>>5299540The crowd gathered before you numbers almost a hundred, and it’s a with a tightness in your chest and your heart in your throat that you turn to face them. They’re scared. Some are awed, others are confused, some still are stricken with the events of the past few moments. But they’re scared.
You have that in common, even as you take a breath to steady your nerves.
"Is everyone alright? Did anyone get separated from their traveling companions?” You begin slowly, your voice carried over the same swarmlings that issued a lethal ultimatum just minutes before. “Can I get a show of hands if you're looking for someone? Let's try to match you back up."
A third of those present raise their hands, and upon seeing this they’re joined by another hesitant quarter of what remains. You spend the next few minutes with gentle, careful logistics, shuffling Daughters to and fro as faces brighten, as tears are shed at shouts of ‘you’re alive!’ and ‘you made it!’ can be heard over the flames that still roar in the canyons to your left. You’d given up those powers, but it doesn’t take an empath to feel how the mood’s brightened, how the fear’s shifted a few ticks closer to something almost like hope.
Another breath, drawn to voice a question you wish you didn’t have to ask.
"I hate to ask this, but it's necessary: Can I also get a show of hands for everyone who lost someone to the raiders? I'd like to ask you to come forward and examine the bodies we've gathered. The raiders wouldn't have had time to consume or abscond with all their victims. They may still be here. It's a grim thought, but it’s better they’re absorbed by people who cared about them."
Gina’s taken stock of the dead, and it’s through your eyes that the numbers hit you; fifty-two bodies, charred and broken, laid out behind you on the bare, hard earth. The Daughters skirt around you, picking their way through the dead. Many abstain, hanging back…and even when your gaze leaves them to dwell on the girls weaving their way through the casualties, you can feel their eyes locked on the back of your head.
It takes the better part of a half-hour, but by the time the girls have re-assembled, you’re left with twenty bodies unclaimed, the other thirty-two marked by November and their reclamation into the fleshscape halted by Francine’s threads. Rath was the first to properly voice doubts you and Gina already shared privately—the odds of that many being claimed was unlikely, and even among the survivors there are undoubtedly some that will happily take free biomass on a lie.
Something you’ll deal with, later; at present, you have the bigger picture to focus on.
"Now, I'm sure some of you know my name and reputation through rumors and hearsay…” You begin, Gina elevating you up to speak on a plinth of terraformed calcite. “…while others are in the dark. For the latter, my name is Shu."
(Continued)
