Battle Angel Alita Fan Fiction ❯ Angel's Legacy ❯ Knight Errant - Vision 2: Lone Wolves ( Chapter 2 )

Jasmine walked a long time among verdant hills, pacing herself carefully. She had practiced camping in the hills for a year before she left home, and knew how far she could get in a day without taxing herself. She was healthy, but her size and the terrain in places hindered her. As she had planned, she began by traveling east from Alhambra and then following the rivers southeast.

It was about a week of travel before she reached the Salton Bay. The whole time, she slept hidden under whatever cover she could find, several minute's walk away from the river, to avoid getting caught and dragged back to town. Now, as she worked her way southeast along the miles of the lowland bay's eastern shoreline, she began to relax. In Alhambra, people had to supply for themselves day-to-day; they couldn't spend forever hunting for a girl in the wilderness, wandering off in all directions.

During the day, she spent hours walking at a comfortable pace, taking breaks whenever she felt she ought to; in the afternoon, she waded to her waist into the bay's gently sloped beach and fished, and she foraged on the slopes of the hills which framed the Salton Bay. Once, the bay had been a fertile sub-sealevel valley, until the sea swallowed it. Now, it teemed with fish and saltwater plants.

Jasmine reached the mouth of the Great Barrier Mountain River, as it was known in Alhambra, at the end of the second week away from home, and began to follow it north. When she reached the Gila River's junction with the Great Barrier Mountain River, she followed it east, upstream.

The terrain was no longer so green as it had been around the Salton Bay. Now, Jasmine walked through badlands, and foraging was often a challenge; she fished in the river and cooked her catch for supper, which was far more reliable. The badlands were more lonely than the verdant hills near her home had been. Neither had human company, but the fertile lands of her first weeks of travel at least had more life.

Jasmine had begun to sing to herself to keep speaking, and to keep hearing someone speak. It was three months of dead-end rivers, of wandering in the hills and badlands, of hunting for ways to follow the river where it cut deep canyons, before she was in the company of people once more.

The Zuni River's path led Jasmine into a lively flatland region resting in the morning shadows of the Great Barrier Mountains' highest crests; it led her to the home of the Zuni: darker skinned than herself or most of the people of Alhambra, but of the same honest, pleasant character. She stayed ten days to rest from her travels. In return for their hospitality and gifts-including sturdy new shoes to replace the Alhambran ones she had worn down in her travels-she fished, sang, and painted for the Zuni; her sketches, she kept, to show the people of Alhambra on her return to the village. She took the dried venison she was offered, but only because the last thing she wanted was to seem unappreciative; she had never really liked red meat.

When she left the Zuni, she traveled eastward along the rivers. In two weeks, she reached the Grand River, running north and south through the midst of the Great Barrier Mountains. Jasmine knew she was still too far to the south, and continued northward, against the flow of the Grand River. The hills around her were sparse, but the views were beautiful, and the Grand River's gentler tributaries were plentiful.

* * * * *

Plip . . . plip . . . plip . . .

Darkness was everywhere. Darkness and cold-not a biting cold, this, but a slow, numbing, insidious cold. When reason lay bare, exposed on jagged shore, the darkness was a yawning, cavernous void; when delirium swept up Jasmine's senses once more, the darkness was a palpable, smothering mass.

No light infringed upon the blackness which was everything: no sun ray, no moonbeam, no distantly reflected glimmer. Only the chill penetrated, and the sound of falling droplets-and, resonating about unseen walls in an unseen chamber, a low whimper pierced the darkness and reached Jasmine.

* * * * *

She stared into the moonless night and heard the sound again: a timid, muffled, faint whimper. It sounded harmless-more than harmless, desperately needy-but she hesitated nearby her campfire's symbolic heat, light, and safety. She knew better than to spring headlong into the dark night in the miserably cold, unlit midnight mountains.

The trip up the Grand River had been uneventful. Jasmine had come northward to a valley of sorts among the many ranges which combined to form the Great Barrier Mountains, and knowing that the seasons were moving on despite her, she turned east and searched for a pass, hoping to reach Steel City quickly and cross the mountains during the summer months.

She lost weeks that way, for traveling among the mountains was much slower than following river valleys had been; it was also easier to get lost, which she did more than once. She never found a good pass across the ridge-only the bitter chill and violent storms of an unusually cold year. Having failed to pass the long north-south range, she intended to return to the mountain valley, where she had heard there was a settlement. She was camping her last night in the mountains before returning, when she heard the sound.

Gathering her courage and casting off the frayed edges of her confidence, Jasmine clutched by its base a dead branch she had planned to use for firewood, and held the needle-bearing end over the fire. When it was burning well, she swung the brand around to illuminate the darkness beyond her campfire's reach.

In the half-shadows of the mountainside brush hunched a small wolf pup, not likely more than six weeks old. It stared at Jasmine, wide-eyed and ears flattened against its head, but it looked far too small and sounded far too desperate to seem dangerous.

Jasmine hesitated, staring for a long moment at the wolf cub.

Where's its mother? she wondered to herself as her brand burned and crackled brightly. Is it lost? Can baby wolves even get lost? I haven't heard any wolves howling, tonight...

Brushing away uncertainty, Jasmine glanced back and tossed the branch back onto the fire, stepping over to it once again. She produced dried meat from her pack, tore a piece free, and tossed it to a spot just inside the edge of the firelight.

Then she waited.

For what seemed an eternity, there was only the whisper of the wind and the cub's faint whimpers-until a pair of small, shining eyes came close by the edge of the light and a small, dark-furred head sniffed curiously at the meat. Slowly, uncertainly, the cub slipped closer and nudged the morsel with its muzzle, and again. It took the morsel into its mouth, but just for a moment, letting it drop to the ground again, and whimpered helplessly.

That was deer, Jasmine thought as she watched. I'm pretty sure wolves eat that, don't they? So why doesn't it eat-

She paused, watching the cub, as a realization formed; during her time with the Zuni, she had heard a great deal about wolves, revered as wise spirits of the wilderness, masterful hunters, and gentle teachers and providers to their young.

Maybe that's the problem!

She tore off another small piece, placed it between her teeth, and chewed, tenderizing and softening the dried meat as best she could. She imagined her mother yelling at her for handling something she had been drooling all over, even though it really was not that bad; the taste and texture of dried deer had not grown on her in the last few weeks.

Once the morsel was soft enough, she tossed it to the ground near the wolf cub and watched. Again, timidly, the cub edged up to the bit of meat, sniffed, and inspected. Less reluctantly, now, it took the morsel up in its diminutive jaws and gulped it down hungrily.

Jasmine smiled to herself, slowly, proudly, as she watched the pup and chewed another bit of jerky by way of preparing it. When it was tender, she tossed it to her tiny guest-closer than before, encouraging the cub to come nearer, which it did. She wiped her fingers clean on her pants, since her mother wasn't there to object to that, either.

"I'm Jasmine. And I guess you'll need a name, won't you?"

She contemplated the wolf cub as she chewed and tenderized the tough, dry meat for it. She had heard a lot of old, old, ancient stories read to her by her mother from the books her Uncle Kaos sent.

Wolves, wolves, wolves...

As she thought, she dropped another bit of chewed meat on the ground, nearer herself, watching as the little pup inched closer, paused, and sniffed at her dubiously. She offered her hand, and the pup sniffed at that, as well, lapping at the fingers Jasmine had handled the meat with; her other hand reached, slowly and uncertainly, to touch the cub's back.

The cub seemed to hesitate, briefly, and then snapped up the morsel Jasmine had dropped, letting her stroke the down-soft fur of its back. Finished eating, the pup sniffed and nuzzled at her hands experimentally, as though memorizing her scent and texture.

Jasmine laughed softly to herself and gently lifted the pup, cradling it in her arms without much resistance. "You're a girl, too, huh? Well, then I know just what to call you."

* * * * *

Plip . . . plip . . .

Skoll! thought Jasmine, as she heard the sound again. it was not a helpless whimper, or a plaintive one, but it was frustrated and concerned; it acknowledged helplessness, but didn't complain about it. It was strange in its passive tone, but it was a familiar sound, and this half-alien quality made it at once comforting and deeply haunting.

Now the chill had grown stronger. It rippled across her skin, into the ground, and up through her chest as though transfixed by an icicle. It became a venom that crept into the tips of her fingers and her toes. It pooled in her palms and in the soles of her feet, and it felt like oblivion.

"Nn... Skoll..." She was unsure whether she had spoken aloud to her companion, or thought the words to herself-she was half-conscious and breathing felt wrong.

"It's cold..."

* * * * *

The banshees keening in the fierce blizzard outside were the only response to her halfhearted complaint. Skoll whimpered and buried her muzzle against Jasmine's side; Jasmine finished tending the fire, and pulled over them both the deerskin cover she had earned months earlier from the people of the Alamosa Mountain Valley. Like the Zuni, the people of Alamosa had been overwhelmingly and often even embarrassingly generous.

After a fortnight spent among the people of Alamosa, recovering from their misadventures in the Sangre de Cristo Range, the pair had traveled north; they skirted the northeastern shores of a lake and followed one of its associated rivers, the San Guache Creek, into the mountains. Although there was a river system sound of the Sangre de Cristo, the people of Alamosa warned that the pass there led out directly into a popular camping ground for brigands. Jasmine had decided while struggling about for a pass in the Sangre de Cristo Range that even if it meant continuing on through the winter, keeping to the rivers and streams would be a necessity, and she knew better than to think she was ready to take on serious outlaws.

Despite having left Alamosa at the end of July, the mountains were cold in the unusually chill summer, and the weather only grew crueler as the duo traveled. Although they followed the San Guache Creek, Jasmine's navigation was imperfect, and they overshot the river they had been told to follow. As they traveled, they were kept well fed by Jasmine's familiarity with fishing, and they tussled and played daily. Before the beginning of September, Skoll had already grown rather adept at catching mice for herself, and could always depend on Jasmine to share if her own hunting went poorly.

They found a great many dead-end rivers which dwindled uphill into streams which dwindled into brooks; they were kept fed, but the days rolled on, and their precut paths often snaked about confusingly and wound up leading them back westward rather than to the east. They took to traveling only in the morning and afternoon, when the sun's position made east and west obvious; this tactic slowed their progress still further, and left them walking in the cooler parts of the day. Already, an at best tepid summer had been quickly giving way to autumn, and in the mountains, snow was not a surprising sight-although it did take Jasmine a few snow showers before she adjusted to the sight.

It was awhile after that, now, as they sat in the cave. Skoll sometimes ate better than Jasmine in the cold months, as they traveled through the chill expanse of the Great Barrier Mountains, hunting for an easy eastward path. Most of those paths were safe for caravans and experienced riders, but a lone girl with a wolf cub was another story. Jasmine typically had to limit her fishing to early afternoon as the sun briefly warmed and melted away ice floating along river surfaces; it was often a challenge even to navigate the snow and ice to reach the river bank safely.

Such was the state of things while they were camped out in the cave; in early November, Jasmine had decided it was getting too wintry to travel safely, and so they found a natural, unoccupied shelter. The cave served well to ward off the worst of the winter storms, but Jasmine was still not really prepared for a winter in the mountains, and it never went smoothly. She spoke to Skoll regularly, and sang to her daily; Skoll, in turn-already fiercely protective of her surrogate pack-sister-learned to be helpful, even though she was still growing, and helped bring meat when Jasmine fell sick (even if it was meat Jasmine would never eat under normal conditions).

Late in February, Jasmine and Skoll finally quit the cave. For Jasmine, at least, it had been growing more and more claustrophobic, and she had even begun to long for the travel again-for passing through valleys and over ridges and seeing new streams and new sights. That was why she had left Alhambra, after all; so it galled her to spend so much time in a cave, and she was glad to leave it.

As March began, the pair followed a strong river east by northeast to another, and through Trout Creek Pass, as the days marched onward, warming into a kinder year than the last had been. The pass brought them down into the eastern foothills from where flowed the Platte River, leading them out into the badlands. They had to keep near the river, both for navigation and water, and Jasmine was constantly wary of the outlaws she had heard so much about, months before. After they had traveled in a roughly eastward direction for some time, they came across a caravan returning from the Great Barrier Mountains-no, they were called the Western Mountains, here-and in return for her services as an entertainer and artist, singing and painting for the men of the caravan, Jasmine earned them passage to their first destination:

Farm 21.

* * * * *

Plip . . . plip . . . plip . . . plip . . .

A whispering, phantasmal howl rushed over and through Jasmine's body-not a wolf's howl, but just a faint draft, murmuring through her delirium. It was a clammy breeze, as though blowing out of a grave. She felt death lingering in it, circling like a patient buzzard.

Still, Skoll sounded concern but no weakness. Jasmine distantly felt a canine tongue against her cheek, and she the sensation to be mysteriously comforting. Her thoughts grew hazy and drifted and tore, clouded and tenuous, and she felt a soft, warm breath of wind tenderly sigh against her face.

* * * * *

The wind carried the smells of hundreds of well-tended and healthy young plants laid over that of fertilizer. It was a green scent, an earthy scent, a scent of nature compressed and concentrated into the most enduring and invaluable achievement of mankind's artifice:

Agriculture.

It was, in a way, appropriate that this was the scent marking the western expanse of the Steel City Territories. The Farms were both both geographically and conceptually the twilight band between the lifeless, barren badlands and the massive symbol of technology and urbanization, Steel City. Between the two opposing worlds, each in its own way all but devoid of life, lay the swath of gradually expanding green spots, the dais upon which stood the modern Tower of Babel known as the Orbital Ladder.

What had once been called Tiphares was visible from even the most distant of the Farms. Its form was grey and indistinct with distance, but the vague, enormous disc in the far distance could already be seen where it depended from a shaft reaching upward and fading into the blue of the heavens. In Jasmine's time, it was called the Tree of Life, as it had been transformed into a plantlike structure through the incredible power of nanomachines created by the Legendary Demonic Genius, Desty Nova, two decades past.

Jasmine sat, holding the young Skoll, as the caravan truck they rode in drove across the bridge spanning the Cimarron River on whose north bank Farm 21 sat. It added some time to the trip, but it avoided crossing the northbound rail line and possibly separating the caravan if a train should come along.

The agricultural atmosphere thinned as the the track crossed to the north side of the river where the town sat, sprawled over a lake, its perimeter dotted with about a dozen windmill power generators. Most of the residential area stood on the relatively shallow lake on sturdy triple-layer wooden platforms and walkways. Jasmine smiled to herself as the truck pulled to a stop and let her and Skoll out, wished the caravan folk well, and stepped onto the lake town. With some directions from the locals, Jasmine easily found her objective within Farm 21: the clinic.

Her pulse raced as she stood at the door, silently, one hand poised. I never really thought about what I should say, all this time, she thought. I'm right here, and I don't know what to say! "Hi, I'm the daughter of somebody you don't know, what's up?" Argh... but it'll be embarrassing to just stand here like an idiot, too...

She hesitated a moment longer, then knocked at the clinic door and clasped her hands behind her back to keep herself from fidgeting where it could be seen. She waited quietly, glancing down to watch Skoll sitting attentive and austere at her feet, and looked up again when she heard the door unlatch and swing open on indifferently maintained hinges.

A middle-aged man stood at the door, eyes squinted behind his glasses; he was a little scruffy, but he didn't seem slobbish so much as distracted-as though he was too busy to worry about shaving. He was perhaps the tallest person Jasmine had seen without extensive cybernetics. She guessed he was at least a foot and a half taller than her, and probably more; Jasmine, herself, was easily under five feet. He had a blue mark on his forehead shaped a bit like a U.

"Oh," he said, looking down to see her. "Is there something I can do for you, Miss?" Jasmine stared silently, suddenly struck by the reality of the situation.

"Are you all right?" he asked, kindly.

"Oh! Yeah!" she blurted out hastily, snapping out of her stunned condition. "Yeah, I'm fine! Just, uh... you're Doctor Ido, right?"

"Well, yes. Do I know you?"

"Er... no, I guess you don't. I know you don't. But you... well..." Jasmine trailed off, hesitating and turning her eyes away. How should I say it? How do I talk to a man who's like a grandfather but who doesn't even know my mother?

Skoll nudged Jasmine's leg meaningfully, and she smiled down at her companion. You're right, Skoll, she thought. I just need to let go and relax, and say what I mean.

"You... you helped my mother, a long time ago," she said, looking up to his large, gentle face and smiling wanly. "I guess you wouldn't really remember, since it's been more than twenty years, but... I just always wanted to meet you, I guess. And you should know she'll never forget you, too."

"Oh, I see... and you came here all by yourself?" asked Ido, adjusting his glasses.

"Well, yeah," she nodded.

"Hm. Well," he said cheerfully, "I guess you must be able to take care of yourself, then, huh? But I'll still offer you dinner, if you want to stay... uh... oh, I don't think I caught your name."

"Jasmine! And this's Skoll."

"Skoll, huh?" Ido said as he knelt down and reached a hand to pet the wolf pup.

Skoll bristled, growling, and Ido sweatdropped and jerked his hand away.

"Skoll!" scolded Jasmine, hands on her hips. "This's someone I've been wanting to meet for a long time, and he was a friend of my mom, so don't be so mean!"

"Uh... no, no, it's okay," laughed Ido, sheepishly. "Why don't you two come on in, and I'll get you something to eat, okay?"

Jasmine follow him inside, and they ate, and they talked. Ido told her about a train scheduled to leave for Steel City in about two weeks, and she decided she would take it.

During the remainder of her stay at Farm 21, Jasmine kept herself busy helping Ido, playing with Skoll, fishing, and sketching everything about the place-after close to a year of traveling and drawing, she had to start a second sketch book. Her sketches were like her study notes, and she learned to refer to them and paint even when her subject wasn't available. Some things, really familiar things, she could paint without even having her sketch book, and she studied the lines and shapes of Ido every moment she could.

At the end of her last day at Farm 21, as the train began to pull away, Jasmine looked back at the verdant lake village, and smiled wanly at the tall, middle-aged man seeing her off. He stood as always in a tie and lab coat, holding a painting she was sure he would never really understand: a portrait of himself next to a short, dark-haired girl, curled against his side like a child cradled by a protective father.

There. Now you can be with him forever, mom.