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"Iko and Brivi were rather twitchy when I saw them last," the Spider observes.
Avrok nods. "Didn't want blame for losing your little pet."
"And how did they lose her, anyway?" The Spider leans forward in his chair, lowering his voice. "Did she try to run?"
"Thought so at first. But no."
"That Ghost of hers… It's escaped once before."
"You've heard how it talks to her. She doesn't listen to it."
"So I can't blame the Dregs?"
"Blame me. I told them to teach her to climb."
"Why?"
"She is useless otherwise."
The Spider grumbles, but doesn't disagree. "Why not teach her yourself?"
"Lack patience. Couldn't keep up with me. But she and the Dregs have the same number of limbs. Same size. Didn't account for weight difference. My mistake."
"Ah. And that's how she…?"
"Fell. Yes." Both Eliksni knew that Awoken differences from their Earth ancestors were mostly cosmetic. They were just as fleshy and clumsy as humans, weighed down with brittle bones that took ages to heal. This one was no different. "Hive started breeding in the Jetsam. Came across bad foundation. Fell right into a nest of Thrall. Dregs said she was there one second, gone the next."
The Dregs had called him in, shivering with fear--and he'd told them to scram. He'd be tracking her himself. When he climbed down, he'd found the nest empty, littered with dead Thrall. Scorch-marks in the walls. There'd been a firefight, all right--but not from her. Footprints disappeared into the labyrinthine caves.
Surely, she and whoever-it-was were dead, or close to it.
But he'd still have to bring confirmation of it.
"Someone came to her rescue," Avrok explains.
"Corsair?" Spider asks. "Crow?"
"Another Guardian."
He'd tracked them through the tunnels, following drips of her blood. Two sets of footprints became one, and he realized the other was carrying her.
"Lightless?" Spider asks.
"Aren't they all, these days?"
"And what became of this other Guardian? Who was it?"
Don't kill him , she'd begged, putting up her hands.
Avrok didn't lower the welder hoisted over his shoulder, but stayed his claw on the trigger. What was she doing?
"[Saved my life,]" she explained in broken Eliksni.
In the time it took her to find the words, the Trapper was on his feet, in the shadows. Avrok heard a high-pitched ping , and knew he should have just aimed over her and pulled the trigger.
Avrok tackled her to the ground, caging her in his arms. The explosion shook the cave, shaking rock loose to the bottomless pit below. When Avrok lifted his head, he saw the Trapper slithering away through a gap in the ceiling.
He whipped up his molten welder and fired a shot, but it was too late. The Trapper was gone.
She pushed herself up and limped toward a tiny cage by the dribbling waterfall, trembling and cooing like a mother to a hatchling as she freed the Ghost. The little machine shrugged off her affection like a petulant adolescent.
Avrok watched her. Now a familiar sight, she was still as unpleasant to look at as any other humanoid. Worse, even. Dusty hair, pale skin with luminous swirls like nebulae, marred by freckles of pigment. Harsh, yellow eyes like binary suns.
And small . She was supposed to be one of them , wasn't she? The fearsome warriors he'd fled in the Final Attempt. She'd been Risen just moments before the Great Machine had been caged by the Red Legion. Any fight in her seemed to have left when the Light did. An adult of her species, but malnourished like a Dreg, docked and starved for Ether. When Avrok looked at her too long, the carapace of his chest felt soft like a hatchling's, like it might cave in if she caught his eyes.
She noticed Avrok watching and told him what had happened with a voice like rushing water. He listened, four claws curling into fists, enraged that either of them had allowed the miscreant to escape.
"Cyrell," Avrok repeats the name for the Spider. "Trapper. Hunter of Ghosts. Deranged Lightbearer. Without Light for some time, even before Red Legion attacked. Picking off Ghosts."
"Didn't manage to pick off hers, though."
"He was getting to it. Tortured her first."
"Tortured?" Spider chuckled. "Whatever for?"
"Answers from the Awoken, from her life before. Things she didn't know." He chitters in distaste. "As I said, Baron: deranged."
"Tell me you killed him."
Avrok shakes his head. "Slippery. Abandoned his Trapper's Cave. Set traps for return. His bones will wash up soon enough."
"He had no ship?
Avrok pauses.
He'd had his back to her, sifting through the Trapper's meager, rusted armory. Her Ghost lowered its voice, speaking to her in their common tongue.
"...In orbit. It's a transponder. Activate it, bring it down, and we can get out of here."
Avrok ceased clicking his mandibles as he listened to the whispered argument that followed.
"Why would I leave with you?" she hissed, hurt pain in her voice. "You don't even think I'm yours ! You raised me because you had no other choice!"
The Eliksni turned his head in surprise.
Was there really a choice? Avrok didn't like thinking about that.
She caught him looking. He turned away again.
"What are you doing ?!" the Ghost buzzed.
Footsteps scuffed closer. She stopped near him and held out her hand, showing it to him.
"Avrok. [Found this.]"
Avrok turned, sparing her a glance. Then, he turned away as if he hadn't heard her.
"Avrok," she said, insistent. "[Not running]."
He pretended not to understand her. "[Get back to salvaging!]" he barked.
The transponder entered his field of view as she shoved it in his face, forcing him to see it.
He grabbed her wrist and stood, towering over her, pushing out his second arms. He pretended to inspect the transponder, then shoved her away from him.
"[Scrap. Useless. Worse than useless. Make yourself useful.]"
"[Give to Spider?]"
"[You keep. Reef trash.]"
"[Take!]" she argued, pushing it toward him.
"[No!]"
"[Less debt to Spider!]"
His voice, suddenly harsh, slipped into her own language: "Fool to think it would make a difference!"
She blinked at him, shocked and hurt. There was that feeling again, weakness in his carapace like he'd been left to soften in brine.
He realized then the reason for her little machine being so cruel: they had no idea the Red Legion had caged their Great Machine. Spider had kept that from them. The little light had found and Risen her in a moment of panic, on the run from Spider's associates, and the Light had gone out shortly after.
She was like him, then: like his people. Both of them were.
They thought the Great Machine had forsaken them, too.
Avrok lowered himself to one knee to meet her at eye level, softening the harsh bark of his voice.
"Was Wolf once," he said, stumbling through her language the same way she'd stumbled through his. "Still Wolf after Scatter, but… different. Then Queen's. Wolf again. Bannerless. Then Spider's." He curled his claw around her hand, closing it around the transponder. "All Kells the same. Spider is no Kell, but…" He struggled to find the words. "I'm Spider's. You are… Risen. Chosen of the Great Machine."
She looked over at the Ghost sulking by the waterfall. Still, she'd wanted to buy his freedom, the honest way.
She did not belong in a place like this.
Avrok spoke again, loud enough for them both to hear.
"Light is gone now. Gone everywhere. But may return. If it does..." His eyes find hers. "No agreement. No buying your way out. The cage is here."
He tapped a claw to his helmet, then pointed at her head. He nodded down at the transponder in her hand.
"That is your key."
Weakness as she looked up at him. He reached out a claw and passed it over her head. The gesture was an intimate one among Eliksni, a sign of custodianship, care without ownership--but it would surely be alien to her.
When he dropped his arm, his claw grazed her hair. It was thin and fine, feather-light and shockingly soft. He held a handful, letting it fall through his fingers, and then seeing her bewildered expression quickly withdrew.
He could not be a friend or show kindness to her. He could not give her any other excuse to stay.
"Didn't find a ship," Avrok answers the Spider at last.
His Baron grumbles.
"That Ghost is trouble," Avrok gripes, changing the subject. "Escaped before. Needs a leash, a cage. Anti-transmat, maybe. Or a shell rigged with explo--"
"Not necessary, my trusted associate," the Spider interrupts, and it's exactly what Avrok wants to hear. "That Little Light is tied to her ." He leans forward and taps a claw to his head. "Best cage one could ever hope for. One I don't even have to build."
The Spider starts to shake with laughter.
Avrok ripples his spines. Laughing along.
He spoke only once to the little Warlock after that, in his language, telling her about his old ship. Death to Kells, it was called. Everyone knew the story of how it got its name. To the new associates of the Spider, it was practically propaganda. But to her, he hoped it meant something different.
When the Light returned, she vanished from the Reef like a shadow in the sun.
Many years later, an Envoy from the House of Light presented him with a familiar-looking transponder, keyed to a ship they'd brought into orbit. Not a gift to him, but a friend returning something borrowed from long ago.
Avrok's carapace felt weak as he pored over the specs.
She'd named it Baron's Bane.