Chapter Text
The stillness when he awoke was an illusion; he could smell the fear and sorrow all around him. He could hear the occasional sob, but most of all there was the sensation of loss. Even he could feel it, a shadow over his soul, an ache of loss that he had never felt before. Unlike those around him, however, if anything it made him feel a strange sense of calm.
Rex knew all to well that those Aurin crowded around him would be the more civilised ones. Most of his own, feral, people would have been lost to the flames, or their own fury. These Aurin were those who lived amongst the trees, whose connection to them and the queen were greatest, and so those who mourned the greatest the destruction they left behind.
He started to stand. The smoke stained child in his arms still slept, so he carefully put her to one side, subconsciously wrapping her in the blanket he had been given. He saw the haunted eyes of those around watching him carefully, but instead of watching him with the distrust they would normally have of a Wildling, their focus was on the blades, enemy blood still to their depowered edges.
He started to pick his way through the cargo hold, filled as it was with huddling forms, and towards the corridor that led to the rest of the ship. Unlike the warm earth of his home, the cold metal under his paws made him shudder with each step, his claws clicking with each step.
A pair of human guards stopped him at the door, rifles held lax, glancing at the weapons he carried.
“They’ll have to stay behind, Sir.”
A growl built almost instantly in his throat “we’re prisoners then?” and his grip tightened on the handles of the claws, energy starting to charge in the blades.
“No, Sir, but we have been advised the trauma of what has happened could cause unexpected results”
The standoff lasted only a few moments, before he relented for some reason he couldn’t quite decide, placing his new weapons on a table with others to one side, the guard nodding appreciatively and placing a tag on them after asking his name.
“Rex”
“Well, Rex, you’re a scrapper I can see… these are from an officer… once we reach the flagship you’d be best to speak with the Commander, we need good men.”
“I’m no man, those are for when we return home, where is meat?”
The Aurin nodded lightly, and stepped down the corridors towards the smell of food, passing medical staff operating on Aurin and Exiles alike… Mordesh, for the most part, it was all he could do not to assume the worst of the sickly looking medics and leave them bleeding.. but he controlled his instincts and continued, stepping into a crowded mess hall.
Food, at least there is something that is not different, even in this cold metal box adrift in the void. People of all shapes and sizes, as much as he struggled to think of them as people, gathered together and eating after their struggles. The lack of his own people was not surprising, they would all be in the hold with the exception of a few here and there who had joined the Exile ships when they first passed through. The majority of this ship seemed to be made of humans, alike the Cassian’s enough to make his tail twitch, but he kept his temper better than he would expect as he joined the line for food, following their lead in taking a tray and being dished out simple fare.