History
Syd made his way around the camp to join Dani on watch. He frowned at the fire. “I hate keeping that lit,” he said.
Dani looked up at him, then the fire, “Makes it hard to see past camp.”
“And it’s a goddamned beacon,” Syd huffed and sunk down onto the log, facing opposite the way Dani was situated.
“Well, Yeah.”
They fell into silence, watching the perimeter. The night pressed in around them, with cold and unsettlingly bare mountains just visible in the east.
Eventually, and against her better judgement, Dani spoke.
“You still think about them, right?”
Syd was pulled out of his thoughts. He looked over at Dani, understandably confused, “What?”
Dani repeated herself, and Syd stared into the darkness beyond camp for a long time before saying, “Yeah. Why?”
Dani shifted uncomfortably. “Dunno. Just. . Been thinking about it a lot lately.”
“Hm,” Syd grunted, and they were quiet again for a few minutes.
“I always…” she hesitated, half a thought caught in her throat and suddenly regretting having brought it up. She took a breath, and pressed through. “I always thought of it as a bonding thing, sort of. That so many of us lost everyone? But…” Dani stumbled over her thoughts, “Nobody ever talks about it. Nobody ever did talk about it. and, I mean. I know why, I understand why, but…” She hesitated again, kicking the thin layer of snow on the ground and sighing.
“I just think I would want to be remembered.”
****
Final Absolution doesn’t have, like, a ton of its own history- it shares our world up until about 2007. But there’s lots of very personal history being dragged around.
