We sit with fire between ourselves,
     a guardian so to speak.
He tempers tempers expertly;
     gives courage to the meek.
For minutes long I stare at her,
     the secrets age her face.
For now she contemplates the status quo
     that we'll displace.

I sense she waits for me to speak,
     for 'tis often hard to start.
Preferring she to follow
     after horse akin to cart.
"I'm one of them," my statement first.
     I know of that for certain.
Our caged companion taught me that;
     she flung aside the curtain.

Yolanda nods. "Yes," she answers,
     "You and hundreds more."
The tears start parading
     through remorse's open door.
She chokes the guilt and quiet I stay,
     to offer time and space.
The pain she needs to navigate,
     as the past she doth retrace.

She swallows hard, "The vials
     for Abednigo," then breathes.
"Were made from the survivors,"
     she spits through teeth and seethes.
The firelight plays a gentle game
     and bathes the girl in red.
An eerie demonstration of
     the blood her father shed.

"To start with I had no idea,"
     she fidgets with her hand,
squeezing groups of fingers
     so her pain I understand.
She tells me that for years
     the klaxons roar she did obey;
injecting her dear brother
     while deep asleep the boy did stay.

Each time she prayed that he would live;
     that the sickenss would be beat,
that the lonliness would end,
     that his treatment be complete.
She'd often credit father
     with the one good deed he'd done.
Developing the treatment
     that could save his only son.

A group of android helpers,
     he so programmed in advance,
to activate retrival
     in a deadly game of chance.
His process took the bodies
     of the helpless frozen souls.
Humanities insurance
     now consumed for Devan's goals.

Each body brought to life
     amid the mighty emerald arcs.
Awoken, but too early,
     in amongst the showering sparks.
Instead of rousing peacefully,
     alive in land of dead,
Devan drained them purposefully
     and stole their lifeforce red.

Their precious liquid ruby
     was then processed in his lab;
experiments conducted
     while their bodies lay on slab.
The vial was produced
     and to Yolanda made its way.
Yet how it came to be,
     alas the vial couldn't say.

So Y continued on and on
     for years and years the same.
Hidden from the gruesome truth
     that would drown the girl in shame.
Hundreds sacraficed to save
     the tiny sickly prince.
The actions of his father served
     to reckon and evince.

Yet she his daughter, flesh and blood,
     expendable it seems.
He took away her body,
     and in kind with dreadful dreams,
replaced it with an android's;
     to make her more robust.
The only way he could conceive,
     her abilities to trust.

At tender age of eight
     she was transplanted to adult.
Then left alone when Devan passed,
     imprisoned in his vault.
Over time she grew fatigued
     of sterile lab surrounds,
and ventured out into the world,
     exploring fertile grounds.

One by one the androids failed,
     until not one remained.
And left the dear Yolanda
     with a duty unexplained.
A point on map her only guide,
     with a time as complement,
together marked locations,
     where her sisters past, were sent.

"I'd never seen such lightning",
     she speaks with such regret.
Yet onward she continued
     till her obligation met.
She sobs through palms that guard her face
     "That moment when I saw..."
and trails off as past attacks
     and haunts for evermore.

Her body rocks so gently
     as she unearths the buried past.
Digging for the fragments
     from which her future has been cast.
And with each find she pauses
     like an archaeologist;
who ranks the authenticity
     and adds it to the list.

"A boy of eight or nine, he was.
     The first one that I found."
Her breath becomes more stable.
     "I will never forget the sound.
He fought for breath. His eyes..." she weeps
     "The pain behind those eyes."
A pain I must have suffered too
     the puzzle piece implies.

She took the boy back to the lab
     and lay him in machine.
His breathing had then stabalised,
     since leaving lightning green.
A shield came down to hide the boy;
     creating tiny room.
Then came her realisation
     that the room became his tomb.

"I waited there for hours,
     with my hand upon the case.
Until it grew too hot to touch."
     He left without a trace.
And then aside the tomb
     a panel opened to display
the crimson sheen of vial,
     that so innocently lay.

"How could he be so callous?
     So cruel beyond compare?"
Her chin now slumps to chest
     concealing face behind her hair.
The impenetrable curtain,
     amasses burning flames.
As anger smoulders deftly
     in response to Devan's aims.

I try to answer, "Wait" she spits,
     "There's nothing you can say.
Please I need to finish"
     and so silent now I stay.
She vowed to save the next one,
     to keep them in her care;
to end this wretched cycle
     and this whole corrupt affair.

But if she could stop the process
     then no more souls would thaw.
She'd be free of obligation
     to obey his twisted law.
Yet despite her efforts, all in vain,
     the harsh reality:
The lightning roar and blackened sky
     bestowed upon her, me.

Her head snaps up with eyes of red
     and sodden cheeks ablaze.
"I'm sorry Xav" she sputters out,
     entrenched in gross malaise.
I can't contain the silence,
     it slips out of my grip.
I feel the need to comfort her,
     the girl with trembling lip.

"Without you I'd be dead", I state.
     She needs to hear that truth.
No matter how colloquial,
     drab, perhaps uncouth.
The only gift that I can give,
     a comfort oh so small.
Is better than a comfort
     that she'd never feel at all.

She tells me how she carried me
     and took me to that room.
Nursed me back to health
     and overcame my fate of doom.
Devan's quick procedure
     so devoid of long term care.
Death his only gift.
     the culmination of affair.

Yet the building needed power
     for to treat my frame exhumed.
So diverted from the lab
     the gadgets treating me consumed.
But then a choice befell her,
     that for one simply can't prepare.
Abednigo or me,
     abundant resource wasn't there.

"I loved my brother dearly"
     she whispers caught on breath.
She inhales more and swallows hard,
     "But I'd already mourned his death.
Eight years is a lifetime
     when you're just a little girl."
I watch her tears drip steadily
     as emotions in me swirl.

It takes me quite some time to realise
     I am weeping too.
The drops of guilt collect below
     and soak my clothing through.
Her sacrifice I can't believe
     she knew not who I'd be.
Attonement was her greater goal;
     to set repentence free.

To the dead she made memorial,
     each a grave of single glyph,
at the point where sun burns freely
     as it sets beneath the cliff.
No details of their past were known
     to her each one a mystery.
The keys that had adorned their necks
     required to heed their history.

"Your memories are locked away,
     deep inside your head."
With intent to unlock treasure chest
     when rousing trauma's put to bed.
"Fifteen thousand words" she says,
     "Together make a key."
Words I have to hear;
     spoken right in front of me.

I want to say, "Why tarry?
     Speak words unto me now!
Burn away this wretched shroud
     that drives my furrowed brow."
Yet I know it's not that simple.
     For if it were I'd not be here.
For now herself well proven,
     her astuteness I revere.

There is no question in my mind;
     her tale is truth and fact.
No android could display such love,
     'tis what my family lacked.
The words we need are hidden
     and difficult to find.
Bertholdt stole the keys decrypter;
     without it we are blind.

She used the only words she knew
     in act of self defense.
When I enraged in hollow mind
     had lost all form of sense.
Then realisation dawns on me,
     I do not have my key.
Without it ne'er I'll be complete;
     a salvaged amputee.

"You snatched my key when we first met"
     "You remember." "Yes" "I did.
A part of me conspired to shield
     the truth that others hid."
She thought that I could build a life,
     that she would have a friend;
that all those years of lonliness,
     could come to bitter end.

"A thousand times I made that choice"
     again she did resolve.
But whilst the young girl cared for me,
     her perception did evolve.
How could she steal my life from me?
     As that man to her had done.
So she left the key around my neck;
     its sight to act as plumb.

"I thought that when my brother died.
     the lightning would cease."
That the tradgedy was over,
     that at last she'd see some peace.
But the bodies kept returning,
     and try as best she could,
the man in black with reaper came,
     his face concealed with hood.

"I lost them. I lost every one"
     I see her depth of pain.
To do the thing she thought was right,
     but fail time and again.
And now when guard is truly dropped,
     I settle by her side.
Wrapping arms around her
     in a love intensified.