Fresh Air

The caravan had stopped for the night and made camp. All around the defensive circle of brahmin drawn carts crickets chirped noisely in the dry gray bushes of the wasteland. A tired yellow sun had almost finished setting under a halo of pink and azure as the blue skies turned black and stars peeked one by one.
A crackling fire warmed the merchants and girls and mercenaries as they sat around it hands reaching in a primal gesture. They warmed themselves as they sat and some smoked while others enjoyed drinks and muttered jokes. A brahmin mooed to its companions out in the dark and the quiet footfall of a vigilant guard walked over toward it eyeing the darkness with suspicion.
"Who goes there?" He demanded gruffly as he half aimed his nightvision fnfal at nothing in the bushes beyond the disturbed brahmin.
"Just me." A girl's voice squeeked timidly. She stood straitening out her tattered gray brown skirt and walked past him and the brahmin toward the fire.
"Don't go so far just to pee." He warned her. She glanced back with two fingers joined to her thumb in a rude gesture. He flipped her off back and lit a ciggarete.
Something rustled in the bushes a little further yet. Something or someone that had watched and listened. Smelled and sensed all that had just transpired. It waited and thought. It hunted yet.
The guard knew it was out there. A twig snapped behind him.
"It's just me." A young mercenary told the old gruff veteran with the fnfal rifle aimed into the darkness.
"Be quiet." He ordered in response.
"What is it?" The young warrior asked after a long moment of silence and listening and staring inot the blackness.
"It has gone. We are not its prey tonight." The old one replied. He dropped his ciggarete and snuffed it oout with his boot.
"What was it?"
"Pray you never know the answer to that question boy. Just pray." Was all he said.

Cinderfalls
"I been that far east before." The old mercenary glance one last time the direction of the caravan's stalker in the dark as he sat and joined the conversation.
"Sure you have Taggart. We all know you been everywhere." Molly laughed and leaned on him. Everyone also knew that Molly was his and unless some raider sniper picked off the mean old bear Taggart then none of the young mercenaries would enjoy her company without risking his wrath. There were several other girls to choose from though.
"It is true. When I was with the Desert Rangers back in '69 we were sent to this town called Cinderfalls. Most godforsaken hellhole I ever laid eyes upon. Worse than Burning Springs." Taggart began his story:

The worn out warriors of the NCR Desert Rangers sent to help the distressed town arrived in early dusk with the sunset at their backs. Their five long shadows reached darkly toward the entrance to the walled town like paths of death. All were heavily armed and expecting trouble. The hair on the backs of their necks stood on end and chills ran over their sweat glistened forheads
"This is the place. I want a nice clean sweep. No frak-ups." Sargeant Mcadams ordered and two on either side filed through the shattered gates.
"Jeezusss." Smithens saw the bodies first. "What the hell could have done that?"
"I don't..." His partner, Dane started to say and then dry heaved as the smell of the carnage hit him like a roiling wave of fresh nausea.
"Alright men. Looks like we missed the party. Spread out and search for survivors. Stay in sight of each other and report back in five minutes." The Sarge commanded cooly despite the atrocity laid out before them.
"Sir what if whatever did this is still here?" Ryens asked.
"Then we fragging kill the bastards." Sarge glared.
"Come on Ryens." Taggart (much younger in this story and partial to lose his stomach at the horrible sights himself) led his partner into Cinderfalls.


All around were burned down wrecks of homes and more bodies laid out like they had been thouroughly butchered and worse. They worked their way through slowly and alertly. They were horrified by all that they saw.
"We should go. These people were all killed over and over. There aren't any survivors." Ryens pointed out.
"I think you are right." Taggart agreed.
"Let's get back to the Sarge and see if he knows what we are up against." Ryens replied. They walked back through the hellish scenes of suffering and death only to find that the Sarge was missing.

"Where is the Sarge?" Dane stared wide eyed and fearful asking the other pair of Desert Rangers.

Suddenly they all heard a terrified and anguished scream. It was the Sarge. They raced to help him but it was too late. Marauders in head dresses and trophy decorated armor and snuch up on him and killed him with repeated blows of axes and pistom spears and baseball bats with nails driven through them.

All four remaining Desert Rangers began screaming in visceral profanity and unloading their firearms they had brought into the marauders. One by one they died in gouts of blood as bullets tore through them. The ones who could fled the lawful executions while othersended up crawling in the dust begging like their numerous victims. Taggart wasn't proud of what he and his companions did next but it was part of his story. Without mercy they placed their rifles against the skull of each wounded one by one and finished the job. Back home in NCR they were called heroes. None of them felt very heroic though. Cinderfalls remaied a terrible memory of innocence lost and mindless violence for each.

Ronto

"That story aint scary. I got a real jeeper for you." Old Williams finished his roentgen rum and tossed the empty bottle on the fire wastefully.
"Do tell it." Rachel sat up. The red headed girl next to her sat up a little also to hear Old Williams tale. There were various nods of approval and nodding off as he began:

"Back in the sixties in Ronto I remember this guy who had a trog gathering operation." Old Williams lit up a smoke and continued. "One day he is out with his two mercs and the wee girl child Amidale."
"Anyway Varnacle was his name god-rest-his-soul and I can't recall those two poor mercs. But like I said one day he was out with them mercs all hunting for trog. A dangerous job mind you all because trogs hunt you back. They like to circle around you see? Like this..." And at this Old Williams posed slightly like a crouched trog on the prowl. "Anyway they get about sixteen trog lined up fer the pen, totally subdued with the mercs on either side when all of a sudden they realize that one was missing. It jumped down on Varnacle and clawed him up something fierce. Got his own blood in Varnacle's eyes so he shoots wide and hits one of the subdued trogs. All fifteen trog break almost at once. Each mercenary with his guns blazing gets into a melee withabout seven trogs each. They of course gets torn to bits. Head over here, legs over there. No arms anywhere cuz trogs like to munch on the arms. SO two dead mercs and about a dozen or so dead trogs. Turns out onna them was killed by Amidale with a dartgun. Varnacle was so pleased that he signed over his business to her right before he died of infections."

"And that is that." Old Williams concluded at the silent audience. Some had fallen asleep. Others remained awake staring at the campfire trying to think up some stories comparable to Cinderfalls and Ronto.

Fudgegully

It was late into the slow hours of the night when just the three old timers of the caravan were still talking. Old Williams, Mr. Orca and of course the guy still telling stories and asking for pulls off of everyone's drinks. Finnally he passed out and to pass the time the two old caravaners simply asked each other what stories they had heard. It was a sort of game they played when all the younger mercenaries and their girls were all asleep.
"What about the one where the rabbit attacks the lone wanderer?" Old Williams asked.
"Oh come on." Mr. Orca replied.
"What about the one about the Hubologist spaceship?" Old Williams offered.
"Forget that one. The one about the Caesar's Legion becoming like the new roman empire with gladiators and cultist getting fed to radscorpions and yaoi goai" Mr. Orca chastised.
"Its Yao Guy" Old Williams corrected.
"No it Yo-oh-oy gooey" Mr. Orca pronounced.
"Anyway." Old Williams decided. "You heard about that fudge gully place?"
"What about it?" Mr. Orca asked.

"Back in fudge gully they had this crazed appetite for bloat fly. They would find them and coat them in chocalate." Old Williams began his narrative but Mr. Orca interrrupted him.
"Thats chocolate not chocalate." Mr. Orca interrupted.
"Whatever. SO one day this guy comes to town looking for work and he sees these town's people dipping bloatflys in chocalate." Old Williams continued.
"how? I mean were these living bloatflys? Did they still have their wings or were they all mangled from shotgun blasts?" Mr. Orca asked.
"I don't know." Old Williams replied.

"So anyway he asks about a job but they are all busy svcking on these chocalate covered bloatflys. The guy goes up to one person and asks 'what is there to do around here.' and the guy is all like eating a bloatfly and licking the chocalate off his fingers and doesn't say anything." Old Williams continued pointlessly.

They sat in silence for awhile and listened to the night air.

"That story was pointless." Mr. Orca complained under his breath. "You hear that?"

"Yes." Old Williams who everyone thought was fearless was trembling. The night had gone silent. Nature made way for the apex predator and the beast made sound around it seem to thicken.

"It is him." Mr. Orca slowly reached for his weapon. "Keep talking. Tell me about Fudge Gully."

"I don't remember how it goes." Old Williams was spooked. Deathclaws could make anyone nervous but it took the Silver Deathclaw to really scare an old wasteland veteran like him. The devil of the deserts.

"It has been following us for days" Mr. Orca decided.

"Why doesn't it attack?" Old Williams asked.

"Why would it? Would a shepherd slaughter all of his sheep at once?" Mr. Orca asked.

"Can it be killed?" Old Williams asked.

"Yes. Just like any Death Claw. But this one is smart. Knows better than to take in too much lead. Plus they say it has a hide of scars three inches thick. Bullet proof to .32s and even .308s need at least a .44 to even make the big thing feel it. And if you watch it for a few minutes you might see its wounds stop bleeding and start to heal. Its flesh soon pushes the bullets out under pus filled scabs." Mr. Orca opted.

"Goodnight." Old Williams sat lower and started to rest. Mr Orca stayed alert watching the wasteland at night.

Reaver Dance

In the morning the caravan began to pack up their camp. The less brave girls relieved themselves after holding it all night. Mercenaries ignored them now that they had work to do. The caravan master Damien Marcus ordered the brahmin drivers to begin the daylong journey to Noble Springs in northern Colorado. This caravan had been making an endless circuit for twenty years and had defeated ambushes, predators, droughts and missed stops where towns used to resupply had been found burned to the ground by various ascending warlords and their armies.

"Ever hear about the time the Warrior and her squad ran into that really weird one?" One of the guards Amarillo asked his girl, Rachel.

"You mean the L33tists? Or perhaps the talking head?" Rachel rolled her eyes. "Wanna run off to the bushes and do it?"

"Come on Rachel, we are on duty. Wait till we get to Noble Springs. I will even take a bath with you." Amarillo promised.

"Promise?" She smiled and brushed aside some of her long light brown hair.

"Have I ever let you down?" He asked her.

"Not once. If you swim wiht me I will be a really good girl. That is my promise." She winked at him flirtatiously. Amarillo sighed. He had found her working the streets in the red light district of New Vegas two years ago. She had told him she hated the job and wanted to fall in love with him. He had agreed to give her a chance. Life in a caravan was very hard on girls. She had proven her love by staying with him for two years. He had decided to marry her. He had even acquired a ring. He was just waiting for the right time.

"I love you." He finally confessed as they walked in silence for a mile.

"I know you do lover." She had an accent that came out whenever she got really excited. He heard it now. "So tell me your story. I know the big boys wouldn't let you have your turn last night. I wanna hear it though."

"The warrior and her squad were deep in enemy territory battling Super Mutants and Beast Lords and all sorts of foul enemies when suddenly."

"Suddenly?" Rachel gave him a playful shoved as he paused for dramatic effect.

"Suddenly they ran into this stage. Madonna's into the groove was playing at first. Then the electric slide and then footloose. They couldn't believe what htey saw. OUt in the middle of nowhere with all sort of stage gear and speakers and whatnot. It was a bunch of Reavers dancing on stage. Right in the middle of a warzone as if the bloody idiots had nothing better to do." Amarillo told his girlfriend.

"No way. Is that story true?"

"swear it is. Totally true." Amarillo held up a hand in oath.

"weird. That is totally weird." Rachel decided.

Noble Springs

The caravan finally reached Noble Springs. The sky was dark and streaked with weird white clouds. Manti packs roamed the hills searching for bloatflies frozen to trees. The frost had the girls bundled up rather than thier usual lack of modesty. The guards and drivers shivered and shared warming gamma gulp and vodka. Every once in awhile dry lightning scored on the scattered dead trees. The thunder came eerily late and mixed with the occasional crack of a pipe rifle or scoped hunting .32 as manti were driven off from the half spooked brahmin.

Nadine watched Amarillo and Rachel as they flirted gaily. She had been jealous of Rachel for a long time. Her own man Marcus James had died in her arms three years before shortly after she left home to be with him. She had remained with the caravan since enjoying the respect granted her by the men who had all owed Marcus James one it seemed. None of them had ever questioned her rations or made an unwelcome advance on her out of respect for their dead friend. She was in a sense his widow. She had been pregnant also but radiation had killed her son. Now her womb was ruined and her heart had grown old before its time. Nadine glared openly at Rachel as the girl accidentally met the younger woman's gaze. Strange that to any observer the younger Nadine was regarded as older somehow.

The springs were actually a basin where flashfloods dumped their dredges. Steam rose from the mix of toxins rinsed free from the sterile lands around. Various creatures such as tiny beige desert mirelurks and baby Molechs gathered after the regions storms refilled the psuedo springs but fled the approach of the caravan. Other caravans were camped around the springs watering thier brahmin and swapping supplies via intense haggling, theft and gambling. Occasionally a girl or guard regrouped with a different caravan here also. Most importantly fresh news rumors and stories were traded as night fell and the only light was a myriad of communal campfires.

Nadine didn't care about the stories as the sun set. She followed Rachel and her lover to the springs with jealous contempt. He proposed to her after they had stripped to bathe after dark before they got into the warm waters.

"I wouldn't do that." She spoke up and leaned on a mishaped boulder as if she had been there for hours.

"What? Nadine is that you?" Rachel peered into the darkness.

"You were gradually wading into the water as you were getting togather just now. I wouldn't wade here now." Nadien repeated herself. Moonlight refelcted off the calm gently bubbling waters made it easier for Nadine to see them than for them to see her. They emerged shivering. Nadine noted smugly that Rachel wasn't getting the best deal in her romeo's package.

"why not?" Rachel demanded irritated.

"Around here there are vipers that swim after dark to keep warm in these waters." Nadine lied.

"Brahmin Dung!" Rachel protested. But it was too late the romance of the moment was gone. They dressed as Nadine watched in some kind of cold satisfaction. The newly engaged couple filed past the witch to go hear some stories before bed.

Nadine decided to go for a swim herself, knowing full well that no vipers were in the water. She laughed evilly.

The Silver Devil

Hazy mists of lingering smoke, six and the fading echoes of words spoken loudly in storytelling hung over the scattered gatherings of caravans. One by one key caravaneers awoke and began dressing their brahmin and breaking camp. By midmorning half of the population of Noble Springs had left.

Nadine sat lonely upon her rock overlooking the springs. She had watched the sunrise with foggy tears. She missed Marcus James desperately. She wandered off into the hills alone and found a grove of trees to be alone in. Various wasteland creatures that had snuck into the springs as the gun weilding men slept it off now retreated past her fleeing noisy splashing and the playful calls of the caravan girls.

"Sit alone and thinks?" An inhuman and gruff voice spoke behind her.

"Who is that?" Nadine's eyes were wide in suprise as she turned. A horrible hunched over shape in rags loomed there against the sunrise in silhoette.

"I not harm you. I talk to human. I not hungry." The beast replied. There was an ironic tone of humor in its voice that bade Nadine to sit still. Fear still crept into her. It was a Deathclaw. A small one, none the less, but speaking and assuring her it wanted nothing more than to speak.

"I was missing...my mate." She responded as she fought aside her terror.

"You have no mate? You young female...no childs. You no make childs." It grasped fully her status.

"I had a miscarriage. When I saw a doctor he said I cannot have children ever again." She felt a tear escape as she coldly recalled the past. "How do you know that though?"

"I smart death claw. I know humans very well. My nose say you smell sterile." It almost sounded sorry for her.

"Who are you?" Nadine asked it.

"My old name gone. Here they call me Yammon. Elsewhere Silver Devil. Sometimes just The Beast. I am myth I am reality. I know you humans so well. You have beasts within. I am your beast without." Yammon spoke and then chuckled.

"What are you doing here?" Nadine questioned the monster of dichotomy.

"I eat much. Sometimes humans. Mother always said not to play with your food. Ohwell." Yammon confessed.

"Are you playing with me?" Nadine asked.

"No I let you live. I no hurt you. Bad medicine to kill thinking human." Yammon's practiced voice bore a smile of honesty.

"All humans think." Nadine argued.

"No not all. Thinking human think all humans think. They not all think. That not true. Thoughts yes. But just a few words in head not really thinking." Yammon explained its opinion.

"I see. Will you let me go now?" Nadine asked.

"You go. Not bother tell about me. I not bother tell about you." It pointed back toward the camp with one claw.

"Farewell Yammon." She stood and fled at a walking pace.

It's reptilian eyes watched her go then it vanished back into its shattered hills.

Wow man, sorry you didn't get any replies. I read the whole thing, I actually really liked it. The only reason nobody is replying is there is nobody left, but if its not hard for you, I would really like it if you expanded on the Silver Devil, hes a really good character

Lakelanders

Late that night while many were drunk and falling silent a strange and hunched thing in robes shuffled near. It wished to tell a story tonight rather than just listen. It sat for a moment enjoying the warmth of a fire.

Yammon, The Silver Devil noticed Nadine sitting nearby watching him intently. The girl was shocked to see the Deathclaw's boldness. A ghoulified intelligent Deathclaw was unique, of course, but it's behaviour and capricious nature were wildly unpredictable.

It cleared it's throat and repeated an old narrative in concise storytelling and in a husky and cold blooded voice. Since it was common for storytellers to wander to active areas of the camp and sit at fires unintroduced at Noble Springs nobody questioned his presence. The men were too drunk to notice and most of the girls were either engaged or asleep.

Nadine was one of the few who bothered to listen.

Ironically Peterson listened intently as well but had no idea the storyteller was actually the fabled Silver Devil he had long wondered about.

Cobalt had been sitting alone watching a fire die down after a funeral for the previous chieftain. The other tribals were sleeping in mated pairs. Cobalt had lost interest in this activity.

"Why do you remain alone, childe?" A godling Super Mutant named Aerie asked Cobalt as he watched the fires. She was his great grandmother.

"I have already mated. I am ready to ascend." Cobalt claimed.

"What new ones have you sired, childe?" Aerie asked.

"I don't know" Cobalt confessed.

"Once you have ascended you cannot go back, you will not be able to make offspring. You will always sit in the cold listening as the childes enjoy each others warmth. A godling is lonesome." Aerie sat down next to him.

"A godling has died, a childe may take his place." Cobalt reminded her.

"Yes and he was our chieftain. Now noone will be able to say whether you are worthy or not until another takes his place." Aerie seemed to be asking Cobalt to remain patient.

"How long have you lived? When was the last time a childe ascended?" Cobalt asked.

"I am your ancestor." Aerie told him

"I did not know godlings paid such close attention to lineage." Cobalt was sincerely suprised.

"I do." Aerie stood. "It matters to me. I like to know who my descendants are."

"Aerie?" Cobalt asked her before she could leave him.

"Yes childe?" Aerie waited.

"Who will become the next chieftain? Cannot I ascend if I would be the chieftain?" Cobalt asked.

"Only a godling may be chieftain." Aerie spoke after a long moment. "But if none will avenge him then you may claim that right...and ascend."

"I want to ascend now." Cobalt had always wanted to be a godling.

"All in good time. Wait three days. Your hopes do look good." Aerie had carefully conditioned him for this time.

"Cobalt, if you would like to avenge our chieftain...then you may ascend to do so. But know that your death will be the end of this." Hanzo addressed him three days later when the godlings were ready. Cobalt had been fasting and praying.

"I am ready." Cobalt stated.

"When you ascend you might go mad. It is very painful. Not all are allowed to leave the holy place." Aerie spoke to him a warning.

"Take this into you first. It will help with the suffering you will endure. You must remain sane." Horus fed him a traditional ascension drug.

"I am Cobalt." Cobalt stepped into the vat. He said this many times, knowing a challenge lay ahead.

He suffered indescribably. But in the end it only made a childe into a godling. A Super Mutant

Cobalt climbed from the vat. Its residue absorbed by his newly forming skin. He blinked open his eyes. The pain had been surreal. He remembered it like a strange and incoherant dream. It had lasted a very long time. A lifetime.

"Who are you?" A godling repeated the question.

"What is...who is...I am...What Cobalt." He pulled his own name to the surface of his mind like an anchor on a ship freed from the depths.

"You will remain in a special place for a time. When that time is gone you must avenge the chieftain. It is why you ascended." The same godling. She seemed very familiar.

"Aerie." He recalled her name.

"You will be fine. Your confinement is...tradition." Aerie assured him.

He sat there in the cool dim place in quiet contemplation. Slowly suffering turned to eleation as he collected himself into a whole again. Becomeing a godling had been a second birth. A thousand times worse than the first. And he could remember it. At least disjointed parts of it.

Days passed and then the godlings returned. They did not seem suprised that he had passed their simple test.

"Each of us has a super spear as you well know." Aerie told him. "They were made long ago and contain much power. They are passed down from the dead to the living."

"I am to have one." Cobalt stated.

"Here it is." Aerie handed him the giant weapon. A lance of deadly weight and power.

"Sicarius." He named his sacred super spear.

"Avenge the chieftain or die trying." Aerie said.

Several other godlings including Horus and Hanzo went with him to the Lake.

At the Lake the giants stood and watched as he embarked on a raft. The morning mist made it seem tranquil. Beneath the still surface lay a mighty killer.

Soapsud.

The giant Mirelurk Catfish. A beast of legend that had inspired their last chieftain to die in battle against it. Cobalt gripped Sicarius. In the Lake a spear had been lost. So had a chieftain.

He called to Soapsud.

"Feed my childes for a year. Make me their chief with your death. We are both gods now let us battle." He called to the monster. Soon it came

Soapsud rose to the surface and bore its wicked mouth of fangs and tenticles. Cobalt leapt onto it. They thrashed into the shallows.

He struck Soapsud with Sicarius over and over. Finnally he pierced its brain. He dragged its bulk up the the shore where he needed help from his other Super Mutant brethren.

"Cobalt, Chieftain of the Lake peoples. May he live a thousand years and his childes grow strong and proud!" Aerie raised her own super spear. The childes bowed down.

A great celebration was held, similar to the funeral but with feasting.

When it had concluded this tale, Yammon got up and wandered back into the darkness.

Yay! Me thinks me know who Yammon is!

The Talking Beast

Dry dust on a warm breeze was slowly erasing the evidence of the encampments at Noble Springs. The cracked and dried muddy bottom of where the puddle had stood had bid the caravans goodbye. A lone remnant sat staring across the desolate hills.

"Waiting are we?" the course and gruff voice of the SIlver Devil Yammon spoke from behind the man.

"I am waiting...was waiting...for you." Peterson replied.

"What do you want?" Yammon circled him and faced him.

"I have been hunting you for a very long time. Last night in bed Nadine told me she had seen you. She knew how important it was to me." He explained.

"You have been sitting there for two days." Yammon pointed out.

"I am very patient. I meant the last night the caravan was here. They have gone obviously." Peterson further enlightened the monster.

"Very well. What do you need?" Yammon asked. It's eyes glittered under the darkness of it's hood.

"You have travelled very far. To New Vegas even." Peterson began.

"Long ago. Back when the Setites and the Earls of the Sky Queen ruled there. Before the machines took over." Yammon agreed.

"The machines. Are they commanded by the Calculator?"

"No, the Calculator is dead." Yammon recalled. "The machines of New Vegas are from a different source."

"What source?" Peterson demanded.

"It...it is a long story. What has made you want to know so badly?" Yammon gestured for a reply with a claw.

"My family...the machines killed them. They left me for dead. The damn things had these...horrible faces on video screens that laughed and smiled as they butchered." Peterson told his tale briefly.

"I cannot describe the thing that makes and commands the machines. It is called the MOSES. You would have to see it for yourself." Yammon told Peterson.

"Could you show it to me?" Peterson asked.

"Possibly. But what is in it for me?" Yammon asked.

"Is it true that the Silver Devil is interested in souls?" Peterson gulped.

"Since the beginning. The souls of man and the spirit of beast. I am the beast within...without." Yammon described.

"I will give you my soul if you help me." Peterson spoke carefully.

Yammon laughed. It was the sound of fisted frogs punching glass in a sacred silence. It was like a chorus of demons singing happy birthday to the corpse of a white brahmin calf. It wasn't unlike the noise of a crushed radscorpion vomiting its guts while it's pincers rattled violently.

Peterson cringed and sweated in fear.

"Very well" Yammon made a gesture like a man wiping away a tear of mirth. "Since I don't wish to miss out on this adventure I will take you to MOSES. I cannot promise you will be satisfied..."

"Thank you." Peterson trembled.

History is written by...

Travelling beside a talking Deathclaw had made Peterson's nerves come unhinged. He could barely sleep at night and had lost much of his appetite. Regardless, Yammon was an expert hunter and shared his kills. Peterson would build a fire and enjoy some dead animal's carcass slain by a Deathclaw's razor sharp talons.

"I know many stories. I have travelled far and wide and been in different lives...adventures...collected the folktales of our world." Yammon told Peterson one night while they shared the fire against the chill of the desert. Peterson said nothing. Yammon continued, rambling on about some of his friends in the past.

"I went mad for some time. I am not sure I ever became sane again but I began wearing clothes again and found in time I could think and speak once more. Still part of me was left at the walls of Tibbets while my friend Cobalt was tortured by the Enclave inside." Yammon spoke recalling some old memory.

"Somewhere a godling sits upon a broken throne, immortal as the sands of the desert. Beyond this stands a maiden who looks like a corpse. A ghoul, Carrie, who loved me once. Dead and buried is a talking bird and an Enclave soldier who stood beside us when even the sopposedly noble Brotherhood of Steel could do nothing for themselves." Yammon narrated. "It is not likely you can understand. A Super Mutant, a Ghoul, a Death Claw and an Ex Enclave travelling together in a quest to defeat the final fatal darkness of our world. Do you know why our quest ended in failure? In a good story the heroes triumph in the end. We were disbanded, defeated. So that makes my story of your shadows a mere trifle in a long and sordid history of mankind's endless fall from grace."

"Yammon...if it is mankind's struggle then what business would your assortment of monsters have interfering?" Paterson asked.

"A worthy question. You see we were not monsters at all but the hideous reflections of man's worst atrocities come back from the grave to wreak vengeance. Each of us a symbol of man's most horrible deeds revisiting the sinner with punishment. If we were the heroes we were also the antagonists and our defeat against the might of the Enclave was what? Mankind's triumph over his own failures? A lesser evil defeated by a greater evil? Can two wrongs ever make a right? Is there redemption in revenge? It was a war...our war...and war never changes."

"Still it was not your place. Products of mankind's wicked ways cannot crawl back in judgement of their creator."

"We did. But we did not go the distance. Something was missing. Charles Rose, the Ex Enclave, once said: 'There is no hope when the damned are the messiahs.' and I did not understand him at the time. Since then as my memories return I have known what this means. It is true that monsters always destroy their creator but it is even more true that the creator destroys themself. Do you see?"

"A creation is merely a reflection of the creator. Is that what you mean? So you showed the Enclave their own ugliness. A worthless gesture."

"Perhaps...but I have learned one most vital thing in my days. One small deed can change the whole world when the seed is watered with time."

"Yammon you are more mortal and fallible than you think." Peterson chuckled. He was glad they had talked of these things. Yammon had a human heart in his bestial exterior.

Left For Dead

The wreckage of the southbound caravan lay strewn everywhere. Super Mutants armed primarily with missile launchers had made quite a mess before moving on. Violent, mindless slaughter had left only one survivor who hadn't been dragged away for whatever horrible fate awaited those taken by the Super Mutants.

She sat shivering in terror under the tipped wagon with two dead brahmin still attached to it and stacked atop each other as if still pulling the wagon.

In the misty haze of morning twilight two figures approached. One was a man and carried an assault rifle cautiously but the other...She was not sure what she was seeing. The other appeared to be some kind of moving brown lump of robes and shadows. Like something out of a dream

"Are you alright?" The man had reached her suddenly. In her shock she had lost the minutes it took for him to find her there.

"I am not alright." She heard herself say.

"You hear me and respond. You will be fine. I have seen worse." Peterson helped her to her feet.

"What is your name?" He asked. "My name is Peterson."

"Kirin. I am Kirin." She looked at Peterson. The man was at least ten years older than her and dressed like a caravan guard. "I was a slave...sold to these merchants. They said 'look at her she is a virgin...worth twice what we sell her to you for in New Vegas.' They bought me and then kept me in a wagon like some kind of vintage wine."

"Is that what this caravan was doing? Heading to New Vegas?" Peterson ignored her flashback.

"Super Mutants did this." She smiled strangely. "I guess I am free now."

"Yes I soppose you are." Peterson looked around at the carnage.

"I think I would like to go home to my daddy. But he is dead. The slavers killed him. Where do I go now?" She tilted her head strangely.

"I don't know. You can come with us if you like. We are headed to New Vegas. I don't know that you will be much safer with us than on your own." Peterson told her.

"I will go with you. I don't want to be on my own." Kirin replied.

The three travellers then left the wrecked caravan behind and continued towards New Vegas. That night they made camp overlooking the lights in the distance. Yammon spoke to Peterson once the female was asleep.

"She has improved quickly. She likes you." Yammon told Peterson.

"I know. But I have to avenge my family, Not start another." He responded.

"Then you have noticed she is receptive toward you?" Yammon was perpetually curious about human mating. "Won't you sleep with her?"

"That would be innapropriate." Peterson frowned.

"There are pheremones between you two. Surely you have noticed." Yammon pointed out.

"So what? I am not trying to settle down with her." Peterson spoke up. "I want to see the MOSES."

"It is not good that you would rather die seeing the MOSES for your old family rather than start a new one with her." Yammon did not approve.

"Whatever. Tomorrow we will reach New Vegas and she will be fine there. You and I will go see the MOSES." Peterson went to get some sleep.

For a little while Yammon sat by the fire then he got up and walked back into the desert musing that without him as a guide Peterson would not beable to find the MOSES. Instead he would have to settle down with Kirin. Which was better than dying, surely.

Awesome stuff. Makes for a great read.

A Desert Requiem

The grave wasn't very deep but it was more than many got. Ramon Davidson had been a brave man and had served the same caravan for nearly eight years in the twilight of his life. Dying of old age gave a man bragging rights in the wastelands.

"We lay this man Ramon Davidson in the earth that he might add something to this dead soil and bring life with his death. In the Name of good and honor we commend thee." The caravan master said a few words.

Shovelfulls of earth rained onto the corpse as well as some dry wilted flowers by a woman who had been his last. Sharee had her reddish brown hair tied back with a black ribbon and she was wearing a fancy black dress for his funeral. She eyed one of the young men shovelling dirt onto Ramon and decided she would be his next.

Having spent enough time for him the caravan moved out leaving the cross shaded mound behind.

Soon wasteland scavengers came and quarreled and dug to get at the buried meat. The sun began to set as they fought and fed. The cross, half unplanted toppled into the grave startling a two headed buzzard that flapped angrily and drove away the mole rat who had eaten his fill anyway.

That night Sharee went and sat near the young man of her choice.

"Ramon is dead and I am lonely." She told him.

"You must be Sharee. He spoke alot about you. Sometimes more than his daughter in New Vegas." He put his arm around her. "You know talking about it might help more than sleeping with me."

"Who are you?" Sharee put his arm off her and looked at him in suprise.

"My name is Victor Crane." He smiled.

Nadine sat at their fire and watched and listened intently. She had long been trying to figure out Victor Crane.

"What did he say about me?" Sharee asked.

"He told me that he had grown tired and lonely for the family he had left behind. That he missed his daughter and that his days had grown dark and blurred together. He said you would look at him and smile. That you would say 'hi Ramon' to him like he was the only man in the world you noticed. That you would come to him and speak with him when he was at his post. He said the darkness melted away and you were his light and joy. He felt hope that he could feel so good. Then after time had gone by he couldn't tell you how you made him feel. How jealous he would get seeing you with other men. How it hurt when you started ignoring him. How he would try to get your attention or to get you to react to him like you used to." Victor Crane recalled.

"He said he sometimes wished that he had never fallen for you. But then he would remember how you gave him love in a life of such empty and endless struggle and pain."

"Please." Sharee asked Victor Crane. He knew that if he didn't sleep with her she would be forced to have it all back. Ramon had been his best friend.

"Not tonight." Victor Crane said softly. "Find someone else."

"You bastard." She stood and stormed away. It wasn't long before she wept and then wailed at the escape of love from her heart. A special kind of pain. Time had been stolen. Returned to what belonged to the wastes.

Nadine watched Victor Crane staring at the fire feeling smug with himself. Her jaded stare twinkled in merry amusemant. Her hand slipped to her skirt as she watched him.

By this time the bones had been nearly cleaned and giant ants came to claim them carrying them deep into the earth.

queen of sands

The caravan continued into the Jones Flats where only scattered brahmin skulls and broken wagon wheels remained of those who had failed it’s dry test. In the distance an electrical storm danced like insane ballarinas in an xray.

A dead brahmin lay pulling a stopped cart loaded with supplies. On the packed yellow gray earth a spread of cards lay being read by a woman dressed in the same color. The caravan wove around her as she muttered mystically under her hood.

“My words…useless to alter their fate…the crumbling tower and the hierophant propose a fatal riddle.” She uttered over the last cards of the row. The very last one appeared to look like Doctor Richard Preston of NCR. She continued to the last unturned cards. “Among them the queen of sands…her companion the page of caps…gone…the winds of change have ravaged her body or mind.” She looked up.

“Welcome to my caravan weary traveller.” The caravan master obliged. He gestured and some of his men began unloading her overburdened cart.

“Thank you.” She spoke. Her appearance was suprisingly youthful and lush. Under her tattered robes and unkempt hair a very beautiful woman hid herself.

She walked into the caravan leaving her possessions to be spread and absorbed by the caravan.

She soon found Nadine and walked beside her.

“Who are you?” Nadine asked her.

“I am called Driw.” She told the girl.

“You look strangely familiar.” Nadine said without hesitation.

“As do you.” Driw smiled warmly. Thirst had cracked her normally full lips. Nadine offered the woman some of her own water.

“Thank you. Perhaps later I can share something with you.” Driw spoke mildly as she sipped.

That evening the caravan stopped at Mercy National Campground. Driw led Nadine to a worm eaten picnic table.

“Pick a card.” She said over the down turned deck. Nadine took one. The picture was of a dark haired girl with youthful features but old wise eyes. She wore a thin metal beaded tiara low on her face and held a pip-boy in one hand and an hourglass in the other. She was robed in a fine sheet and next to her sat a red imp with big white eyes.

“Strange.” Nadine handed the card back to Driw who glanced at it.

“The queen of sands.” Driw told Nadine. “She is you…”

“This is a wasteland tarot reading?” Nadine sat quietly after her question as Driw shuffled the deck.

“Yes with the suites: sands, caps, guns and lore (cups).” Driw summarized briefly. She made an intricate spread and began reading the cards.

The first was again the queen of sands followed by the page of caps and then the two of lore.

“These mean that you have loved and lost.” Driw waited for a moment for Nadine to comprehend. “And perhaps that such a combination was devastating on you to lose.”

“I had a miscarriage after I buried Marcus James. I cannot bear again.” Nadine confessed.

“Of course. Your body was ravaged by the winds of change…now I see.” Driw said almost to herself. Then she turned the next three cards.

“Recently you…this is the four of sands, the four of guns and the devil.” Driw introduced those cards. The last was an image of a Deathclaw holding a book in one hand and a staff in the other. “You met someone at a place where many gather. He knew much about you and he…somehow spared your life or your dignity.” Driw looked up with one pale gray eye and one yellow. Nadine hadn’t before noticed the slightly older woman’s eyes before. They were typically hidden by her hood and scraggly hair.

“Yammon.” Nadine breathed. “At Noble Springs…”

“Of course…the Silver Devil knew of your troubles by your scent alone. And because it would have been kind to end your misery it instead spared your life.”

“Tell me more.” Nadine was now listening to the witch. She herself had often been called a witch but only by men who she wouldn’t sleep with. Here was the real thing.

“These three…your present. The five of lore, the page of guns and the universe.” Driw showed Nadine the last card. It featured a mushroom cloud with the sign of the atom imposed in front of it. “You have learned more of someone recently who you have known for awhile. He is not what you expected and you are trying to learn more. But his secrets are locked away from you now. Something you have said perhaps has made it impossible to learn more about him.”

“Is this more about Yammon?” Nadine asked.

“No…this is a man. We shall see if this matters. In the near future: The nine of guns, the crumbling tower and the moon” Driw breathed a sigh of relief. “He will not matter to you soon. Something else is more important. You will have a sign given to you by many who you do not know well. What they say will only have meaning when you reach a certain day…then you will understand their advice perfectly.”

“A will receive advice I won’t understand?” Nadine had a tone of irony in her voice.

“In the future: the six of sands, the king of guns and the chariot.” Driw paused for a few minutes while considering these last cards in conjunction with the present and near future sets. The king of guns looked mysteriously like Victor Crane to Nadine. But it was the chariot that had baffled the fortune teller. It looked like one of those used by Caesar’s Legion vexillarius. Nadine had no idea what it meant.

“What?” Nadine asked.

“The one who you would know more about…you will never know better. But the advice of others…will lead you to his side and from there he will point you on a path of fate. Your fate will be very pinnacle to the wasteland.” Driw said carefully.

“I don’t understand.” Nadine frowned.

“Bide your time. Someday you will belong to this man for a short time and he will somehow send you on your journey that will lead to your fate.” Driw reinerated.

“Victor Crane?” Nadine knew who Driw meant. She had said nothing to him. She had let that other woman do the talking. But she had learned what he was really like that night. To Nadine he was not a mystery at all. Just a boy like any other, although a little more clever or emotional. Between those she couldn’t decide. He was no Marcus James and she would never allow herself to ‘belong’ to him. She decided the reading was flawed and left the witch to muse.

Driw shuffled the cards back into her deck to get a more accurate spread. This time she used only seven cards. She concentrated as the laid them out face up on after the next. So this was the girl’s fate.

Driw smiled evilly.

The Patriots

The Caravan had been being absorbed and redirected at Thousand Acres national campground. Fires were attended by story tellers. The monster they spoke the most of attended them.

Nadine roled over and awoke from a long disgusting sleep. She needed a bath. She got one without question.

"my lady a hermit asks your presence" A female v told her.

"sure. Your one of a kind you know." Nadine winked at her.

"okay." she replied controlling her tone to make it sound remotely respectful.

Thousand Acres National Campground was much like Noble Springs where caravans met for a kind of fair. Sometimes it was abandoned and at other times it had three or even four sometimes even more caravans gathered at once. There was a pattern to this that could almost be predicted. Caravans followed routes and then timing factored into it. But no human had the stride or wisdom for such a forcast.

Nadine followed the female vault dweller to where this mysterious hermit had asked ofr her by name and waited for her. The blue jumpsuit wearing courier left her there with it. Yammon stood and greeted her with a sniff and a very bestial grunt.

"We meet again. Change your mind about me?" She asked him.

"Not hardly. I ate a human a few days ago. I keep forgetting how awful you things taste. I used to never eat people but I have changed. Sometimes I slip into a more feral and animal like madness and at other times I can hardly speak strait but my thoughts become much clearer." He told her. She remembered the last time she had heard him he did not articulate his words so well as this.

"You are making sense now." She told him.

"I know. It is like being drunk off of loneliness...or high off of the desert winds. And then there are these moments of clarity." He confessed. This explained a lot but solved nothing. Yammon was obviously not a normal Deathclaw and his intelligence was not human. It was impossible to understand him better than he did himself and he did not know what was happening to himself, obviously.

"Why tell all of this here and now and to me?" She asked after she pondered his presence.

"I don't know. A caprice of madness perhaps. I felt that I wanted to see you again." Yammon replied. They sat quietly for a few moments.

"My life has changed since I saw you last. I met this woman. She told me I have a great destiny ahead of me. She also knew I had met you. She thinks I will belong to this man, Victor Crane. He doesn't seem to want anyone least of all me. I think he actually despises me. I do not know why though but it has somehow made him more interesting than he was when I first knew him." Nadine told the monster.

"A great destiny?" Yammon inquired. "I could believe that. You are right, you have changed. Even your scent is different somehow. You have no fear...no hatred anymore. You used to smell of the evils of men and now you are different. The body follows where the mind goes."

"My mind? Or my soul perhaps. I do feel different. I haven't been spiteful. I watch Victor Crane. I do not want to belong to him whatever that means for even a short time. But I cannot help but desire his attention which he firmly denies me. It has sparked something in me I have no name for."

"I can understand the instinct to pursue that which is just beyond reach. My memories, of your shadows, they are all that is left of who I was. Before I became the unknowable thing that I am today. But greatness is not like that. It is something others recognize you for. Not something you will ever be able to understand about yourself. I would suggest you do not fight this thing any longer. Go make him yours. Ownership is mutual." Yammon made a strange gesture with the ends of his talons that slid out of his robes briefly.

"I hadn't thought of that. You think that sleeping with him will really do something for me? That seems ridiculous." She shook her head.

"I do not know what is in your heart anymore than you do. Perhaps mating with him will help you understand why you wanted to do so in the first place." He considered for her.

"Have you ever mated to see what you were feeling? That doesn't really make sense." She actually did make some sense of it but not with a conscious thought. The sense it made was on some deeper level.

"I have never mated." Yammon said. "The closest I ever came was in New Vegas...the Sky Queen tried something unnatural with me but I escaped her evil intentions."

"You almost mated with a human?" Nadine laughed. She stifled her laughted hoping she hadn't hurt his feelings.

"That was a long time ago. Before I became like the ghouls and the beasts. Before I lost all of my friends who brought out the best in me while those days lasted. I even loved them, especially Carrie who was much like myself back then. But they are all gone now. We went up against the Enclave and lost. Sometimes the bad guys really do win. That is what it means to live in the wastelands." Yammon summarized his experiences further.

"I lost my loved ones also. My baby and its father were taken from me. Victor Crane cannot possibly replace the love I had for them. I cannot even make another baby because my womb was ruined. What would be the point of getting into his bed?" She did not see love in her own future. Perhaps this is what Yammon liked about her so much. And giving her hope somehow helped him in a way.

"You have mated with other men since your husband died." Yammon reminded her.

"Yeah becuase I am a caravan girl now. It is like my job to put out occasionally, you know? Marcus James would have approved of the ones I slept with. I am not like the other girls. Getting me is like a special privelege for these men. I am Marcus James widow and they afford me respect."

"What about Victor Crane? He does not help your reputation? He is not man enough for you?" Yammon became her devil's advocate.

"He is...he is...um...He is better than the others in many ways. Smarter, more graceful, better looking. He has a good work ethic. The other girls all want him but he ignores their advances and he doesn't make any." She considered.

"Maybe he is gay." Yammon made a noise sorta like a growl but softer, almost like purring. She knew that this was it's version of a laugh.

"He isn't. He gets along with the gays fine but he isn't one of them. He has bedded a few girls when the mood finally suits him. But it is rare. It is me he wants but he has a strange way of showing it."

"By keeping his distance?"

"Yes. Even if I greet him he says nothing. Once in awhile he acknowledges me but briefly. But I do watch him. His cold shoulder has only made him more fascinating to me. We used to talk and at first he was shy but then he got bolder with me. Then suddenly and irrevocably he began with this silent treatment. It was after Ramon Davidson died thereabout." She recalled.

"Have you even given this much thought before tomight?" Yammon sounded doubtful.

"No I avoid thinking about him. It is going nowhere, what is the point? Other than what Driw said to me about him and my 'great destiny' after I leave his side I would have let the matter go. But I am so curious now. And as you have made me realize it has somehow subtly changed me. I don't understand." She had little else to say and Yammon was pondering her situation so there was silence between them.

There was a pre dawn glow on the horizon.

"I should go. If we meet again I would like to know how this turns out for you." Yammon handed her something. It was a package of some kind wrapped in greasy rags. He left her there using the last of the night's darkness to dissapear.

Nadine unwrapped whatever it was he had given her. It was a book.

She opened it and as light spilled over the pages she squinted at the words. She could not read very well but was able to discern that the book's author was named 'Goris'. She wondered who Goris was and decided the book belonged in the witch's hands. Driw was it's rightful owner somehow. And then she could tell Nadine what it was about. Nadine wandered back into camp passing Victor Crane sleepily sitting up from his makeshift bed and lean to. He eyed her then looked away. She smiled as she passed him heading to where Driw was.

Nadine wondered what the witch might have to say about her recent encounter with Yammon...

wicked! :goodjob:

"Maybe he's gay" "He isn't."

Now there's a conversation that could have gotten icky

Two Mutants walk into a bar...

"Two Cowboy Rodeo Ghouls walk into this bar...and they start shooting up the place. Then one walks over to the bar tender and says:" The first old timer in the Desert Saloon said to the second as they sat sipping theit drinks in the stale dusty afternoon.

"Borning. The other one has to order the drinks from the first one to play out the scene. It isn't even a joke it is sopposed to be a riddle you idiot." The second old timer said to the first one who had been interupted while telling his joke.

Suddenly two super mutants kicked in the door and blew the place apart with minguns. In the process of this everyone inside was liquified by liqued lead. Then they surveyed the damage.

"All dead. move on. We go kill now." One grunted in a kind of baby-talk neanderthal voice.

"Knock it off Carl, we got em all. No need to play 'stupid brute super mutant attack'. We can get the case and go get our money." The Other super mutant said to carl.

"What Lenny?" What say? Huh?" Carl blathered idiotically. Lenny the other super mutant examined Carl. They had both been hit several times by stray bullets and richochets. But Carl had taken on to the head. A direct shot.

"Damn now I gots me a brute." Lenny growled imitating Carl with dispondent sarcasm.

They began to rummage the Bar. Lenny set Carl up as a barkeep.

"Set a glass." He ordered.

"Open that bottle."

"Pour it there." Lenny pointed. He drank it miserably.

"Pour again..." Lenny demanded. On this went for sometime...

"Not Marcus James..."

Nadine had been posing in a kind of leaning still-standing shadow casting 'wait for you to notice me' kinda way over him for some time before he looked up at her in an almost irritated way. Victor Crane brightened when he saw it was Nadine James who had interrupted his work. He had been leaning under a brahmin tying it to the cart. Such a process could be quite a chore when done alone. Victor Crane was known for completing tasks that were typically done by several workers single-handedly.

"I need your help, uh, with a wagon wheel over there." She pointed and smiled. He noticed she had done something with her hair. Her eyes held much more she seemed to want to say but stopped herself. It was only because this was the closest thing to his attention she had gotten in months from him.

"What do you mean?" He looked up and past her and saw no cart where she had pointed.

"Just follow me. It will be an hour before we go. Don't be a jerk." She stepped closer to him like a snake about to bite and without further hesitation she kissed him full on on the lips. Victor Crane was suprised but reacted on instinct. First he pushed her off of him but without more ado he wrapped his arm around her slight waist and pulled her to him and kissed her back.

Their eyes held in a mix of profane colors without a merciful blink. They had both been waiting for this moment long enough to forget what pride had made the air between them so inpenetrable for so long. He kissed her again as if the first two forceful kisses had held little meaning. His second kiss was the real one and Nadine felt herself melting in his arms. One foot just sorta popped off of the ground behind her as if a mind of it's own as she leaned onto him.

"Now follow me...we don't want to be left behind." She tugged at his shirt, batting her eyelashes. Victor obeyed without more resistance. They were soon alone in a few trees near a picnic bench and rusting elevated grill next to it. She assessed the spot she had chosen with a quick survey the sat on the table part of the picnic bench and pulled him to her.

She returned his second kiss with her own and unlike other men she had used her good kisses on she didn't have to pretend he was Marcus James. "Victor" She sighed. His hands seemed to be all over her at once and his other kisses worked their way over her neck and shoulders. Her own actions were simply feeding his fire and lost some of their details in a kind of erotic veiling...

Much later...

The Caravan was pulling out of Thousand Acres National Campground heading northeast when the two of them rejoined it. Nadine wanted to walk beside him and he reluctantly let go of her hand to attend to his own cart so that she could go ride with Driw. She needed to go see the old mysterious witch who had been right...probably about everything.

"I love you." She told him as she left his side. He said nothing but watched her swaying hips and drifting hair as she dissapeared further toward the back of the caravan. Victor Crane walked over to his parked cart and glanced at the picnic spot they had defiled or made sacred. His feelings demanded recognition but he struggled to concentrate on his duties and drove his brahmin into the caravan as it left this place behind.