August 26th, 1994

Missouri, USA

Months have passed since the end of the world as Damien knew it. It's only by miracle that he's still around, or by curse were he to be asked. Slowly toughening up to the new, harsh conditions of his life, a chance encounter with someone he once hated will change how he sees the world, and what lies in his future.

Below, is his story.

The presence of a hunched figure absently stomped and crunched over the discarded leaves on the ground below it. The shambling thing that tread so mindlessly moved on instinct, mostly unbothered by the world around it. Blood and grime caked the tattered remains of their cloth, bristling from a small breeze passing through. The rustling of something in bushes nearby drew its attention. Its eyes locked onto another; a living being crouched in the flora. Whatever lied behind the walking cadaver's eyes were long since snuffed out, dead and replaced by a lower instinctual hunger. This would be the last time any sort of thought came across the zombie's head. Two small steps towards the figure, and-

FWOOSH. A sharp bolt-head of metal pierces cleanly through the now-corpses skull, and then brain. Without anything else guiding it, the body silently drops to the ground with a thud.

I wait a few extra seconds, just in case. The echo of the crossbow's shot reverberates through the area, to seemingly no response beside the chirping of birds on distant trees. Nothing else is around... good.

Stepping up out of the bushes, I trample over towards the body. The movements are routine to me by this point: kick the body a few times, make sure it's dead, then duck down and yank the bolt out from the head. I check over its pockets and wipe off the viscera from the metallic bolthead.

The apocalypse came quicker than anybody could have predicted. Notices on the news and radio warned of a contagion on a regular Wednesday morning. Two days later, people were dropping dead. The panic it caused was the death knell for society as I knew it. Everybody I knew and loved were gone within days. Some... water-borne disease, I think they said it was. Maybe it was something else; airborne? Contact-spread? The exact details are fuzzy, I was focused on other things at the time. I don't know how I got out of it alive, but here I am. One of the last few suckers still hanging on for life. Maybe it was a rapture and I'm just a sinner left to tread the earth. Maybe it was some natural-born immunity, and it's a fortunate blessing. Who knows, and who cares?... Everybody else is dead either way.

My hands pluck through some things in the dead shambler's pockets. Old keys, a wallet. Junk. I pull the wallet out anyways and stand up, out of habit. I like to know who these people used to be before they're given their final resting place. The contents are nothing of note, of course. Paper money, a credit card or two. A driver's license. I take out the ID.

Reading out the name on it comes somebody I vaguely recall from my earlier years, Isaiah Sauer. I can't help but mourn, once I remember where that name comes from, which is during my time in school. The memories come flooding back to me, and so my hands move on autopilot as I slip the wallet back away and get to moving along. Standing up from the kneel I was in, one foot then follows the next automatically once I retreat into my own thoughts.

God... I miss it. Miss life back then, anyways. Isaiah was a part of the classes I was in at the time, he was alright. The town we lived in was pretty small and homely, so everybody knew each other and whatever petty dramas were happening at the time. Really, everybody there wasn't bad. I guess it's easier to say that now than back then, right? I remember absolutely hating every day at the time. I felt miserable.

See, he had a few siblings, all of them attended as well. I wasn't so lucky... or maybe I was, considering what I'm dealing with now. Anyways, they had a big family. Happy marriage, I guess. A couple brothers and a sister. His sister was one that stood out more than most everybody else. Athletic type. Big, strong, fast, smart. I'm sure her family showered her with praise, she always did pretty well. But to me? She gave me hell every single day I had the misfortune of seeing her ugly mug around school. I was her perfect little target to single out and push around. Nobody else cared to really stop it. My parents tried, but it'd have been stupid for the school to do anything, considering how much of an exemplary figure she was. And so, that's how it went.

Maybe it wasn't all so bad, though. After all I still had other things to look forward to. Family, screwing around with friends. Football, baseball, sports at all really. All of that was pretty nice. The thought makes me remember a time when I'd huddle around the couch with mom and dad, and watch our teams on the fuzzy CRT screen.

Why did it all have to go away?

I can only hope she found some way out of this hell. All of them, really. Nobody deserves the horrible fate of turning into these zombies. Practically dead, but still alive, forced to spend the rest of their living days as some corpse... no matter how much I hated them, I wouldn't wish that fate on anybody.

The reminiscing needs to end eventually, however. There's a reason why I'm out here, after all. I don't make it much a hobby to go around dropping zombies. Actually, I'm pretty far out from where my little camping spot is. I think I all but cleared out my stomping grounds, so I get to spend more time ranging further and further away, to get more supplies. For the most part it's what you'd expect to need: canned food, bottled water, or really any sort of container that can store liquids. Lately I've been thinking about starting up a little corner of plot to start farming on. I'm going to need it eventually, right?

Jotting the idea down in my head again gets me going back in the right direction. I realize, after a second or two of glancing around, I kindof wandered off into the nowhere of the woods. Thankfully, I didn't venture too deeply in, just resting by the outskirts of the town I was scouting over. Out of habit I stop and skim over the area, just to see what I may need to worry about.

Since the end came so quickly, there really wasn't much time to think about what to steal, or how to prepare for the inevitable end. Local law enforcement did just about everything they could to maintain some semblance of order in the face of annihilation, and in places like this, an out-of-the-way little woodland community, it worked well enough. I shudder to think about how bad it was in the cities, though. However bad it was for me, it had to be ten times worse in that urban hellscape. God bless the people unfortunate enough to deal with that... but something's wrong. At least, it feels like that to me.

It's all a bit too orderly here, in this small town I'm looking over. There'd be at least a few bodies, if not in the town itself then around the outskirts. More than the one I just dropped, anyways. Usually that'd be the sign of somebody inhabiting this place and commandeering it as their own, but I don't see the signs of that either. No reinforcements, no barricades. It's just.. clean. No erected walls, no looting that I can see, nothing. Maybe a broken window or two but that's it. I'm not really sure what to make of it. Could just be that nobody has gone through here at all, and I'm the first person to stumble upon this vacant oasis by random chance, like some fated wanderer of the vast deserts of nothingness. I seriously doubt that, though. At the same time, were anybody nearby, they might have heard my crossbow. So I really don't know. I'm packing lightly as it is. Just the clothes on my back, my rucksack, a crossbow and maybe five shots on my belt.

Might as well take the chance. Like a descending vulture, I enter the abandoned town, step by step. There's a few places I might be checking out, and then I'm right back out assuming what I need is there.

To start with, the tool store. Maybe it's not what comes to mind first, but I find that you can get a lot more out of a place like this than you'd think. Outside of things like hatchets, saws or whatever else, you need to be able to build up your shelter one way or another. Need to be able to cover up the windows, block the doors at a moments notice, anything really. Even farming equipment would be nice right now.

So, that's where my feet take me. The streets are pin-drop silent as I step over and glance through the windows. This was the one building that seemed the most 'put together' I guess, so if there's nobody here, I can probably chill out for the rest of this.

I stop over by the front door, now lowering into a familiar crouch. My ears almost strain from how much effort I put into trying to listen for any shreds of movement nearby. Nothing. Peeping through a nearby window into the building shows everything is similarly quiet inside, too. Bit dark, but... it's fine.

The door creaks open, unfortunately, but I'm able to sneak my way inside and silently close it behind me as I enter. Now that I'm under a roof, I get a hold of my crossbow. My hands clench tightly on the weapon's grip while I scan through the relatively small confinements of the department store. I set the backpack near the front entrance and start the nerve-wracking process of clearing the insides out. It's a slow pace of walking over towards the nearest door in the building.

Silencing my steps, I stop nearby it. Probably some managers office. You really do never know what could be behind these doors. Again, my ears strain for anything, but there's nothing. Pulling a hand away from my crossbow, it slowly grabs the doorknob. The other hand levels the business-end of my weapon towards the door. Alright... time to go.

Three... two... one.

I turn it forcefully and yank it open. The hand on the door snaps back to the handle of the weapon I aim.

Nothing. Empty, again. My weapon lowers as I scan over the cramped room.

Sure enough, it's just some office. My guard lowers, now certain that at least this part of the store is empty. Maybe too much so, but it's fine. My eyes gloss over the room, seeing that it's mostly just filing cabinets, a table, an old land-line phone. Nothing really notable. I turn back and go through the process of clearing out the rest of this place. By and large it's pretty straightforward, thankfully. Clearing out the last couple unopened rooms is a painless affair, which lets me get to the good part quicker. That means the tools.

First off, I need to see what's still here. My footfalls echo where I browse. Most of the lumberjack-related things are gone. Axes, hatchets, mostly things I wouldn't need anyways. Perusing the wares for me to loot is actually surprisingly calming and serene. I move on autopilot as I grab various tools off the shelves and bring them back over to my empty backpack. Whatever can't be stuffed within, I hang on the side of it. Nails, hammers, carpentry and farming tools. I might as well grab them since I've been thinking about it, right? While I'm putting the various tools and materials away, I pause for a moment to what I think is the sound of something outside... but I quickly realize is just my own equipment. I think.

Being next to the door now, I peep the window outside to check to make sure, and then exit. The door closes behind me, and quickly I realize something.

I knew something was off before, but now that I'm out here again, looking at the town proper, it's quiet. So quiet that it's unsettling. There's only faint traces of any sort of vandalism or broken property. Broken glass, but a lot of it seems to have been cleaned up. No bodies. There's barely even any trash around. It's like the whole place is a relic of the past. Nothing's been really broken into. That's not normal.

The feeling came on slowly at first, when I scouted out and entered this little town, but now it's hitting me in waves. Everything is telling me now that something about this disturbs me. But.. there's this voice in the back of my head saying to just ignore it.

Were somebody actually here... they'd have started doing something already. Right? What if they could have just waited outside? Outside the door to this store, anyways... but they didn't. I haven't seen anybody. Or heard anything. Or, maybe whoever inhabits this place isn't here yet, and I shouldn't wait?

Am I just going crazy?

I don't know what to make of it, my thoughts repeat. Maybe I just need to get back home after this. See what else is around. One last store, and then I'm leaving. Yeah. That'll.. that'll work.

My mind made up, a bit more reluctantly than I'd have liked, I nonetheless peruse around. Being such a small place means there aren't more than five or six places of note in general. A church, the department store, a farmer's market. Everything else is mostly residential buildings or the like. Maybe there's a sheriff's office, or something..?

I disavow the notion. Any guns I could get around here wouldn't be worth the effort... not that they're exactly useful anyways. Unless it's fitted with a silencer and subsonic ammo, it's just not worth it. A zombie killed with a single shot brings a hundred more. I've seen it myself, near the outskirts of the cities. Nightmarish. I need to focus on what to do next.

Right. I'll just check out the... the farmer's market. Everything there's probably been rotten out long ago, but maybe I can just get some seed packs, or just anything. Not that I'd really know, but it'd probably be really quick to just look inside and then get out.

There's this... tense feeling, crawling up and down my back as I walk. Like I'm being watched.

I can't relax like this. Maybe I just need to set my backpack nearby, and just run in. Just be quick. This feeling doesn't seem to want to go away, now that it's here. The clattering of the tools and metal stuffed in my bag only makes me louder. No point trying to sneak around with this thing on. It's thrown aside with haste once I near the old shop.

Stopping me from getting inside are two simple push-doors. The market itself is nestled between two other buildings that I can only figure were abandoned before everything fell apart. With the backpack shrugged off, I use a free hand to grab one of the doorhandles and push it open carefully. I hod my crossbow in my offhand, just to be safe.

As it's pushed open, the metal weight whining by the smallest whisper from my hands, my body freezes in place. I hear something.

Like the tapping of something sharp moving against concrete, behind me, like sharp nails or claws on stone. I don't even finish entering, just instantly twist myself around and look over my shoulder.

Despite everything, again, I see nothing. My eyes scan everywhere. Every corner, every rooftop, every window. Nothing. How? Where did-... my breathing starts to pick up.

I shouldn't go in. I really shouldn't go in. I keep hearing these things. My gut instinct is telling me to get out, as soon as possible. There are so many signs telling me to just leave. But... but I won't be in for long, right? Just run in, and...

No. No, this is stupid. What the fuck am I doing? Just go. My gut feeling overpowers the caution in my mind. I'm not feeling like this for no reason! I gotta go.

My mind is stuck in flux, but my instincts keep repeating it to me. Get out. Finally deciding that's probably the smartest idea, I pull away. My eyes scan left, then right down the street as I turn around. Clear. Quiet, unsettling, but clear, as it's always been.

All I need to do is just duck down to get my backpack and-

I feel something above crash down on me, in one fell swoop. From the roof above the building, something leaps down and slams their bodyweight down onto me.

I'm taken completely by surprise. The crossbow in my hand clatters harmlessly to the sidewalk besides me, and I'm crushed against it myself.

My frantic yelp cries into the open air before something hand-shaped wraps around my mouth and shuts me up. Then, the pressing of something metallic, I immediately realize it to be gunmetal, then nests against the side of my head. It all happens so fast that I can't even get my bearings, just instinctually thrash and kick out against the pavement below as I prepare for the last moments of my life. The screams are muffled by the clawed hand harshly cutting into my cheeks, holding my mouth shut. They speak.

"What do you think you're doing?" It's a distinctly feminine voice, although it's hard to make out anything more than that. The barrel of the handgun presses harder against my side.

"Thinking you can sneak into my home, and steal from me?!" Since I can't really talk, she opts to continue leading the conversation.

"I guess you thought you were smart, but you must have never seen me, huh? Dumbass. Look at me, before I kill you."

I don't get to decide whether or not I do. I'm shifted and turned until my body is compliant enough to do so. She yanks my face over to forcefully look into her eyes, and...

"You won't be a problem for much.. longer..." She trails off. I don't know what I look like to her, but since I'm forced to watch anyways, her expression shifts from a sinister, raging glare to something unreadable, like shock, within seconds. I don't think I'm much different. "Damien?!"

It's her. It's fucking her. The bitch who gave me hell, all those years ago! She really did make it! And- and now look at me! I can't believe it. This is how I'm going to die?

The face of a bald-eagle girl stared back at me. A head of white plumed feathers adorned her, contrasted by a second tone of brown feathers below her neck. Eyes of glistening amber pierced through my vision and into my soul. Between her eyes meanwhile is a wide, hooked beak, the tip sharp like it was a knife's edge. The thought of her using it as some visceral tool of torture against me flashes in my brain, for a moment. Now all the worst memories are flooding back into my mind.

"How are you.. you're still alive? Oh my god." Her searing grip on my face slackens and lets up, just enough for me to get a bit more wiggle room. She's barely struggling to process what's going on, it seems like. Maybe my former tormentor found some pity for me, now that I'm in her familiar grip once again. How fitting.

"Look, I-.. you need to tell me why you're here. You won't do anything, right?"

Slowly, I nod. The claws of her hands are still digging into my cheeks, but I try not to let that show. With that signal, finally her grip relents. The sting wanes from her sharp talons, and finally I can talk.

"I.. uh.. just got here, actually. I needed equipment, I guess. Anything. I was just taking the opportunity I saw." I side-eye the handgun still pressed up against my temple. Not exactly the best conditions to have a conversation. "Could you.. put that gun away? I- I won't do anything, okay? Promise."

She studies me, for a moment. Maybe analyzing me, to see if I'm lying. The clawed hand she was using to wrench my face around now goes over to crudely pat me down. Besides whatever's in the backpack, she wouldn't find anything. Sure enough, that seems to convince her to relax.

"Alright. Sorry, I guess." The firearm retracts, and so does her looming presence over me. "I just wasn't sure if you'd... try to do something stupid."

Finally, I'm allowed to get back up on my feet, once she pulls away. Getting up takes me a second, cupping a hand around my face for a moment to feel for the stinging cuts on my face. It's light enough to grit throgh, at least for now. My lingering gaze turns around to get a better look at her.

The name of this looming presence that just about used my brain matter as paint for the sidewalk comes back to me.

Qena. She looks different from when I last saw her, unsurprisingly. Rather than the old athletics jersey most people knew her by, she's wearing this thick long-sleeved leather jacket. She was always pretty fit, but the jacket looks like it barely fits her now. She wears a pair of what seems like old military pants that seem just as tight-fitting. To be honest, her clothes are actually pretty messy.

There's these patches of dirt and dried blood on her jacket, holes in her pants. What I thought were just fingerless gloves actually just have holes poked out of them to accommodate for her pointy claws. It's all dirty and grimy, but I can't say I can judge. Or care. I'm definitely not in the best shape either. But, worst of all..

She's still taller than me, by a fair margin. God damnit.

I stammer out a response, now realizing I hadn't said anything for a few moments. "It's fine. I- I get it. Maybe we should talk somewhere else?" My voice is still a bit shaky from the adrenaline coursing through my system. Hard to calm down so quickly, after all.

"No, don't worry," Qena brushes aside my concern. "This place has been cleared out for a while." Her eyes glance to the wound on my face, caused by her.

"Alright then," I relent. With no real better place, I just shuffle a few steps backwards and lean against the wall of the market behind me, grabbing the strap of my backpack and setting it upright again. My movements are slow and demonstrated to her, just in case. Now that I'm a bit more comfortable, now's probably a decent time to get the conversation rolling again.

"So... this is your.. home? Habitat? Base? Whatever?" I ask her. On her part, Qena seems to lower her guard just a pinch more, now that it's clear neither side has an sort of malicious intent.. as I see it anyways.

"You could call it that. I've had to, er, scare off a few people from stopping by here before, so that's why I.. you know." She broadly gestures to the claw marks on my face. "Sorry about that."

"You're alright. I've dealt with worse..." My voice trails for a little bit. Then, my memory flashes for a moment.

"Wait. You said this place, you cleared it out, right?"

She nods.

"There was somebody you missed, actually." Informing this seems to give Qena a realization.

"...So that was you who I heard?"

"Yeah. I found your brother, not far out from the town. I'm sorry."

There's this little pit in my stomach that worries telling her the truth will somehow make her lash out on me, or get angry that she wasn't the one to have the dubious honor of killing him. Thankfully, that doesn't seem to be the case here.

"I had been waiting to decide what I want to do about him. Dealing with that wasn't exactly something I wanted to do, so you're forgiven." She glances over her shoulder towards the general direction of Isaiah's final resting place. If there was any sense of mourning, I don't see it from the immediate look on her face once she turns back to me. Maybe she had already done her mourning long ago.

"Losing somebody like that couldn't be easy to deal with, I imagine."

Qena shakes her head. "You don't know the half of it. Isaiah's been the easiest one to get to, if anything. The rest are dead, probably."

I feel a tinge of surprise at how... candid, she's being. Maybe this has been clawing at her for a while now.

"We might as well talk about it," I suggest. "There's a lot I wanted to ask you, anyways." My leaning against the wall makes me slump down just a tiny bit. I can see Qena mull the idea in her head before she ultimately decides to get a bit comfortable herself, rather than just standing defensively in the middle of the road.

"I could say the same to you, Damien." Qena answers. "You got anywhere to go?"

A shake of my head is all the answer she needs. My eyes drift outwards to scan the distant treelines as the time passes. I tell her about how things broke down for my own life; how my parents went, then my friends, then my acquaintances, then everybody else. I thought life had its moments back then... I had no clue. Hearing the thundering bang of gunshots in my peaceable little neighborhood. Seeing the people you've loved for your entire life turned into, effectively, mindless husks. Having to be the one to kill them myself.

It could always get so much worse, is what I realized. The days were long, so long, after the fact. I had everything I needed to survive for weeks in advance, but I sure didn't want to keep going for a while afterwards. However long I can stay alive, the memory of them will be seared into my brain for the rest of my life.

To my surprise, she was sympathetic to my pain. All of it, really. I didn't hear any crass responses. Or snide remarks. She just listened, and nodded along to it all. To me, this all felt like such a... strange turnaround. Here was this person who had been nothing but brash, in-your-face for as long as I knew her. Yet she felt like a close friend from days gone by now, since everybody else is gone.

I had to ask her eventually. "You... had me earlier, you know."

Qena tilts her head a bit at that question. "What do you mean?"

"As in, outside this building. Caught me by surprise. Had me right where you wanted me. Gun to my head, on the ground. Why didn't you do it?"

She huffs for a moment, figuring out the best way to parse her answer. How to explain her feelings, at least in the immediate moment.

"When I saw you trying to sneak in, you looked like the rest of the ilk I've had to fight off from this place in the weeks and months past. If you're wondering why I didn't then, that's a good question. I think I was just seeing if you would pass by, or not. When I caught you here, really, I was just wanting to rub it in one last time before... well, before I'd have killed you."

"And why not?"

"I think, because I know you." Qena's colorful eyes dart back to me, herself close enough to be within arms reach of me still. "Even if you might hate me, I couldn't.. couldn't just kill you like that. You might be the last person I even somewhat know that's still alive."

I scratch my hair, briefly. The cuts on my face have clotted and dried a bit ago, now just left-over marks of her assault.

"Thanks, I guess." It sounds backhanded, but in a way I don't mean it like that. Part of me just wonders, what if she did? Am I sure I'd even be sad, were I to have the chance to look back on it all? To die?

The hours pass surprisingly quickly. The person who almost killed me now sits besides me, like we were always brothers and sisters in arms. The sky above turns from a bright blue in the ozone to a golden and orange dusk. It all felt like it happened so quick. By the time I realize the evening is fast approaching, Qena stands up and dusts off her pants.

"We should probably get moving," she reminds me.

"I guess you're not wrong." It takes me a moment or two to get up, a grunt forced past my lips as I stand off my haunches. The crossbow that was smacked against the ground earlier is something I almost forgot about. Now that she didn't seem to mind too much if I had this in my hands, I check it over to see if the impact may have broken anything.

"..Shit." I curse under my breath.

"What's wrong?"

The crossbow is kept pointed downwards out of habit as I show the extent of the damage to her. "This was the only weapon I really brought. Our scuffle earlier must have broken it." Part of the prod that kept the string of the crossbow held in place snapped in half when it hit the concrete earlier, meaning it was as good as broken now.

"Unless I use the tools I got from the department store earlier as weapons, I'm as good as defenseless." Serves me for packing so lightly. If anything, I'm lucky this wasn't under worse circumstances...

"So that means you rely on me right now."

I side-eye her. "If that's how you want to think about it, I guess so. Where're we headed? In one of the houses?"

"No. It's better if we get a spot in the woods. I have a camp I prepared before getting here, so that's where we'll go."

Were I to think about it, that makes sense I guess. It's probably a lot more hidden, a lot more out of the way, but part of me just can't help but feel a bit worried about being escorted to the literal middle of the forest with her.

"Wouldn't it be safer to hunker down in one of the buildings?" I decide to try and broach the topic while I can.

"No. You're not the first to come around here, looking for a nice pack of goodies for himself. You won't be the last either, not by a long shot." Qena says firmly. "Nobody knows where my campsite is, and nobody else has even gotten near it. Come on, it's safer."

"Alright, alright, fine." Begrudgingly convinced by her, she leads the way and I follow. The steps fall into a rhythm soon enough. The sun's rays of light cast down through the trees behind us, the colors painting a golden hue everywhere I looked. I also got a good look at Qena from behind as we strolled.

She really is... buff. Stocky, fit, whatever. However she's managing it, the food scarcity doesn't seem to have been affecting her at all. Maybe she's got a way to finding food or something that I don't know. Her equipment jingles and clatters with every step we make, even if she herself doesn't really seem to be carrying much, like I was. There's her holster for the gun she has, a machete next to it. Maybe some magazines in her pockets, or something. I'm not sure what else could be causing it.

Suddenly, we stop. Qena checks the fasteners hooked on her belt for a moment, shaking herself in place for half a moment to make sure nothing's fitting too loosely, or too tightly for that matter.

My eyes catch a bit more than I'd like to admit, but they avert out of respect. Similarly I don't opt to really say anything to her. Taking the opportunity within that, I look around to see... nothing? No tents, no log-pile, not even traces of an old bonfire or traps around.

"Why did we stop here?" I float the question to her as it comes up in my mind.

"Because this is our destination," Qena answers. "Look up."

On the trees above are a series of circular platforms, hooked into the bark and oak of them. They're individual podiums and platforms, with little blocks of them covered by cloth or whatever approximates as such to serve as small rooms. There doesn't really seem to be any way to walk from one platform to another; doing so would mean you have to jump from one end of the platform to another. It's no small hop, either.

"What the hell?" I can only respond with shock. "O-..okay. Firstly, how do you expect me to get up there? Secondly, if we're sleeping here, where am I going to-..."

"Quiet down." Qena shuts down my concerns with a patronizing tone. "If you can't handle climbing up, I'll just take you with me." She goes to walk up towards one of the trees. Now that I mention it, I also don't see any sort of way to climb up to it normally. Meaning...

"How do you expect me to do that? What, just get on your back or something?"

"Yes." Not a hint of sarcasm is in her voice.

"This can't be serious, right?" It's hard to believe what I'm hearing right now. "I am not some little kid, Qena, jesus. Why is that the first thing you're suggesting?"

I swear I see a smirk on the corner of her beak for a moment, but when I blink it's gone. "Do you see any other way up? As I see it, you either can't get up, or you rely on me to help you climb. Look, it won't take that long, so let's just hurry up."

God damnit. "Fine." I begrudgingly walk over to right behind her. She bends forwards by the slightest margin, to give me extra leverage to climb onto her back. With her arms bracing against the column of bark and oak that is the tree, it's actually surprisingly easy. I hop onto her in what essentially surmounts as a piggyback ride. Once she makes sure I'm safely on her, attached like some living backpack, she begins to bound upwards.

Even with my bodyweight and all the equipment and luggage on my person, she moves with barely any difficulty. Her claws hands and talons dig marks into the tree, and after a moment of looking I see what look like old marks etched into the tree from her doing this many times before.

This is nonetheless embarrassing and humiliating. Even in the end of the world my former-tormentor has found new ways to seemingly toy with me, just to see how I react. My face reddens with nerves, just waiting for this to be over with so I can get ready for the night.

Thankfully, she was correct about it being quick. It's maybe thirty seconds of her moving one hand up, then another, hopping and leaping up to the same familiar spots she knew from before. It's easy enough to tell that even that pace was overly cautious, slow and precise, due to my presence on her back. Once I was carried up to the platform, my feet land upon it.

To my surprise, it's actually more spacious than I thought it'd be. I have about enough leeway to lay across it, should I want to. Though, there's nothing like railings or fencing to prevent me from just falling off, should I slip...

I let my mind change topics quickly, it's something best left not thinking about. My arms shrug off the strips of the backpack I carried up with me, and Qena glances over to the sound of the bustling rucksack.

"Just leave it against the tree, it's fine." Qena gestures broadly against the 'wall' of wood the platform centers itself on. Following her instruction, it's tossed aside and left as it is.

All around this platform - and a few others nearby, affixed to several other trees close by in the forest - are various things. Crates, mainly. From what I can tell, there's no easy way for her to securely store everything so high up. Either it's all in these little faux rooms, covered by blinders and cloth and stored on little shelves within, or they're stacked in footlockers and crates and piled on top of one-another. I look around for a moment to ask Qena something, but she seems to have made herself scarce. Probably tending to something now that she's at 'home'. That leaves me to my own thoughts, at least for now.

One thing I notice is, well, the view.

Part of the reason why she went through this strange, motley approach to cobbling together a shelter in the apocalypse had to have been this. Now that I have the time, I sit down for a moment and dangle my legs over the edge of the tree platform, looking outwardly to the forest all around me.

It's beautiful.

What I see is a view I don't think I've ever had the chance to experience before in my life. The verticality of these circle-platforms gives you the chance to look down on everything. The sun casts down its golden rays of light through the green canopy and branches of the trees below it, casting shadows and color equally on the earth below. The chirping of birds, the gentle breeze of wind against my face. Even the smell is calming, though that's probably because I'm so familiar with that aroma nowadays, having lived in forests like this for so long.

"Enjoying the view?" Qena makes me visibly flinch as I look over to her.

"Fuck," I mumble quietly to myself. "Yeah, I am. How the hell were you so quiet?" My eyes break from the view to glance over to the bald eagle looming over me.

"Don't worry about it." I track her movements as she gently seats herself next to me. A bit.. closer, than I'd like, but it's nothing I'd care enough to complain about right now.

"I've spent a lot of time just sitting here, like you are. Watching the forest, the sky, the sunset. My family used to use these, before this all happened." Qena's eyes linger back to me. "Do you know what that's like? Being with family, hunting?"

"Maybe now I do, but not like you mean. We never really hunted for sport, like that." I had other things to occupy my time with, back then.

"It wasn't for sport, Damien. Not entirely, anyways. You'd be surprised how much we need to eat. It was just one way for us to save some money, and burn some time too. I just remember... all of it."

She nudges herself a bit closer, subtly.

"Usually, it was with me and my mom. She knew best how to hunt, right? Well... I remember her. Sometimes, if there wasn't anywhere to look, or if we were just waiting, we'd sit like this. Together."

I feel an arm wrap around my side. Hers. The clawed hand grabs hold around my hips, and she pulls me against her.

Qena subtly glares at me, I realize, as I side-eye her myself. Even the slightest movement of me squirming or trying to pull away means she holds tighter onto me. It's tight. No way to pull out of it.

"It was just like this, Damien..." She stares at me the entire time. I don't know how to handle this. "Does it feel good?"

"I.. um.. I guess so.." I gulp down the saliva pooling in my mouth and try to keep my breath steady. Rather than trying to make this any worse, it's probably better to just look out to the treeline again. To just.. take in the moment with her. Maybe she's just desperate for any sort of human contact again.

"I miss those times, Damien. I miss you."

The feelings are starting to come back. Like I'm being crushed by the weight of a mountain. Why? Wasn't I supposed to be stronger, now? Wasn't all of this supposed to be nothing but an old, bad memory?

Why, why, why?

"Damien... do you feel the same?" Part of me starts to realize now what she's doing. Not just immediately, with what's going on, but what led to this point. I'm like a deer in headlight. None of this should be happening.

I've been through so much worse. This feeling of hopelessness that wracks through my body is strong... but part of me feels it waning. Moment by moment. I'm not the same person I was back then. Right?

I need to say something.

"Why? Why are you..." My voice trails for just a moment, trying to find the right words. It comes back to me after a moment. "You feel like this about me? Why? Where did this come from? Now you suddenly catch it for me?"

Qena's eyes scan me. I'm a prey in the claws of a predator. "So you don't feel the same? Aren't you happy to see me again? I saved you, didn't I?" Her grip tightens. I feel the tips of her claws pricking through my thick clothing.

"You almost just killed me!" I protest. "You gave me hell for my entire life for as long as I knew you! Why would I look at you like that?!" My eyes shoot up to hers to read her reaction, and also to back up what I'm saying.

Her expression shifts and changes as I hold my stare over her. First, she looked manic. Eyes wide, staring at me, holding me so tightly that I thought she'd draw blood. Then, her grip slackened. She looked sad. Then, resignation. All within the span of a few seconds.

I do acknowledge the risk I'm taking here. She has all the cards, right? She's everything I'm not, even considering how far I've grown now: still taller, still strong, still quick on her feet. Clearly she's thought about this more than me. The look on her face churns and twists for one last moment, as if she were doing some mental calculus, before finally she speaks.

"...Okay. I understand now."

There's tension in my shoulders. I don't realize it until I let the breath I was holding in slowly come out. The repetition of my own inhale and exhale seems to make her own nerves relax, too.

"I understand, Damien. I'm sorry for acting like that, okay?" There's this tinge of held-back emotion that I can get from Qena's voice. She's thinking of something. Is she lying?

"Qena, look, I don't hate you. It's not like that. Just- I think you're going a bit fast, right? You've clearly changed, but so have I. We barely know anything about each other."

"Yes, Damien. It's okay, I understand. Just a bit too far too quickly, like you're saying. We'll take it slow from now on."

She's acting weird. I know she is. But, maybe this is just how she's processing her emotions right now. I don't think I have much other choice than to trust her, anyways.

I can't exactly just go down. She's been hovering around me almost the entire time. Maybe my one chance was when she was handling something in one of the weird little faux-rooms she had arranged. But even if I were to climb down safely and quickly, what's to say she doesn't just hunt me down anyways? My musing is interrupted.

"Maybe we can deal with this more tomorrow. It's getting pretty late..."

Right. "Yeah, it is. I should probably be heading out."

"You don't have to leave, you know. We haven't even done anything, besides talking earlier! This place isn't that bad, right?"

"No, but like you said, it's getting late, and I have to go eventually"

"I know you might have been off-put earlier, but just stay with me for the night, okay?"

I fall silent. There's not exactly much other choice that I have. I don't think it's anything like she wants to kill me, but I can't help but feel uneasy.

"...Okay. Sure." We're brought up on our feet just moments afterwards. The view that seemed so calm and serene minutes ago now suddenly feels much different. To my relief, the talons digging at my side finally let up. I just need to deal with her for one night. Just.. one night.

Right?

Without much other option, she leads the way. I'm led into the little room she's set up on this circular platform. The cloth flap that serves as the 'door' is brushed open as she walks in alongside me. It's more like a big, boxy tent than anything resembling a room, which I guess makes sense. In the middle of the room is this stocky-looking bedroll with cushions lining it on the bottom and around it. Against one wall is a modest-looking shelf with a bolt-action rifle, some boxes of ammunition and a handgun with some magazines lying next to it on one line of the shelf. The other is stocked full of hardback books, and on the bottom is a little shoebox-looking container, slightly ajar.

One problem I notice. "Is this your bedroom?"

"Ours."

She's shaking. Not from fear, but something else. Her hands are clenched into tight fists.

"I don't think I want to- ghk!" My body seizes up immediately in shock. Her free hand shoots out and wraps around my neck with an iron grip. Before I can even process what to do next, she's choking me. Everything in my body thrashes against her grip; my hands immediately snap to her wrist, trying to pull her grip away.

It's not working.

"Shut up." Her voice is hard as steel as any airflow is choked out from me. I wriggle uselessly in front of her while her free hand pulls something out from her back pocket. It's some sort of metallic chain sounding thing.

Handcuffs. It's handcuffs that she has.

"Qena.. please..." I strain to rasp any sort of breath out at all, and this only makes her even angrier.

"Shut the fuck up." My hands are one-by-one seized by her. One cuff wraps around my wrist, and is forcefully yanked behind me. The other hand is pulled away just as fast. Before I know it my hands are cuffed behind my back. She's still choking me. I can't breathe.

Led from the neck, my thrashing self is escorted to the foot of the bedroll. Qena lays down first -- splaying wide on it -- and then pinning me on-top of her. Arms pinned behind me, vulnerable, helpless. It's getting hard to... think...

Help...

The constriction around my neck releases. Air. AIR! Finally! Breathe!

A gulp is forced into my mouth, taking in as much as I possibly can. I start just about hyperventilating from the lack of oxygen. I'm in no spot to be talking, so she volunteers for me.

"You had the chance to make this easier, Damien." The tone of her voice is cold and hard. This was all planned from the start. Everything. Orchestrated, to make sure I fell right into her grasp. And I was too stupid to realize it.

"I... I'm sorry..." I try to plead.

"It's too late to be sorry now, Damien. I'm getting these fucking clothes off of you," Qena says with a hiss. Her claws grab the hem of my top and rip it off, cutting holes in it and tattering it to shreds to expose myself to her.

The adrenaline coursing through my body makes my chest heave up and down in a frantic, repetitive rhythm. While my blood courses through my veins, quick as lightning, I'm ultimately defenseless to her. And her eyes.

I can feel her gaze lingering on my form. It's a lean, toned figure, much different from my previous years before the end came. Every muscle feels like it's clenched, tense, flexing, all at once. There's a faint outline of my abs, as if to show off to her my physical fitness. It's like I'm some model for her sick display.

"You look nice, Damien. So much better than when I last saw you... it's too bad none of it could stop me. It's too bad you're mine again." Her beak moves to the outline of my ear, turning to a sultry, low whisper. Every exhale of her breath shivers against the sensitive shell of my ears, sending goosebumps down my spine. Somehow, I didn't get a single cut or nick from her ripping my shirt off.

Next comes my pants. Before she does the honor of fully disrobing me, her other hand snakes over between my legs.

As it was, I guess I'd be in a pretty excitable state no matter what. Just the simple fact of not having the luxury of real, personal contact for so long meant that just about everything had a pronounced reaction. When her hand cupped my crotch, fondling me without a single care in the world for how I felt, I tried to will myself to not get hard. I tried. Really.

But it was hopeless. The husky breath from her nostrils caressing my ears, the firm, yet soft cushion of her body that I laid on. Her breasts rubbing and pressing against my back. She groped me and felt me up, and I was helpless to do anything but get rock hard.

"That's right.. that's right, baby. Just let me have this, okay?"

The weight of my dick is bounced around in the palm of her hand. She got tired of that pretty quickly though, because not long afterwards she brings her other hand to my pants and slips down my undergarments. In one fell swoop, it all slides off.

My length pokes out into the open air with a throbbing need, despite everything else my body says. There's a strange thrill that runs through my system, feeling her eyes watching it. Ogling it, and me by extension. It's like I'm just some toy for her to use. A cock with a person attached to it. Her hands now fully occupy themselves with touching my testes and throbbing need.

One cradles the both of my balls. Swaying them, softly massaging them. Her other moves to the base of my dick, fingers wrapping around the length within seconds and locking a sort of seal onto it. I immediately realize something as her hands nestle and grope me so disregardfully.

Sharp, poking edges, from the tips of her claws on her hand, silently threaten me. It would normally, maybe, be painful, but she knows to be gentle enough with her touch that it's like soft, ticklish nails scritching so very carefully against the sensitive skin. Don't squirm, or fight, or else.

"What's the matter, huh?" Qena whispers into my ear. "I thought you didn't want this. You've been so, so easy to control. You couldn't even struggle out now if you tried..."

"You're.. fucking crazy-" I'm interrupted. Suddenly, she squeezes on my length, tightening the seal her hand has. It forces a sudden gasp out of me, and kills whatever protest I had in my throat.

Her movements start slow. Stroking, up and down. Tight, focused, careful. I stare ahead and around myself. Anything to not feel her eyes, anything to avoid the humiliating shame of her, watching every little expression playing out on my face...

It feels good. So good... way, way too good. I'm scared of her, terrified of this, bound, nowhere to go. But it's- she's- I've never felt this, never ever felt like this in my life...

Shuddering breaths are forced out of me, with every stroke of my length. Up, down, up, down. She doesn't ever want to let go of my dick. I can feel her take in the complete and total power she has over me. The pace begins to quicken.

"Damieeenn..~" Her sweet whispers taunt me in a sing-song voice. "You're miiinee... you love this so much... I know you do~"

I try to ignore her. Try to ignore how good she feels. I can't let her know.

Unfortunately, she sees what I'm trying to do.

"You're really cute when you try to resist me like this, Damien... I'm gonna make you blow your load, okay? And you can't do anything about it."

Immediately, her hands start to work faster and faster on me. The hand cradling my testes starts to massage and knead them, rolling and hefting the weight of them in the palm of her hand. The other hand stroking my length slides up-and-down, focusing mostly on the tip now, as her seal around my cock forces my body to react.

Now, I'm forced to moan. They're breathy, warbled cries of pleasure. I squirm in her grasp, but all that really amounts to is me helplessly moving my legs in the air and just burying myself deeper into her embrace. The juice I squeeze out from this effort is just a power-drunk giggle from her.

"You can't even do anything! So weeak... so helpless.." Her hand strokes now from tip to base. My body is locking up. Everything I try to do to hold out is falling, inch by tattered inch. She knows it, too. Like she's a shark that smells blood.

"It's okay, baby... I'll always be here for you, okay? Nobody's ever going to come close to you again, except for me..."

Her legs suddenly swing upwards for a moment before they interlock with mine. Holding me in place. I try to squirm my legs away from hers, which confirms it.

Can't move my legs. Can't move my arms. Qena's head rests just behind mine. I can feel a surge within my loins coming; my body starts to tighten up. The pace turns frenetic from her desperately jacking me off.

"Cum. Cum all over me. NOW!" It's a demand. An order I can't refuse. I feel her working in what's like a blinding speed up and down my shaft. It's coming. I can't stop it.

No.. no, no..!

My hips buck upwards on their own. There's no effort left in me to even try to suppress the moans, crushed into submission by this point. My eyes, having watched her jack me off to completion up until now, flutter closed. Her body is a nice, firm pillow to rest my head on as everything relaxes and slacks to make sure I cum as much as I possibly can.

Each pulsating rope that shoots out flies into the air and paints our bodies spots of white, each spurt a shot over the canvas of our intertwined bodies. It's all white. All I see, all I feel, white, cum, hot, all-encompassing.

No other thoughts can occupy but for how good this feels. As if my brain rewires itself to only allow for this. It's a crescendo that reaches its peak, and I'm a prisoner to the whims of my body.

Cum. More, more, more.

The raspy breath shivering by my ear grows quiet and distant. Slowly finally, it relents. My orgasm slowly fading, I come to my senses. From my earth-shattering orgasm, the first thing to come back is my sense of touch.

Qena's body. My eyes gently drift back open in the moments afterwards. The sharp edges of her claws, now more distant than before. Her hands pull away from my genitals, taking a moment -- at least from what I can notice -- to savor the taste of my extracted cum.

Next, comes my sense of smell, then hearing. She whispers to me.

"Good boy... such a good boy.. letting me take everything I want.. I hope you know we're not done, though..."

I'm left to lay on the bedding as she gently moves besides me to stand up. I realize she wants me to keep watching her, so I do. Asking her what comes next, or what she's doing, would be pointless. So I shut up.

The imposing eagle girl towers before my comparatively diminutive self. Her hands work to discard her jacket first. One arm through the sleeve, then another, and it's dropped by her side. Qena's movements are fluid, like she's giving me a show while she strips. Her eyes stare at me the entire time. An obsessive one, as if nothing else matters in her life except to show off to me.

Next, her bra. Once the clasps come off, it slips out from her shirt. They're big, a lot more than I expected, actually. Now that my eyes break for just a moment to glance downwards, towards her chest, she tosses them down around at my feet. Her body sways from the left to the right in a subtle motion, making my eyes follow all the curves to her body that I didn't really notice before.

One hand grabs the hem of her undershirt, and it's slipped off in one quick, clean motion. Her tits flop out from the force of the movement. They're huge. Bigger than I thought they had any right to be.

Double-Ds? G-cups? I don't know, but they're doubtlessly big enough to stuff my face between. She knows I'm staring, and it only excites her further. As she bends down to start taking off her pants, her breasts sway and hang downwards to show the full heft of her mammaries to me.

"Are you ready, Damien?" Her pants are slid off, leaving her with just the panties on. One of her thumbs loops through the hem of it. A few seconds later, her body is completely exposed to me, in all its beauty.

Her feathers look soft, and warm. Qena looks almost something like a marble statue with how strong she is. Her abs are like chiseled stone, defined and powerful. Glancing lower, her thighs are thick, and themselves bristling with muscle. They're like massive, soft pillows that could crush steel at the same time. Her pussy glistens, slick and lubricated with unbridled lust. That leads me to trail my lingering gaze all the way back up to her.

She bounds a few steps over towards me, then falls onto her knees. Her arms smack down on either side of my head, pinning me in place. Her boobs are inches away from my face, now angling herself down, just by a bit. Despite everything, I'm still rock-hard. Something wet, and warm caresses the tip of my length.

I'm pinned down beneath her weight like some useless fucktoy for her to have her way with. The hard, metallic restraints of my handcuffs keep my wrists firmly bound behind me. There's no way to stop what's about to come.

Like a blur, she slams her weight down on me. A first, deep thrust into her folds.

We both moan loudly from the immediate rush of bliss between our legs. It reverberates in the small, dark room she's forced me into. The bedding beneath me is surprisingly lenient to my weight, even if the mass of feathers, boobs, and muscle above me crushes me comparatively. Qena holds herself, waiting, absorbing the first time with me. The first time we've fucked.

"Nnnmgh.." She rises her hips, and slides them back down. It's everything I ever thought it'd be... warm. Wet. Tight. I can feel the weight of her ass smacking down onto my pelvis as she starts to get comfortable with riding me.

My shoulders become her handle to hold onto as she fucks me. I feel as her claws sink into me, even if only slightly, starting to draw little pinprickles of blood out.

"Damieen... fuck... fuck, you're so GOOD!" Qena moans out. The weight of her ass smacking down onto me gives me a mild-melting bliss, different from what I just experienced moments before. The walls of her pussy, her core, clamp down and tighten on my shaft as it pumps into her, in and out, over and over again, slowly driving me crazy with how good it feels.

"You're not gonna leave me, baby! I-I'm gonna make sure.. you pump kids into me.. whether you like it or not!"

What can I even say? I feel like she's running the floor with me. There is nothing to say. I don't deserve to talk. Just to lie down and accept it, like the bitch that I am. Whatever mewling whimpers and moans of pleasure that happen to escape my lips are purely by coincidence.

The pleasure is all I can think about. The rhythmic THWAP of her ass, the weight of it clapping against mine, being held onto so tightly...

I feel myself suddenly yanked, sitting up. Her angle shifts in a blur: now she's straddling me, and both her arms and legs wrap around my back. My body is the pole upon which she bounces up and down from. One of her claws grabs at the back of my head, scratching softly at my scalp through the thick of my hair.

"Say... say you love me, Damien. Tell me you'll have kids with me."

Now there's nowhere else to look. It's into her eyes. Into her manic, sex-obsessed gaze. She wants me to- no, needs me to say it, in a way I don't think I can entirely comprehend.

This is it. This is where the rest of my life will be, most likely. Up on these platforms, living alongside her. Maybe chained like this, maybe not. I have no means of escape. No way of getting out of this, not easily. She has senses that could track me for literal miles. But she loves me. Truly, I think. Nothing she's saying is a lie. Somebody as beautiful as her, as strong as her, is doing everything she can to have me. My mind turns single-track.

She's the only person I've ever known who's still alive, and my only chance at a life without crippling isolation.

The sensations double over, once that thought crosses my mind. She's mine. I'm hers. We'll have babies together. No way out of it. She's strong, she's loyal,, she'll give me everything I could ever need. Ever..

I'm getting close.

Qena's breath is haggard, herself. She can barely breathe out her words. "Damien... s-say it. Or- or-"

My voice suddenly cuts through her demand. "I love you, Qena. F-fuck me until I give you kids. Please... I'm sorry, I'll do right by you, I swear, I swear! Just- just keep fucking me!"

The sudden outburst of emotion gives her pause. No resistance to her, anymore. No denying her of what she wanted. She literally stops, for a moment, but I see her breath picking up at the full extent of what I just said. Her realization.

"Baby...? Damien..?"

"I love you." I say it again.

I'm yanked against her face, just short of the tip to her sharp beak. It parts to reveal her long, wet tongue. I don't fight it. Her tongue parts through my lips and intertwines with mine. One hand holds my head against hers, the other wraps against my body. And so, she fucks me without any abandon. She figured to speak with her actions, rather than say anything at all.

It's a blinding pace. Our moans come out in full force, together. Her tits press against me, her legs coursing and twitching with felt sensations and power. Even though I'm bound, I still try to make myself as available as I possibly can to her. It's too much to bear.

"I'm ghonna-" My voice is muddied by our kiss.

"Shoot it in me! DO IT!" Qena yells out.

Just a few more smacks of her ass against mine, a few more thrusts into her. Then it all comes undone.

I hear her shrill scream of pleasure, mixing with my own moan. I feel the sharp sting of her claws digging into my back, but somehow it only adds to the mind-blanking orgasm. We buck into each other like wild animals fucking without abandon, both brought together with the one mission to procreate.

Each throbbing burst into her, each vicious clamping of her walls against me, it burns into my brain. Nothing else to think about, just her. Us, me and her, together, forever, safe. Safe from the hell of the life outside. Rutting like wild animals to fix the broken world ourselves. I'm not sure how long this moment lasts between us... maybe only seconds, but I could've been fooled if it were minutes, maybe even hours.

By the end of it though, I collapse down on the cushion-lined bedding beneath me. Qena drops down not long after. There's still an ambient, stinging pain somewhere on my back, but it's a weak enough pang to ignore. The fabric is drenched with our sweat and juices, but that's something for the us of tomorrow.

I lay down on my back, while Qena by comparison drops down to her side. Our eyes meet with each other not long after. A content, fulfilled sigh escapes her beak. She brings a hand around to caress my hair and head.

"Oh, baby..." She coos. "I'm so happy... that was amazing..." Her voice is sweet like honey to my ears in this afterglow.

"I liked it too... but.." I test the restraints on my arms behind me. I can barely feel them, they're so numb. "Can you get these cuffs off?"

Surprisingly, that's all it took. Her hand on my head lazily drifts down towards my restrained hands, still chained to the cold and metallic handcuffs. I thought she'd have to dig around in her clothes for the key, but evidently she just sticks the sharp end of one of her claws into the keyhole and turns it around a bit, and my restraints are slipped off not long afterwards. Finally, sweet relief.

Bringing my hands out in front of me, I clench and flex them for a moment to get the blood flowing back where it should be. They started to feel pretty numb after a certain point...

She seems to realize what she did, too. Like the sex knocked some sense into her noggin, her eyes scan over the marks on my wrists, and some of the cuts on my back.

"You know, Qena, you really didn't need to do this." From my hands, I lock eyes with her. "You went way too far.. you know that, right? That was fucking crazy."

Guilt plays out on her face. Remorse for how forceful she became. How controlling she was. I see an oddly vulnerable side of her, for just a moment.

"I'm sorry, Damien," she starts. "I just... I wasn't lying at all about how I felt. I really did love you, even back then, you know? And- and I just wanted to make sure you didn't leave. Didn't leave me, like.. like everybody else did.. even if you said to take it slow, I just- maybe you were trying to lie to me, or- or-"

She's surprised by a little peck on her beak from my lips. I keep my gaze with her, but my now-free hand sneaks over to caress the soft feathers on her body. Warm. Comfy... and mine. It quells the worries she talks out, for now.

"Maybe it was too much, too quick, but... I know you're not lying. I know you're serious with how much you wanted me. How devoted you were to making sure I stayed here... it's okay. I really do mean it, Qena. You still trust me enough to take my bindings off after all of that." I repeat what I said to her, earlier. "I love you."

There's unshed tears in her eyes. I don't have much more to say, but that's okay. It's better to just enjoy this shared silence together, if even for just a moment.

We'll both be dealing with our fair share of heartbreak in the days to come, I'm sure. Am I ready to be a dad? Is she ready to have kids? Are either of us even in a position to feed and care for a newborn in the coming months? Maybe those tools I got back at the town will be used for farmland... just not where I thought.

"I love you too, honey."

The few beams of light that could make it through the canopies of trees outside cast a growingly-darker dusk into the gaps in the tent-room. The void of the night soon approaches. Now's as good of a time to sleep as any, I'd suppose.

My body nestles closer to the big, bald-eagle girl that had been so obsessed with claiming me just minutes before. Now, we both willingly wrap each other into a tight embrace. I wrap my arms around hers in a hug, and she holds me similarly tightly. Never, ever wanting to let go.

A better future awaits me. Better than I had ever thought possible, in this world. Before I drift into the night, unconscious and asleep with my new soulmate, she whispers one final gift to my sensitive ears.

"We'll take on this world together, Damien. No matter what."

"Goodnight."

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Pub: 30 Oct 2025 02:16 UTC

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