Wordcount: 1,062 words
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Summary: This is, in theory, how it ends… since I am apparently writing things horribly out of order. Subject to Joss-ing at any moment now… *shifty eyes*

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~*~*~*~*~

The veil finished it’s fall at 3:15pm on a Tuesday, a completely random day and time— at least to the general populace. There had been a lot of furious discussion among the resident academics and the timing apparently had something to do with astrological movements and celestial bodies, but to be honest no one really cared anymore.

Kat had been watching the clouds since earlier in the morning, sitting on what passed for a front porch, sipping coffee and watching as the world officially ended (at least for the next thousand years). Alec had kept her company earlier, but had left when worked called him away to more important pastimes. Brian and a few other folks were watching with her and she was trying to ignore the unwanted company.

It had been overcast for weeks, the sunlight gradually dimming as they slid down the last last step into the thousand years of darkness. Kat spent most of the afternoon staring into the sky– even though she couldn’t see any difference after the deadline than she had before. It was still gray and shadowed and it looked like it should be a lot colder than it felt.

The idea that they next blue sky was a thousand years away was still too much to accept, so she decided that the weather would get better next week and the lie was enough of a comfort that she finally put aside her moping and headed inside to help with the unpacking.

The compound wasn’t complete yet, and it wouldn’t be for at least another few years, but there was plenty of room for everyone to stay in the light. The power generation had been the priority and now, thanks to their rather aggressive expansion, they had more than enough to last until more permanent solutions could be put in place.

It stilled looked industrial, for all the domestic sprawl. Even though they had several hundred people there was barely enough household goods to keep them going. Mostly because those looking for shelter had left their things behind them on the trail, realizing they would rather have the lighter loads than keep carrying the stuff they’d clung to for so long.

Which mean there were a lot of folks out of clothes and towels and whatnot. But Zoe had planned for that –she had seemingly planned for everything and Kat still wasn’t sure how she’s done it- so there were plenty of shuttles and looms and a rather impressive pile of yarn and cloth stocks. The clothes would be very basic for a while, at least until they learned how to coax flax and hemp to grow in the new climate, but they’d keep covered.

The new weather patterns, while consistently overcast, wasn’t as bad as folks had been expecting. More clouds didn’t always mean more rain, although the atmospheric declaration of ‘dark and story nights’ was much more apparent than it had been a few weeks before. Thankfully it was rarely a driving rain, the last few nights had kept to simple thundering and dramatically placed lightning strikes.

The desert was a bit of a floodplain in some places, something the geologists and amateur rock hounds had been more than happy to point out in the initial scouts of the area. While the Good Guys had stuck to Zoe’s habit of planning, planning, and more planning, the other groups that had set up camp in the same area were less thorough in their investigation of the locale.

Thus the compound had a lot of very damp neighbors. Some of the smaller family groups simply up and left when the flash floods rolled in– moving in small caravans, either by foot or by car, to dryer areas. The larger camps stuck it out for a few days, and when the flooding became the apparent norm for their area, they started moving to drier areas– but the Good Guys had laid claim to just about everything within a days drive.

Some of the medium sized communities that approached them after the first set of really heavy storms and asked if they could move into the area Zoe had designated as belonging to Burrow One.

There was a lot of discussion among the Board and the general community as to what to do with these groups. The baseline was to welcome any survivors into the community, but only if they arrived in the smaller family groups. These were more cohesive units, and they weren’t looking to merge with the compound, simply live within it’s declared boundaries.

After a heated debate it was decided at last not to let them in, as some of the splinter groups were mentalities that majority of the Burrow couldn’t (or more accurately, wouldn’t) tolerate. An offer was made to the less objectionable of the groups that they could move into the area that had been designated as Burrow Three, on the agreement than they would owe allegiance to Burrow One in certain matters.

A few of the groups accepted the terms, but others moved on, looking for higher ground on their own. Those that accepted were quickly brought under Zoe’s wing and found themselves in a whirlwind of construction, planning, and listening to lectures on everything from sanitation to long term genetic stability of their descendants.

The outlook was bleak, because everyone’s outlook was bleak, but it wasn’t hopeless. They had that at least.

Plus they had Atlantis, bobbing somewhere on the waves, and the crystal infused sanctuary of the Neutral Canyons– so even if Evil had the Castle in the Air and the Sky Squid, they would be on equal footing when the time for combat came around again.

The Earth and Sea globes were in tucked away in their respective cities, carefully watched over by a select group of people. They groups would turn into cults in time, or religions, depending on how to world went in the next thousand years, but they would strengthen and grow over the years. The story of how Evil Won might devolve into something more flashy and symbolic than Brian’s years of careful planning– but their descendants would remember the important bits.

Good would win, Evil would lose and someday it would be sunny again.

Now they just had to survive.

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