WARHAMMER 40,000: SPOTTER (Longshot Fix It Quest)

Nevic takes her time thinking. You give her the time to think, watching the breeze ruffle her hair. It looks so much silkier than Tau hair, which tends towards coarse and rough. Easily braided. But her hair curls. You wondered how it'd feel sliding your fingers through her hair. Humans enjoyed having their hair petted, right? Like g'ochs. That's what you had read at least. Did she know how nice her-

"That drone of yours, can it find a body?" Nevic asks, startling you out of your entirely professional reverie.

"W-Wha?" you ask, trying to get brain to think and words make sound in mouth while Lem'ra let out a little doo-weep and wobbled from side to side. "Uh. A body? H-Heh, uh, Lem'ra sometimes has trouble with doors." She let out a sad dwooo. "Oh, no, I didn't mean it…it's cute!" You say, hurriedly, while Lem'ra drifts towards the ground. "It's not an insult!"

Nevic watches you curiously, then sighs. "Well, you have other…um…drones, right?" she asks.

"Yeah, I can ask for some," you say, nodding. "I can get right on that! What body do you need to find?" You considered. "And, um, finding a body will be easy. But finding a specific body is going to be really difficult."

Nevic nodded, then looked back out. "Yeah. We hid a lot using our cloaks." She frowns.

"Ah, yes, chameloline cloaks," you say. "A very clever bit of human technology, if I do say so myself."

Nevic grunts, but keeps looking out at the city. You shuffled a bit closer, staying on your thighs as you and she sit on the manufactorum roof. The breeze that ruffles her hair is surprisingly warm, but the scents you would normally think of that meant 'spring' were nowhere to be smelled. Not under all that old death and grime and smoke. You continued to speak, filling in the silence.

"Still, over time, the cloaks fall apart and not everybody was wearing one, and battlefield drones use sensors that are faster, not better. There are crime scene drones who specifically look for bodies and such! So, we can use their sniffers and their snoopers and we can search slowly, carefully, inch by inch by inch…" you said, miming out a grid with the flat of your palm and your other hand, while Nevic actually smiled a little bit. You felt reassured and kept going. She liked the sound of your voice after all!

"Once I get back, I'll ask for the best drone we have. They'll give anything for-" you paused. Should you call her Longshot. Or the Ghost of Cocleratum. The nicknames she had earned from both the T'au and the humans. But…

You saw her face.

"...anything for you, Nevic." You place your hand, gently, on her shoulder, tensed and ready for her to shut you off.

Nevic looks at you. Then down at your hand. Then she…she actually blushes. Her cheeks flush very red, the blood flowing obviously under her pale skin.

"T-Thanks?" she asks, sounding like she doesn't quite know what to make of it. "Um." She shrugged her shoulder, knocking your hand off, her tone hardening. "Course. You'll do anything for the Ghost. Put me in all the vids, right?" She speaks that name, Ghost, with such intense venom that you realize you had very closely avoided stepping into a non-funtioning gravshaft.

"Right!" you said, nodding. "S-So, uh, what body do you need to find, anyway?"

Nevic sighs. She leans her head back against a bit of rubble and closes her eyes.

Silence.

Another one of those long silences. You feel the urge to apologize, bubbling up inside of you. Before you work up the courage to break this silence, though, she says: "Aren't water caste supposed to be tactful?"

You feel like your entire face has been put into the blender. "W-Well, uh, bu…I…" You say, hurriedly, putting your hands together. "Listen, I-!" Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!

But to your surprise, Nevic is smiling, slightly. "It's fine. Means I can trust you. And if you can make it in the T'au Empire, maybe I have a shot too."

"You have more than a shot! You've got the best shot! Since! I mean, after all, sniper!" you say, before you can stop yourself. You put your hand over your mouth. "Not that you're just a sniper. You can be anything you want. Y-You could be…a…a…a…singer."

Nevic looks at you as if you've stopped speaking Common Terran. "A what?"

"You know, um, a singer? Who sings? About thing?" you ask. "Like, you know, romantic ballads, or patriotic songs-"

"You want me to be a choralist?" Nevic asks, her voice dry. "I don't know many hymns."

"No, not quite, you're the only singer, and there's a band, it's water caste stuff," you say, nodding. "It was stupid. I'm stupid. Sorry. It feels like my brain doesn't work around you."

"Well, yes. That's what a sniper does," Nevic says, pointing two fingers toward you and going pew. You think she's actually making fun you. You giggle and smile.

"I mean you're very-" you stopped. "Impressive!"

"Thanks," Nevic says. Then she looked away. "But. Yeah. A body." She shifts a bit on the ground.

You nod again, but then remain perfectly still, not wanting to stick your hoof even further directly down your stupid, stupid throat. The silence holds - and a slow tension starts to build inside of Nevic, one that you only noticed now as a contrast. She had actually relaxed. Your stupid words had helped?

Nevic sighs. "Yanna." Silence. "She's my friend. She. Was. My friend."

You nod solemnly. "I'm sorry."

"She's why I defected," she says. Silence again. But you see her looking at you. She squares her shoulders, breathes in, looks away…and utters the longest, unbroken dialog you've ever heard her speak. Ever.

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Darya trailed off.

You tried to imagine what that conversation with Mui'el had been. Imagine meeting an Etherial. Imagine…imagine…you tried to imagine everything she had gone through. But…it was too overwhelming.

"I'm sorry," you said.

Then you hugged her. Darya tensed and you squeezed her tighter, burying your face against her neck. "It'll be okay," you whisper. "We'll find Yanna, and give her a burial with the highest of honors we can."

Darya breathed in, slow, and shuddering, then breathes out a sigh.

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