There was a small toy in her hand, like one of the figures that she had seen in toy stores. Her expression was sad. There were tears clouding her vision. She wanted to give it to her brother, her little brother Nico. She didn't have any other family. She just wanted him to be happy, she didn't mean for this to happen, it was the only one he didn't have. The thoughts running through her head could've lasted for hours even though in reality it was less than a minute between when they started and when the boy next to her spoke.
"Throw it down," someone instructed, "maybe the giant will leave us alone."
The giant, it was her fault, she shouldn't have stolen from the junkyard of the gods.
Her grip tightened on the figure before she let it fall. There was no difference from before. Her head snapped up to watch a giant metal robot attack a boy with goat legs. Another girl retaliated against the giant with a shout as a blue arc of lightning hits the giant's knee. It's standing before she had even noticed it fall.
"Crazy idea time," the boy beside her said.
She looked at him nervously, "anything."
He told her his plan: to get inside the giant and shut it off, but she told him it was her duty. She picked up the little statue and pressed it into is hand.
"If anything happens, give that to Nico. Tell him... tell him, I'm sorry."
He yelled after her, but she wasn't waiting, she charged under it's left foot. Everything next happened to fast. Then it paused, she could hear them, calling. Bianca. Was that her name? Bianca. No. Bianca was dead. This is how she died.
She had stayed inside the giant too long and one of it's functions -she didn't know which- had drove itself through her stomach. And she had died slowly, listening to her friends but never being able to make a sound. She hoped that they would make it, that they would finish the quest.
She thought of her brother, she had failed him.
'Mio soldatino,' my little soldier, she thought, 'io vegliero su di te.' I'm watching over you.
She screams. The sound of a small girl cry out loudly echos through the dark. It takes her a moment to remember what's real, with those dreams it always takes a while. But still, all she feels is fear, the fear of death, of losing her brother, of pain, of losing her friends. She can feel the tears stream down her face but she can't close her eyes, she doesn't want to be alone in the dark, like she was at the end of the nightmare. Alone and scared. The footsteps can't be heard over her scared sobs but soon there's a hand moving the hair from her face. Her eyes dart up to meet the green ones she knows all to well and she darts into his arms.
He strokes her hair and holds her close as she cries. When her sobs grew quiet and her hands loosened their grip on his shirt he finally spoke,
"same thing?"
She shakes her head against his shirt, her breath heavy as she draws it in to mumble a response, "no, I didn't see the boy this time." Her voice catches and she gives another small sob between words, "this time she died."
Her brother rests his cheek on her head as her tears fall in steady streams once again, "parum sororem." Little sister. "The nightmares are not your fault, they're not your fault, none of this is your fault. You're so strong, militi parum." Little soldier.
In the dream she had called someone her little soldier, in Italian and not Latin.
Then silence.
The silence lets her think, her dreams aren't always bad, sometimes she sees the boy, Bianca's brother, Nico.
Sometimes she wants to find him, to assure him that his sister is alright, but... she doesn't want to lie and she doesn't know who his sister is.
Sometimes- no,- often she thinks about the dreams. About their meaning. She wonders if the people in them are real, were real, she wonders if maybe in a past life she was Bianca.
Maybe this was all her fault, all Bianca's fault.
But if that were true, then in some other life, she had left her brother behind.
In another life the soldatino, the militi parum, wasn't her but her brother.
In another life...
She hoped the gift had at least made him smile, not immediately since it would come at the same time that he would find out about her death but, once or twice, eventually, she hoped that Nico would look at the little figurine and smile.