Frost 89, Year 4619
"Blood, Daniel. I can smell it, taste it on the tip of my tongue. It's how I remember you. I see you in my dreams, you know--all the time, and in every valley and field. You're a part of me, now."
. . .
Chimes blew in the wind, one after the other. They did so sequentially -- something about their weight, and the way one's vibrations allowed the other next to it to begin to move, an aspect of their unique resonance. He always thought it was so strange how that worked, and couldn't wrap his head around it. Daniel was the type of man that knew all of these absurd, outlandish things, proposing ideas that one would never imagine to be feasible up until the moment they worked.
That morning had been a beautiful one. Frost was beginning to wane, and though it rarely affected the temperature of their desert all too severely, the transition between Frost and Glade, and the season of Glade itself, were always his favorite sectors of the year. The one thing he was missing was his beloved at his bedside; he must have woken early, Jack could only assume, so he lazily rubbed his eyes, got dressed and hoped to follow after his footsteps. They lived together on a small bunker, right above Scythe's main headquarters, carved into a section of rocky crags amidst the sea of dunes. It was their 'lookout tower', they would always call it, a gift for all that Daniel had done for the gang. A place of revelry for the two men, whose love had blossomed only more of late. A few weeks prior, they had agreed to marry.
The festivities weren't far away. Jack had no idea how to be a proper husband -- or even really a lover. He was still learning the ropes, tugging on each one as they came until whatever loomed above inevitably fell on him. He wasn't very good at being a partner; he was sometimes crass, insensitive and often unfair. He was also a whimsical man, while Daniel was structured and orderly. Jack defied the logical norms the other had sought to build around their relationship, sometimes displaying too great or too little emotion, sometimes over-bearing and sometimes under-reciprocating. He was, as Mindy called him, the entropy to Daniel's stability.
And he was fine with that. It was who he was, after all -- this ridiculous man, always with absurd stories to tell, addicted to dreaming in the night but reticent to share any of those journeys; they were kept to himself. Daniel was a mechanic, a sniper with his Lever-Action rifle, and a scientific mind. He always wanted to be an engineer in the way of the Unbroken Empire -- unconventional, innovative, and unconstrained by the practices and norms of the brunt of the world.
If there was one thing they were truly good at, it was being a team. They fought the Pyrerazers and Moons, and even now that they were in Bloodbreaker territory, the two had managed to help keep Scythe safe. They had a role and purpose there -- within the community, and within each other. That sort of thing... it wasn't so easily replicated.
Stepping outside of the bunker-tower, the man yawned, looking around to see where his lover might have gone. He wasn't out on the upper rocks, fiddling with some object or other. Recently he had found a Transmission device, an artifact of Resonance that was still functional. Aimlessly, he'd been communicating into it every evening as the sun began to set, sitting along the flat surface of the mesa. Other hours of the day, he would examine its structure, curious as to how the Shard inside communicated with the other end -- and why it needed to be enclosed within a box.
"Daniel!" Mindy yelled from below, holding her hands around her mouth so her voice would carry further. "You need to come down. Something's happening."
So he did, climbing down the rocks until he dropped down below the entrance to their base, glancing back-and-forth. "What's up?"
"A ton of our shit is gone!" she exclaimed. "And the new recruits are fucking missing. Darnak, Lyra and James. There's Chariot tracks on the sand, but I'm afraid to follow them alone. Please--help me."
"Wait, wait -- why not get Emmanuel and the rest of the gang?"
"Most of them went out early to hold negotiations with the Moons. It's only me and a few others, and no one wants to come; they're saying I'm over-exaggerating, or that Emmanuel will handle it. But I'm not fucking wrong -- something's seriously off."
He paused, curling his lips. "Okay... where's Daniel?"
"I don't know! I told him about it earlier, and he fucking disappeared! He's the one who noticed the tracks. I think he went after them, Jack!"
Jack narrowed his eyes, an immediate dread overcoming him. It was... so like Daniel to pursue. And to pursue alone. He felt his stomach tense and churn, as if he were one shaky step away from vomiting. This was the weakness that came with love, the sort Emmanuel always warned him about. Now he knew.
"We're going," he said, immediately stepping past her to grab his Chariot. Turning on the engine, he nodded towards Mindy, and set off.
