For daemonmuses.
The few shafts of sunlight that found their way through the leprous orange-brown clouds over the Pitt glinted off the Monongahela River. Ennoia, Fawkes’ daemon, leaned over the bank and stared longingly at the water.
“Ennoia,” the supermutant rumbled gently, “that would be a very bad idea.”
“I know, Fawkes.” The hippopotamus flicked her ears back and let out a sigh. “I know.”
Fawkes rested one thick-fingered green hand on his daemon’s back. “When we return to the Capital,” he said, “we’ll go back to Project Purity. The Brotherhood promised to let us stand guard there. You can swim in that river all you want, and be no harm to anyone when you come out.”
Ennoia sighed again. Poisoned as it was, she could smell the water of the Monongahela below, calling to her. She hadn’t been this long without enough water to swim in since- why, since Ellen and Saoshyant and the Star Paladin and Cetshwayo had set them free from Vault 87. Not that she would complain about it. Not for all the world would she complain about it. Her person was worried enough about Ellen and Saoshyant. Better to-
The thought dissolved in a shower of bliss as Ennoia felt the first dribbles of water trickling over her back and rolling down her flanks. She tipped her head back, eyes closed. “Thank you,” she murmured. “You didn’t have to.”
Fawkes’ face distorted for a moment in something like a smile. “I can make do with less drinking water,” he said. “I’ve done so before. You, I think, needed it now.”
Ennoia let out a snort, but it was a good snort. Fawkes had already started pouring a second bottle of water over her back.
He had just started to wet his daemon’s hide down with a third bottle when Ennoia’s ears flicked straight forward. The hippo was watching a small, bedraggled figure pick its way towards them from the nightmare of ancient wrecked cars and recent frag mines that clogged the bridge to the Pitt.
No, two small figures. A speck almost too small to see at this distance was scampering along beside the figure.
No, three; there was another on the-
Wait.
Both Fawkes and Ennoia were absolutely still by the time the figure resolved into Ellen’s form. The small human- the top of her head barely reached the middle of Fawkes’ chest- wore an unfamiliar suit of bodged-together power armor. The grasshopper mouse daemon, Saoshyant, clung to the stubby horn of the Brahmin skull that seemingly replaced the left shoulder pauldron. And hovering over the other-
“Ellen,” said Fawkes in as close to a shocked whisper as a meta-human throat could manage, “whose daemon is that?”
Ellen closed her eyes a moment. The tiny green bird with the purple throat fairly buzzed as it dove and circled around her head. “Marie’s,” Ellen said, and it might have been Ennoia’s imagination, but it seemed as if a piping voice echoed the word a moment later.
“And… who is Marie?”
The young woman’s gaze turned silently downward. Fawkes’ eyes followed. Tucked up close against the armor’s chest, bound in a leather sling so smoothly curved that one might have mistaken it for another bit of armor, was a swaddled, sleeping baby. “The city lord’s daughter,” Ellen said. “She’s coming with us.”
There was silence, save for the lapping of the Monongahela’s poison waters and the buzzing of the bird-daemon’s wings.
“I can only assume,” Fawkes said at last, “that you must have had some… compelling… reason for this.”
“She’s the only thing in this wretched pit of a city worth a damn.”
Ennoia stepped back a pace, eyes wide. In all the time she and Fawkes had known Ellen, she’d never heard the human use any word more vulgar than ‘you stink’. There was an odd hardness to the young woman’s eyes, too, as she looked back at Fawkes. It was the kind of look that promised burning.
“There’s no food here, Fawkes. There’s too much poison to grow anything. They’re eating their own, worse than in Andale. They can’t have children because all the babies born here mutate or go mad. Everyone who dies here? They replace them with slaves, and work them until they die. They can’t go out in the dark because the ones who don’t die wind up worse than feral ghouls and eat anyone they can catch. They’re all here because one man won’t let go of a working steel mill.”
She turned and glared at the city’s black bulk across the river.
“The lord wants the steel mill working, and he’s deluded himself into thinking giving slaves fancy titles is the same as giving them a stake in the future. The slaves want their freedom and they’re all convinced one man is going to get it for them. He’s a liar. He wants to turn the monsters loose on the lord’s raiders and he doesn’t care who he kills. The only thing they all agree on is that they all want a cure for this place’s poison.
“Even if they figure it out they’ll never cure it while they live in it. They’ll just get used to it, and live in worse and worse because they can. Treating the people this place makes sick won’t make food grow here, or make the water safe, or clean the air. This place is too sick for a cure.
“This place… it needs to burn, Fawkes. It needs to be pulled down until there isn’t one stone left atop another. Anything else and people will keep trying to live here until it kills them. I can’t do that. Elder Lyons and all his men couldn’t do that. But I can take away the only thing any of them value more than that wretched steel mill- their hope of a cure. Without it, they’ll tear each other to pieces before the year is out, and no one will be left to enslave anyone else…”
She looked down at the baby and her hovering daemon, then back up at Fawkes.
“This has been the longest day of my life, and that’s including the time with the aliens. We need to leave now. This place makes me sick.”
“Ennoia,” the supermutant rumbled gently, “that would be a very bad idea.”
“I know, Fawkes.” The hippopotamus flicked her ears back and let out a sigh. “I know.”
Fawkes rested one thick-fingered green hand on his daemon’s back. “When we return to the Capital,” he said, “we’ll go back to Project Purity. The Brotherhood promised to let us stand guard there. You can swim in that river all you want, and be no harm to anyone when you come out.”
Ennoia sighed again. Poisoned as it was, she could smell the water of the Monongahela below, calling to her. She hadn’t been this long without enough water to swim in since- why, since Ellen and Saoshyant and the Star Paladin and Cetshwayo had set them free from Vault 87. Not that she would complain about it. Not for all the world would she complain about it. Her person was worried enough about Ellen and Saoshyant. Better to-
The thought dissolved in a shower of bliss as Ennoia felt the first dribbles of water trickling over her back and rolling down her flanks. She tipped her head back, eyes closed. “Thank you,” she murmured. “You didn’t have to.”
Fawkes’ face distorted for a moment in something like a smile. “I can make do with less drinking water,” he said. “I’ve done so before. You, I think, needed it now.”
Ennoia let out a snort, but it was a good snort. Fawkes had already started pouring a second bottle of water over her back.
He had just started to wet his daemon’s hide down with a third bottle when Ennoia’s ears flicked straight forward. The hippo was watching a small, bedraggled figure pick its way towards them from the nightmare of ancient wrecked cars and recent frag mines that clogged the bridge to the Pitt.
No, two small figures. A speck almost too small to see at this distance was scampering along beside the figure.
No, three; there was another on the-
Wait.
Both Fawkes and Ennoia were absolutely still by the time the figure resolved into Ellen’s form. The small human- the top of her head barely reached the middle of Fawkes’ chest- wore an unfamiliar suit of bodged-together power armor. The grasshopper mouse daemon, Saoshyant, clung to the stubby horn of the Brahmin skull that seemingly replaced the left shoulder pauldron. And hovering over the other-
“Ellen,” said Fawkes in as close to a shocked whisper as a meta-human throat could manage, “whose daemon is that?”
Ellen closed her eyes a moment. The tiny green bird with the purple throat fairly buzzed as it dove and circled around her head. “Marie’s,” Ellen said, and it might have been Ennoia’s imagination, but it seemed as if a piping voice echoed the word a moment later.
“And… who is Marie?”
The young woman’s gaze turned silently downward. Fawkes’ eyes followed. Tucked up close against the armor’s chest, bound in a leather sling so smoothly curved that one might have mistaken it for another bit of armor, was a swaddled, sleeping baby. “The city lord’s daughter,” Ellen said. “She’s coming with us.”
There was silence, save for the lapping of the Monongahela’s poison waters and the buzzing of the bird-daemon’s wings.
“I can only assume,” Fawkes said at last, “that you must have had some… compelling… reason for this.”
“She’s the only thing in this wretched pit of a city worth a damn.”
Ennoia stepped back a pace, eyes wide. In all the time she and Fawkes had known Ellen, she’d never heard the human use any word more vulgar than ‘you stink’. There was an odd hardness to the young woman’s eyes, too, as she looked back at Fawkes. It was the kind of look that promised burning.
“There’s no food here, Fawkes. There’s too much poison to grow anything. They’re eating their own, worse than in Andale. They can’t have children because all the babies born here mutate or go mad. Everyone who dies here? They replace them with slaves, and work them until they die. They can’t go out in the dark because the ones who don’t die wind up worse than feral ghouls and eat anyone they can catch. They’re all here because one man won’t let go of a working steel mill.”
She turned and glared at the city’s black bulk across the river.
“The lord wants the steel mill working, and he’s deluded himself into thinking giving slaves fancy titles is the same as giving them a stake in the future. The slaves want their freedom and they’re all convinced one man is going to get it for them. He’s a liar. He wants to turn the monsters loose on the lord’s raiders and he doesn’t care who he kills. The only thing they all agree on is that they all want a cure for this place’s poison.
“Even if they figure it out they’ll never cure it while they live in it. They’ll just get used to it, and live in worse and worse because they can. Treating the people this place makes sick won’t make food grow here, or make the water safe, or clean the air. This place is too sick for a cure.
“This place… it needs to burn, Fawkes. It needs to be pulled down until there isn’t one stone left atop another. Anything else and people will keep trying to live here until it kills them. I can’t do that. Elder Lyons and all his men couldn’t do that. But I can take away the only thing any of them value more than that wretched steel mill- their hope of a cure. Without it, they’ll tear each other to pieces before the year is out, and no one will be left to enslave anyone else…”
She looked down at the baby and her hovering daemon, then back up at Fawkes.
“This has been the longest day of my life, and that’s including the time with the aliens. We need to leave now. This place makes me sick.”