#simmo

Simmo gingerly gestured at her bandages. “I care for my safety. Your sefra friend filled me in on how they found you. There aren’t many beings that wouldn't be traumatized after that. I don't want to be on the receiving end if you have some sort of episode or something in your sleep.” “And you think I'd attack you in my sleep because you're also a montauk or because you already tried to kill us once?” Simmo only hummed in response. Wenona stared into the small flickers of the fire. They weren’t quite big enough to keep the encroaching chill of the night away. “Well anyway,” Wenona used a long log to prod the embers before placing it carefully in the fire, “dreams or not, it won’t be an issue if you just keep well away from me.” Simmo scoffed. “Oh, no worries there. I’m still recuperating from the last time I got too close to you and your little friend.” There was silence for a while. Wenona blew on the coals and coaxed the flickers into a full fire again. She watched it intently as if the little flames could burn away the images she’d just relived again in her dreams.” Simmo surprised Wenona by breaking the silence. “I'm not like them, you know.” “What?” “Those montauk that abducted you." Simmo's eyes never left her twitching hands as she spoke. "I'm, well I certainly have done things in my life I'm not proud… but I don’t want to be lumped in with that lot, I don’t… they’re not even my hive anyway. Montauks… we don’t get along with others outside our… and my hive is… is...” There was a long pause. Wenona shifted her blanket around her shoulders and waited for the montuak to continue. The renewed fire crackled while Wenona waited for her to continue. “Yeah?” she promoted after a moment. “Nothing,”  Simmo snapped quietly. “They’re gone. Never mind.” She shuffled to face away from Wenona again and lay still as if she had gone back to sleep. It would almost be convincing if Wenona couldn’t hear her mandibles clattering or see how tense her antennae looked. Wenona shook her head. Not her circus, not her monkeys, she kept telling herself in her head over and over. She had her own problems to deal with, and she certainly didn’t want to have a heart to heart with a montauk at this planet’s equivalent of four in the morning. Even still, she couldn’t stop Simmo’s words from running through her head. Hives. Jeb had said earlier that montauks were hive-centric They lived in large families and colonies and, with few exceptions, rarely intermingled with others in opposing hives. ‘Like ants,’ Wenona had concluded. ‘Uh, sure,’ Jeb had said. He didn’t know what ants were, but after some explaining, he agreed their inter-colonial societal structures were similar. But Simmo had said her hive was gone? Was that meaning her whole hive colony back wherever she came from, or like that her crew was gone? The more she thought about it, the more she tended to think it was the latter. If her crew had been essentially family... Wenona couldn’t help but draw comparisons to herself. But her family wasn’t the one that was gone. She was. And she still had a chance to reunite with them, however slim that chance was. But Simmo’s chances? Wenona tried not to think about how she would feel if she were in her place. Wenona continued to stoke the fire. She looked up at the sky. Both of the planet’s moons were starting to set and soon the night would get even darker. It was still a while until dawn came. “Hey Simmo?” There wasn’t a response, but Wenona saw a twitch and knew she was still awake and listening. “Do montauks dream?” Again there was no response, but after a moment, Simmo shifted her legs, pulling all of them closer into the rest of her body. Wenona watched her silently for a while. Only days before, montauks were nothing more than her monsters, the beasts of her nightmares. But now? What kind of monsters did her monsters dream of? The rest of her watch was pretty quiet and uneventful. Wenona waited until she was sure Simmo had fallen asleep. Quietly, she stood and removed her blanket and slowly approached Simmo's huddled form. The night was cold and she wasn't sure Simmo was warm-blooded or not. If nothing else, the dumb bug had scooted too far away from the fire to be able to keep warm that way. As gently as she could so as to not wake her up, Wenona draped the blanket over her and returned to her spot by the fire.