T’sala was cold, much colder than she had been under quite a few moons now. She did not like to remind herself of those last strange moments before arriving… here. The Teretha woman looked around her. She was in a small cave covered in frost and snow. Over the last few months, she had managed to scavenge many mosses and animal furs to dress the cave for warmth. It was not for her. In the strange suit the man, Alec, had given her, combined with the curse the baron had given her in Aamaranth blood, T’sala felt nothing. Not the cold, but also not the warmth. On her trips outside, she could walk barefoot, protected by the strange magic the offworlder had given her. She was forever grateful for that, but it was not the same as before. Within the suit, she could move about the world, but she could not feel it, even the air, though she knew it to be crisp, was drawn in through protective filtration.

  A lump in the corner let out a rasping breath that turned to frosted fog. That was who all the work was for, that was who the fire cracked for. She felt indebted and blamed her very own actions for what had gotten them here. Three full moons ago, she had stood on a desert planet. Her desert planet. Ready to bring down the oppressive baron and bring freedom to her people. Alec, the offworlder, had warned her not to let the emotions of losing her brother Tusong cloud her judgment. She had not listened. T’sala felt that wrenching in her stomach. It was not from hunger; she no longer required sustenance in that way she had discovered. Like the sensation of touch, while it was no longer a necessity, she was also robbed of the joy and comfort of good food. She wondered if the man, Alec, felt that when he wore it.

  The pit twisted more as her thoughts turned on her once again. She had abandoned her post; she was supposed to bring down the large gate, but instead focused her attention on the baron in the tall tower. She had compromised it all and had lost to the combat skills of the baron himself. She remembered watching in horror as the man, Alec, was also thrown from the tower, but with no suit like hers, she knew he would be nothing more than a splatter if he hit the ground. She had jumped to catch him, but they were both struck by a purple arc of lightning. It had taken her consciousness, and she had woken in the snow a few miles from where they now camped. The lump in the corner shuddered again, but it was drowned out by a large rumbling sound. T’sala stood and began to pace to rid her stomach of the twisting guilt. From the mouth of the cave, far below, she could see the snow wake of a Slugger running precious cargo down an ice road. The rumbling sound was created as the tires carved through the ice and echoed up the valley. T’sala recognized the tankers in tow as Baronhood vehicles and dared not approach. She had settled for the cave when she realized the half-metal man lumped in the corder would not make it far in the cold.

  She walked over to where the lump shuddered again. The offworlder lay still on a lifted bed of needle tree branches and moss. She had taken what skills T’sala had as a trapper in the desert and applied them here. The animals here were soft and grey with long tails and short ears. The teeth they sported in the front allowed them to carve through ice like an energon blast through unshielded material. She had still managed to trap them, though and had borrowed Alec’s knife to skin and dress them. T’sala took care to sew them into the offworlder's jacket so that the inside kept the flesh parts of him warm. He rasped again, and his hand disturbed the jacket to reach for his elbow and scratch. The movement was unconscious; she had not seen the man actually wake in the weeks she had been here. She watched nonetheless, knowing he would wake and then they would find their way back to her people. At least she hoped.

  Where he scratched unconsciously was the port she had seen him place the Aamaranth vials he had kept on his arm. When she first found him beside her in the cold snow, she had tried to find a replacement, but he had none. They had landed here as they fell, she had found one of his revolvers in the snow, steaming and scarred purple with a lightning arc across it. She had also found her rifle that he had given her. She had dared not use it in the beginning days for any kind of hunting or even self-defence. The explosion that was released from her blood was too destructive to be of any service in that. But the rifle had become her solace as she waited for the man to rise. T’sala had spent each day with it practicing quieting the rage within her blood and mentally willing a trickle instead of the flood she would have before. Over the weeks, she found success in the practice, finally able to draw small amounts that would release a thin arcing line of Amaranth power. It did not explode but rather bored a hole through its target, perfectly round and glowing fiery purple. That practice had allowed her to complete the task she had today. A large, four-legged beast had fallen to her aim, and the skin was curing to make a perfect blanket for the offworlder.

  She had scattered the meat from the beast in her traps, not needing to cook or eat. She had not seen the man, Alec, eat either, so she knew his stasis had nothing to do with hunger. T’sala looked him over again. His lips were cracked from the cold air, but breath still escaped them in slow, ragged sighs. The metal attachments and wires near his neck had collected frost, and the rash around where they connected to the fleshy parts of him was growing and looked painful. Where he was scratching the empty vial, a small wound had begun. She had tried to hold his hand back from the scratching, but to no avail. Even in this state, the man was strong, and it took much of her own Aamaranth strength to hold his arm back. Inevitably, he would start scratching on her release, though. She had found a solution one night in an act of desperation. The wound was dripping and staining the snow; his breathing was nearly stopped. In that moment, she lay beside him and held him with her head on his chest. She could feel a slow beating heart beneath and sang her mother's lullaby to that rhythm. He had stopped scratching in that moment, and his breathing had returned to normal.

  She returned to that now, holding him and thinking of how her foolish mistakes got them both here. Wherever here was. She held him as the golden light of this planet's sun dipped below the horizon and the mouth of the cave went black. She got up to extinguish the fire so that none could see the light. Making the smoke transparent with the right level of heat was something the elders taught all children. Heat without light was not something she knew the way of. She grabbed the fur and placed it over her and Alec. She would not need it, but she hoped somehow both under it would maybe warm him to waking. It did not. Into the night, he hibernated with ragged breath while T’sala replayed her mistakes to the point of torment.

  She must have eventually slept, for when she awoke, the sun was shining bright in the entrance of their safe haven. The man, Alec, continued to rest even as she stirred and began to light the fire again. It would give him warmth and keep animals away while she checked her traps. T’sala took the bloodfire rifle and walked to the mouth of the cave. Glancing one last time behind her, hoping the man would be awake. When it was not the case, she sighed and walked out into the bright open snow.

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  T’sala had heard of snow from the tops of the mountains in her home world, but to see it on this scale, covering every inch of this planet and the living things on it, was astounding. To any local, she would have looked incredibly under-dressed as she frolicked in the snow, casting a small purple glow instead of a shadow on it as she passed. Her first traps were just over the rise behind a small copse of trees. She couldn’t hear any bleating from the small furry animals that usually accompanied a successful trapping. As she crested the rise, she saw each of her traps laid in ruin with red blood stains on the ground. Around each trap was a collection of large footprints. T’sala looked around and attempted to smell the air. She used each of her senses, and not feeling any danger, she crept closer to examine the strange new tracks.

  The tracks were a large oval that ended in five claws that were long enough to register in the snow. Judging by the size, this creature would stand eight feet in length and weighed enough to take limbs from the trees. A large rumbling caught her attention, and she stood ready to fight. The bloodfire rifle was in her hands immediately, and she felt a sting as the two needles slowly pierced her skin. She used her newfound mental skills to slow the flow of Aamaranth. When she realized it was a passing slugger from the valley behind her, she felt a fool. There was nothing here to harm her; whatever had done this to her traps had since moved on. She gathered the broken pieces of her traps to repair later and headed to the next set of traps. She had planned these to make a circuit that would lead her back to their cave in a full circle to maximize the time. She headed off to the next, gathering her wits about her and keeping an eye out for danger as she went.

  The next set of traps was the same as the previous, but the blood here was still letting steam up into the air from fresh kills. Little bits of fur were still stuck to the remaining traps, but the large tracks seemed to be heading the same direction T’sala would for the next set of traps. This did not bode well. She had been here for months now; perhaps a larger predator had learned her methods and was reaping the rewards of her harvest. She started off towards the next set of traps. Today was not going well, and it was beginning to get to her. She felt the new sensation of her rage boiling the Aamaranth in her veins to where she felt that without the suit, she would explode into nothingness with the thoughts alone. She found it hard to break herself free of that spiral, and it consumed her thoughts as she walked along. She felt alone, she felt lost, and most of all, she felt stupid. Her despair felt complete when she considered the offworlder and her return to the planet she called home. In the days leading up to the battle, T’sala and Alec had spent the days together learning how to target her incredible power through the rifle. She gripped it like a lifeline with the memory. She felt in those days that she could grow to love a man like that, but as she crested the next snow drift and saw her destroyed traps, T’sala was dismayed again. How could a man like that even consider loving a fool like her? She couldn’t even rouse him from his sleep.

  The final thought broke through her spiral of despair to the centres of her logic; she was denying herself. If this predator was following her circuit, the inevitable end was where the man, Alec, slept. She focused on her newfound Aamaranth strength and speed and tore off through the snow towards the cave she had left. She was right to have skipped the final set of traps, as the time saved allowed her to find her cave at the same time the beast did.

  It was covered in ragged black fur with long floppy ears that dropped halfway down its head. The jaw on it was long with jagged teeth that were still holding blood, fur and pieces of traps. It was sniffing around the cave entrance where small heatwaves exited from her fire. She could hear the beast sniffing and panicked as she raised the rifle. The needles pierced her skin, and she drew in a breath; her fear that Alec would be taken was impossible to deny. The willpower she had to lessen the shot's power was lost to her in that fear. She knew she could not release the force of the shot as it would bring the cave down upon the offworlder. She hollered and aimed up high to the left, letting the Aamaranth blast pierce the sky. The heated plasma started a small snow gale to fall with the change in atmosphere. The creature had turned at her yell and noticed the purple glow of her running towards it. It too roared and threw out its clawed paws as she grew near. She dodged it and drew Alec’s knife, slashing across the creature's underbelly, but it did not break the skin. The hide on this creature was nearly armour. The creature stood on two legs and let out a roar that hurt T’sala’s ears. One paw swung wild, the other landed true and knocked her flying through the air into one of the needle trees. The suit took the impact, but it did not help T’sala’s feeling of exhaustion.

  The creature turned back to the cave, considering T’sala dealt with. She was not, and sprang out of the snow, grabbing the beast around the neck and squeezing. The large muscles flexed against her grip, and it tossed to and fro, trying to launch her from its back. She stabbed with the knife and finally found purchase beneath the neck. It roared as a large gush of blood coated T’salas hands, causing her to slip free, leaving the knife where it was. The creature grabbed her with one clawed hand and began slamming her over and over into the ground like a child with a toy ball. It finally threw her into a rock, and when she stood up from that, the beast made one final roar and charged off into the snow. It clearly did not want to take on a foe that could not die.

  T’sala felt pathetic. Once again, her inability to control her rage had almost killed Alec. If she had just been able to swallow that fear, she could have targeted that blast and, beyond saving Alec, she could have provided him that large, ragged fur. As it was now, she had to remain on guard for fear of its return. She pulled herself up from the ground and headed up into the cave. Until she could put that creature to rest, there would be no rest for her. Even though her body didn’t have that requirement, she found her mind still did. The offworlder had told her as much on the nights he also did not sleep; they had a lot in common him and her, even though they may have come about it differently.

  He lay there still, untouched, ragged breathing, steaming up the air. It was the final weight that broke T’sala in that moment. In everything up until now, she had provided an armour for her emotions nearly as complete as the suit she now wore. Rage kept the sadness, guilt and loss away, but she had none left. The offworlder's arm was clinging to his vial port again, scratching the bleeding wound. She took his hand, fearful of the infection he might cause, and as she held it for the first time in years, T’sala cried.

  It was just one tear but it found its way as the Aamaranth whips had through the defences of the impact suit. One small purple tear dripped from her eye and landed perfectly on the empty port in Alec's arm. For the first time in months, the breathing calmed, the muscles stirred, and his eyes opened.