The sun rose slowly that morning. Alhia had found it hard to sleep the night before, and was up several hours before she'd actually be able to make her way up the hillside to the cave. So she waited.

Eventually she heard the birds singing as the first rays of sunlight made their way over the countryside. Alhia shot out of bed and into the kitchen. Her father was already up.

"Hey Brightswallow, how are you this morning?"

Alhia smiled. However old she got, her father still always called her Brightswallow. The Brightswallow were said in the ancient writings to be bringers of beauty and good luck. They were said to be the mystic creatures that had swooped down and pulled the human race from the ashes after the cataclysm. It was said that the human race survived because the brightswallows had shown mercy.

Alhia had found the nickname embarrassing as a young child, but as she grew in body and spirit she also grew a fondness for it. It was like a soft bed after a long day of work. Something to retreat to when the world threw her down.

"I'm good, dad," she said, sitting down at the table and grabbing a piece of chi-pod. She hadn't intended to stay inside for an extended period, but her father seemed to anchor her here. It was a good thing, she supposed. She should probably eat something before she spent a day diving into a dark cave searching for the truth behind the purported apocalypse. "How are you?"

"Oh, I'm good," He replied, "I'm hoping we can finish field six today so we can all take an early holiday, but that seems unlikely at the rate we're going."

"How much more do you have?"

"About..." He looked up as he thought about it, then said, "four quarters?"

Alhia laughed.