Callisto

Voices in the Void (pt. 1)

When Jespar woke up, he felt the pleasant warmth of a fire and was struck by the depressing realization that he was, in fact, not dead.

He rose slowly to his feet, shook himself with vigor, and then began licking the remainder of the poison off his fur.

During this operation, something suddenly occurred to him. He looked up and discovered that, yes, a pair of eyes stared down at him through the flickering flames that burned in the old tunnel.

The girl was still here.

"You Tribals watch each other bathe, too? Some privacy would be nice here, Chief."

Not waiting for her to reply, he decided to continue his work.

"Though I do appreciate the fire," he said through saliva. "You make it?"

Rain-Born nodded solemnly, not taking her eyes off him.

"I did not know if you would wake," she said.

"Heh, I'm not so easy to kill. Capture? Sure. Eat? Possibly. But not kill. I'll be sticking around until I'm done; thank you very much. What happened to our friends out there anyway?"

Rain-Born cast her gaze back towards the tunnel entrance. She could see the rain pouring outside and the shimmering globes moving around under their domain's cover.

"They stopped," she said. "They would not enter the tunnel."

"Lucky us," Jespar replied, licking on a particularly stubborn poison stain.

"I have known some of the greatest warriors of the Tribe to be felled by the poison of the evil eyes," she said quietly, still watching the downpour outside. "Yet you are unharmed."

The dog paused momentarily as if considering her question, then resumed cleaning.

"I'm made of hardy stuff, me, remember? I'm your guiding spirit."

Rain-Born did not reply right away.

"I owe you my life once again," she said as she moved to stoke the fire.

"Yeah, and you saved me too, Chief. That makes us even again, huh? Two for two."

"Two for two," she agreed.

Silence dominated the tunnel for some time, broken only by the sound of the rain beating against its concrete casing and the crackle of the fire's embers as they leaped into the air, full of life. Its warmth made her miss the fires of her hut back home, where the hunters would gather and tell stories of the Deadlands – of the evils of the wastes. They were stories of proud warriors who slew legendary beasts that meant to harm the village – tales of daring and bravery in the face of impossible odds. But there had not been many tales of that kind in a long time. And there were certainly no stories she recalled that included small dogs with strange cone-shaped faces that guided the warriors of the Tribe toward the object of their destiny.

"You are not my guide," Rain-Born said.

Jespar had ceased cleaning himself and was curled up by the fire across from her. His ears perked up at her statement.

"You are not my guide," she repeated. "You are a creature with your own purpose for being here."

His eyes looked up at her before gazing deeply into the fire that burned inches from his nose. "Yeah," he said. "Maybe I am."

"Tell me why you follow me," she heard herself say in the tunnel's darkness, surprised by her sudden willingness to know this strange entity's purpose.

He looked at her long and hard before he said anything.