"Hope is the dream of a man awake." - French Proverb
A faucet, a flag and a moustache
Quest
A faucet, a flag and a moustache
Quest
Queue dipped his hands into the water gushing from the tap before him, lowering his face until his nose bumped the faucet. He brought his hands upward, splashing a refreshing arc of water onto his sleep deprived visage. Three more times his hands descended and three more times liquid ran down from his brow line, obscuring his eyesight and clogging his mouth and nose. Finally, content that continuing to drown himself would accomplish nothing more than the discovery of Do-It-Yourself water boarding, Queue raised his head to examine his reflection.
His first thought as he examined his sleep dulled features in the reflective glass was that if he intended on rescuing Evelyn, he should probably shave beforehand. He'd let himself go in the horrific aftermath of the Second Coming and he knew how she despised stubble. The mustache he currently sported would send her into apoplectic shock, like as not. A caterpillar would look more becoming, the Evelyn in his head declared, scowling at his facial hair. A great, fuzzy caterpillar.
It hurt more than he'd expected, losing her. Knowing that he'd never again hear her voice call out from one of the numerous rooms in the PATHOS complex, chastising him for some inevitable foolhardy decision that, as always, had gravelly endangered his own well being, lodged an ache deep within his chest, a painful knot of emotion that no amount of coughing-not crying- could clear.
He could still hear her voice in his head, the laugh he had come to love above all else, the worried tone she'd used to fret over all of them, even Maya when she thought the older woman wasn=t watching, the hysterical shriek that had been that last thing he'd heard before the world went black.
The Second Coming. No one in PATHOS expected Mercia herself to step out onto the battlefield, Craig at her right hand and the lazuli ring on her left. But come she had, and her arrival had changed the tide of war in ways no tactician-on either side- had predicted possible. Her chaotic nature lent an aspect of random definition to the battle. Advantages became disadvantages and vice-versa, fliers dropped like stone from the sky, earth became mud and the sky filled with thunder heads. It was as though the apocalypse descended upon this tiny South Pacific Island tundra and ravaged the land for hours on end.
Queue grew up with Maya, Malcolm and the other pilots, and two weeks ago he would have declared it impossible for them to hate one another. But never before in his life had he felt the peculiar, poignant boiling sensation he did when Maya transmitted the order to retreat as they were and leave Evelyn trapped inside the Mausoleum. Indeed, he considered outright refusing, a tactic that would have him labeled a traitor and executed on sight, when the enormous crypt in question collapsed.
Even then he stood, staring at the wreckage for what felt like hours, although Malcolm later told him it spanned only a few moments, wondering if Evelyn even knew when the supports gave way and the building crumbled inward, crushing itself.
It wasn't until later that they found out about Evelyn's apparent mutiny. Even Maia, their greatest skeptic and legendary tactician express doubt over the lauded report that their girl had set the Chaos Queen free. He could still see the briefing room so clearly in his minds eyes, the blank walls accented by the lack of luster that spanned all of the Haversham, the dead looks on the faces of their commanders; the only color in the room came from them, the pilots. There was red, deep crimson blood spilling from wounds yet untended by Nani, the sooty blacks and earthy browns of the battlefield they'd worn home. Intermixed he vividly remembered the colors his teammates themselves lent to the background. Maia, fierce and orange, burnt henna by her own fury, Malcolm, cold and grey, life drawn out of his clammy skin, his sister Val, clinging to his hand and exuding her calming mint scent in waves, and Blue, looking suddenly very grey, clinging to her data pad with white knuckles and praying for her dearest friend’s survival.
He obviously couldn’t see himself, but if he had, he thought he would have been transparent. Queue loved Evelyn, and he knew it, but for that very reason, he could not argue her innocence with the ardor that every other being in the room exuded. None other but he had even confronted Chaos herself face to face and he had barely walked away. He knew the promises she made, the uncertainty she bred within your soul and he still carried some of those scars with him today. He knew, too, more of Evelyn=s heart than any other in the room and he knew, without a shadow of doubt, how easily she could fall into Chaos' hands. He would never blame her for the events that had come to pass, but he could never tell these people that she had nothing to do with the pandemonium they barely survived.
Instead, he swore on that day, he would search out the answer and find her himself. He knew that he couldn’t spend the rest of his life without this girl of his who dreamed with her eyes wide open, even if it blinded her from time to time.
