Cursed Are the Meek

Tongues of Fire

It was noon when Lone Star returned to Pipsqueak's rooms, brushing aside the heavy woolen curtain with her staff to let herself in.  The little slugcat was hunched over a big bowl of popcorn fruit and chewing heartily, the rhythmic crunch crunch of his teeth echoing against the metal walls.
No sooner had she stepped into the room that the young creature's ears twitched, jerking his head up from his plate so their eyes could meet. 

"Good morning, Mother!" he chirped, "Thank you for the meal. Pipsq- sorry; I haven't eaten properly in, oh... weeks, probably!" He gave her a frank, toothy smile.

"It was no bother, young one. How do you feel?"

"A little worse for wear; but I'll be okay." 
He reached onto his bedside table and took a long, parched gulp out of a jug by his bedside before swinging it back down with a thump that made Lone Star fear for its integrity.

The mask hid the deep ridges in the chieftain's brow as she took in Pipsqueak's attitude. There was something unsettlingly casual about it, as if coming a hair's breadth away from dying had been no great inconvenience to him.
In truth, the whole situation was uncanny: she knew Pipsqueak as a resourceful, prudent youth; so where did he venture, to come back in such a state? Why would he travel through such unhospitable lands in the first place?
The chieftain's eyes thinned beneath her mask.

"Indeed it does." She answered.

A outsider wouldn't have remarked anything of note, but to Pipsqueak the subtle shift in the chieftain's expression spoke louder than the crack of a whip.
He felt the hairs in his neck prickle as the air in the room turned tense and icy.

"Do I displease you, Mother?" he asked cautiously, ears edging back towards his skull.

"Not yet, young one. But the circumstances of your return among us are undoubtedly odd." 
She gave him a pointed look; and he held it with the firm, somewhat puzzled expression of the truly innocent. This thawed her suspicions a little.
The young slugcat curiously cocked his head to the side and waited for her to continue.

"So, tell me. What queer matters have brought you, starving, to our putrid shores?"

Pipsqueak's whole face lit up like a lanternmouse's.

"Yes! Yes, I will, but first: Mother, what do you know about iterators?"

Her thoughts went immediately to scout Lightfoot's reports of an immense living structure; the cruel, sickly god living in its center who had flushed noxious liquids and Brother Longlegs onto their land. She reflexively gritted her teeth, and gently spun the heavy rod in her hands to soothe herself.

"I know enough. What about them?"

"I met one! Well, three, but one was a jerk and the other one only briefly- I'm getting off track, sorry." His eyes glittered with excitement, and his next words tumbled out of his mouth like water from a spring.

"More to the point! Her name is Moon and she's very kind; lives out in Shoreline in the big metal box over the leviathan nests. She taught me a lot, like how we were all made to serve the Ancients, you know, the people before us who built everything."

The more excited the young creature got, the more Lone Star felt herself chill. 
She nodded curtly for him to go on.

"But then they left; and everything went down the drain since. The rain, the scarcity, the bad climate, it's all their fault. They took all the resources from us and we've been fighting each other for their crumbs since; but we don't have to anymore! Moon told me that other iterators can help us: they can teach us how to clean the water and how to build our own big buildings and clear up all the rubble so that plants can grow. We could make the world livable again!"

He stopped to catch his breath.

"Sure, we need to help them out a little too; most of them are rusty and haven't received proper maintenance in millennia, but Moon believes it can be done. I have already managed to recruit another iterator! His name is-"

"Is that why you are so weakened?" 

Pipsqueak froze midsentence, confusion washing over his features. He slowly tilted his head to the side.

"It was a hard journey, yes."

"Why couldn't Moon deliver the message herself?"

"Iterators can't move, Mother. Plus she has been crippled."

"Yet they are aware of the world outside, are they not?"

"Yes, but that's only because of Overseers-"

"Pipsqueak."

The small slugcat's jaw shut so quickly he felt the vibration in his skull.

"They are aware of the world outside by your own admission. They have been perfectly happy to leave us to our fate, not to mention letting their brethren run amok and use my hunting grounds as his personal latrine for generations. Am I to believe they had a sudden change of heart after thousands, maybe millions of indifferent years?"

Lone Star's eyes seemed to fuse with the great antlered mask she wore, like a pair of sharp jewels carved in the bone and metal; and they gleamed: the chilly, stony, blinding brightness of a winter sky.

The slugcat met those calculating, ruthless eyes and understood that he was speaking to his friend and mentor no longer, but to the Lord Mother of the Wastes.

He bowed his head, but his eyes did not follow and stared straight into hers: humble, sincere, but sharp and unyielding as black glass.

"I cannot speak," he begun with deliberate slowness, "In the name of a whole species, but merely those who have sworn to change their ways and ally themselves with you; both of which have had no part in and no control over Five Pebbles' actions."

"Am I to believe that they have no way of communicating with each other?"

"They do, but they're very limited, and I have it in good authority that Pebbles has been shutting down all attempts at communication from other iterators."

"Convenient."
The chieftain's hands were folded with regal composure on top of her staff, steady and inexorable as the pull of gravity; yet despite her careful expressionlessness the chieftain could only soften the scathing disbelief in that single word. 

The youth said nothing; but clawed idly at the makeshift mattress, his agile mind racing to find an opening, a wedge in the chieftain's disbelief.
Then he spoke. 

"Mother, you have every reason to despise them. We all do."
He paused, straightening his posture so he was looking straight into Lone Star's eyes.

"I care for Moon but I didn't cross a desert twice for her; I did it because I love to think of a future where we may aspire to be more than just scavengers picking at the corpse of the people who left us for dead."

Though he hadn't as much as shifted his tail as he spoke, the young slugcat's body seemed to ripple with newfound vigor despite its feeble condition. 
His liquid black eyes gazed, enraptured, at a distant something only he could see; the soft shadow of a smile creeping over his features as he did.

"These ruins need not define us. We wouldn't need to fear rain or hunger no longer, and no longer we would live amongst the pollution and the scraps and the murky water. We could build our own world on the ashes they left us and outshine them all."

He paused, inhaling deeply.

"Wouldn't it be wonderful, Mother?"