This Uniform Grey
RATING: PG-13
SUMMARY: A song fic, about Kethru's troubled past in a Saurian Concentration camp
WARNINGS: Violence, war.
DISCLAIMER: I NO OWN. NO MONEY. NO SUE.
This is a songfic I wrote from Sarah Harmer's song 'This Uniform Grey'. The story
deals with the first Saurian invasion.
It's perfectly suited, this uniform grey,
Srgnt. Kethru Denneldrake grit her teeth and glared straight ahead. In two months, a
third of her men was dumped into the open, comunal grave in the corner of the Saurian
mining camp. Wrapped still in the battered, threadbare grey blanket he'd slept in, he was
tipped into the grave.
She turned her head and looked back at the line she was standing in. She wasn't
suppossed to watch the burials, she was suppossed to look straight ahead, focusing on
work. But that had been one of her men, Frankbeak, a young upstart who had been
eagerly awaiting his first battle. Poor innocent, naïve soul. Now he'd never escape the
grey he feared.
There are no bearings to the day.
She stared at the marks she'd cut into the wall beside her bed in the barracks.
She'd given up after the 2nd week. With the sky always grey with the dust from the
mines, and the sky always dimly lit by either the sun or the searchlights, it was
immpossible to tell when one day ended and one day started. It was hopeless to even try.
I came down from the air and I'll leave by boat.
Kethru leaned back against the rough mine wall. Wasn't this what the old legends
had warned of?
She sighed, and repeated the now-common greeting to herself: "May the ports be
closed, and may your ship stay long out at sea." This referred to the old wives tales that
when ducklings were born, the angels brought them though the air to the land, and when
you died, the ship of souls came to bring you to heaven. Most people's ships were not far
from docking.
Yeah, I'm down with your rainy town,
Kethru stood rimrod straight with thousands of others, waiting for their name to be
called. It was drizzling.
Drizzling was worse than rain. At least when it rained, you got wet right away and
got it done with. When it drizzled, it was a slow process. Slow. Uncomfortable. Ever
slow.
Down on the spit with the biggest port around,
She trudged past the graves, lugging a bag full of the bulerium crystals the ducks
were forced to mine for. They were fortunate. Apparently mining for the spices and
hallucinagenic drugs the Saurians liked was more brutal.
Too many boats were coming in to take the souls away. Yet another two were
always there to replace the dead.
'If this keeps up,' she sighed, 'there won't be any of us left to take over.'
My friend is on the way, he's bringing my coat.
Kethru looked up, and slowly unfolded her hands, to look at countless others
around the barracks, their heads too bowed in prayer. That was one thing they couldn't
take away.
She sighed as she looked up at the rough celing, and at the crude cross someone
had carved into it. Even now, she knew many here would meet their maker to recieve
their white robes and golden crowns. Many were leaving. For good.
Their friend was on the way.
Oh, you don't do what I want you to,
But I haven't been through all that you've been through,
And we could use that as an excuse,
If that's what you choose,
If that's what you choose.
"Ya lazy duck! Get your stinking tailfeathers in gear!"
Kethru turned at the sound of the shouting, to see a Saurian guard standing at the
entance of the tunnel, glaring at her.
"You talking to me?" She asked, an icy note to her voice.
The Saurian bristled. "Yeah, I'm talking to you! Get your disrespectful butt in gear
before I kick it from here to Sauria!"
Kethru bit her tongue-hard-to keep from screaming something foolish at him, and
merely set back to work, at a faster pace. When he finally left, she released her tongue.
Coopery tasting blood filled her mouth.
Well it was kinda hard to pull away,
"I could take you away from all this, you realise,"
She turned at the sound of a silky smooth, snaky voice behind her. A male
Saurian stood there, but not one of the guards, one of the nobility instead. He was
elegently dressed, and seemed completly out of place in a prison work camp.
"And why would you want to?" She asked smoothly, resting for a moment on her
pickaxe, workers trudging past, their lives not interrupted.
"Why, surely a place such as this is not suited for one of your refinement, your
beauty," he hissed. "Not to mention your obvious skills."
Kethru's eyes widened. "What?!?"
"Oh come, you have assassin written all over you. In your elegent walk, in your
natural grace, even in these conditions, why, you could almost be mistaken for an honor killer.
In fact, with a little training, you'd do well in the pay of the Saurian court."
Kethru didn't trust his smooth talk, and his sneaky expression. "And the catch?"
"Oh, no real catch," he said lightly. "Just marry me and join my other wives..."
"Thanks for the offer," she interrupted, "but no. I don't go for polygamy."
His smooth demeaner changed instantly. "I could take you by force, you realise-"
"And I hope you realise that you'll end up headless for it," She said smoothly,
turning her jaw so he could see the scar on her jawbone. "The mark of Clophine. Marked
personally by the Overlord himself."
The Saurian paled. "I didn't...I..."
"Good day," she said sharply, and joined the line again.
He said 'Buck up baby, it's okay',
Kethru looked up with half-intrest at the newest slaves arriving, long lines walking
slowly in, defeat written all over their faces. She was about to turn her attention back to
her work when she recognised one.
She was a duck dressed in black, with short, pale purple hair, and scars-three on her throat and another three on her leg. A Saurian gaurd
noticed her too, and stepped in front of her. Kethru knew what was happening. He'd direct
her away from the work crews and towards the guards barracks.
She lept up, away from her work, and raced forward. Battle hardened muscles
slammed her fists into the weak spot on the Saurian's neck, just at the base of the skull,
making him fall, unconcious. The duck looked at her, shock and recognition crossing her
face.
"Join the line," Kethru growled, and as she did, Kethru waited patiently for the
Saurian guards who rushed to surround her, guns drawn. Kethru may face a terrible
punishment, but she'd have at least saved the kid she'd once killed to save from a fate worse than death.
The sunlight on the floor will always fall,
Kethru looked up as the clouds broke for the first time in years, casting sunlight
over her cell. She still sat, waiting for her punishment. Somehow though, the mere sight
of sunlight lifted her heart. Maybe there was hope after all.
And I meant to write in on the plane,
High above my earthly pain,
But I slept right through the flight and that was all.
Kethru slept fitfully, laying on her stomach so the whip marks across her back
wouldn't scrap across the rough, stone floor. She was lucky she had been like this before, it made
her pain bearable, but this was still different. This was deliberate punishment, not retaliation, not battle. She hadn't been given the opportunity to protect herself. And now, she just lay there, aching, her bleeding wounds healing very slowly.
So much for writing her memoirs while she was off work. She was in too much
pain.
Oh you don't do what I want you to,
But I haven't been through all you've been through
And we could use that as an excuse,
If that's what you choose,
If that's what you choose.
"Pull!" The team leader screamed, a young, still energetic Saurian who'd been
assigned to order her troupe around. "C'mon, that ore cart isn't that heavy! PULL!"
Kethru grunted, and yanked harder. A three ton cart pulled by 4 ducks was hardly
light, but the fact that they got almost no food was also sapping what little strength they had left.
"Augh!" The Saurian yelled in frustration. "Out of the way!" He shoved Kethru
aside and grabbed her rope, throwing her onto the sharp ore that littered the ground.
Kethru screamed as the ore ripped through her tanktop and caught one of the not-
quite-healed whip scars. Blood spilled onto the rock, and she doubled over in pain. The
Saurian spun to look at her, and she looked up at him, her eyes a stormy mix of hatred
and pain.
He breathed hard, as though he was the injured one. "You need medical help.
Come. We also need to assign more slaves to this shift."
It's perfectly suited, this uniform grey,
She rested, on a bed this time, lucky to be in the infirmary, a new, thick grey
blanket pulled up to her chin. If it wasn't for the foolish, young, sympathetic Saurian,
she'd be out there, working still. And they wouldn't have known that she'd come down
with a violent desiese. And she wouldn't have lived.
There are no bearings to the day,
Crystal, the purple haired girl, sneaked into the infirmary at night, to see if she could comfort her guardian.
Kethru slowly got better, and one night, was coherent enough to ask, "How long have I
been here?"
Kethru held up two fingers, then made a symbol of the moon. Two months.
"Anything interesting happen?"
Joy bit her lip, and slowly shook her head.
I came down from the air and I'll leave by boat.
Kethru ached. No one had told her. No one. Her friend, her only friend here, her
only friend left from her squadron, had had her child, her only connection to her late
husband, the first of Kethru's troop to die. She'd had a son, and the same night, both
mother and child died, of weakness from malnutrition. They were buried together, a small
consolation for the loss of two perfectly innocent lives.
Well, I'm down with your rainy town,
She trudged slowly through the pouring rain and coating mud, dragging her load
behind her. Sometimes, she wished that death would come, swiftly and mercifully, to end
the endless suffering. She had to do something.
In the corner room with the biggest port around,
She stared out the window, lucky to have a corner cell with large, barred
windows, high up so she could look down on the people if she stood on her cot. Rain
poured down in sheets, like tears, as countless ducks filed into the mines to work, some
never to return. Sometimes she thought it was worth it-the punishment she recieved for
misbehaving was nothing compared to the miserey of the mines.
My friend is on the way, he's bringing my coat,
He's bringing my coat,
He's bringing my coat.
She walked out of the mine, sunlight striking her eyes, and spun her head at the
sound of an engine. A lone Arrowing sped across the sky, and her heart lifted.
A last trace of hope. Of a ghost of a future.
'Better pack up,' she thought to herself, smirking at the Saurians. 'Your time is
almost up.'
It's perfectly suited, this uniform grey....
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