It's fall in Harsh Realm, or at least it feels like it should be. Tom looked back at the three of them, feeling a kind of longing that he can only identify with the World Tree, billowing bonfires, and those three and dozens of others gathered around the flames and drinking and laughing. Family, the kind of family you only realize you have when the world is narrowed down to pinpoints by strife and loss, the kind you never realized you had before.
He nodded quietly, exchanged a look with Florence and let his gaze slide over Mike and Neil one last time before he turned on his heel and moved out of the spill of firelight and into the roughness of the jungle. There were crawlers, half rotten trees, the ever present smell of sulfur and oil slicks. He kicked aside a pile of bird bones and feathers and, in the western lee of a tree, he sat down with his gun across his knees, looking out at the muddy ribbon of the river that cut its way through the valley below. This place was rotting from the inside out, but even the Sahara had mirages. Mike. Neil. Florence. Little bits of wonder that made a very personal hell more tolerable.
He was tired. They were all tired, and quite possibly they all had a long way to go tomorrow. Tom shoved himself back against the tree and squinted out at twilight. Tomorrow, which they had to believe in, since it was very hard to believe in today.
His eyes were heavy. He blinked once, twice, three times, and for a moment, just a second or two, Tom's eyes drifted shut and he...
...blinked.
They had to believe in tomorrow, because there was just no belief left in today.
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He nodded quietly, exchanged a look with Florence and let his gaze slide over Mike and Neil one last time before he turned on his heel and moved out of the spill of firelight and into the roughness of the jungle. There were crawlers, half rotten trees, the ever present smell of sulfur and oil slicks. He kicked aside a pile of bird bones and feathers and, in the western lee of a tree, he sat down with his gun across his knees, looking out at the muddy ribbon of the river that cut its way through the valley below. This place was rotting from the inside out, but even the Sahara had mirages. Mike. Neil. Florence. Little bits of wonder that made a very personal hell more tolerable.
He was tired. They were all tired, and quite possibly they all had a long way to go tomorrow. Tom shoved himself back against the tree and squinted out at twilight. Tomorrow, which they had to believe in, since it was very hard to believe in today.
His eyes were heavy. He blinked once, twice, three times, and for a moment, just a second or two, Tom's eyes drifted shut and he...
...blinked.
They had to believe in tomorrow, because there was just no belief left in today.