[drabble][Skip Tracers, Balt, G] Roll the Bones: Movement at Daybreak

[ajremix]

Title: Roll the Bones: Movement at Daybreak
Fandom: Skip Tracers
Rating: G
Word Count: 407
Characters: Balt
In Response to: oc_speedfic’s daybreak challenge
Summary: Set two years before the series starts.




It’s almost as easy to lose any potential follows in the forest as it is to be snuck up on, even for someone as experienced in these sorts of things as Balt. He leaves the thatched village, giving those he passes a nod and trilling noise of greeting. They do the same to him and some of them extend the sound to a flutter of syllables. He’s been among them long enough, been so prominent that it’s almost like he was born there.

“Don’t get lost.” They joke with him in their bird-like language, the sight of Balt- Kiri, as they know him –going out for a walk at this time everyday a familiar one. He gives a short light of laughter, wandering and humming aimlessly even as the roofs disappear into the thick canopy of green.

Balt makes it a habit to never go the same exact twice and it isn’t until an hour into his walk that he begins to journey in a specific direction. As he moves he listens to the birds around him, naming each exotic avian as he hears them, each song distinct once one understands the differences. It’s harder to tell the difference between a bird and a guerilla in all honesty but even then there’s a distinction.

The Segian language, Balt had come to find, has a certain gritting to the back of the throat that birds didn’t have and no matter how they try at a certain tone the guerillas can’t disguise it. One of the more complex and beautiful languages Balt has ever studied and probably the one he’s spent the most time dissecting before a mission. Which made the choice of being the new language instructor all the more obvious. Talking with the children and tutoring some in their houses gave him access to information he wouldn’t have otherwise been privy to. In all honesty Balt hadn’t imagined he could get as far as he had in three short years.

Five miles out of the boundaries of the village guards, so deep in the jungle that going much further Balt would be struggling to recall his way back, he slips the thumb sized communicator from the hidden pocket he’d sown in his sleeve. Those in the village weren’t aware that he had it and it was only used for one thing: to report in.

“Date confirmed.” He speaks softly under the murmur of insects. “Movement at daybreak.”

Comments

[tsukishine.livejournal.com]

Oooooooo. Interesting. I like how it opens and it seems like Balt and the people he's living with are friendly, and how Balt's motivations are revealed so nonchalantly. It works very well.

[idiosyn.livejournal.com]

Balt's backstory is one of the ones that's been bouncing around in my head for a while. If this works out as well as I think it does I may end up doing more for some other character whose backstory won't really be shown in the actual series.