The Swan's Song.

Chapter 17

Certain dates in the story lore and our real world line up, but a lot do not. Remember, if something is dated 'wrong,' it's intentional.

And also, I'm going to create a soundtrack for the story. I'm gonna figure out some themes and music that will fit the characters and parts of the story and I'll list them here for you all. I may create a Spotify playlist for you all, even. Who knows?

Lastly, @FieldmarshalV22P2 is a backup account should this one get annihilated. Follow it just in case. The stories will resume there.

XXX

Internally, Brixley was hooting and hollering.

She was jumping up and down and running around the room screaming with enjoyment that Swan was going to work with them.

At last, she was gaining ground with the human and turning the tide that was the iron curtain which had fallen over his emotions and reasoning.

But externally, she was as calm and collected as she felt would be normal. She still had a briefing to get through, and going ballistic because of Swan wouldn't help to finish it.

Despite wanting to look Ana and Ava in the face and tell them to 'suck it' because she was right about Swan, Brixley couldn't help but wonder just what it was that caused the man to finally come to his senses.

Was it his exhaustion? Did he actually think things through? Did he have some ulterior motives?

"Is Callie right? I know he hasn't said anything, really. But could there actually be 'more' to this?" Thought Brixley.

She took a moment to think over their past encounters, and truth be told, Brixley couldn't exactly see an angle where Swan would use them to further some major ulterior goal.

It was clear to her that Swan was just part of a survivor group that were cast into stormy waters and trying to survive the swells.

He didn't seem like he had any major goals for himself, or perhaps even another organization.

"If he wanted to further such things, wouldn't it have made more sense to be a bit more cooperative at the start?" Asked Brixley.

Swan was downright appalling the first days. She would have simply regarded him as a propagandized racist with no higher function besides 'hate anthros' if it wasn't for the fact that he was everything but.

The way he talked about the two passed members of Sako and the internal introspection bore a look into a more complex mind than what a hateful simpleton would have displayed.

Swan was still full of mystery and Brixley knew that she wanted to unravel it.

And the General knew that the best way to unravel it was figure out the small things first, like what made him agree.

Telling her and everyone in the room that he knew Keller personally and as a friend was something he decided to reveal on his own time without any sort of push for that specific piece of information.

Swan would tell her everything eventually, and she understood it would be on his own time. She deduced that she would do her best to guide him towards self expulsion of such things and to try not to hound him too much.

"Trust will go a long way. I need to build it, and I'll start by understanding that there might be some other things about Swan, but nothing too major." Thought Brixley. She decided to continue the briefing there.

"The Furled Fist. We have multiple known locations and as we speak, our scouts and rangers are surveying more probable sections. We are not striking blind in this instance." Said Brixley. She clicked on her remote and a new slide came up.