Erna adjusts herself on the cot chained against her cell wall. She digs her fingers into the mattress to test its thickness. It's so thin it could barely pass as a blanket. All in all, the prison cell that the Military Police have set her up with is not so different from the room that she rents in the city. The basement apartment that she rents from an unscrupulous loan shark is just as damp and cold, though it affords more privacy. It's only one of her homes, and not the one she'll be going back to when she's let go. The basement apartment is a last resort for when shit falls apart. It's a good hideaway. Not even the second in command of her operation knows where it is.
Erna won't be able to go there for days. When the MPs let her go they'll most likely trail her for a while. She'll stay with her underlings, hopping to a new place every night, laying low, being good. Until the MPs get bored and leave her alone.
She frowns at what she knows she'll need to do. She doesn't mind being somewhat on the run. It's that she's going to need to stay with people. The thought tires her. She finds people draining. Not because she's an introvert. She's certainly not that, but she can't be near people without watching and listening closely, trying to manipulate them at every moment. It isn't a relaxing past time. She views people as work, as a business. She's built a business off of convincing others to do what she needs for her, which just so happens to be breaking the law most of the time. Keeping people in line and loyal is tiring work, so she prefers to be utterly alone whenever possible.
So the only things making her very uncomfortable in her cell at the moment are her neighbors. She can hear them breathing, licking their lips, spitting. Fucking disgusting. The one across the way is looking at her. That's the worst. She can tolerate a lot of human filth, but not having control over when and how she'll be seen irks her more than anything.
"You're Erna Raban…" the grimy prisoner in the cell across from hers hisses. Erna can hear in his voice the amount of time he's been locked up. The cold, damp air is slowly destroying his lungs, making the former gruffness of his voice turn to a whiny, wheezing breathlessness.
"It's Miss Raban to you, worm."
He laughs to himself. "You're not so high and mighty in here, love. We're all equal down here."
He draws out the last word, his voice turning gravelly and grating on her nerves like mortar. She hears a few assenting murmurs from other prisoners who have started to listen.
"Love…" she spits. "I'll wager you haven't felt a loving embrace in many years. I don't expect anyone's touched you in a longer time than you've been locked in here." She makes her voice softer, pitying, sympathetic. And there is quiet as they all listen. She makes sure her volume is enough that most of the cellblock will hear her. "You lonely, sad thing, taking what comfort you can in the violent contact between your ribs and the guards' boots whenever they care enough to remember that you're alive down here." She pauses to quietly swallow the bile rising in her throat. "If you'll behave for me, love, I can restore you to what you used to be. You know my name, so you must know the extent of my organization?" She waits for an answer. The silence is penetrating. She won't be the first to break it. That would be defeat.
Finally, quietly, her neighbor across the way answers "..Yes…"
"Yes, what?" she says through gritted teeth.
"Yes, Miss Raban."
"Very good, pet." she praises as if the filthy convict were her own offspring. "Nobody," she says, "is ever equal."
Erna gets up and paces her cell a little. She listens to the silence, making sure all dissent is quiet. Making sure that they're ready to hang off of her every word.
"Right now," she says, "we're all beneath the swine who hold the keys to these cells. An unfortunate predicament, but here we are." She listens to the murmuring: people complaining and whining about the bloody guards, something to unite them. "But," she continues, "when I get out, I'll still be in the same position of power that I left. Can any of you wretched creatures say the same?" She waits. More murmuring. Grunting. Nobody raises a voice to tell her that she's wrong, because she is never wrong about people.
"I feel for you. I do." she says sweetly. "They keep you in here so long, everyone forgets you. Nobody's loyalty lasts, not even family's. Have any of you heard from your families in a dogs age?" she asks.
She hears sniffling in a cell on her side, somebody holding back tears. Good.
"Well I never forget. I value all who are loyal. If any of you want work when you get out, you can ask around for me. Life is cruel, but I am fair. You need only be good and I'll make sure you are always cared for. No more cells, no more lonely nights." She looks directly across the dark separating their cell doors at the man who had tried to shake her, now utterly entranced like a mouse trapped in the coils of a cobra.
"Does that sound nice, pet? All I need is your loyalty and once you're released to the city we'll put you back in a position where those lower than you will have cause to fear your displeasure. You'll be so much better than you would do on your own."
As if in a dream, the answer came slowly. "Yes, Miss—"
She stops him before he can finish. All she needed was the 'yes'. "You can call me 'Sir'," she says. Then, louder, "You all can."
There's an inconsistent, broken chorus of "Yes, Sir," and other oaths. Erna turns her back on the halls of the dank prison and faces the wall of her cell, rubbing her temples and frowning. There was a time when turning a crowd of hardened criminals to her side so quickly would have made her feel something. Now it just gives her a headache. She lets them go on for a minute. She lets them talk about what hell they'll raise for her. Only for a minute. Then, in a stern, booming voice, she commands, "Quiet down."
Instantly there is silence. She rewards their obedience with her sympathetic, honeyed voice again. "I'd like some rest."
All is silent for her. She swears they're even breathing more quietly. Nobody dares to cough, spit, or moan. Every prisoner tries to be quieter than his neighbor, hoping that she'll notice and reward him more greatly than the others.
Erna sits down on the cot again. She rests her head against the cold, stone wall behind her and she closes her eyes. She thinks of nothing. She only revels in the silence.
Not even when the guard opens the heavy iron door to the cellblock does anyone raise a voice. The only sounds to be heard are the clicking of his boots and the hiss of the oil lamp he carries. His pace is normal at first, and then it slows. He is unsettled by the quiet. Erna can picture him pausing to look into cells, making sure the prisoners are still there, still alive. She can see in her mind their eyes staring out at him, full of more fire than recent years can recall, stoked by her and her promises, and their grim, unmoving mouths; as if they were enchanted and their voices taken away.
The guard's steps hurry again. They sound panicked, almost. Then the rhythm stops abruptly, squarely in front of Erna's cell. She doesn't turn to look. She only keeps rubbing her temples and she says, "You may speak."
The guard, thinking she is daring to tell him what she will or will not permit him to do, opens his mouth to threaten her, but he is drowned out by a cacophony of prisoners suddenly shaking their bars, hissing, cursing him and the king and anything else they can think of.
"Cunning witch," he mutters to himself as he fumbles with the keys, the racket shaking his resolve. As he tries one in the lock, Erna stands up, her full height only amounting to probably 5 feet and 3 inches, but her demeanor more than making up for what intimidation her size cannot inspire.
She smirks at the guard as he tries another key and she raises her hands, palms open, to show that she's hiding nothing and not resisting. When he gets the lock open, the guard charges in and twists her wrists around roughly, trapping them behind her back in a pair of cuffs. She acquiesces silently. She lets the other prisoners make her threats for her as the guard pushes her out and roughly steers her toward the cellblocks exit. She waits patiently as the guard locks the door behind them. When he grabs her by the arm again, she asks, "Have I worn out my welcome that quickly?" She makes it sound innocent and regretful as if she's just been asked to leave a dinner party.
"Oh you're not going anywhere. Especially not after that stunt you just pulled."
"Stunt?" She stumbles a little as he pulls and then pushes her arm. "What stunt?" She asks when she has her footing.
"All that quiet and then all that racket."
"I didn't do a thing," she lies. "Are the prisoners not usually that expressive when you pay them a visit?"
He grumbles something, but says no more to her.
He escorts her up some stairs, but at the top he steers her right instead of left. Left would be where he'd take her to be processed if they hadn't found any charges that would stick against her. To the left is where they'd give her back her things and send her on her way. She doesn't know what happens to the right.
"Where are we going?" she tries to sound demanding, but she can't hide the apprehension in her voice.
The guard sneers. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
She would. Very much, in fact. She hates unexpected things. She likes to keep her universe very much in order and under her control. She can tell she won't be able to say anything to get him to tell her what's about to happen. He's taking pleasure in this piece of knowledge he has over her. But if she keeps her mouth shut, he'll tell her freely. She waits.
He marches her up a corridor, up another flight of stairs, and up to a large oak door. Before yanking her to a stop in front of it, he says, "The commander would like to have a word with you."
He makes a big show of pushing the door open forcefully, still trying to redeem his injured masculinity. Erna wonders how many more things he'll need to shove around before he can feel in control again. This is why she never promotes men very highly in her organization. They are emasculated too easily and then act like children trying to reprove themselves.
She gets pushed through the door and is nearly blinded by the sudden sunlight. As she blinks and tries to adjust, her guard helpfully grabs her by the shoulders and forces her forward, and throws her into a wooden chair.
She winces and makes a pained gasp though she isn't hurt. She's counting on one thing or another. Either the satisfaction of having hurt her will please the guard and make him soften a little, making him more open to suggestion, or it will achieve something with the commander she supposes is in the room, though she can't see anything yet. The title of commander suggests an older man who will probably be more sympathetic toward women.
"For God's sake, take the cuffs off, you imbecile."
Check.
"But Commander—"
"What did you think she was going to do? She's less than half your size and only a girl." He sounds more disgusted than sympathetic, but Erna will take it.
She leans over to give the guard space to unlock her handcuffs as the room comes into focus. There is very little furniture. It doesn't look like an office. There's only her chair and the empty one across from her. Maybe an interrogation room.
The other man, the commander, is a middle-aged, sharp and unpleasant looking man with dark hair and bony shoulders that look like they could tear through his coat. She looks for something telling in the military decorations he wears. Particularly, she looks to the patch on his left shoulder. As he turns she sees the unicorn. -Commander Brown-, she thinks to herself. -Head of the Military Police-.
She makes a show of rubbing her wrists as the guard takes the cuffs away.
"That will be all, Captain Dok."
There's sputtering behind her. Then indignation. "Sir, I know she doesn't look it, but she is dangerous. I don't think—"
"I don't give a damn what you think, Nile!" the commander roars. "You are dismissed."
Erna files the name Nile Dok away in her memory as the rat shuffles out of the room.
When the door clicks shut she smiles at the commander.
"I'm not really dangerous," she says humbly, as if it were a compliment.
"I know what you are, Erna Raban." he says darkly.
She blinks. She makes her lips into a little o, so innocently. Then she says, "I'm sorry, have we met? I don't remember you."
It's a ruse, a power move. She never admits when she remembers someone. She does, of course, know exactly who he is. She knows where he works, where he sleeps. She knows the names of his wife and all of his children.
"I am the commander of the Military Police, as I'm sure you well know," he glares at her as he paces around the empty chair, "and you are only a minor thorn in my side, a small time criminal, a petty gang leader barely worthy of my time."
Erna's brows narrow and she scowls before catching herself and making her face sweet again. "I do run a small organization," she admits. "I wouldn't call it a gang. I'd never do anything illegal," she emphasizes.
"No," he agrees. "Your cronies do that for you. You have them well trained, I have to admit. The rare times that we do catch them no amount of torture we put them through can persuade them to give you up."
Brown keeps pacing as Erna watches him closely. He goes to the window and looks at the street outside. He says quietly, wonderingly, "But you yourself never do anything illegal…"
Erna relaxes. She feels sure that this is all theater. Brown has nothing. This is all to scare her a little before they let her go again.
Brown turns on his heel abruptly and says triumphantly, "That is, until now." He wears a snide, knowing grin and Erna's blood runs cold.
She swallows down any words that she has the urge to say. She might only incriminate herself further. The Commander turns the empty chair around as if it weighed nothing and smugly he tells her, "We know all about the nobleman, Erna."
She snarls. She can't help it anymore. They should have left the cuffs on, because if this over-familiar pig uses her first name one more time she'll make him pay.
He straddles the chair across from her and goes on. "We have evidence, we have witnesses, and we have enough to put you down with barely a trial."
Erna sneers. "Why are you telling me all this, then? Go ahead and do it," she dares him.
He doesn't answer her question, which infuriates her. He continues to dance around his intent, saying, "Murder is a very serious charge, you know, and a nobleman no less. One of the king's inner circle." He clucks his tongue at her.
She wonders if maybe he's only trying to get a confession out of her. Trying to scare her into pleading guilty for a lesser sentence. She'll die before he gets that satisfaction. She spits onto the stone floor. "Fuck you, pig."
He seems to ignore the outburst, which only makes her more livid, but not enough to make her do anything stupid, yet.
"Murder is very serious," he goes on, "but not so serious that I can't make it go away if I want to." He stands up from his chair again and goes to the window. "I want to offer you a deal," he says.
"Like what? I suck your dirty little cock and you let me go?"
He turns again and wrinkles his nose in disgust. "You have a filthy mouth."
"You have a filthy mind," she counters.
He shakes his head. "That's not what I had in mind. I'm not so shortsighted. I look more towards the future."
"I'm more of an in-the-moment kind of girl," Erna answers seductively, because if she can get away with no charges filed and her full freedom and all it costs her is a moments worth of dignity and a bad taste in her mouth, then she'll take it.
He ignores the way she licks her lips and lowers her eyelashes by turning away from her again. "The offer I'm willing to make to you is military service, for the rest of your life," he pauses to let it sink in, "in exchange for your freedom."
"What kind of freedom is that?" Erna scoffs. "I'd rather suck you off…and that's saying a lot."
"Unfortunately, that's not an option. Though I can see what your guards think of the suggestion while you're waiting on death row."
She narrows her eyes and scrutinizes him and his body language as he looks out the window.
"You're fucking serious."
He is silent. Erna's eyes dart around the room. She is confused. "Why?"
Finally he turns and looks at her again. "At the moment, we have a high rate of enlistment. We don't need one more soldier," he muses proudly. "But we are short on competent people to train them. Without good training, there's not much use to the amount of soldiers we have. They're lazy, incompetent…not all of them, mind you, but a good amount are just useless."
He looks to her to see if Erna has anything to say on that. She bites her tongue.
"You, however," he says, "have been proven to inspire, to convince people to do things they never would otherwise. You have an authority over people who have never been swayed by all the authority of society. It's a new idea, but we think that maybe if we could use you, we would end up with a higher quality of service from our soldiers."
Erna grits her teeth until they hurt. "You would have me train sniveling teenagers in the fucking dirt? To serve your impotent king?"
"Yes," he says. "Using any method you think best. You'd be given complete creative freedom."
Erna stares into his eyes. They're so confident. He is so sure that she won't refuse. He's a dumb cow. They all are. Anyone willing to forfeit freedom in exchange for shelter and bread, no matter what rank they climb to be no better than livestock. She is the only one with any intellect, any pride, any worth. All the others, whether they're stupid enough to follow her or follow the king, they're less than dirt. And she'll be skull-fucked before she accepts an ultimatum from an imbecile.
"I choose death," she says very clearly. Her eyes smile as his face contorts in rage.
"Nile!" he shouts and the guard barges in all too readily.
"Yes, Commander."
Erna rolls her eyes.
"Miss Raban needs some more time to think about my offer. See that you…" he pauses for emphasis, "help her come to a wise decision."
Dok enjoys putting the cuffs back on her. She can tell. She struggles to stay as he tries to drag her out of the room. She shouts at Brown as he turns his back to her." You'll never break me, Brown! I only work for myself. I'll be fucking dead before I take orders from you or your halfwit king!" She takes a deep breath as Nile pulls her to the door and then she hooks the frame with her leg, fighting, because she has more to say. "I'd rather let you piss on my fucking grave! Scum! Sheep! I'll be freer in the ground than you'll ever be above it, you weak little worm!"
(Ten Months Later, Year 836.)
Erna runs her fingers through the part in her hair one more time. It's still warm from the flat iron. Her hair is tamed into a straight, jaw-length bob, shaved up in the back and angled downward. She presses her fringe of bangs through the flat iron one more time. Straight hair, she's decided, makes her look more severe than her thick spring curls.
She runs the hot iron under some water and leaves it in the sink.
On the way out the door of her one-room cabin, she picks up a pair of black, leather riding gloves. She hesitates before putting them on, standing directly in front of the door, holding up her left hand and watching it as her fingers flex and straighten three times. They shake slightly with a phantom pain. She's been able to will her brain to forget a lot of things, but her fingers stubbornly remember despite her. They remind her every day with their blackened nail beds.
She puts the gloves on every morning. Not to hide what happened from others, but to avoid the reminder to herself. To not catch a glance at the white cuticles and the black underneath. It hurts her to look.
She crosses a leveled plain of dust.
A soft breeze blows through the box canyon. She breathes freely and deeply with the satisfaction of being thoroughly herself.
Heels click together as she approaches. Fists cover chests where the heart is thought to be.
Her officers, or assistants as she thinks of them, because they are merely an extension of her will, stand at points around a perimeter that outlines four hundred new, utterly green recruits that are split into neat rows of fifty. They look so sincere. Some of them are even excited, with bright eyes and soft smiles, so proud of themselves for serving their king and humanity.
They have no idea who they are about to be fucking with.
Nico, the assistant she's decided that she favors most at the moment, hands her a clipboard that holds about twenty pages. Erna is a meticulous note-taker. Those notes used to stay in her head, but now, with hundreds of people to keep track of, she'll have to start getting used to writing things down.
"This is all of them?" she asks without looking up as she flips through the pages, giving them a cursory check.
Nico grunts in the affirmative. Erna likes that. He doesn't waste her time with words or, walls forbid, sentences.
"Dismissed," she tells him. It's his cue to go see to details, making sure things are ready. Things that she is too important for.
Erna paces down the first line, silently for a while, just looking at the young, fresh faces in their clean uniforms with the crossed swords of the Training Corps sewn onto their shoulders. For now she holds her clipboard behind her back. She lets their anticipation build. When she gets to the end, she turns back around on her heel. Only then does she start speaking.
"I am Instructor Raban. And from this moment forward, you are the Ninety-Ninth Training Corps."
There is perfect silence. Erna can only hear the dirt being picked up by the breeze, blown into dust devils.
"You have the distinction of being the first class of trainees to undergo a new, more comprehensive training regimen. I don't doubt that some of you have family in the military. They probably sat you down before your trip here and tried to tell you what to expect, to prepare you."
Erna halts her pacing. "Forget everything you've been told."
She smiles very slightly at the growing apprehension tangible in the air.
"The training that your elders finished has been deemed ineffective and their service all but useless. I was invited, specially by the head of the Military Police, to restructure the training regimen of the Corps in any way I see fit."
She raises her voice a little. "No longer will it be good enough for you to simply want to offer your heart to humanity, to serve your country, and your king. I have no use for your worthless hearts. I hate the monarchy with a passion. If you're smart, you'll keep the simpleminded patriotism that brought you here to yourself."
"What I want – what my job is to get out of you – is your blood, sweat, and tears. Good soldiers are measured by their skills, not by their weak, sentimental hearts. So I don't give two fucks about where your loyalty lies, because while you're here, you are answerable only to me. Here, I am your king."
"Unlike your predecessors, you cannot count on graduating in three years. I will keep you here for as long as I think necessary. I will hold you miserable little shits here until I deem you ready to put on your big boy pants and join the real world."
She gives them about fifteen seconds of silence and watches them squirm uncomfortably. She looks from face to face, daring any of them to make eye contact or to challenge her.
"For a start, we're going to get to know each other. When I get to you, you will give me your surname and you will tell me why you are here. Simple enough. It is difficult beyond measure to fuck up. Don't try to impress me."
She reaches the first person in the first row exactly as she finishes her sentence. He is grimacing, his face drawn with the pain of being first. Erna turns and stands squarely in front of him. He is about six inches taller than her. She tilts her chin upward to look directly at his face. He stares straight ahead, stock still, silent, panicked.
Erna grinds her teeth. "Do not. Make me. Repeat myself."
He swallows hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. "Um, Bo Rousse—"
His voice gets cut off by a gasp and a pitiful whine when Erna punches him swiftly in the throat. His hands fly up and he doubles over in a fit of coughing. Now that his neck is lower, Erna can grab him by the scruff of it and throw him face-first onto the hard ground.
As he rolls over and gasps for air, she tells him calmly, "We are not fucking dating, trainee. I don't want hear about your childhood, I am never going to meet your mother, and I sure as shit don't need to know your first name."
He still hasn't caught enough breath to apologize. She tells him, "We'll come back to you," and she steps over him to face the next one.
This one thinks he has it figured out. He salutes her, fist over his heart, and says loudly, "Faust. I am here to learn to be the best soldier I can be."
"What a pretty answer. You wanna talk sweet to me, trainee?"
The kid's face changes then from overconfident to unsure. He stammers, "Um, yes—I mean, no, ma'am."
Erna lets an amused breath through her nose. Very nicely she holds her clipboard out to him and says, "Be a good boy and hold my clipboard for me, sugar."
A bead of sweat falls from his hairline and trails down his forehead as he hesitantly takes the clipboard from her extended hand and brings it to his chest as if it could be a shield. With both of her hands finally free, Erna quickly grabs a fistful of hair on each side of his head, and forces his skull down to meet her knee. He falls to the ground and groans.
Erna, as she looks down at him, notices the blood forming a bright red spot on her white pants. Her knee must have ruptured his nose. She hears a few gasps down the line, but they quiet themselves when she connects her foot with the trainee's stomach hard enough to kick him onto his back, revealing his bloodied face.
"Tch." She leans down and opens her gloved hand. It might look like she's going to help him up, until she motions for him to hurry up by curling her fingers and says, "Clipboard."
Even as he is squirming in pain, he wastes no time lifting his arm and holding the clipboard out to her.
She holds it behind her back and again paces down the line, shouting loudly enough for everyone to hear. "Let's get one thing straight: I'm more of a man than you, you," she addresses the seventh and eighth trainees in the line, both male. "Or," she says, gesturing with her thumb toward the largest, toughest looking trainee, "This big fucker over here, who probably still breaks down in tears whenever he thinks about the family dog back at home wondering where the fuck his best friend went off to and why he abandoned him."
Under his breath, barely a whisper, she hears the trainee say, "No…Rosie…" and out of the corner of her eye she sees him begin to tear up.
"You will address me as 'Sir,' when you feel the need to refer to me as anything other than Instructor Raban. Is that clear?"
Silence.
She shouts louder, "I asked you all if that is fucking clear!"
There is a deep, unified chorus of "Yes, Sir!"
Her tone and demeanor change in an instant to an unsettling sweetness. "That's better." She turns and returns to the third in line. "Now, let's move on…"