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He squeezed her thighs before unraveling their bodies. But he couldn’t bring himself to let her go, and kept an arm around her waist as he swam them up to his sister. “There was nothing you could have done, Alys. Like you said, none of us could stop this.”
His heart broke in the silence that followed. They swam through the currents and the waves, and he knew he was returning to what would be a very sad scene. His people had to flee from their homes. The places they had lived for years on end, even if they had only recently come back to these hunting grounds. He wasn’t even sure where they would go now. But they would find somewhere they were welcome.
Alys, on the other hand, seemed to take all this to heart. He could feel her growing more and more angry. The scent of it filled his gills.
These were her people, and she was deeply unhappy with them. He wouldn’t be surprised if her anger spilled onto others as well. There were a lot of people who were ready to be angry.
Now, all he could do was hope that he could control the situation.
It was no surprise that he couldn’t.
The moment they all crested the rise that brought them to his home, he could see the metal demons in the distance. They weren’t just scouting this time, they were destroying everything in their way. Countless of his people gathered whatever items they could. A few of them darted past, their arms already laden with food, tapestries, even a few of the stones to remember this place as it was before it was destroyed.
Virago stopped one of them, placing her hand on his arm. “Tell those who are already carrying things not to come back. We’ve run out of time.”
The man nodded and then swam as quickly as he could to catch up with the small group that was already heading off.
“How are you going to find them all?” Alys asked, watching as they seemingly darted in countless directions. “No one is going to the same place.”
“We always find each other.” He didn’t know how it was possible, but his people were good at coming back together. They would gather eventually. But for now, they all needed to get away from the metal demons in the distance.
His hearts squeezed as he looked at the billowing mass of dust and darkness behind the machines. They looked to be churning up the ground. Some of them were stuck at higher rises, but he could see they were eating away at the stone. Slowly digging themselves a flat plane. Anything in their way was destroyed. He could smell blood in the water, likely sea creatures who hadn’t swum away from them fast enough.
“Brother,” Virago said, her voice cutting through his horror. “We are needed.”
“Of course.”
He dragged Alys with him, although she hadn’t said much yet. Then he dove into gathering whatever he could. He thrust everything he came in contact with into her arms. Tapestries, rugs, woven jewelry, whatever his hands found, he tossed to her.
“Whose are these?” she asked, looking down into the mass of items in her arms.
“I don’t know,” he muttered, looking around for more things to grab. “It doesn't matter right now. Once we’re all back together, we’ll figure out who owns what.”
“You act like you’ve done this before.”
“We have,” he absentmindedly replied, gathering things in his own arms now that he realized she couldn’t carry more. “Sometimes it’s natural disasters, other times your people get too close and we move again. We cannot take the risk of them finding out about us.”
“But they already know you exist.”
He froze as he remembered that. “Right. I need to tell the others about that so we don’t get too close on our scouting.” Arms full, he rotated, so she was above him. “Can you hold on to me?”
Her delicate hand wrapped around his shoulder and she held on as he swam them far away from those chomping machines that destroyed so much of his world. Imber felt a bit like he was leaving behind a version of himself that he might not get back. There was so much he didn’t know. So much he wanted answers to. But this place would not be where he gathered those answers. Not when he had so many people to take care of.
They moved a long distance away until he could smell some of his people gathered just on the edge of a drop off that disappeared into the abyss. He joined them there, his hearts aching. They all gathered together, tails twined as they watched their home disappear in the distance.
He dropped his armful of things and then turned to help Alys empty her arms as well. “We’ll wait here until we cannot any longer.”
“Why are they just going to watch?” she asked. Her face was redder than he remembered. “You’re all going to stay here and just watch your home get torn apart?”
“We mourn for what we lost,” he replied. “We will watch it because it should not die on its own. Just as we stay with those we love when it is their time. Nothing should disappear alone. Not even the place that holds so many memories for us.”
Her hands twisted in her skirts and suddenly she turned to him with a determined expression. “I don’t know those droids, but I think I can figure them out. I can dismantle them. If you get me close enough, then I can figure out how to stop them. We can freeze them in their tracks.”
Something in him cracked. He trailed the back of his hand down her cheek, loving her more than he ever had before. “They will just send more, Alys.”
“Then we will keep shutting them down. It will be a graveyard of metal beats, I know, but you will still have your home.”
“We do not wish to live in a graveyard.”
