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August, 2288
Dear Lucy,
It’s getting colder. The leaves don’t turn anymore because there are no leaves to turn. Do you remember when we were little girls and there was still some colour left in the world? I recall it now only as I recall dreams, fading like rocks dropped into ponds.
A morning last week, I woke to a sound I thought I’d never hear again. At first I didn’t trust my ears and thought it was some leftover echo from my dreams, so I walked outside but there it was, in the clear skies. A Brotherhood of Steel dropship. Its fusion engines hummed as it made its way across the sky, the docking clamps clunking, pistons firing as the vertibirds clicked off the sides like strange beetles. Four of them descended from the belly of the giant floating black whale and whirred off in different directions, out over the peninsula, to the north and west, and one eventually disappearing to the south, down over Nahant Wharf toward the airport.
I thought they were gone. I thought the war for the Commonwealth was over and that I was on the winning side. I know you said you’d heard whispers of them. But a show of force like this? I’m worried, Luce.
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| A Brotherhood of Steel 'vertibird' |
Gerald and Skull play chess downstairs now during their down time. Last week Marius showed up as promised with the gifts from Diamond City. Thank you for explaining the game to me. I don’t think it’s something I’ll ever play, but Gerald has enjoyed carving pieces and teaching us all how to play.
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| Daphne's chess playing friend in the compound, Gerald |
Miranda got her eight ball. I don’t know what it means to her, but she held it in her palm when he gave it to her, hefted its weight, and wordlessly thanked him. He gave Eliza a dog-eared Grognak the Barbarian comic book and then brought out the real treats: a huge chunk of radstag meat and two bottles of whiskey. That night we had a feast, sis, more food than I have eaten in months, and I loved every mouthful. Elise stewed the radstag in its juices with carrots and potatoes and we sat around a fire and ate huge bowls of the stuff. After that we passed around the whiskey. I had never had it before and it made me dizzy but I liked it.
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| One of the last photographs taken of Miranda. Despite their sometime-animosity, Daphne cared very deeply about her outspoken companion on the compound watchtowers. |
The Wanderer spent the night again, sis, and I spent the night with him. There, I said it. Skull and Miranda were on night watch so I was sitting by my turret when he came and sat by me. He didn’t say anything, we just watched the stars for a while, and then he reached over and tucked a strand of my hair back behind my ear and kissed me.
Later we lay together on one of the beds on the upper floor and for a long time we didn’t speak he just held me. Finally I said that I thought he liked Miranda more than he liked me.
‘Miranda’s a warrior, but she’s reckless,’ he said ‘She’d see a group of Super Mutants and she’d wade in without a second thought.’
‘And you wouldn’t?’
‘You have to pick your battles out here. I don’t start battles I can’t win.’
‘And Miranda?’
‘She doesn’t pick her battles, she just wants to win them all. That’s why she’s up on that tower.’
‘And why am I up there on mine?’
‘You have a good eye. You’re watchful, cautious. You spotted that guy with the missile launcher before he had a chance to use it. I don’t think anyone else here would have done that. I noticed that about you right away, when you wandered in here, you started looking for exits, weak spots. I do the same thing. You’re a survivor.’
‘It was you, in the basement of the Old North Church. The massacre that Miranda told me about.’
‘Yeah. It was me. How did you know?’
‘The Railroad coat. And I heard you talking to Dogmeat. Why did you do it?’
‘When I was in the army, a long time ago, I heard a lot of shit about the ‘greater good’. How one death, or even a lot more than one, can ultimately save millions of lives.’
‘So that’s why?’
‘Yeah, that’s why. But out here, I’m not so sure that’s true. I don’t feel like I’ve saved anyone.’
‘You saved us.’
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| A Brotherhood 'Knight'. It is unlikely Daphne took this photograph; she never got very close to the Brotherhood, by this time they were sworn enemies of the Wanderer. |
We were interrupted then by the whirr of a vertibird, and we got dressed, grabbed our rifles and headed out onto the balcony. It circled high overhead a few times, just patrolling, before it headed out over the peninsula and dropped off a knight, a scribe and an officer. We tracked them for a while through our scopes before they went out of sight and then we heard the familiar sound of laser rifles, plasma grenades and the crack of return fire from automatic weapons.
Marius slung his rifle and ushered me back inside. We sat on the bed and he took my hand.
‘I can never come back here,’ he told me. ‘I’m putting all of you in danger.’
I asked him what he meant, and couldn’t help a small part of me thinking his timing was terrible.
‘I made a choice,’ he said. ‘And that choice turned the Brotherhood against me forever. I wasn’t just there at the Old North Church. I was at the battle of Liberty Prime. Siding with the Institute had consequences. I can’t explain them all right now. But if the Brotherhood find me here they will kill me and everyone they find here with me. So I have to go.’
‘So, that’s it,’ I said. ‘You have to go. I understand.’ I looked out onto the balcony and yet again wished I could be that turret out there, with no other want or desire than to mindlessly kill anything that threatened me.
Marius looked at me for a long time, and then squeezed my hand tighter.
‘I want to show you something,’ he said. ‘I’m going to need you to abandon that post of yours for a while. Just for a while.’
‘What do you want to show me?’
He handed me a bunch of old photos. A place called Sanctuary, but in the photos it looked nothing like any city, town, settlement or ruin I’ve ever seen, Luce. It looked beautiful.
‘That’s where we’ll need to go, for me to show you,’ Marius said. ‘I want to show you the reason I made the choices I made. I want to show you the Institute.’
So I write this on the road, sis. We just passed Cambridge and so far the journey has been mercifully uneventful. What I will find in Sanctuary and beyond is still unclear to me, but I’ll write again as soon as I can.
Until then I remain as always, your mischievous little sister. Daph.
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| One of the pre-war photographs of Sanctuary Hills that amazed Daphne. |
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