All Good Things...

[Sarah Tintagyl]

Sarah turned, looked at him and shook her head. "Can we please save those compliments when I'm not two inches from having my stomach blasted out." She couldn't help but smile as he explained the rest of the camp to her and she couldn't wrap her head around the fact that Breya still had this kind of influence across these lawless lands, just as well how much he had it out for Evan. The girl promised to herself that once they finally did find Breya, he wasn't going to jail, he was going to get a bullet between the eyes, just like every other one of his goons that they crossed along the way. It had been a long time since she had killed something and the adrenaline from the sniper shot, needless to say, if Evan was complimenting her in such a way, she felt equally as good. If she looked good doing it, that was an added bonus, but it was how Sarah had always rolled, causing hell while making sure to look her best.

To find the supposed paper trail, Evan and Sarah walked towards the fuel depot. She had slipped back into listening to him talk before he opened the door and pulled her down, holding her head tightly against her neck. The sounds of horrible metallic noise and explosions ripped through the camp as Evan kept Sarah tight beneath him. Smells of rotten body parts again wafted through the air and she closed her eyes and tried to shut out the world as the next set of explosions came, those attached to the body parts. They stayed buried to the ground for a long time, it was hard for her to breathe, but she knew she was safe and slowly, Sarah worked her hands around him, hugging him tightly. "Just don't let go. We'll be okay."

Finally...the noise stopped...

[Sargun II]

Evan's suit, by this point, had been thoroughly ruined. He did, however, look damn good as he lay in the dirt clutching a beautiful woman surrounded by debris, body parts, and explosion-thrown shrapnel. He peeked his eyes open and through the smoke saw the body of a young woman so horribly mutilated by the explosion that even he felt a stir in his stomach. His body was stiff, however, and refused to let go of Sarah for a good two minutes. As the smoke cleared, his body gradually seemed to unclench itself and his arms came from around her back and managed to put themselves on the ground. He let out a sigh of relief that something hadn't gone horribly wrong, and pushed himself up. His hands found Sarah's and he helped her up as well.

"Eyes closed. Come on, you don't want to see this," he said in a voice low and somewhat threatening. Evan walked, his hands clasped to both of Sarah's, through the miniature pile of debris at the door. As Sarah entered after him, he let go of her and placed a kiss on her cheek. "Open up, sweetie. Nothing but dreams in here." All around him were barrels and barrels of empty oil, most of them ravaged by the shrapnel from the explosions. Fumes hung damp in the air, but the explosions had opened up new air vents and it was slowly clearing up. "The explosions probably cleared up most of what we needed to find, but something here has to be out of place. Something..."

He bent down and started rummaging through a half-broken drawer.

[Sarah Tintagyl]

After the smoke and the debris had cleared they waited a bit longer and then she felt Evan finally grab her hands and lifted her up, but as soon as she was up he covered her eyes and yelled for her not to look. Even took Sarah inside of the depot and finally allowed her to open her eyes, tons of barrels of oil covered the room, the smell was horrible, but it was already being dispersed by the holes in the ceiling and in the walls. Though it still felt like if you lit a match the entire room would still go up in flames. As Evan looked through the room trying to find the next bread crumb that would lead them back down the trail, Sarah continued to explore the room, walking back over to the door and peering outside. That's when she saw the woman, a mutilated corpse far worse than the one they had seen back in Bumba. She never made a sound, only closing her eyes and muttering the Hail Mary under her breath. There was no sorrow anymore, only rage as the girl's fists clenched and she turned back to Evan. Breya, if she could help it, was not going to harm another soul on this Earth.

"You find anything darling?" She looked out the holes of the depot again. "Cause the sun is starting to go down and I don't know if we should take our chances in this house of horrors or out in the jungle. Neither apparently have a great chance of survival. But if you have something that leads us back to civilization." Sarah chuckled. "I say we take that offer."

[Sargun II]

"Did I forget to mention the tree?"

Evan ripped the drawer out from the desk it was in and threw it to the side. The second drawer needed to be beat open, so he, well, beat it open. His hands fell on a slightly heavy metal object with a fingerprint code on it that needed to be used to unlock it. "Bingo!" His face lit up as the unexpected treasure was pulled out of the drawer and he showed it to Sarah. "It's a fingersafe. It contains something only a certain officer would want to keep; something like a trophy from a battle. Maybe it isn't incriminating evidence but if we can implicate somebody directly under him with a crime..." Evan's grin widened as he placed the fingersafe in his suit coat.

"Anyway, the tree. There are these things called journey trees. It worked sort of like an underground railroad; escapees would sleep in the journey trees at night and hide there in the day if they needed to. Journey trees had soft soil around them so you could dig through it and they were hollow. After my escape, I fashioned a good couple dozen by placing wood under the ground to support a small, dirt-covered tunnel that somebody could crawl through. Now all the tunnels are big enough because they had to fit people like me, but it was safe and virtually undetectable. We'll be staying in a tree for the night - going back to civilization is just too dangerous."

Evan placed his dirty arms around Sarah and gave her a damn good hug. After a hug that lasted for a good five minutes and wasted probably too much time, he let go and led her about a half an hour's brisk walk to a somewhat large-looking tree. He knelt down, cleared the dirt with a nice-looking stick, and tapped the top of what seemed to be dirt. Soon, a hole collapsed into the ground and it was wide enough to fit a large person. "You first."

Once Sarah was in, he climbed through and closed the tunnel, then went through the tunnel and into the hollowed-out tree. "I love these things."

[Sarah Tintagyl]

"Tree?"

After he had explained the reward of finding the finger safe, something that she hoped at least would aid them in incriminating Breya and then he hugged her until the sun had finally set below the jungled horizon it was finally time to turn in for the night. Though at the mention of the journey trees, Sarah wasn't exactly sold. Yes, there was no doubt she was an adventurer of a high quality, she could snipe, shoot, wrestle, and had no shortage of bravery in danger as Evan knew. But one thing that she still always liked to have above all else, was a place to sleep comfortably for the night. Nothing was wrong with camping, with camping you had a sleeping bag, you had a tent and you weren't below the ground. This, this was definitely not camping. Not that she would ever complain to Evan about this, she'd never hear the end of it, but a bed, a bed would be nice.

Slowly they made their way over to the hole in the ground, he collapsed the ground with a stick and Sarah peered down into the hole. [i]"You first."[/i] He said nodding.

"You have to be kidding me." Sarah shook her head and let her body fall down the hole into the underground tunnel and surprisingly enough it was spacious. Well, it wasn't spacious, but it was better than she had originally thought, and most importantly, they were safe. Something they wouldn't be in the camp, the jungle,or any nearby city. Evan came down next to find her already curled up on the far side tree, her holster, dagger, and other tools laying at her feet. "Well. Its not the Ranch or Solidor Manor, but it'll do." She smiled. "You're just the little boy scout aren't you?" She said yawning and closed her eyes, totting the line between sleep and waking, she was beat.

[Sargun II]

"I hid in one of these without food and water for four days. The only reason I didn't dehydrate to death was because it rained and I could suck some water out of the ground," he said reminiscently. "That was the first time I tried escaping, and when I came up for the idea. Saved my $@! a half a dozen times." Evan curled against his side of the tree and slowly took his jacket off. The dirt-ridden jacket was still durable and full of heat, which would be good through the cold night in the tree. He threw it over Sarah's legs and slowly but surely fell asleep himself.

The nightmares that night were so real that he could not wake from them.

[Sarah Tintagyl]

Sarah yawned rubbing her eyes and looking around the darkened tree hole that she and Evan had spent the night in. Small yellow rays of sunlight were coming through small holes in the ground above them, the rest of the hole was lain shrouded in darkness and through the darkness, she could hear the quiet whimpering of Evan as he slept. Things had been getting seemingly worse for his health since she had found he and Anthony in Jerusalem a few years back. He tossed and turned in his sleep, he would get up in the middle of night and spend hours in the bathroom. She would often cry quietly in her sleep until she felt him return to the bed and to safety. Deep down Sarah wished that she could take the pain that he was feeling and put it into her own body, she was a catalyst to pain, and being a minor masochist who knows maybe she'd enjoy it. Probably not, but at least he wouldn't be suffering.

Sitting up from being curled against the wall of the hole she yawned again and strapped her holster back to her hip, the dagger back to her leg and picked up the rifle from yesterday and examined it in the dark. "Christ Sarah...what's happened to you?" Years back she would have never imagined herself in these positions, but since giving up the life of politics, her life felt more like one of a mercenary, or of a soldier. She doubted that anyone back in Helsinki or even in Brisbane would recognize her anymore.

"Evan?" She said quietly rolling over and shaking his body gently as not to scare him out of his sleep. "Evan, sweetie, its time to wake up. We should start moving again."

[Sargun II]

[i]He felt good, but he hated it.

Every day of his life was spent like this. All of the other men enjoyed it, but he... he thought it disgusting. Not that he could even be called a man, for he was doing something a real man could never do, an act so heinous that he spent hours vomiting at night over it. But he felt [b]good[/b], and that was the worst part. Evan knew that the entire point was to make him forget about it and just feel good, but he was stronger than that. His survival instinct refused to let him indulge in what he did. He tried to be gentle, yes, but once in a while he would get so angry... the faces of a hundred women haunted him each night. They had no emotion, just the look of a defeated human being. There was nothing left for them but to be used like ragdolls for a week until the next batch came in. Their faces were no longer human at the end. Their bodies so torn up...[/i]

Evan's mind was torn from his nightly torture by a voice of angels. [i]"...should start moving again."[/i] His body immediately reacted by pushing everything that he had eaten in the last twenty-four hours up into his throat. He moved his head, looked at Sarah and smiled, then gathered his jacket and started climbing out of the journey tree. As he reached the surface, he took in a breath, then dashed forward as far as he could and dropped to the ground. With a moan like a dying horse, he vomited. He cried.

"$%&@!"

[Sarah Tintagyl]

Sarah jumped out of the way as Evan dashed out of the hole in the ground away from where she stood and threw up everything he had eaten in the past few days. Looking on with a worried look on her face, she laid her hands over his shoulders, ran her fingers across his eyes, drying them, and helped him back up to stand. "Shhhhh." She said holding him there and petting his head. "Let it all out, there you go, just let it all out." After he was done, she reached into her backpack and tore off a bit of a shirt using it as a handkerchief to clean his mouth and eyes. "Evan, if you're sick, maybe we shouldn't be doing this. If you want I'll go alone myself, I don't want you putting yourself in danger if you're not feeling well. Really, are you sure you're feeling okay for something like this?"

[Sargun II]

"I'm not sick," he answered back. "It's just the damn, just the damn air."

Evan sat down and crossed his legs like an indian for a few minutes as he calmed his lungs down into breathing right. His right hand snaked into his lower-right suit pocket and pulled out a few gulps of listerine. "Got one in every suit. I love these little !@#$%^&*," he said with a half a smile. After a few minutes of rinsing his mouth with listerine, he took the last swig from the little bottle and swallowed it. The burning sensation down his throat cooled his body, and a moment later he was back on his feet and tucking the empty bottle back into his pocket. Evan took a minute to gather his suitcases, then put on a new suit. The crispness refreshed him and he stuffed the old one back into the tunnel of the tree.

"Whoever uses the tree next will be a poor enough !@#$%^& to need it more than I do. And don't ever volunteer to go yourself. You'd be dead two times and camping in the wild if I wasn't here," he said as if it were simply a matter of fact. "I love you too much to not go through with this." With that he started walking in the direction of rising smoke in the distance.

[Sarah Tintagyl]

"Sure." Sarah rolled her eyes at his tone and smirked, yeah, she probably would have been dead, but she'd never admit something like that. "And I love you too, I just want to make sure you don't drop over dead on the road, I mean I know you don't want to camp in the wild, which if I'm in the lead you'd just have to deal with. Plus I know you'll never be able to live with yourself if I'm the one taking you on my shoulders back to civilization. Also, now I know where all my mouthwash goes and why I have to send Monica to the store every other day because my Listerine just seems to vanish. Here I go on thinking its Heather or Terra, and its the person that I should have been expecting all along." She stuck out her tongue and ran along side him as they broke back into the jungles of the Congo towards the rising smoke in the distance and for some reason, at least Sarah, walked with a bit of a jump in her step.

"So who do you think can open that safe you found yesterday? Breya? Or one of his officers?" And looking down the path in front of her she sighed. "And the smoke, another camp or somewhere a bit more friendly?"

[Sargun II]

"The officer who had this is probably long dead. We'll need to reconstruct the decaying oils on the fingerprint scanner, and once we have a close-enough match we'll lower the accuracy settings and hopefully that'll give us enough of a stretch to open it up," he explained. That was the very simple, basic, and easier-said-than-done version, but everything about this damn place was easier said than done. "Once we reach the next town I'll send it off with a runner-boy to a lab put in place when the Space Elevator was built."

Evan stuck his tongue back out at her, though late. His smile came back at seeing her so full of energy and talkative again. "The smoke is an underground mine that was set afire about thirty years ago. It'll be burning for another then. A lot more friendly - a refugee camp. Refugees see the smoke, come here, live and move on. Heavily-fortified." He wrapped his arm around her shoulders again, ignoring the sinking feeling in his head that this refugee camp was about to be hit by a series of unfortunate events.

[Sarah Tintagyl]

About another two hours of walking, Sarah and Evan came out on the refugee camp. Walking through the trees it was a town like Sarah had never seen before in her life. Shacks covered the ground of the camp made from all different materials, some where held together by pieces of metal junk that refugees dragged with them across the jungle floor, some shacks were put together with rotten wood, then tied with rotten rope where the twine of the rope was coming apart at the seems. Further out of the center of the camp, there were thatched huts made out of leaves and branches gathered within the jungle's interior, even in a refugee camp, there was a system of class and the indigenous natives, those of the tribes outside of a once civilized society, the hunter-gatherers of the African Congo were still pushed out from general townsfolk and villagers. Walking down the hill into the camp, it felt like a wave of heat struck both Evan and Sarah. At the center of the camp, there was a large building with an elevator shaft in the middle, from within the building, smoke poured out and then along the cracks in the ground, which ran the entire length of the camp, further smoke poured out. It smelt like a cross between ash and sulfur and just breathing some of the smoke in make Sarah nearly collapse into a coughing fit. "And these people live here?" She whispered quietly to Evan, shaking her head. "These are things that the White Cross was supposed to prevent. This is a sin."

The further they walked in, Sarah only became more depressed. Most of the children, the women, and even some of the men, were missing arms, some legs, some eyes, and two out of three wore large scars and gashes down their throats, chests, or faces. Shirtless boys and girls, barely seven years old ran around the camp with rounded stomachs, a sure sign of malnutrition and hunger. But when Sarah and Evan walked into the camp proper, everyone around them went silent. Both old and young looked at the two strangers, one in a suit probably some business boss from down river from either Mechodamia or Transvaal, with him, a girl carrying a gun and a dagger on her body, most likely his protection and probably his entertainment in the evening as well. Sarah could almost feel the same impression that she was sending, when she looked into their eyes.

"You suits are not welcomed here and neither is your whore." An elderly man with one eye and ebony skin stood up from his kneeling position outside his hovel. "If you're coming in here to evict us, you won't be successful. There was another suit that came in here before and he was killed, we don't take kindly to suits telling us how to live."

Sarah put up her hands. "Listen, that's not what we're here for at all. My partner is he-"

"You do not talk bodyguard, your suit can talk just fine without you opening your whore mouth. White devil with yellow hair, you have a European accent too, don't think that we can't tell."

By now other people had been gather around them, some with worried looks on their faces, others glaring at the two white strangers. For a moment Sarah nearly reached for her gun, but that would be a bad move right now, especially if they thought she was Evan's bodyguard.

"Evan..." Sarah said in a low voice as she stretched her fingers. "Talk to them..."

[Sargun II]

Evan smiled and looked at the old man. He opened his mouth and started speaking in a foreign tongue. The man was a Basongye - a member of a tribe that was on the brink of extinction. Evan politely told a story of how he had killed thirteen men just the day before by skinning them with a rusty knife. Most of the story was interspersed with ways he would kill the old man if he took another step forward, but he occasionally made hand gestures to Sarah. When he did, he was telling of how much she loved the taste of human blood, and how - he then reached into her clothes and pulled out the dagger at this point - the dagger was designed to be special, for it cut out human hearts. He placed the knife to his tongue and sliced off a tenth of an inch on one of the sides, then swallowed it without a second guess and opened his mouth for the man to look in.

He licked the blood from the dagger and kept swallowing the red goodness that came from his cut muscle. After a few minutes of absolute silence, he turned to Sarah and smiled. "[i]I told him that I would perform the Basongye custom of tongue-letting. The amount I took off can be grown back,[/i]" he said in French. "[i]And from now on, speak French.[/i]" Evan's smile widened as he handed the knife back to her and started to walk through a path that the people now made for him.

"[i]We will go to the headquarters, the only real building not of the mine, and talk to the supervisor. He will point us in the right direction.[/i]"

[Sarah Tintagyl]

Sarah with wide eyes nodded and watched as the elderly man turned and began to lead them down through the camp towards where the supervisor's building was. "Of cou-..." She started to say to him and then caught herself. "Bien sûr...Je vous suivra." She took the dagger and strapped it back onto her leg as she followed Evan still looking nervously around the village, whatever he had told the villagers about her, it made the women and children turn their heads, while it made some of the younger men stare at her intently. Needless to say, she didn't want to know. Following them up to the building, which really was just a nicer piece of metal wielded together some distance from the mine. The man led her and Evan inside where a younger ebony skinned man with a long black beard and pearl white eyes looked over both of them before standing up from his chair. However before speaking, the elderly man whispered into his ear.

[i]"Is knows of the Basongye, he has preformed the ceremonies and knows of the way of killing. If he is a suit, he is learned of our ways, but no suit before has shown this to us. He can be trusted."
[/i]
[i]"And the girl?"[/i]

[i]"She is from the north and drinks the blood of her enemies."[/i]

The supervisor looked surprised and turned to Sarah looking her over. [i]"A Basongye Suit and a Northern Witch, you bring me strange people Isooba."[/i] He looked up and turned to Evan, Sarah was no concern of his. [i]"Greetings."[/i] He spoken in the Basongye tongue. [i]"I am Ngozi, the Chief of this village. You my friend are no stranger to this land that I can tell, and you bring along a Northern Witch, there are bad omens that are associated with such arrivals. But what brings you man knowledgeable of the Basongye to our village? Certainly given your dress you are not a refugee."[/i]

[Sargun II]

[i]"I was a refugee, many years before. My Witch here understands the power of blood. I am not here to tell stories or swap tales of killings like would be normal, but I am here to give information and take some in return. If you do not cooperate, blood,"[/i] he patted Sarah on the shoulder, [i]"will be your undoing. Do we understand each other?"[/i] Evan waited for a moment and continued. [i]"Your village is in danger from the Thirteen Clans, Ngozi. While your refugee camp status has protected you for many years..."[/i] He turned to the wall on the left and spit onto the metal. The blood was in a pattern much like a mushroom.

He took his left middle finger and started connecting droplets until a crude mushroom-cloud shape had been outlined. [i]"This has been appearing every day since I got here.[/i] Sarah!" Evan's hand, in his right pocket, had been holding blood out of sight from the rest of the men. He took his left hand and lifted Sarah's left leg to about the area where the knife was. "Do you not remember the surface bruises?" He asked as if it were a concern. [i]"Watch, Ngozi."[/i] He placed his right hand in a pattern on Sarah's leg and the blood from his fingers squeezed out from under. [i]"Her omen. Thin skin, quick to bleed - you are in danger."[/i] He removed his hand and placed it before Ngozi to show him that there was, indeed, blood on it.

Evan let go of Sarah's leg and took a few steps to a bodyguard near the doorway. With a swift motion, Evan grabbed the man's head and jaw with both his hands and kneed the weapon from out his grasp. [i]"You do not look unless I tell you to!"[/i] He twisted the man's head violently from side-to-side, and he fell with little sound. The man was not dead but unconscious, his brain still recovering from the shakes. "[b]Tomorrow we change your clothes, Sarah,[/b]" he said in French, and he again walked up to Ngozi.

[i]"I do not wish to spend any more time in such a dangerous place. Tell me where you hide the Seventh Clan."[/i]

[Sarah Tintagyl]

The entire ordeal was possibly the strangest thing Sarah had ever been through in her life, for one, she couldn't understand anything they were saying and when Evan grabbed her leg,smearing blood over it, Ngozi nearly jumped back in horror. Whoever Evan had told them who she was, it was definitely something frightful and she didn't know if she was the one who should be scared or not. Things only got stranger when he literally attacked the bodyguard at the door and the other men just stood watching as if this was normal. As if Evan was performing some kind of ritual on the man, he sent him to the ground almost in a seizure and then told Sarah that she needed to change her clothes for tomorrow. Even more odd then before. She had a lot of questions after they got out of here.

[i]"Isooba. Show My Brother and his Witch the Seventh Clan."[/i] Ngozi patted Evan on the shoulder and smiled. [i]"If the omen is true on her leg then I wish you well. I have not seen the white skinned devil show such an omen in a long time. Be safe and be well Brother, may the blood of your enemies run like the Congo below you and may your Demon of Hell always be appeased in her bloodlust. My village owes you our protection Brother. Isooba!"
[/i]
[i]"Of course Ngozi, please, follow me."[/i]

As Isooba led Evan and Sarah out of the supervisor's building towards another wooden shed across the village. Sarah walked close to him and glared, speaking in French. [b]"What the hell was that all about and why do I have to change my clothes? Evan what are you telling them about me?"[/b] She ended the sentence as soon as they arrived at the shed and Isooba opened it to reveal an enormous stockpile of munitions and ammo. Sarah's face nearly went numb.

[i]"My Brother, the Seventh Clan."[/i]

[b]"My God..."[/b]

[Sargun II]

[b]"You're a witch, and I don't want you wearing those shorts anymore."[/b]

Evan walked past Isooba and started rifling through the arms. Every gun in there had a serial number that was supposed to be filed off, but he was determined to find one that was overlooked. Every gun in there now had Evan's hand on it, going from the right side of the shed to the other. He took a good three seconds per gun in the beginning but eventually narrowed it down to one when he figured out where to look on all of the repeats. Occasionally he found one that was only partly filed off and he tossed it at Sarah's feet. After a pile of six guns was made, he moved over to the handgrenades where he looked to find the maker of the grenades filed off as well. [b]"These are definitely not Artemis grenades, that's for sure."[/b] He tossed the grenades over his head and moved on to the RPGs in the back.

...

An hour later, he was carrying two RPGs, six assault rifles, four pistols, and an officer's machete in his arms. He dropped them into a hole that was once used to hold dead bodies before they could be buried. [i]"Suits with guns will come to retrieve these. If you impede their progress, her omens..."[/i] He smiled at the tribal leader and picked up the machete again. [i]"I wish you luck.[/i] [b]Let us go, Sarah."[/b]

Evan ended the very confusing trip to the refugee camp by grabbing Sarah's arm and half-dragging her out while he marched out of the camp. "Ask me any questions you may have right now, I don't want to explain any more or any longer than I have to."

Edited May 2, 2010 by Sargun

[Sarah Tintagyl]

[b]"You have got to be kidding me. Now you're calling me a Witch to? What is with you people I swear to God. I thought the Europeans were bad. Also, what's wrong with these shorts? I like them, there's no way in hell I'm wearing pants. I didn't bring jeans with me cause its too damn hot out. I'll just wear a different pair."[/b]

Inside, Sarah mainly just sat around as Evan rummaged through tons of weapons, throwing a few in a pile at her feet. She didn't really understand what the point was, but she figured they had something to do with Breya's weaponry, at least that would make sense. [b]"So another company besides Artemis is in the region then, you think this operation goes longer up the ladder than just Breya and his goons? Maybe outside sources or something.[/b]" But he kept rummaging through. She rolled her eyes and sat back against the wall of the shed, closing her eyes until Evan had finished and buried the weapons into the hole outside. Finally they started moving again after saying good-bye to the villagers and headed back into the jungle pathways, it was the beginning of the evening and they still had a few hours left of daylight before they had to start thinking about turning in somewhere for the night. However, leaving was more like being forced out and when they were out of the camp and away from the villagers, she smacked his hand away and glared.

"Look, I don't care if you want to handle the business and you're protective of me. But dragging me out of a village like a five-year-old, I'm sorry Evan, this isn't happening all the time. I can defend myself and I think I can walk out without being dragged as if I did something wrong." Sarah sighed and shook her head. "If you didn't want me to come along you could have said so, but I'd like to be treated as your partner, like your girlfriend, like your wife, okay?" As they kept walking she turned back to him and shook her head. "Honestly, I wouldn't even know where to begin, you've told me about your past before, but this, this is almost too much to handle. I wouldn't even know where to start asking. But why am I a witch to them and why can't I wear my shorts?"

[Sargun II]

[i] "If you didn't want me to come along you could have said so, but I'd like to be treated as your partner, like your girlfriend, like your wife, okay?"[/i]

At the mention of the word wife, Evan stopped walking and took another deep breath. When Sarah finished talking, he took another and stared at her for a good five minutes. "You are a witch because these are stupid !@#$@#$ African tribesmen who believe in witches and omens of blood. I'm sorry if you take offense to the word, but what other !@#$@#$ word do you want to use? Sorceress?" His voice was flat and emotionless despite his charged words. "I drag you out because if you look like you're independent, they will kill you. I'm sorry that we aren't in Disney World, but you wanted to know what my world was like. I'm trying to make sure you don't become a part of it. If I took the time to explain to you the customs of every tribe here, at the end we'd be grey-haired. Trust me when I do things: I spent the first half of my life among these people."

He smiled an apologetic smile. "The Thirteen Tribes are the tribes united under Breya. The Seventh Tribe is a primarily gun-smuggling tribe that got rich through, well, gun-smuggling. All the weapons start from some place, so if we can get pressure on the company that gets these weapons out we can probably get them to crack. And I don't like you wearing those shorts because I'm a shallow, jealous little man who doesn't like diseased men looking at you."

[Sarah Tintagyl]

She smiled and shook her head. "Well they can look all they want cause one, they're not getting any of this and two, don't act like you're not looking at it when I'm walking in front of you Evan Hiley. I know how you act." Sarah winked. "Plus, I didn't bring any jeans and its way too hot out here to wear denim, I don't know how you're in dress pants still." Her mood deepened after that. "But I'm sorry, I know this is your world and I know that I'm new to it, I'm just trying to get along in it that's all. I appreciate that you're keeping up with my..." She chuckled. "My Sarahness, I know that it's hard sometimes to take in such a big sitting." Sarah wrapped her arms around him as they stopped for a minute. "But I appreciate it and I know you're a good man deep inside Evan Hiley, so you're going to do the right thing to all these people."

Letting go she started walking down the path again, Evan still walking behind her as Sarah shook her head. "And you want me to take off the shorts. You're such a !@#$%^&." She chuckled and looked out into the distant jungle that glowed bright red.

Edited May 2, 2010 by Sarah Tintagyl

[Sargun II]

"Stop being so damn sexy and I'll stop being a !@#$%^&," he answered back. Evan was always amazed at how, by just a smile, either of them could completely change the mood of the other. He didn't know exactly where she was walking, but he assumed she had remembered the general direction they were walking in before they had hit the camp. While they walked, he thought of the past two years of his life and how they had changed.

He hadn't seen a woman naked - on purpose, at least - that wasn't Sarah.
He hadn't shot a man - on purpose, at least.
Every day he took a set of pills that helped his brain recover from the injuries.
He was secretly abusing anti-depression medication.

As if on cue, he slipped a few pills from inside a hidden lining in his pocket and popped them into his mouth. He swallowed quickly to avoid suspicion and smiled as their effects hit him quickly. "Sarah... tomorrow is the last day. We'll hit the camp tomorrow. I don't... where do you want to sleep? There's a tree around here, but if we walk fast enough, we can, uh, probably find somewhere. I don't know."

[Sarah Tintagyl]

"Nah. I'd rather you just be a !@#$%^& then, as to getting through the night. If you think we can find the tree, I think that would be our safest bet. I really would rather not leave to sleeping someone in the jungles, after all, we don't want to die this soon to having our journey completed. Better safe then sorry. But lets try and hurry before we lose the rest of the day light and a little ways further, Sarah stepped onto a bit of depressed ground a little ways off the center of the trail and smiled. "I think we found the Underground Hotel."

Working together, she and Evan collapsed the ground and opened the hole for them to crawl into. It wasn't nearly as spacious as the last 'tree' they had been in, however it had a little more light shining in, so it didn't feel quite as cut off and horrifying, sitting there in the dark. After getting down inside the ground, Sarah took off her backpack and slid off the holster and dagger as she scooted over towards Evan as he laid back against the ground and shut his eyes. She nested up with him and rested her head on his arms. "Almost just as good as Brisbane and Bloemfontein...almost just as soft..." Then the quiet sound of her gentle breathing was the only think echoing inside the hole. Her small body curled right up to Evan's own, her blonde ponytail tickling his nose.

[Sargun II]

Evan smiled dreamily as she curled up next to him. His back was curved against the trunk of the tree and his right arm on the ground pillowing Sarah's head, his left arm wrapped around her stomach and pulled her closer. The two of them could feel each other's hearts beating in rhythm; after a few minutes the beats were indistinguishable. For the first time in weeks, his entire body was relaxed. His mind was mellow, all the nerves of his body were washing over his brain with sensations of a light buzzing. Sarah smelled nothing like the African jungle, and as he inhaled a thousand memories of her and him flooded every possible working nerve in his brain.

He started humming a slow tune that eventually put him to sleep.

[Sarah Tintagyl]

Once again, Sarah awoke before Evan and trying not to disturbing, slipped out from under his arms and went back to her backpack and pulled out a few power bars out and started to munch before he got up. She had this time to herself to reflect what was going on in her life right now. So much time had passed since the days back in Helsinki University, back then, things were simpler. There was still the hope that all she might be doing with her life was going to school to become a teacher, or even when that disappeared to be a quiet politician in a country that was never supposed to go anywhere in the world. Nearly three nuclear explosions, two major world wars, one encounter with a Dragon God, a super soldier serum that had been injected into her, four suitors, two kids, and a dozen adventures later, it was doubtful that her father or anyone in her family would be able to recognize her anymore. The weak fragile girl from Helsinki, had been replaced by a grown woman who know martial arts, swordplay, and could fire a gun, killing a man far from where she stood. She had killed dozens of people and had the scars to prove it. Her arms and legs were rock hard and she was still one of more attractive women on Earth. Needless to say she was happy with how things turned out, the mercenary life had been good to her. Looking down at her arms and legs she smiled. Very good to her.

Finishing the power bar, she opened the roof of the 'tree' as the sunlight cascaded in, hitting Evan on the face. "Rise and shine sweetie pie, today's the day right?" She threw a power bar at his feet and smiled. "Eat up and lets go, you have to lead now, cause I have no clue where we're going from here."