Chapter 10:
Past
Mireille bent backwards on her pony.
"Hey Noir!" Valerie's head poked into view.
Mireille almost screamed, but instead, she reared her horse back into its normal position. "Whoa," she said, holding her head, eyes widened with blue confusion. She turned to Chloe. "I shouldn't go upside-down so much, because I could have swore I just saw Valerie."
"Yeah, you saw her, all right," declared Valerie.
Mireille stared over her shoulders, to find Valerie in the flesh. Only this time, for once, Valerie truly could have been identified as a girl. Instead of her casual shirt or jacket, she wore a bright, yet pale orange tank top, rimmed with gold. Pale greenish-gray khakis ruffled loosely in the breeze; big pockets bulged on the soft fabric of the shorts. A black belt consisted of tied-together strings wrapped itself around her hip. Her open-toed sandals crunched in the grass as she shifted cheerfully on her feet.
Valerie smiled. Observing her face, Mireille realized that Valerie's hair wasn't really smoothed back as always; more like loose, yet not fully down. It flowed in the gentle, warm breezes, a patch of bangs covering half of her face and barely hinting her other eye.
"At least you look like a girl for once," jested Mireille.
The female Soldat gave an arched eye brow before smiling. "Yup. I guess." She gave a short, mature chuckle, which sounded low and melodic, like a gentle mother and a loving, charming man's.
Chloe, on the other hand, turned away from Valerie, apparently showing her dislike. No one seemed to notice or mind her attitude.
Just when Mireille was going to say more, Henri bounced right off his pony and landed in front of Valerie, exclaiming, "Hey Mommy!"
Mireille and Chloe's heads immediately shot toward Henri and Valerie's direction.
"You said what?" demanded Mireille, half in a daze. Chloe just stared with widened eyes.
As Henri and Valerie embraced like mother and son, Valerie gave Noir a puzzled look, and withdrew. She tilted her head. "What? You mean, Henri hasn't told you that I was his mother?"
"That also explains the pretty looks," muttered Chloe. Mireille figured Chloe was even more angry at the fact that the person she despised was the mother of the person she secretly cared for.
Henri switched his eyes from his mother to Mireille. "What? Mommy, I thought you told them I was your son. That's why I was so excited when I'd learn from Uncle Pierre that they'd come to visit me at the play ground."
Valerie and Henri gave each other and Noir confused looks. Then, Henri just laughed merrily. "Hee! I guess that doesn't matter anymore. Now, Noir knows!"
Valerie nodded with a fond smile.
Noir gaped. In their minds, they connected images of Pierre, Valerie, and Henri, trying to relate them in any way. The family of confusing genders explained everything; it made sense. Pierre looking like a girl, Valerie looking like a boy, Henri looking like both—who were the grandparents, then? And if Valerie was married with Henri as her son, then, did that mean Deux was her husband? Ewe.
"You're . . . not married to Deux, right?" pleaded Mireille, shuddering.
Valerie just smiled as if she was. "Nah. He's my brother's comrade. They go on missions together a lot.."
"I don't remember the Soldats being so weird," noted Chloe.
"Wait." Mireille took another glimpse at Valerie and Henri together. She looked around and blinked. "So, what about this special someone of yours, Henri?"
As if he was presenting a dignitary person, Henri gesticulated to his mother. He had a big grin on. "She's my special somebody! I tried telling you that I didn't mean a girl friend, but you wouldn't listen, so I gave up. Ya, isn't she cool!"
"How the hell do you call cross-dressing cool?" Mireille folded her arms.
"Ya, like you call riding a fake horse any cooler?" said Valerie, grinning. Apparently she caught Mireille at the right time, with a great combat.
"Hey, I was tired. I needed to sit somewhere." Mireille looked away with an annoyed, yet embarrassed expression.
Chloe finally joined the conversation. "Why do you cross-dress?" she asked Valerie.
Valerie smiled a casual one. "So I can flirt with girls such as Mireille herself."
"WHAT—" began Mireille.
"GOT'CHA," exclaimed Henri and Valerie in unison, giving each other high fives. Henri giggled with delight while Valerie smiled proudly at herself.
Chloe almost broke into a smile, but held it and turned to Mireille. "They're good."
"Shut up."
Valerie and Henri laughed, either with Mireille or at her. Either way, Mireille had to suck it up.
Mother and son turned. Over her shoulder, Valerie said out, "C'mon Noir, let's have a picnic."
They navigated toward a shadier grassy area with a picnic basket Valerie had already grabbed; Henri skipped, picking up blades of grass.
Before Mireille edged after the two Soldats, Chloe stepped in front of her offensively. Mireille gave a puzzled look, but Chloe already explained with hard eyes.
"Are you forgetting they're Soldats? Enemies? Our enemies—Altena's enemies?"
Mireille falsely grinned at her. "Are you . . . protecting me?"
Chloe glared and shouldered past Mireille, into the opposite direction. "I made a promise to her, remember?"
The older woman frowned after Chloe. Mireille shrugged. "Of course. Same here, unfortuantely."
Then she took another stare at Valerie and Henri a distance away. They were watched Noir with curious, yet confused looks.
Mireille turned from their eyes, and said, "I thought you had a fondness for He—"
Before she could blink, the swift teenager grabbed Mireille's collar, hissing, "We're going to be killing Henri anyway. And we're gonna' have to kill Valerie too, since she will be a witness and since she is our enemy."
Mireille slapped away Chloe's grasp on her collar. "Make up your mind. You're making things confusing. You're confusing me."
"You don't have to go along! Kill me if you want to once I execute the mission. Don't worry, I'll try killing you too if you interfere."
Mireille's pupils grew big with a nasty flash. "Chloe, I have to stay with you, as much as both of us hate it. Yet, I cannot let you kill Valerie."
Chloe pushed Mireille hard, yelling like a frustrated teenager, "Then why don't you just leave!"
Mireille grabbed the collar of Chloe's vest in return, and shook. "BECAUSE I MADE A PROMISE, TOO!"
There was a pause in their contradiction. Then, Chloe threw Mireille's hands off her. She backed up a few steps, growling in a low whisper, "I'm going to pretend I'm going to the rest room. When I'm out of sight, I'll thrust my daggers. And you won't stop me."
Mireille, though confused, listened to the thumping inside her, a burning heart telling her something. She followed Chloe ominously. "I won't allow you. At least have a last meal with them."
"I can't!"
That was almost a scream. Then, Mireille saw Chloe's tears. She stared. Chloe breathed, before breathlessly whispering, "I had a private meeting with Pierre last night. He thought our interaction with our target was a threat. He gave a warning: if we don't do it today, at the best moment we can catch, he'll order his spy nuns to murder Altena right on the spot—"
"I don't give a crap about Altena! Remember, because of her, Kirika died—" Mireille stopped in her words, staring at nothing but through Chloe, through everything. Chloe watched, still trembling after she was able to tell Mireille about Pierre's threat.
"What is it?" demanded Chloe.
Mireille looked back at Valerie and Henri, who were nervously watching them, not budging from where they were. Other nearby people secretly glanced at them with confusion. Mireille glanced back at Chloe, mouth open. "Pierre? Pierre ordered you sanction Henri today—THE brother of Valerie, also uncle of Henri?"
Mireille emphasized those last words to snap Chloe to realization. Like she, Chloe froze.
It struck the two that they were so dumbfounded by the striking relationships between Valerie, Pierre, and Henri, that it didn't occur to them that the uncle ordered for the death of his own nephew.
Noir looked back, dumbfounded, yet as calmly as they could at Valerie and Henri. Then, they watched silently as Henri came up to them with a worried look. He gave Chloe a piece of grass, eyes asking along with his words, "Are you all right, Mistresses?"
Chloe stared into his eyes, lost in the depths of his innocence. Mireille watched both, then looked away. Then, she jerked up her head high and smacked on an immediate, false smile.
"Everything's fine. Let's have a picnic, shall we?" And walked away, looking at the silent Chloe at the corner of her eye.
The heedless boy took her words to heart, and happily skipped back to his mother with Mireille. Chloe followed somberly. Valerie greeted everyone, especially her son, by hugging him and picking him up in her motherly arms. Noir watched with dismal eyes, but sham smiles, as they watched their happy targets unaware of the situation.
Now a poisonous question lingered between Mireille and Chloe: Whose side were they on now? Save Altena, the only person who was close enough looking like Kirika, or the person who Mireille had grown a fondness of?
--
Like any eleven-year-old, Henri grew drowsy somewhat during the day's picnic. He curled up in his mother lap, his stomach satisfied with a full weight of delicious food. The boy snuggled against her as Valerie cradled him against her bosom, smiling with pure, unrivaled love. Henri fell asleep eventaully.
As Noir watched him, they glanced at Valerie, whose eyes were on her loving son . . . her only. There was an awkward silence, spiced with fear and confusion. Chloe remained nibbling on her share of bread like a mute, baby rabbit. Mireille held the half-bitten sandwich in her hand, looking at the same picnic blanket from her first encounter with Valerie.
"He's a good boy, huh?"
Noir stared at Valerie, who returned their stare with a faultless smile.
Valerie gave a short laugh. "It seems you've grown fond of him already. I know, he's hard not to grow fond of."
Mireille nodded, while Chloe bit into her bread.
"He never knew his father, though."
Noir looked, blinking. Chloe stopped chewing, although her face remained unchaged—then kept chewing; Mireille put down her sandwich, feeling rather queasy and unsettled in the mind.
"His name was Silas," began Valerie, endearment in her crystal-blue eyes, like caressing waters over sand. "I wasn't at the Manor like Mistress Chloe and Kirika—like you, Mireille, I was set cast in the wind in different soil. I grew up in a village near the border of France, sort of close to the Manor, training. It was during my training, though, that I met Silas, a traveler that happened to walk by my village. And I fell in love. He returned that love, and I abandoned my position as a candidate for Noir. I decided to throw aside the beliefs of Noir, realizing that I loved him more than being Noir with you, Mistress.
"Then . . ." Valerie drew in a big breath, but smiled. "He left me with his son, regretting for not telling that he had his wife and children waiting at home. And we didn't even marry." The Soldat inclined her head in regret and despair. "I was so foolish. Then, because of that experience, I returned to finish my training as a candidate, realizing that the harsh trials were only teaching me the cruelty of this world. And I believed them. But I was too late. You had already become Noir with Mistress Chloe."
In courtesy, Valerie bowed her head to Mireille and Chloe.
In a hushed voice, Mireille demanded gently, "Don't bow to me. I never asked to be Noir."
Mireille stared sideways at Chloe, who returned the look with comprehension. They weren't going to kill just any Soldats—they were going to sanction a fatherless boy who has now been betrayed by his own uncle; they were going to murder a Soldat's messenger, who once was a Noir candidate, betrayed by the illusions of the heart, with her only son she loved despite the betrayal done to her.
"Tell me, Valerie," whispered Mireille, closing her eyes, staring at nothing but darkness within, "what would become of Noir if Altena was killed?"
To Valerie, it was out of the blue, but she didn't seem to care, as if it was all harmless information to tell. "My brother, Deux, and I are one of many new Soldats under the new leader, Sir Salvas. He's against Altena, though. Henri and I are against Altena as well, but it doesn't mean we want to kill her. We just despise the cruelty of her beliefs in Le Grand Retour. After seeing what Le Grand Retour did to me, Pierre joined me, too, into the new organization of Soldats. Deux was already a member when we joined.
"Some Soldats, old or new, still admire the purpose of Noir, others don't. Some of us new Soldats even wouldn't care if Noir died or not—I'm not saying I don't care, I do—I was supposed to be Noir with you, Mistress. But, some of us would like to have Noir on our side against Le Grand Retour. Others wouldn't care if Noir died because that would end Le Grand Retour and Altena's purpose in her leadership. In fact."
Valerie's eyes lit up as if she was spilling satisfying information to Mireille. "I heard lately that members within our organization are trying to find some way to get Noir on our side, so Noir can kill Altena and end Le Grand Retour."
Chloe's fist tightened her grip on her bread that it crumbled to pieces. She glared at Valerie, but Mireille glared at her, so she stopped and listened with all the respect she could give.
Valerie resumed. "I just don't know who exactly are the agents to pull off something like that. I thought, Haven't they forgotten that Chloe is part of the True Noir—she's the one who adores Altena. She would never kill Altena."
Chloe nodded hard, giving Valerie her props for thinking correctly.
Valerie shifted her sleeping legs due to the snoring body in her lap. "It's also said that these agents are trying to get rid of their own member. Something that has to do with status being leaked to Altena's side."
Chloe's mind snapped. She stared at Mireille to see if Mireille caught the story between Valerie's lines. The French was already looking her way, and she didn't stare or nod—just blinked and looked back at Valerie, who was unaware.
Noir finally understood. The agents trying to find this double agent were Deux and Pierre. It made sense, because they wanted Noir to shoot Henri, which meant Henri was the target Valerie heedlessly mentioned. Henri was the double agent. What Noir wanted to understand was why Henri switching sides? Did it have anything to do with them?
Mireille's fist held the picnic blanket beneath her. So Pierre was trying to use them to kill Henri, the "secret source, the double agent", the target!? What Mireille wanted to know was what was Pierre's plan to get Noir onto his side?
Oh yeah. Threatening Altena. That was simple enough, yet, it impacted a big hole in everything since Chloe wouldn't allow such a thing to occur.
But no . . . that wasn't it. There was more. Mireille wanted to learn how crazy the Soldats were thinking—how the Soldats would ever get Noir to work for them for life? They had something going on.
Mireille firmly stood her ground. Valerie noticed the tension—any Soldat should know what Noir is like by now. But, for her, she knew Mireille more than anyone—besides, probably Kirika . . .
"Noir, what's wrong?" Valerie blinked as Mireille looked back.
Mireille smiled. "I had a stomach ache, but I fought it back. Could you pass the cheese, please?"