Chapter 1: Ashes
"Natalya, go get your brother, dinner is ready." the warm voice of her mother sounded through the house. She ran outside, finding Misha in the woods behind the house, playing.
"Come on, Misha, food's getting cold.", she called out to him.
The six-year-old looked up. "Talya, look what I found!"
She walked over there to take a look and plucked some leaves out of his blond hair. "Look at you, you're a mess, as always." She smiled though.
There was an explosion, and people started screaming, then, everything happened fast.
"Misha, stay here! Hide, don't come out until I tell you it's safe!" Natalya ran back to the house to see what was going on.
Bandits. Utilising Blades. Raiding and burning. When she got to the house, it was already on fire. She found her father, his throat slit, in the field in front of the house, her mother was lying in the doorway, barely alive.
"Natalya? Where's Mikhail?", she breathed.
"I told him to hide."
"Good. Look after your little brother for me."
"Mum, it's going to be okay. You'll be fine. Please, don't go! Don't leave us!" But it was too late, her mother was already gone.
Behind her a small scream sounded. Ice cold fear ran down Natalya's spine. Mischa! He'd followed her! Why didn't he ever listen to her? The next thing she knew was being picked up by the collar by a huge brick of a man.
"Well, what do we have here?", he grinned. "Would you look at that, two pretty faces like yours are going to fetch us a nice price!"
They got dragged from the village to a ship stashed in the hold like cargo. That was the last time she saw Misha. She got dragged off board in Mor Ardain, sold off to a group of mercenaries, she had no idea what happened to Mischa after that.
The next four years, she spent training and running errands for these people. They weren't cruel or anything, and they taught her a lot, but it wasn't home. Though, when the news came that Estham had fallen in the Aegis War, Natalya felt nothing. After all, all that had been home about Estham was long gone. Her home, her parents, everyone was dead. Mikhail could still be alive somewhere, but even he wasn't on Estham anymore, so Natalya really didn't care about the end of the Titan. All she cared about was the possibility of her little brother still being alive somewhere out there. She had to find him. Natalya started using her time away on missions to gather information on the bandits who had sold her and her brother four years ago. It took some time, but eventually, she found some clues. They lead all the way to Torna.
Her debt to the mercenaries had long since been paid. When she told Quinn she wanted to leave, he did not protest. Rather, when she told him what she was going to do, he actually seemed to understand. And so four years after she had last seen Misha, Natalya was on a ship again, headed out towards Torna, to find him again. She was going to find him again. He was still alive and he was alright, he had to be!
Her leads lead her to a small village in the Lasaria Region. Porton Village, it was called. The trail of leads ended there, so Misha had to be there. But when she got there, all she found was ashes, ruins and corpses. No trace of Misha, tough she found a number of smaller bones, any of them could have – she did not allow herself to finish that thought. Perhaps he hadn't been there after all, there was still a chance, perhaps – she'd search for more leads in the capital, perhaps she would find a trace of him somewhere.
But there was no trace of Misha anywhere to be found. Not in any of the adjacent regions, not in the capital, he simply seemed to have vanished off the map. No one seemed to have seen him. Natalya had lost all hope of finding him. Then the sky blackened with monstrous machines and carnage broke out in the capital. Two boys ran past her, a Gormotti with grey-brown hair and – Natalya's heart stopped, as she caught a glimpse of familiar blue eyes and blond hair. Could it be? She screamed his name and he turned around. For a brief moment, their eyes met across the distance, then the explosion hit the ground right between them. Natalya did not remember anything that happened after.
Natalya woke on what looked like a ship. Ardainian from the looks of it.
"What happened?"
An older woman approached her. "We were attacked. The Aegis. You were on the outside of the blast radius of one of the explosions, so you were lucky, you didn't get hurt much, but you need to rest, and stay still."
"What about everyone else in the square?"
"Looking for anyone specific?"
"My brother, Mikhail, he's ten, blond, blue eyes."
The woman looked sad. "I'm sorry, there is no one matching that description on this ship."
"I have to go back there! I have to go find him!"
The woman held onto her shoulders. "I'm sorry, but you can't. The Tornan Titan, you see, it sank into the Cloud Sea. If your brother was still there, he is gone now. I'm sorry."
"No!" It couldn't be! Natalya buried her face in her hands. I'm sorry mother. I couldn't keep my promise. Why did carnage always have to follow her?