Work Text:
At some point, some long time ago, the night had been normal. Another successful job, another night spent in a smoke-filled bar in Echo City.
Now everything’s gone to shit.
The night returns to Ephraim in fragments as he gains his bearings. The first thing he notices is the sheets, which are cold, dry, and reek of disinfectant. At the telltale beeping of a heart monitor, his eyes snap open.
There is an IV drip in his arm. Blood. A transfusion.
There it is—vague, slipping back into his head. Leaving the bar halfway between drunk and shitfaced. Not noticing the two shadows detach themselves from a darkened side street. They wanted something. Money. Drugs. An excuse for cathartic violence, who knows. The skin on Ephraim’s stomach pricks, remembering how the knives glinted in the dim light. A thin layer of resFlesh seals the wounds.
Next, he notices that he is not alone. In this cramped, curtained-off section of the hospital, two pairs of lungs breathe the stale air. Ephraim blinks a few times, adjusting to the harsh fluorescents, and tilts his head to the side.
“You are awake,” a voice rumbles. Its owner is a gory sight . She’s small—for an Obsidian. Sitting hunched over herself in a plastic chair made for smaller, thinner Mid-Colors. Skin pale and glacial, long limbs, sloping facial features—not weathered down from the Ice. Knotted white hair hangs over one large, muscled shoulder in an attempt at a ponytail.
Ephraim steadies himself up on his elbows. His body still reels from the shock of it all. How long has he been here? And more importantly, “Who are you?”
“My name is Volga Fjorgan.”
As if that’s supposed to ring any bells. Is it? Ephraim can count the number of Obsidians he knows on one hand. None of them are this young. She looks twentyish; baby-faced (as much as an Obsidian can have a baby-face).
“I found you,” She makes an obtuse gesture, “you were bleeding, so I took you here.”
“What is this about? You want something from me?”
She looks personally offended. Eyebrows drawing together, confused and hurt. She shakes her head insistently, “No. You were dying . . .”
“Good,” Ephraim snaps before he can filter it out. He sighs—the movement stretching the resFlesh, making it itch more—and leans back on the pillow. A dark stain lingers in the corner of one of the ceiling panels. Volga’s seat creaks as she gets up. Her footsteps linger near the cot. Ephraim rolls his head over to look at her, standing over him like some massive, sad puppy.
“I only wanted to help you. I am sorry if you did not want that,” She says, big dark eyes drifting off to the side. She swings her hands, having said her peace, yet something lingers on her face. Guilt? As she turns to leave, Ephraim notices a square of colored fabric sewn haphazardly into the back of her shirt. Her whole outfit is worn out and thrown together. Pants frayed at the cuffs, sweat stains ringing her underarms, holes in the hem of her shirt. Her boots barely hold on to her feet, a few sizes too small and falling apart. One of them has old duct tape wrapped around the toe, barely holding it together.
She isn’t working for anyone. She isn’t a Syndicate spook. Poor girl probably works manual labor for scraps. The Obsidians are free on paper, but the Republic has yet to deliver on the ‘human rights’ and ‘bright future’ fronts.
“Wait.” Again, no filter. Ephraim shudders up into a sitting position. “How can I repay you? You saved my life, I shouldn't have . . . look, what can I get you in return?”
Volga stops in the doorway, hand on the frame. The heart monitor continues to beep, beep, beep . The sound is high and grating and getting on Ephraim’s nerves fast .
“I do not know,” She admits finally.
“You don’t know?” Ephraim should have kept his mouth shut. The more he talks to this girl the more he realizes that’s what she is. A girl. Lost, lonely, with a heart too kind for this side of Earth.
She shrugs, suddenly fascinated with the floor tiles. “I do not get things. People do not offer me things.”
Alright, slag this . Something about her piteously sad eyes and the fact she’s clearly in the midst of (and well acquainted with) poverty, tugs Ephraim's heart to the side.
“You want a job?”
Volga blinks, finally glancing up to meet Ephraim’s eyes. Even he doesn’t really know why he said it.
“What kind of job?” She asks. Not a no . He could use the extra muscle anyway.
“You’ll like it. Come on . . .” He trails off. No pockets in the hospital smock. The short table at his side has his cracked datapad, a hospital bill, a handful of crumpled receipts. No keys. No Z. No wallet.
She watches him like she knows what he’s thinking,” I do not have a car.”
“I can work with that. I’ve got a . . . friend, he’ll hook me up. Us up. You in?” Chances are, he won’t hook Ephraim up. Not after Ephraim had to ditch the last rental car in a job gone bad. Ditching via fire. It wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last, which he’s betting on the car dealer not knowing. Maybe he has a short memory.
“Yes,” Volga says after a beat. “I am in.”
When Ephraim offered Volga a job, it wasn’t an outright lie. He could get her one. But he didn’t have a job waiting for him. It turns out he didn’t need a job waiting for him because once Volga found out Ephraim lives on Luna, she wouldn’t stop talking about it. She’s been living on Earth her whole life and always imagined one day leaving for Luna. From Ephriam’s experience, Obsidians don’t gush about anything. This one does. She doesn’t talk much, but when she does, it’s about all the great things she’s heard about Luna. Ephraim doesn’t have the heart to tell her it isn’t that great.
Back to Luna it is.
On the ride in, Volga had her face pressed to the glass, staring out into space. Ephraim was cycling through his connections to get them some work. A little too late into planning everything out did he remember that Volga doesn’t know the first thing about freelancing. Which is why, once they touched down on Luna, Ephraim gathered up his things and took her out into the middle of nowhere to get some basic weapons training in.
Nights on Luna are rarely ever dark. For one, there’s the massive city infrastructure, stretching high to the moon’s atmosphere. It’s always lit up in some capacity. The more obvious light pollution comes from Earth. If you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, the whole planet bores down on you with all its light and life. Like now, in the middle of an open patch of desert. The glow of Earth reflects off the hood of Ephraim’s beat-up car.
“Like this?”
“No, you—“ Ephraim takes the plasma pistol from her, flipping it over and disengaging the safety with a clack . “Like this,” He amends, demonstrating. Volga tracks his every movement, trying to take in as much information as possible. She’s cleaned up since leaving Earth. Fresh clothes and shoes, courtesy of Ephraim, and a half-decent haircut, courtesy of herself (which entailed washing her hair and shaving the sides off). Most importantly, since leaving Luna, she carries herself like an Obsidian might. Doesn’t slouch around like she’s apologizing for her size anymore.
Volga accepts the gun gingerly from him, minding the trigger. She positions herself perfectly, mirroring the way Ephraim showed her, and peers down the iron sights.
The breeze whips hair into her face, obscuring her vision for a second. The shot goes wide, whizzing into the night. Volga’s grip slacks on the plasma rifle and she slumps her shoulders. “I am not good at this,” she mumbles.
“Sure you are, you just need practice,” Ephraim insists. Volga still looks unconvinced. He comes around to her side, moving her hands to the correct positions on the rifle. Her thick fingers swallow the handle. “Like this,” he instructs, hands over hers.
“This is awkward,” she complains, shifting her grip, Ephraim stops her.
“Shooting shit isn’t going to be comfortable,” he tells her. “Now, like this.” Guiding her hands, Ephraim charges up the pulse rifle, energy building in a volatile sphere at the muzzle. Once he’s sure Volga has a hold on it, he drops his hands and steps back.
Volga chews her lip in furious concentration. The orb grows, crackling until it bursts forward with a shriek. The shot tears the limb from a distant cactus.
Ephraim claps. He never thought he’d see the day where he’s teaching an Obsidian how to shoot a gun.
In her jubilation, Volga drops the rifle. It discharges a flash of superheated energy into the sky. She yelps, hands protectively over the back of her neck and head.
Ephraim chuckles. “There’s no actual bullet, it won’t come down to hurt you. The energy dissipates into the atmosphere. It’s shitty for the environment, and you might kill a few birds, but it won’t kill you.”
“Birds?” Volga asks, eyes wide. She untangles herself to look up. Hands twitching at her sides as she searches for her avian victims.
“Well, yeah, but,” Ephraim chooses his words carefully, noting the horror on Volga’s face, “we’re in the middle of nowhere. If there were any birds around, they’re long gone by now. Don’t worry about it.”
She nods, reluctantly tearing her gaze from the sky. She bends to scoop the rifle off the ground, fingers pausing over the controls until she remembers and reengages the safety. In a few swift, fluid movements, she slides the plasma cartridge out of the gun. She’s learning fast. It’ll take more time to get her familiar with handling weapons, but she has the technical stuff down. Volga’s smart, but it won’t hurt at all to have the extra muscle—and immediate street cred with having an Obsidian at his side.
Volga pauses in the doorway, head ducked to fit in the tiny frame. She frowns.
“What?” Ephraim asks. “You want permission? Yes, you can go home now. Get some sleep, too, you look exhausted.”
“I do not . . . have one yet.” She admits, eyes locked on the scuffed carpet.
Of course she doesn’t . Ephraim should have seen this coming. He dragged her from Earth to Luna—she barely had the clothes on her back then—and dropped her in an entirely different ecosystem. He’d forgotten about her housing during the job. They slept out of motels and bounced around from place to place to keep a low profile. Now she needs a life.
He sighs, waving her back inside. “You can sleep on my couch tonight.” Her eyes widen. “But tomorrow take your share and get an apartment or something. I’m not going to babysit you all the time.”
Volga dips her head in thanks, and to fit under the doorframe. Ephraim heads to his bedroom to grab her a blanket. She may be an Obsidian, but she’s not from the Ice, and Ephraim’s heating and A/C is nothing if not unreliable and shoddy. When he comes back, she’s still standing by the door—now closed—looking incredibly out of place. She apologizes as Ephraim drops the blanket on the couch.
“What? What the hell are you sorry for?”
She shuffles her feet, twists her hands. “I am intruding in your home . . . I should go.”
“What? You think you’re a burden for sleeping on the couch ?” She nods. Ephraim lets out a sigh, “It’s just the couch. And it’s one night. Stop looking so bloody sorry for yourself all the time, you’re an Obsidian . Your ancestors nearly tore down Gold a handful of centuries ago.”
Volga perks up at this. She takes a step forward, hesitance waning. “What?”
Ephraim shrugs, gliding to the cramped kitchenette. “Stop looming in the doorway like a sad ghost and I’ll tell you.”
This breaks her from her stupor. Volga detaches from the door and comes around the other side of the kitchenette, ignoring the drink Ephraim offers her. She’s all ears, eyes intent on his face, brow creased slightly, awaiting a grand story. Ephraim hops up on the countertop, throws back some whiskey, and begins to tell the tale of the Dark Revolt to a captivated audience of one.
“Can I . . . tell you something?” Volga mumbles, watching the condensation drip off her glass. She tries connecting the droplets with her thumb. This is—what?—her sixth drink? She leans on the table, eyes lidded, voice thick.
“You don’t need to ask to speak to me,” Ephraim sneers from across the booth. Another good job, another payday, another celebration. The others were let off the hook. Ephraim and Volga decided to hit the usual bar as a reward for a heist well executed. At this time of day, the place is nearly empty. It’s all dust particles in sunbeams, the humming of a recycler, distant voices from the street, and the lazy twirl of a ceiling fan.
Volga nods. This time she doesn’t apologize, so there’s some progress. “I was made in a laboratory,” she starts.
“You told me that much. Golds didn’t like you so they threw you out.”
She frowns at the slick glass, “Yes. And I have been thinking, the creatures the Golds make, they are like me in that way. The manticore . . .”
Ephraim sighs. The Violet schmuck they robbed nearly blind had a few beasties in his flat. Volga wanted to release them. Ephraim had to remind her (and physically stop her several times) not to do exactly that. She’s still sore about it, and—thanks to the alcohol—vocal about her dissent.
“It just looked so sad,” she continues. “I think I want to make a place, like a rehabilitation center, for the animals. I’m like them—“
“You aren’t a beast,” Ephraim snaps, faster and harsher than he expected. He’s reminded of those No Crows Allowed signs outside of shops, depicting Obsidians as brutish monsters. It had never bothered him until now.
“I . . . I know that. But I still would like to help those animals,” She trails off, staring wistfully into the melting ice. “They are creatures, they do not know better. People think they can keep them in cages and hurt them and make them fight each other because they cannot say no.” As she rambles, her fingers curl into a fist. She could be talking about Carved monsters or Obsidians.
The celebratory high is beginning to fade away. Ephraim slumps into his drink. “You do that. I’ll come visit sometime to make sure they don’t eat you.”
This pulls a hazy smile from Volga. Content with the conversation, she leans back on the cracked leather and brings the glass to her lips.
Alarms blare, lights flash, Ephraim’s lungs burn. A pack of lurchers tear around the corner, getting closer. No one said anything about weight sensors . Ephraim is in deep shit. Deeper shit than usual.
A scorcher shot singes past his shoulder and he ducks down to the side. The open window at the end of the hall. His ticket out. Fresh night air blows in, stirring the sheer curtains that likely cost more than any salary he’s ever worked for.
The door on his right bursts open. A barrel-chested, bloodthirsty Obsidian lunges out. Ephraim stumbles out of the way, slipping into a side room. He kicks the door shut and locks it, legs shaking, unable to catch his breath. The room is a cluttered study, filled with books, scattered with papers, and inhabited by an utterly horrified Silver. She leaps to her feet, spectacles slipping down her nose, making her eyes look bulbous and wet.
The study has one door. The door the Obsidian is now beating on. Ephraim’s only way out is through the Silver. If he can leverage her . . . His eyes drift, searching for something to pull him out of this mess. He stops on the window.
The ship should be close by.
It’s not that far of a jump.
The door groans, bending inward, hinges barely holding.
Before he can talk himself out of it, Ephraim flings the window open. Behind him, the door splits with a scream. The Silver makes a similar noise. Wind hits Ephraim’s face. The ground below is hidden beneath a haze of clouds. He almost forgot how tall this building is.
Off to the side, the cruiser idles patiently, cargo deck open. His crew spots him hanging out the window. They shout at him, voices drowned out downwind. The door gives. Before the Obsidian and lurchers can make meat of him, Ephraim jumps.
For a moment, the only sound is the wind howling past his ears, the feeling of momentary weightlessness. Then he smacks against the hard metal grating of the cargo hold. Momentum keeps him rolling inside until he hits the far wall. The doors yawn closed. Something is definitely broken. Pain is all he feels. Pain and the weight of his exhausted limbs.
Volga’s worried face appears upside down over him. Lips pursed in a frown. “Are you hurt?” She asks, a strand of long, white hair hanging in front of her forehead. Ephraim shakes his head, ignoring the bruising on his . . . everywhere. He props himself up on his elbows, grinding his teeth at the pain, trying not to imagine how much worse this would be without zoladone.
“Right. That was a disaster,” Dano mutters, exhaling through his teeth. An apple-sized bruise interrupts his right cheek, edges dotted with blood.
“Could have gone . . . worse,” Ephraim wheezes. Mustering a grin, he produces the artifact from his jacket. Dano’s eyebrows shoot up. Volga’s eyes lock on it.
“It’s intact?” Cyra asks, reaching for it. Ephraim clumsily shoves it into her hands, where she searches the thing obsessively for any sign of damage, turning it over in her shaking, manicured fingers.
Volga helps Ephraim sit up, moving slowly and carefully, as if he’s made of glass. He would shove her off and snap something about being able to take care of himself just fine, but he’s beat. Ephraim allows Volga to awkwardly check him for injuries.
“Undamaged . . .” Cyra mutters, half to herself, staring at the artifact in shock.
Dano claps Ephraim on the back, “You’re a mad bloody genius!” Ephraim tries not to outwardly wince at the pain.
“Good job,” Volga says from behind Ephraim, “we were worried about you.”
Dano snorts. “ You were.” Then to Ephraim, “Ever seen a Crow fret? She was all twisting her hands and sweating over the thought of her nanny not coming back in one piece.” He raises his voice in a mocking tone. Volga dips her head in shame.
Ephraim ignores the ‘nanny’ comment and brushes himself off, standing though his legs protest. Jove on high, his knees hurt. Zoladone can’t even block that ache, it’s marrow-deep. “At least I didn’t leave empty-handed,” He reminds them, catching an eye-roll from Cyra. “Next time you can’t turn tail at the first sign of danger.”
Only Volga manages to look apologetic. Dano snorts, saying something about ‘blindly leaping out of windows’ not being in the job description.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?” Volga asks. Dano and the Pink spy got their share and took off, so why hasn’t Volga taken the hint and left already ?
“Thanks for asking! No. Now leave me alone. Don’t you have—I don’t know—anything better to do?” Ephraim snaps, at the end of his chain. This day has been long enough already.
“Not exactly,” Volga says, stubbornly sitting down on his couch. Ephraim sighs.
“What do you want?”
“Why are you mad at me?”
“I’m not— I’m not mad at you . I’m just pissed about what you did.”
She tilts her head. “How is that different?”
Ephraim throws his hands, really not in the mood to explain himself. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t—“ He sighs again, more forcefully. “You don’t need to protect me. I had everything under control, you didn’t need to step in.”
Volga blinks. Her jaw works, about to speak, but she reconsiders. Her silence is unsettling in contrast with his outward frustration.
“Say something ,” Ephraim scowls.
“I . . . “ she pauses to think, “do not think you are incapable of protecting yourself. But you need people to look out for you some of the time.”
“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You can be reckless with your life,” She looks confused, “I wonder sometimes if you want to die, with the things you do.”
Ephraim barks out a laugh. Volga jumps.
“You don’t know me,” He says, bitter and calloused.
“I would like to,” Volga admits. She takes Ephraim’s stunned silence as a cue to continue. “You helped me, and you trained me, and you got me off of Earth,” she knots her hands in her lap. “You seem very sad. You seem like someone who has lost things.”
Ephraim opens his mouth to shoot back some biting remark, but it dies in his throat. Volga doesn’t deserve his misplaced frustration. This isn’t about her. He shouldn’t have been so rough with her. All she wants to do is help and he’s walking all over her. Doesn’t make him any less pissed, but it blankets his anger momentarily.
“I’m sorry.” Volga looks at him, blinking in confusion. “I’m being a dick. I shouldn't take this out on you. It’s not your fault I’m . . .” He gestures vaguely, unsure where he was taking the sentence, “whatever. I’m sorry.”
Volga is quiet, contemplative. Too much going on behind those big, dark eyes. It makes Ephraim squirm. What is she thinking right now? Is she mad?
“Do you?” She asks, breaking the thick silence.
“Huh?” Ephraim replies dumbly.
“Want to die?”
A cynical retort pops in the forefront of his brain but he pushes it down. The true answer doesn’t . . . it doesn’t feel like the right time. Will there ever be a right time? The answer is an ugly, personal thing. Too personal for right now. But a part of him worries. If he told Volga the truth, what would she think? Would she think less of him if she knew? And more importantly, why does he care what goes on in her head?
“I did lose someone.” Deflecting. Answering her other question. Volga’s lips dip down in a grimace. In dodging her question, he has answered it. “A while ago, but it doesn’t matter. Sometimes it feels like it was yesterday.” By sometimes he means all the time. “And sometimes, I’m an asshole. It’s just—it. . .” He trails off, now more focused on pushing the memories back down, down, down.
Volga steps forward, putting a hand on his shoulder for a brief moment, then she says, “It’s not ‘sometimes,’ you are disagreeable most of the time.” And she grins.
Ephraim can’t help it, a laugh slips through his clenched teeth, then another, and another. The laughter is better than the lying, than the stretching silences, than the danger he puts himself in to forget about the weight of living.
Once both of them have calmed down, Volga nods her chin at Ephraim’s chest. “The ring,” she says tentatively, “the one you wear on your neck.”
Ephraim pulls Trigg’s ring out from under his shirt. Volga frowns at it as if by seeing it she understands the circumstances of Ephraim coming to wear it. As if she knows Ephraim had to scrub the blood off. “Yeah,” Ephraim forces through a dry throat, “he was . . . yeah.”
Volga doesn’t need any more information. She nods solemnly, respectfully, watching Ephraim tuck the ring back in his shirt collar. This is the first time he’s talked about Trigg without crying or the help of zoladone.
The lithe, tan Yellow works carefully, quietly; paid to keep her mouth shut more than anything. Lying flat on the counter in Ephriam’s cluttered kitchenette, only slightly bleeding now, is Volga. Her mangled arm sits on a mound of blood-soaked blankets and towels. She stares at the ceiling, pupils enlarged from the stims, seemingly fascinated with a thin crack stretching from one side of the ceiling to the other.
Ephraim’s apartment is a gory mess—literally. It’ll take more than a good scrubbing and elbow grease to get this much blood out of the carpet. The apartment itself is silent but for the muted whirring of black market medical equipment and one fuming Gray.
“What were you thinking?” He seethes. “I’ve seen a lot of dumb shit in my years, years , doing this kind of work. Hell, I’ve seen stupid folks doing stupid things in the legions. But this? What were you trying to achieve? You could have had your bloodydamn arm ripped clean off if you were in there a second longer.”
Ephraim continues ranting. Volga takes it. Across the room, Dano sits sprawled out on the couch. Dr. Nalia spares a pleading glance his way, he only shrugs.
“Can I trust you anymore not to get yourself bagged? What about the next job? How am I supposed to know you won’t try something like that again?” Ephraim sighs, “I shouldn’t have brought you on in the first place, you’re not ready.”
Volga lifts her head off the countertop, neck stiff. She uses her uninjured arm to prop herself up. Dr. Nalia fumbles, trying in vain to pull Volga back down. “I just wanted to help.”
“You helped a ton , thanks.”
She frowns, “I did what you would have done.”
“What I—” Ephraim laughs in disbelief. “What I would have done?”
Dano clicks his tongue from where he lounges on the couch, “Lass’ got a point. No offense, boss, but you’re always the one doing reckless shit.”
Ephraim opens and closes his mouth. “Why are you still here?”
“I’m your connection,” Dano gestures at Dr. Nalia. “I got her here, remember? Don’t say I never did anything for you.” He winks.
Ephraim sighs resignedly, mumbling a “whatever,” and opting to ignore Dano. He walks around the counter to Dr. Nalia, who has succeeded in making Volga lie back down.
“How bad is it?” Ephraim asks, barely keeping the edge from his voice.
Dr. Nalia’s eyes dart to him for a moment, wary of his temper. “She’s lucky it wasn’t torn more. Once I’m done here, it should heal on its own with a few weeks of rest. Motor function will be impaired until everything heals over and the tissue is rebuilt, but there shouldn’t be much lasting damage.” She pauses, “Can I ask what happened?”
“No.”
“Right. Okay. I’m almost done, this will just take a few more minutes.”
Ephraim takes a seat at the bar by Volga’s head. She watches him tap his fingers erratically, eyes downcast, working his jaw, lost in thought.
The apartment dips again into silence. Dano types away at his datapad, Ephraim nearly bores a hole through the countertop with how fiercely he’s staring at it, and Dr. Nalia finishes dressing Volga’s various flesh wounds. Eventually, she announces that she’s done, Ephraim sends the credits to her account, and she packs her things. As Dano and Nalia leave, Volga hauls herself up to a sitting position, one leg hanging off the counter.
“You were worried I was injured,” She says after the door closes.
“Yeah, and? Is that a fucking crime? You were bleeding buckets and you couldn’t feel your arm. And I’m your— I’m . . . we’re partners, I’m supposed to keep an eye on you.”
She inclines her head to the door, where Dano and Dr. Nalia left. “If he were hurt, you would not stay by his side.”
“Dano’s a bastard. And why do you care? What do you get out of all this?”
“I’m only making observations.”
“Yeah, well, keep them to yourself,” Ephraim grumbles. “How’s your arm?”
Volga smiles, something Ephraim notices.
“ What ,” He deadpans, energy gone from the day.
“You act tough and angry all the time, but you do care,” Volga tells him. “You were a worrying mess when the doctor was working on my arm.”
“I wasn’t a mess .”
“You did not see yourself. It is okay to worry. I do not know why you feel like you need to be so vile all the time. You are a caring person.”
“This world doesn’t like caring people,” Ephraim replies. Because sure , maybe he was a caring person at some point. But that doesn’t matter now. Caring hasn’t done him any good in the past, and won’t do him good anytime soon.
“But people do,” Volga counters, “people like people who care.”
“I’m not one of those people.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Shit, I don’t know. Why do you care so damn much? Maybe caring is dangerous, maybe caring can get you in deep shit. I prefer not caring. Life’s easier that way. Why do you think I—“ his hand drifts to the zoladone case in his pocket. He’s already said too much. She talked him into opening up, something he hasn’t done since . . .
There are two other people Ephraim has opened up to like that. And one of them is dead. Ephraim moves away, withdrawing from the conversation and his vulnerability. Volga senses this growing distance and reaches out to him.
“Wait—“
“No, no. We’re done here. I’m tired, you need to—“
“Ephraim, I care about you. I think you are a good friend and person. I wanted to thank you for—“
“ No ,” Ephraim snaps. Volga shies away, eyes widening as if struck. The look on her face makes his stomach flip. “Don’t do that, it’s a horrible idea. Just . . . go to sleep.”
Ephraim doesn’t care for regular animals, much less the Carved ones kept in zoos and paraded around for children and exhausted families when they aren’t being used to kill each other. He does not tell this to his companion, who insisted on going and will not stop talking about everything she sees.
There’s an amusing spectacle in seeing an Obsidian press her massive hands on the glass and marvel over a furry creature. She watches them with a fondness Ephraim has never seen in her. She’s relaxed, he realizes. Not looking over her shoulder for Watchmen or lurchers or whoever else is out to get them. Not trapped in the silent anxiety of a heist. Not worried or saddened or lonely, simply enjoying this life she was given. A life, Ephraim remembers, he gave her the chance to take control of.
It’s difficult to imagine this lively, excited woman anywhere else but among smiling people and preening animals. She stands at the edge of a crowd, glancing around, her back to the glass. Ephraim waves to her and she spots him, making her way through a throng that parts for her.
“We should get popcorn,” She tells him, seemingly unable to wipe the smile from her lips, “the stall opens in a few minutes. If we go now, we can get there before the line.”
“Lead the way,” Ephraim replies. He can’t say no to her like this. He stuffs his hands in his pockets as she drags him across the zoo, talking the whole way about the history and taxonomy of Carved creatures. It all goes over his head, but he’s willing to listen.
“—but it does not matter if kuon hounds are arthropods or not, because . . .” She trails off, stopping. Ephraim almost walks into her.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, following her surprised stare to an exhibit. All sorts of ribbons and banners decorate the massive-glass enclosure. The walls have yet to be fogged with handprints and grime, so it must be new. Various uniformed employees stand in front of the glass, talking to a captivated, growing crowd. Ephraim can’t see what’s inside the enclosure, but with Volga’s height, she can.
“It’s a griffin,” She breathes, half to herself. Ephraim cranes his neck but still can’t see. Volga looks to the line at the popcorn stand, then back to the enclosure, elated surprise replaced with discontent.
Ephraim shoves his map in Volga’s hands, “Go see the monster, I’ll wait in line.”
Her eyes light up. “You will?”
“Isn’t that what I said?”
Volga beams, that big, messy smile splitting her face. She thanks him and rifles through her pockets to pay her share, but Ephraim shoves her hands away.
“Go, it’s just popcorn. I’ll pay for it,” He says.
“You do not need to—”
“I’ll handle this, you go see the griffin. I’ll catch up with you.”
She offers him a parting smile, thanks him again, and makes a beeline for the griffin enclosure. Ephraim gets in line. By the look of things, he’ll be standing here for a while. He’s been off Z a few days now and the itch is already getting to him. Dizziness, nausea, tremors—and he isn’t even in the worst of zoladone’s withdrawal symptoms yet. Still, he doesn’t go for the case tucked into his jacket. He has a reason to stay sober, to stay feeling .
Volga is easy to spot in the crowd. Aside from a scant few other Obsidians and a Brown on stilts handing out some braided, sugared pastry, she’s the tallest in the crowd. She stands as close as she can get to the glass, attention flipping between the beast inside and the zookeepers giving their speech.
The Obsidians, they rode griffins, right? It’s part of their culture or something. Volga never had that. Ephraim wonders what it’s like for her now, seeing one for the first time, how important that must be for her. And it’s happening in a zoo of all places, surrounded by advertisements and tourist traps with an eight credit admission fee. What a world.
Ephraim doesn’t get out like this often. He could never come up with a good enough excuse to put his troubles aside and have fun. Plus it’s difficult to enjoy anything when he’s trapped in his head. Any effort he makes to get out and do things is always shrouded in the ghost of Trigg. Places they’d been together, activities that were at one point enjoyable now a painful memory of the past.
Trigg was always his reason for leaving the apartment, for waking up in the morning. Ephraim didn’t care for ice-skating or sightseeing or going out on the town, but Trigg did, and that’s all that mattered—seeing him happy. Without Trigg, things were different. Worse . What was the point of doing anything if Trigg wasn’t there to make bad jokes, chase the sunset, or obsessively people-watch?
Now he’s here with Volga, and she’s racing from exhibit to exhibit, a fresh light in her eyes, talking his ear off about beasts and monsters from across the Solar System, getting excited over popcorn, and grinning about seeing a griffin for the first time. It’s refreshing and familiar and different . Ephraim isn’t here for the same reason that he would be for Trigg. He’s here because he wants to see who Volga is when she isn’t on a job or watching her back for cops. He wants to know what kind of a person she is, how she’s growing and changing, the complexities of her moods and thoughts and emotions. And maybe he likes the way being around her makes him feel like he has the capacity to do some good in the world. She’s genuinely grateful for him being in her life, and that’s new to Ephraim.
He gets to the end of the line, buys two absurdly expensive boxes of popcorn, and weaves carefully through the crowd with the overflowing containers. He nudges Volga with his shoulder, coming up on her side.
Volga beams down at him, crooked smile like a slant of sunlight. She accepts the box of popcorn, asking how much it cost. Ephraim handwaves her concerns and she turns her attention back to the enclosure, pushing him forward to see the beast inside.
The thing is impressive; a sculpted, regal thing of fur and feathers. It sits curled in on itself, wings the size of a Gold each spread out on the turf. Sharp, ochre eyes hold a staggering intelligence as if they were from a human and not a bird. It peers down its beak at the humans surrounding the enclosure. Between its paws (big enough and likely strong enough to crush any warColor without a second thought), nestled in a woven cradle of sticks and nettles, is a clutch of dappled, off-white eggs.
“Is it strange that I feel the need to pet it?” Volga asks, staring longingly at the man-killing hybrid beyond the glass.
“It’s three times your size. It’ll rip you to pieces.”
“See the eggs? These creatures may be made for destruction, but they are still capable of compassion.”
“Reminds me of someone I know,” Ephraim says with a smirk, tossing a piece of popcorn in his mouth. Volga watches amusedly.
“You are in a good mood,” She observes.
“I’m full of surprises.”
“I like you better like this,” She says suddenly, “you do not have your walls up.”
Ephraim shrugs, “Maybe I’m trying to be less of an asshole. But if you tell Dano or Cyra about this, I’ll be pissed, I’m not taking them to the zoo.”
Volga smiles with self-satisfaction at being the exception. “This can stay between us,” She agrees, then adds. “Thank you for coming.”
“It’s nothing,” Ephraim assures her, watching the griffin coo, tail swishing, powerful shoulders rising and falling as it sighs through its nostrils. Volga stands comfortably beside him, totally captivated by the creature. She’s calm, a contented smile plastered to her face. Her walls are down too.