#flora lu

Legend swung harder, harder, twirling in place until he turned dizzy and stumbled on his own feet. The pain had fueled a short-lived scorn-based frenzy, but now it was pulsing through him, his movements turning more and more sluggish...

He shut his eyes hard; when he opened them, a shield was knocking a Visorak away from him as it tried to jump on his mask.

"What in--!?" he cried out despite his short breath.

"Are you alright?" his sudden ally interrupted him, smacking another spider into the ground. A Rhotuka was fired at them, but he raised his tool just in time: Legend watched as the spinner melted into the metal and shot right back out of it, slamming into a spider that was sent sprawling paralyzed upon the ground.

Well, that was useful.

"I've been better!"

"Not covered in spiders, for one?"

"Yeah, that'd be nice."

"Gotcha!"

Faster than he could blink, the sound of Rhotuka spinners whipped past him; the Visorak fell one by one, most overturned, completely and utterly petrified. Before any of them could try hissing angrily at the two Matoran who'd dared challenge them, they were each thrown off into the waters sorrounding the thin strand of rock struggling to hold on against the waves with their own loud ringing clang as the bell launched them on their jolly way to drown.

Take that, you disgusting little bastards.

He shook out his pained arm with a hiss as he turned back to his sudden ally: "Nice shield," he noted, nodding towards the tool. "And who are you? How'd you get here?"

The other gave it a jostle: "Nice bell! Really loud, and I've got sharp hearing. I'm Hyrule."

"Legend."

"Also nice mask."

"Thanks. How'd you get here?"

"The sound-"

"No, I meant here. On this nowhere place. Is there a tunnel?"

Hyrule tilted his head, confused: "Tunnel?"

"I mean, you're an-" he hissed again, hand hovering near his arm as he muttered a curse.

Without a word, the black armored Matoran rushed closer to him, gently scooting his injured limb on his shielded palm and carefully passing his fingers over it to assess the damage. He fetched something out of his satchel, and with very careful motions he began to mend the damage as best as he could with what appeared to be a makeshift medical tool of some kind - a bit too patchworked to be immediately recognizable.

Evidently Legend had been a little too dumbfounded by the sudden act of kindness, as he was jolted back to reality when the other egged him on: "Because I'm...?"

"Uh, uh... Well, you're - you're an Onu-Matoran. I'd imagine you'd know about... Tunnels."

"Oh - yeah, I guess they would," Hyrule nodded, still perfectly focused on his handywork: "I wouldn't really know that, being a De-Matoran and all."

"Sonics?" Legend murmured, volume of voice dropping in an instant.

"And you're Psionics," the other hummed. His dark pinkish eyes looked up to him, picking out the golden accents on his form, and treated him to a smile: "All about waves, aren't the two of us? Maybe that's why we met here."

"I... I guess. You still didn't answer me."

A shrug: "I walked. I do that a lot."

"So there's a continent back there? Over that cliff?"

"There's an island for certain, but it's not much. Barely anything all over it, I'd say the Visorak horde got here a long while ago and ate anything of value they could find."

"Uh-huh, and how'd you get to such a place?"

Another shrug: "I walked."

Legend shifted, giving him a look: "Alone?"

The other tensed.

Then he tilted his head: "You don't seem to be in company."

"I am." the Ce-Matoran replied. His healthy hand reached up, grazing the red Faxon with a finger. "I am."

He yanked his arm away, finding it not hurting anymore. He looked to find his limb in pristine condition - maybe a little stained, maybe a few dents not too smoothed, but healed remarkably well.

Hyrule watched him move it around with an awed expression on his mask and felt a little better.

"Where did you learn to do that?" Legend asked.

"Oh... An old acquaintance. Wasn't that good, but, eh, I managed to reverse engineer the things he couldn't really do well. Like, you know..." he waved his shield - showing how the wrist joint was jammed into it clumsily, making it impossible to remove it without hurting horrendously. "But I've gotten used to it," he added, casually.

The Ce-Matoran wisely decided not to pry: "Well, you do a damn good job if I may say so myself."

Hyrule smiled: "Glad you think so."

Legend past him, looking over to his mess of a raft: still anchored. Nice.

"Say," he hummed, "If you're all alone on this piece of rock forgotten by the Great Spirit himself, how about I give you a lift somewhere a little livelier?"

"Oh! Oh, that'd be nice, by all means, but I... Well," and the other fidgeted for a moment or so, struggling before deciding to be honest: "Do you think there could be space on there for another Matoran? A... Comatose one, maybe?"

There was no immediate response.

The look on Legend's face was unreadable, and yet spoke louder than any words he might have hurled at him.

Not uttering a breath, the De-Matoran motioned with his hand and brought him to a small cave nearby, just far away enough that the Visorak wouldn't have even spotted it in case the two small warriors hadn't emerged victorious from their scuffle with the horrid Rahi. There, carefully laid in as comfortable a position as the harsh terrain allowed, a snowy armored being remained perfectly still like a carefully spun statue of glass.

Aurora breathed, but could not stir.

There was no sound to reach her anyhow, for the other two Matoran did not speak: they simply collected her immoble body carefully, gently removing her from the uncomfortable bed of rock and dirt, placing her down in the little cramped raft, and setting sail away from that dead sterile island.

-

"Time," she called.

The Turaga did not reply, deep in meditation.

Epona snuck her long snout under Lullaby's arm, looking for pets. She gurgled happily when the much shorter being indulged her.

"Time," the Turaga repeated, "I know you can hear me just fine."

"Maybe so," her brother mumbled.

"Get out."

"As you can see, I am busy."

"You are not."

"A Turaga of Psionics shunning meditation? Unprecedented. Unthinkable."

"You are not meditating."

"And who are you to decide?"

"A former Ce-Toa who can see through your nonsense and lack of sociability."

"So?"

Lullaby huffed louder: "I am your sister."

"So?"

"And leader."

"So?"

That got him a whack on the head.

"Time!" she snarled, completely out of patience: "A ship filled with Fe- and Po-Matoran escaping their homeland has just washed upon Hyrule's shores seeking refuge, the least you could do as Turaga is be there to greet them!"

He gave her a nasty side-eye as he rubbed the top of his mask where she'd hit him: "I believe our Toa are already overseeing their welcome."

"And so should we."

"I don't see a reason for that. Do you not trust Sky, Fable, Groose and Sun to take good care of them?"

His sister rolled her eyes with a long suffering sigh: "Of course I do," she groaned, "The one I don't trust to take good care of someone is you, concerning yourself."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he scoffed.

"All I'm saying is that some company would do you good every once in a while!"

"I have plenty of it."

"Some different company. Not just your siblings, or the Matoran of Hyrule, or Epona - or the maddened Lost Toa."

"Mata Nui protect you, sister."

"What for?"

"Your memory. You should see someone about it as soon as you can - it deeply worries me how despite my reminders you still continue to forget Skally's name."

"Do not change the topic now."

"I only expressed my concern for you."

"Time."

"Lullaby?"

"Get out of this hut and go greet the refugees."

"No."

Typical Ko-behavior.

"It's a good thing I came prepared," she sighed.

Epona wiggled out of the way as she exited the hut again, mood sour but a dangerous heaviness in her step. Time watched her carefully as she raised her head up to the sky and brough her hand to her mouth - and scrambled further into his handmade cave in terror when her yell echoed through the skies.

But it was already too late. In a flurry of feathers and flaps, Sky's crimson red Kahu hawk landed right in front of the door: dismounting from it with a grin that in every other context would have been the most affable sight in the universe, a hulking silhouette of pure Stone marched into the humble abode, grasped his desperately fleeing brother in a hug that would have shattered a small Rahi into several pieces, bellowed a confused greeting right in his audio receptors stunning him completely, and hauled him on his borrowed ride with nary a worry nor a single sign of fatigue.

When the Ko-Turaga came to, he was already flying too far towards the coast to attempt an escape back home.

As such, he resorted to sulking.

Darunia laughed again, genuinely amused: "Oh, cheer up now, brother! You can't wear that frown in front of those poor fellows, they'll think things are worse here than where they came from!"

"Then I'll do all of my frowning on the way there," Time muttered.

Lullaby shoved him playfully: "Better get to that quickly, then. You know how fast Loftwing is."

Her brother just groaned: "Unfortunately..."

The amount of Po- and Fe-Matoran was in all fairness a little excessive for just three Toa to handle, Time had to admit once they got to the port, and made a mental note of sending out word to the Toa Vah as well so they could come help handle the refugees. Swarms of grey, brown, orange and tan were slowly piling out of the ship as though it was bottomless, though a fair amount of them seemed to be injured and were being helped by locals as well.

The crowd seemed a little directionless as it piled onto the dock. Where were the Toa? Ah - there, to one side, he noticed Fable caught up in a conversation with a somewhat antsy and clearly novice Po-Toa while Sky, Sun and Groose discussed something with a pair of Turaga, Stone and Iron respectively. Probably getting some more information on the situation they'd left.

And a little further from them, a blur of black armor was slinking away from the commotion.

Hm.

Unnoticed by his already busy brother and sister, the Ko-Turaga slipped after the stray through the streets of the port.

His target was too absorbed in his own unknown quest to realize he was being followed, scampering off various alleys before eventually deciding he was done staying on the ground and beginning to climb up the walls on makeshift staircases of crates and whatnot to reach the roof of a fisher's store. Time watched intently, amused even, as the Matoran sighed in relief while he sunbathed with his arms outstretched towards the sky as though that could have helped him gather more light onto himself.

After a moment or two, the Turaga kindly hollered up at him: "How's the view?"

The little one jumped, stumbled, fell, and barely managed to hold onto the roof before rolling off the hut and smacking his entire body inches away from Time's feet.

"Uh - it's good, Turaga!" he replied sheepishly, feet dangling in the air.

Time hummed in an interested tone as he moved to stand under him: "Must be good to be back outside after such a long journey," he noted, gently grabbing the black legs and steadying himself so that he wouldn't keel over when the other let go and came to stand on his shoulders: "It's a solid ship, but not many windows... The galley must have been awfully dark."

A groan preceeded the inevitable agreement: "It was," the Matoran replied, muttering his thanks as he jumped off from him back onto the ground. "I could barely see anything! I think I stepped on more feet and bumped into more shoulders in these past weeks than I have my entire life."

"Truly pitch black darkness, if even an Onu-Matoran couldn't navigate through it."

The black shoulders jumped, turning blue, then red, then white.

The Turaga only smiled.

"Uh-" the poor thing fumbled, "Uhm, I- I, it's, er, ah-"

"Calm down," Time waved at him gently, dispelling his worries, "I've believed myself a Bo-Matoran before, I'm in no place to judge."

"A... A Bo-Matoran? But... But you're..."

"Many mysteries elude us already - I could have been a rare color," he just shrugged. "But I've got the feeling you aren't as naive as I used to be, are you now? What is your name?"

"Ah - uhm, it's, it's Four, Turaga."

"Very well. How about we go back to the rest of your brothers now? Certainly your own Turaga and Toa will be worried if they cannot find you even amongst the crowd."

Dot, Daltus and Sumit were a little more than surprised when they turned to see a familiar-looking if much more colorful than usual Matoran sheepishly following after the local Ko-Turaga, as were the now very curious Toa Skyward and Darunia; Lullaby forgot all about the little guest trudging after her brother in the midst of her displeasure towards him.

"I believe you were supposed to greet the Matoran," she reminded him, more than a little piqued: "Not avoid them at the first possible chance you got."

"But I wasn't avoiding them, sister," Time replied innocently: "I was merely helping their Av-brother after he'd gotten lost."

Four shrank a little more into himself when the unknown gazes focused on him intensified their staring, now utterly gobsmacked. Oh Mata Nui, he thought to himself as he treated his unlookers to an apologetic smile and a little awkward laugh: explaining was going to take a while, wasn't it.

-

His first thought as he started to regain consciousness was: I don't remember the ground being this comfortable.

His second one was that he also didn't remember having passed out while laying on his back, swearing he had done so on his stomach instead, nor having been so close to the sea that he could hear the waves lapping almost against his audio receptors.

He opened his eyes. A wooden ceiling greeted his tired gaze.

So did a little gasp at his side.

"Hello!" a tiny voice reached him. He turned his head a little to see a blue mask leaning towards him: "How are you?"

"Hello, little sister," Warriors replied politely. "I'm a little sore, but I'm alright. Did you fix me up?"

She shook her head, but smiled: "I helped."

"Thank you very much, then."

She giggled quietly as he nodded gratefully at her, proud of herself.

"Tell me, little sister-" the Toa winced for a moment as a pang of pain shot through him when he tried to sit up "-How far are we from the coast, more or less?"

The Matoran hummed, forehead all wrinkled up in concentration behind her mask and a thoughtful hand to her mouth: "I don't know... You should ask Mako, he knows everything. But I think it's been about two hours since we picked you up from the island."

Mako? He didn't know any Mako. Then again, there were plenty of beings that he didn't know by name.

He settled for just groaning softly.

Those were two hours lost from their escape. And who knows how long it had taken for them to come back? If they had been far away enough, then they'd destroyed all of that advantage he'd gotten beaten senseless for just to come get him. He'd told her he'd be fine on his own... Ugh!

"Do you want me to call him?" the little one distracted him from his annoyed musings: "So he can tell you how far we are?"

"No, no, little sister, you already helped with that. But if you could get Artemis to visit me here, if she's not too busy, I'd very much like that - I have much to talk about with her."

"Artemis?" another voice arose from the door: "She was there, too?"

Warriors lifted his gaze: standing proudly before him, hands on her hips, was a Ga-Matoran with a furrowed worried look about her. Hands on her hips and head held high, a swagger in her step as she approached his bed, she was by all accounts the image of cockiness - yet a certain young anstiness shined still in her hardened eyes, as though her experience could only do so much against the troubles she had yet to encounter.

And that red vest she bore...

The Toa squinted at her: "Tetra?"

On reflex, she straightened her posture and called out, in the tone of a soldier's salute: "In the flesh and protodermis!"

Despite the pain and exhaustion, he laughed heartily at her display. His fist met hers, and they clenched hands together in a brotherly shake: "Been a while, captain."

"It has, hasn't it, captain?" she grinned back. "How's it feel being on the rescued side for once?"

"Eh - not very comfortable, truth be told."

"What! I save you, welcome you onto my ship, give you our best nurse," (her little sister giggled proudly again at that) "Don't even make you pay the rescue fee in honor of the time you saved me, and this is how you thank me? By complaining?"

"On the contrary, I'm deeply grateful for your magnamity--"

"You better!"

"--It's just that I would have rather not gotten beaten within an inch of my life first, you know?"

She humpf'd, crossing her arms and trying to seem too offended to let his words sink in. Her hands however clenched tight around her armor from the discomfort, and her shoulders tensed with fearful questions she was no doubt wondering how to word properly.

A hushed whisper cut through her indecision: "Who's Artemis?" asked the smaller blue being.

Ah... He had mentioned her, hadn't he? "She's my sister," he replied gently, leaning a little closer to the curious Matoran - realizing only then from the lack of golden accents that she was a Ga- and not a Ce-, as he'd first assumed. "The two of us protected our little siblings on the island you found me on. She wasn't caught in the same fight as me, don't worry - they should be off sailing somewhere much safer by now."

"So she left you?"

"No, of course not! I decided to keep the enemy distracted so he wouldn't follow them." and he winked at her playfully, adding: "I'm handsome enough for that, after all."

Her flustered cackle had Tetra rolling her eyes: "Don't exaggerate with your charm now, captain."

"Why so, captain? Are you jealous?"

"As if! But don't whine too hard when Wind finds out you've been flustering his sister and decides to throw you overboard."

"His sister?" Warriors repeated. He looked back at the little one with a new glimmer in his eyes, something akin to childlike excitement: "You are Aryll? She who sees far into the horizon? Friend of the albatrosses and seagulls?"

Taken by surprise, she nodded shyly.

His smile caused her cheeks to warm a little: "I've heard so much about you, little sister," the Toa said almost reverently. "It's an honor to meet you in person. I've had the chance to hear so much of you from your brother, when I first met him alongside the captain."

"Wind told you about me?" Aryll murmured.

"Of course. He hardly ever shut up about you, truth be told - he is so terribly fond of you. I take it then you've also been rescued, like me? Very daringly, too, as these ruffian pirates are wont to do?"

She seemed to blush beneath her mask.

Her answer didn't have the time to come, though, as a much more shrill voice echoed through the entire ship calling hurriedly for Tetra.

The captain turned sharply and stomped out of the room: "MAKO!" she roared back at her crewmate, "WHAT'S WITH ALL THIS YAPPING?! WE'VE GOT AN INJURED TOA HERE!"

"ZUKO SAW A SHIP! A PRISON SHIP ON FIRE!"

Aryll perked up: "A ship?"

"Fire?" Warriors breathed, already trying to pull himself off the bed.

"IT'S ABOUT FIFTY KIO WEST OF HERE!"

"WHAT'S THE WIND LIKE?"

"STRONG, BLOWING FROM THE EAST!"

"THEN WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, YOU BUNCH OF LAZY LOUTS? FOR THE CINDERS TO SETTLE?! CHANGE COURSE, IMMEDIATELY!" Tetra shouted louder as she hurried back above, barking orders loud enough for them to echo on even as she disappeared into the light of day.

Warriors stumbled to his feet, ready to follow right after her.

A pressure on his knee made him fall back down on the bunk: Aryll pushed him down again for good measure, as though to pin him better to the blankets.

"You're not fixed up yet!" she protested: "You need to rest until your dents are all gone! Gonzo said so!"

"Above deck they could use some help," he replied. His voice was hoarse, his body stiff in order not to start shaking. When he blinked, the image of charred golden armor clinging uselessly to the burning remains of a vessel dragged its teeth down on his brain with the sound of nails on a chalkboard.

"But you're hurt!"

"But I can help. That is what a Toa does."

"Not now!"

"Aryll..." he struggled to breathe for a moment; she noticed it, attentive as she was, and she let him put his hand on her shoulder as he spoke slowly, more for his own sake than hers: "Aryll... My sister... My Matoran... They escaped on the sea. They... If it was... If it is... I need to... Just to... Make sure... That they're... That it's not..."

Aryll squeezed his hand.

She looked to the floor for a moment, thinking deeply.

At last she pulled him up gently, very gently, placing his palm on her head so that he could shift some of his weight onto herself, as though she were a living breathing cane.

"But you need to walk slowly," she admonished him. "Because I'm not fast enough, and you need to rest."

Making their way out upon the deck seemed to take days, and to be quite honest Warriors was very glad the Ga-Matoran had such an unwavering iron will that forced him to adapt to her outstandingly slow pace: his legs shook hard enough to make his knees buckle when he tried to go even just slightly faster, the little one being the only thing between his face and the floor as he almost careened into the latter.

The sun burned his eyes briefly, the many voices shouting all together pierced his audio receptors. The Toa flinched at the assault against his senses and faltered for only a second.

The roar of fire snapped him out of his sensory overload.

In another situation, the pyre would have almost looked beautiful - blooming with such a rich, vibrant red, reaching for the sky with flames so hot they fused with the white of the clouds above them, dancing wildly upon the element that should have extinguished it, coloring the melting metal in glowing tints as though it had been carved from bioluminescent mushrooms. But amongst the flippant beauty of his element he could catch glimpses of carbonized remains, of floating debris that looked too much like pieces of limbs, of charred armor the color of which was completely unrecognizable.

His stomach hit the railing, the impact making him wince in pain: he gripped the wood until the joints in his fingers creaked and sunk deep black lines into it, eyes scanning the waters feverishly. Please, please, please, please...

"Captain!" he heard someone call, and some recess of his mind faintly recognized Wind's voice: "What are you doing here? Get back under deck! You're too hurt! Aryll, you were supposed to watch him!"

"I did! I did watch him!"

"Then why's he out here?"

"He's worried!"

"I'll be worried when he falls over! You know Ta-Toa can't swim! Captain, come on, get back here--"

Little hands wrapped around him and pulled, trying to tear him away.

In that moment, he saw a spot of red in the water.

"BROTHER OVERBOARD!" he shouted as loud as he could. His trembling hand pointed at the large crimson head struggling to remain above the waves.

Tetra's voice yelled something else, but he didn't hear it over his relief as he sank to the floor. It was a Skakdi. A Skakdi. Artemis had no Skakdi amongst the ranks of her ship. It couldn't have been them. They were still out there. They were still safe. He exhaled loudly in the grip of the Le-Matoran and his little sister, and almost passed out from the strain of letting the tension of his worries go.

Another shout kept him conscious - this time from Nudge.

The Bruiser held fast onto the rope they'd managed to toss to what appeared to be the only survivor, one foot planted firmly onto the railing as Gonzo and Senza pulled along with him to get their fellow brute on board; by their side Niko was carelessly hurling ammo with his slingshot in as rapid a succession as he could muster, apparently aiming right at the Skakdi in the midst of being rescued.

"GET OFF! GET OFF!" he was shrieking more afraid than angry, hands trembling wildly, wasting pebbles and marbles and whatever it was he had on hand at that moment.

His captain shoved him off, already having exhausted her patience for his mindlessness, and looked down. Before the gasp in her throat could even finish coming into being, she had already cocked her gun and pointed it into the sea, hand steady, eyes hard.

Warriors peeked through the gaps in the railing, Wind and Aryll following suit.

The Skakdi's hulking form latched the rope tight in his graceless hands as though immune to the burn of the fibers always about to slip through his fingers to horribly singe his palms. The black mass on his back, shiny with sea water, shifted a little like an antsy Rahi caught in a bag -- then its eyes opened, pale green and o so exhausted, as its claws sank further into the shoulders of its host.

It was hard to determine its shape from the awkward angle he was forced into, but as the Toa narrowed his eyes he could swear it seemed awfully close to...

"HORDIKA!" Tetra bellowed. "IF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU, YOU'LL JUMP RIGHT BACK INTO THE SEA!"

"Hordika?" Aryll repeated.

Her brother leaned a little closer to her: "Half-Rahi," he explained in a hushed tone, as though the concept itself was too ghastly to be spoken of normally, "Mutated by the Visorak poison."

The Ga-Matoran's eyes took a strange shine. She appeared far from frightened - in truth, she seemed intrigued.

It quickly turned into a grimace of dismay as her captain steadied her stance and righted her aim: "YOU HAVE UNTIL THE COUNT OF THREE BEFORE I FORCE YOU TO TAKE YOUR LEAVE WITH A BULLET IN YOUR FOREHEAD!"

Her warning was answered by a quiet growl.

"WATCH IT! ONE--"

"NO!" the red Skakdi screamed back. The ship seemed to rock briefly from the strength of his shout. "I DIDN'T BLOW UP THAT FLOATING JAIL TO GET MY BROTHER KILLED BY SOME GA-MATORAN!"

Plumes of smoke were starting to leave his hands, drying the humidity from them at an alarming speed.

Warriors thought quickly: he trained his gaze onto the Hordika, watching carefully how its limbs scrambled tighter around the brute, how it grew more and more panicked, how it began muttering with its croaking voice to try and calm the crimson powerhouse.

"And I don't think he'd agreed on your plan to see you blow yourself up to ensure his survival, did he?" he hollered down at them.

The odd pair turned to him. The sizzling palms quieted down.

Good. One crisis averted.

The Toa glanced at Tetra: "I say we pull them both up, captain," he proposed loud enough for the other two to hear: "So long as they both promise to behave in a civilized manner. Like the rest of us."

He heard the angry gnashing of huge, powerful teeth just beneath him; the response however did not come from the Skakdi's crackling voice, but from a slightly deeper one, more tired, leaving the hordika's maw: "We promise."

"Swear on the Great Spirit," Tetra growled.

The pale eyes within the black head shot her a glare, but the beastly thing complied: "We swear upon the Great Spirit. Upon Akamai and Wairuha and Irnakk too, if that helps you pull us aboard faster."

The ship's captain narrowed her eyes.

At a stern wave of her hand, Gonzo, Senza and Nudge went right back to reeling the rope in, pulling further and further until the drenched beings finally managed to crawl, exhausted and panting heavily one atop the other, upon the deck's floorboards.

The bigger of the two hastily checked on his ebony-armored with one hand, making sure he was all in one piece, gently pressing his chest to make sure no salt water was lodged in his lungs. Under his breath he still managed to chuckle weakly as he muttered something about getting a 'true Zakaz welcome'.

Gonzo eyed the Skakdi suspiciously. He sized him up as if looking for something particular on his person, a scar or a broken tooth or a particular shape to the spikes on his spine.

"Say," he finally spoke, leaning closer to Senza: "Don't this guy remind you of the jackass who blew our camp back by Irnakk's Maw?"

The reminder of that humiliating episode had his friend focus on the face still dripping saltwater a little harder: "Now that you mention it," he nodded, "It sure does look like a familiar mug, this one. You ever been to Irnakk's Maw, kid?"

"I have," the other replied without even a hint of fear.

"And did you do something fun there?"

He grinned: "Blew up a camp."

Gonzo cawed out a loud laugh: "An honest Skakdi! Aren't you an oxymoron! No wonder they had you behind bars!"

"But since you've pleaded guilty, let's find a sentence for you."

"Right, Senza, Right! Ah, let's see - we've gone through the trouble of saving you, so we can't undo all that by throwing you overboard again... I say a couple punches to the gut should do it, eh?"

A Kavinika-like growl had them back off as the Hordika stiffened on all four of its paws, fangs glinting through the half open maw.

Tetra grabbed her cutlass; her gaze locked onto the half-Rahi's and they stared one another down, poised in the same manner, perfectly still much like statues yet ready to lash out and strike in the mere blink of an eye.

"Don't threaten my sailors," she hissed.

"Don't threaten my brother," he replied in tone.

Ignoring their stand-off, Aryll evaded her brother's and Warriors' protective grips and approached the mutated being with not even the slightest hint of fear.

She placed herself almost right between the two of them with the widest of grins and eyes shimmering in the sun with excitement: "Welcome on the Tetra!" she just said like there wasn't a blade inches away from her shoulder, "My name's Aryll and I got rescued from a Makuta fortress! What's your names? What did you do to get caught in a prison ship?"

Her spunk evidently charmed the Skakdi enough for him to respond: "I'm Wild. I blew up one too many things - Twilight here didn't do anything, but he happened to stand a bit too close to me."

"So they thought he was in on the explosions?"

"Right on the widgets, sister."

"I got caught trying to keep you out of trouble, little brother," Twilight rumbled, making Wild sputter an indignated sound of nebulous meaning at the patronizing designation assigned to him.

The Ga-Matoran smiled wider: "Neat!"

-

Her head hurt.

Her body hurt.

Her soul hurt.

The ground beneath her was scorched.

She could feel the heat still radiating from it.

Her powers reached out before she could hold them back.

They scowered the wasteland for a thought, any thought, even the incomplete mess of jargon of a confused Rahi.

They came back to her bearing nothing but silence.

This must have been it, then.

Karzhani.

Where unruly, unworthy Matoran are sent.

Could she be anywhere else, after all?

She'd failed.

She'd failed in all the ways she'd been told she might have failed, in all the ways she'd been afraid she might have failed. In all the ways Turaga Rhoam had told her she was not allowed to fail. She'd failed at everything, every single thing: she'd failed her destiny, her duty, her...

Ha.

Ha ah.

Unity.

She'd never been allowed unity to begin with. She'd never been given the chance of working with a team, with sisters or brothers, of shouldering her responsabilities alongside someone who knelt beneath the same weight as hers.

She'd been stripped of it by the Toa Stone, for she had been chosen to be apart from her peers because of it; and perhaps that was, most of all, why she had failed.

She curled into her battered too long form, alone in the wake of her own apocalyptic destruction (had it mattered at all? Had it even been enough? Had it even so much as hurt Vamprah, or had it merely left a bad taste between the Makuta's teeth, soaked in Matoran blood, still tearing into the flesh and metal of her people?) and cried.

And cried.

And cried.

And cried.

Her sobs echoed through the quiet of death.

They echoed, and echoed, further and further away across the scorched land.

Her spiraling thoughts dragged her slowly into their whirlpool, beckoning her like kelpies with their gargling neighs of algae and polished bones on which she was pulled to ride a slow funeral march, deeper and deeper into murky waters no longer blue nor green, only maroon with dense mud streaked by the golden sap left of her people's molten bodies in a cruel parody of their once brilliant color.

A small grip tightened around her armored shoulder, breaking through the watery tension; it tugged and shoved gently, with increasing insistence.

Through the feeling of drowning she thought she heard words.

She opened an eye: a red mask pulled back slightly.

"Hey," the Matoran asked, "Hey, can you hear me?"

Yes, she could have told him, but her mouth refused to speak, and her mind refused to think.

A second Matoran leaned over her to assess the damage on her: "She looks like she escaped the table just before the operation could get in depth," she heard him say, and in a recess of her paralyzed consciosness she found the comparison curiously oxymoronic. Weren't surgeries meant to fix, heal? She felt him gently shift her arm with something that wasn't a hand. "Can you move your head?"

She tried. She nodded.

"What happened to you, Toa sister?"

Pain radiated from her like heat from a campfire.

She watched the two tending to her wince back; the red-masked Matoran, she noticed only then, bore a blue and gold body.

Little brother?

He stilled: his eyes fixed on hers intently.

Survive?

His confusion washed over her. Ah, no - a stranger. Of course. Of course. Nobody could have survived. Of course. But a little brother nonetheless.

He nodded.

"Yes, sister," he said, "Yes, sister."

A sob tore through the torpor trapping her throat.

"Yes, sister. Yes, sister. What happened to you? What happened here? Where are our sisters? And the Turaga?"

Anguish, in long wails.

"No, sister," he hushed her, cradling her head in his hands like the Turaga had stopped doing long ago, fingers trembling as he hissed through her pain: "No, sister. Let's put that off for now, then. Let's fix you up first. How is she?"

The other Matoran had barely flinched at the burst of agony, she realized - as though he had experienced something akin to it before: "She could be much worse," he replied, "But I can fix the least dire things here, and if she can make it to the raft then I should have the tools to handle the worst of it there."

Why?

"Because you're hurt," he answered. His voice cut off suddenly, stunned perhaps by his own answer to the quiet question he shouldn't have known: she heard him shake his head. "Ah - Ce-Toa. Yes, of course."

And they were going to help her just for that?

After she'd failed so terribly?

After all this?

"Sister," her little brother called, tearing her focus back into the present but away from the careful instrument taking care of the wounds on her protodermis flesh: "Sister. Breathe. It will be alright. We didn't even tell you our names. I am Legend. That's Hyrule, taking care of you. What is yours?"