Post by Admin on Sept 23, 2009 3:00:53 GMT -5
Luce:
Luce sat in the scant shade of the gas station outside of Las Vegas panting. Despite Greyhound naming their buses after this breed of dog these guys were not distance runners, they were sprinters, and this heat was a bi*ch to deal with. At least they hadn't been foolish enough to go out in full daylight. Everyone had learned that full daylight in the desert was just not fun. So that had left the morning or the evening open and since Luce was currently training Ember in the mornings she had opted for evenings.
She looked over at Cecily. <<A flying morph would come in handy right now. Even a songbird might be helpful.>> Her mental voice wasn't wistful, just matter of fact.
She stood up and shook herself in the way only a dog can, loosening muscles and getting ready to run again. The one thing she loved about this greyhound morph was that it was an athlete of the animal world. All the muscles were different but she still got the same joy from using them that she got from exercising.
<<I guess if we are going to scout this place and be back in time for dinner we better get started.>>
Cecily;
Cecily was hot. And not in a pleasant hot-shower-on-a-cold- day hot. She was used to the winters in upstate New York, but the eternal heat of Las Vegas? Not so much. She appreciated the short break Luce had called, and let her dog's tongue hang out of her mouth. She'd read somewhere that that was a dog's version of sweating.
She didn't point out that she had a bird morphs, since Luce knew that already. Cecily figured that Luce was one of those people who didn't want to be bothered with useless details, which she could understand. Besides, the pigeon was not exactly good for flying around in the desert. It was better adapted for the city streets.
<<Agreed,>> she said in response to Luce's other comment. She wasn't pleased to have to start moving again, but that was the point of this whole picnic. She wasn't exactly sure what they were supposed to be looking for, but she figured she'd know if they saw it.
Luce:
Luce stretched her running muscels and sniffed around the gas station. <<This is the gas station Rian, Ember, Ray and I arrived at. There are some supplies in here, but only food and I think water would be more useful. Still, should we stick around and try to get supplies? The Grand Canyon is pretty far and we might end up staying the night out here. I don't know about you but I would want food.>> Luce's stomach was maybe her only humanizing trait. She wasn't afraid to admit when she was hungry.
Luce sniffed around and caught onto the old trail that the animorphs had left a couple of weeks ago and followed it into the gas station and found the almost empty water jugs that Rian's deer morph and Ember's and her's horse morphs had carried from LA. <<If we find something smaller our dog morphs could probably carry them.>>
Ember:
Ember was testing her Dhole morph out for barely the second time. It was actually doing really well in the heat, since it originated from Africa she imagined it had to develop some kind of adaptation, but she was not used to the dog's mind and kept getting side tracked along the way. He was just so overly excited! by everything! the sights the smells, ooooh the smells...
<<Ah.. hold up, just one second!>> Ember called out, having fallen a few feet behind in a desperate struggle to get the Dhole's nose out of a strange hole in the road. Something in there had attracted his attention and now she 'd lost control again. Perhaps on a better day she would really enjoy being out and about as a dog, but right now she was loathing it more than her cat. If she kept this up she'd never get respect from Cecily or Luce. And the worst part was that she did have excellent capabilities over her other forms, but this one... she sighed inwardly and gave in, letting the Dhole wander in the right direction itself.
This was embarrassing. She was supposed to be leading this mini-mission to go track down some place as a good fall back position. Something solid, but unnoticeable, so that if they ever needed an emergency hiding place for any or all of them then it would be available. The dog finally let up and she glanced over the gas station. <<Yes. You're right we're going to need supplies. Let's each take a little for ourselves on our dog-type morphs, you know just like enough to ah, last a night but not too much to weigh us down. We need to be discreet and fast, in case we run into trouble out here.>>
Cecily:
Cecily whole-heartedly agreed with the idea of picking up supplies. She was having a hard time figuring out how to carry the stuff, except maybe in her mouth, which wouldn't be very fun, but she wasn't about to point that out, especially in front of Luce. Ember might accept it, but Luce would probably just brush her off.
She trotted after Luce, sniffing around. One of Cecily's main goals in her dog morph was to catalogue everything she smelled for future reference. The dog mind did most of that on its own, but she had a theory that her human brain could deal with the information in a way that would be helpful later on. She couldn't actually come up with a situation in which everything would ride on the sense of smell, but just in case...
<<Any suggestions as to what we should grab?>> she asked Ember.
Ember:
<<I doubt there's much food in there, but scrounge up what you can. Light stuff, though, so we don't get too exhausted.>> Ember answered, simultaneously thinking, why the hell are they asking me? Like I know what to pack for an overnight journey to a national landmark that may or may not be within a dog's running distance??? I'd have better luck diagnosing what the hell is wrong with Micheal Jackson! But she didn't continue that line of thought. Instead she set about making a mental list. <<er.. and use your nose too, sniff stuff out and see if its stagnant or soured. We left some water here last time, and oats, and we can bring a bit of that with us. I think the water will be most important though so pack as much of that as possible. And.. ah, for packs, we only had the saddles but um... maybe if we found some plastic bags and tied them together we could sling them across each others backs? I don't think this morph can keep cool and carry stuff at the same time, so we'll have to makeshift something like that so we don't pass out.>> She observed that her tongue was wagging even as she thought the thought.
Taking the lead, Ember trotted past Luce and Cecily through the broken front door of the gas station. <<We'd better be quick too, don't want to get caught out here like this.>>
Luce:
<<Next time we should improvise a dog sled,>> Luce said, only half joking. Their canine morphs could certainly pull a small sled and if they were going to be making long trips out into the desert then it might be something to look into.
Luce went to work and sniffed out the gas station. It was almost completely rotten food inside so she didn't even bother. The oats would be good and the stuff in cans, but that was it. One thing they did luck out on was that this gas station apparently got some tourist trade so there were cloth bags, including some cloth shoulder bags. Tie two shoulder bags together and they looked a lot like miniture saddles.
Once Luce had identified stuff they could take with them she demorphed and took it all outside, dumping it in a pile where Ember and Cecily would see it and dump their own finds. Once she was done she sat out next to the pile, partially in shade, and stared out towards the desert.
She was surprised to discover that she liked the view, she liked the feel. There was something quiet about the desert. It was still, it was peaceful, and it was dangerous. It would test you, all weakness sweated out of you under the harsh face of the desert's unrelenting sun.
Her steel gray eyes took in the dusty golden scene with relish. This trip already looked like it might be overnight or even a couple of days. If that was so Luce wouldn't mind. It felt like a spiritual trip, a cleansing, a test.
Ember:
Ember didn't find much more after Luce had done a thorough job of sweeping the place. A few more bottles of water behind the cashier's desk. Must have been the personal fridge of whoever had owned the place before. She wondered what they had been like. Probably the typical employee, working too hard at a dead end job in the middle of nowhere Nevada, whose only source of income was the promise of stupid tourists underestimating the gas level they would need to get to Vegas from California.
She poked through their things, allowing herself some time in the shadows. A piece of paper was stuffed between the cash register and the plastic lining. She pulled it out and unfolded it over the pile of forgotten newspapers. It was a map. There were main route highlighted and othe gas stations in the chain circled on various roads. This was the map someone had used to give directions, probably whipping it out every time someone asked something dumb and obvious that millions of other travelers also asked. Ember could see a clear line to the grand canyon and whistled under her breath. The land mark was a lot farther off than she'd expected, even on the well worn map it looked far away, which meant they'd need to find more places with supplies or face the very real threat of starvation. And dehydration. Ugh, why hadn't she paid more attention in her girl scout meetings?
She stuffed the map in her suit's front pocket and opened the cash drawer for fun. It was empty save for the rattled change. The employee had probably taken it all in a final act of desperation, clinging to the one thing they'd always desired in their life now that they'd reached the possible end of it. She hoped they'd gotten away... but some deep part of her thought of the first wave of invasion and what had happened to her friends, and the employees eventual fate became clear to her.
Luce:
Luce saw the map Ember had brought out with her and went over to be able to read it over her shoulder. "Huh, 100 miles give or take, and that's in a straight line which we can't travel because of that nice little lake in between here and there."
She craned her head to be able to see the map a little clearer. "I suppose we could follow the shore of the lake, crossing to the southern shore at that narrow part on the Arizona/Nevada border. We'll have water that way at least and we'll only have to worry about finding food."
Cecily:
Cecily didn't find much more useful stuff, though she poked around to make sure that they didn't miss anything. She also gave herself a few seconds to appreciate the cool of the building, before heading back out into the heat. Seeing that Ember and Luce were looking at something, she moved to stand beside them. She inspected the map and tried to remember what they'd taught her in eighth grade. She was finding that trivial knowledge was coming in very useful - if she could remember any of it.
Luce's summation and subsequent plan seemed good to her. She liked knowing where they could find water, and she especially liked keeping that water close. She'd read one too many books about wilderness survival to underestimate the importance of water. Also, she figured that Luce knew what was going on.
"Sounds good," she said. She blinked up at the sun. The faster they got this done, the faster they could go back (she wasn't ready to call the Den "home" yet). "I guess we should keep moving, then."
Ember:
"Right!" Ember stretched her hands, cracking the knuckles backward. "Then let's get going! The grand canyon isn't going to explore itself!" Once Luce had decided upon a reasonable plan it became a lot easier for Ember to join the bandwagon as if it had been her idea all along. After all, she reasoned, good leaders know to stick around smart people they can delegate to right?
THAT NIGHT:
"Shit!" Ember bashed the twigs against the rock, fiddling them furiously together. "Isn't this how it works?! I know i saw it on TV somewhere, or at camp, ugh c'mon!" Frustrated she tossed them away and slumped over her crossed legs, gazing mournfully out over the lake. They'd at least made it this far before the dark made it too hazardous to go any further. And weirdly, not that Ember knew too much about deserts or anything, but it had gotten really cold really fast.
Luckily the area she'd picked for their resting spot had some good vegetation and there was more than enough wood for a fire if she could just bloody get one started! She even imagined she'd got a spark a few times but the wind up on the beach area they were camping on had picked up. Now it was spinning the sad half broken sign that read their location: "Callville Bay"
Luce:
Luce sat on the crescent beach of Callville Bay. The moon was full and provided ample light but it was cold out here and they were in nothing but morphing suits so Luce went over to help Ember with the fire.
However she had finally run into a situation that she wasn't prepared for. Luce had lived her life in cities and even broken down cities had much easier fire sources than some stone and wood. "I don't know how to do this but I think that a special kind of stone is required. Maybe there is another way." She looked over at Cecily to see if she knew how to start a fire.
Well this was an interesting start to their adventure. "Maybe we should go without the fire. It will be like a walkabout or the right of passage young American Indians went on where they lived out in the harshest conditions to test themselves." Luce had to admit that she didn't know much more about ancient traditions of native peoples than any other child of the American education system, but she did know something about hardship and the strength that it could bring out in a person.
"So what do you say ladies, fire or no fire because I don't know how to make one?"
Ember:
Ember sighed in frustration, "Great. Well it doesn't look like we've got a choice. I can't get this thing to work!" She tossed the sticks out onto the water, finding less pleasure from the action than she'd hoped as the twigs just drifted lazily on the calmly lapping water.
"Ugh, I'm finally back on a beach and I'm stuck doing some stupid ancient ritual that was probably just some form of cheap entertainment." She held up her hands like sock puppets, "Gee bob, I'm bored how about we go into the wilderness to test ourselves? Gosh Jim! That sounds like a great idea! And while we're at it, let's get ourselves killed from frost bite! YAY." With a huffed sigh Ember fell onto her back, wrapping her goosebumped arms around herself. "Why couldn't we have thought to get matches?! I know I have a zippo lighter somewhere in my pack at the den... but it was always so hot in Vegas!" She complained to no one, finding nothing else to do while Luce explored her inner zen.
Luce:
"I guess that means no fire," Luce said in her usual flat tone that was the extent of her sense of humor as Ember threw the sticks in the water. Luce hugged herself. Even she was cold. Desert nights were cold apparently. She should have remembered that and here they were in nothing but their morphing suits.
She looked at Ember and Cecily, a little disgruntled. Two very attractive young women and they were out here in the desert, isolated from everyone...and Luce couldn't find a way to keep warm. She snorted at her bad luck.
Well if she couldn't get one type of exercise she might as well get another. "Come on, we have to find a way to keep warm and I know of nothing better than physical activity. Maybe tomorrow we can work more on getting in tune with your opponent so that you can predict attacks but those drills require a lot of standing around at first. How about if we just run a some basic drills that will get our blood moving?"
She stood up. "After we drill we can spar and see how much you've taken in, yeah?" It was phrased as a question but Ember didn't really have a choice.
Ember:
They sat in silence for awhile once Luce made the obvious, disheartening statement. There was nothing but the soft lapping of the water and the musical chirruping night time insects providing a soothing overtone to compliment the cascade of stars. Ember wondered what Rian was doing at this moment... and she wondered if he was thinking of her too...
Then she got a strange sensation and looked over at Luce. Was it her imagination or was she...? Ember looked away quickly, hiding her strange expression. For crying out loud how many times had she caught Luce doing something weird like standing too close, or falling a certain way so she was on top of her, not to even mention what she'd seen at the party! She tried her best not to jump to conclusions but...
"Ahem! Yeah! Training, great!" Ember rolled onto her feet, getting into defensive position immediately. She knew she was going to get her butt handed to her since she wasn't warmed up, and hadn't been keeping up with the outside regiment as strictly as Luce demanded. But anything was better than this ridiculously awkward situation. "Morphs or no? Your pick."
Luce:
Luce's expression showed her disapproval. "Humans have been fighting wars for all of its history and it has managed to do it without the use of deus ex machina technology that allowed us to take on animal forms. We'll be training your body Ember and with it your mind. And if I'm not mistaken, since morphing takes mental discipline, you should become a better morpher as well."
She was talking to Ember but Cecily could join in at any time if she wished. "Now, first things first," she threw a punch at Ember. It was unskilled, thrown from the shoulder and Ember should have plenty of time to see it coming, at least in fighting terms, especially since Luce had taught her a number of counters to this particular attack because it was so popular with the untrained. let's see how much you remember, she finished the sentence in her head.
Ember:
"Ha!" Ember grinned. Luce was throwing an easy left hook, probably doing it to throw her off guard with such an easy tactic. But she wasn't going to fall for it. Staying sharp, she blocked with her right arm and swung her left elbow around before Luce could get her defenses up. It was a messy hit, only the tip of her elbow actually connecting since she was a bit too far away, but it was a still a point since she hit Luce's jaw.
Before she could counter, Ember back tracked swiftly, feeling much more energized after that first strike. However that was exactly the kind of false confidence Luce had been trying to rise in her, and even though she had tried not to get cocky, it was Ember's worst weakness, underestimating her enemy. Or rather, overestimating herself.
She didn't even realize that Luce had knocked her down until she was flat on her back, her legs pulled from under her by a hook kick while she'd been doing all that movement. "Uff!" All her breath gushed out of her. But that's what she got for not being grounded...
No time for a pity party. Ember got her breath back as she rolled off to the side and onto her feet, her body in fighting pose once again. "Erh! Round Two!"
Luce:
Luce hadn't intended to counter Ember. She had meant to throw the punch and make sure that Ember remembered the counter, which she did...almost. The counter came just a touch slowly which meant that Ember was thinking about it beforehand, it wasn't ingrained yet. But considering they had only been practicing for a couple of weeks that was really good.
Then she left herself open and Luce, whose muscles were ingrained with all the moves she was trying to pass on, did the automatic counter and knocked Ember to the ground. She shouldn't have, but she wasn't used to teaching and not used to pulling her blows. It was a whole new level of control that she would have to learn and she better learn it quickly.
Ember got up quickly enough but Luce didn't attack her again. She had been wrong to start the training in the first place. She wasn't in the right mood to train, what she had really wanted was someone to beat up on and Ember presented herself as a good target, Cecily too maybe.
She turned away and sat down on the ground, hard, hurting herself because she dropped so fast. Good, pain was good. Pain was something she understood. Emotions weren't and she didn't know how to deal with hers. A couple of weeks ago she had looked down on Ember when the girl had shown up in a tiff about something Rian had said.
But today she wouldn't have blamed Ember a bit. After seeing Catherine again, not once but twice, Luce wasn't doing so well. She was feeling things, somewhere, but...shut down...couldn't think...not used to...Ahhhh!
She didn't realize that the last part had actually been a scream of frustration until she felt the sound die in her own throat. She had betrayed her team, though Ember, Rian and Diana didn't know that yet, and for what! A controller. What was wrong with her.
She felt an odd hitching feeling in her throat. It was so tight she could hardly breath. What was wrong with her? Why was her body reacting this way. Why couldn't she just make herself forget, not care, like she always did.
The loss of control was what disturbed Luce the most. She controlled her emotions, not the other way around. This had to stop. She had to find a way to make it stop.
She stood up abruptly and faced Ember. "Hit me! Just...just...punch me or something. Beat me up."
Ember:
"Uhhh...." Ember's jaw dropped open as Luce screamed bloody murder to the heavens and then railed at Ember, demanding that she hit her or something. She couldn't guess why but... maybe it was something she'd done in their sparring?
No, that wouldn't be it. Luce ALWAYS kept her cool. Something was gravely wrong.
"Luce?" Ember lowered her voice to a bare whisper, inching closer with her hand out. "I don't feel right hitting you like this. Especially since I don't think you've done anything that deserves a punch in the face." She took a deep breath and locked eyes with the desperate woman, making sure she knew that she was here to listen and wasn't going to fight anymore. The last thing she needed was for Luce to loose control in the middle of a match.
"Hey, why don't we just sit down?" Ember crouched, falling back on her haunches as a demonstration, "Yeah? We'll just talk for a bit, k? Heh, I'm plenty warmed up anyway, lets just enjoy nature and hang out like friends?"
Luce:
"No!" Luce picked up two of the bigger branches that they had planned on using for the fire and threw one to Ember. Ember was quick enough to catch it even though it was unexpected. Good, she was getting better.
"Get up. Come on. Forget hand to hand, you should learn some sword fighting." She got into position, hands a fist apart, left below the right, wrists lined up, elbows in, end of the stick lined up with her navel, stick tip pointed at where Ember's throat would be if Ember was standing. "I'm not your friend, I'm no one's friend. Get up!"
Ember:
Ember stayed put, the branch still held tightly in her white knuckled grip though she hadn't used it to block Luce's dangerous advance, despite her strong desire to do so.
"Fine." She dropped the calming voice since it obviously wasn't going to work, and adopted a tone that resembled Luce's own. "You don't have to be my friend. But I'm not going to be your enemy." Slowly, she stood, heart racing in her chest as she stared down her mentor. In the back of her mind, Ember somehow knew Luce's forced control would someday snap, she just wished it had happened when someone, maybe Rian, was around to help. Talk some sense into her. But Ember was the only one here besides Cecily, and since she spent several hours each day with the woman surely she would be the best one to reach her in this state...
She tossed the branch down. "You can fight me if you want, but I'm not going to play this game. You should know that when a person is in distress they shouldn't ignore it. That puts the entire team at risk. So you can tell me whats going on now, or you can beat me up a little and then tell me when you've got better hold of yourself!"
Oh please god, Ember prayed, let it be the first.
Luce:
Luce stood stock still. Not one muscle moved, not one twitch. Even her face was frozen, her eyes locked in place. But not focused on Ember, not focused on anything.
From the outside it might look like Luce had regained her trademark control but in fact it was just the opposite. Luce literally did not know what to do. The words, "frozen in uncertainty" were extremely apt. Not even a thought crossed her mind. She couldn't move, she couldn't think, she couldn't even think about the fact that she wasn't thinking, and unfortunately, she couldn't breathe.
The time dragged on right up until Luce collapsed.
Ember;
"Oh shit. I broke her." Ember gaped, standing now but unable to move save for a few panicked looks around to see if there was anything that would help.
"Uhm... oh crap. Oh crap. Luce?" She just couldn't believe that the woman, so strong and self controlling could suddenly collapse. But she'd been saying strange things and acting completely different from normal, oh god what if she had a brain hemorrhage? Something had broken in her head and caused her to go crazy before bursting and killing her on the spot! Oh god!
Ember forced herself to move, dragging her feet as her eyes stared fixedly on Luce's slumped form. Then she kneeled, pressing her face close to her mouth and holding her fingers against her neck. There was... breath, and there, a pulse. "Thank god... ok. She's just passed out. Not great, but not dead." Ember mumbled to herself, "Ahh... k, now what?" They were stuck in the middle of nowhere on a nature jaunt , miles from help and with the barest of resources. However, they did have one thing that could help...
She scooped the cold lake water into her hands, cupping it there as she ran back over, dumping it directly into Luce's face. "Luce! LUCE! WAKE UP!" For good measure she knelt down and tapped her cheek roughly with an open palm, leaning her face in close to listen for a change in breathing.
Luce:
The cold water did nothing. The screaming helped a bit. But what really woke Luce up was Ember's running. She had spent so much time in a war zone that the sound of running feet got her attention, even unconscious, in a way that nothing else could. Pure survival instinct dragged her back into consciousness where she rather not be. Luce didn't run from many things but she wanted to run from her life, just a bit, right now.
She came awake all at once. Her eyes snapped open and she rolled away from Ember before her mind caught up with her and reminded her where she was and who she was with. Normally the roll would have ended in a crouch but this time it ended with her sitting in the dirt, her hand at her knife hilt but the weapon remaining undrawn.
But one important thing had changed. Her shield was down. The wall that separated her from her emotions had momentarily collapsed and all the confusion, pain and joy she was feeling shone clearly in her eyes when she looked at the woman who had woken her up.
Ember:
"Luce! Luce it's ok, it's just me!" Ember threw her hands up, stumbling backward on her haunches as the woman rolled away and reached for the knife at her belt. She was volatile, and Ember wasn't going to take anymore chances. But at least it looked like she was cracking, maybe with just a bit more prodding she would let out all the emotion that was building up into this deadly energy.
Right, time to play therapist.
Ember rolled onto her knees and slowly moved forward, sitting cross legged opposite Luce. Holding her voice at low, soothing levels she attempted to reach the part of Luce that might respond to a fellow faction mate. "Hey, are you ok?" She started, searching the strong flashes of expression in her eyes for what had caused this breakdown. "Luce, just talk. Tell me whats going on. I swear I won't repeat it to anyone, you can tell me anything and I'll back you up, ok? I promise."
"Just-" She took a deep breath, hardening her tone so Luce would know she didn't have a choice in this anymore, "let it out. You're going to hurt someone if you don't."
Luce:
"Hurting people is what I do," she said almost bitterly. "It's what I'm good at." She slumped out of the defensive posture, her hand falling from the hilt of her knife. Instead it held her forehead as her head dropped forward, the other hand running through her hair.
The breakdown had taken the emotion out of her. She wasn't going to attack anyone anymore. And she also didn't feel like she had the energy to talk but Ember had given her an order and, for the first time, she had sounded like someone to be listened to. The authoritative tone got through spoke to Luce in a way the kind one hadn't.
"I betrayed the faction for a controller." She didn't look at Ember as she said it, her voice soft.
Ember:
Oh crap. Ember's mouth hung open slightly, but she considered her words carefully before speaking.
"Ah, I see." She frowned, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion. "And was there a good reason for this? I know you're very hard on yourself, but I also know that you'd have a damned good reason for putting anyone in our faction at risk." Ember tried to think of when this shift in Luce's behavior had occurred. Had she been playing them from the start? No... she couldn't believe that. Although at the thought the tension in her shoulders tightened. The reminder that they were out in the middle of nowhere, Ember clearly outmatched even when Luce wasn't driven by crazy, was making it extremely difficult to be understanding and open.
But she'd sworn to back her up. She trusted the woman, and if for nothing else than her gut instinct, she would give her the time to explain before attacking.
Luce:
"Good reason? No. There is no excuse, no good reason for what I did. I, they were going to hurt her and...I didn't think I just...reacted." That was one of the things she was most ashamed of. You never attacked, never used violence without thinking. If you did you just became some brute, some muscle for hire.
"I betrayed my team because of-" her throat closed and she had to force the word and the amazing amount of shame it carried out of her mouth, "emotions."
Ember:
Ember choked, desperately keeping from laughing at Luce's grim expression. She swallowed hard, remembering that this was a person who'd spent the better part of their lives in denial of all emotional things, and here she'd been hit with the worst one of all that had effected both her personal code and her pact with her team mates. The two sides of herself Ember doubted Luce ever let collide.
At least, though, it seemed like there was a reason after all. A defense reaction that other people would find excusable, Luce had taken much harder.
"Listen to me." Ember ordered, "I don't need an excuse. Did I say I needed one? NO. What I need is an explanation. Tell me exactly what happened, and then I'll judge whether or not there was reason to what you did."
Luce:
Luce looked up at Ember's response. Her back straightened and she crossed her legs in front of her. It wasn't any sort of formal postition but it was more formal than sitting slumped over with her head between her hands.
Her eyes cleared at the sound of the order and she began to relate what had happened, keeping emotions out of her voice and sparing herself nothing.
"I discovered that the yeerks were shipping a truck full of dracon grenades out of the city. I brought the news back to Rian and he ordered Ray and a team to go hijack the shipment. I followed against orders but it took me a long time to locate the team. When I found it they had driven out to a base in the desert and had taken her captive. Cath-Sedra. The Sub-visser we kidnapped at Area 51. She was hurt and she was trying to escape. They would have hurt her more so........I attacked them and got her away. Then I ran..........I think I hit Drake on the way out or the dracon beam went off. He ended being ok, it was only on stun, but I didn't know that at the time."
"After we got away I morphed to my horse form in front of her and carried her into the desert. She was too hurt to move on her own. We stopped and I helped with her injuries but she needed more help than I could give her so I contacted a yeerk outpost in the desert and sent them to get her. They don't know it was me, it was anonymous."
Ember:
Ember caught the name slip. So she was right about Luce after all! Thankfully though it seemed she had her sights on someone else, but from the sound of it they were a high ranking controller without hope of rescue. Which meant Luce was in a very precarious situation. Ember remembered the controller from their mission in the infamous army base when she'd had to lock her in a room with Luce in order to escape. So they'd been in contact since then, even before they'd taken the sub-visser hostage.
"Luce..." She looked out across the water, "You could have killed Drake. That was reckless, you know that. And choosing a yeerk over your team mates... I understand trying to protect the human half, but you went beyond anything rational, to the point of helping our enemy."
"I have to know. Why? It was more than defending someone in danger. What's going on with you and this controller?"
Luce:
"The host in question, Catherine, was a friend of mine. Not before our capture but during. Her yeerk, Sedra 149, had a relationship with my yeerk Jals 732 before it took me as a host. They continued their relationship even through the change of hosts and they often fed together, leaving Catherine and I free at the same times."
"I feared for the safety of the host and didn't think." She didn't want to admit that part of her feared for Sedra as well. It was hard, having feelings for a yeerk, feelings she wasn't sure were hers or not.
When a yeerk died of kadrona starvation inside a host they left an imprint on the brain they had been attached to. Luce didn't know the science behind it, she didn't know what had happened. All she knew was that when Jals had died it had felt like it had simply been absorbed into her own mind instead of dying. She experienced memories as both entities and so she had feelings for Catherine and for Sedra at the same time. It was all very confusing and Luce didn't like that she had to deal with it. Why couldn't Jals have just died and not left behind all these messy feelings.
Furthermore Luce didn't like that she seemed to be at the beck and call of such feelings. It was...degrading, annoying, wrong and slightly frightening.
She looked at Ember and wondered if she should tell Ember about the girl, the daughter, her daughter, its daughter. Arg it was all so confusing. And if she couldn't explain it to herself how could she hope to explain it to another. So, after a pause, she decided to keep her mouth shut.
"I also believe that Sedra, the controller can be an asset in the future. She has access that can get us into the kid farms and I have the knowledge of where they are, or Jals did anyway."
Ember:
Ugh. This was both awkward and bad. Luce was in love with a controller, or at least the host of a yeerk, but still... If she felt so strongly that she put her faction mates in danger... Ember always knew that Luce was more of an independent contractor than a normal just-roped-into-it teenage animorph. She had experienced something that few of them had, and only managed to live beyond it by closing herself off from human emotion that would otherwise drown her.
Ember didn't really know much about the yeerks. She'd never been infected, or captured. Her closest call was when the invasion began and the family she'd been staying with was wiped out. Other than that, everything she'd learned had been from the animorphs. It was all just facts and details that served to keep them alive in the ongoing war. What kind of trauma having a yeerk infest your mind could do to a human being... just wasn't something she'd ever thought about. Most controllers she wrote off as inherently evil. Thinking of them as anything else...
"Luce." She surprised herself by talking, "What you did was wrong."
Ember waved her hand, "I mean, I understand your logical reasons. Even though you probably came up with them later. And I completely get your feelings, and why in that situation you acted the way you did." She exhaled, "But it was wrong."
"You disobeyed orders, you placed your team mates at risk, and worst of all you put yourself in danger. Luce, how on earth can I trust you with my life, or anyone else's, if you don't even take care of your own? I know you know that what you did cost us all something, and its clear that you're feeling guilt. I also know that you are feeling guilt for another reason, one that has nothing to do with the animorphs or your actions on that mission."
She sighed, "And I'm not going to absolve you. Because its not OK. You haven't dealt with whats going on in your personal life and its effecting your decisions." With one pointed finger, Ember locked her eyes, "I already told you I'll back you up. I won't say anything to Rian. But God help me Luce, you'd better damn report to me when anything like this happens again. If I have to drag your feelings through the mud to get you to see clearly, then that's what I'll do. I won't let you go through this alone."
Luce:
Luce's anger flashed at Ember's words. Since when had she ever claimed that anything she did was right? Luce didn't go around moralizing. She left that to others. It wasn't that she didn't care, well she didn't care, but only because she knew she was incapable of making such moral judgements so why bother.
She had never claimed that any of her actions were right. What she was feeling guilty about was that they were messy. If she was going to go around saving controllers then she shouldn't do it in a way that put her team in danger.
Furthermore, she shouldn't be doing it for emotional reasons. If she was going to do something it should have been motivated by logic and it hadn't been.
She was fine with putting her life on the line and not always on the "right" side, but she shouldn't have included anyone else in her recklessness.
But even though she was thinking all of this the only thing she said was, "Yes ma'am."
She didn't tell Ember but this was the last time she would let emotions rule her actions. She wished that they had invented a surgery that would remove whatever organ or brain section that was responsible for such irrationality but since they hadn't she would do the next best thing. She would do what she had always done, shut it off.
Ember:
Crap. She'd pushed too hard. Ember could see it in Luce's eyes, the woman just shut it all off again. And here she thought she'd been making progress with the army commando approach. Damn! She just couldn't find a working tactic! If she went soft Luce would bowl over her, but if she actually took charge then Luce clammed up tighter than a Taxxon shell.
"Ok, first off, I'm not a ma'am." Ember sighed, "And second, don't close down on me. If you can't take criticism then you haven't been listening to anything I've said. I don't want to be your enemy, but you're not letting me be your friend. So at least let me be your conscience, someone you can look to. I'm not judging, I'm getting the facts straight. Now stop holding back or I'll kick your ass."
Luce:
Luce scoffed at Ember's last statement. It wasn't suppose to be a mean sound, it was just one of amusement, but it came out that way out of habit.
"As if you could," she muttered.
She stood up. "Look, I get that you are trying to help me but you aren't my friend, you're my C.O. and that means I follow your orders and I call you ma'am, get used to it," she said harshly. Ember had it in her to be a good leader, she was proving that to Luce right now. But she still wanted to be everyone's friend, have everyone let her in. Leadership didn't work like that, at least not with Luce.
"I've heard what you said, but it isn't your job to judge my intentions only my actions and whether they hurt or help the mission. My actions hurt the mission, done. If you have some sort of punishment in mind then fine, but don't try to make me feel better about what happened. Again, that is not something you should be concerned with. There will come a day when you have to command a force bigger than one, two, or even three individuals. There may come a day when the animorphs are a real army instead of just an insurgent group. When that happens you won't have time to watch everyone, be everyone's confidant."
Besides, she didn't want Ember prying into something that she was embarrassed of. She would deal with this on her own. She had already dragged her teammates into it enough.
Ember:
Ember grinned, now she was getting somewhere.
"Yeah right, like I could ever lead an army. Hell I was nervous enough about being a second second, remember? Although I guess I like getting to lead missions and stuff, but Matt let me do that back in LA too." She shrugged, "But ok, I'll take what you give me as good advice, so long as the favor's returned."
"Now!" She got up, brushing the dirt and tense energy off her shoulders and pants. "Let's find someplace to stretch out and sleep. The night air has gotten a lot warmer from before, so I'll have to be careful to not sleep through sunset. We should be able to get to the Grand Canyon by tomorrow!"
Luce:
Luce laughed a little evilly. "Not yet Ember. You may be my superior officer but you still a sorry excuse for a fighter." She let the statement hang in the air as she seemed to contemplate Ember and come to the conclusion that Ember was the sorriest excuse for a fighter ever presented to her but that she, being the saintly person that she was, would take on this hardship and make the best out of it.
It was an attitude that her masters had taken with her. It was harsh but it was useful and pupils got better with it. And Luce had decided that if she was going to teach Ember then she better start doing a better job of being a good teacher. Up until now drilling with Ember had been an amusing experience and a way to get needed exercise. But today, Ember had shown Luce that she might actually make the leader that others, including Rian and Matthew, thought she might make. And that meant she deserved the best of Luce's attention and the all the skill that Luce could beat into her.
"I've been lenient in letting you skip right to drills, mostly because I've been teaching you little tricks that will keep you alive in desperate situations. But if you really want to learn then you're going to have to start from scratch and scratch is exercise so," smilingly, "why don't you go back to that catcus we passed on our way here and do it running on your own two feet this time." She stretched and then jumped around a bit. "You know, I'll be nice and keep you company." And set a pace that you aren't going to like in the least.
"Let's go!"
And so Luce and Ember set off across the desert, Ember not in the happiest of moods but Luce in high spirits. She was doing something she knew how to do, something she was good at. And even if she didn't know what the future would hold it didn't bother her, she had never been much for the future anyway. If it happened it happened but it was much more likely that you'd get killed before you got to see the future. So there was no happily ever after, only the happily ever now that was hers for a little while. And no matter what they did to her, nothing could ever take that away.
Luce sat in the scant shade of the gas station outside of Las Vegas panting. Despite Greyhound naming their buses after this breed of dog these guys were not distance runners, they were sprinters, and this heat was a bi*ch to deal with. At least they hadn't been foolish enough to go out in full daylight. Everyone had learned that full daylight in the desert was just not fun. So that had left the morning or the evening open and since Luce was currently training Ember in the mornings she had opted for evenings.
She looked over at Cecily. <<A flying morph would come in handy right now. Even a songbird might be helpful.>> Her mental voice wasn't wistful, just matter of fact.
She stood up and shook herself in the way only a dog can, loosening muscles and getting ready to run again. The one thing she loved about this greyhound morph was that it was an athlete of the animal world. All the muscles were different but she still got the same joy from using them that she got from exercising.
<<I guess if we are going to scout this place and be back in time for dinner we better get started.>>
Cecily;
Cecily was hot. And not in a pleasant hot-shower-on-a-cold- day hot. She was used to the winters in upstate New York, but the eternal heat of Las Vegas? Not so much. She appreciated the short break Luce had called, and let her dog's tongue hang out of her mouth. She'd read somewhere that that was a dog's version of sweating.
She didn't point out that she had a bird morphs, since Luce knew that already. Cecily figured that Luce was one of those people who didn't want to be bothered with useless details, which she could understand. Besides, the pigeon was not exactly good for flying around in the desert. It was better adapted for the city streets.
<<Agreed,>> she said in response to Luce's other comment. She wasn't pleased to have to start moving again, but that was the point of this whole picnic. She wasn't exactly sure what they were supposed to be looking for, but she figured she'd know if they saw it.
Luce:
Luce stretched her running muscels and sniffed around the gas station. <<This is the gas station Rian, Ember, Ray and I arrived at. There are some supplies in here, but only food and I think water would be more useful. Still, should we stick around and try to get supplies? The Grand Canyon is pretty far and we might end up staying the night out here. I don't know about you but I would want food.>> Luce's stomach was maybe her only humanizing trait. She wasn't afraid to admit when she was hungry.
Luce sniffed around and caught onto the old trail that the animorphs had left a couple of weeks ago and followed it into the gas station and found the almost empty water jugs that Rian's deer morph and Ember's and her's horse morphs had carried from LA. <<If we find something smaller our dog morphs could probably carry them.>>
Ember:
Ember was testing her Dhole morph out for barely the second time. It was actually doing really well in the heat, since it originated from Africa she imagined it had to develop some kind of adaptation, but she was not used to the dog's mind and kept getting side tracked along the way. He was just so overly excited! by everything! the sights the smells, ooooh the smells...
<<Ah.. hold up, just one second!>> Ember called out, having fallen a few feet behind in a desperate struggle to get the Dhole's nose out of a strange hole in the road. Something in there had attracted his attention and now she 'd lost control again. Perhaps on a better day she would really enjoy being out and about as a dog, but right now she was loathing it more than her cat. If she kept this up she'd never get respect from Cecily or Luce. And the worst part was that she did have excellent capabilities over her other forms, but this one... she sighed inwardly and gave in, letting the Dhole wander in the right direction itself.
This was embarrassing. She was supposed to be leading this mini-mission to go track down some place as a good fall back position. Something solid, but unnoticeable, so that if they ever needed an emergency hiding place for any or all of them then it would be available. The dog finally let up and she glanced over the gas station. <<Yes. You're right we're going to need supplies. Let's each take a little for ourselves on our dog-type morphs, you know just like enough to ah, last a night but not too much to weigh us down. We need to be discreet and fast, in case we run into trouble out here.>>
Cecily:
Cecily whole-heartedly agreed with the idea of picking up supplies. She was having a hard time figuring out how to carry the stuff, except maybe in her mouth, which wouldn't be very fun, but she wasn't about to point that out, especially in front of Luce. Ember might accept it, but Luce would probably just brush her off.
She trotted after Luce, sniffing around. One of Cecily's main goals in her dog morph was to catalogue everything she smelled for future reference. The dog mind did most of that on its own, but she had a theory that her human brain could deal with the information in a way that would be helpful later on. She couldn't actually come up with a situation in which everything would ride on the sense of smell, but just in case...
<<Any suggestions as to what we should grab?>> she asked Ember.
Ember:
<<I doubt there's much food in there, but scrounge up what you can. Light stuff, though, so we don't get too exhausted.>> Ember answered, simultaneously thinking, why the hell are they asking me? Like I know what to pack for an overnight journey to a national landmark that may or may not be within a dog's running distance??? I'd have better luck diagnosing what the hell is wrong with Micheal Jackson! But she didn't continue that line of thought. Instead she set about making a mental list. <<er.. and use your nose too, sniff stuff out and see if its stagnant or soured. We left some water here last time, and oats, and we can bring a bit of that with us. I think the water will be most important though so pack as much of that as possible. And.. ah, for packs, we only had the saddles but um... maybe if we found some plastic bags and tied them together we could sling them across each others backs? I don't think this morph can keep cool and carry stuff at the same time, so we'll have to makeshift something like that so we don't pass out.>> She observed that her tongue was wagging even as she thought the thought.
Taking the lead, Ember trotted past Luce and Cecily through the broken front door of the gas station. <<We'd better be quick too, don't want to get caught out here like this.>>
Luce:
<<Next time we should improvise a dog sled,>> Luce said, only half joking. Their canine morphs could certainly pull a small sled and if they were going to be making long trips out into the desert then it might be something to look into.
Luce went to work and sniffed out the gas station. It was almost completely rotten food inside so she didn't even bother. The oats would be good and the stuff in cans, but that was it. One thing they did luck out on was that this gas station apparently got some tourist trade so there were cloth bags, including some cloth shoulder bags. Tie two shoulder bags together and they looked a lot like miniture saddles.
Once Luce had identified stuff they could take with them she demorphed and took it all outside, dumping it in a pile where Ember and Cecily would see it and dump their own finds. Once she was done she sat out next to the pile, partially in shade, and stared out towards the desert.
She was surprised to discover that she liked the view, she liked the feel. There was something quiet about the desert. It was still, it was peaceful, and it was dangerous. It would test you, all weakness sweated out of you under the harsh face of the desert's unrelenting sun.
Her steel gray eyes took in the dusty golden scene with relish. This trip already looked like it might be overnight or even a couple of days. If that was so Luce wouldn't mind. It felt like a spiritual trip, a cleansing, a test.
Ember:
Ember didn't find much more after Luce had done a thorough job of sweeping the place. A few more bottles of water behind the cashier's desk. Must have been the personal fridge of whoever had owned the place before. She wondered what they had been like. Probably the typical employee, working too hard at a dead end job in the middle of nowhere Nevada, whose only source of income was the promise of stupid tourists underestimating the gas level they would need to get to Vegas from California.
She poked through their things, allowing herself some time in the shadows. A piece of paper was stuffed between the cash register and the plastic lining. She pulled it out and unfolded it over the pile of forgotten newspapers. It was a map. There were main route highlighted and othe gas stations in the chain circled on various roads. This was the map someone had used to give directions, probably whipping it out every time someone asked something dumb and obvious that millions of other travelers also asked. Ember could see a clear line to the grand canyon and whistled under her breath. The land mark was a lot farther off than she'd expected, even on the well worn map it looked far away, which meant they'd need to find more places with supplies or face the very real threat of starvation. And dehydration. Ugh, why hadn't she paid more attention in her girl scout meetings?
She stuffed the map in her suit's front pocket and opened the cash drawer for fun. It was empty save for the rattled change. The employee had probably taken it all in a final act of desperation, clinging to the one thing they'd always desired in their life now that they'd reached the possible end of it. She hoped they'd gotten away... but some deep part of her thought of the first wave of invasion and what had happened to her friends, and the employees eventual fate became clear to her.
Luce:
Luce saw the map Ember had brought out with her and went over to be able to read it over her shoulder. "Huh, 100 miles give or take, and that's in a straight line which we can't travel because of that nice little lake in between here and there."
She craned her head to be able to see the map a little clearer. "I suppose we could follow the shore of the lake, crossing to the southern shore at that narrow part on the Arizona/Nevada border. We'll have water that way at least and we'll only have to worry about finding food."
Cecily:
Cecily didn't find much more useful stuff, though she poked around to make sure that they didn't miss anything. She also gave herself a few seconds to appreciate the cool of the building, before heading back out into the heat. Seeing that Ember and Luce were looking at something, she moved to stand beside them. She inspected the map and tried to remember what they'd taught her in eighth grade. She was finding that trivial knowledge was coming in very useful - if she could remember any of it.
Luce's summation and subsequent plan seemed good to her. She liked knowing where they could find water, and she especially liked keeping that water close. She'd read one too many books about wilderness survival to underestimate the importance of water. Also, she figured that Luce knew what was going on.
"Sounds good," she said. She blinked up at the sun. The faster they got this done, the faster they could go back (she wasn't ready to call the Den "home" yet). "I guess we should keep moving, then."
Ember:
"Right!" Ember stretched her hands, cracking the knuckles backward. "Then let's get going! The grand canyon isn't going to explore itself!" Once Luce had decided upon a reasonable plan it became a lot easier for Ember to join the bandwagon as if it had been her idea all along. After all, she reasoned, good leaders know to stick around smart people they can delegate to right?
THAT NIGHT:
"Shit!" Ember bashed the twigs against the rock, fiddling them furiously together. "Isn't this how it works?! I know i saw it on TV somewhere, or at camp, ugh c'mon!" Frustrated she tossed them away and slumped over her crossed legs, gazing mournfully out over the lake. They'd at least made it this far before the dark made it too hazardous to go any further. And weirdly, not that Ember knew too much about deserts or anything, but it had gotten really cold really fast.
Luckily the area she'd picked for their resting spot had some good vegetation and there was more than enough wood for a fire if she could just bloody get one started! She even imagined she'd got a spark a few times but the wind up on the beach area they were camping on had picked up. Now it was spinning the sad half broken sign that read their location: "Callville Bay"
Luce:
Luce sat on the crescent beach of Callville Bay. The moon was full and provided ample light but it was cold out here and they were in nothing but morphing suits so Luce went over to help Ember with the fire.
However she had finally run into a situation that she wasn't prepared for. Luce had lived her life in cities and even broken down cities had much easier fire sources than some stone and wood. "I don't know how to do this but I think that a special kind of stone is required. Maybe there is another way." She looked over at Cecily to see if she knew how to start a fire.
Well this was an interesting start to their adventure. "Maybe we should go without the fire. It will be like a walkabout or the right of passage young American Indians went on where they lived out in the harshest conditions to test themselves." Luce had to admit that she didn't know much more about ancient traditions of native peoples than any other child of the American education system, but she did know something about hardship and the strength that it could bring out in a person.
"So what do you say ladies, fire or no fire because I don't know how to make one?"
Ember:
Ember sighed in frustration, "Great. Well it doesn't look like we've got a choice. I can't get this thing to work!" She tossed the sticks out onto the water, finding less pleasure from the action than she'd hoped as the twigs just drifted lazily on the calmly lapping water.
"Ugh, I'm finally back on a beach and I'm stuck doing some stupid ancient ritual that was probably just some form of cheap entertainment." She held up her hands like sock puppets, "Gee bob, I'm bored how about we go into the wilderness to test ourselves? Gosh Jim! That sounds like a great idea! And while we're at it, let's get ourselves killed from frost bite! YAY." With a huffed sigh Ember fell onto her back, wrapping her goosebumped arms around herself. "Why couldn't we have thought to get matches?! I know I have a zippo lighter somewhere in my pack at the den... but it was always so hot in Vegas!" She complained to no one, finding nothing else to do while Luce explored her inner zen.
Luce:
"I guess that means no fire," Luce said in her usual flat tone that was the extent of her sense of humor as Ember threw the sticks in the water. Luce hugged herself. Even she was cold. Desert nights were cold apparently. She should have remembered that and here they were in nothing but their morphing suits.
She looked at Ember and Cecily, a little disgruntled. Two very attractive young women and they were out here in the desert, isolated from everyone...and Luce couldn't find a way to keep warm. She snorted at her bad luck.
Well if she couldn't get one type of exercise she might as well get another. "Come on, we have to find a way to keep warm and I know of nothing better than physical activity. Maybe tomorrow we can work more on getting in tune with your opponent so that you can predict attacks but those drills require a lot of standing around at first. How about if we just run a some basic drills that will get our blood moving?"
She stood up. "After we drill we can spar and see how much you've taken in, yeah?" It was phrased as a question but Ember didn't really have a choice.
Ember:
They sat in silence for awhile once Luce made the obvious, disheartening statement. There was nothing but the soft lapping of the water and the musical chirruping night time insects providing a soothing overtone to compliment the cascade of stars. Ember wondered what Rian was doing at this moment... and she wondered if he was thinking of her too...
Then she got a strange sensation and looked over at Luce. Was it her imagination or was she...? Ember looked away quickly, hiding her strange expression. For crying out loud how many times had she caught Luce doing something weird like standing too close, or falling a certain way so she was on top of her, not to even mention what she'd seen at the party! She tried her best not to jump to conclusions but...
"Ahem! Yeah! Training, great!" Ember rolled onto her feet, getting into defensive position immediately. She knew she was going to get her butt handed to her since she wasn't warmed up, and hadn't been keeping up with the outside regiment as strictly as Luce demanded. But anything was better than this ridiculously awkward situation. "Morphs or no? Your pick."
Luce:
Luce's expression showed her disapproval. "Humans have been fighting wars for all of its history and it has managed to do it without the use of deus ex machina technology that allowed us to take on animal forms. We'll be training your body Ember and with it your mind. And if I'm not mistaken, since morphing takes mental discipline, you should become a better morpher as well."
She was talking to Ember but Cecily could join in at any time if she wished. "Now, first things first," she threw a punch at Ember. It was unskilled, thrown from the shoulder and Ember should have plenty of time to see it coming, at least in fighting terms, especially since Luce had taught her a number of counters to this particular attack because it was so popular with the untrained. let's see how much you remember, she finished the sentence in her head.
Ember:
"Ha!" Ember grinned. Luce was throwing an easy left hook, probably doing it to throw her off guard with such an easy tactic. But she wasn't going to fall for it. Staying sharp, she blocked with her right arm and swung her left elbow around before Luce could get her defenses up. It was a messy hit, only the tip of her elbow actually connecting since she was a bit too far away, but it was a still a point since she hit Luce's jaw.
Before she could counter, Ember back tracked swiftly, feeling much more energized after that first strike. However that was exactly the kind of false confidence Luce had been trying to rise in her, and even though she had tried not to get cocky, it was Ember's worst weakness, underestimating her enemy. Or rather, overestimating herself.
She didn't even realize that Luce had knocked her down until she was flat on her back, her legs pulled from under her by a hook kick while she'd been doing all that movement. "Uff!" All her breath gushed out of her. But that's what she got for not being grounded...
No time for a pity party. Ember got her breath back as she rolled off to the side and onto her feet, her body in fighting pose once again. "Erh! Round Two!"
Luce:
Luce hadn't intended to counter Ember. She had meant to throw the punch and make sure that Ember remembered the counter, which she did...almost. The counter came just a touch slowly which meant that Ember was thinking about it beforehand, it wasn't ingrained yet. But considering they had only been practicing for a couple of weeks that was really good.
Then she left herself open and Luce, whose muscles were ingrained with all the moves she was trying to pass on, did the automatic counter and knocked Ember to the ground. She shouldn't have, but she wasn't used to teaching and not used to pulling her blows. It was a whole new level of control that she would have to learn and she better learn it quickly.
Ember got up quickly enough but Luce didn't attack her again. She had been wrong to start the training in the first place. She wasn't in the right mood to train, what she had really wanted was someone to beat up on and Ember presented herself as a good target, Cecily too maybe.
She turned away and sat down on the ground, hard, hurting herself because she dropped so fast. Good, pain was good. Pain was something she understood. Emotions weren't and she didn't know how to deal with hers. A couple of weeks ago she had looked down on Ember when the girl had shown up in a tiff about something Rian had said.
But today she wouldn't have blamed Ember a bit. After seeing Catherine again, not once but twice, Luce wasn't doing so well. She was feeling things, somewhere, but...shut down...couldn't think...not used to...Ahhhh!
She didn't realize that the last part had actually been a scream of frustration until she felt the sound die in her own throat. She had betrayed her team, though Ember, Rian and Diana didn't know that yet, and for what! A controller. What was wrong with her.
She felt an odd hitching feeling in her throat. It was so tight she could hardly breath. What was wrong with her? Why was her body reacting this way. Why couldn't she just make herself forget, not care, like she always did.
The loss of control was what disturbed Luce the most. She controlled her emotions, not the other way around. This had to stop. She had to find a way to make it stop.
She stood up abruptly and faced Ember. "Hit me! Just...just...punch me or something. Beat me up."
Ember:
"Uhhh...." Ember's jaw dropped open as Luce screamed bloody murder to the heavens and then railed at Ember, demanding that she hit her or something. She couldn't guess why but... maybe it was something she'd done in their sparring?
No, that wouldn't be it. Luce ALWAYS kept her cool. Something was gravely wrong.
"Luce?" Ember lowered her voice to a bare whisper, inching closer with her hand out. "I don't feel right hitting you like this. Especially since I don't think you've done anything that deserves a punch in the face." She took a deep breath and locked eyes with the desperate woman, making sure she knew that she was here to listen and wasn't going to fight anymore. The last thing she needed was for Luce to loose control in the middle of a match.
"Hey, why don't we just sit down?" Ember crouched, falling back on her haunches as a demonstration, "Yeah? We'll just talk for a bit, k? Heh, I'm plenty warmed up anyway, lets just enjoy nature and hang out like friends?"
Luce:
"No!" Luce picked up two of the bigger branches that they had planned on using for the fire and threw one to Ember. Ember was quick enough to catch it even though it was unexpected. Good, she was getting better.
"Get up. Come on. Forget hand to hand, you should learn some sword fighting." She got into position, hands a fist apart, left below the right, wrists lined up, elbows in, end of the stick lined up with her navel, stick tip pointed at where Ember's throat would be if Ember was standing. "I'm not your friend, I'm no one's friend. Get up!"
Ember:
Ember stayed put, the branch still held tightly in her white knuckled grip though she hadn't used it to block Luce's dangerous advance, despite her strong desire to do so.
"Fine." She dropped the calming voice since it obviously wasn't going to work, and adopted a tone that resembled Luce's own. "You don't have to be my friend. But I'm not going to be your enemy." Slowly, she stood, heart racing in her chest as she stared down her mentor. In the back of her mind, Ember somehow knew Luce's forced control would someday snap, she just wished it had happened when someone, maybe Rian, was around to help. Talk some sense into her. But Ember was the only one here besides Cecily, and since she spent several hours each day with the woman surely she would be the best one to reach her in this state...
She tossed the branch down. "You can fight me if you want, but I'm not going to play this game. You should know that when a person is in distress they shouldn't ignore it. That puts the entire team at risk. So you can tell me whats going on now, or you can beat me up a little and then tell me when you've got better hold of yourself!"
Oh please god, Ember prayed, let it be the first.
Luce:
Luce stood stock still. Not one muscle moved, not one twitch. Even her face was frozen, her eyes locked in place. But not focused on Ember, not focused on anything.
From the outside it might look like Luce had regained her trademark control but in fact it was just the opposite. Luce literally did not know what to do. The words, "frozen in uncertainty" were extremely apt. Not even a thought crossed her mind. She couldn't move, she couldn't think, she couldn't even think about the fact that she wasn't thinking, and unfortunately, she couldn't breathe.
The time dragged on right up until Luce collapsed.
Ember;
"Oh shit. I broke her." Ember gaped, standing now but unable to move save for a few panicked looks around to see if there was anything that would help.
"Uhm... oh crap. Oh crap. Luce?" She just couldn't believe that the woman, so strong and self controlling could suddenly collapse. But she'd been saying strange things and acting completely different from normal, oh god what if she had a brain hemorrhage? Something had broken in her head and caused her to go crazy before bursting and killing her on the spot! Oh god!
Ember forced herself to move, dragging her feet as her eyes stared fixedly on Luce's slumped form. Then she kneeled, pressing her face close to her mouth and holding her fingers against her neck. There was... breath, and there, a pulse. "Thank god... ok. She's just passed out. Not great, but not dead." Ember mumbled to herself, "Ahh... k, now what?" They were stuck in the middle of nowhere on a nature jaunt , miles from help and with the barest of resources. However, they did have one thing that could help...
She scooped the cold lake water into her hands, cupping it there as she ran back over, dumping it directly into Luce's face. "Luce! LUCE! WAKE UP!" For good measure she knelt down and tapped her cheek roughly with an open palm, leaning her face in close to listen for a change in breathing.
Luce:
The cold water did nothing. The screaming helped a bit. But what really woke Luce up was Ember's running. She had spent so much time in a war zone that the sound of running feet got her attention, even unconscious, in a way that nothing else could. Pure survival instinct dragged her back into consciousness where she rather not be. Luce didn't run from many things but she wanted to run from her life, just a bit, right now.
She came awake all at once. Her eyes snapped open and she rolled away from Ember before her mind caught up with her and reminded her where she was and who she was with. Normally the roll would have ended in a crouch but this time it ended with her sitting in the dirt, her hand at her knife hilt but the weapon remaining undrawn.
But one important thing had changed. Her shield was down. The wall that separated her from her emotions had momentarily collapsed and all the confusion, pain and joy she was feeling shone clearly in her eyes when she looked at the woman who had woken her up.
Ember:
"Luce! Luce it's ok, it's just me!" Ember threw her hands up, stumbling backward on her haunches as the woman rolled away and reached for the knife at her belt. She was volatile, and Ember wasn't going to take anymore chances. But at least it looked like she was cracking, maybe with just a bit more prodding she would let out all the emotion that was building up into this deadly energy.
Right, time to play therapist.
Ember rolled onto her knees and slowly moved forward, sitting cross legged opposite Luce. Holding her voice at low, soothing levels she attempted to reach the part of Luce that might respond to a fellow faction mate. "Hey, are you ok?" She started, searching the strong flashes of expression in her eyes for what had caused this breakdown. "Luce, just talk. Tell me whats going on. I swear I won't repeat it to anyone, you can tell me anything and I'll back you up, ok? I promise."
"Just-" She took a deep breath, hardening her tone so Luce would know she didn't have a choice in this anymore, "let it out. You're going to hurt someone if you don't."
Luce:
"Hurting people is what I do," she said almost bitterly. "It's what I'm good at." She slumped out of the defensive posture, her hand falling from the hilt of her knife. Instead it held her forehead as her head dropped forward, the other hand running through her hair.
The breakdown had taken the emotion out of her. She wasn't going to attack anyone anymore. And she also didn't feel like she had the energy to talk but Ember had given her an order and, for the first time, she had sounded like someone to be listened to. The authoritative tone got through spoke to Luce in a way the kind one hadn't.
"I betrayed the faction for a controller." She didn't look at Ember as she said it, her voice soft.
Ember:
Oh crap. Ember's mouth hung open slightly, but she considered her words carefully before speaking.
"Ah, I see." She frowned, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion. "And was there a good reason for this? I know you're very hard on yourself, but I also know that you'd have a damned good reason for putting anyone in our faction at risk." Ember tried to think of when this shift in Luce's behavior had occurred. Had she been playing them from the start? No... she couldn't believe that. Although at the thought the tension in her shoulders tightened. The reminder that they were out in the middle of nowhere, Ember clearly outmatched even when Luce wasn't driven by crazy, was making it extremely difficult to be understanding and open.
But she'd sworn to back her up. She trusted the woman, and if for nothing else than her gut instinct, she would give her the time to explain before attacking.
Luce:
"Good reason? No. There is no excuse, no good reason for what I did. I, they were going to hurt her and...I didn't think I just...reacted." That was one of the things she was most ashamed of. You never attacked, never used violence without thinking. If you did you just became some brute, some muscle for hire.
"I betrayed my team because of-" her throat closed and she had to force the word and the amazing amount of shame it carried out of her mouth, "emotions."
Ember:
Ember choked, desperately keeping from laughing at Luce's grim expression. She swallowed hard, remembering that this was a person who'd spent the better part of their lives in denial of all emotional things, and here she'd been hit with the worst one of all that had effected both her personal code and her pact with her team mates. The two sides of herself Ember doubted Luce ever let collide.
At least, though, it seemed like there was a reason after all. A defense reaction that other people would find excusable, Luce had taken much harder.
"Listen to me." Ember ordered, "I don't need an excuse. Did I say I needed one? NO. What I need is an explanation. Tell me exactly what happened, and then I'll judge whether or not there was reason to what you did."
Luce:
Luce looked up at Ember's response. Her back straightened and she crossed her legs in front of her. It wasn't any sort of formal postition but it was more formal than sitting slumped over with her head between her hands.
Her eyes cleared at the sound of the order and she began to relate what had happened, keeping emotions out of her voice and sparing herself nothing.
"I discovered that the yeerks were shipping a truck full of dracon grenades out of the city. I brought the news back to Rian and he ordered Ray and a team to go hijack the shipment. I followed against orders but it took me a long time to locate the team. When I found it they had driven out to a base in the desert and had taken her captive. Cath-Sedra. The Sub-visser we kidnapped at Area 51. She was hurt and she was trying to escape. They would have hurt her more so........I attacked them and got her away. Then I ran..........I think I hit Drake on the way out or the dracon beam went off. He ended being ok, it was only on stun, but I didn't know that at the time."
"After we got away I morphed to my horse form in front of her and carried her into the desert. She was too hurt to move on her own. We stopped and I helped with her injuries but she needed more help than I could give her so I contacted a yeerk outpost in the desert and sent them to get her. They don't know it was me, it was anonymous."
Ember:
Ember caught the name slip. So she was right about Luce after all! Thankfully though it seemed she had her sights on someone else, but from the sound of it they were a high ranking controller without hope of rescue. Which meant Luce was in a very precarious situation. Ember remembered the controller from their mission in the infamous army base when she'd had to lock her in a room with Luce in order to escape. So they'd been in contact since then, even before they'd taken the sub-visser hostage.
"Luce..." She looked out across the water, "You could have killed Drake. That was reckless, you know that. And choosing a yeerk over your team mates... I understand trying to protect the human half, but you went beyond anything rational, to the point of helping our enemy."
"I have to know. Why? It was more than defending someone in danger. What's going on with you and this controller?"
Luce:
"The host in question, Catherine, was a friend of mine. Not before our capture but during. Her yeerk, Sedra 149, had a relationship with my yeerk Jals 732 before it took me as a host. They continued their relationship even through the change of hosts and they often fed together, leaving Catherine and I free at the same times."
"I feared for the safety of the host and didn't think." She didn't want to admit that part of her feared for Sedra as well. It was hard, having feelings for a yeerk, feelings she wasn't sure were hers or not.
When a yeerk died of kadrona starvation inside a host they left an imprint on the brain they had been attached to. Luce didn't know the science behind it, she didn't know what had happened. All she knew was that when Jals had died it had felt like it had simply been absorbed into her own mind instead of dying. She experienced memories as both entities and so she had feelings for Catherine and for Sedra at the same time. It was all very confusing and Luce didn't like that she had to deal with it. Why couldn't Jals have just died and not left behind all these messy feelings.
Furthermore Luce didn't like that she seemed to be at the beck and call of such feelings. It was...degrading, annoying, wrong and slightly frightening.
She looked at Ember and wondered if she should tell Ember about the girl, the daughter, her daughter, its daughter. Arg it was all so confusing. And if she couldn't explain it to herself how could she hope to explain it to another. So, after a pause, she decided to keep her mouth shut.
"I also believe that Sedra, the controller can be an asset in the future. She has access that can get us into the kid farms and I have the knowledge of where they are, or Jals did anyway."
Ember:
Ugh. This was both awkward and bad. Luce was in love with a controller, or at least the host of a yeerk, but still... If she felt so strongly that she put her faction mates in danger... Ember always knew that Luce was more of an independent contractor than a normal just-roped-into-it teenage animorph. She had experienced something that few of them had, and only managed to live beyond it by closing herself off from human emotion that would otherwise drown her.
Ember didn't really know much about the yeerks. She'd never been infected, or captured. Her closest call was when the invasion began and the family she'd been staying with was wiped out. Other than that, everything she'd learned had been from the animorphs. It was all just facts and details that served to keep them alive in the ongoing war. What kind of trauma having a yeerk infest your mind could do to a human being... just wasn't something she'd ever thought about. Most controllers she wrote off as inherently evil. Thinking of them as anything else...
"Luce." She surprised herself by talking, "What you did was wrong."
Ember waved her hand, "I mean, I understand your logical reasons. Even though you probably came up with them later. And I completely get your feelings, and why in that situation you acted the way you did." She exhaled, "But it was wrong."
"You disobeyed orders, you placed your team mates at risk, and worst of all you put yourself in danger. Luce, how on earth can I trust you with my life, or anyone else's, if you don't even take care of your own? I know you know that what you did cost us all something, and its clear that you're feeling guilt. I also know that you are feeling guilt for another reason, one that has nothing to do with the animorphs or your actions on that mission."
She sighed, "And I'm not going to absolve you. Because its not OK. You haven't dealt with whats going on in your personal life and its effecting your decisions." With one pointed finger, Ember locked her eyes, "I already told you I'll back you up. I won't say anything to Rian. But God help me Luce, you'd better damn report to me when anything like this happens again. If I have to drag your feelings through the mud to get you to see clearly, then that's what I'll do. I won't let you go through this alone."
Luce:
Luce's anger flashed at Ember's words. Since when had she ever claimed that anything she did was right? Luce didn't go around moralizing. She left that to others. It wasn't that she didn't care, well she didn't care, but only because she knew she was incapable of making such moral judgements so why bother.
She had never claimed that any of her actions were right. What she was feeling guilty about was that they were messy. If she was going to go around saving controllers then she shouldn't do it in a way that put her team in danger.
Furthermore, she shouldn't be doing it for emotional reasons. If she was going to do something it should have been motivated by logic and it hadn't been.
She was fine with putting her life on the line and not always on the "right" side, but she shouldn't have included anyone else in her recklessness.
But even though she was thinking all of this the only thing she said was, "Yes ma'am."
She didn't tell Ember but this was the last time she would let emotions rule her actions. She wished that they had invented a surgery that would remove whatever organ or brain section that was responsible for such irrationality but since they hadn't she would do the next best thing. She would do what she had always done, shut it off.
Ember:
Crap. She'd pushed too hard. Ember could see it in Luce's eyes, the woman just shut it all off again. And here she thought she'd been making progress with the army commando approach. Damn! She just couldn't find a working tactic! If she went soft Luce would bowl over her, but if she actually took charge then Luce clammed up tighter than a Taxxon shell.
"Ok, first off, I'm not a ma'am." Ember sighed, "And second, don't close down on me. If you can't take criticism then you haven't been listening to anything I've said. I don't want to be your enemy, but you're not letting me be your friend. So at least let me be your conscience, someone you can look to. I'm not judging, I'm getting the facts straight. Now stop holding back or I'll kick your ass."
Luce:
Luce scoffed at Ember's last statement. It wasn't suppose to be a mean sound, it was just one of amusement, but it came out that way out of habit.
"As if you could," she muttered.
She stood up. "Look, I get that you are trying to help me but you aren't my friend, you're my C.O. and that means I follow your orders and I call you ma'am, get used to it," she said harshly. Ember had it in her to be a good leader, she was proving that to Luce right now. But she still wanted to be everyone's friend, have everyone let her in. Leadership didn't work like that, at least not with Luce.
"I've heard what you said, but it isn't your job to judge my intentions only my actions and whether they hurt or help the mission. My actions hurt the mission, done. If you have some sort of punishment in mind then fine, but don't try to make me feel better about what happened. Again, that is not something you should be concerned with. There will come a day when you have to command a force bigger than one, two, or even three individuals. There may come a day when the animorphs are a real army instead of just an insurgent group. When that happens you won't have time to watch everyone, be everyone's confidant."
Besides, she didn't want Ember prying into something that she was embarrassed of. She would deal with this on her own. She had already dragged her teammates into it enough.
Ember:
Ember grinned, now she was getting somewhere.
"Yeah right, like I could ever lead an army. Hell I was nervous enough about being a second second, remember? Although I guess I like getting to lead missions and stuff, but Matt let me do that back in LA too." She shrugged, "But ok, I'll take what you give me as good advice, so long as the favor's returned."
"Now!" She got up, brushing the dirt and tense energy off her shoulders and pants. "Let's find someplace to stretch out and sleep. The night air has gotten a lot warmer from before, so I'll have to be careful to not sleep through sunset. We should be able to get to the Grand Canyon by tomorrow!"
Luce:
Luce laughed a little evilly. "Not yet Ember. You may be my superior officer but you still a sorry excuse for a fighter." She let the statement hang in the air as she seemed to contemplate Ember and come to the conclusion that Ember was the sorriest excuse for a fighter ever presented to her but that she, being the saintly person that she was, would take on this hardship and make the best out of it.
It was an attitude that her masters had taken with her. It was harsh but it was useful and pupils got better with it. And Luce had decided that if she was going to teach Ember then she better start doing a better job of being a good teacher. Up until now drilling with Ember had been an amusing experience and a way to get needed exercise. But today, Ember had shown Luce that she might actually make the leader that others, including Rian and Matthew, thought she might make. And that meant she deserved the best of Luce's attention and the all the skill that Luce could beat into her.
"I've been lenient in letting you skip right to drills, mostly because I've been teaching you little tricks that will keep you alive in desperate situations. But if you really want to learn then you're going to have to start from scratch and scratch is exercise so," smilingly, "why don't you go back to that catcus we passed on our way here and do it running on your own two feet this time." She stretched and then jumped around a bit. "You know, I'll be nice and keep you company." And set a pace that you aren't going to like in the least.
"Let's go!"
And so Luce and Ember set off across the desert, Ember not in the happiest of moods but Luce in high spirits. She was doing something she knew how to do, something she was good at. And even if she didn't know what the future would hold it didn't bother her, she had never been much for the future anyway. If it happened it happened but it was much more likely that you'd get killed before you got to see the future. So there was no happily ever after, only the happily ever now that was hers for a little while. And no matter what they did to her, nothing could ever take that away.