When Altair heard of the plot, he could scarcely believe it. They were assassins, not soldiers. Surely they could not bring down a whole fortress of Templar knights. Their spy had spent months in the fortress and had relayed a considerable amount of intelligence into Masyaf, the latest pigeon having bringing the most decisive of all.
"De Ridefort is sending his knights to the fortress by Masyaf's north so that they might not be easy targets for Salah ad-Din's raids as he waits for the battle season," Nasir explained to his assassins on behalf of the Grand Master, "once they have gathered up their forces, the Franj mean to turn on Masyaf and destroy the Assassin Order. Then they ride to Jerusalem, where they will lead the fight against Salah ad-Din's army as the Sultan grapples to regain the Holy City. We must put a stop to their plots before they can muster their men."
"Why destroy the assassins?" Someone called out, to which Nasir replied quite simply,
"Because we are Saracen and we are bothers to them, and they have no reason not to." The truth was more pervasive and multifaceted; but Nasir knew that complications never motivated men.
Finally the long awaited question was posed, "how are we meant to kill them all?"
"We will not do it," said Nasir, "Salah ad-Din will do it for us. He too desires to eradicate as many knights as possible before recapturing Jerusalem, and thanks to our brothers and sisters who have been so diligently working to spoon the information into the Sultan's mouth, he now knows of their plans. The knights shall fall to his blade, and the Order will prosper to see the Franj infidels driven from the land."
Then it was to be so. Salah ad-Din had made a temporary pact with the Assassins. Due to the terrain and logistics issues, bringing a small army to lay siege to the fortress would spell disaster for him. The knights would notice his approach and muster their forces against him, resulting in a bloodbath the Saracens could not win. Thus, the Sultan had no choice but to rely on the assassins, who could mobilize quickly and without unsettling the Franj. The fighting force itself would only be a dozen or so skilled men, comprised of his best soldiers and of skilled assassins. They would lure out the knights when they were weak, and slay them. The Franj would never conceive of such an attack, and it was all made possible by the work of one spy.
Funny, how the smallest things made the biggest differences.
Both Altair and Malik were chosen, among two others, to lay siege to the Templar fortress. Malik's relief was evident at the knowledge that Aasha was safe. Altair pursed his lips and didn't know what to say.
"We are to meet Salah ad-Din," Abbas said with great excitement, looking pointedly at Altair, "what an honour."
"No honour," the young assassin replied bitterly, "no honour as I look upon the man responsible for my father's death."
"And your father's death by effect as well, Abbas," Malik muttered, watching Abbas' face grow red with rage.
Umar, Altair's father, was betrayed by Abbas' father after a failed assassination attempt on the Sultan some eleven years ago. He was executed on orders of Salah ad-Din, and Abbas' father committed suicide for his guilt. The man stumbled into Altair's own chambers and sobbed a heartfelt apology before driving a dagger through his own heart. Distraught, Alair –then eleven years old- ran to tell Al Mualim, who covered up the whole incident. Abbas hated Altair ever since he discovered the truth of his father's death, and to this day a part of him still believed his father simply ran away and was alive somewhere.
Even as children, Abbas made Altair's life a living hell. He tried to kill Altair on several occasions for insinuating his father's cowardly death, though the other boy did no such thing. When Altair was thirteen or so, he had a horrible prank played on him. Malik was now ashamed to admit that he was part of the ploy.
They led Altair to the fortress kitchen, where a rickety cupboard provided the perfect hiding spot for the ugliest of tricks. All together, six novices in total, they bullied and harassed Altair to open the thing. They called him bastard child, they mocked his light skin and half-Franj blood. Distressed and overcome with unfounded bravery, the boy reached a trembling hand to the rusted latch… He only had to open the cupboard slightly to see its horrible contents, and immediately slammed the thing shut. Unfortunately, that was all it took. As soon as he released the latch, the cupboard fell wide open and swarms of angry buzzing wasps darted out into the sunlight and stung him all over. Screaming, Altair tried to swat them away, but they flew up the loose sleeves of his tunic and stung him on the chest and belly. Some trapped themselves in his hood and stung him in the neck.
The novices, Abbas and Malik and a few others, laughed until tears of mirth dripped from their eyes. They slapped their knees and pointed and laughed while the other boy writhed in unbearable pain on the kitchen floor. Even the kitchen servants and cooks came out to watch, and they too laughed. They never liked the boy, either. He was too quiet, too capable, too different. Then, one by one, they all grew bored at watching Altair cry, and they drifted away to cook or to play hide and seek. Eventually, the buzzers disappeared too.
They left him there like that.
And that was how Nasir came across him, Altair unconscious from the wasps' poison and swollen all over. Immediately, he scooped him up and carried him directly to the infirmary. When the Grand Master discovered this heinous act of betrayal on the part of his own young novices, he was enraged. On his orders, Altair was taken to Al Mualim's own chambers, where he treated the boy himself. He bathed Altair's swollen face with spirits and forced spoonfuls of ginger tea between his lips. The servants told the truth soon enough, and Malik, Abass, and the other novices involved received sixty-seven lashes each on their backs, one strike of the whip for each barb removed from Altair's body.
Slowly, Altair healed. After two weeks, the ugly scabs fell off and he was finally able to open his eyes again. He emerged out of the Grand Master's rooms to return to his training. But nothing would ever be the same. He was not satisfied with Abbas and Malik's forced apologies, and forever distanced himself from the others.
In Aasha, he had found a stranger-companion. She was not afraid of him, nor did she try to force his admiration. In the mornings when he scooped the filth from the stables or filled basins for wash, he saw her climbing up the great banyan tree in the courtyard like a cat. Eventually she stopped doing it, but Altair still looked to the tree every morning and wondered if she was there between its glossy leaves. He felt that if she had been a boy, perhaps they could have made friends. Maybe they could have had that sort of easy friendship Altair had always wanted, unattached but ever trustful and aware of the other's presence. But Aasha was a girl, and that in itself made everything so much more confusing.
When they came of age, Malik had made a big issue of forcing Altair to visit Masyaf's concubines. The other novice was desperate to see Altair as a man, with his own urges and instincts that tore him away from the cold rationality he forced on his world. But Altair refused, preferring to relieve himself with his own hand. Of course, he had thoughts. Like most other novices, his thoughts were first dominated by beautiful Leyla, with her swaying hips and full lips. In his mind, Altair would conjure up lewd images of the girl beneath him, squealing and moaning as he drove himself into her. Slowly, as he matured in his thoughts, his preferences changed. Leyla's antics no longer interested him, and her flirtatious manner turned him off. And then he was left alone and afraid, unknowing of what was to come next.
He worked up the courage to take one pretty girl named Karin on a novice level mission, but was too shy to ask her in person. He got Kadar to deliver a note to the courtesan, hoping she would accept. With Kadar being Malik's brother, Altair should have known nothing was going to go as planned. The dumb boy took the note and ran off to Aasha, and that was that. When he returned from Damascus, Kadar apologized profusely for his mistake, but Altair couldn't bring himself to be angry for it.
Aasha had a dream.
In the dream, two armies faced each other on opposite sides of a large open field. She saw it from a bird's perspective, circling over the scene. The masses of soldiers completely blackened the pristine desert sands, their colourful banners fluttering in the morning breeze. On one side she saw the iconic red cross on white of the Templars, and also flags of black with white crosses. By heart, she knew these were the warriors of Franj. On the other side of the field stood the great houses of Islam, bright banners of yellows, greens and whites, and blacks waving.
There was utter silence as the men on both sides studied the faces of their enemies- they were surely close enough to. Then, on some unspoken command, the two armies gave a great roar and came together to clash like a clap of thunder. The earth shook under their feet, the Franj shouting the name of their Christian God while the Muslims called upon Allah's blessings.
When she woke, she was deathly afraid. She did not completely understand what she'd just seen, and Imad was not near. It had been many days since she'd finally decided to relay the fateful message back to Masyaf, having finally uncovered evidence of the fortress' intentions. For the first time, she received no reply back. She was beginning to think she should have just kept quiet... but then where would that leave her? Somewhere lost between two worlds.
Neither Imad nor Jacques could anticipate the extent of which she knew, Aasha was sure. This in itself made her both relieved and uneasy- because she did not want either of them to perish should the fortress be attacked. Immediately after she recovered from that blow to the head, Imad had wrenched her aside and apologized for having hit her. She imagined it was more out of fear that she would take revenge than out of any genuine remorse.
"I could not stop myself- a weapon is a weapon," he squeezed her hand between his, looking truly upset, "I responded instinctively."
"I am alright," she reassured him, "I thought… I thought you meant to kill him…"
Her words formed heavy creases on Imad's brow, the man shaking his head a definitive no. "…I would never hurt that man, but sometimes I fear I do so involuntarily. Come, you deserve an explanation for what you saw."
When Imad was a young man and working as a spy for the Templars, he was charged with teaching Arabic to a certain young squire. At first he was impatient with the fair boy, all lanky limbs and fearful eyes, but eventually he became quite fond of him. He saw in the squire the possibility of manipulation, as the boy seemed to respect him highly. It wasn't long before the squire became a man, and this caused the whole of Imad's world to change.
"I cannot say what it is that drew me to him," he explained to Aasha, now middle aged and in his prime, "maybe I was just young and stupid. But hearing him speak Allah's tongue stirred up a fire in my loins."
The Bedu flushed, squirming in her seat. She'd heard young novices joke about this in the past, and it had not bothered her. But here it did, because this was no joke. This was true anguish and suffering. The other man did notice her discomfort, and sighed. "This is what I had expected. I will stop here if you'd like."
"No," she exclaimed, "please go on, I am sorry."
Imad regarded her carefully, trying to determine to what extent she must be utterly disgusted with him. Finally he saw fit to continue, "he became a man, and all of him transformed into a magnificent piece of art. He was like a blossom in full bloom, begging to be plucked. When he was finally knighted, I could wait no longer. I took him to my bed."
A look of horror settled upon Aasha's face, and Imad was quick to add that Jacques, as of then Messire de Sonnac, had wanted it just as he did. They'd danced around each other for years, and for the first time they had finally met. And yet she was so confused. How could a man take another to his bed? To her, it was not right for a man to lie with another man as he would with a woman. What was the point of that? The Qur'an, their sacred text, condemned it. If Imad slept with another man, was he still a man?
Imad saw her expression, and knew she was disgusted. Of course- so were they themselves, but they could not help it. On many occasions in secret they slept in the same bed, many times they touched their lips together and held each other. But Jacques was adamant; that was as far as he could ever go in the name of companionship. No kisses anywhere else- that was obvious sodomy. The knight could not even refer to that part of him that was impure, speaking of it as "the base of the spine", always making Imad chortle with laughter. And he could never give himself to Imad, it was unthinkable, for that would tear him forever from God and cast his soul to hell.
Having lived a life of secrecy and shame for this exact reason, Imad found it a personal mission to make Aasha understand. Because it would help himself understand, and he'd spent too long in this limbo of confusion. What he needed now was validation, and somehow it would mean something to him to hear it from this young girl.
"Is there someone you love in Masyaf?" he asked her, rubbing his face with his hands and trying desperately to appeal to her emotions, "perhaps a young man?"
And she didn't know. Her thoughts immediately fled to Altair, but that was not right- Altair could not care for her the way she could hope. Grudgingly, she contemplated Malik, and yes- she was attracted to him. But their relationship came nowhere close in comparison to that of Imad and Jacques. She was disappointed for herself that she had no such love in her life that could be of any comparison.
"Not love," she decided at last, feeling disillusioned, "but I care for him."
Imad sat up straight, his two hands grasping at the empty air, "so take the care you feel for this man and multiply it by a hundred, a thousand, and maybe you will come to understand how I feel for Jacques de Sonnac."
Aasha could not even comprehend such large numbers. Her mouth hung open with the realization that the two men were not doing these… these… acts for pleasure's sake. Could they really love each other as a man could a woman? She'd never heard of it. So she asked Imad if he loved Jacques, and watched him fall apart.
To the innocent question, Imad made a sound like a dying man. "I wish we could drop our swords and strip down the cursed colors separating us- and then we would run away."
And to a confession like that, Aasha had no words to counter. She still felt rather uneasy over it, but surely such a strong and pure love could not be condemned- and Allah, why? They were not harming anyone by loving each other, so why did they have to embrace in secret and kiss in the dark?
Merely two days after, the message finally came from Masyaf. Holding the note over a candle in the night, Aasha watched Imad sleep, ignorant in his bed. She made the natural decision that she could not allow he or his lover to perish in the inevitable siege.
Seven times the sun rose and fell until the knights arrived, along with their Grand Master Gerard de Ridefort. They were a sight to behold, colourful banners rising over the pale desert sands. Aasha counted two files of ten in total; twenty of the Crusaders' best knights and countless more soldiers, here to collect the supplies that were amassed in this fortress for fear of raid elsewhere. De Ridefort inspected the small fort and approved of its state, asking his officers about their weapons stores. The knights were to stay and prepare to spearhead the attack against Salah ad-Din's army as they marched on Jerusalem in the summer, taking them from the rear. Word already spread that Salah ad-Din was dangerously close. In the meantime, de Ridefort talked openly about laying siege to Masyaf before Salah ad-Din could act on Jerusalem. Imad, knowing that the proverbial cat was out of the bag, began reasoning with Aasha that it was likely all talk... he himself was distraught, the Bedu could tell. Obviously he owed Al Mualim some sort of favour, and now he was debating to whom his allegiance was most pronounced. To the Templars and Jacques, or to the Assassin's Order and Al Mualim? He never told her about his ties to the Order.
Some days Aasha caught him looking at her, wondering what he should do with her. He must have known that she had already informed Masyaf about a siege. But he didn't know that the assassins had formed a coup with Salah ad-Din. He didn't know that death was coming.
Every day she went about with a lump in her throat.
Even with the tense atmosphere, a feast was called in de Ridefort's honour. Aasha rushed off to the cookhouse where she and the other servants and cooks prepared the dinner. The stone walled kitchen had shadows dancing all over their walls, a dizzying sight when combined with the heady smell of spice. For the first time since she'd arrived, the Franj seemed to be truly cooking. With the baking ovens being fired up, they cut the lamb meat and soaked it in a marinade of olive oil, garlic, mint, and some other herbs Aasha had never seen before. They smelled very odd.
"From the Provencal," one of the cooks informed her, "only used in small amounts for events and festivities." They put the roasts and ribs in the marinade and set the shoulders of the beasts in big iron pots to stew. They brought out the goat cheese, baked fresh bread, and rolled out barrels of ale for the soldiers and bottles of wine for the knights. Aasha thought perhaps she could poison the food, but then decided against it. She could not act without Masyaf's direct orders.
She was not able to join the feast of course, but took some bread and a bit of spiced wine for herself. While the hunks of lamb were being finished, one of the Franj cooks poured in a giant bucket of cubed sweetmeats for flavouring. Imad was furious when he saw this, and yelled in Frankish at the cook. The cook yelled back in Frankish.
"Don't eat the lamb," Imad growled at her when all was over and done with, "tell the others, too."
Oh. Grudgingly, Aasha informed the other slaves and servants, who were already salivating at the thought of meat, that they were not to eat it. The cubes of cured meats were from a pig, and therefore the dish was impure.
She swept the floor and poured wine as the night dragged on and the men delighted themselves in de Ridefort's arrival. The man himself was well built but stank strongly. In fact, almost all the Franj men stank from not bathing. Jacques, as the Seneschal of the Knights here, seemed to bathe most often. Aasha could not have eaten anything more even if she wanted to- the nausea was building in her throat.
In the morning, she saw a familiar form perched curiously on top of the fortress' wall. He was looking right at her as she came out to clear the chamberpots.
She gestured violently for him to come down, unable to believe any assassin would reveal himself like so. He was far enough away that he was mainly unnoticed, but it would only be a matter of time. As quickly as he had come, the assassin was gone, clambering nimbly across the gaps in the bricks and over to the other side.
Aasha knew what this meant. She also knew she would have very little time to act if she wanted to save Jacques and Imad from the unavoidable slaughter. And how could she do so if the knight was loyal to his Crusade, and the Saracen was loyal to the knight? How could she possibly do anything for them without completely jeopardizing her own duty?
Her orders were as follows: before the night was out, she was to cut off lines of communication in the fortress. This meant rounding up the squires and servants to the knights and locking them away or otherwise separating them from their masters. Carrier pigeons had to be disposed of. If possible, she was to make herself easily available during the siege so the brotherhood could quickly locate and retrieve her. And then in the wee hours of the morning, the assassins would cause a disturbance nearby, luring out a few sleepy knights to deal with the issue. Then Salah ad-Din's men would charge them, and the knights, divided by miscommunication and confusion, would fall to his blade.
She could not risk revealing their plans, but she could set out an escape route for them. They could take it if they were willing, but she would not be able to lead them there. She had no doubt that Jacques would no sooner slay her where she stood than betray his Crusade.
Her experience at the fortress had opened her eyes. The Franj were fighting in the name of their God, just like how the Saracens died for Allah. Seeing the unlikely relationship between Jacques de Sonnac and Imad El-Amin had turned her perception of the Templar Knights on its head. And now she couldn't say which side was the more righteous one- since childhood, she'd been fed stories of the Crusaders' brutality. But if Salah ad-Din had thoughts to slay Jacques without so much as a negotiation, it was hard to tell the two groups apart.
She spent the whole day in Jacques' study, listening to him tell her of his hometown. Once in a while another knight would enter and deliver information or demand for it, and she would fall silent. Jacques was a patient man, and was very organized. He dealt with all issues presented to him in a very orderly and practiced fashion. Then as soon as they were alone, their conversation would resume. The man's disposition towards her did not change much, just that he was more guarded in his words and kept his lips sealed tight when it came to matters of the war. But it was already too late; he had already unknowingly said too much, setting forth an unstoppable chain of events that would lead to the fortress' ruin the very next morning. It hurt Aasha to know she was at the centre of all of this, that it was because of her that Jacques may lose his life. And then what of Imad? Never had she stayed and lived with her targets for such a length of time before, and never had she felt such an attachment.
Knowing that she would likely not have the chance again, she interrupted the knight's flowing monologue to ask him if he loved Imad. The fair haired man fell silent, looking very much ashamed. "I love him as I do all of humanity," he paused then, looking sheepish, "what in the God's name did he tell you?"
Not wanting to embarrass the knight further, Aasha condensed their conversation into a single phrase, "that… that he loved you very much."
"Oh," Jacques said simply, as if surprised. "Oh." He looked down at his flowing handwriting for a little while, and then his brows furrowed. "You must never tell anyone what you have told me, or of anything we are speaking of right now," he looked genuinely afraid.
Aasha agreed to not let loose their secret liaison, and watched Jacques flinch at the term. She quickly changed the subject, "do you care for him, then?"
Sadness came over the knight's blue eyes, "when it was revealed he was leaking intelligence out to Salah ad-Din, he was sentenced to a traitor's death. I voted to spare him, and when my voice went unheard I leapt before the executioner's blade as it descended." Here Jacques had to pause, his right hand dropping the quill and reaching to clutch at his right shoulder, "the injury I sustained denied me the honour of battle. It saved his life, however, and now he is bound to our cause by honour and his own guilt- or so we hope. The price I paid was great; now I work the ledgers, and I will live and die with a quill in my hand."
"O-oh."
"And now perhaps I might never go to Paradise."
She cringed, her eyes growing wet despite herself. He could deny it if he liked, but Aasha had never seen devotion nearing this. The childish attributes she'd pinned to the ideas of love and partnership were shattered by its morbid reality. Moved, she dropped to her knees by the seated knight and took his hand in hers. With her cheeks shining with tears, she kissed the back of his hand.
"Allah's blessing be with you both," she crooned to him, "and may your God be kind."
"May He be kind indeed," the knight murmured, freeing his hand gently and turning back to his work without another word. He had long since understood that the price he paid for Imad's affections was great, but could no longer bring himself to care. If God was loving and kind, why would he separate them so? His hand burned where the slave girl kissed it, and he quickly found it hard to breathe.
Having not seen him for months, to say Aasha was surprised when Altair dropped into her master's chambers from the window would be an understatement. His entrance was messy, physically knocking into her as he barrelled into the room. He covered her mouth before she could cry out in surprise, and held her until the surprise wore off. He held her for longer than was necessary, and Aasha returned his embrace. She missed him dearly, missed all her assassin brothers and spy sisters. But she did draw away from him first, feeling that it was no longer proper to let him touch her so.
Altair's embrace wasn't at all like Malik's, and it was the feel of the latter's arms that she remembered. While Altair was all hard muscle and stiff chest, Malik allowed himself to melt into her. She felt more at ease with Malik than she did with Altair, though she felt no doubt that the man had no intentions to harm her.
"I am here to ensure that all is done and ready," the assassin said in his blunt manner, "are you safe?"
"Yes, I am safe," Aasha replied quickly, smoothing her mess of hair. Servant women were permitted to wear caps, but slaves were not of a high enough social standing to cover their heads. Suddenly in Altair's presence, she cared about her appearance again. "And I will ensure the servants and slaves are locked away for the night," she showed Altair the key she pickpocketed from a Franj officer, "and also the squires."
"Good," he nodded, "I have done you a favour and poisoned the pigeons' feed. If all goes to plan, we attack just before the sun rises. The knights will be disoriented then."
"Is Salah ad-Din with you?"
"Yes," Altair's lips were set in a tight line, "he is with us."
"Do you think…" she bit her bottom lip, and Altair waited patiently- "do you think he would allow a negotiation?"
Golden eyes looked back at her, almost glowing by the light of the moon. The assassin gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head in the negative. "A negotiation is pointless; he wants the knights dead." His sharp senses picked up the footsteps along the hall before she did, and he struggled to clamber out the window. Imad opened the door to his chambers just as Altair disappeared in a flash of red and white. Imad looked to the open window, and then at Aasha. He seemed to draw a conclusion in his mind.
"I am going to die," he said numbly, "aren't I? Your brothers meant to kill me all along for my involvement with the Templars."
His conclusion was misguided; she was not sent to kill him, and he was not going to die. The truth was that if the man cooperated, he would likely be spared Salah ad-Din's sword. But if Aasha could not tell him that. Instead, she nodded sadly, brokenly. "Yes," she whispered, "I'm sorry." A moment of protracted fear. Was he going to kill her?
The fortress was blanketed with silence at this hour, most knights and soldiers already asleep. It made the tension between them all that more tenuous, and Aasha felt her mouth go dry.
"When?" Imad asked her calmly, "when will my soul go to meet Allah?"
"In the morning."
"I see." The Saracen left his chambers, just like that. Aasha felt a sharp panic grip her chest- he could be informing the others, she could have just ruined everything. Yet despite her mind screaming at her to follow and track him, she could not will her legs to move. She was gripped in a moment of absolute fear.
After some time, voices were heard in the halls. The spy prepared herself to jump from the window onto the balconies below and escape if they made for her life. Altair would not be far. The door to Imad's quarters swung open to admit two men: Imad and Jacques, the knight's hair matted with sleep and his expression dazed. The Franj was still wearing his sleep clothes.
"What-" Jacques was about to inquire before he was silenced with his lover's mouth on his. Imad moved with a wild desperation, ripping the clothes from the knight like a starving man peeling an orange. The bewildered Crusader had no chance to complain; he was immediately slammed against a wall, his mouth plundered by the Arab's tongue. Imad's hands were going everywhere on the knight's upper body and face, but never touching below the waist as was always their custom. Without being asked, Aasha picked up her things and slipped from the room through the door, shutting it softly behind her. Bitter joy surged in her chest with the knowledge that Imad and his knight would at least spend one more night together.
She hoped that one day she would experience affection like that for someone else, that in return she would be loved so passionately like how Imad loved Jacques. What would it feel like to have someone's mouth over hers like that? She touched her lips with cold fingers, shutting her eyes. Once she was back in Masyaf, she promised herself, she would find out. She was too young to die and had yet begun to live.
Her legs stiff like twigs, she began the long walk to the servants' quarters. Once there, her hands were shaking. She locked each door from the outside, turning the officer's key slowly and gently in the chain lock's keyhole to avoid making noise. Then she did the same for the slaves and squires, and strung the key onto her father's bead necklace. They would be freed by Salah ad-Din himself once the fortress fell to him.
By Allah, she thought when all was done, I've just sentenced a company of men to death.
End of chapter 7.
Because Altair can't be so skilled and perfect as he is in the game without making a few enemies. I swear my heart broke when I wrote that.
I make a big deal of Masyaf's concubines because damn, when I first found that garden behind the fortress filled with all those lovely ladies, I couldn't stop laughing! I made Altair bump into all of them and push them down hills. :)
Aside from the Templar Knights, there were also the Knights of the Hospitaller, and the Teutonic Knights still in the Holy Land at this time. Together they made up the 'houses of the Franj', according to the Muslims. Aasha's vision/dream is indeed a picture from the future, and sorry if it's kind of vague now- she doesn't know enough to understand it. Look out for the same scene in a later chapter.
With respect to updates, I must let you all know that I am leaving on a military exercise in two weeks. Perhaps I can get one more update out before then, but as of July 15 you can expect a one-to-two month hiatus for the fic. Not to sound morbid, but due to the nature of the operation, if I don't post again in two months then... the fic is probably discontinued. Permanently. I'm letting you all know now in case the worst happens.
Review if you've read, please. I'd love to hear your feedback, and please wish me luck! C:
