Love lost, and found, too late

Kyses shivered and adjusted her nano configuration to suit the cold Rubika night.....her back and knees sore from crouching for hours, her eyes tired from scanning the horizans for the Omni scum who had been driven back from the Temple earlier that evening.

"What was I thinking when I volunteered to do this stupid third watch?" she grumbled to herself. Rummaging in her pack, amongst nano rechargers , heal kits and lipstick, she found a half eaten bronto burger and looked at it distastefully. "oh well, she thought, it will have to do" , and began to eat it, trying not to gag. A faint sound made her freeze mid bite. Dropping the food, she slowly eased her night vision goggles down from her head, and instinctively prepared her nanobots for casting.

Squinting into the darkness, she saw a form , not far from her bunker. All her senses came to life as her training took over, no longer feeling the cold, or the pain from the sitting, her mind clear and focused as she readied for combat. Slowly the form crawled , moving gracefully in the darkness until it was but a few feet from her. Kyses held her breath as she prepared to summon her most powerful nuke...at that instant, the bright moonlight fell on the form, his Omni emblem glaring off his chest.

Something about the way he moved ....something about the curve of his face...seemed familier. She paused, as his face was illuminated for an instant by the light of the twin moons. Her heart seemed to stop as memories flooded her mind, of a distant past, to a more peaceful time, before the conflict, before the bloodshed.

"Darman, she cried silently , could it be YOU?" NO...the Darman she knew, would never take the side of the murderous Omni..., the Darman she knew, and loved more than life itself, the gentle Adventurer with the heart of gold , who prefered the solitude of the desert to the cold cities, no he died many years ago..this could not be!"

Her heart pounded as she crept closer , her eyes watering as she strained to see his face more clearly. At that moment, pain seared her flesh as nano circuits shattered. She looked down to see the shaft of the arrow , imbedded deep into her thigh... the blood seeping dark and warm into the sand. With shaking hands, she tugged at it, with no avail, the barbs of the arrow dug further into her flesh, her leg going numb as the poisonous arrow did its murderous duty. As she sunk slowly into the sand, she looked up , into the face of the man she thought she would never see again, a face that was twisted in agony and horror as he picked her up and looked into her dying face.

"Kyses, oh dear Lord , please say it isnt you!" he whispered as he gently wiped the blood and tears from her cheeks. Her eyes rested on the Omni emblem on his breast for a moment , then moved to his face, remembering a moment when he held her, like this so long ago... His face , against as backdrop of stars, was the last thing she saw before the world went white..the face of her lost beloved... the face of her murderer... the face of her enemy. "You´re alive!" is all she could muster as the last breath left her.