Over the years in the Invicta, standing guard was a constant duty. It was as natural as breathing.
Maybe in the tedious calm, he could find some measure of peace.
18
Luna
Luna awoke to Sol’s wailing.
She shot out of the furs to get to his cradle.
By the time she reached him, his sweet little blue face had gone indigo with fury.
She pulled him to her chest and sat back down on the makeshift bed, wrapping a fur around them.
It was cold this morning, the treehouse was frigid in the pink light. The fire must have gone out during the night.
Sol buried his face in her neck and calmed a little, but he kept taking deep, shuddering breaths, as if he hadn’t forgotten that he was still unhappy.
“You’re okay, my love,” she murmured to him. “I’ve got you.”
She looked around the treehouse.
Snake was still sleeping in his little hammock, despite the noise - another apparently universal feature of teen boys. Noxx was nowhere to be seen. The door to the bathroom stood open, and the room was empty.
She glanced at the balcony door, but decided against getting up since the baby was finally calming down.
It didn’t seem likely that Noxx was out in this cold though. It occurred to her that she didn’t even know where he’d slept. She’d been hoping to feel his warm arms around her at some point in the night, but if he’d joined her, she must have been too fast asleep to notice.
She decided to fix Sol a cell of milk.
He stayed calm when she got up, and he allowed her to warm up his meal without fussing.
Once he was tucked in the crook of her arm, wolfing down his milk, she decided to walk over to the balcony door and see if Noxx was out there. She could see the whole balcony through the glass. It was empty.
Panic made her heart beat faster.
He wouldn’t leave her alone here with both kids.
Would he?
The front door opened quietly and she spun around.
“Noxx,” she murmured in relief.
The big blue warrior was in full regalia, armor covering his shoulders and strapped across the bare planes of his muscular chest.
His military posture felt almost aggressive in the small space.
But his eyes were tortured.
“Noxx?” she whispered. “Are you okay?”
“Of course,” he said, turning his attention to the kitchen.
“What were you doing out there?” she asked.
“Standing guard,” he said.
“Why?” she asked.
“We don’t know whose kid he is,” Noxx said, indicating the boy. “We don’t know who might have wanted to come after us for taking him. Bringing him here was dangerous.”
“So you think it would have been better to leave him alone in the woods?” Luna asked.
“He seems like he can take care of himself,” Noxx growled.
Luna looked at the boy in the hammock. He was nearly man-sized, but that didn’t mean he was ready to sleep alone in the woods.
She turned back to Noxx, who was banging around in the cupboards.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m hungry. It’s cold out there,” he said. “But someone destroyed our food replicator.”
“We’ll get more parts, and I’ll fix it,” she told him. “I’m sorry you’re hungry. I think there’s cold venison in the refrigerator.”
There was a soft sound behind them.
Snake had awoken. He padded over to join them by the kitchen counter.
“We’re going to find your home today,” Luna told him, gesturing to all of them and then making a walking motion and pointing at the boy.
He grinned at her and then waved to the baby.
Sol squeaked at him and waved a chubby fist in the air.
Noxx pulled the leftovers out and they all stood by the counter, eating cold meat in silence.
“I’ll take Sol while you get ready,” Noxx said, holding his arms out for the boy. “It’s full light now, time we left.”
Luna handed over the little one and scrambled to the bathroom to clean up and get ready to go.
A few minutes later she emerged, as ready as she was going to be.
“Cradle or sling?” Noxx asked.
“I think the sling is best,” she told him. “He seems to be fussy, but he likes being held.”
Noxx nodded and handed her the baby and the carrier she had used yesterday.
Snake pulled down his hammock and wound it back into a small ball, which he crammed into his rucksack.
They left the treehouse, taking turns riding the disc down to the lower branch, which seemed to delight Snake, and climbing down the rest of the way.
Of course Noxx went first, sword out, as if he thought an army might be waiting to ambush them.
But the forest was silent.
They set off in the direction of the place where they had found Snake.
“How are you planning to find his home?” Luna asked, jogging to catch up with Noxx. “He seemed lost yesterday, so this might not be the right way.”
“I’m a dragon warrior, Luna,” Noxx said tightly. “I can use my sense of smell.”
“Oh,” she said, taken aback. “I didn’t know you had an enhanced sense of smell.”
“I have many enhanced senses,” he said. “But that’s the only one we’ll need today. We’re going back to where we found him, then we’ll follow the trail back to his home.”
“That makes sense,” Luna said. “What an amazing super power.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, even though he seemed to be almost deliberately grumpy today.
There was so much about the burly warrior that she just didn’t understand. And he wasn’t exactly the best at sharing.
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to sleep,” she said softly. “I would have taken a shift if I’d known what you were worried about.”
He frowned.
“I’m a warrior of the Invicta. You’re a tiny female Terran. You don’t have the senses to pick up on danger. And you wouldn’t know what to do even if you did detect it.”
“Of course I would,” she retorted.
“Okay, what would you do?” he demanded.
“I would wake you up,” she said.
He barked out a laugh.
Luna smiled too, and when he glanced down at her his eyes were warm and twinkly like before.
As if on cue, Sol began to whimper.
I wish the two of you could just be cheerful at the same time for a minute today.
“What’s wrong, little one?” she asked.
But of course, Sol couldn’t answer.
Not for lack of trying. His little face was screwed up and he was wailing in earnest now.
“He’s going to wake up everything that’s sleeping in these woods,” Noxx said.
Snake scampered off into the trees.
“See, the kid’s not that great,” Noxx grumbled. “He’s running off at the first sign of trouble.”
“Do you think he wants you to hold him?” Luna asked, looking down at Sol.
“Doesn’t really look that way,” Noxx said. “He’s pretty good at showing us that kind of thing. This almost looks like he’s…hurting.”