Oreo Milkshake

Detta had never been good with words. She didn’t say "thank you", or "I appreciate you", or even "don’t worry, I’ll be fine". What she did do was leave strange little gifts for the rest of KorTac that's straight from the woods, pockets, or occasionally, the nearest corpse. To her, this was affection. To everyone else? It was a test of patience.

Fender, naturally, was her favorite. He laughed at her chaos, so she rewarded him with treasures. A beetle with wings like stained glass in a matchbox. A cool feather she found stuck in barbed wire. A wildflower pressed flat under her boot but still clinging to life.

The day she handed him a bomb keychain carved with “best boom buddy” scratched into the side, he actually grinned ear to ear. “Detta, this is sick,” He said, clipping it straight to his vest. She smirked, lit a cigarette, and shrugged as if she hadn’t just declared him her closest friend in the only way she knew how.

For König, she softened things. He was too… gentle for her usual brand of horror. So, she left pinecones and smooth river rocks near his kit. Once, she placed a fat caterpillar in a jar with a little stick, pushing it toward him like a nervous child offering a toy.

“Take care of it,” She told him seriously. “It’s your only friend now.”

König blinked down at it, mumbling behind his mask. He didn’t throw it out. Weeks later, when the caterpillar spun into a cocoon, he carefully moved the jar to his bunk. He never told Detta, but she noticed. She always noticed.

Roze didn’t like frills. So Detta gave her things that looked useful; extra branches for camouflage, herbs she swore would keep away nightmares, the occasional dead scorpion.

“It’s you, but tiny,” Detta teased, dropping the curled-up creature into Roze’s hand.

Roze didn’t flinch. She just tucked it into a pouch, deadpan. “Cute.”

Detta rolled her eyes but couldn’t hide the grin tugging her lips.

Horangi, though, was fair game. He’d find live crickets wriggling in his helmet, moths released in his bunk, or bugs taped to his cigarettes.

“You little psycho!” He’d roar, chasing her across the base. She’d sprint away, laughing like a banshee, yelling back. “It’s called enrichment, you boring bastard!”

And later, when he found another jar of moths tucked into his pack, he grumbled.

Zero hated surprises, which made him her favorite victim. He’d come back to his desk and find snail shells arranged into a neat spiral, or bones stacked carefully like a miniature sculpture.

The worst was the leaf. On it, scrawled in jagged writing; “I SEE YOU SEEING ME.”

He froze, staring at it, then glanced around the room. Across the hall, Detta leaned in the doorway, grinning like the devil with a cigarette between her teeth.

Zero muttered under his breath, “Bloody hell…”

Finally, Oni. He hated her nonsense, which only encouraged her. She left freshly plucked crow feathers on his bed, beetle husks by his boots, even a live frog once, stuffed in his shoe.

“It’s a guardian spirit,” She said solemnly.

“It’s a frog,” He deadpanned, holding it by the scruff as it croaked.

“Same thing.”

He scowled. She saw him release it gently into the grass later.

To Detta, it wasn’t just chaos. These were pieces of the wild, the only place she felt peace. Giving them away was her way of saying “You keep me alive. Here’s part of what keeps me alive, too.”

The team might not have understood every bug, feather, or bone she left behind, but they understood her. And in their own strange, violent, and dysfunctional way, they cherished every gift.