song_tra_bong | In-country with Julian: day two

"Thanks." Her rifle goes back over her back and she steadies herself with a hand on his shoulder before stepping on the proffered hands.

She scrambles up and it isn't long before she can smell fresh air. Rifle back in hand, she does a low sweep before standing on tip toe to get a better look around.

The sun is low, but not as low as she'd expected. They've got some time left. She heads back down the tunnel, dropping back down beside Julian; with a clever mid-air hand switch, she even manages not to clock him with the rifle. "We've got a few hours left before we need to be back. Time for one more tunnel, at least."

She gestures to the remaining two--one angling up, the other heading determinedly straight ahead. "Which?"

He points up. 'Nearer the surface will provide us with chances to get out quicker if necessary - and there are more likely to be enemy near the top.'

Which is, after all, what he'd rather be doing right now. It's been a while since he killed a human, last night notwithstanding.

A nod. It's what she was thinking.

"You stay on point, then."

She knows he wants a kill--it's a feeling she understands. She offers him the means; it's a thing she can do.

He'd appreciate it, if he thought further than the assumption that she knew he was more likely to survive a fight.

He wanders on in silence, sword drawn - and after about ten minutes, stops. There's the clear sound of voices - not more than two or three by the sound of it, but quite clear all the same. They're pretty close but not moving, so obviously not walking.

'I suggest we get up close and you use a knife. This close to the top the use of a gun would surely be heard and could draw any number of them - we could easily find ourselves trapped.'

She nods, listening to the voices. The rifle is put away and the knife brought out. She twirls it once, then sets her grip.

She gestures with the blade for him to continue. And if she's smiling...well, she's fond of close kills.

He wonders about that briefly, how someone takes so easily to blood - or a human someone anyway. But puts it away for another time, and sheaths his sword. His bow is taken instead, and two arrows pulled from their quiver - he pulls one third of the flight from both to adjust their path in the air, sets them against each other and nocs them both.

And then walks towards the voices - there seems to be four different ones, the closer he gets. The tunnel opens out into another cavern, slightly bigger than the ammo dump but not much. Four men sit eating and talking - he checks to see Mary Anne close behind, then turns back and looses the arrows, watching in satisfaction as they split off and bury themselves in the foreheads of two of the seated men.

She wishes for a moment that she could watch him shoot again, but that gets pushed aside as soon as they enter the cavern. An eyeblink to assess the situation--she lunges, slitting the throat of the third in a wild swing. Blood gets in eyes, but she throws the knife at the fourth and last man.

She turns, scrubbing blood from her eyes, to check the kill. She missed--but not entirely. The knife entered at the base of his neck rather than in the throat proper. The man lies thrashing on the floor, still alive.

She sighs, crouching beside him. A knee rested on his chest still him somewhat. She pulls the knife from his throat and slips to the hilt in his heart, twisting it to be sure.

She stands, pulling her knife free from the dead man. She's vaguely angry at herself--she prefers a clean kill when working this close.

He's leaning on the table, watching her with half-lidded eyes. He wants to ask her about that - how it's OK to kill but not enjoy it if it's not clean. He finds it curious. But now is not the time.

'We should leave. If we venture further and these bodies are found, our way back will be blocked. We know where this place is, we can always come back tomorrow - or later tonight. And anyway, I'm hungry.'

It's said dispassionately but his eyes are searching her face. He doesn't know what he's looking for, but he still does it.

She knows he's watching before she ever turns to look at him. She wipes her knife clean and sheathes it before meeting his eyes.

"Sounds good to me. Let's go."

She doesn't know what she's looking for either.

He doesn't move for a moment longer, then drops his eyes and nods. He relapses into silence until they get back to the entrance, then cups his hands to give her a foot up again. 'Tell me if it's clear and I'll boost you up over the edge.'

A hand on his shoulder again to steady herself, then up and a look around, pistol in her free hand. She listens but doesn't hear anything out of the ordinary; sticking her head out further to look around doesn't set off a rattle of enemy fire, so she gives the all clear.

Once she's out, she stays crouched near the edge, looking back at Julian. "Need a hand?"

He just snorts, and jumps straight upwards without any kind of preamble, grasping the edge of the hole with his fingertips and still somehow managing to look graceful as he hauls himself straight out.

Then he just stands and looks at her coolly. 'No.'

Distant, cold. He doesn't like that she made him wonder about her.

She shrugs. "Alright, then. Don't say I never offered."

She stands and walks past him, leading the way back to the ambush point. If he thinks he's going to phase her, he's got another thing coming. At least, that's the plan.

He watches her go, his expression a mixture of disdain and superiority. He follows eventually though, ignoring her purposefully and taking the opportunity to shoot distant birds out of the sky in the failing light. Just because.

She contemplates telling him to stop shooting--dead birds with arrows in them will get noticed as out of the ordinary--then lets it go. It'll no doubt get written off as one of the million strange things people claim to see in-country but can never prove. Even if someone took the arrows, it wouldn't amount to much; it's not like they'll put two and two together and get 'American girl, immortal prince and their respective attitude problems were out hunting Viet Cong.'

When they get back to the cluster of trees they've been using for camp, she takes a seat and starts digging in her bag for C-rations. "These don't taste like much of anything, but they keep you fed." Unless you feel like showing off and pulling better food out of the air goes unsaid, but there's a hint of it in her expression.

And of course, he considers it. But he doesn't because he'd said he wanted to see her in her natural environment didn't he? Hell, he could run them both into a Shadow thing a luxury hotel here right now if he wanted - but it wasn't the point of being here.

So he just takes the rations with a nod and starts to eat them with no expression whatsoever.

She opens her tin of...whatever meat this is supposed to be and searches in the ration box until she finds the little container of Tabasco. She adds a dash on top and stirs up the mixture, then holds the bottle out to him.

"Here. Makes it a little more edible."

He takes it with the smallest of shrugs, not caring. He's decided that distance hould be kept, if possible, and therefore, the superior air is necessary.

It just nags at him to think that she was actually quite impressive out here, fighting the way she does.

If he wants to wear his superiority hat, so be it. She's knows his worth in a fight, and as of yet he hasn't expressed interest in wanting to kill her. Anything else, she'll deal with.

She eats quickly and silently, gathering her trash to bury in the morning when she can see what she's doing.

"I'm gonna take you up on that watching me sleep thing. Just shake me if you hear something or want to change shifts." With that, she cradles her rifle to her chest, resting her cheek against the barrel; she'll probably have a mark on her face when she wakes. Right now, that's not her concern; she's asleep within minutes.

Watch you sleep? That wasn't the deal - it was 'keep watch while you slept...'

It seems to him that the distinction is an important one to make. But he doesn't say it and is glad that she drops off quickly, because then he can relax. The trash is gathered and buried, because he knows about that too, and then he settles back against a tree, smoking cigarettes that leave no trace, whittling some wood and...finding that regardless of anything, his eyes do spend rather more time on her than anything else.

When she sleeps, she doesn't move--a skill refined over the nights she had to take shelter in trees and perfected after shifting in a dream and waking up when she hit the ground.

In the dreamscape, she is hunting but not here (home); it's some place she's never been. She has a companion, but cannot see him (her, it). She seeks, and finds nothing.

Even in dreams, part of her brain never quite shuts off, waiting for a signalsoundtouch to bring her back to wakefulness.

He watches, hands barely moving, making no sound. And tells himself that he's not wondering whether she dreams.

And wondering, too, what its like to feel fear and fight on anyway. Because all humans get scared don't they? And some cower from it and some don't - and she doesn't.

His superiority melts a little as he thinks about it. Because be mortal and brave - it's quite a feat. Stronger than being immortal and brave maybe.

He shuts the thought off. Immediately.

In the dream, the hunt is good, though elements of it are strange. She carries a sword--did Preston teach me? or someone else?--and runs past trees that will never grow in Vietnam.

There is a sound behind her and she whirls to strike it down, only to find her companion.

"I've been looking for you," he says, voice stern, but tempered with a laugh.

He has no face.

She does not know what she replies, but in the real world, the stillness of her sleep is broken by her faintly moving lips. There is, however, no sound.

She is dreaming.

He watches.

But he won't interrupt, not unless she starts making a noise that might compromise them.

They stare at each other in silence. He takes a step towards her. Her hand tightens on the sword.

They are underground, in the dark. He is closer to her than one step should have brought him.

"And what exactly is it you do want," he whispers in her ear.

She knows that voice. And he is so close.

Her eyes fly open. He is watching her. Her heart pounds in her chest and she does not speak.

In-country with Julian: day two

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