3rd person P.O.V
Tally focus:
"Sorry, What?" a shrill voice was heard from outside the room. Tally went to look outside and saw Scylla standing in the doorway, she pulled the war college cadet into the room and shut the door behind them. "Is anyone gonna tell me what you were just talking about?" Scylla asked. Tally shushed the girl and peeked out of the door to make sure that nobody was lintering outside. "You're married to Alder?" the Necro asked.
"Yes I am, I have been since before conscription day and it's supposed to be a secret." Tally said, directing the last part to both Scylla and Abigail, who mouthed sorry to the red-head.
"Wait, is that why I've been hearing rumours that you went off with the General at Beltane?" Scylla asked, still struggling to comprehend the new information. Tally nodded and sat down on Raelle's bed. "And I can't tell anyone about all of this?" she confirmed with the other girls.
"The only people that know are the four of us in this room, Izadora, Anancostia and the people at the wedding." Tally said she was not willing to share the identities of her wedding guests. Scylla, Abigail and Raelle nodded in understanding. Tally looked at the time. "Now if you would excuse us we have breakfast in 2 minutes." she said opening the door, the message clear to the others that the discussion was over.
Training with Anacostia was slightly strained, due to the recent revelations things between Tally and Anacostia and Abigail and the rest of the unit were not the smoothest that morning. Especially since over breakfast Raelle had asked Abigail several times if Scylla could come to her family's wedding the next week. Each time the request had been denied. A letter was delivered for Tally at lunch by one of the General's aides, Sarah wanted to let Tally know that she had passed her mothers letter along to the Imperatrix and that Tally's phone calls would be replaced with meeting with Sarah and the Imperatrix every other week, she would then inform May Craven of anything of importance.
Sarah wouldn't be at the Bellweather wedding so Tally would see her afterwards, she was getting used to not being able to spend every second of their free time together. It was an adjustment still, especially with the developments in their relationship going from strangers to married in a day and lovers after 6 months. It would just be Tally and the Unit and neither she nor Raelle had any idea what to expect from a High Atlantic wedding.
Abigail hadn't been much help in teaching them what to do or how to act, rather the opposite, she had gone on and on about how important it was to be on our best behaviour and make a good impression without telling them what that entailed.
The unit arrived at the wedding, having taken transportation from the Base with Anacostia. The truck was silent, Abigail too pressed about her own future to enjoy the happy atmosphere of the wedding to come. Tally also felt slightly jealous for a person she had not met for being able to have a public wedding, while she was relegated to strangers and government officials she didn't know for 1 hour of the morning. She vowed to not make a scene and to help Abigail, as much as she could, to enjoy the day.
After walking through the gates to the gardens things quickly turned south when Scylla showed her face. Abigail became even more stressed and Tally tried to calm things down between the girls. She spent most of the time at Abigail's side where possible in her own attempt to keep the girl calm and to stop her from blabbing all sorts of secrets and nonsense in her worked up state. And of course as fate would have it Tally went to the bathroom for some time to think alone and collect her thoughts. When she heard someone else enter the room, there was only 1 toilet in the bathroom even though it was closed off by its own internal door. Tally momentarily chastised herself for not locking the bathroom door. She hoped that whoever came in didn't need to use the toilet.
She peeked out through the gap in the door and saw Scylla standing at the mirror, but she did not see Scylla's reflection in the mirror, she saw a humans' worst nightmare, a blue balloon. She gasped and quickly covered her mouth, shrinking back into the toilet stall, hoping that Scylla wouldn't investigate if she heard anything. Lucky the war college cadet left.
Tally waited 5 minutes before leaving the bathroom. Tally walked hurriedly outside trying to find Anacostia, she was talking to some after officers but let herself be pulled away. "What is it Craven?" she asked exasperated. Moving away from any potential listening ears.
"I think Scylla is Spree, I was in the bathroom and she came in, she thought it was empty, she was talking to the mirror but there was a balloon there instead of her face." Tally said quietly and rushed. She didn't know what to do but she knew that by reporting her suspicions was the best thing to do, this meant that an investigation would most likely be opened to determine if what Tally saw was genuine, and if it wasn't, well either way Scylla would be investigated and punished. All army privates, cadets and officers knew that while minor pranks were allowed, impersonating a spree agent to trick someone was one of the worst things that they could do. And punishment was said to be severe. Nobody had written about it or talked about it so nobody knew for definite what would happen but the people who did do it were few and far between and were often war meat and dead within six months on the investigation if they played it as a prank.
It was just as Tally had finished telling Anacostia that one of the second story windows exploded outwards with a gust of fire and hundreds of balloons started floating towards the beachside property. Tally ran to get as many people inside and out of the way as the senior blasters started up a working to push the balloons away and out to sea where they wouldn't be within hearing range of anyone to hurt anyone. In all of the chaos, Tally lost sight of Raelle and Scylla.
After the sky had been cleared of balloons Tally saw a blood soaked Abigail standing in the doorway. "Abigail, what happened? Are you alright?" she asked, rushing over to her unit mate. She received no answer from the other girl. But she did see Raelle standing staring at something in her hand. As the blonde walked closer to her she could see that it was the charm that Sclla had been wearing on her jacket earlier. Scylla was nowhere around.
Alder focus:
It was unfortunate that Sarah couldn't be at the Bellweather wedding, with so many of the bases' officers going she had to stay behind. She couldn't be mad though, she created the rule that limited the number of officers that had to be on base at any one time, for the protection of the privates, cadets and the military secrets that lived on the base. It would not be well to do if someone invaded the base and killed or hurt the only thing keeping the Master Necro sane, Truffles the truffle pig had a very important job and as one of those military secrets had her own security detail when she left the Necropolis with Izadora.
She was grateful that she had stayed behind when she received a call from Minerva Bellweather in the evening saying that the wedding had been attacked, Charvel had been killed and that officers would be bringing an unnamed prisoner back to the base for interrogation. She went down to the Necropolis where they also did the off cannon lessons as well as help any prisoners of base. She let the officers there know to prepare the interrogation room and that it would be a private investigation, anyone arrested at a military wedding had to have some connection to the military and she did not want the whole base to find out what had happened.
As per procedure the prisoner would be drugged and asleep when entering base, this was done to cause disorientation and to prevent them from knowing or remembering exactly how they got to the brig. Alder was surprised to see second year war college Cadet Scylla Ramshorn to be dragged in, already stripped of her uniform, she had not been cleared to leave base to attend the wedding. There was no report of Ramshorn being AWOL, but that was because her commanding officer was cleared to be at the wedding and hadn't been able to do anything while at the Bellweather property without causing a scene.
There was a private observation room to the side of the interrogation room where she was standing watching. Anacosita came into the room and stood next to her. "Craven reported her to me, said she saw Scylla talking to a balloon in the mirror, in the bathroom right before the attack." The Drill Sergeant said before leaving the room to go and look after the cadets and privates that had been at the wedding, they would need to be debriefed officially and none of them had gone through that before. That was supposed to be their next lesson on Monday. Alder had memorised Tally's lesson schedule and knew where her wife would be at nearly all times of the day. It had come in handy to avoid her in the first few weeks but she soon stopped when Tally asked why she never saw her around base. Alder left Scylla sitting in the room alone and chained to the chair, collar around her neck inhibiting the use of any work.
The interrogation would start tomorrow, right now she had a meeting with Perta and Izadroa so see what Sergeant L'Amara could learn from Charvel's body after debriefing General Bellweather. Looks like she wouldn't be able to see Tally that day, but her wife would most likely be comforting her unit-mate anyway and she loathed to pull units apart for her own personal happiness. Happiness. She hadn't thought about that in a while. Not since before Tally, not since her sister Hannah and mother Elizabeth were discovered as witches. It was a strange but welcome feeling, she smiled while on her walk through the Necropolis to Izadora's lab.
"Izadora…. And Truffles. What have you learnt so far?" Sarah asked, knowing that ignoring Truffles would lead to holes chewed into her trousers and being ignored by the Necro for a good amount of time. Several other officers had learnt that the hard way.
"Not much so far, I can say that she died from extreme blood loss, they avoided her carotid artery. And they removed her vocal chords, with almost surgical precision." Izadora informed the General, still bent over her table. Sarah picked up truffles once the last of the officers had left the room, it was just her, the biddies and the Master Necro. "Sarah. I have not seen anything like this in all of my time training as a necro. Do you know what is going on?" Izadora asked, standing up properly and turning to face the head of the army.
"I have my suspicions, although I do not wish for them to be true. I have seen work like this before. Not for over 200 years. If my suspicions are correct then we face a threat much bigger than the Spree." Sarah said quietly. Izadora understood the change in her tone of voice, you did not work nealy side by side with someone for over a decade and not learn how to understand them past their views and personal moral code. Izadora was about to ask her something when a knock sounded on the door. One of the biddies opened the door and there stood one of the more senior officers Lieutenant Cathrine Willingham, more affectionately known as Cat.
"General Alder, I have the report from Private Bellweather. You instructed I bring it to you immediately." she said, handing over a file to the general before standing at attention near the door. Cat stood waiting, she had served for nearly 15 years now. She knew when she was dismissed without being told and this was not one such case.
"Lieutenant...Cat, how was private Bellweather, Mentally? Emotionally?" Sarah asked, turned away from the door with the file open on the empty table between her and Izadora. Just as some of her officers knew her, she knew them and knew when they would leave without being dismissed and when they would stay. That type of bond was forged only after years of service together.
"She was confused, fearful. And also very determined for revenge. She wants to understand who did this and why they did this, she wants to defend herself and her sisters." Cat said before bowing out of the room at a nod of Alder's head.
"I'll keep looking, and widen my research areas. I'll figure out who did this," Izadora said. "And If I may speak freely. Sarah, you need to go see your wife, even if it's for a few minutes. You deserve to be comforted, you've been holding Truffles since you walked in. and if I'm being crass. You never hold him for more than a few minutes." the Necro said bluntly, not waiting for the permission she knew she would receive.
Sarah looked down and saw Truffles lounging in her arms, she let the pig down, picked up the file and nodded to Izadora. "Thank you." no other words were needed as she made her way back up to the main part of base. On the walk back she caught sight of Tally walking towards her hurriedly, she pulled the wounger witch under the nearest willow tree and pulled her close just holding her, she felt sobs wracked her body as she cried for the first time in over a decade. She felt Tally's hand in her hair pulling her braid up from her scalp, loosening it as the other arm wrapped around her back, holding her tight, keeping the both upright. She buried her nose into Tally's neck and inhaled the mingling scents of lavender, vanilla and rose petals over her skin.
"It's okay, let it out. You're safe with me." Tally whispered in her ear. Eventually the tears dried up and they just stood still under the tree. It had grown dark and the evening bells had long since run when Sarah pulled back. Tally raised a hand to push some of Sarah's hair off her face. "Are you feeling better now?" she asked and Sarah was only able to nod. "You don't have to talk about it now if you don't want to, I won't force you, but I am here for you. I am your wife, as much as you are mine." Tally whispered loud enough for only her to hear it. She pressed a short kiss to the red-heads lips.
"Tomorrow, I will tell you tomorrow, you don't have training. Come see me in the morning after breakfast." Sarah said with a sad smile. She squeezed her wife's hand and walked her back to the doors of The Circe barracks, she didn't move until she was sure that she had made her way to her room before taking the long and slow walk back to her quarters with her biddies who all looked as exhausted as Sarah felt.