The group moved in silence, heading east along a dry ridge filled with debris and sections of cracked concrete.
Talia walked near the front, but he slowed briefly to glance back at Riven and Cassian.
"You didn't have to help Anya" she said. "But you did, so you'll stay with us as long as you need. You'll have food, water, and a place to rest."
Cassian gave a mock bow and kept his hand pressed to his chest. "A roof, water, and no rifles aimed at us? We're starting to feel a little spoiled."
Talia didn't care to reply and moved forward.
Cassian smiled to himself, clearly unfazed by her dismissal. "Tough crowd..."
Riven walked just behind him, listening without needing to respond. In the days they'd traveled together, he'd learned that Cassian used that quirky tone deliberately just so it would break tension before it built too far. It wasn't just for show. And it worked on Riven, and probably on the people Cassian used to escort through worse places than this.
The older man from earlier, still walking a few paces behind, glanced at Cassian, with a flat disapproving expression he didn't even try to hide.
Cassian caught it. "You know" he said lightly, "for someone who nearly shot me, you're not much of a conversationalist."
The man didn't respond and turned his gaze away, refusing to give Cassian the satisfaction, but Cassian found it anyway, smirking as he walked on like he'd won something small.
The terrain changed slowly as they moved past low dunes and hardened soil. Remnants of the old system broke through the surface: snapped pipe segments, rusted grid panels half-buried in sand, collapsed support frames stripped clean. In the distance, a tower leaned at an angle, its cables hanging loose, swaying slightly in the heat.
Riven studied the layout as they walked. The paths didn't form on their own, someone had cleared them deliberately, moving away debris to open narrow routes while keeping lines of sight short. He slowed when a low slope ahead revealed something half-buried beneath the surface.
"The node..." he said quietly.
Cassian followed his gaze. What first looked like a concrete ridge was actually the top edge of a buried structure, sloped, weather-worn, barely a meter above ground. Riven focused on the symmetry. The lines were too clean, too precise to be leftover debris. Most of it was still underground, stretching at an angle they couldn't fully track.
Cassian stepped up beside him. "So it's here after all."
Riven gave a small nod. "It matches the map as well."
They both studied the structure.
"It's buried deeper than I expected" Cassian said. "Which probably explains why it's been playing hide-and-seek with half the grid."
"Yeah, seems built deep. It probably used to move water through the basin, if anything is still running at all."
They didn't say anything else after that, but the decision to return to this location was mutual, silently agreed upon. The group had already moved ahead, so they picked up their pace to catch up.
--------
The village revealed itself gradually. Low structures tucked into the slope, some were partly buried, but all sat close to the ground. Solar sheeting lay over angled roofs, faded by the sun, but still working. The air was dry, carrying only the faint scent of rust and dust.
Cassian took it in with a slow whistle. "For a second there, I thought this mythical village was just a story you told people right before they died of dehydration."
A faint smile tugged at Riven's mouth, harder to suppress than usual.
Then they passed into the main pathway. A few people looked up from behind walls or through narrow slits in layered shutters, but none stepped out. Riven noted how the paths narrowed intentionally, how sight lines were broken every few meters. Whoever built this place had thought in terms of defense first, comfort last.
Talia gestured toward one of the low, double-walled shelters. "You can rest in there. It's clean and nobody will bother you."
The shelter sat a little off to the side, with thick walls and a faded curtain hanging over the entrance. It looked quiet and plain.
Before either of them could answer, a woman stepped out from one of the inner paths and gently took the girl's hand. She didn't resist, just followed with slow steps, eyes down, already distant from everything around her.
Cassian watched them disappear around a corner, then glanced at Riven. "Do you think she'll be alright?"
Riven didn't have an answer, and Cassian didn't push back, but it struck him as odd how ready they were, like they'd done this many times before.
They entered the shelter without further comment. The room was clean but bare: two cots, a basin, a folding table, and a roll of spare insulation tucked in the corner. Tarp lined the sheet metal walls, its seams patched over multiple times and reinforced wherever the frame showed wear.
Cassian stepped inside and dropped his pack beside the cot closest to the door. He looked around and gave a short whistle. "Very much functional... and about as welcoming as a service checkpoint, I must admit..."
Riven set his gear down and took in the room. It was the first time in hours he'd stopped moving, and only now did the weight in his legs start to catch up with him. He hadn't noticed the exhaustion before, but it was there.
Cassian sat on the edge of the cot and glanced toward the window slit. "You'd think after saving their kid, or whatever she is, we'd get a thank-you pastry."
Riven looked out as well, scanning the settlement layout again. "I wonder what her days are like here..."
--------
Outside, a few structures down, a low tent-like shelter stood apart from the rest. The base was sealed with an extra layer of heat-dampening cloth, its edges held down with stones. Thin wires fed into a relay above the door, and faint pulses of light flickered from inside, steady but dim.
They both watched as the girl was led into the structure by the same woman from earlier. The woman crouched beside her, adjusting something near her neck, wires or tubes, it was hard to tell from the distance. A second figure stepped inside and pulled the flap closed.
Cassian tilted his head slightly. "You see that setup? That's not basic care."
Riven narrowed his eyes, tracking the wiring pattern across the cloth wall. "Not improvised, either."
They moved a little closer, enough to get a better look at the relay. It had no markings, just a slight blue blink every seven seconds. It was too slow for standard medical timing.
A man standing nearby looked up from a crate of tools. "Is that where she stays? The girl?" Cassian asked.
The man nodded once, then returned to his work.
"What's with the equipment?" Cassian pressed.
No answer.
Before either of them could try again, Talia stepped into view. She crossed the space between them with the same controlled stride she always had.
"She needs monitoring" she said. "Some of the older systems help keep her stable."
Cassian nodded slowly. "Right... Of course."
"She's not a topic of discussion" Talia added.
Riven gave a slight nod. Cassian raised his hands a little, stepping back without a word. Talia didn't stay, she passed them without another look and disappeared behind one of the larger shelters.
--------
The village stayed quiet that night. No voices, no light beyond the faint pulse of solar strips along the roofs. Cassian was already asleep with his arm over his face, breathing slowly and even.
Riven lay on his cot with one arm behind his head, watching the roof where the tarp moved gently with the breeze. Beyond the thin walls, something clicked at regular intervals, a mechanical sound coming from somewhere near the basin's edge. He listened for a while before recognizing the sound as an old water pump, still working. But something about it was off. Every third click it gave came a little too late before the rhythm picked back up.
He reached for his notebook and wrote down the rhythm: 3 short, 1 pause, 2 short, 1 lag.
The water pump wasn't running the way it was meant to, but it was still moving water. Probably fed by an old storage tank buried near the basin wall. It was enough to keep the village going, for now. But without control, it would eventually run dry or fail.
Before the collapse, the Lady had managed flow across entire sectors, adjusting for usage, storage, pressure drops, drought forecasts. Now people survived on scavenged tanks, leaking pipes, buried depots with no way to track what was still moving underground.
He closed the notebook and set it aside, listening a little longer to the broken rhythm before letting his eyes close.