“Alright, you’re fine here?”

“...sis, I think I know as well as anyone else how to shower.” Rie chuckled to herself, nodding to her sister before vanishing behind the sliding door. The light going out, Shirin pressed her ear against the wooden door for a moment before leaping to her feet; sprinting down the corridor.

“Ma’am! Please don’t run in the hallways!” A woman at the front desk, noting down two entries on a large board, screamed at her.

“My mistake! Sorry!” She replied as her feet stepped out onto the stone pavement; the bright sun outside blazing a great strong gaze upon the land below. The streets of the town markedly packed, the large one-storey homes lining the pavement with several roofed stores at the single intersection along the two-road settlement; she raced along through the few people walking through.

The homes remained brown, disused; the light green tiling and angel-white walls tapering away to reveal interlocking wooden plankettes. Doors remained open, tracks leading out of windows and smashed window patterns lying swept against the foot of homes. As she ran by old yellow banners could be clearly seen stashed within little piles of trash against the abandoned houses.

Stare. She blinked for a moment; but the stares seemed omnipotent. The burnt part of her left face appeared a bright red, the lines running across it uncaring for the impact of their existence. Her yellow hair on one end remained completely intact, the other with the lock ahead of her ear completely burnt off.

Stare. Shirin stopped. She looked around and saw two men passing by, staring at her. ...at her wound. She rolled her eyes, remarking, “Oy! What you staring at, the one who’s gonna beat you to high hell and back?”

“No, uh - I-”

“You stay the hell away from me and nobody gets hurt.” She muttered, walking off. The stone underneath her cracking up and slowly transitioning to gravel and dirt; she saw the small sign at the town’s border, marked ‘Rewon’.

Underneath its name two inscriptions lay in conflict - ‘A proud city’ and a poor scrawling on the corner ‘for the Empire’. The line of houses did not end ahead of her. It continued on through the entire valley, the vast field of dark green arising from ruins.

The mountains behind her rose into the sky like some kind of imposition. She glanced back for a moment before turning back to face the trees. Thick enough that ferns grew on the old porches of homes she scratched her head at the site before her; taking out a small map from her waist-pocket. She’d adopted a rugged brown sleeveless shirt with pouches all along the belt running across her waistline; the skirt underneath only about as long as her thighs crucially far enough from a long leather sheathe on her lower leg.

“Right…”

Parchment rankled in her hands while she cross-referenced between the map and the environment around her; stepping out of the way for a wave of grey that passed by her - a slave caravan. As the torrents of chained men and women crossed by her she slowly grimaced, the small sacks in their hands for money flimsy and unfilled.

While the caravan continued on she put down the map for a moment and shoved a few coins into one of their bags, nodding before turning around and picking it back up once more. The woman holding that bag glanced back for a moment as the caravan continued away.

Touching the tip of her tongue and pressing the saliva onto the corner of the brown piece. It turned black instantly. “Hang on. This… this is a map from before Rewon was abandoned…” Her voice trailed off. “If that’s the case, then let’s just…”

She pulled out a pen before crossing out various large buildings marked on the parchment, the isometric drawing obscuring many major roads and instead overemphasising great structures now obscured by a sea of pine trees.

Shirin stood up on the gravel path, peering back at the slaves in the distance before wincing just for a moment. She turned forward to the forest and trotted down the path, winding along the flattest terrain; a towering stack of roofs tilted in the distance, amidst the ruins scattered everywhere. Pulling out a smaller piece of parchment, flimsy and crumpled, her eyes darted across the concise top-down map.

Blink. An inlet on the corner of the road she’d arrived at.

“Cave… there shouldn’t be a cave anymore.” She muttered, briefly peering through the ruins and abandoned homes to see nothing except thick vegetation. “...but that’s way too suspicious. It isn’t that thick anywhere else.”

She turned to her left and right, observing no one before escaping into the small alleyway between the two stone buildings, moss collecting all over the rubble as she moved under a collapsed plank to see a pile amidst the vegetation. Old banners, flags… books. Charred fabric and stone decomposing in the green.

“Alright. Should be this, just gotta find an inlet somewhere - probably underneath the larger rocks…” Her voice trailed off as she stood up and placed her hand against her chin. “No. Why? Why this place? Nobody’d choose this - STAR!”

Ruffle.

The grass - she turned, and saw a figure in the bush. “Star,” She repeated, “And seriously, the Avisen ain’t trotting around with a woman whose face looks like this.”

“Sound logic, but uh- anything’s possible!” The distant man’s voice shouted. “Marauder!”

“Countersign over!” She remarked. A brief pause ensued.

“Don’t just stand there, take the straight route out the next bend and we’ll meet you there!” The bush rattled once more, the sound of dirt being trampled slowly getting softer. “Don’t bring anyone else!”

“You Kodai?” The scarred woman with short, chin-long hair that met her stared at her wound as well, both yellow-haired women exchanging glances. “Honest to god you are apparently everything we’d expect out of someone suddenly asking to use the trail.”

“She a scholar, an abolitionist, and one helluva detective, apparently.” The blue-skinned man with a small moustache and shaved hair next to her remarked. “How’s the wound? Never answered my first question.”

“It’s fine. Stings like hell but nothing serious.” Shirin stopped. “Now, where are we headed?”

“Let’s get you on a baseline first.” The man remarked before tapping on Shirin’s shoulder, staring at her square in the eyes. “I’m Sho. She’s Yanna, and let’s face things: you understand that if you wanna use our services you gotta be trustworthy ‘nough to join on.”

Shirin grimaced. “That’s not the doctrine I remember.”

“Ever since that declaration, nothing people remember’s worth a damn.” Yanna uttered, crossing her arms. “You and I need to band together if it means we survive this crisis and we ride out the storm together. If we’re fighting for everyone in Kura, that means we need everyone in Kura.”

“Doesn’t seem like you do have that,” Shirin remarked, looking around them in the trees. “I’m guessing you have maybe two or three people hidden around inside the vegetation waiting to pounce on me in case I suddenly try to off you. Don’t. Think. About. It.”

The two remained silent for a moment.

“...I like this one,” Sho grinned. “I like ya. Got the fire in your eyes, not too sure where your allegiances be lying though?”

“My allegiances as far as you lot are concerned? Don’t fuck me. Don’t fuck my sister. And I won’t fuck over you.” She shrugged, glancing over at the plain-clothed people standing in front of her with a thin chainmail vest cloaked over their bodies and several pouches on their belts. “But I suppose you folks would know that.”

“Damn, you abolitionist types are insufferable…” Sho muttered, pointing away. “Grant!”

Three others emerged from the abandoned homes, coming into the centre of the battered road and greeting them; as they cautiously approached, Shirin shouted, “C’mon! My sis doesn’t have all day!”

“Your sister? You a naka-”

“Fuck. Off.” She stopped, before grousing, “I’m not participating in none of your prayers and your bullshit, no matter how religious you resistance lot are.”

Yanna looked down on the ground while Sho rolled his eyes. “She got a point. We do need to get moving.” He stopped, before pointing at the cave to the left.

“Temporary shelter as we discuss how we’re getting the Akari across the border.”

Shirin nodded. “Sounds good to me, let’s get this done quickly.”

The group of soldiers surrounded her as they entered a small tunnel in the side of the mountain; stone bricks covering the entrance crumbling away with moss covering the plaque inscribed at the top. The bright lights of the afternoon sun vanished into a thick darkness, choked with dust. Sho flickered a light from his hand, waving to one of the soldiers. “Check the other end.”

"You don't have an oil lamp." Shirin remarked. "Why wouldn't you have an oil lamp? I thought the resistance was hardcore on this?"

"That's how it is around here nowadays, nobody be drilling for the black stuff, nobody be getting the black stuff." The wrinkled man muttered under his breath. "It's all nikov-powered lanterns these days, as much as I hate the fucking smell."

"I can tell. And no weapons, either? The hell's that you're using?" She demanded, pointing at the crossbow one of the soldiers held in hand; arrow-holders strapped on his back. "That ain't got the range or the maneuvrability that the old guided arrows did."

"It's the least worst option, a crossbow." He remarked. "Plus, always hits at beyond fifty metres. Does the job we need. Besides, all the Xiojinkan and Avisen we kill are hoarding them. Could use a hand-cannon but honestly nobody's skilled enough anymore to handle the recoil. Not since all the scholars ran across the border into Senai."

"Hoarding them? Figured that they'd hate it of all people."

"You'd think, but it's a matter of pulling, racking, and dropping a new one in. Fuckers can even use lead-tipped arrows, so they're still as deadly as ever despite bringing out worse and worse troops by the year."

Shirin scoffed for a moment. “You’re on the ropes, aren’t you? Don’t even sound like a resistance member.”

Yanna tilted her head, pressing on the scar running down her right eye. “What makes you think that?”

“Old resistance - abolitionists. As far as I know none of them were up for slaves in any capacity.”

“When those Hiryu bastards are out we’re going to need a plan for what happens after. Slaves make up the work,” He paused to take a drink from his canteen. “And I don’t want to hear no high-faultin’ excuses from you people.”

“No wonder you guys have failed to get support from Senai forever.” She chuckled.

“Things were better when you fuckers weren’t the ones we had to work with to take back our homeland. Now look where we stand.”

“Yeah, I’m not too sure you were the ones fighting thirty-two years ago when the Avisen came. I’m pretty sure you were the kind of guy to celebrate them arriving, fucking slave-owner.” Shirin muttered under her own breath. “Traitor.”

“Fuck you.” Sho insisted, leaning in.

“Hey, you two, stop it!” Yanna insisted, before looking at Shirin. “We can’t help you if you don’t even respect us on a nominal level, you know? We’ll get your sister to Senai, but we need you in the group.”

“Of course I’m in, I’m just wondering what the hell comes after with bastards like you!” Shirin pointed at Sho, shrugging as she stood up. “My dad fought in the first campaign, my mother was a medic before she joined the church. You weren’t there when they got fucked.”

Sho groused, leaning over on the wall. “If only you’d also become one of those holy women…”

“Oh, you wanna bet asshole?”

“SHUT UP!” Yanna screamed at them both, slapping Shirin and Sho on the cheeks. “We’re not here to fight. It’s to negotiate. I know you both don’t like whatever the other is saying but we don’t get through this fighting each other. We’ve got bigger fish to fry, right, Kodai?”

“...can you guarantee her safety? She’s one-legged, using a Kan.”

“A Kan? Damn, what happened?”

“We broke out of a prison. Blew the thing to smithereens and then ran off.”

“A prison? What prison? Any idea?” Sho suddenly spoke up, his voice deepening and quickening.

“Name was Halbe… somewhere close to the Sai river, give or take a day’s walking. Launch-point for troops, dragon-hangar.”

Yanna’s eyes lit up. “Dragon-hangar? Shit, any idea where it is on a map?”

“Sorry mate. No clue - if you have a few landmarks I might be able to tell.” Shirin stopped, before sitting down once again. “How fast can you get her to Senai?”

“How old?”

“Two years younger than me.”

“Blood sisters or no?”

“As far as I’m concerned, yeah. Blood sisters.” Shirin retorted Sho’s question; taking another swig from her canteen.

“How’s she at walking and being stealthy? Can she outrun a soldier or no?”

“She can follow orders hella well. Still adjusting to the Kan though, so I’m going to put it as a no - she can’t outrun a soldier right now.” Shirin uttered, glancing out of the tunnel; the old banners stashed against the entrance still visible. “Still, she’s strong.”

“I see…” Yanna remarked, placing her hand against her chin. Silence. The soldier from earlier returned from the darker end of the tunnel and signalled a lack of intelligent activity whatsoever.

“...so people do become Akari when they die…” Sho’s voice trailed off. “That’s actually kinda sad, not gonna lie.”

Shirin stared at him for a moment before rolling her eyes; sighing, she turned back to Yanna. “Can you get her to safety?”

Yanna smiled and replied, “Yes we can.”

“That’s settled then.” Shirin bit her lip and leaned in towards Yanna.

“I’m in.”