Sorry this took so long, man I hate writer’s block…
Guard Duty And Grounded
A couple of months later
“Where’re we goin’ Bailey?” Loki asked from behind the human, she was older now, looking about six years old by human reckoning, but she was still smaller then Bailey, only coming past her knee. Bailey still couldn’t get over how fast Steef matured, Alika had been right, they had very short childhoods. Apparently their aging slowed when they became young adults about Haigar’s age and then they matured at the same rate as humans did. Bailey had actually found out that Stranger was in fact only about ten years old. The idea was kind of weird… and now Loki was only three and a half months old and she was already the mental age of seven years younger then Bailey. She’d also found out that Steef lived a lot longer then humans did, their life expectancy being about three hundred years.
“I dunno.” Said Bailey in answer to Loki’s question. She was heavily armed, as she always was whenever she went out, and though she seemed at ease, the human was wary, she took her job very seriously. After that first time when she had retrieved Loki from the minion creatures Bailey have several times now gotten Loki out of trouble. So much so that she was considered by most as Loki’s personal bodyguard/babysitter.
“We’re not going anyway.” Said Haigar smiling, walking behind Loki. “We’re just walkin’.” The human and the two Steef were walking through the snow on a mid morning ramble. They’d been going for these walks for a while now. It was something they just did together. Just as the Seer had predicted Loki and Bailey formed an instant friendship and Haigar too. They did a lot of things together, the three of them. These frequent walks were just one of them. The trio had become inseparable and one was never seen without the others.
“We’ll know when we get there.” Added Bailey. The bantering exchange was a ritual the three friends always had when they went on one of their rambles to nowhere in particular.
The trio continued walking until they came to a huge crack in the land, it looked like a vaguely slimmer version of the Grand Canyon, but just as deep and so long it passed out of even Haigar’s vision range. An old rope bridge spanned across the canyon. Bailey, Loki and Haigar stood side by side on their side of the bridge.
“Whoa.” Muttered Haigar, staring across the gulf.
“C’mon, let’s go check it out.” Bailey enthused, Loki’s eyes shone with excitement, but Haigar was more cautious.
“I don’t know…” he said uncertainly.
“Aw, c’mon blue.” Bailey wheedled. Haigar sighed but Bailey could see the hint of a smile of his face. He liked it when she called him ‘blue’.
“Alright, alright, we’ll go. But any sign of trouble, we leave.” Bailey nodded eagerly. And then, without further ado Bailey began crossing the bridge, Loki in tow and Haigar behind. They crossed without any incidents and soon reached the other side. Fortunately adrenaline at the prospect of an adventure had blotted Bailey’s fear of heights, coupled with the fact she hadn’t actually looked down.
The far side of the ridge was much like the side they’d been on, endless plains of white snow with the occasionally clump of trees, hunching together as it trying to escape the weather. The thrill and exhilaration dulled somewhat. But Bailey stubbornly set her jaw and marched on. Loki and Haigar floundering in the snow trying to catch up, having an extra two limbs did have it’s downsides they discovered.
They eventually caught up with Bailey quite a ways from the bridge. To be fair it was only because Bailey had come to an abruptly stop on a rise of snow. This did not concern the hot, panting Steef when they arrived either side of her, until they saw what had made Bailey stop dead in her tracks.
A sprawling camp spread before them, below the high drift of snow. Black dots marked tents and red flickering lights heralded fires, there were several moving dots as well. A lot of them.
“Hell’s teeth.” Hissed Haigar.
“Stone The Crows.” Bailey agreed.
“We should get out of here.” Bailey nodded in agreement, the trio began backing away, down the snowdrift and back to the bridge, but suddenly a cry went up from the camp and even from their vantage point, they could hear what the shouting was;
“STEEF! GET THE STEEF!”
“Uh oh…” whispered Bailey,
“RUN!” roared Haigar and all three of them broke into a sprint,
“Hai- Haigar!” Bailey panted, “You gotta warn the others!” Haigar had been keeping pace with his slower friend and sibling, but at Bailey’s call he nodded and vaulted into a gallop, speeding away, towards the bridge, which was still a long way away.
Bailey and Loki continued wading through the deep snow as best they could. Bailey couldn’t help thinking it had been easier on the going journey then the return. But finally they stumbled out onto the rope bridge. It shook alarmingly and shed some on the snow on it’s planks. Bailey stopped, leaning against on of the support posts, panting. She looked back. Their pursuers were only a few minutes away,
“Go, go.” She shooed Loki across the bridge, gasping for breath and followed. They were half way across when Bailey saw the group of Steef on the opposite ridge, she gave a strained sigh of relief. Archers pulled back their bowstrings and with a hiss a volley of arrows sailed through the air and with a clatter and thunk hit their targets. But the invaders on the other side had their own ideas.
A sniper in the group levelled his gun and fired. Bailey heard the bark of a gun and threw herself down, grabbing Loki’s hindleg and pulling hard, the young Steef hit the deck just as a streamline bullet whizzed over their heads. The bullet, missing the sniper’s target hit one of the bridge posts on the other side. It severed the rope tied to the post and the fibres began unravelling…
Bailey looked up and spat snow from her mouth, she heard the snapping and saw the rope unravelling. And groaned.
“Oh
crap. LOKI! STAY LOW AND MOVE!” Loki obeyed and began scrambling along on her belly, Bailey rolled onto her back and drew her gun, she fired twice and the sniper fell. But the damage was done. The rope to the other support post was slowly unravelling as well. She looked to the furthest side and saw several Steef arrows embedded in those posts and the rope was unravelling over
there as well. “Not good. Definitely not good.” As if to demonstrate the confirmation of the doom-ridden statement the bridge swayed yet more alarmingly and jolted, plunging down a foot or two.
Bailey rolled over onto her stomach again and curled her finger’s around the board, if she was right…
The ropes on the far side snapped and the bridge collapsed on one side. The force of the bridge slamming into the opposite gorge wall threw Loki loose and she tumbled down, smacking into Bailey who grabbed hold of the back on her shirt with one hand and for a moment Steef and human hung suspended by one hand, then Bailey hauled Loki onto her back, Loki wrapped her arms around Bailey’s neck.
“Hold…on…Loki.” Bailey rasped out and began climbing up the broken bridge, the déj* vu making her inconveniently dizzy.
On the ridge Alika had her hands to her mouth, her arms wrapped around her son and her husband’s arm around her shoulder. Stranger stood, his muscles so tense he was shaking, he was only a hair’s breadth away of losing both his Bailey and his niece. But none of the Steef approached the bridge posts, the rope was so precariously clinging to the posts that the slightest movement could bring the bridge crashed down, plunging into the gorge. Suddenly with an abrupt and almost savage jolt, the ropes snapped, whipping away and the bridge fell.
Alika screamed, Stranger’s legs buckled and he sank to the floor, mouth open in a silent scream of his own, Daimen’s eyes bulged as he stared, not really accepting it. There was a sharp gasp of the Steef surrounding them. And then silence. A silence that spiralled horribly and was more booming then any sound.
A hand, reached over the brink of ridge, and then another. And then a young, scared but safe young Steef was shoved onto the ridge. Bailey hauled herself up and over right behind her, her arm muscles were strained and shook as she dragged her lower body onto solid ground. Completely exhausted Bailey dropped onto her back, eyes closed.
After a moment of stillness, everything suddenly burst into action. Loki was suddenly crushed by her family, a sobbing Alika foremost. Bailey opened her eyes and sat up, she slowly got to her feet and moved away slightly, smiling faintly, this was for this family alone and she didn’t want to encroach on there time together. Besides, she had her own family to be smothered by…
Something between a growl and a purr rumbled behind her, Bailey turned and was faced with Stranger. For a moment Bailey stood awkwardly, unsure and uncertain of Stranger’s reaction. Stranger swallowed a lump in his throat. He went down on his knees again and opened his arms;
“C’mere midget.” He whispered, Bailey swallowed a sob and she stumbled into Stranger’s arms. Bailey found herself caught up into a tight hug of her own.
“I’m sorry Stranger, I’m sorry.” She sobbed, “Don’t be angry.”
“I’m not angry with yer liddle one, I’m not angry. I’m just so glad yer safe.” Bailey made a muffled sound of affirmative and nodded into Stranger’s neck. Stranger nuzzled his snout into Bailey’s hair.
¤§¤
Though it ended badly, what Bailey, Loki and Haigar had discovered prepared the Steef for any future attacks. The destruction of the bridge may have been a setback for the invaders but it bought the Steef time. It would take some time before the creatures found another route over the gorge.
Bailey took responsibility for the whole scenario but the good outweighed the bad consequences so Bailey was only mildly rebuked. Even so Bailey wasn’t keen on venturing far from home after the whole bridge incident. And Loki and Haigar were happy enough to stay at home with her.
It didn’t last. It never did, Bailey was a born troublemaker.
Sometime later Bailey got into more trouble, although this time she fortunately didn’t drag her two young Steef friends into trouble with her.
She hadn’t meant to get into trouble, really she hadn’t but Bailey seemed to attract trouble like pears attracted butterflies. But she really shouldn’t have climbed that tree. Maybe she wanted to have another glimpse of the view she’d seen when she’d been led to the human boneyard by the Steef soul guides, the only good memory she had from that journey.
Or maybe she wanted to recapture some memories of when she had been in the Monsiac Lines in eastern Mudos. She thought about her ‘brothers’ Abe and Slick often, she still missed them immensely but she was happy where she was and she knew that when the time came she would see them again.
So she had climbed the tree. It was tall and reminded Bailey of a pine, it had the needle-pin shaped leaves and the pungent smell that was reminiscent of pine.
But she didn’t bet on the rotten branch.
She’d climbed quite high and was happily swaying high up in the tree, when suddenly there was a brittle crack and the branch Bailey stood on began to bend alarmingly.
Bailey fumbled to get a handhold, she failed and with a yelp she fell. Luckily – after being battered by many branches – Bailey hit a particularly large branch and her groping fingers managed to curl around and on hand locked onto the rough wood. There she hung, heart pounding and the blood sang in her ears. Her voice left her and her throat clenched and closed. Slowly she reached up with her other hand and clung to the branch above her, slowly, carefully she hauled herself up.
She sat on the branch, panting and trembling, her eyes squeezed shut and her heart fluttering. Finally, feeling calmer Bailey cautiously climbed down.
¤§¤
Bailey managed to get home, stumbling and drained from the day’s ordeal. When she dragged her sorry hide into the kitchen she was greeted with sharp intakes of breath and shocked gasps and cries. Bailey didn’t know it but she was covered in cuts and scratches. Bailey swallowed and she sank to the floor.
She woke up in bed a little while later. Stranger stood nearby, arms folded and a stern expression on his face. Bailey glanced up at him and winced. Stranger let a long breath out of his nose and shook his head.
“Yer can’t keep outta a trouble can yer kid.” He said austerely, Bailey stayed quiet, “Whadda did yer git yerself inter this time?” he sighed, Bailey told him and Stranger was quiet for a while before she spoke; “Yer reckless Bailey.” He said with another sigh. Bailey nodded in silent agreement. “Well lil’ missie,” he said at length, the tone of his voice made it clear that he’s made up his mind, “I dunno what yer doin’ but I can’ts take it anymore.” He gave the human a severe look, “Yer grounded. Understand.”
Bailey looked up sharply, Stranger, was
grounding her? For some unfathomable reason Bailey found this comforting, her mother had never grounded her before, she’d just let Bailey run riot. She’d never cared enough to ground Bailey. Stranger had, Stranger cared. He cared enough to try and keep Bailey out of trouble. She nodded. Stranger jerked his head in a swift nod. He approached the bedside and kissed Bailey’s head, then he left her alone without a word.
Bailey yawned and closed her eyes, wondering if being grounded was meant to feel this consoling.