Smith and Nadeden look out into space from Granix’s eyes. Viewing the asteroid field drifting through the void, Smith speaks up, “What exactly are we looking for?” Granix’s voice echoes throughout the room: “I last spotted the pirates at the center of the field of wreckage. There is no doubt that we’ll find them close to it. And it's so large that by the time they even attempt to leave the area, we will already be there.” Nadeden lies at the curve of the eye, adjusting her makeshift bow while Smith tells her, “You’re doing a good thing, you know.” She squints at Smith, “Helping me and Granix, I mean.”
Both she and Granix remain silent at the statement.
Smith simply smiles.
Sand ran down the backs of all the giants resting for the summer. It was only in winter that they would arise again to gather supplies for their next summer rest and let the animals that call them home out to play in the snow. It was a simple life. A peaceful life. They all told each other stories during the summer rest. Stories of how joyous the last summer rest was. They all laughed, and the animals within their bodies played. Cooling themselves in the pools. Running through the trees and grass. All within the giants who kept them safe from the heat and the sand.
Granix was home to many creatures. A family of Yolkwell lived in the grass, two generations of Juntleheim dwelled in the water, five generations of Squill fish as well, and in the trees lived many a bird and Qrow. However, out of all those who called them home, Granix loved the Coat foxes the most. They were known as Coat foxes for the simple reason that all their body was white while...
“Their backs are grey.” Nadeden stated, looking over the dead foxes Gerry was studying, “I thought Quandroiz was uninhabited.” Nadeden stretched her bowstring between her fingers, sighing, “Well, their numbers are probably scarce. It doesn’t really matter anyway, does it?” Gerry looked up at her and adjusted his glasses. He stood while making another note in his journal. “No. You’re right. I um,” he stuttered, “I suppose it doesn’t.”
“As in it doesn’t mean anything, or as in it doesn’t matter?” Granix asked Fallinix, who had just spoken with Solumenx of a dire situation. “We used to get visitors every now and then, you just don’t remember because you’re one of the younger ones.” Their feet trudged through the winter snow. The Coat foxes played beneath them, splashing their heads into the snow as the birds flew overhead, “How do you think most of our little friends got here in the first place? There was a group of Martians who once tried to populate every known planet with life from their solar system, a foolish goal, but an honorable one. I imagine something similar to that is what’s going to happen.” Fallinix bent down and snatched a snow mound from the ground. They shifted it in their hands until another stone revealed itself. Fallinix dropped the stone into their mouth, their body growing with the new rock. “Believe me, Granix, we have nothing to worry about.” Granix gazed up to the stars, spotting a faint, slow-moving light in the sea of endless dark.
Nadeden tore her eyes away from the stars and looked down at Gerry. “Y’know, Davon is usually with me when I do these,’’ Gerry commented, writing a final note at the foot of the crater. “He was back at the ship when I last saw him.” Nadeden stated, approaching Gerry from behind, “You two seem pretty close. How long have you known him anyway?” Gerry placed his notebook in his satchel. “Nearly as long as I’ve been alive. We grew up in a youth center orphanage together.” He stepped out of the bloodstained crater, moving upwards to Nadeden. “Is that also how you met Shanna and Orson?” Gerry gave her a smile. “Heh, no. I met them at boot camp.” He said, his boots stepping onto the sand. The soles slipped on the rough grain, tripping him for Nadeden to catch. Gerry stumbled in her arms, finally finding his footing with her guidance. “Uh, thanks.”
“Yeah, no problem,” Nadeden stated passively. Gerry wiped the sand off his uniform while staring at her.
“What are you looking at me for?”
“I need to know what to do!” Granix implored Solumenx. The first of the oil drills was planted just a single kiloclick north of where their body rested. “Everyone keeps asking me that, and I don’t know Granix. I simply do not know.” The Elder giant was the first to have their blood drained by the machines. The creatures within Solumenx died along with Solumenx themselves. All so the humans could have their oil. They steal blood and call it fuel. How utterly selfish. Yet in the face of this cruelty, Granix’s fellow giants refused to rise up from their summer rest. They refused to defend their home. They refused to defend the animals. They refused to defend themselves. They refused to strike back against this opposition. Because after all...
“How bad can it get?”
“What do you mean?” Gerry asked, seeking clarification for Nadeden’s rather vague and ominous question. She reached her hand down to the corpse of a Republic soldier. “Out of all the battles you’ve made reports for, which one was the worst?” Gerry sighed, “Well, that’s quite the question, isn’t it?” Nadeden turned the corpse over, searching the white uniform coated with blood and sand until Gerry blurted out, “Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that? After all, you’ve been in this war longer than anyone else I’ve known.” She seized the knife from the body’s belt. “Davon told you about that, huh?” Gerry’s face flushed red. “He… uh, well,” Nadeden took a cloth from her bag and began wiping the blade. “Look, Gerry. I don’t need your pity. Everyone fights something. I just started fighting younger than most. There’s no such thing as a normal life anyway. Here.” She handed Gerry the now-polished knife, explaining, “Republic knives are more compact than what the Division issues. More discreet and easier to hide. It takes a few sharpenings to get as lethal, but it can be done. It’ll do you much better than that children’s plaything you lug around on your hip anyway.” He slowly reached for Nadeden’s hand, sliding his fingers delicately onto the handle. Gripping it in his palm, he hastily tossed his own knife to the ground and replaced it with Nadeden’s gift.
It was not long until the oil rigs, the needles which violated the giants, were replaced with a bombardment of spears dropped from orbit, which broke them apart. The attack was rapid and relentless. The rocks comprising their bodies were scattered to the wind, treated as nothing more than any other piece of the planet. For a full day, Quandroiz was chipped away at by the humans' violent tools. Granix questioned what the giants could have done to deserve such a fate, what the animals could have done to deserve having their homes destroyed, and what they themself could have done. Yet deep down, they knew the true answer. This had nothing to do with them. The humans sought only to destroy each other.
They didn’t care about anything else.
Nadeden stared at Gerry while the old knife fell to the ground. “Thanks, I guess.” He stated with an air of resistance. Nadeden caught a glimpse of his eyes through the reflection of his glasses. Those innocent eyes that told her all she needed to know when they first met. She could finally truly see them for the first time. See them free of any mission or thirst for a goal, free of any anxiety or stress, free of any fire for battle or concern for others. Just free. “Your eyes are green.” Gerry looked at her. “Well, yeah.” Nadeden blushed as she laughed, “Sorry, I just never noticed that before.” Gerry hesitated, carefully watching her brief laughter before letting out his own small chuckle. “We should probably head back now.” Nadeden smiled, “Yeah… We should.”
Once the bombardment finally ceased, only Granix and Fallinix remained. Placed just a hundred kiloclicks next to each other, the pair mourned the loss of their people. Granix pleaded with Fallinix to join him in striking back against the humans, yet this idea was hastily put aside. The animals needed them. They were their last hope for shelter after the onslaught. “We can wait it out.” Fallinix stated as the foxes huddled between the trees inside them, “They’ll kill each other eventually.” And so the pair waited. Living in fear that every sound and tremor could mean the final death of all they’ve known. The creatures stirred with anxiety, mourning their kin almost as much as their giant keepers. Although, as with all animals, the true nature of their situation remained unknown to them.
One day, an army marched along Fallinix’s back, and the last spear fell.
Fallinix and their creatures died in the blink of an eye, but for Granix, it was an eternity. The aftershock shattered their body. Splitting the rock and all inside it. The actual impact of the spear had already obliterated their lower half, leaving them with hardly any strength. Granix wanted to scream, but didn’t have time to grow a mouth. The last three Coat foxes gathered around the trees within them again. Panting and scratching feverishly for some form of security. Granix became a wall around them. Using their last gasp of life, they muttered to them, “I’ll keep you alive, but you have to stay here.”
“Just stay, please.”
“Please.”
It was with those words that Granix lost consciousness.
A boot stepped over them. This fragile piece of ground they were. They awoke, growing an eye. They spied the dead fox and the two humans now walking away from it. “It is a nice knife, but how am I going to explain it to everyone?” The woman next to the man joked back at his inquiry, “Say that you’re not a fighter and needed something less obtrusive. If that doesn’t work, I’ll just give them a scowl. That seems to work.” They joked? These humans joked? After all they’ve done, these humans still had the nerve to joke? “I’ll kill you,” Granix whispered, reaching out with all they were. They became an arm. I’ll kill you! Granix screamed internally. Stretching out the arm to no avail. I’ll kill you! They reached out again, full force. I’ll kill you!
“You’re sure you're alright with that? Having everyone be afraid of you?” Gerry asked Nadeden after her joke.
Granix reached out, extending stone fingers, pleading I have to kill you!
Make you pay!
Please!
Please!
They failed, becoming nothing more than a pebble with an eye.
“Are you afraid of me?” Nadeden asked Gerry. She removed her hand from her bowstring and placed it beside him.
The eye shed a tear watching the human man and woman walk into the sunrise, free of all their sins.
Gerry’s hand rubbed against Nadeden’s. He grabbed it. “How could I ever be afraid of you, Nadeden?”
Granix halts partway through the asteroid field, noticing Nadeden staring out into the void.
Smith walks over to her. “Is something wrong?” he asks, turning to see a tear in her eye. “Granix,” she whispers, “I’m so sorry. We thought they were just rocks.” Smith looks out into space, spotting the corpses of the Yolkwell, the Juntleheim, the Squill fish, the birds, the Qrows, and the Coat foxes drifting through space, all being gripped by a stone arm. Nadeden solemnly chokes on her words, “We thought they were just rocks.”