Her Burdens, Her Teachings

The next morning came slowly and she had awoken later than she usually has, just two hours after sunrise. Opening her eyes to the cave's ceiling she groggily turns her head to her right seeing Joshua in shadow. She could faintly hear soft gasps of breaths as she could see him clearly. Slowly sitting up in worry she could see how charred his forearms and parts of his lower body were. She covered her mouth noticing he was bare. She slowly and quietly lowers her head back down to the small cushion and hears the sound of bandages being peeled apart as he finishes bandaging his body. His paler skin at his shoulders and neck is what caught her gaze but once she saw his bandaged legs and bare bottom she closed her eyes to forgive herself for waking up late or perhaps early. Keeping silent for a few minutes she could hear a belt rattle so she opened her eyes back up and they quickly adjusted as she sat up.

"Good morning," he says suddenly to her surprise, he looked the same as yesterday. She sat up slowly, her warming blanket rolling down and her tank top, dry now, but the cave air was still chilly.

"Yeah…" she yawns for a moment and she climbs to a stand to stretch and readjust her pants. In habit, she rolls back up her blanket and eyes the bedroll. "Should I?" she looks up to him in confirmation as she grabs her coat and slips it over her shoulders.

"By all means yes it is yours. We will need it for the trip back." he vaguely says but she catches on quickly.

"Wait…" she says slowly and watches him walk to the entrance. He is silent to have her keep to her questions for later as for the important things are now on his time for the Dead Horses and Sorrows. "H-hey!" she sputters and quickly grabs her things packing up as fast as possible. Keeping her balance as she slips her last boot on she comes to the burning bright sun. Wincing she groans through her surprised excitement and holds her hands above her brow.

"Glad for you to join us. We are heading north now to the Sorrows camp. We will be using the water to keep from natural dangers. It will take some hours and get us there by the evening." he informs her as a line of tribals follows along ahead of them. She notices some injured that could still walk and she seems concerned.

"Was there a battle recently? Is that why you are returning to New Canaan?" she asks curiously.

"Yes, a rival tribe by the name of White Legs tried to obtain a rite of passage to join the Legion in return for attempting to wipe us out. Completely."

"Glad you all survived." she smiles, eyeing the rippling water while passing some fish from time to time.

"We had help of course. Seemed he, a courier, was in a rush to leave but needed me and Daniel to find a way out and he had it ended within a few days. I am surprised you found the other path here. The southern one…" he mentions low keeping pace at her left side as they come onto dry land now walking along the water's edge.

She nods in her understanding of what he tells her. Gripping a hand to the satchel strap to her chest she rests her hands there as she quietly hums.

"Was there anything else you wanted to know?" he asks, feeling that she was bored.

"No, my mother believed you were real...I didn't, well hardly. I heard the history of you from an old ranger and I am certainly confused about it. You have changed...I would expect you to be...more gruesome and cruel enough to shoot me on the spot when seeing my helmet." she says worriedly being completely honest.

"I have changed...baptized twice and it took the flames to make me humble as God intended yet made to be the wrath of God's work," he says with a humbled low voice. She eyes him for a second only to look back to the front of her with admiration filling her thoughts, mostly for his change and of his survivability.

"So...you were brutal and cruel like all Legion...I hope she is still alive. I need to know…"

"I was, shamefully so." He pauses for a moment to take a quick thought to who she refers to and asks to confirm the context. "Your mother?"

"Yes, she had been gone for two years. Longer than any of her trader jobs. She had left a note that I had ruined with a drink. I doubt she actually took a job and went looking for you to help find my father. Since you know of their tactics and some of their bases." she hesitates, feeling that he did not know of their bases and that her mother perhaps needed his fighting skills like she, herself, does now.

"I know of their ways, yes but not their camps for four years. Caesar knows I am alive and has been sending frumentarii and assassins after me. It is something he won't openly admit and forbid that I, be mentioned in his walls and ranks." he says freely.

"What made you agree with coming with me?" she asks and hears a deep breath come from him.

"Your determination. Proving you understand some of God's teachings compared to the other people of the Mojave. You are wiser than you make out to be. I want to know more of what you see in the world. Broaden my mind." he admits and crosses his hands and arms behind his lower back for a moment and shoots a small glance to the corner of his right eye to her. She swore she could see a smile under his wrapping but she looked away, keeping her hands to her brow. "Besides I am sure the tribes can handle themselves now. Free of worry when turning their backs to the west. I will return home, in time."

Respecting his choice she was glad for it, having a slight smile to her dry lips she combs her hair behind each of her ears with her warm fingers. Lowering her right hand to her satchel she grabs out a bottle of water and twists it open to sip from it. She looks to Joshua and raises the bottle to him waiting for him to deny it or accept it. As she just about lowered it, she could feel his hand reaching to its bottom to take it. She keeps her eyes ahead only seeing a glimpse in her peripheral vision of him pulling down one band under his bottom reddened lip. Looking back ahead of her and after a split second he nudges her for her attention and she takes the bottle back. Slipping it away she seems glad for the silent company and the soft sounds of the water on their walk. At one time she saw black smoke from burning fires to the southwest from the blackened color she guessed it could have been bodies or of material or perhaps both she looked away to not think about it more than needed.

After some hours the sun sits high in the sky then comes to the evening where it then cools down. Guzzling down the one bottle she could faintly hear a waterfall as they approached through a watery pathway and to an open way of a path leading up a slope to and around the cavern of the canyon. It was a gathering of multiple tunnels for housing or secrets and some branches of tents and half made homes. This was the Sorrows Camp and she loved it from the great view above to the sky, to the standing torches and two roaring waterfalls she could hear and see just by standing along the linked cliffs.

"This is something…" she smiles in awe and glances around.

"Go on. Make yourself at home. I will be telling everyone it is time to return home and by tomorrow morning we will be on our way to the Mojave as they return to Dead Horse Point. For the Sorrows, they will be here for the time being. I will see you again soon." he walks away along the upper pathway up the ridges along the canyon cavern.

She stands for a moment to herself and crosses her fingers and clicks them at their joints. Seeing him head up and out of her view, she opens her bag and begins eating. As she does she walks about as well then seeing another man passing just by the first waterfall. He comes close to knocking into her in his distress to reading his Bible.

He looks up abruptly, "Oh pardon me...wait, you are? Another visitor..." he seems unsurprised and sighs frustratingly.

"Susan...is everything okay with you? I am sorry if I am a new face for you but I am in need of help from Joshua," she says crossing her arms feeling uncomfortable but defensive if he is to grow rude.

"In need of him to take another life that doesn't deserve death. I am sure you will be seeing the old him real soon," he warns her.

"Look if you have something bothering you about him tell me because I will be traveling with him soon," she says low and curious as to why he feels so bad about Joshua.

"He relied and will rely on violence to solve problems. He has already tainted the innocence of the Sorrows with this ended battle with the White Legs. Now I am not sure how much influence I have over them...I-" he sighs deeply. "Failed them. Peace should never bring about war. Now they may never be innocent of bloodshed and shall live with sin and blood on their hands."

"We are born into sin, Daniel. There is no doubt about it...but how are you to spread the word by their mouths too if they are to be killed without learning to defend their own? I believe you mean well but the world changes and history will eventually repeat itself as long as there is sin. The most logical thing is to see your teachings evolve and stay as God's love for them. Trust me I have done the reading and learned much of the world through learning and researching. My mother had faith in a greater being and she so happened to run across a Bible to confirm her faith." she says confidently and the face of Daniel becomes molded to surprise.

"Yet there is no mercy in this world, just war, and massacre...I will be damned if I can not spread the teachings of such." he quickly says, coming up with more to say of such pain. She holds a hand to his shoulder for a moment as his other hand closes the Bible.

"There is...you must look hard and wide. If sin exists then it shall too. Like light and dark, both can not live without the other. It is how the world intends and I am sure it is what God intends. Now I will just go fill up my empty bottles and wash the sweat from my skin. I would let you know whatever you have been through, let Him hold the weight from your prayers. You can only hold on for so long before you need to let go. Trust me, you will be forgiven for whatever you have done. You must learn to forgive yourself first. It lessens the weight." she says kindly feeling her mind broaden with her own words. Daniel stands quiet for a moment seeming to be enlightened and in deep thought; he walks away from her and she looks back to him now away from the water paths and up to the ridges. Not to both of their knowledge, Joshua had overheard them from above on a ridge as he had gathered Follows-Chalk and Waking Cloud to discuss the remains of loved ones for burial or enemies that needed burning. Overhearing Susan's voice left him in another moment of surprise of her words. He never heard of a Mojave wastelander know so much of the word of God and yet seem as though she had true faith only to have the wisdom.

She continues onto the waterfall and raises up her two empty bottles and fills it up with the fresh pure water. Capping them now she wanders about the waterways and gathers the courage to walk up to the higher levels past caves and to a campfire to the center-wide natural stone pillar. It was linked by rope bridges that had shown to be more steady than at the beginning of Zion. Looking at a low fire she stoked it and added more wood that had been near it. For a few moments to herself, she lays to her bedroll she had rolled with her blanket and comfortably sits to it and leans against a rock just before the sunsets. Opening her book to clear her boredom she reads over it not before long she is laughing and then a bit saddened as she comes close to its end. Hearing some rocks shift under footsteps she looks up past the top of her book.

"I see you have gotten comfortable here," Joshua says low and sits to a rock opposite of her. His eyes reflecting the flame of the fire have hers look to them closely. There were still a few things she wanted to understand. She wanted to understand his downfall and what had led to it but she kept to the now.

"Yeah, just reading a bit. Almost done…" She smiles softly and the smile slowly fades into the silence between them. Her attention fully into her book she had blocked out everything from the sound of the fire to crickets. Joshua had kept to himself at times but as of now, he would find himself looking at her. The right side of her face lit by the fire grew brighter as she smiled. Her smile, it could erase the thought of all things cruel, all things that could bother someone. He glanced away and eyed his grey and white snakeskin boots as he interlocks his fingers under his nose as his elbows pressed to his knees as he kept silent waiting for her to speak again.

Finishing her book, she closes it and sighs, "That was good…" she lightly hugs the book and smiles widely and chuckles. She then looks to Joshua and is surprised he stayed. Seeing her reaction, a soft kind smile forms under his bandages then slowly fades.

"It's not something I enjoy talking about, but I am sure you are interested and have earned it in return for telling me of yourself. To be an efficient team we should know our stories. Yet, I get the feeling something is bothering you deep inside. We all do…" he mentions knowing that his history was known but all humans, as they are curious, would come asking but he hoped and prayed that anyone would learn from it, from him.

"You don't have to but I need to unload some things off my chest. Heh, like a confession." She smiles and laughs a bit as she sets her book aside. Her smile vanishes more as she thinks of her guilty feeling. "But...there has been guilt in me. Eating at me, I just think it was laziness or confidence in my family. The first year my mother had left I felt something was off. I ignored it and kept to my work in fixing up a damn relic. I should have seen the signs, five years back my father ends up MIA after the battle of the dam. It seemed off and it had affected her more than me. Perhaps I just kept my mind busy as usual. For the first two years of his disappearance, she had stayed home and never got out much. I had been left to do odd jobs and that led me to that deathclaw." she pauses looking to his eyes as he looks back. She feels a warmth grow, from the fire or just her she did not know and continued on. "You saved me and I was sent home by the doctor and was glad I made it safely. My rifle was useful but the pain of having it pressed against my shoulder and moving them was unbearable. I ended up getting home and seeing her for a good solid few weeks and she ended up taking a job. I knew it was abnormal but I guessed she had to due to my injuries. After I healed I focused harder on the motorcycle and took some NCR jobs for money, parts, supplies, you name it. Anything to keep Primm safe from Gangers and such…" she finishes, with a relieving sigh she looks up from the fire to him. With night greeting them and having her eyes shine brighter than the fire she keeps his gaze as if waiting to be judged, spoken to, or lectured to.

"We all go through dark times, you did your best and not all people have a natural feeling something is wrong. To react to them is of your choice and yours is that you put faith in your mother knowing she is a survivor. If in fact, your parents are dead they are in God's hands, I'm sure. If they have known and come to accept God as their savior, that is." he says low clearly not mentioning the worse but knew she would understand his attempt to bring her comfort. "Just know you are not alone. I too have suffered much for my sins. Now I am walking proof, a walking justice reshaped by God's hand."

Having a moment to herself she lays back gripping her coat to cover her face as she cries. To her, she thought she was tougher and less emotional compared to others but this trip proved her damn wrong.

"Look...just talk about you now...please get my mind off things…I want to know anyway," she says loudly through her muffled tone from her coat.

"Of course, anything to help a friend in need." he sighs deeply before he continues. "Where shall I start...ah yes. I was born in Ogden, now known as New Canaan, correction, was known as. I had traveled to spread the word of God and had met two men belonging to the Followers of the Apocalypse. Their names were Edward Sallow and Bill Calhoun. Their mission was to teach the tribes the many things of the old world. We had hiked into the Grand Canyon to talk to Blackfoots. They had seemed to be friendly at first but at a time I must have mistranslated because they decided we weren't going to leave. To their surprise, they had lost many numbers and had decided to follow what I had translated for Edward. That had led me down the path to hell. He needed me to translate. Translation came to giving orders and then it led to leading battles. Then on to training, punishing for ignorance and terrorizing lands. As to your knowledge, the once tribe of Blackfoots had been consumed by Edw- Caesar thus becoming Legion. Then on it had converted the innocence of many tribes and molding them to the ways of the Legion. Growing and growing into what it is today. All this led to Hoover Dam and thus leading to my great fall. I was blinded in the darkness of sin before I was burned alive. I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me."

"The fire of vengeance, redemption," she says now sitting up and sliding her bundled up coat from her face. She understood, not from her own experience but just from listening. The loyalty he had shown to Edward was all for nothing; no friendship existed there just darkness in a consuming pattern. Joshua kept her gaze; he felt a connection, not often had he met someone who understood, who seemed to care and see right through him, that was unknown to him till now.

"Vengeance, redemption of my sins. With that fall the flame burned on and on. It had taken three months for me to reach home, New Canaan. It was as though the prodigal son had returned home to them. I was welcomed and they had acted as if I had never left, never done anything to shame them. Their flame of love kept me moving, surviving. Their love. God's love. For that, I have a debt that can never be repaid, but I will try. However that I may come to repay it I will do everything in my power, my strength. For now, we have eliminated a threat to them. A courier helped us and has shown me to protect what is important, show kindness to those who are deemed innocent, and to kill those in an honorable fight who show to do harm. To not revel in the brutality and cruelty of my former life. For the clearing of White Legs that payment shall have to do for now till I return. To help a fellow follower such as yourself." he says lastly before sliding down the rock to sit against it.

She keeps a blank face as she turns her head away from him; she arches back then leans forward getting up and putting down her coat and blanket to the bedroll. Now she stands to the edge by herself to go over the things she has learned. Her eyes looking to her left to the waterfall and then to the one waterfall further down to her left. She softly sighs and she rolls her shoulders. The thin fabric of her tank top brushes against her clean pale scars. She turns back around to him still sitting to the fire. Their eyes stay in a silent dance of the fire. Looking away she hurries around and back across the bridge and down the pathway to the water. Wanting to wash her face of the tears and some dirt she bows her head into the rushing water having her black hair rush past her cheeks. Gazing down the parting of water and the rippling water to her bare feet she enjoys the echoing water along the wall just behind it. She suddenly jerks her head up, thinking she had heard her name. Having jerked up, the water suddenly makes her gasp to the sudden chill and she walks backward away from the water her back soaked. She huffs irritatedly and looks around and up along the ledges. She saw no one was around and then looking to her left she sees David approaching her hesitantly.

"I-I wanted to say thank you for giving me spiritual help. Since my bishop has been killed in New Canaan I have felt a bit lost. You are right I need to forgive myself and move on from my mistakes. I have something for you to use for your journey." he says low lifting up a pair of sunglasses. She smiles widely and with relief.

"How did you know I needed a pair?" she chuckles holding her hands out to them and glances to the lens and lightly clears the lens with her cotton shirt.

"The headache you seemed to have caused by the sun when you arrived. It usually is shown by slight squinting of the eyes and of course, you having your hands lifted above your brow...and...wow," he says low just now seeing her eyes glow in the night.

"Hum?" she slips one of the temples of the glasses to her shirt and has it hang at the collar of her shirt for the time being.

"Your eyes. Never seen something like that before. I have medical experience if you are having pro-"

"Oh no! Hah, I am fine really it is just a childhood injury, well exposure to radiation in water." she chuckles a bit embarrassed by such and somewhat is ashamed of her eyes and she lowers her gaze from him.

"No hey, they are beautiful, unique I didn't mean anything about fixing them. Well, what I meant...damn it." he sputters and reaches a hand behind his neck in frustration of his words, he plainly stops.

"Hey, it is alright kind of flattering that you lost your words, Daniel. I am fine with them, really, just never get any comments on them. Glad for it but thanks. I am sure the best thing about them is that I can see in the dark and they make me a pretty good damn sniper." she chuckles smiling happily and pats his arm. She felt nervous a moment, feeling her heart quicken.

Something was in between the lines and she pretended as if it was nothing. He kept his dark blue eyes to hers keeping her laugh to his ears. Both of their faces were red and it had been a while since she had gotten a compliment and it felt good to hear.

"Susan…" he says low as if she would walk away but she wanted to stay.

"What is it?" she asks, being calm yet focused on his face, he was indeed attractive, young like her. Flashes of thoughts came across her mind but she knew he was a religious man and did not want to even think of such things.

"I am thankful you came to visit here. I wish you luck on your journey and hope you find what you are looking for." he kindly says low she listens patiently and figured she would tend to make a move. A one night stand was good for anyone to her mind.

She believed in love but this was just water to calm her lustful flame that had been burning for a couple of years of problems and dangers. This was just a moment to have herself to forget even for one night with a stranger and not a potential prostitute with a disease or a drug problem on the Strip but a thoughtful man.

At the moment she leans to kiss him and shifts a hand to the back of his neck his hat falls off with the pressure of the falling water as she pushes them into the wall behind the waterfall.

"Daniel, I am sorry. It has just been years and... I just need to forget even if… I can stop." she says with a heavied breath as he shakes off his .45 submachine gun from his right shoulder and to the partially soaked ground.

"No, we both want to forget. I care for you of course but...I understand as strangers as we are to each other." he says low now reaching to her chilled neck with his warm lips.

"Shhh...Daniel please." she laughs a bit leaning her head away to have him kiss her neck. Their warm breaths form small clouds form behind the masking cold waterfall for the night, it becomes heated and lustful.

Between two struggling souls they agree to forget of this and bid each a good night. Late into the night, her lightly soaked clothing now on her body, she turns back to Daniel walking through the waterway she calls out.

"Wait," she said softly but loud enough where he heard her as he slipped his hat back to his head. He turns around lifting a hand in a pause.

"Don't...It is nice to see I am not alone in wisdom. Hope to meet again, perhaps not. Again, thank you, Goldeneye." he says, unintentionally referring to her alias, smiling kindly now and relieved to have learned something he had forgotten from the scripture or perhaps still needed to learn, whatever it was he changed inside.

Watching him walk away she blinks once and combs back her bangs to behind one of her ears. She smiles wholeheartedly and walks back barefoot through the water and up the ledge where she had set up camp. Now laying to the bedroll flat to her back she crosses her feet and crosses her arms across her chest with a goofy gleeful smile on her face. It was silent and peaceful that night and she had not noticed Joshua was gone from the spot across from her. Looking over to the spot she seems alone now and her smile fades, something of guilt comes to mind to what she had led Daniel to do. A man of God. She soon goes to sleep and dreams of something of darkness.