This was supposed to be a random shot-in-the-dark fic, but somehow it turned into a rewrite. Go figure. Everything I'm working on, that I should be posting, is at home, and I'm at school. Bleh. So… here it goes.
Project: Intelligence
His tiny hangs clung to her bare and bruised arms as she lifted him from the pile of rubble that had buried him so effectively. He looked like every small, toddler age child she had pulled from the rubble since dawn – his eyes were blue like the clear sky over head, and his hair was the bleach blonde that evolution had gifted to all of the people of this Northern Hemisphere village. He was pudgy, but only in the way a small child can be, and, on any other day, he probably would have been clinging to his mother's hand, instead of holding on to his rescuer as if she were his only lifeline. She hefted his weight easily and checked him over quickly, until his eyes caught hers – so much blank, confused fear in them, for someone so, so young. No, there was a difference between him and the other children she had pulled from the rubble. He was alive, now, and they had not been. She cast a glance at the rubble and shook her head. He was alive, and his family was not. Two points for this one on his scorecard for life.
"Is he alive, Lieutenant?" The woman lifted her head and nodded gravely. Her companion nodded, in return. He was taller than her slightly less than 5'7", with hair the same blonde as the child's, but with eyes the color of the ravaged dirt they stood on. He saluted her formally. "I've come to make my report, then."
"Walk with me, Private," she said quietly, as the boy-child in her arms huddled against her chest, hiding his eyes in her shoulder. "Make your report while I take this innocent to the medical tent." The soldier nodded, then saluted again and fell into step beside her quick gait. There was a momentary silence, and he chose that time to take in the full view of the legendary Lieutenant Lai C. Hiltae. She was tinier than he would have expected, but then, most of the female soldiers were on the small side. Her hair was a deep chestnut that shimmered red in some places and she had what would have been considered a pretty face, save for the dust and blood that marred it. One of her smooth, high cheek bones was scratched raw and red, and there was a shallow, albeit clean, gash just above her right eye.
"Make your report," she said suddenly, and sharply. His attention snapped back and, with an embarrassed cough, he did as he had been ordered.
"Several of the townsfolk believe that there was already infiltration by nineteen hundred hours. Estimated times of death for some of the civilians we have found confirms this – they were dead before the initial attack." Lai gave a short nod, as if she had already assumed the same. With her reputation, she probably had. "We also found the one who sent out the distress signal. We have him contained, if you would like to speak with him."
"Make sure he is well taken care of," answered the woman flatly, "What of the men we captured?"
"Contained, in a separate section of the city. There were four total, at least that we've found. One… one got away." She never stopped in her walking, but the air around suddenly became thicker, as if it was responding to her sudden change in emotions. As the medical tent loomed ahead of them, set safely at the base of a large, cratered hill, the lieutenant picked up her pace and gradually began to loosen the hold her charge had on her shoulders. All three of them moved in silence, until they were within sight of the guards standing outside of the tent. One was restraining a young woman, roughly the lieutenant's age, who was screaming something and attempting to struggle passed the man into the tent. A nurse was emerging from the heavy canvas flaps and she dutifully ignored the screaming woman and went straight for the damaged child that Lai held. The boy started wailing as soon as he was from her arms and, with a show of great strength, the young woman wrenched herself from the guards arms and intercepted the nurse. The nurse took an instinctive step back and the lieutenant replaced her quite quickly, catching the woman's hands as they reached for the child. There was a wild look in the blue eyes of this poor girl, and Lai half wondered if what they were seeing was truly reality. No, they were seeing what was there, but, in that fact, they had already seen the truest of all realities – death. Death and shadow hung heavy behind the cerulean pools and as she stared down the lieutenant, all the strength crumpled from them. She fell against Lai, sobbing and wailing alternatively. The nurse dodged passed them both and disappeared into the tent, still bearing the squalling child. The two guards stepped forward and reached for the broken girl, but Lai shook her head firmly.
"I will take her inside," she said flatly. "Return to your posts, gentlemen, immediately." She moved carefully, and scooped up her newest charge in her arms. Although the other girl was at least six inches taller, Lai had no problem taking her into the infirmary tent. A moment later, she reemerged, her shoulders and her jaw set against the fury burning in her eyes.
"I'll send a relief post in an hour," she said levelly, looking up at both of the guards. "Until then, stay here and assist the nurses if they need it." Both of them nodded, without even the thought of an argument crossing through their minds.
~*~
The ground rocked beneath her as, somewhere nearby, another grenade went off. Maybe it was something stronger – the pounding of her own blood filled her ears, muffling the screams and explosions of the battle that had begun, what seemed, only moments ago. Maybe that, too, was a lie. She remembered clearly how it started: the ambush that had waited for so long, hiding in the shadows of the ruined village, suddenly appearing, like the shadows of clouds passing over the sun. All she had heard was the gunfire – she went for the nearest person she could cover, a private, a rookie private even, who had only received her first tastes of war that very morning. A searing pain had ripped into her side, and from then on, all clear thought was muddled. Who was dead, who was alive, even which side she was fighting for, she did not know. The pain was all she could feel, and the ever gentle warmth of her own blood flowing over her fingers.
The altar rose up out of the ruined ashes as if a monolith to the flames that had once destroyed its surroundings. From the back of her mind came the question of how she had gotten there, when the last thing she had seen was the flames that licked the walls of the makeshift infirmary tent. Her vision blurred and the thoughts fled with a new wash of pain. All she saw was the ground and-
From the shadow of the altar emerged a figure. It unfolded itself like the very shadow it claimed to be – limbs that were lanky and long, betraying youthfulness the hardness of the face did not tell. It was dressed in black, the shadow, but its eyes were an effervescent violet, the color of the washed sky at sunset. Very slowly, carefully, it stepped down from the steps of the altar, to the crumpled form that lay in a slowly spreading pool. Her pale skin was marred with streaks of blood that was most likely not her own, and the ashes of the charred wood she had fallen onto. One arm, the one that was not clinging so tightly to her own wound, was delicately traced with a tattoo of green, leaves and vines that formed a strong resemblance of ivy. It, the shadow, he reached down and laid two surprisingly gentle fingers against the apex where her throat met her chin. A life beat there, just under the skin, not fluttering as it should have been, but a strong, even pulse that added more onto the shadow's growing list of questions. He wanted to wake her, to ask her himself, but he knew that even this strange creature might not survive much more blood loss. So, with a resigned sigh, he quietly gathered her up in his arms, leaking wound and all, and left behind the decimated church that had so formally introduced them.