Rising After the Fall Ch. 02

This is chapter two of a multi-chapter story requested by Adam and written by Vanessa Foxe (breedorbebred)

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Cianna gave the pot on the stove another quick stir, then double-checked that the element was set low enough that the food wasn't at risk of boiling over. Satisfied, she dropped the lid back into place, sat down in her customary chair at Zavier's small kitchen table, and started riffling through the messenger bag she'd left hanging on the back of it. The oats would still need to cook at a low simmer for another five or ten minutes, and she didn't need to be standing guard over the stove for that.

A small, private smile crossed her face at the thought of having a usual chair. Before Zavier extended his parents' hospitality to her, Cianna's "customary seat" had been wherever there was a free spot in the base's cafeteria. She'd never had a real home, somewhere that she returned to frequently enough to really settle into.

It was an odd feeling, but certainly not an unpleasant one.

While at first she'd felt like an interloper in this home, it had grown on her. And she'd felt a lot more comfortable after Zavier made a video call to his parents so Cianna could introduce herself and ask permission to stay. Even before the call, Zavier had been certain his mother and father would be fine with her presence, but she'd wanted to hear it from them. Once she'd known that everyone involved was comfortable with the new living arrangements, it had been a lot easier to let herself really settle in.

The old-world supersoldier reminded herself for the hundredth time that this was a temporary arrangement, and there was no sense in getting too attached. True, this "temporary arrangement" had gone from a quick overnight to a nine-week stay, but she would be moving on as soon as she could. It would be pointless for her to get too attached to this place, or to anyone in it...

Soft footsteps down the hall told her that Zavier was finally up. He was an early riser, but she was always awake an hour or more before him-- her old sergeant had always said that if the sun was up before you were, then you had overslept.

The small roll of plastic was right where she expected it to be-- an inner pocket on one side of her tote bag. She packed the bag the exact same way every time, the exact same way she had packed it since basic camp.

Cianna pulled on the roll and tore the top packet off of it. After a moment's thought, she unrolled the whole length, counting the remaining packages even though she already knew the number she would come to. She had checked her supplies almost daily over the last two months, and the running tally in her head was perfectly accurate. Nevertheless, she ran a finger down the line of plastic and counted up her pills again.

The number hadn't somehow magically changed overnight, so she still had exactly as much left as she'd had yesterday-- minus the pouch she had pulled off just now.

"Seems like such a waste," Zavier mumbled in a sleepy voice. He watched her from the doorway as Cianna carefully rolled the rest of the disposable pill pouches back up. "That's so much plastic. Couldn't they have just put them in a couple of glass bottles?"

Cianna said nothing, just like she'd done the last twenty times Zavier had complained about all the plastic packaging she went through. Privately, she had to admit that he was right: the package was wasteful, but at least it was convenient. Her pills were carefully pre-portioned to exactly what she needed to take daily, with each day's pills packed into its own plastic pouch. The inch-long packets were attached end-to-end, and rolled into a cylinder of plastic. A cylinder that was much smaller now than it had been when she first awoke in her cryopod outside of Elk River Valley.

The pack was serrated along one side, and she tore it open to pour the pills into her hand. Each morning's allotment was exactly the same as the one before, but she counted the pills just to make sure. She wasn't even sure what all of them did, just that every member in her team of genetically-augmented elite soldiers was given a daily ration of pills.

When the pills ran out, she wouldn't know how to replace them. Which was just one more reason why she had to be ready to leave this quiet, idyllic little town as soon as she could.

With her pills taken and the pack returned to precisely where she always put it, Cianna turned and busied herself with finishing her work on the pot of oatmeal. She worked with literal military efficiency, having already lined up each ingredient already beside the pot in the order she would use them. Nuts, seeds, dried fruit, a generous allotment of sugar-- exactly the way she'd made it yesterday, and the day before that.

"Smells delicious," Zavier sighed as he sat down across the table from Cianna's usual spot. "Are you working with Alannis again today?"

"Just for a few hours this morning." Cianna ladled the oatmeal into two bowls, then set the empty pot in the sink.

Zavier would wash the dishes, per their standing agreement-- whoever cooked didn't have to clean up afterwards. Cianna had agreed to this perfectly equitable arrangement, but only because Zavier hadn't been willing to accept her doing all of the chores herself. He'd insisted that she didn't need to work to repay him for letting her live here, and she had finally gotten tired of arguing.

Usually, the soft young man was quick to give in to Cianna's suggestions or requests. Maybe that was because she stood more than a foot-and-a-half taller than him and outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds. More likely, his agreeability was just part of his nature: Zavier rarely argued with anyone, didn't like to assert himself, and struggled to even raise his voice at someone when it was necessary. But when it came to insisting that others didn't need to do things for him, Zavier was actually quite stubborn. That, Cianna could relate to.

"Sounds fun," he said around a mouthful of hot oats. "Are we still on for this afternoon?"

"Yep. I should be back by noon, and we'll be fine to leave for two o'clock."

Cianna sat and started methodically working through her breakfast. She'd given herself about twice as much as she'd spooned out for Zavier. He'd been surprised the first time he saw her sit down and clear a meal big enough for two, but he'd eventually gotten used to Cianna's large appetite.

The genetic-modification program responsible for the old world's supersoldiers had given Cianna a few advantages over unmodified humans: she was bigger, built muscles more easily and kept them for longer, had faster reflexes, and could even see better in the dark. But there were drawbacks, too, and high metabolism was the least of them. Some of the pills she took every morning helped mitigate the harsher costs of her augmentations.

"How's the power cell looking?" Zavier didn't specify what battery he was talking about-- but then, he didn't need to. There was only one power cell in the house that was worth talking about.

Cianna grimaced. "I checked this morning. It's charged up to just under fifty percent."

She started charging her military-grade power cell the night she first arrived in Elk River Valley, siphoning off whatever excess power the settlement could spare. She could only do so at night, when the settlement's power usage was reduced enough to have reserves that she could take. Even then, the going was incredibly slow. The device was meant to be plugged into specialised stations powered by small nuclear reactors, where it could draw incredible amounts of power.

The tiny trickle of power the settlement provided didn't even translate to one percent of the battery's capacity per day. And, as the nights grew colder and Elk River's inhabitants used more power to heat their homes, the power they could spare each day was shrinking.

Zavier nodded, but didn't say another word. They both understood that when her power cell was charged-- or as charged as she was going to be able to get it-- it was going to be time for Cianna to leave. The idea of leaving this small, peaceful community, not to mention Zavier, left a ball of emotions in her gut too tangled for Cianna to sort through. So, rather than trying to deal with that, she simply let the matter drop as they finished their meal in silence.

Cianna's bowl was empty before Zavier's, despite having far more in it to begin with, and she set it inside the pot for him to deal with, then grabbed her bag and left with a nod and a wave.

Elk River Valley was largely self-sufficient-- especially since Zavier's parents had brought them a few crates full of high-efficiency, recyclable solar panels several years ago. Most of their food came from a long stretch of farmland that hugged the eponymous Elk River, a pair of rice paddies, and the two large agricultural domes that allowed for year-round food growth. They'd even taken to growing tea leaves and a few other exotic plants that the Outquisition supplied them with when Zavier's family moved into town two years prior. The rice paddies were fed by the town's wastewater, which was cleaned by carps and catfish in a massive artificial pond that used few chemicals.

All consumption here was balanced against production, with renewability and preservation in mind. This was apparently the norm for this whole region.

It was all so different from how the world was before. Greed, mass consumption, and unsustainable practices all led to ever-escalating resource usage. The demand became too high for supply to keep up, and then pollution and contamination ruined so much of what was left. It led to war, and the eventual destruction of Cianna's entire nation... The destruction of much of the world.

All of that had culminated just a few months ago, from Cianna's perspective. Meanwhile, outside of her cryopod, the world had moved on and healed. When she first awoke, she'd assumed mere years had gone by, but now she suspected it had been much, much longer-- decades, at least.

Sitting on a lovely bench made of recycled timber at the northern edge of the woodland, Alannis was waiting for her. She greeted Cianna from afar with a friendly wave, and grinned at her as she got closer.

"Finally woke up, hm?" the old woman teased when Cianna drew close enough for conversation. "Thought you'd leave me here all morning."

No matter how early Cianna set out to meet with Alannis, the old woman always seemed to get there a bit sooner. Cianna had no idea how old the other woman was, but the white hair and deep wrinkles made Cianna think her age was somewhere in the range of mid-sixties to early seventies. "You know me, grandmother-- always slacking."

Everyone seemed to call her "grandmother", although, as far as Cianna could tell, Alannis had never had any children, let alone grandchildren. Her last name was Janesdottir, a holdover from her family's Scandinavian roots. It seemed to Cianna like the old world's borders and national identities didn't mean as much in this new world, but some liked to hold onto their ancestral artifacts.

The old woman still busied herself foraging in the surrounding woods and fields, bringing back what she liked to call "nature's gifts": wild-grown fruit, nuts, mushrooms, and seeds. She had been doing this for fifty years or more, and had apparently learned how to forage for local food and herbs from her father, who had learned from his mother.

Alannis beamed even wider at Cianna, clearly pleased that she'd gotten the best of the much younger woman again. "Shall we start, or would you like to rest a little longer?"

Not wanting to give Alannis the satisfaction, Cianna simply ignored the jab and held out a hand for the old woman.

After fifty-odd years of stooping down to pull up tubers and fungi, Alannis wasn't quite as nimble as her young helper. These days, she walked with a cane made of recycled aluminum-- which someone had hand-engraved with pictures of flowers and trees for her-- and needed help gathering foragables from ground-level. Apparently, the youngsters in town took turns helping Janesdottir as she wandered the woods, but recently Cianna had taken over the burden.

Cianna had been looking for some kind of work to show the community that she was pulling her own weight, and the old woman had needed help from someone strong enough to hike and haul bags of food. A win-win.

The foraging was a lot more enjoyable than the odd labour jobs Cianna had been doing for folks in town before, and it gave her a chance to perform a tactical survey of the surrounding area. So far, she'd seen no signs of the facility where her pod had been stored when she first got in it, and no evidence of any other pods. So, along the way, Cianna focused on trying to learn some local history from the old woman.

The trouble with that was that Cianna couldn't just come right out and say, "I'm a supersoldier from the old world's military, and I was in a cryogenic sleep for somewhere between ten and a hundred years-- can you tell me what year it is, what the current geopolitical landscape looks like, and how to find a hidden base full of my sleeping comrades?"

Instead, she and Alannis had a little game they played. Cianna would ask surreptitious questions about historical details and dates, trying to figure out what year it was and what had gone on while she'd been asleep by process of elimination, and Alannis would ask questions about more recent history that Cianna had to bluff her way through. Alannis had clearly figured out that Cianna wasn't from around here-- or from around now-- but the soldier was trying to keep the old woman from guessing the full truth. And so it went, back and forth, as they followed hidden trails that only Alannis knew.

"Today, I'm especially on the lookout for chickweed, and others in that family," Alannis explained as they walked. "They're mostly a spring plant, but they make this almost magical resurgence after the first frost and the autumn rains. It's a short window before they wilt again, so we have to get as much as we can this week. And, of course, you know what folks in these parts do with chickweed..."

And this was the test. Surely anyone who lived in this region would know how to use foraged chickweed, right? "You can mash it into a salve," Cianna answered confidently. She had studied a foraging handbook that Zavier's parents, as part of the Outquisition, had brought with them to Elk River. "It's good for skin conditions."

"And you can eat the leaves as salad greens, of course." Alannis' eyes twinkled as she spoke, clearly thinking she'd caught Cianna out.

"Of course... as long as you don't eat too much at once. It'll give you quite the upset stomach."

Alannis gave her a wink but didn't say anything else, and Cianna felt a twinge of anxiety. Had she said something wrong? Did her answer sound too much like something out of a textbook, and not enough like something someone who was comfortable with the subject would say?

They got lucky and found a few big patches of the bright green herb, not to mention a trio of trees that were positively covered in shelves of Chicken of the Woods, an edible mushroom that actually had a nice savoury flavour. They also spotted a lone buck taking a mid-morning drink from a small creek. Cianna crouched low-- as low as a seven-foot tall woman could get, anyway-- and closed in on the deer. She carefully reached into her bag and drew one of the items she'd taken to carrying with her everywhere since waking up.

The buck lifted his antlered head and stared in her direction as Cianna lined him up in her sights, but he didn't spot her. She toggled the lens slightly, bringing him more clearly into focus, and took her shot. The camera made faint clicking sounds as she caught half a dozen pictures of him before he finally decided he was done and took his leave.

Photography for fun, instead of as part of a reconnaissance mission, was new to Cianna. It was a simple hobby, one that brought her a surprising amount of joy. She'd never had enough time to pursue activities like that before-- there were only so many assigned recreation hours per week in her regiment.

"Did you get a good picture?" Alannis asked, peering over Cianna's shoulder as she packed the camera back up.

It was too bright out to see the screen well, but she was pretty sure some of those shots would turn out nicely. The picture would probably join the others on the wall in her room... The wall in Zavier's parent's spare bedroom, she corrected herself. No matter how comfortable she had grown in that space, it was only temporary.

Zavier didn't understand what made her collection of pictures so special to Cianna, and she hadn't really been able to explain it. How did you explain to someone born in a world of greenery that a clear, unpolluted stream was something special? That seeing animals thriving in natural spaces was amazing, when he had never seen wildlife habitats reduced down to narrow strips of "preserves" as urbanization spread further and further out?

Alannis seemed to understand... or maybe she just thought it was endearing that Cianna liked to stop and take pictures of each new wildflower she saw.

They ended their trip with a stop at a wild orchard, a large clearing where someone had planted half a dozen crabapple trees and some elderberry bushes decades ago. Alannis, and others like her, had foraged from these plants and tended the ground around them over the years since, until what was left was a large, natural garden. The two women filled another sack with small, sour crabapples, and even a few handfuls of acorns that Alannis said could be ground down into a nutritious flour for baking.

Alannis' hip was starting to bother her by then, and the walk back took twice as long as the trip out. Cianna's watch-- a gift from Zavier, which he'd apparently recovered and repaired himself-- told her she was behind schedule.

She'd have to skip the shower if she wanted to be on time for her outing with Zavier, a fact that definitely did not please her. It's not that Cianna felt she had to look good for the get-together, of course. Zavier had been quite specific that their time spent together was not a date when she had asked him point-blank what his intentions were. They both knew she wasn't going to be around long enough for any attachment like that to be wise.

There was no reason she should need to look her best before meeting up with him, since this wasn't a date, and yet the idea of looking less than that made her feel anxious.

It was a genuine struggle to match her pace to Alannis' slower shuffle, but Cianna managed... it wasn't like she was going to leave the old lady behind, after all. By the time they reached the unofficial city line and Alannis said she could make her way home from there, Cianna was already almost late.

She left the bags and basket of food with one of Janesdottir's friends, then took off at a half-run. Zavier was just stepping out of his parents' shop when Cianna rounded the corner, and he looked up and gave her a smile so wide and so bright that she physically staggered. Her heart raced in her chest and warmth flushed on her cheeks... but that probably had more to do with the fact that she'd just been jogging than anything else. She had already decided not to be interested in the young man, after all.

"Hey, Cianna," Zavier said breathlessly as she caught up with him. If her racing heart was from the sudden burst of cardio exercise, what was his excuse? "You ready to get going?"

"Of course." Cianna fell in beside Zavier, shortening her stride to match his relaxed pace. Zavier's legs were a fair bit shorter than hers, and he never seemed to be in a hurry-- except when he was running around the shop in a frenzy, searching for some component he'd mislaid.

His slow pace was actually one of the things she found most fascinating about him. Zavier lived, and had grown up in, this era of peace and plenty. The overall community's mode of operation was to work hard without rushing or pushing yourself, and no one seemed to expect others to do so. Compared to Cianna's own time, a period of endless war and fights over dwindling resources, this new world seemed nearly idyllic. Its people seemed so soft to her. Especially Zavier.

While she'd first thought his softness was a sign of laziness, lately she was increasingly seeing it as a precious trait to be preserved. When she looked at Zavier now, for some reason Cianna felt a rising sense of protectiveness. He had never been exposed to the hardships, the raw violence, that Cianna had grown up witnessing, and she realised that she would give anything to make sure he never was. That sense of protectiveness wasn't exactly new to her-- the point of a soldier was to fight to protect their people, after all-- but this felt different in a way she couldn't quite put her finger on.

Sorting through complicated emotions wasn't exactly her forte, so mostly Cianna tried not to think about it.

"What's the name of the play again?"

"Romeo and Juliet," he reminded her. "Shakespeare. It's a classic."

"I think I've heard of it," she said with a frown of concentration. "Really old, right? Isn't it supposed to be romantic?"

"I, uh, I guess." Zavier blushed slightly, and looked pointedly away from her as they walked towards the community's town hall, which also served as a theatre.

The kid was definitely starting to develop feelings for, Cianna decided. She was going to have to have a talk with him about it. If he wasn't going to be able to rein his emotions in, she might even need to find somewhere else to live. The thought of staying elsewhere made her stomach twist-- clearly she had gotten too used to the comfortable dwelling.

Since her arrival in Elk River Valley, Zavier had made a point of showing her around and helping her get used to this new world she found herself in. He'd really taken her under his wing, despite being about a decade younger than her. And while she took satisfaction in doing various jobs around the town and had started to enjoy her hobby of photography, these outings had quickly become the highlight of her days.

The first week of her stay, he'd brought her to a wide, slow portion of the Elk River and gotten her to dip her feet in the cold water with him. A week later, he'd shown her how to fly a kite, and last week they borrowed a pair of binoculars from one of his neighbours and had gone into the woods just to look at birds.

She had chosen not to point out that the small pair of binoculars she kept in her bag for reconnaissance would have worked better than the dusty old set he had borrowed.

Today, Zavier and Cianna had planned for their workdays to end a bit early so they could see a play. She'd watched movies before, of course, but had never actually seen a live play. When Zavier had learned that, he'd declared that she needed to go with him to see the community troupe's next show.

And so they settled into their seats in the half-filled theatre, near the back where Cianna and her tall frame wouldn't be at risk of blocking someone's view.

They were sitting next to each other, of course, and their proximity made Cianna feel immediately nervous. As the lights darkened and the crowd went from a buzz to a murmur to silence, Cianna tried to pick through her feelings. Why should she feel so nervous about being close to Zavier now? She'd sat near him plenty of times before, but somehow the combination of the darkened room, the shared activity, the romantic professions on stage, and the way his elbow kept lightly brushing against hers all added to the building bundle of nerves in her middle.

The time positively flew by, and she barely even remembered the break for intermission. In fact, she barely even remembered the play at all. Somehow, all that really stood out in her mind were Zavier's reactions: the way he'd snorted and laughed at one line, the way he'd gasped at Romeo's ill-advised suicide, and most of all the way he'd mouthed the words of one of the long monologues alongside the actors.

"I just don't see why she killed herself," Cianna complained as they exited the theatre into a cloudy evening sky. "I mean, sure, Romeo was dead and all-- and I don't get why he killed himself either. Wouldn't living his life be a better way to honour the girl he loved?"

"It's-- you-- they--" Zavier stammered before finally sighing and rolling his eyes. "They were so in love that they couldn't live without each other."

"I don't think that's love," Cianna huffed. "Love isn't possessiveness and self-destruction. It should be... It's about growing and learning, making each other better, and finding joy in the world."

She stopped talking as she felt the weight of Zavier's eyes on her, and turned to find him staring with an odd expression on his face. His eyes were so bright they practically outshone the streetlamps around them, and his gaze was so intense that for a moment she couldn't even breathe.

And then she felt a point of coldness roll down her neck, then another on her face. She looked up into the autumn sky as the dark clouds started opening up above them.

"Ack, that's cold!" Zavier squeaked as the chilly droplets started pattering down on them faster.

They weren't far from home-- his home, rather-- but the rain was falling heavier with every step they took. Zavier wasn't even wearing a coat, since it had been pretty warm when they'd met in the afternoon. Cianna had rolled hers up and tucked it in her bag before going out foraging, just in case the weather changed on her. She unzipped the warm, waterproof jacket and pulled it off now, then reached over to wrap it around Zavier's shoulders.

He looked up at her, shocked. The jacket hung down almost to his knees, and he looked so small in the big coat that Cianna couldn't help but laugh.

"But I don't want you to freeze!" He started trying to pull the jacket off to give back to her, but Cianna just laid her strong hands on his shoulder and arm until he stopped struggling.

"If you don't want me to freeze, then let's pick up the pace a little!"

They took off at a run, and Cianna slowed her pace to match his again. They burst through his front door at almost the same time, laughing and shaking the water off of themselves.

Zavier's hand brushed against her middle as he struggled his way out of the jacket, and they both froze. He stood there in front of her, jacket half-on and half-off, staring up at her as she stared back at him. They had both stood, and even worked together comfortably, in this front workshop, but now it suddenly seemed far too small. She wasn't sure if the room was shrinking or if they were growing, but it felt like the two of them somehow took up the whole space.

"Hey," he said quietly.

It made no sense-- they'd already greeted each other, and they had already been talking for the last few hours around the play. But she couldn't think of anything else to say, so she settled for a whispered, "Hey."

The moment stretched on, seconds into hours, minutes into years, until she slowly became aware of the fact that her close-cropped blonde hair was soaking wet and she was cold. She shook herself sharply, shaking off both the water and the heavy feeling that was settling over her. Just like that, the moment was over, and whatever magical effect had spread over them was dispelled.

"I'm going to have a quick shower before dinner," she said, then turned and walked up the stairs. "Chicken salad okay tonight?"

"Yeah, that's fine." His voice was quiet as he trailed behind, but she didn't ask about it. Better to not bring it up.

That was her policy with all of these quiet, tense moments that were happening between them more and more frequently.

The next day was damp and drizzly, and Alannis opted not to go out foraging until it abated. There were good things to gather in the rain, she said, but the rain didn't agree with her "old, knobbly knees."

Instead of working with the old woman, Cinna stayed at the house to help Zavier with his current project. Some of the engineers had sent back a complicated-looking circuit board, which apparently ran half the electronic components of the geothermal plant. It was already running at half-capacity with the ongoing repairs-- which had apparently been going on for years now-- and having more parts on the fritz only compounded the issue.

Any repairs for the power plant were always his top priority, so the day was spent clipping, soldering, and replacing. There had been a lot of this kind of repair work lately as everyone with any tech knowledge worked together to keep the geothermal power plant working smoothly for another season.

The two of them worked in silence, but it wasn't the comfortable kind she had gotten used to in her time with Zavier. There was a heaviness to the air, a tension she couldn't quite explain. It was like they were both waiting for something to happen, even though they didn't have anything planned. Or maybe they were both waiting for the other to say something, but she wasn't sure what she was supposed to say. The house felt almost claustrophobic around them.

Fortunately, the next day was clear enough, and she made a trip out into the forest by herself to pick more crabapples, and she was glad for the excuse to get out. But as soon as she was away from home, Cianna found herself even more tense. It was like she couldn't figure out if she wanted to go or stay.

But the decision was out of her hands. Once the power plant was fully operational again and the town had electricity to spare, it wouldn't take long for her power cell to finish charging, and then it would be time for her to leave.

Honestly, she could have left at any time, even if her battery wasn't fully charged. The cell could power her armour and gear for a while on a half charge, and the responsible thing would probably be to take what she had and go now. But Cianna couldn't quite make herself leave just yet. It was better to get as much power as she could now, she reasoned, rather than risking running out while she was searching for the lost facility.

Zavier made a trip to one of the large farming domes and came back with a small sack of quinoa and some fresh vegetables, and they stood shoulder-to-shoulder-- or maybe shoulder-to-elbow-- in the kitchen as she chopped the greens while he cooked the grains. They spoke sparingly, flitting along surface-level topics like they were afraid to say anything deeper than that.

After dinner, they went about their normal routines. Zavier sat and read on the long couch while Cianna retreated to her bedroom for her evening workout. Her room was on the middle floor with the kitchen and living room, below Zavier's and his parents'. She didn't have space for much of a gym in the moderately-sized room she was staying in, but Zavier had helped her install a metal bar above the door on the inside for pull-ups, and someone in town had traded her a small set of weights in return for her help repairing their roof.

Cianna finished a simple, hour-long, maintenance-level weight routine, as well as some basic floor exercises, and was just a few minutes into her chin-up routine when Zavier lightly tapped on her door.

"Come on in," she called between reps. She was glad the door opened outwards from the room, so she didn't have to move to make space. It also meant the door was slightly harder to kick in, but conversely harder to barricade in the event she needed to repel an intruder-- she'd taken those last two points into consideration before she'd spend more than five full minutes in the room when Zavier had first shown it to her.

The door opened silently, a testament to how well Zavier's family kept up the household. No wobbly chairs, no rusty hinges-- Cianna respected the dedication.

Zavier stood in the open doorway for a long moment, saying nothing. Was something wrong? Cianna pulled herself up for a ninth, then a tenth rep, then let herself drop back to floor-level. She found Zavier gawking with a flushed face and a literal dropped jaw. He caught himself quickly, coughing lightly and turning to look away from her.

Cianna looked down at herself in that brief moment, taking in her clothing. Thin, stretchy athletic pants and the black sports bra she usually worked out in. Nothing was out of the ordinary, and she couldn't figure out what Zavier's holdup was about. She pulled a small towel off of her desk and idly wiped at the sweat glistening on her muscled, toned abdomen while Zavier collected himself. It was inconvenient to put her workout on hold when she had just been starting to feel the burn, but she couldn't bring herself to feel negatively about Zavier's odd interruption.

"What's up?" she finally asked, breaking the awkward silence.

"I, uh, I was just outside on the deck. Upstairs, you know?" Zavier waved vaguely upwards, as if Cianna needed help figuring out where upstairs was. "And I looked up, and then wondered if you'd seen-- I mean of course you've seen stars, but I just wondered if you wanted to..."

"To..." she prompted with a raised eyebrow.

"Do you want to come look at the stars?" he asked quickly, the words all but tumbling over each other in his rush to spit it all out. "I mean, I don't know if you like that kind of thing, but I know you love nature and all..."

"The stars are out? That sounds really nice, Zavier. Give a minute here."

She turned and kicked off her training shoes, replacing them with the nice pair of slippers Alannis had gifted her two weeks ago. She briskly rubbed her face and the back of her neck with the towel before hanging it back up, then briefly considered grabbing a sweater. A white t-shirt on the ground seemed good enough, and she bent over to scoop it up and pull it over her head.

She turned around fast enough to catch Zavier looking intently in her direction again before he could turn and look away. This time she was pretty sure what he'd been staring at, but decided she was more amused than offended. "Shall we?"

He led the way up the stairs. She'd only been up here a few times, mostly just to visit the closet at the end of the hall where the family kept their extra towels. Zavier's room was on the left, and on the other side was a door she hadn't ever seen opened. Zavier opened that door now, into his parents' bedroom, and beckoned her to follow. On the far side of the darkened room was a wide sliding door leading to a patio balcony she had only seen from below.

"I don't really like going in their room," he explained as he opened the glass door for her and closed it behind them. "They don't mind, but it just feels weird. But they told me I can sit out here whenever, and I was just up here sweeping leaves off the balcony when I noticed..."

Zavier was still talking, but Cianna lost track of whatever he was saying. The balcony was half-covered, but the railing was all glass and it offered an unbeatable view of the town around them. Elk River Valley surrounded them on all sides, the streets quiet in the chilly night. The dim lights shining out through windows and carefully-covered streetlamps shed almost no illumination upwards, so there was almost nothing to block out the stars above.

"My God," she whispered, not daring to speak any louder, as if the very act of making noise might shatter the moment. Stars spanned every inch of visible sky, countless motes of light scattered in patterns she was familiar with only in theory. Cianna's heart lurched in her chest at the sheer majesty of it.

"You sound like you've never seen the stars before," Zavier teased, seemingly unaware of how close to the truth that statement was.

"I've seen them before," Cianna whispered without looking at him. She could not tear her gaze from the celestial painting above. "From the cockpit of an AX-91 a few times. Never... never like this."

In her time, the sky always seemed to be choked with pollution or the smoke of wars and volcanic activity. Above the layer of smog floated the countless thousands of satellites, orbiting the world or just staying put in an endless vigil, each threatening to drown out the stars with their own brilliant illumination. Below those, there had been the endless light pollution of a million million street lamps and brightly-lit skyscrapers.

"Here, sit down here." Zavier lightly touched her shoulder, guiding her to a cushioned loveseat.

She followed his directive without a word, eyes scarcely leaving the night sky as he settled in beside her. She'd been outside at night since waking up in this strange new world, of course, but it had been a particularly cloudy and drizzly season. Even when the sky was clear, she'd been keeping herself too busy to stop and truly look-- and now that she had, she regretted every missed opportunity to do so.

A light weight across her back turned out to be Zavier's arm wrapped around her, and Cianna let herself be held. And maybe, just maybe, she slumped down a little and leaned into him until their heads were lightly touching.

"It's so beautiful," she whispered, awe in her voice.

"Yeah, it is." Zavier's voice sounded different, subtly off in a way that immediately caught Cianna's attention. She pulled her attention from the panorama above to look at him, and found the eighteen-year-old staring at her instead of up at the sky like she'd been. "Truly beautiful."

The stars overhead seemed to shine down even brighter, if such a thing were possible.

A dull heat on her cheeks warned Cianna that she was blushing. That same warmth was echoed lower down, across her breasts and seeping out of her sternum. Her heart raced faster, then slower, then faster again as she stared at him. The heat made itself known in a third place, even lower down still.

"I've never really thanked you for everything you've done for me, Zavier."

"Of course you have," he answered with a nonchalant, dismissive shrug. "You've said thanks plenty of times."

"No, not like that," Cianna whispered. She reached out a tentative hand, lightly stroking it along his soft cheek and tracing the smooth line of his jaw. His hair was just long enough to look a bit shaggy, and a lock of dark hair had fallen onto his face. The soldier tucked the rogue hairs behind his ear without looking, and he inhaled sharply at the touch. "I mean really thanked you."

Zavier opened and closed his mouth like a fish dangling from a line, but no words came out. But Cianna didn't need to hear him speak to know what he wanted. She leaned in, closing the already short distance between them and pressing her lips against his.

All the air in his lungs came out in a whooshing sigh at the brief contact, and the taste of his breath in her mouth made Cianna's heart pound even harder in her chest.

She turned until her chest was pressed against his shoulder, their faces now mere inches apart as he gazed up at her. All the stars above were reflected in his dark brown eyes, and she was sure the light of it was reflected off of her own blue irises right back at him.

"Do you want this?" she asked, her voice low and husky.

He nodded-- breathless, wordless-- and she smiled.

"Good."

Cianna reached down and took hold of her white tee, pulling it over her head and letting it fall on the seat behind her. Zavier managed to tear his eyes away from hers, only for his gaze to fix on the tight cleavage her sports bra was holding in place. His face positively glowed with lust, affection, and wonder, and she could feel her mouth pulling up in a small smirk. It was nice to feel admired.

While Cianna's arms and shoulders were hard with lean muscle, she'd never let herself skip flexibility exercises, and it was no struggle to reach behind her own back. Tonight's workout was low-impact, so she'd been wearing her comfier athletic bra, and Cianna was grateful she happened to be wearing something with clasps. Fighting with a claspless bra was embarrassing enough on its own, but it was worse when you had an audience-- she knew that from experience. Fortunately, the clasps didn't give her the slightest bit of trouble tonight as she pulled them apart.

Zavier gave a barely audible gasp as the cups of her bra fell away from Cianna's breasts. Her muscle tone had probably taken away from her breast size, but what she had left was obviously more than enough for him.

"Can I..." he whispered, voice fading as his face blushed such a bright scarlet that she could see it even in the twilight.

Rather than give verbal encouragement, Cianna simply reached down and took Zavier's hands in her own. They weren't as soft as they looked, she mused as she lifted and guided them to her breasts. He had small calluses from all the work with fine tools, even at his young age. His fingers and hands didn't feel as strong as hers, but she knew they were dextrous. Nimble.

Zavier inhaled sharply again as his hands met the soft, pale skin of her breasts. Her nipples had stiffened in the cool night air, and their firm points pressed against his palms.

"God, they're beautiful," he mumbled as he cradled her tits in his hands.

"Thank you." The look of excitement and reverence on his face was as endearing as it was flattering, and Cianna longed to see just how far Zavier was willing to go. Would his excitement win out over his natural shyness? "You can play with them a bit, if you like."

Zavier nodded emphatically, and started stroking his hands in small circles across her breasts. While Cianna wasn't terribly busty in the chest, for which she'd always been grateful, her breasts filled his hands completely. They were also still firm and perky on her chest despite her being almost thirty: the end result of being blessed with a smaller chest and wearing high-support bras under her armour since adolescence.

"Go ahead and play with the nipples," she suggested, and Zavier eagerly followed her directions. He shifted his hands so he could trace his thumb over her stiff nipples, drawing even more goosebumps from the surrounding areolas. "Do you like that?"

"Yeah," he breathed.

The eagerness written so plainly on his face left Cianna with no doubts that young Zavier was still a virgin. She'd been pretty sure before, but his reactions now made it plain and obvious. Cianna was a lot more experienced in these matters, of course-- she'd been raised on a military base in mixed cohorts. There was a reason every man and woman born from the gene tanks like her was given contraceptives in their mix of daily pills. When you gathered a group of fit, athletic teens and made them workout and sweat together, and then sleep in neighbouring bunks, the outcome was pretty obvious.

But Zavier was purer than that. He didn't move with the casual confidence of someone used to touching and being touched, but exuded the enthusiasm that came with exploration and new discovery. His frank eagerness was... actually kind of hot, Cianna admitted to herself.

"You can squeeze my breasts a bit, too-- ah, not that hard."

"Sorry," he winced as he pulled his hands from her chest like he had just touched a hot element on a stovetop.

"That's okay, Zavier." She turned even more as she spoke, swiveling and swinging one leg over his until she was straddling his hips and sitting on his knees. She kept her legs tense as she leaned into his lap, hyper aware of the size difference between them-- she didn't want to squish the poor boy.

With her tits now directly in front of his face, Zavier's momentary hesitation evaporated like a drop of water under the desert sun. His hands were on her breasts again instantly, palming and lightly squeezing the tall woman's well-rounded breasts as she leaned in close to him.

"Just like that," she whispered. "That's nice, Zavier."

She was about to offer that he could also use his mouth if he wanted, but as Cianna leaned back to push her chest towards him, she brushed against the obvious evidence of his arousal. It wasn't a surprise that the heavy petting had gotten him so excited: this was probably the farthest he had ever gotten with someone.

What was a surprise was the weight of the pressure against her inner thigh. She hadn't thought about what Zavier looked like under his clothes-- not that she would ever admit to, anyway-- but if she had, she might have assumed the small, slight man would be proportionately built. And while the erection straining against his loungewear pants didn't feel like a ridiculous python, it certainly didn't feel small, either.

Cianna shifted her legs again until she straddled only one of his, opening up access to the space between his thighs. She trailed a strong hand down his middle, straying over his flat stomach before teasing along the hem of his pants.

"Can I touch you?" she asked softly, and he nodded twice. Eagerness positively oozed off of him, and her core burned even warmer as her palm made its slow way further down Zavier's body. She stroked down the front of his pants, letting her fingers trace the outline of his hardness. He was definitely bigger than she might have assumed-- had she ever thought about it, which she surely hadn't-- but it wasn't anything she couldn't handle.

Advanced combat training covered the handling of all kinds of firearms, after all, from the small to the quite large.

Cianna's fingers trailed back up to the base of him, then she stroked her palm down his length through his pants again. The young man groaned in a mixture of arousal and plaintive desperation. She had him absolutely melting in her hands, and the delicious taste of that power had her close to melting, too.

His pants had no buttons or zipper, just a simple string tie, which she undid now. Cianna reached down under the band of Zavier's pants to feel his uncovered member, and this time his groan was even louder. She was glad the sound of it had covered the small moan of arousal that had slipped through her lips as she closed her fingers around him. The war had gotten more and more desperate towards the end, and it had been a while since she'd had enough time or a fitting partner to relieve tensions with. It was possible she was a little backed up, herself.

She ran her hand up and down his cock, wrapping around it and slowly pulling the skin forward and back. Her thumb trailed up over the bunched texture of his foreskin, and she rolled it slightly to tease him even more. Zavier grunted in unrestrained pleasure as she teased him, and Cianna's smile grew even wider.

A thick drop of his arousal welled up at the tip of him, which Cianna smeared with her thumb to get a bit of lubrication. She stroked her slicked finger up the underside of him, then wrapped her fingers around his crown with more delicacy than one might expect from such a strong woman. She gently squeezed and pulled downwards, rolling his foreskin away from his head to expose him fully.

And speaking of exposing him...

This time Cianna lifted her legs off of his completely, then dropped back to crouch between his feet. She took hold of his pants and pulled downwards, and Zavier happily lifted his hips off of the patio seat's cushion so she could slide his pants down over his ass.

She had to lean back a little to get the pants all the way down. After a moment's consideration, she pulled his pants and loose boxers off entirely, tossing them aside to drape over the back of a wicker chair.

Now he was fully naked from the waist down, except for his clean white socks, and Cianna pulled on his hips to slide him towards the edge of his seat as she got to her knees on the floor between his spread legs. His stiff, swollen cock pointed straight up and waved like a pendulum with each movement of his hips, and she felt her tongue dart across her lips without her conscious approval.

He groaned when she took hold of him again, and his growing arousal was obvious from the precum dribbling down the reddened tip of him. A drip of his slick fluid wetted her fingers, and she smeared it down his length as she stroked his cock in a tight grip. Her firm handling of him had Zavier wiggling in place, and Cianna grinned.

"I'm going to put you in my mouth now," she whispered up at the eager young virgin. "Is that okay?"

Zavier nodded almost frantically, apparently not trusting himself to speak.

Cianna turned her attention once more to the erection standing before her face, briefly breaking eye contact with Zavier. His penis was probably a bit longer than the length of both her fists together-- literally two handfuls' worth-- and was surrounded by a short tangle of well-trimmed pubic hair. Briefly, she wondered if he'd been grooming himself in the hopes of sharing a moment like this with her, but she let that thought fade to the back of her mind for now.

"God, you're so--" Zavier tried to speak, but immediately lost focus as Cianna pressed her full lips against the underside of his shaft and dragged them along a few inches of sensitive skin. "Guh."

Her lips were replaced by her tongue, and he all but melted against her as she licked him from root to tip. Then, at the apex of the motion, Cianna opened her mouth a little wider and dropped her lips down to wrap around his reddened, swollen head.

The unmistakable salty musk of male arousal filled her mouth as she slid her mouth down a little further and let the crown of him slide along her tongue. Zavier grunted and twitched his hips, drawing Cianna's gaze back up to his face.

Cianna watched her young lover intently as she swiped her tongue across his frenulum, the sensitive strand that connected his foreskin to the underside of his cock. He twitched again, nearly choking her as he reflexively thrusted up against her wet lips. She wrapped a hand around the bottom half of his cock again, which would hopefully keep him from reflexively shoving his full length down her throat.

It also gave her a convenient handhold, and she rhythmically squeezed the base of his shaft even as she started moving her mouth up and down on the head. A raggedy breath was all the verbal approval he could manage, but it was enough to tell her that she was doing a good job.

Cianna started moving a bit faster and taking him a bit deeper, letting her lips slide down a full half of him on each pass. His cock flexed hard in her mouth as she worked lips and tongue in tandem, and she knew he was enjoying himself.

It probably wouldn't be long before he was finished now.

When she started actively sucking, indenting her cheeks with the force of the suction, he groaned so loudly that she wondered if the neighbours might hear. The sound of his pleasure, of his raw vulnerability, hit her like a bullet to the gut. Her own arousal rose to match his, until she could feel warmth, moisture, and need growing between her legs.

Cianna groaned right back at him, the sound manifesting as a hum around the cock in her mouth, and Zavier froze in place. With a little private smile, Cianna repeated the noise as she eased him far enough into her mouth to feel the tip of him threaten the back of her throat. She repeated the action again, earning a protracted groan from the young man as she swallowed a bit more of him, humming and flicking her tongue all the while.

His breathing was picking up now, and Cianna knew he was getting close. The thick strings of saliva building up on his cock rolled down the length of him and slickened the movements of her fist, letting her pump him even faster. She paired long strokes of her hand with the motion of her mouth, bobbing both fist and head on his cock at the same time.

All at once she felt his shaft flex and stiffen in her hand as the entire length of his penis contracted. She squeezed her hand just a bit tighter, keeping the pressure steady as she jerked it up and down even faster.

"Ah," Zavier groaned out pitifully as his shaft jerked in Cianna's hand again.

She shifted her mouth to just the top of him, sucking firmly and swishing her tongue across his underside as Zavier's breath caught in his chest. Then his cock was twitching, twitching, twitching-- pulsing like a frantic heartbeat in her hand and in her mouth.

"I'm going to--" he ground out, although the warning was far too late to be useful. And completely unnecessary, since Cianna was well aware of his oncoming orgasm.

Zavier's eyes flashed open as his climax overtook him, his brown eyes boring into hers as the wave of his pleasure built up and spilled forth in the form of a long, thick rope of cum. Cianna could feel the heavy heat of it splashing along her tongue and against the back of her throat, and the salty flavour of it overwhelmed her senses. She stroked him with her fist and sucked dutifully as he twitched in her hand, shooting another volley of cum, and another.

He groaned and shuddered as he came, hips thrusting weakly against her hand and mouth as if he were trying to bury himself deeper. Cianna didn't falter, didn't slow-- her throat bobbed in time with her lips as she swallowed everything he gave her, until he was left empty and twitching.

She gave one final suck to draw the last of the cum from his channel, then pulled her head back. His cock fell from the tight seal of her lips with a wet popping sound as she sat back and settled her toned ass more firmly on her heels.

"Holy God, I-- that was--"

"Good, then?" she asked with a smirk, and he nodded vigorously as he panted to catch his breath.

"I'm sorry I didn't... didn't warn you I was about to finish, Cianna," he managed between deep breaths. "And sorry I didn't last long. It's-- it was-- I've never--"

She sat up quickly, putting a saliva-soaked hand on his middle and leaning in to silence him with a kiss. He sucked in a breath as their lips met again, and if he minded the taste of himself on her breath, he didn't show it. "You did fine, Zavier."

"You were... That was amazing."

Cianna smirked at him again, enjoying the way Zavier looked post-orgasm: messy and breathless and completely undone. That whole performance was something she'd learned in basic training back in her teenage years. She hadn't learned it from any of her instructors, mind you, and it certainly hadn't been on their curriculum. When you got so many hormonal, pent-up teenage supersoldiers together in one area, they were bound to do some of their own experimenting.

She'd gotten some practice since those days, too.

A thick bead of cum welled up on the tip of his half-hard cock, and Cianna bent her head down to run her tongue over his crown and lick off the last of his arousal. Zavier gave a whine of surprise, pleasure, and maybe discomfort as she cleaned him off.

Satisfied with her work, Cianna rose from the patio floor and sat beside him again, then wrapped her arm over his shoulder to draw him against her chest. He responded immediately, nestling his head against her shoulder and turning to face her as they cuddled under the starlit autumn sky. The air was cool on her bare breasts, but Zavier was warm against her, and her blood always seemed to run a bit on the hot side-- especially right then. To say she was worked up would be an understatement, but she wasn't sure whether it would be worth trying to have Zavier return the favour, or whether she should just retreat to her bedroom and deal with it herself.

Right then, she was too comfortable to want to move either way.

The comfort factor only ratcheted up as Zavier pulled a small throw blanket up over his legs and shared it with her, and they both relaxed into a few moments of companionable silence.

It was him who ended up speaking first, "An AX-91?"

"What?" Cianna asked muzzily, pulling herself out of the half-doze she'd let herself slip into.

"The plane you flew. You said you saw the stars from the cockpit of an AX-91."

"Yes, that's right," she said cautiously. "Why?"

"I saw one, once," he said, more to the night sky than to her. "It was decommissioned and on display in a hangar back in the capital. Never seen one in use, though."

"It was, um... It was a restoration project."

"I wonder if Miss Janesdottir ever saw one?" Zavier mused groggily. If this was his idea of pillow talk, he could probably use some pointers. "She's been around for a long, long time. She's over a hundred years old, you know? Older than dirt, she always jokes, but she's not even the oldest person I've ever met. Not even close."

"Over a hundred?" Cianna's head spun as she tried to catch the threads of the conversation and figure out what in the hell Zavier was talking about. "But she doesn't look more than maybe sixty or seventy..."

"A hundred and five, I'm pretty sure. Her birthday was maybe a month before you came to town. I doubt she ever flew an AX-91, though. I've never even heard about one being used after the last great war, and that was over long before even old Alannis was born."

"I had no idea she was so old," Cianna breathed.

Had the life expectancy increased so dramatically that seniors over the age of a hundred were relatively commonplace? Maybe the proliferation of clean energy, new medical advancements, and the easy access to such a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables led to longer lives for everyone...

Then, all at once, the rest of what he'd said hit her with the force and devastation of an AX-91's incendiary payload. She sat up straighter and stared at him, shock warring with incredulity in her guts.

"The great war ended... before Alannis Janesdottir was born?"

"Long before, yeah-- Cianna, are you okay? Where are you going?"

Cianna realised she was on her feet, although she didn't remember deciding to stand. Her heart was racing and heat spread across her chest, although this was completely different from the languid arousal she'd felt building up in her mere moments ago. Alannis was over a hundred years old, and she was born after the war was finished... Just how long did "long before she was born" mean?

The world seemed to tilt and spin around her, the stars overhead leaving streaks of light as they swirled around drunkenly.

"I... I have to go," Cianna muttered as she scanned the third-floor patio for her clothing. She found her tank top, but couldn't figure out where her bra had gone. Fuck it, that could wait. She pulled the top on over her sweaty chest, and staggered back into Zavier's parent's bedroom.

"Did I say something wrong?" Zavier asked, sounding confused and a bit frightened. "What did I..."

"No, no it's fine. You're fine." Cianna couldn't bring herself to look at him-- the last thing she needed was for him to see the raw panic on her face. "I'm just... I'm really tired, Zavier. I've gotta be up early tomorrow, too. I'm going to hit the sack."

"Okay, Cianna," he called after her as she crossed the dark bedroom in long strides.

She turned back to him for just a moment, long enough to catch his silhouette in the doorway with the bright stars behind him. He didn't ask her to stay, didn't follow her. He just stood there, confused and alone.

"Thank you for showing me the stars," she mumbled, probably too quietly for him to even hear, then fled.

Cianna's bedroom door slammed loudly behind her, and her legs finally gave out. She fell back against the door and slid to the ground, heart still hammering in her chest like a frightened jackrabbit.

The coolness of the wooden door was soothing against her clammy skin, but it did nothing to quell the roiling anxiety in her middle. The war that Cianna fought in, the one she'd been frozen at the tail end of, wasn't ten or twenty or fifty years ago. Her cryosleep had lasted more than a full century-- maybe a lot more.

She had begun to suspect it, of course. But it was something else to have it confirmed so plainly: everything she knew, the world she grew up in... It was all long gone.