The remainder of the conversation between the trio is relatively quiet, besides the crunching of rocks and gravel underneath them. It isn’t until they finally pass by bodies, ones that are safely assumed to be slaughtered by Neil. Arch Extent isn’t phased, considering how often he’s seen the residents of Division 5 perform this behavior, or the fact he knew the Prayers were a deranged group of criminals who formed a cult. The scientist takes care to attentively step over bodies or spots of bloodied debris. Winter takes the lead, digits clutching to the brown wooden box as they finally arrive at reassuring sunlight. Not too far away are the trusty steeds of the hunters, who’ve been waiting patiently for their riders.
“TROT!” Winter exclaims cheerfully. Winter’s Featherduster immediately directs his attention to the Winterlance, blinking once or twice in relief that she is safe. Beside him is Neil’s Featherduster, Heist. Heist pants as a dog would, a bone of questionable origins lapped in her mouth with her tongue curled around it. She drools slightly, ready to wag her long protruding feathers at the sight of the male Hunter. “Hope you didn’t cause too much trouble with your sister, Heist!”
Winter frees a hand of hers and happily scratches underneath the chin of Trot, fingernails scraping over tough black and turquoise scales. She senses that the Featherdusters will probably need a bath soon, seeing that they might be shedding in the near future with the way his scales were feeling dry. Trot, who’s imprinted onto Winter, casually licks her face and leaves a long trail of drool from her cheek. The Winterlance isn’t bothered and even welcomes Trot to continue.
As Neil and Winter are prepping for the long ride back, the scientist takes a moment to examine the Featherdusters. It isn’t the first time he’s seen them; They’re notably a very common creature throughout all of Division 5, the equivalent of having a horse to ride around on. However he’s never seen these specific coats and scale colors of the Featherdusters. The most important feature that Arch Extent notices is the one thing he didn’t expect: lack of saddles.
“You don’t use saddles?” Arch Extent turns to the male hunter, who’s already mounted Heist.
“Hunters usually don’t use saddles. Less weight for the Featherdusters.” Neil adjusts his reigns, still tainted with a spec of a dried crimson patch on his face. The scientist is a bit puzzled, but it answered his question about the weight. It would seem hunters would need their mounts to travel as fast as possible while dealing with intense combat. Arch Extent is a bit surprised when he feels a thump on the back of his backpack, as if a hand grabbed it. He turns his head quickly, watching as Winter begins to lift up the flap of it.
“Since we don’t have saddles, I’m putting this in your bag for now.” Winter begins angling the box into his bag. The scientist isn’t quite sure how to feel, having what he considers his “bodyguard” to assert herself and take over the decision of where the placement of gems should go. If he has to carry the box on his back, so be it.
He endures it, feeling the woman shift the items around on his back, fitting the box as best as she could while trying not to crush anything.
“We’ll just squeeze it between all the food rations you got in here!”
And now I’m suddenly a pack mule… He thinks to himself.
“Anyways, guess you’ll be riding with me, Fancy Hat.” Winter swings herself up onto Trot. The creature’s peacock-like feathers shiver, giving a few up-and-down motions while Winter grips his reigns. He raises his hands up to remove the mask from his face. It takes a few clicks, but it’s off his face, revealing tired eyes and stubble that hadn’t been kept up for at least a few days.
“So how much weight can these creatures carry?” He asks, wondering what the weight capacity is. He’s never ridden a Featherduster before, so it begs the question if his weight would slow down Trot. Winter feels confident in her answer, knowledgeable about the limits of her mount.
“A lot. It’s just that we’re trained to ride them bareback. They’re able to run faster, and it’s something we need if we run into trouble. The more weight on them, then naturally they’ll be slower, ya know? If we’re not expecting to bring heavy baggage, we’ll put saddles on them. Also, the saddles and other bags are back at the Daggermouth Outpost.” Winter explains. “We’re wasting daylight here. Are ya gonna hop on or stand there all day?”
Arch Extent stares at Winter, observing how her hand is now extending out to him. A mere hour ago, Winter and him were ready to kill each other if circumstances came to it. Her salient edge was against his neck and the tip of his plasma based pistol jutted right against her forehead.
But now? She’s offering her hand out to him, actually being considerate to give an answer, and more importantly: vouched for him during Neil’s confrontation.
He’s wondering just how motivated by money she is–or if she truly understands his sentiment about the danger of Cosmos Plague. Whether it’s motivation by money or if she feels for the man’s home planet, he’s glad to have achieved being on her good side.
Or at least the scientist hopes so.
Guess I’ll hop on…
The male takes her hand, Winter helping him up to get behind her on the Featherduster. Trot seems unbothered, giving out a huff as the man grips to the orange straps of his backpack.
“I’ve never been on one of these things…” The scientist remarks, not nervous but unsure of what experience to expect. Normally, he’d call Seraphic for a vehicle by now, or receive some type of transportation. With Winter being immune, he doesn’t want Seraphic involved immediately, wanting to study her as long as possible before Seraphic or other enemies interfere. Winter gives an assured smirk, eyebrows lowering a bit while her voice gives an inflection.
“Just make sure to hold onto me tight or else you’ll just fall right off.” Winter’s comment prompts the Arch to grasp at her waist, knowing full well they might take off at full speed.
I have a feeling she’d probably love to see me fall off.
While he waits for the two hunters to take off, Winter briefly turns back at him, directing an inquisitive look.
“I know I keep calling you Fancy Hat, but what is your actual name?” Winter asks, blinking once or twice.
Arch Extent doesn’t answer right away, pondering if he wants to give a fake name, admit his codename as an Arch, or if he needs to remain silent. He shouldn’t be telling this native of the planet any information about himself, Origin, his mission, or personal details. There’s barriers he’s willing to break if he has to though, if it means he can conductively extract information from her little by little about her own personal details. All the way from information on the whereabouts of the Winterlance tribe, her mutation, upbringing, parents, whatever she knew that was available. He needed every fine detail of it to figure out why Cosmos Plague couldn’t infect her, why her body worked against it. If her body naturally produced antibodies, she could be the solution to creating the most effective vaccine; if it’s a genetic immunity however, that’ll be a harder problem to solve.
“Fine. If ya wanna be quiet, we’ll just go ahead. I’ll keep calling you Fancy Hat though.” Winter remarks, turning back and giving Trot a good kick in the side. The creature speeds off, which prompts the scientist lost in thoughts to quickly grab his hat–the one thing he couldn’t lose, next to the potential answer to Earth’s biggest crisis.
He makes a decision from this point on he’ll gradually give her answers. He knows that this partnership of theirs won’t end with King Uthar, that her entire life is about to change and become the biggest test subject for Seraphic Inc. He’s trying to build with this test subject.
“Arch Extent.”
“What kind of name is Arch Extent? Like–what Tribe is that?” Winter is perplexed at the origins of this man.
“I’m not from a tribe.” Arch Extent feels that giving his name is enough truth to say to her. He shouldn’t tell people of this planet his name, but he’s already pushing it by saying that.
“Okay…So where exactly are you from then?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss much, as I previously said.” Arch Extent doubles down on his thought process, not budging for giving out much more information. Winter can see right through it as much as Arch Extent is capable of seeing right through her. It manages to piss the Winterlance off.
“Damn…Guess it’s gonna be one hell of a fuckin’ joykill of a ride? We’re gonna be riding for a few hours here. I was just hoping to make some conversation… especially since whatever you did has us both in a fucked up mess, yeah?”
The female Winterlance rubs some salt in there with her harsh words for Arch Extent to take.
“I’ll get this cleared up for both of us. How she got to Daggermouth was nothing planned on my side. The deal is she would be delivered to me, which I agreed that I’d have no control over.” It still pesters him, wondering why he’d disown his own daughter. That part doesn’t make any sense.
“Doesn’t matter. Still kind of a big deal when a princess dies.” Winter makes a good point, one that the man holding onto her waist agrees with. “The princess told me she was disowned, and her own father just wanted ‘supplies’ for some war. I think I at least deserve some explanation.”
Princess Aress is dead, and her father disowned her for what he assumes is to screw Arch Extent over. If he really were to do that to screw him over, or for some other plotting King Uthar is doing that he’s unaware of, he knows this spells trouble for Earth too. He just can’t tell Winter the true intentions of what he originally agreed to with King Uthar. Not until he knows she’s in clearance with Seraphic, far away from being able to report to some Cloaks representative or another tribe representative. Arch Extent is no fool and knows Winter is puffing herself up to try to act tough or demanding to get an answer. She won’t get it. Not yet. Her role in this is to be a test subject he needs to use. Trust will still have to work both ways.
“Unfortunately, I can’t tell you much. But I’ll try to answer what I can. I’m not from this planet.”
Winter is colored by surprise and the scientist can indicate it by the way her voice speaks with bewilderment. She blinks a few times, making sure she’s still focusing on Trot running across sand and rocks. The Featherduster jumps over a few larger rocks, getting a higher view of Daggermouth. Nightfall was coming and it was an excellent view to see just how little sunlight they had left.
“So…you’re like an alien?”
“When you put it that way… uh…Yeah. I am.”
He had to admit she wasn’t wrong. He would by very definition, be an alien to this planet. He’s never really thought of himself as such. He viewed the residents as test subjects, though sometimes blurring the lines of thinking of them as regular civilians who had rights just like on Earth. He’d like that view to change but it wouldn’t be anytime soon.
“If it’s anything, I’m often like an alien to most people on Divon, too.”
This might be my chance to ask about the Winterlances.
“Because you’re a Winterlance?”
“Yeah…” She’s not usually this open, but this is the first time in her life she’s met someone who is non-tribe and willing to communicate. Someone who’s from somewhere that isn’t here, that isn’t involved in the trivial affairs of the main five tribes.
“Have you ever met another Winterlance before?”
Another Winterlance? Winter processes, seemingly hiding a hurt expression under her hood. Memories of her childhood flicker back to boys and girls of other tribes slandering remarks about her during Hunter’s Code training.
She thinks about the remark of ‘Wintercreep’ being tossed in whatever direction she walked since the incident. A part of her is ashamed of her abilities as a Winterlance, knowing just how much damage she could do. She knew she was, at least on a power level with her mutation that she thought was magic, was far stronger than any of the other tribe’s abilities. She had done irreversible damage by using her abilities as a child, only wanting to protect people so she could feel like she fit in. The scars along her face and the ones that adorned her forearms underneath her bandages were the living proof of horrors she committed. The Hunter’s Code would only view her as a weapon that could slay creatures of Divon perfectly rather than as a Tribesfolk.
How could she fit in when, besides being called ‘Wintercreep,’ she was uttered as, ‘Monster’?
“Nope. Just myself.” Winter ends that note with a melancholic tone, and Arch Extent understands.
He doesn’t respond, only giving her a minute before anything else needs to be said. Winter picks herself up, though whilst focused on making sure she was directing Trot accordingly.
“Being a Winterlance doesn’t really make me feel like I’m a part of the main five tribes. It’s only recognized as a main tribe still because it was one of the original five tribes that formed. I’ve had so many people ask me about the Winterlances, but out of all the tribes that could tell you everything about itself…I don’t know a single thing about them. So, since I know you’ll be asking me all sorts of questions about Winterlances since everyone n’ their uncle wants to know, I couldn’t tell you the first thing about them.”
Her message was loud and clear for the scientist to understand. She’s clueless just as much as him. Even though his female companion is unaware of the history of her beginnings or the Winterlance tribe, he can still figure out why she’s immune based on her blood samples he’ll have to spend time analyzing later.
Which required getting to a lab.
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