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The underwater observation post reminded Jordan of the submarine ride at the amusement park his grandparents had once taken him to. Except that it was colder, and there was a distinct lack of running commentary from a bored employee. Did he count as the bored employee for this one?

That would require you to get paid, Ferros put in.

"I do get paid. It still counts, even if it's pocket change." Jordan stood beside the heavy plastic observation bubble, staring out into the murky distance. Now and then, a fish drifted past. Better bored than the life-threatening kind of interesting, he supposed; still, observation post duty always seemed to drag on interminably. When he was alone, he tended to answer Ferros's remarks and questions aloud. It kept the silence from getting too oppressive.

Jordan jumped at the sound of footsteps. Great, someone else to - He turned quickly, hearing the familiar voice. "Maddie? Are you assigned here too today?"

Well, if that wasn't a stupid question. He smiled at her and went over to give her a quick hug. "Good to see you. Doing okay?"

Adorable, Ferros snickered.

"Sea monsters," Jordan agreed. "I haven't seen any yet, but that doesn't mean we won't." It was nice to have a friend down here with him. He hadn't gotten a chance to see Maddie recently, which made it all the better. Amazing how it was possible to go so long without getting a good chance to talk to people you cared about, even when you lived on a tiny base on a remote island. "We're really underwater, yeah. That's why it's so cold," he explained. "The sunlight doesn't reach down far enough to warm the water down here, so it leaches the warmth out of the observation tank."

She'd cut her hair - well, probably for the same reason he'd cut his, he thought ruefully. "It's really cute," he assured her. "I liked it long, but it's nice this way too." Without even really thinking about it, he put his hand up to ruffle the short hair at the nape of his neck, where his ponytail had been.

"Yeah." Jordan grimaced, the mention of the winged freak reigniting a faint spark of anger in him. "I hope we see her again sometime. Ferros and I, we're not done with her." The red stone of Ferros's ring lit briefly, the weapon agreeing with him. "I've still got a score to settle."

Then his expression cleared as he remembered he was talking to Maddie, his smile reappearing, going sheepish. "I guess it's not really practical to grow it back out," he said. "But it wasn't really practical to begin with."

"Either way, she's a monster," Jordan said. "The fact that she taunted us and tried to play with us makes it personal, but she's one of them. If we see her again, we'll kill her." A brief, feral grin. "Ferros gets hungry."

"True enough," he agreed. "I don't think there's anything that'd take this kind of abuse well, though. White or not." He idly resettled his scarf around his neck. The scarf he actually rather liked; the easily-dirtied white coat sometimes annoyed him, though. "Way too much bleach, I assume. I'm guessing it's supposed to be metaphorical, purity or something like that."

Ferros snorted. Purity, my grandmother's rusty tail.

"Thank you for that insightful and useful comment, Ferros."

"I guess that's only to be expected," Jordan said thoughtfully. The news was sobering, but not a particular surprise. "It's an effective rallying cry." He, too, said nothing about the Sahara mission; the memory of the smell of death and the feeling of uselessness was too immediate still. He tapped the stone of Ferros's ring. "But remember, even though she said that, she did die; and considering that our weapons feed on what those things are made of, I'm pretty sure we can kill them."

They taste good, Ferros said, and laughed.

"Hah. Ferros says they're tasty." Jordan's grin matched Maddie's. "Making them afraid of us, that's a step in the right direction, anyway. If we can make them think twice about coming into the human world, that's a good start."

Jordan nodded. "There were mysterious deaths in the hills," he said, "but nothing that couldn't have been accidental or blamed on animal attack. Some of them, though - we knew." He looked out towards the hazy depths, seeing memory rather than what was there in front of him. "The little shadows, the ones that live in the closet and under the bed, they're bad enough, but things like that monstrosity shouldn't exist."

He sighed and leaned against the wall of the observation tank. "I guess there's not much a single person can do, but together we're more effective. Even if it's true that we can't wipe them out entirely, I'd rather fight, knowing that we can."

"That was pretty amazing," Jordan said admiringly. "Took a lot of guts. I knew you were brave, but doing what you did - heh, it was epic." He huffed a soft laugh. "I think you're entitled to a little whining about hair after all that, seriously."

The question surprised him, bringing a sudden stab of homesickness with it. He'd tried not to think too much about what he'd left behind, but that was part of him too, wasn't it? All the things he'd done and not done before the sharp divide that was the Hunter initiation. "SLO," he said, and glanced at Maddie. She'd said Burbank, and what sounded to him like a total lack of accent probably just meant that the Burbank she meant was the same one he was thinking of, so she'd probably know what he meant without him having to spell it out.