"Khala!"
The boy is breathless when he comes over, fear in his eyes. She's annoyed, still, and then angry with herself for being so annoyed, but one look at him shoves that all aside.
"What is it, Damian?" she asks immediately, gloved hand immediately on his back. He straightens at her touch, as if drawing strength from it.
"Hab-" His eyes dart to their audience, half a dozen assassins, and he adjusts accordingly. "Taer al-Asfer has fallen into- The ground gave way and- There are survivors. Babies, she says."
The panic rushes fast into Nyssa's heart, hot and disorienting, but she latches onto that last word. Says.
"She is uninjured?"
"She said she's okay," Damian says quickly. "I couldn't see her. The ground is unstable; she heard me coming and wouldn't let me come closer."
"Alright. Go tell your grandfather. Quickly." She squeezes his shoulder. "Safely, yes?"
"Yes, Khala. I'm sor-"
"Not now. Get your grandfather and meet me over there."
"I'm Sara," she says, trying to build on the trust the girl has shown by allowing her to sit, cross-legged, only a couple feet from the two. She hopes the toddler will reciprocate, but she just nods and continues to stroke one of the baby's exposed feet. "I'm going to get you out of here." That last promise is in Arabic, beyond her capability in Pashto.
She slowly reaches out and almost touches the infant's other foot, but the girl stiffens and Sara retreats and rethinks. She reaches for the yellow scarf at her waist, untying it and brushing it off before handing it to the little one. The girl takes it and runs it through her fingers, studying it.
"Taer al Asfer? Are you alright?"
That's Nyssa's voice, and Sara feels flooded with relief.
"Be careful," are Sara's first words. "The ground is-"
"Unstable, yes. Damian warned me. What is the situation? Are you uninjured?"
"A little bruised up and sore, but from what I can tell, all three of us are mostly okay. Dehydrated."
"Three?"
"Yep. Can you, um- How would I ask a very sweet, very small little girl to let me take the very tiny baby she is holding?"
"Oh, Sara."
"We're just a little nervous, understandably."
Nyssa starts speaking in Pashto then, better than Damian even, and the girl's eyes dart up. She looks to be intently listening.
The toddler looks back to Sara once Nyssa has stopped. Sara scoots even closer, sparing a glance for the teetering bookcase above the girls' heads. She extends her hands and the girl tenses but does not move away. Sara quickly slips her hands around the swaddled baby, head and rump, and takes it from the toddler. She tucks the baby in the crook of one arm and immediately puts a hand on the toddler's knee.
"Be careful," Sara tells her, in Arabic. Her mind is moving too quickly to handle Pashto right now. "We're going to do this nice and slow, sweetheart."
The girl freezes as if she understands her.
"Okay, Nyssa. I have the baby," Sara calls over her shoulder. "I need her to crawl towards me now, very slowly."
There's a pause.
"Nyssa?"
"Yes, sorry. I don't have much opportunity to use crawl," Nyssa says.
Sara chuckles a little, and Nyssa finally says something to the girl.
After a moment, the girl tilts forwards and onto her hands and knees, dragging the yellow scarf with her. Sara clambers, one-armed, into a squat and begins to back up with her, towards the more open-air part of the crater. She holds her breath as the girl starts to clear the bookcase. She's almost made it when Sara feels something shift. On instinct, she grabs the girl's shoulder and falls back, dragging her with her as all three of them land, Sara cushioning them, a few yards from where the bookcase lean-to once stood. Sara lets out a relieved breath.
"Sara? Sara!"
"We're okay," Sara coughs, then louder. "We're okay!"
It takes longer than Nyssa would like, as the ground was too unsteady for aerial scarves and needed to be shored up, but she is on the same level as Sara soon enough. Sara leans against a large boulder, a toddler wrapped in her yellow scarf leaning against her right side, an infant-shaped bundle of blankets in her lap. They're all dirty and a little tattered, Sara's blonde hair caked with grey dust, but they do look relatively unharmed. Nyssa drops to her knees beside Sara, hands finding Sara's face and cradling it gently. She grazes a lightning quick kiss to Sara's temple then presses their foreheads together. Sara takes her right hand off of the little one's shoulder and brushes fingers across Nyssa's cheek and through the ends of her hair.
"Hey."
"Hello, habibti."
"You didn't happen to bring some water, did you?"
Nyssa pulls away and grabs the canteen tied to her belt and the small earthen cup from her cloak's pockets. Sara fills the cup and offers it to the little girl, who stirs and takes a few sips while half asleep, exhausted from the dehydration and shock. The water brings a little light back to her eyes.
Then Sara turns her attention to the baby, unswaddling it a little and peeling off her gloves and wetting her fingers, letting the baby mouth the water off of them.
"So small. Four? Five months?" Sara guesses.
"I'd guess the same," Nyssa affirms. The baby is small, with copious dark curls like the girl and dark brown eyes where the girl's eyes are lighter.
"Brother or sister?" Nyssa asks softly in Pashto.
The toddler bites her lip and then softly whispers: "Sister."
Then she goes back to leaning against Sara's side.
"You've been very brave," Nyssa tells the toddler. She switches to Arabic and says to Sara: "We must get these girls above ground quickly. All of you. Are there any other survivors?"
"I haven't seen any, but I've been a little busy."
"We'll do a sweep," Nyssa nods. She looks over her shoulder, to where Sar'ab stands at the base of the ladder, to where Damian stands at the lip of the crater with her father's hand on his shoulder.
"Give me your scarf," Sara insists, screwing the top of the canteen back on. "You think you remember how to tie her on?"
Nyssa grins a little. "It has been quite some time since we could do that with Damian, but I think I'll manage. Give Sar'ab-"
"No," Sara says firmly. "No. You get her. I'll get the baby. No new people: they've been through enough." She takes a deep breath and looks to the toddler. "Alright, kiddo. This is Nyssa. She's gonna carry you out of here."
She says it in Arabic (except for the English "kiddo") but the girl almost seems like she understands. She looks to Nyssa, a little warily, and clings to Sara's arm.
"It's okay," Nyssa assures her gently in her native tongue. The girl stiffens a little but does not resist when Nyssa scoops her up and stands. Her knees instinctively squeeze Nyssa's waist, little fingers holding on as best she can in her weakened state. Nyssa uses Sara's gold scarf to keep her in place for the climb. She is a little rusty, as she said, but she does indeed manage, and then helps Sara with the tighter hold needed for an infant who cannot hold on. Once they're situated, the little girl rests her head at Nyssa's collarbone and presses her bare feet against her hip. Nyssa gives Sara a final once over, reaching over to brush some dirt from her cheek.
"You are alright?"
"Yeah," Sara nods, though her eyes are still a little distant. "Damian okay?"
"Worried about you," Nyssa says, looking back up at him. Sara follows her eyes and gives their boy a reassuring wave.
"Let's go."
It's an easy enough climb, even with their passengers. The rubble shifts only one time while Nyssa is on the ladder, and the little one in her sling moans in fear. Nyssa pauses and lays a calming hand on her back before continuing. Sara has climbed ahead of her, and when Nyssa reaches the top, Sara already has Damian wrapped around her, her father expressing his gratitude that she is well.
Then Damian is leading them over to the medic's tent, and Nyssa holds the little girl's hand as they insert a rehydrating IV. Before she can do anything else, she is, of course, pulled away. Here in Nanda Parbat, there is always something she must be doing that takes her away from Sara and Damian.
"We'll be okay," Sara promises, squeezing her hand once and even managing a genuine smile. "I promise not to stand near any more holes."
"It would be appreciated."
With Sara and the two girls hooked up to IVs, Damian is left to be their messenger and gofer. He darts about, collecting food, information, and even a small rag doll Sar'ab retrieved from the ruins of the house. Sara is incredibly proud of their boy. His greatest achievement is a bottle of yak milk from one of the homes not destroyed, which he keeps warm under his arm as he, somehow, becomes the one to bear the terrible news of the family's fate.
(Whoever let him, the eight-year-old, prince or no, deliver the news of an entire family's decimation will surely face Nyssa's quiet, terrifying wrath.)
The girls' closest family members were all killed. The villagers recognize several levels of kinship, though, and someone will take them in and feed and clothe them, however begrudgingly, at least until they are old enough to be sent to Nanda Parbat to train, as warrior or servant.
That is the fate of many of the village and virtually all of the orphans. The few village-born assassins currently in Nanda Parbat had been among the first on scene, translating beyond the basic phrases most of the League know.
But Sara isn't ready to be parted from these girls yet. Between Sara's spotty village Pashto, Damian's better but still incomplete dialect, and the toddler's surprising vocabulary of Arabic words, they manage enough to know:
The girl's name is Azra.
She is almost three.
Her sister is Soraya.
Azra takes a shining to the goofy boy who speaks her language, who brought her bread and her doll, who makes silly faces at her in their corner of the medic's tent. Eventually, Damian and Azra are snuggled on a cot while Sara rocks Soraya in an uncomfortable collapsable chair and feeds her the bottle. Soraya's little hand finds a hold at Sara's collar, and while at first she objects to the unknown bottle, she soon is suckling hungrily. Sara traces a finger over her chubby little cheek and sneaks a peek at the other two.
That's how Nyssa finds them.
Their eyes meet across the tent, and they have a silent conversation, or at least the beginning of one, the type you can only have when you've spent fifteen years at each other's side.
"Once we have Qrimzi's approval, we will begin the trip back to Nanda Parbat. All of us," Nyssa says when she's close enough, nodding towards the girls. "Until we can make sure they are well, and find a more permanent plan."
Sara breathes out a sigh.
"This is Azra," she tells Nyssa, gesturing to the toddler. "And Soraya."
Nyssa puts on that smile, the one she saves for Sara and small children (and Rocket), and says something to Azra that makes the girl grin in return before turning her face into Damian's chest.
Nyssa looks to Sara then, smile turning knowing.
"Have you put her down at all?"
"No," Damian answers for her. "Except when she changed her diaper. Which was gross."
"Hey, I used to do it for you all the time. So did Khala."
"Gross," Damian shudders.
"Where did you find a diaper?" Nyssa asks, impressed, as she beckons for Sara to hand her the baby.
"I found it," Damian beams with pride, before answering whatever Azra has whispered to him.
Sara finds herself beaming, too, as she stretches out stiff muscles and watches Nyssa cradle Soraya, saying something gently in the baby's little ear. She'd forgotten how stinking cute Nyssa is with babies.
"Well done," Nyssa praises Damian, shifting Soraya to her hip. "Get some rest now. We'll leave soon."
tbc