Chapter Text
A doesn’t remember much anymore. He’s not even sure that’s really his name; the last time someone addressed him was years ago, probably. Zombies don’t talk to each other, really, but occasionally his Ronan will brush the fur on another Corpse’s Beast and there’ll be a sort-of conversation, usually composed mostly of grunts and high-pitched wheezing.
And raids. He remembers the raids on the airport, with groups of humans rushing the terminals and destroying the peacefully-shambling calm in a sort of last-ditch effort to wipe out the threat. And yeah, he gets where they’re coming from (plague of the undead eating your family? Can’t really miss that, especially when you are the zombie) but really? They even got C, the old woman with the kitty frock who hadn’t moved from her seat in the waiting area for years. She was practically harmless. Her Bina was a small gecko on her knee, faded and washed-out and staring blankly into space with her.
But then, after years of this, the raids changed, became geared towards saving the Corpses instead of killing them off. He knew it had been triggered by R, that sly devil, with his Miri who always hovered between Corpse-grey and her natural blue-violet, blending the two. He’d seen her before the other had left: she’d glowed, eyes bleeding back to amber, wings quicker than they’d been in years, since her boy had died. A smirked a little, unable to move his mouth much what with the scars, but Ronan had stopped and stared before rearing back on his paws and roaring at the Boneys in defiance. They’d snuck into the back of the ragtag band and kept an eye on the fringes, wary of Boneys and falling into old habits, Living habits.
At the gates, in the Living-city, he is shuffled to the edge of a campfire with the others. Soldiers are staring at them, at Ronan’s massive fuzzy grey snow leopard body slinking around his legs with his ice-blue eyes peering back, at M’s Cata’s fennec fox form blushing slowly with color, at R’s little Miri and her lovely dusky feathers and the way she’s preening on his shoulders, so proud of herself and her regained speed. One approaches, a loping, wary hound beside him.
“Hi,” he says. A stares at him, uncomfortable. It’s been a long time, conversation-wise. “My name’s Kevin. Do you remember yours?”
“A,” says A, watching quietly as Ronan tries to remember the daemon pleasantries Beasts have all forgotten. “Ronan,” he adds, pointing. Kevin nods a little, eyes measuring him silently.
“Did you realize,” says Kevin slowly, “that you were standing at attention? Maybe you were in the military.” A’s considered this. His dreams are of two boys, their eyes laughing as they try to copy something he’s doing, something to do with self-defence. One is named Lionel and the other is Lyle, and they had never gotten old enough for their daemons, Kita and Bascus, to settle. Not of the military, but then, maybe he hadn’t thought that mattered as much as his boys.
He’d loved them, enough to track down the couple who’d murdered them and get himself sent to the nearby jail for their deaths.
He realizes he’s been too silent, that Kevin is inching away, but Ronan bites his ear.
“Maybe,” says Ronan, voice scratchy and torn but there, and Kevin’s greyhound jerks a little.
“You can talk?” The daemon sounds way too excited, but Ronan licks his hide and ignores the dog. He’s always had a thing against trusting dogs; the old rivalry running deep, apparently. The dog looks disappointed.
A is going to say something, offer a condolence, but it’s been too long and he’s lost and R is coming back and asking for volunteers to meet people and help get everything settled and he’s standing and raising his hand.
And Kevin watches him go.
A senses possibilities, in that single stare and the way the hound stares after Ronan with an expression like longing.