Author's Note

New story, new adventures, new characters. No regrets.
Trying my hand at something more romantic and tragic than usual.
Hope y'all enjoy, thanks for reading.

The air felt unfamiliarly cold against the girl's skin; usually, their private room was almost-always kept sweltering hot. On most nights, the two of them had to strip down to nothing and sleep on top of the comforter, with only their fingers barely brushing together to remind the young cadets they both were still alive, in order to stay comfortable.

Last night, she had obviously done the same. The girl laid naked, tucked underneath the many blankets in effort to shut out the chill. Slowly, her arm still heavy from sleep, her hand patted around the mattress to find Piper.

Almost instantaneously, she feels her arm. Smiling to herself, the girl brought her body closer to Piper, until she tucked her nose into her warm skin and inhaled deeply, and for once, she did not smell the tang of sweat and the rust of drying blood.

The girl opened her eyes at the warning sign; her vision tried to adjust to the dim light, to find the familiar contours of Piper's pretty face and strong body, but instead, she blinked furiously for a few seconds, until she froze where she had once peacefully laid.

In the place of Piper, a man blurred by the dark laid. His body had already been in the process of moving, as if he were trying to hold her as a reaction to her nuzzling, when she became a burst of movement. She swung her hand to her left, where she always kept a gun taped beneath the metal frame of their bed, and found one.

It felt strange in her hand, much more heavier than the featherlight Emitpistol she knew she must've grabbed. She ignored it, knowing that the biggest question in her mind wasn't the kind of gun she held between her fingers, but the man that lay in their bed and what he had done to Piper.

Like second nature, the girl swung her leg over the man's-- horribly expansive and powerful-- chest, tucking his arms away and keeping them there with the weight of her body. She pressed the end of the pistol's barrel to his forehead, taking note that it seemed to be an ancient gun, one that the Elses familiarize themselves with, as she tightened her other hand around his neck.

"Tell me where sh--"

"Rosie," the man laughed; suddenly, his hands weren't beneath her thighs, but wrapping around her waist. He pulls himself into her, like she wasn't a threat. "My little Rosie Posie, up so early," he ignored the pressure of the gun, maybe because he seemed still half asleep, and reached up for what she assumed to be a kiss.

"What--" she muttered, utterly confused. "Stop it-- stop, don't-- who are you? Where is Piper?"

"Pip--" and now, the man had become aware of the cold metal leaving an aggravated dent in his forehead. In the dim light of the room, she could hardly make out anything but the whites of his eyes and the strange tawny color of his irises, a shade that resembled the half-empty whiskey bottles Piper would steal from the cooks and sneak into their room. "Rose, you're having another break, look at me," his words were soft, understanding-- but firm, almost desperate.

"I am looking at you!" She seethed, angry at the excusation of his words. "What have you done with Piper?"

"Rose," his eyes didn't stray from hers, as if he weren't even aware of the gun pressed to his skull. "Rose, put the gun down. I'll call Doc, they said this could happen, and that it would happen, I know it's hard, but--"

"Answer me!" Rose cried out, desperate now. Without Piper beside her, she felt off balanced. Elysians were raised together, assigned as one unit since birth, literally bred to be the other half of an elite soldier. Not having Piper in her sights was mind numbing pain, their separation training had been a hard bullet to bite, but Rose had felt something from her. And now, all she felt was nothing-- and nothing, as in the software implanted at the nape of her neck had no pulse to mimic Piper's.

"Doc told me not to say shit until they got here, and I'm not-- it could hurt your psyc--"

She brought her gun up and swung it down, only catching his cheek for a quick second until his large hand wrapped around her wrist, bringing everything, including her breath, to a standstill.

"Rosie, look at me," the man demanded. She refused to, only thinking about her Elysian, where she was, if she was okay, if she was just as scared as Rose. "Rose, please," he pleaded. "Remember me, remember us."

"I don't even know who you are," she whispered, bitterly. "You could be anyone, you could be an Else."

"I--" he shut his mouth at the accusation, shoving back down whatever he was going to say, as he moved his free hand to take the strange weapon away from her. Rose fought against him, her heels digging into his ribs as an effort to keep her gun to herself. He ignored it, hardly showing that he could feel it, while he plucked her hands empty.

The man gave a long, suffering look at the gun, before he threw it across the room, Rose's only chance of escape hit the wall with an unhealthy thump.

She followed it, attempting to leap off of the mattress when a hand wrapped around each of her ankles, bringing her face-first into the bed, and dragging her back. A weight pressed into her shoulder blades, either his knee or his elbow. Her nostrils flared, combat had never been her skill. Piper is the prodigy in that particular category, Rose only studied warfare to help design more efficient, safer ways for her Elysian to disarm and execute the Elses.

Although her aim is more than just satisfactory and she has spent countless hours in the advanced training fields of the Elysium LoKi, her country's most prestigious military ship in orbit, this man possessed an obvious talent. He moved like Piper, with the sure movements of a well-oiled machine; it unsettled Rose.

"Lights, on," he spoke above her. At his words, bright fluorescents lit up the room. "Rosie, you need to concentrate. You need to remember me," suddenly, his mouth was inches from her ear, his breath curling in the nape of her neck.

Her fists tightened from where they were pinned beneath her chest. She realized she had an opening, a chance for getting the upper hand, and she took it. Her head swung violently backward, slamming against her opponent's face with full force.

His grasp loosened a fraction, but it was enough to escape from his grasp. Swiftly, she pulled herself from beneath him, and shot herself forward, off of the bed, towards the gun. His hands uselessly shot out for her, attempting to reel her back in. Unfortunately, where Rose is quick, the man is a second slower.

Her barefeet have a hard time finding a grasp on the freezing concrete floor of what seems to be a loft, but she manages to reach the thrown weapon. Rose turns at the last second, her bare back touching the cold tiled wall and the pistol aimed directly at the stranger's forehead from the mattress.

"You stay right there, or I swear, to God I will kill you," she meant all of it. Her hands kept from trembling, she had no connections to this man. She'd be shooting a stranger. And, then, when he would be dead, she'd walk away. Rose would never have to think about him again, Piper never thought about the Elses she killed. Underneath shared blankets and whispered in pillows that stunk like coppery blood, Piper confessed all she did was think about the trigger-- and how she concentrated on the almost-painful jolt of the gun instead of the sound of a body hitting the floor with deadweight.

He recognized the threat as sincere.

"State your name," Rose demands as she took in the man. He stood on his knees with seemingly miles of dark, naked skin. Where there wasn't an expanse of clear skin, patches of scarred tissue took its place. His black hair hadn't been cut in a while, instead it fell to his pronounced collarbone in thick dreadlocks. He looked strong.

"Rose-- are you fucking around?" He asks, a look of disbelief crossing his handsome face.

"State your name," she repeats, taking note of the way his dark brows hitched upward, as if he were physically hurt by her words.

"Fenris," he spoke, searching her face as if he were looking for a sign of recognition.

"Your full name," she pressed on as she began to study the room, searching for any signs of Piper's presence.

"Fenris X," he finished, crossing his arms as he waited for her next question.

"Fenris X?" The name felt strange on Rose's lips, as if it were a word she had spoken through every variance between a whisper and a scream.

"Fenris X," he assured.

She stared at him for a moment, calculating him in the same way he was calculating her. Recognizing this, his eyes seeming to study every inch of her body, she felt more than just naked-- she felt as if her insides and outsides were being examined. She slowly walked towards the nearest piece of fabric that would offer her bare body some coverage. Rose yanked the thin blanket off of the armchair towards her left, her free hand stamping it to her collarbone.

"Fenris X, where is my Elysian?" She finally spoke.

Fenris closed his eyes, one of his hands moving to rub at his temples. "She's two floors down, I can take you," his voice sounded lost. Rose didn't miss it.

"Give me directions," she ordered, gun jutting forward in attempt to make the demand seem more promising. "I'll find her myself."

"If you go by yourself, they will recognize you," Fenris warned, tawny eyes unimpressed. "The two of you are prisoners of Else, if you leave without me, they're going to shoot you on sight, and execute your Elysian," he foretold.

Rose gritted her teeth as she scraped her mind for any other options. Something felt off to Rose, but she blamed half of it on being so out of touch and far from her Elysian. She never felt whole without her. "Fine, but this gun doesn't leave my hand," She told him as he agreed wordlessly with a nod of his head.

Suddenly, he stood up, as if he had forgot that a gun was still trained on him.

"What are you doing?" She demanded, jumping to attention as he continued to move through the loft. He seemed even taller now off of the mattress, ducking his head beneath the entrance of what she supposed to be a closet.

"I didn't think you'd want to walk across the ship naked," he tells her as she follows behind him, eyes trained on what he's reaching for. If he was stupid, he'd be searching for some kind of weapon to use against her. "I'm an Else, I wasn't raised with the manners of Elysium."

"Is that your way of telling me the Republic of Elysium is barbiac?" She asked as he threw a pair of dark pants, an equally as dark long-sleeve shirt, and a well-worn leather jacket over his shoulder. It smelled like blood and gasoline.

"Put this on, it should fit," he turned towards Rose, handing her a pair of threadbare pants and a thick sweater with a hole big enough to fit her fist through.

She took the clothes with greedy hands, quickly slipping them on while still keeping a gun trained on him. The fabric felt strange on her skin, Elysians were always provided with the finest, and strongest, materials that the galaxy provided. She had never felt something so rough, it was if every fiber in the fabric stuck out to cause Rose maximum discomfort.

Fenris put on his own clothes, clearly comfortable in her eyes. With every stretch, his skin moved over strong muscles, proof of how physically in shape the man is. He was built like a soldier, or more specifically, like an Else. It was such a strange contrast to Rose, who was built with a lithe form, but still had soft spots.

"Come on," she demanded, ignoring the way he smelled like Piper, as if he had dipped himself into whatever made her Elysian smell like home. "Take me to her."

*

Fenris slipped his thumb onto the ReCog Lock, the scanner recognizes his fingerprint at once. At the flashing of the green light, the lock popped. He opened the door, clearly waiting for Rose to go first.

"You're ahead of me," she told him with an eyebrow raised, clicking the safety off and then on again to remind him of their predicament.

He clenched his sharp jaw before stepping forward, walking into the empty hallway.

It was dim, but as they made their way down the corridor, the lights above flickered on in reply to their footsteps. Fenris's were so much more louder, he had chosen a pair of heavy duty combat boots that looked as if they had went through hell. Rose walked barefoot, knowing that keeping her feet free of heavy shoes would slow her down in the likely event that she would need to run.

"We're on a ship," she gritted her teeth, realizing just how screwed she was.

Plastered to the metal walls of the wide hallway were tall windows which displayed the galaxy. The endless dark skies were spotted with the twinkles of constellations from another solar system.

"How many lightyears are we from the nearest Elysium ship?" She asked in a low voice, heedy of any Else soldier that may be lurking unseen.

"Two," Fenris replies, making a sudden turn.

She sighs with relief. Elses rarely had enough resources to make a ship that could orbit outside of Earth's solar system. With an Elysium ship so close, they would eventually be caught, and punished for their crimes against the Republic.

Fenris doesn't notice, or he just doesn't care for, her relief. He continues down the hallway, which is now eerily silent aside for the sounds the two of them make. Not even guards are posted at each corridor entrance, a uniform practice for any military faction, even for the Else.

Something was off, even more so than before.

"Quicker," she urged, a lump of worry growing in her throat.

He followed the order, walking in full strides that she had to run to keep up with.

"You're being quiet," Rose took note, giving him a wary once over.

He remained silent, only looking forward until they reach two metal doors. A red and blue emblem made out of stars and stripes was painted on the surface, only separated by the crack of the doors.

"What is this?" She swallows at the unrecognizable symbol, waiting for Fenris to make the next move.

"An elevator," he looks at her as if she is dumb. "Do your Elysium ships not have the simplest technology?" His eyebrows shoot up in the same way Piper's would when she revealed the sharpness of her tongue.

"I know what an elevator is," she hissed. "Although I have never seen one as ancient as this. The emblem-- what is it? The Else's symbol isn't like this one," Rose raises her hand to the doors.

"A surviving relic of an Earth country Elysium wouldn't be able to comprehend," Fenris replied as the elevator finally parted for their entrance. "A symbol that was eventually forgotten when we forgot how to live."

The both of them stepped into the elevator. It was a small, dull cavern, rudimentary in its design. Rose stuck herself to one of the bare walls, her gun, which had been concealed in the much-too-long sleeves of her sweater, now pointed freely at Fenris.

He seemed bored, clicking a button with his finger, a system that didn't even ask for his identification, and pressed himself to his own chosen wall across from her. He dwarfed everything, especially Rose, who stood just two inches above five feet. His dark eyes remained on her face though, it was an uncomfortable gaze that felt just as penetrating as it had been in the loft.

"I can't feel my Root," she finally spoke, glancing up at him to see his reaction. The flower of wires that been inserted in the nape of her neck at birth hadn't made any movement since she had woken. Not even Piper's pulse, which caused her to fear for the worst, although her mind hardly tolerated that thought-- even the suggestion that her Elysian may be anything but perfectly all right. Roots were known to have glitches.

"Don't know what to tell you about the weed," Fenris changed his gaze to something else, that something else being the changing numbers of the floors they crossed. Only two floors, it shouldn't have taken this long-- then again, this was an Else ship, with almost primitive technology.

Before either of them could say anything else, the doors slide open and an annoying ding resounds in the lift. Rose gestures with her gun for him to move first, Fenris does so with an aggravated sigh.

The corridor they enter is unlike the other they were in. This one was so obviously used for some sort of advancement in technology. It wasn't hot or deep enough to be anywhere near the floor for the engine, and there wasn't enough guards-- or anyone, at all-- to be a prison level.

The hallway was bare of anything, no windows aside for those attached to the doors of what Rose supposed to be living compartments. Aside for the pristinely white tile that wrapped completely around the hallways- floors, walls, ceilings- nothing else remained. If Rose looked closely enough, she could see seemingly endless thin blue circuits around the borders of the tile, acting as decoration even though it was an immediate function for technology meant to be discreet.

Fenris walked until he found their destination, a door with one long sliver of a window, which had been blocked from the inside.

"Doc," Fenris spoke as he pressed his finger to the doorbell. "Got a little soldier that wants to see you."

At once, the door popped open. In the entrance stood a figure of medium height. It appeared to be male, with the broad shoulders and a jawline that looked to be sharp enough to cut Rose's finger. The man, or should Rose presume boy, blinked up with two eyes of different colors. One was a frightening blue, as the other was a bewitching amber, both ringed with dark liner.

"Who the hell is he?" She asked, not looking away from Doc, knowing that he held the whereabout of her Elysian.

"I'm Charles," Doc told her. "But I'm a they, not a he, sweetheart. Oh, you did the right thing, Fenris."

"Charles?" She whispered the name as it sounded horribly familiar. "Fenris, I--"

Suddenly, the hand she held the gun in was nailed to the wall, the weapon falling to her feet as one of Fenris's hands covered the both of her wrist. The movement felt sure, like he could've removed the gun from her possession since the moment she held it in her hands.  She screamed out, kicking in retaliation as Charles's warm hand yanked up her chin. The Doc's grasp was slippery; Rose took advantage of it. Unfortunately for Charles's, their warm finger found its way into her mouth.

She bit down as hard as she could before something terribly cold hit her neck, and suddenly, the sound of skin popping from pressure echoed in her ear. Rose saw enough to realize a needle had been shoved into her throat. Whatever it was rushed through her veins and traveled down her body like a freezing river, causing every cell in her body to feel alive, before an abrupt and very welcome warmth took its place.

Her eyes lulled at the sensation; her mouth goes slack even as she fought against it, Charles's finger narrowly escapes a total disembodiment as they pull their hand gingerly away. Her trapped hands were released only for her waist to be wrapped in Fenris's arms.

She tried to regain something, anything to keep her consciousness, but she only found her legs forgetting how to stand, rendering her completely useless in Fenris's grasp. Rose's eyelids were becoming heavier, although that didn't stop her from trying to keep them open. She begged her feet to move, for her hands to at least twitch, but found nothing, not even her own pinky toe capable of movement.

"Go to sleep, Posie," Fenris whispered into her ear, crouching low enough to be eye-to-eye with her. "Doc's going to fix you up," he promised.

Rose had nothing broken; she tried to cling to consciousness as desperately as Fenris clung to her.

Author's Note

Playlist for Fenris & Rose : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGnbm5O13reFKidNkSkZAOmWJ_6bfuI82

Playlist for Rose & Piper : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGnbm5O13reFwsQ8Ns1raQGRsn33-30fC

Hope y'all enjoyed, leave me a comment with your thoughts if you don't mind. :-)

(And if y'all wouldn't mind, would you spin by my Lady Lightning book and vote, you would have my eternal gratitude.)