with glowing edges... It's clear someone dared to step foot here again.

"H-Hrurim!" Heiya squeaks from the other side of the house. Me and the human share a glance as my mandibles nervously chitter away. I nod my head and the human goes to her without me. A thoughtful noise seals my mouth shut and I stroll up to the house proper. Delicate footsteps taking me all over the bullets and their devastation. 

I dare not to try and open the door in the way it's meant to be handled. Something divine or coincidental helps me through, blowing the creaking wood wide on an eerie wind. I step through, my feet finding the creak of floorboards and more of the surprise. Ivahstar might've made this home to be out of the way, but he certainly wanted to show off his money regardless.

A fortune of blood money to make a home fit for the love a father has for his own blood.

My legs carry me on, my head going all about the old mess. A mess that's as old as Heiya is, perhaps a little older. It's weird to look at. Something not that old and it looks as if it's an ancient ruin.

Though much of the place bears the marks of old blood, long dried and hardened. Deprived of all its magic and threatened with becoming clay... It still has the one thing that makes it a home. All the signs of love and support Heiya would've got had the fateful day never came.

Glass cracks underneath the shell of my feet and I approach a cabinet. One still rimmed in old bits of gold and decor. Whoever came here again to loot the place certainly didn't do a good job of it. No... They came for something else.

"They came back for the bodies...?" I ponder, staring down at the clear-cut marks of a corpse left to bleed out. A small child, by the looks of it. Though if it was a girl or a boy, I cannot tell. A stuffed animal like this is hardly a clear sign. The world has been surprisingly kind to some of its fur. 

That which isn't caked with blood, anyhow.

Picking myself back up, I look around some more and head on out to the back garden. An overgrown mess of an untended vegetable and fruit orchard. Beds of flowers that've long since outgrown their soil and decorative little arches. Panels that barely cling on themselves but have the ivy and vines to keep them there.

I go on ahead, finding the other two and slowly approach. Heiya whimpers, shaking in a way no comfort from Hrurim can ever calm. She turns my way, her eyes quaking in a way I've not seen her do in weeks. Whatever woman she was before Ivahstar's death, she's unable to pass on from it.

She might as well be a corpse with how dead her emotions are as of late. This alone is practically a divine intervention to prove there's still a person inside. A beating heart with warmth rushing in and out with every pulse. Her arm shakes, quivering on up so she can wave me close. I finish approaching and she surprises me.

Her small hand locks around my one of my claws. Her fur slips through the gaps in my carapace and my three-digited claw hand gently squeezes her hand. Pressing the paw on her palm against mine all the tighter. She pulls and I offer no resistance to find what it is she wants me to see. 

She stops, her other hand pointing ahead as she whimpers without end. I can't help but glare at the shovels spiking the dirt. Not all the bodies were buried, but enough seem to have been. All gone. All of them.

"I waaanted ta bury... Paps here. With Mam aaand the athers." she sniffles, her wish taken from her in such a way as to not be sorted. Her grip tightens, emboldened with the kind of strength only utter malice can bring. I frown as she snarls, her growl all the animalistic her kind looks.

"You will have to bury him in spirit, then, Heiya. You will have to rebury them all in spirit." I explain, unable to think of any way to put it nicer or with more empathy. It is simply what it is. We can do nothing but play with the hand we've been given. We can still win, we have to.

At this point, I've put too much effort into it.

"Came dawn..." Heiya begs, her body twisting around and clinging to me. I kneel and she surprises me with the strength to bring me all the way down. Her arms spread out, hugging me tight in a mixture of plate-breaking hate and fearful uncertainty. I return the gesture, holding her however I can as Hrurim continues his silent vigil.

"What's this about?" I ask, not sure why the usually cold girl is now holding me like this. Heiya moves back, a downright cruel viciousness all over her face.

"Yau pramised... Yau pramised ta taaake up Paps' vengeaaance. Yau will keep yaur ward!" she growls, growing ever louder as her body trembles with weakness. She collapses against me, crying with all the pain she's held in these past few months. Ever since her father gave his life to save hers. She's never going to stop beating herself up over it until... Neither of these two will.

I nod, pulling the small girl back. The wounded woman. Our eyes meet and she sniffles, her lips trembling in such a childlike manner. Such an endearing manner. A manner I've only come to accept, really.

"I will be with you until your Pops is avenged well and proper." I tell her, smiling as my nods pass into her. Her lips try to break out, soar high. But they can't get past the wavering sadness.

"Thaaank yau..." she tells me, whimpering some more as she comes back in for the hug. A song of long shushes finds its way to my mandibled mouth and I stroke a hand down her quills. Playing with them as I would any other lock of hair. I nod again and again. Her tears spreading across my clothes...

"That is my promise to you. To him. To Hrurim. To all of those I am not able to meet on this day." I speak, glancing at the two holy artefacts on my person. If they are watching, the Goddess of Mothers and the dead God of the Stars. They will be my witnesses to my future.

Don Gamtambo, I'm coming for you.