Burying the Hatchet
Read Here: Burying the Hatchet
Hunter gives an attempted shovel talk before Tech and Phee's upcoming wedding.
She knew it was coming. Pabu has seasons, not as extreme as other planets, but every few months something would shift in the air and the breeze would change its tone. The water would stay the same, but it’d become colder for the air you had to leave it for. Phee has never minded the bite.
Phee likes seasons, she likes the reminder that time moves forward even as she looks backward to items and people that are left behind. So, it wasn’t a surprise when Echo walked her to her ship, and it wasn’t a surprise when she found Wrecker in her kitchen with a few leftover fish from his catch for the day. It was a little bit of a surprise when Crosshair showed up on her doorstep and let himself in before sitting on her couch and delivering a dramatic eye roll that is clearly genetic until she pried the words he came to say from him. It was typical, as expected as the seasons even as these soldiers learned how to move in time, not just through it.
So, it isn’t a surprise when there is a knock on her door, two days before the wedding. Tech is off…somewhere. Wherever he goes, he always returns, like a setting sun to the horizon.
Now, it is not her sun, but a moon that stands with his feet braced, heavy trousers tucked into high boots, a sleeveless tunic and a vest, with a blade on his belt. It’s late enough in the day that the sun is on the edge of fading, but it still warms her, even though soon it will set she's still got plenty of time. For now the moon sits a hint in the sky, the sun blazing bright beside it.
“Was wondering how long you’d take, if you wanted to be first, you’ve lost, if you wanted to be last…congratulations.” Phee says with a curve of a smile. Hunter huffs, it’s not quite a laugh, not with the tension in his shoulders, still, Phee lets him in, she can be nice, when she wants to be.
Hunter sits in the armchair, Tech’s favorite choice as well and Phee finds herself on the couch, perched on the edge watching. She’d wondered how this might go, Tech had given his version of a warning. And now, as Tech says, it’s time to collect the data.
