Chandra couldn't recall a time she was this furious, though she was too mad to be remembering anything anyway.
"It must be soooo hard," the rebel said mockingly. "Boo hoo, mommy. The other kids are being mean to me just because they don't like fascists." As loud as the ringing in her ears was, Chandra could hear the distinct sound of held breath behind her. Liliana told her she was attracted to her passion, but she knew this was pushing that too far.
"Look, lady." The Consulate soldier was nervous, but more in an awkward way and understandably so. He had faced down more perilous situations than this. "I don't know who you think I am, but I was just a grunt."
Chandra tightened her grip and pushed against him again. "You know who else were just grunts?" The man may not have been too frightened but he was taken aback by the small woman. "The pieces of shit that looked on while your master Baral sliced my father open in front of me."
The name drop did tighten him up a little. Even Consulate soldiers only liked Baral in as much as they had to. "I never worked with that asshole, so you've got the wrong guy." The small man was beginning to get angry which got Chandra's heart beating faster.
"You were all part of it. The imprisonment, the torture, the murder." As her voice got a little louder, Chandra was surprised Gideon or Liliana weren't interfering, but she was glad she had stupefied them. "Even if all you ever did was sit behind a desk, you made it all happen. You're all soaked in the blood of our people."
Glaring into the eyes of the man whose breathing was beginning to match the weight of hers, Chandra's satisfying anger was giving her a powerful love/hate relationship with the idea of therapy. The excitement of being able to truly vent this anger on someone that deserved it was exhilarating. "Every single one of you deserves to be locked up with Baral, Kambal and the rest of them."
Confessing to a fantasy she'd had several times, she did her best to glare into the man's soul. "I'd starve all of you and when you were on your last ounce of strength, I'd feed you to the rats piece by piece."
His eyes finally widened in anger. "We didn't even know what the enforces were d-"
"EVERYONE KNEW!"
Chandra gave up hiding her voice while reestablishing her force. "Every city, every village. We all knew and you did too, but you turned a blind eye because you're a fucking coward."
It was when Chandra followed this insult up by removing one hand from her grip and moved the free wrist in front of his neck that the room decided she had gone too far. Gideon sternly spoke while stepping toward her, "Chandra, that's en-"
"Back off Gideon! This is none of your business." She was gambling on her friend listening – predicting Gideon would be too shocked to physically remove her from the altercation.
When she felt a hand grip her shoulder there was a brief moment she thought she had been wrong, but it wasn't his voice that said, "but it is my business." Much of Chandra's fire instantly dissipated as her eyes rolled into her head. She had always been taught to watch out for the enemy hiding in plain sight and now she had failed to do so. The nervous person in the waiting room wasn't someone in crisis.
She was a spy, and Chandra cursed herself for not assuming her mother would find a way to tag along.
"Release him immediately." Her tone was distinctly that of General Nalaar.
Her grip did loosen as she frantically pleaded with her mother. "This asshole called us warmongers. He laughed at us for wanting our freedom."
"Release him now or I will drag you to Kaladesh and have you arrested." Her voice had no sign of bluffing, not that Pia would about such a thing. It took Chandra a second to swallow her pride, but she knew she was beaten. When she finally separated herself from the Consulate soldier, she was certain she heard the sound of Liliana exhaling.
Pia wasn't the only one joining the festivities though. The room to the therapy session slid open; Jirina entered the hallway and with as much conviction as the General asked, "what the hell is going on out here?" All eyes turned to meet Jirina who had lost her disposition.
Chandra couldn't fathom any way to break the tension, let alone explain it in a way that wouldn't have a second woman wanting to shove a military boot up her butt.
Of course, when there wasn't a way, Pia Nalaar would find one.
"It's okay, Captain. I have it under control." Chandra's mother quickly adopted a friendly mom-like tone which returned the smile to Jirina's face. As she returned to the room, she chuckled back to them, "I'll leave you to it then, general."
As intriguing as it was that the two knew each other despite the name Captain Jirina not ringing any bells for Chandra, it was nowhere near as interesting as what was happening in front of her. The little man finally spoke again – quite shocked and with a gulp.
"General?"
Pia got between the rebel and the Consulate and pulled down her hood, widening the eyes of the later as he let his jaw slack. If this guy objected to the Renegades as much as it seemed, Chandra would have given a toe to know what was running through his head right now.
"What's your name, son?" Pia was much calmer speaking to him than she was to her daughter.
It took him a long time to respond as if he had forgotten the answer, which was entirely possible. "Alppa."
"Okay, Alppa. I'm General Pia Nalaar; This is my daughter, Chandra. I know what she's just done was inappropriate and since I know she won't apologize," Pia looked back at her daughter scathingly, "I will apologize on her behalf." Chandra turned her back on the audacity of her mother.
Alppa responded quietly, "It's o-"
"I'm not done." Like a dog at dinner time, Chandra's ears perked at the sudden mood shift. "Her actions may have been wrong, but her words weren't. During the war, you knew what was happening and do you know how I know that?"
"No." It was an impatient and frustrating response that Chandra recognized. The simultaneous rage and respect for Pia.
"I know because I spent three sleepless weeks listening to hundreds of people – your superiors officers, your fellow soldiers – testify to every atrocity that took place and that they were no secret to anyone." Chandra turned back around to see that Pia's slow, determined words were working and his averting eyes suggested it was.
"I know everything. Part of your training was the most efficient and thorough way to round civilians in a village, was is not?" Pia sounded tired of the question that she must have heard countless times. "One of the exercises was a simulation seeing which officer could find the most hidden children, yes?" Alppa was finally looking all the way down, giving a small nod of acknowledgement.
"You all needed to know which pro-Renegade civilians were deemed worth capturing. If I recall correctly, the memo that was circled said able bodied men from 14 to 45." As bad as Alppa was getting roasted, Chandra was really beginning to hate the conversation as she was reminded of things she thought were forgotten. "Everyone else was – I believe the term was a criminal with no value."
Pia silently stared at Alpa's eyes looking away. No one said anything and nothing shy of an earthquake seemed like it would change that - and it would probably have to be a big one. Eventually, the Consulate soldier decided the silence was more awkward than meeting his former enemies glance, though he either had no desire to speak or had no idea what to say.
"Joining the rebellion was not a choice I made lightly. I knew it was dangerous and I had a family to think about. " Chandra's mother still spoke with conviction, but it had gotten softer. "But I did it; my husband did it" Pia gently gestured her head back. "My daughter wasn't even in middle school. I told her countless times that she didn't need to involve herself, but she still risked her life to help because it was the right thing to do."
Chandra noticed Alpa's slight glance at her and she was pleased how successfully her mother had used her as an example to prove a point. It was tough to justify your cowardice in the same room as a child that pushed past theirs.
"You wronged your people, Alpa and until you acknowledge that, you won't be able to heal." Ending on such a kind note was a little bittersweet for the young rebel, but she was satisfied with the verbal beat down her mother had doled out and she had to hold back the urge the stick her tongue out. Pia pointed to the door of the therapy room. "I suggest you think about that when you go back in there."
Pia turned back to her daughter as the short man left their lives. Chandra noticed the General didn't look too pleased with her either. She knew the other shoe was going to drop on her at some point, but she had hoped her mother would wait until Alpa was out of earshot, but when she didn't, it was obvious it was by design.
"As for you," Chandra glanced over and saw her two friends were wishing they could be anywhere but here, yet were frozen in place just as Chandra was. "Do you remember when the war ended and we had that ceremonial peace treaty that was open for everyone to sign?"
Worried where this was going, Chandra recalled the endless pages of a document that had been no more official than a petition. As superficial as it may have been, it had meant a lot to add her signature to history. "Of course I do."
"I made sure you got to be one of the first people to sign it." It had been one of the only times Pia had pulled rank for her daughter's sake. "When I watched you sign it..."
An event rarer than a unicorn riding a blue moon then happened in that hallway. Pia Nalaar began choking up, even if it was for the briefest moment before she regained herself.
"When I saw that, I had never been happier. That was when I truly knew it had all been worth it, every sacrifice – even your father's." Chandra had to suck in her lips as her eyes began to water. She knew the punchline was coming and that it was going to sting.
"I know that whole thing was just for show, but watching you write your name – the pride in your eyes, I could tell it was as genuine to you as my signature on the real thing." Pia sighed as if even she were dreading what she was going to say. "But that treaty extended an offering of peace and solidarity to anyone that hadn't committed a war crime."
"I remember every name, Chandra. Every single criminal we locked up and that man was not one of them. When you attacked him, you abandoned your oath."
It was Chandra's greatest fear. Her mother was disappointed in her – maybe more than ever.
