20 YEARS AGO

The town plaza gleamed in the morning night, the sun’s rays turning the small gilded homes into beacons of orange; the shadows cast upon figures running through the layered streets, stacked on top of each other along the terrace walls like some drastically detailed cake. The bushes flailed in the wind, the stone pavement a sprinkling of gravel and rock; the light coating of snow upon the homes falling off as the single lone lights-on building in the centre attracted a crowd like moths to a fire.

Red, with a wooden exterior that covered the outermost walls; lanterns on the outside for the perusal of the average villager. The glazed windows stayed shuttered as the commotion followed the korun man carrying a sack of heifers out. The other villagers moved in on him, eyeing the produce in his hands. “Oy, stop, stop! This is the last sack I can sell, after that I’m closing, I’m closing!”

“You can’t do that!”

“Fuck you I can’t do that! I’m running a loss here, get the fuck away!” He screamed, jabbing another two elven out of the way.

Screaming. Screaming everywhere. Chaos, even, as two of the villagers smashed the window and pried their eyes inside to check for food, the store-owner turning around with wide eyes and sprinting at them. Amidst it all a tiny little girl found herself brushing up against trousers and blouses, her ears flicked away by a dozen people.

Shirin balked. A world of adults surrounded her, the frantic noise piercing her ears. She quietly made her way through the crowd, bumping up against someone here and someone there; she wasn’t tall enough to see who. She pouted, squirming through the mess, biting her lip as she finally pushed her way out, ejected from the crowd as it began to swarm into the shop. The noise of a man’s muffled screaming billowed out behind her as she looked around, her small blouse shuffling against her as she clutched onto the small pendant on her neck.

“Oh, Shirin! What’re you doing here?” Hearing this, Shirin turned to her left; her immediate sight focusing on a stout, albeit wrinkle-eyed, the lines running along the woman’s eyes particularly gaunt as she lifted Shirin up into the air, smiling. “This isn’t a good place for you to be - what’re you doing today?”

“This.” Shirin raised a small basket with heifers stacked to the brim, the fabric covering it barely keeping it inside. The sister widened her eyes.

“Oh dear… why… why’re you holding this around?” She caressed the blue cover, biting her lip as she stared at the fresh, surviving produce inside.

“Don’t we do this weekly…? It’s not like the lord stops being generous because someone’s arguing.” Shirin remarked, as the sister looked on. The sister shook her head, frowning, and picked her up once more, carrying her off beyond the commotion. “Not here, Shirin. Not now.”

Behind them both, a crackling flame blew open in the shop. The raging blaze corroborated the torrent of words and yelling; and then the tiles began to cave in. The sister, cloaked in a plain brown like the other churchworkers, covered Shirin’s eyes as she carried the little girl away, before promptly letting her loose two terraces above.

“Sister Shauna, what was that for…”

“Just, just helping you out. Now, may I…” Her voice trailed off as she collected a few of the heifers from the basket. “Don’t mind me?”

Shirin tilted her head. “Are you giving them out?”

She looked away, putting her hands behind her back and crossing her fingers.“Yes! Yes… yes, definitely. Giving them out. Where’s your mother?”

“Oh, mama’s… she’s on the field, plowing, I think.”

“I see, I see…” She pocketed a single more heifer before nodding to her. “Go home with those for now. The lord’d be fine if you, uh, delay it until tomorrow.”

“...but, aren’t we supposed to help them out?”

“Help yourself before you help others. Go on, go find your mother!” Shauna patted Shirin on the back, before watching the six-year-old girl nod and scurry off. She chuckled to herself, looking at the heifers in her own bag.

“...sorry for lying,” She muttered, smiling, watching the figure disappear into the distance; before turning around and hearing the crackling.

The brownblouse’s eyes widened as her legs moved faster than her mind, sprinting to the edge of the terrace and seeing the blaze enveloping the entire house, the korun owner rolling on the ground as orange billowed out of his arms. The mob dissipated as the smoke puffed into the air; the roof falling into the walls.

Shauna grimaced before sprinting towards the spire towering over the town plaza, pitter-pattering down the steps as others slammed into her escaping the charred, out-of-control fire.

Sweat. The feeling on both sides of warm sweatdrops sliding down her neck as freezing wind breezed past her, her ears wiggling about. She scarcely ducked when a flash of grey bolted across her eyes; a hammer striking a woman squarely on the face.

“You leave my food alone!”

“Fuck no it ain’t, we planted it and we been planting them in that land since my great-granddaddy was alive! Move it!”

The screaming continued as she burst through the wide brown doors of the church and found other sisters desperately chugging at the well built into the concierge, the cobbled stone floor soaked wet with buckets rolling about everywhere. Clothes of modest brown turned shades darker from drenching.

Her eyes narrowed for a moment before scampering to the side of the priest. “What’s the problem?”

“Well’s clogged… we’re going to pull it out.” The priest replied, gesturing to the other sisters to get ready. “Can you help?”

Raising a thumbs-up, she got to the side of the well, peered in and stepped back. Holding out her hands like the others, the women gripped their fists; the torrent of blue forming at the bottom of the well slowly seeping through before the ground rattled and shook and a grand mound of soot and dirt flew up and crashed against the floor behind them, a cloud of dust smoking the whole room. The sisters groaned as the priest quietly stumbled out through the wooden doors, coughing away, before wobbling her way back into the church and beginning to pull out water by the bucket. All the sisters did.

The sister, pulling up a hefty fill herself, rushed outside with bucket in hand as the burning structure collapsed in on itself, the stilts on which it was built falling to the ground with half the ground floor. Water crashed upon the fires, starving them of their desired oxygen, what few others not preoccupied with fighting over the food also tossing liquid on the flames.

“I haven’t seen a fire like this since the war!” One of them exclaimed, dumping a bucket before running back.

“Which war?”

“The last one!”

Noise only escalated as the fires slowly fizzled out, the brownblouses still attempting to put out the blaze; but the infernal screaming did not dissipate. One of them turned around, staring over the ridge, a othala-emblazoned dark green banner slowly nearing in the distance.

NOW

Shirin, scratching the bandaged half of her face, narrowed her eyes. “Damn… Shauna, you have any idea how far you left me out in the lurch back then?”

“I’m sorry, y’know? They kicked me out of the church, made me marry early. Wasn’t even the old arrangement my ma and his ma agreed on.” Shauna commented, blowing into the pipe again as her parched lips flaked off. “What happened to you after Tobukiro got you out?”

She tapped on her knife. “Scholar. He said I was real good with studies so he prepped me for being an instructor until, well… y’know.”

Shauna patted Shirin on the back. “We lose too much, huh?”

“Yeah.”

The older woman peered through her periscope again, before putting it down and taking another smoke. “Sorry about Set, Anya… your brother and your sister.” The wrinkles on her face seemingly grew as she said that.

“Rie’s fine.”

“...”

“Rie.”

“You can’t keep this charade up forever, y’know?”

“Shhh…” Shirin pointed down below them, the singular path underneath with a large convoy passing, all carrying the othala-emblazoned banner whilst carting containers and crates through the valley towards the fort on the plain horizon. “Looking for the prize, are we…”

“Usually they keep the important crates unmarked, but… interrogating so close to Fort Sekyo’s going to let them bring reinforcements. People are going to die for no reason for this.”

“Relax, I got this.” Shirin tied up her hair back into a bun before biting onto a canister, using her hand to pop open a side; before dumping the contents into an arrowhead and slotting it on the crossbow.

“Hey, don’t… there’s more people here than just you.” Shauna grabbed the tunic of Shirin’s blue uniform, shaking her head. “Wait on the signal.”

Shirin shrugged it off. “Prime opportunity I’m looking at right now.”

“Please… cell commanders execute people for this kind of thing, you know? I don’t want to see you die just days after finally getting to meet that little girl I knew so long ago again.”

“Like I said; relax.”

Standing straight up out of the bush they’d both been hiding in, she waved a red cloth in her hand twice before aiming her crossbow; Shauna pulled her back down, dragging her to the dirt in a chokehold while staring at her intently. “Good lord…! Has being in a prison made you loony as well?”

“No, but it has taught me to get out of things like this.” She hit Shauna in the stomach, knocking her over before peeping out of the bush, staring towards the other ridge with periscope in hand. Two waves of a white cloth - hesitation, awaiting further orders; Shirin shrugged once more before placing her finger on the trigger.

“Shirin, don’t - please, don’t.”

She pushed it back.

Loading another arrow as a blast of red emerged at the bottom of the valley, she shot again, guiding the arrow with general precision as the dust cloud enveloped the front of the extensive convoy, turning the previous organisation of the entire affair into a chaotic disorganised split of two lines. “Shauna! We’re live, let’s go!”

The old brownblouse was cloaked in the same blue uniform of the resistance yet holding onto a single necklace of her past; she croaked slightly before stumbling over and pulling out a toboggan, dropping it on the edge whilst staring at Shirin, who jumped in and yanked her into the back.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this.” Shauna muttered under her breath as she assembled a large firmament around the toboggan; plates flying out from the bushes to surround the makeshift raft and forming a great barrier, a large block up in front to shield the impact of groundward collision. Shirin groaned to the woman two dozen years older than her; “Better believe it, we’re going down!”

And a thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk noise turned to the order of the day. More arrows descended from the other side upon the convoy, soldiers forming positions assailed by a barrage of the guided things. Domes of metal began to form over the broken lot top-first, the hundred or so elven men splitting up into disparate groups defending against explosion after explosion.

Shirin and Shauna rode the steep and jagged cliffface down the valley, the dust cloud behind them kicking higher and higher with every second.

“Where’s the flaremen?” Shirin shouted, shakily reloading her crossbow as the toboggan shook and rattled its way down to the bottom. Shauna, putting on a pair of glasses, shouted in return, “If they’re not shielded, they’re the flaremen!”

Another shot.

A dust cloud kicked into the air and a signaller fell to the ground. Other members of the cell had already shot their rounds and landed next to the convoy, swords flying as they cut down some soldiers; cargo and other boxes dropped on the ground while akari slaves fled, running away from the battle with chains still strapped to their hands and feet. Still the contingent persevered, a wall of shields forming at the bottom of the domes while soldiers poked out crossbows, firing off volleys at the blueshirts that had descended upon them.

“There’s more of us than them,” One shouted, “Keep steady and everything’ll be fine!”

Sho buckled, propelling with magic several crates he saw by the wayside at the domes, leaving dents that quickly bent right back into shape; turning over to see Shirin and Shauna and circling above his head. A call for a rendezvous.

The two obliged, rushing through the chaotic lines of battle, the other three dozen fighters creating a loose encirclement around the broken-up convoy with a single line between the two main domes breaking up the force. Upon arrival, Sho groaned.

“I didn’t give a fucking order.”

“You’d have given it too late. Got this.” Shirin raised a small cylinder with a ‘do not touch’ written on.

“Fuck… fuck. Someone toss it in the back shield, we’ll close in after that. We don’t have enough people to take out a convoy of this size… didn’t even think they’d be scaling up minor convoys like these.” Sho’s voice growled in its own right as he sped off. “Shauna, keep your fucking protege under control!”

Yanna grabbed the primitive grenade from Shirin before throwing it upwards, guiding it with her powers towards the top of the grey shield; an arrow flew to the wayside, hitting a blueshirt in the shoulder. Striking the dome’s outer side it burrowed itself into the metal before shooting off its back end, suddenly rocketing through the dome and letting off a smoke bomb inside, the fumes pouring out unable to be enclosed by a shield which quickly fell apart, disappearing into the massive cloud which emerged.

“Get ‘em!”

The blueshirts which had been standing around the back dome latched on masks and charged right into the smoke.

Shirin looked around to see Rie in a blue uniform of her own, holding up a great round shield with a pike built into the centre and jabbing a soldier beating at the wooden defensive weapon before pulling back. The blueshirts ahead of the frontal shield slowly backed away from the very front of where the convoy would have been before one shouted, “Hey, I think your friends are fucked!”

The dome moved an inch away as the ruckus in the back dissolved, the cloud disappearing to see several dozen maimed corpses lying upon the ground. Still fighting occurred, blueshirts and greencoats clashing - sword against dagger, hand-to-hand. Two of the greencoats quietly dropped their weapons, both men collapsing to the ground and keeping their hands on the floor.

“No prisoners, right?” One of the blueshirts asked, clutching onto a chest wound while holding a sword over the surrenderees.

Sho shrugged. “Nae, we don’t have the time.”

“Gotcha.” She struck both surrendered men in the back, blood spurting out of the stab wounds as they turned over, rolling, shaking; writhing in pain. No eyebrows were raised, the one or two akari blueshirts seemingly looking on in approval; giving a curt nod in the distance, Rie rammed forward and stabbed another soldier in the front.

A wind. Wiping off the sudden red line scraping by the side of her face, Rie narrowed her eyes, pulling a knife from a sheathe tied around her prosthetic leg and tossing it at a soldier; bouncing off his armour and sticking itself firmly into the dirt. Swinging around she swept the man to the ground with her shield before jabbing him with the pike, moving further in.

All around the frontal dome began to splinter and vanish, some breaking through the thinned lines. Although the blue lying on the bloodied ground could not compare to the absolute sea of green, Yanna winced, counting down the men in the back while staring through the crude wooden plates and carvings that made up the crossbow’s iron sights.

Shirin held out a spear, looking to the blueshirt next to her. “You ready?”

“Every day, Kodai.” The blueshirt responded, holding out his shield while crouched, holding out a thumbs-up. “When you’re ready!”

Nodding, she leapt onto the shield and jumped into the air, throwing two grenades which lodged themselves in the dome before her feet crashed through the thinning metal sheet and sent her barreling into the middle of the greencoats holding out. As a dagger descended upon her she rolled over, plumes of grey breaking out around her and obscuring their vision.

Coughing surrounded her - herself not immune, she briefly stumbled to the ground before impaling another soldier with her spear, the point instead finding itself stuck inside a man who stumbled over on the ground, pushing the spear even further through him as he fell square on his back. Her leg swept under a soldier while she grabbed her bandages, tearing them all off and firing an array of pain over the entire left side of her face.

“Ah… ah…” The soldier muttered to himself, his mouth firing off barrages of spit and dust as he reached for his bloodied sword. Only the sword had disappeared; and the woman standing in front of him held it in her hand, the glint of its blade staring down at him.

“Hey, fuckface.” Shirin picked the soldier up by the collar as his vision crystallised into seeing a face of two sides: an elven girl and a charred woman.

His eyes wobbling, he threw his fist squarely into her waist only to be greeted by an iron wall. As if hurling the strength of an ant, nothing came of the entire affair, and she in comparison catapulted the greencoat right into the shield wall surrounding them - itself quickly disintegrating into a dozen individual soldiers as the fighting capitulated to chaos, a unified battle turning to little brawls with big crossovers.

Dirt and dust kicked into the air but as the smoke dissipated, more - even if just a few more - greencoats laid on the ground than blueshirts. Just two greencoats still stood, their hands raised. Yanna stepped down and began talking to both, while the other blueshirts began to tear apart the containers, loading them up into smaller rucksacks and boxes they’d trucked along for the ambush.

“The situation on the front is bad?”

“The situation on the front is terrible! Command keeps sending people into suicide charges and they’ve set up trenches!” The elven man blurted out, leading his other greencoat colleague to stare. “Please, oh lord, don’t make me go back to base, please.”

Sho narrowed his eyes. “What’s so wrong with going back to base? We ain’t exactly sticklers for keeping fellows like you alive.”

“S-s-Sekyo has been killing anyone that retreats or comes back without their units…”

“He’s been killing deserters or retreaters?” The world emerged from his mouth quickly and like a lightning bolt, before the soldier stuttered and stopped.

“Um…”

“Answer!”

“Uh, um, yes!”

“Which is it?”

“He’s killing deserters and retreaters!”

Sho raised his eyebrows. Staring at the man, he could make out the wrinkles on his face, at least old enough to have remembered what he did. “You were there for when that bastard took over, aye? I’m not going to take kindly to someone like you fucking with me-”

“I’m not trying to fuck with you! He kills anyone who goes back and puts their heads on a pike! It’s like Yokura all over again!” The soldier latched onto Sho with both hands. “Please, oh my lord, please don’t make me and Hanzo there go back… put us - put us in a jail or something, I don’t know, j-j-just don’t make us fucking go back!”

Yanna grimaced. Sho groaned before turning to her and muttering, “Do we have the space for just two prisoners?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s… let’s take them alo-”

“GAH!”

Charring noise. They turned around to see Shirin and several other blueshirts pulling the man to the ground, holding a large brand over his face; Shauna lying on the ground, unconscious. Sho was aghast. “What the FUCK are you doing! Don’t waste time and get the containers in order!”

Burning. As the brand was lowered Yanna and Sho both dragged and pushed away the blueshirts engaging in the act while Shirin pressed it in, the quiet chattering turning to a small plume emerging from the man’s face, his lips kept shut as a glowing orange pierced through the skin immediately next to it.

“Stop it, stop it!”

“You wanted a god damn message, you get a god damn message.” Shirin muttered under her breath before throwing off the brand, revealing a bright red emblem - a shattered Othala split in half - etched into the soldier’s face. An unforgettable threat. She picked the soldier up by the collar and remarked, “Now you go running back over to your fort and tell them exactly what happened here.”

The soldier shakily opened his mouth. “I’ll die…”

“Only one way to find out.” With that she released his cuffs and some of the nearby blueshirts unsheathed their weapons; before the soldier glanced around and sprinted away into the distance. One of the same armed blueshirts turned to give Shirin a tight shake on the hand. “Nice job, rookie, what’re you gonna do next?”

“Suppose we’ll do this again and again and again until we’re done.”

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Sho spat. Staring at the group in front of him he went up to Shirin and shot a glance at her. “Are you asking to get fucked? Or do you just have a lot of experience with idiocy? Did you die and the colour change hasn’t set in yet?”

“Only fucking person you’re insulting is my sister, so shut the fuck up or I’ll scalp you myself.” She retorted. Sho stared as the other blueshirts went back to collecting various supplies and Shirin stepped away to join them in that task.

Getting back on her feet, Shauna’s eyes slowly but surely drew back into vision a clear sight of the world around her. A bruise forming on her forehead, she quietly watched Shirin walk by, getting along fine with the younger blueshirts; blinking while rubbing her eyes. Silence was her personal order of the day.

Then, she saw Rie.

“Ah… Nin, Ninjindira?” She asked, rushing over to help with the grey-skinned girl’s looting. “Is that you… what happened to your leg?”

Rie blinked. “Is… ...sister Shauna?”

“Yes, it’s me! Oh my lord, how have… how are you?”

She scratched her head. “I’m… well, I guess it’s not the best, eheh. Got locked up by the Avisen, and uh… when we were breaking out, severe wound on the lower leg. ...sis amputated it.”

“‘Sis’? Am I missing something here?” Shauna asked, collecting several sokovs into a bag. “Didn’t you both disavow the church?”

Rie sighed. “We… I guess it was kind of a spur of the moment thing, you know? We just kind of decided back then, that we’d back each other up. ...I don’t really hold up my end of the bargain, but…”

Shauna stopped. “Why didn’t she talk about you?”

A moment of quietness ensued as the two continued on, Sho in the background screaming at them to finish it all faster.

“She… she calls me Rie.”

“Why?”

“...I don’t think she really can accept what happened to the real Rie all those years ago. So I just let her call me that. I wouldn’t know how to tell her otherwise now…”

“That’s… that’s really admirable on your part, but… are you sure you’re comfortable being in such a relationship with her?” Shauna remarked, performing rites over a dead greencoat’s body. “It can’t be healthy for either of you…”

“It’s, it’s my end of what we agreed on, I like to think.”

“Is it really mutual agreement when she’s the one calling the shots on everything?” Shauna continued, before stopping again. “...I guess I can’t judge after not seeing you two for so long. But come to me if you ever need to talk, aye?”

Then, Shauna pulled in Rie for a hug. As she embraced the young girl, she smiled and remarked, “I’m just so glad you both are fine.”

Rie - Nin - whatever they called her - remained silent. She then quietly reciprocated.