Even though I'm the sacrifice
You won't try for me, not now
Though I died to know you love me
I'm all alone
Isn't someone missing me?
It had finally happened. Lucia had left him in charge of the village to go to a peace negotiation with the other Clan leaders and the Captain of the Knights; he'd sent his seal with Hugo to Vinay del Zexay, putting a last nail in the coffin of Wyatt Lightfellow's memory. Lucia had given him the same strange thoughtful look as he'd given the seal to her son, ensuring that the man he had been was dead now, even now that he might be able to travel back. Maybe Hugo and Lulu would drop some clues when they got back, in their inevitable rambles, about how the household was; maybe he could ask Joe directly, if they'd seen any sign of Chris, if it wouldn't remind the duck too much of his own lost family. Jimba Cheeva was the right hand of the Chief of Karaya, surrogate father to the children orphaned in the fighting, the old warrior and hunter who'd just "always been there"; he had a new life now, and didn't need to disturb old ghosts. He had his back to the door, fussing over the hanging curtain he'd made just before Lucia had become chief.
A messenger signaled that they were escorting a visitor for the chief, a Harmonian Southern Defense Force unit leader, then ducked out.
"Chief Lucia is at the negotiations; you'll have to-" he turned then, and saw the one-eyed ghost leaning against the door frame, his voice dropping away as his past came crashing back. "Dear gods."
"Lovely way to greet an old friend, Wyatt. It's been what - almost fifty years?" Geddoe smiled wryly and ever so slightly; he hadn't changed at all.
"I mean, it's good to see you, of course, but - why are you here?"
"Could say the same for you - I'd thought you'd been happy, settling in Vinay del Zexay, but I suppose it doesn't matter; any place must get old if you're there long enough." The issue of Wyatt's family was neatly avoided, if Geddoe had even heard. "I suppose you wouldn't believe me if I said this was a social call."
"As much as I'd like to hear that, I doubt you'd come all this way for something that frivolous, not with an SDF unit in tow." Wyatt walked to the center of the room and sat down on one of the low benches, gesturing Geddoe to one. "So what brings you out here?"
"Trouble. Not entirely sure what kind, but there's a bishop behind it, and I don't like the timing."
Wyatt raised an eyebrow, waiting for the rest of the explanation. Rushing Geddoe got one nowhere.
"There's a very large reward out for SDF Units, for anyone who can find the Flame Champion or any of the Firebringers. We're among the units registered for it."
"The gods love irony."
Geddoe nodded quietly; so he'd been hiding from Harmonia in plain sight all these years, in Caleria.
"You don't think they'd break the treaty, do you?" The fifty year old promise haunted him.
"I hope not, but this is Harmonia. Also, there's something else about this that bothers me."
Wyatt raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue.
"The Bishop that is hiring mercenaries....no one seems to know his name."
"Politics?" That was putting it lightly. If he was going nameless, he didn't want a paper trail; Harmonian politics were dangerous enough without intrigue.
Geddoe nodded thoughtfully. "By the way, the treaty with Zexen's not going to hold."
"Eh?" Wyatt started, trying to figure out where the sudden subject jump had come from, or why Geddoe was following the treaty.
"You heard yet, about Lord Zepon?" The Lizard Chieftain; Jimba had always gotten along with the old reptile, on the rare occasions they met. He shook his head.
"Mm. Must've made better time than we thought, if we beat the Lizards here.."
"What happened?" He was starting to shift impatiently; Geddoe's sense of timing was still inexplicable and unreadable, aged to incomprehensibility, and even after fifty years, he hadn't quite learned the old warrior's patience.
"Assassinated. Apparently by the Zexen Knights, but there's something....off. I can't quite say what yet; the tactics for the raid weren't typical Zexen tactics, and one of my Unit picked up on something he's still nattering over. He hasn't figured out enough to say anything yet besides 'footprints'." Geddoe closed his good eye, leaning his forehead on his folded hands; Wyatt was starting to feel cold, even with the hangings on the window keeping out any draft. Assassinated by the Zexen Knights....the Knights Lucia was meeting with, that he'd once led..... "The one leading the raid that served as the diversion, was the Captain of the Zexen Knights, if there wasn't some kind of trickery involved....if there was, it was a damn convincing forgery. We...were in Vinay del Zexay when she was named acting Captain, I think it's probably official now; she's a hero there." Geddoe rubbed the bridge of his nose uncomfortably, bushing the edge of his eyepatch. Just at the pronoun 'she' a rock formed in Jimba's stomach; women usually weren't allowed to be knights, not without special circumstances, and he only knew of one such case in the past few decades, though he prayed it was a different exception. "Chris Lightfellow." When Geddoe looked up, Wyatt was staring at him with the kind of dumbfounded, wounded look that usually accompanied a knife to the gut; he would've preferred that, really. What had his daughter grown into? "Wyatt...I'm sorry."
The door opened suddenly, to Queen and a Karayan messenger.
"Jimba? You need to see this, now.", the messenger urged, not even leaving the doorway. Jimba stood, bowed to Geddoe, and followed the messenger out, leaving Queen and Geddoe inside.
The messenger led him out to the edge of the sunset-dimming village, pointing off toward the hills coming down from the area of the negotiations; the flash of weapons and sparks of smoke from there were already visible, the negotiations had turned to a battle. "What do you think's going on?"
Lord Zepon was assassinated, not long ago, but it had to be before the negotiations - the Zexen Knights had fallen from what he'd once commanded. "It looks like...things went wrong." What did Chris remember of him, if at all? What was she thinking? "Do we have any warriors at the village, in case something goes wrong?"
"A few.. not enough to fend off an attack." Bloody Hell. If they'd pulled something like the ambush on Zepon...
There were shouts from another part of the village, a spark of flames and smoke going up.
The village was under attack by his daughter.
He grabbed the warrior's shoulders. "Go to the other warriors, get the younger, faster ones, start evacuating everyone; have them scatter, we'll meet up outside Duck Village, just make sure everyone gets out! I'll get the back gate and make sure it's safe, it looks like they're attacking from the front." If they weren't setting fires to draw attention and sending troops around back; he'd find out fast enough, it was more important to evacuate, to get out who they could. At least Hugo and Lulu weren't here...
-----------------------------------------------------
And if I bleed, I'll bleed,
Knowing you don't care
And if I sleep just to dream of you
And wake without you there,
Isn't something missing?
He stood beside Lucia, looking across the hilltops at the windmills of Iksay Village; his poise showed nothing but grim resolve.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" It wasn't like him; she was the crazy vengeful bitch, Jimba Cheeva was the voice of reason that told her to calm down and think it over.
"I'm sure."
"These were your people once."
"Wyatt Lightfellow is dead." The last nail in his coffin hadn't been sending home his seal, it had been his own daughter burning and slaughtering the home that'd taken in Jimba Cheeva, after turning an attempt at peace into a bloody battle. If Zexen had fallen so far that even the Knights were resorting to that kind of deception, he wanted no part of it anymore.
And Iksay was close enough to Brass Castle that the Knights were sure to make an appearance; he had one last ghost of Wyatt's life to lay to rest, the Silver Maiden.
If Jimba had joined the voices calling for blood, then the world had gone mad enough that nothing was sacred anymore. Lucia nodded to Lord Dupa and sounded the charge.
The festival scattered into chaos; for all the orders to set themselves above the Zexen raid and not harm civilians, Jimba saw more than one Lizard or Karayan lashing out in vengeful rage rather than control, not discriminating targets. A few of the villagers took up farm tools, old rusted heirlooms, and stood up to fight; most were cut down quickly. He hung out of the main part of the battle, he didn't want to be any more a part of the attack on the village itself than he had to, there was just one person he was looking for.
There was one young black-haired man who fought with far more skill than any simple villager, with a well-kept sword, struggling to cross the village toward the crest of the hill; as two lizards stepped into his path, he howled, "CHRIS!", toward the hilltop.
One of the Zexen Knights. Chris was here, at the hilltop. Jimba took off running through the chaos, almost completely unhindered, the windmill's burning shadow guiding him.
There were two on the hilltop holding it, ringed in by Karayan and Lizard forces; Wyatt glimpsed one and it was all he needed - long silver hair flowing over a green jacket, sword held as if it'd been there all her life, pale eyes flashing.
"The Zexen captain is mine!", he yelled, and the other Grasslander warriors cleared a path for him; Chris glared over her swordhilt, some rattled panic betrayed by a shake in her wrist. She'd grown to be as beautiful as her mother, hair flashing in the firelight; yet any hint of fatherly pride was swiftly buried in the memory of the slaughter of Karaya. The other stepped up behind her, arm raised - blonde hair, a bit older, teal and grey that was no cut of Grasslands or Zexen - Harmonian. Chris raised a hand to the man, waving him back; he grimaced, glancing at Jimba, and backed off, hand on his wrist where there had to be a weapon hidden.
"Why are you doing this?!", she yelled over the roar of flames and battle.
How dare she - "You should know; you moved first." He'd lapsed into a feral, bloodthirsty snarl.
"This isn't - we had no choice!" She actually cringed back, flagging slightly.
"Then fight for your life, if you believe you did the right thing." He raised his blade, glaring coldly.
She pulled the slight shake into control fast as he struck, parrying and dancing back to compensate so that he wouldn't shove her off balance. She was fighting warily, defensively, testing out his responses; she'd been taught to fight without armor as well as with, something not all of the knights bothered with. She was strong, and fast; he was surprised at how straightforward a fighter she was. There was almost nothing of dirty raw-survival tricks and deceptions, she was fighting cleaner than he was, and every time he drew blood or his blade flashed a little too close, the Harmonian cringed and his wrist twitched under the weapon; Jimba caught her giving him a couple warning glares when he started to move as if taking aim. Was this the same commander that had assassinated Zepon and burned Karaya?
She readied for a strike, her hands on the hilt slightly too high above her chest, an opening; he moved, blade aimed straight for her chest. A flicker of a wince passed as she recognized what was happening, his blade passing under the pommel. At the last moment, he relented, pulling the blow up to twist her sword out of her hands instead of killing her outright, tossing the sword to the ground beside her; she fell back, off balance, landing graceless on her rump with his blade leveled at her face. The Harmonian raised to fire - "Nash!", she snapped, glaring at him to stand down. She wasn't accepting help on a duel even when it was going badly.
"Take up your sword.", he growled. "I won't have you die without honor."
She rose to a crouch, cautiously taking the sword back up, then to her feet, stepping back to a ready stance; the necessity of the moment had banished the rattled wobble from her movements completely now. She took the initiative this time, a fast crosswise strike parried away, riposting out of it into a thrust at his side; he sidestepped, but the point of her blade drew blood along his ribs. She was already pulling back for an upward slash; he backpedaled out of the way.
Then instead of the upward slash, she dodged back almost behind him, catching his right arm with a solid blow straight to the bone, then pressed the attack; turning to parry threw him off balance, weaving back out of the way of the next blow put him on the ground. She had her sword at his throat, standing on the other side so that there wasn't anywhere for him to go.
He had to turn his head to see her face, holding still; she wasn't making any move to finish the fight, but wasn't letting him up either. She was tensed, glaring, and there wasn't a single glimmer of recognition here or anywhere else in the fight that he'd been able to see. He was briefly tempted to ask if she knew who he was, if she remembered.
"Why did you single me out? How did you know I was the Captain of the Knights?"
"Not too hard to figure out, Chris." Pale blue eyes, without a trace of familiarity. She didn't remember.
He saw Lucia storming up the road out of the corner of his eye, and started to raise a hand to wave her back -
But the whip had already cracked out and wrapped around a drawn sword held up by Nash, who'd moved almost between him and Chris; there was an odd glimmer of something along the sword blade that wasn't normal, and the Harmonian seemed to be holding utter focus as he pulled the blade back, cutting neatly through Lucia's whip, resheathing the sword with one hand.
"Sorry, just collecting my friend here." Nash put an arm around Chris's waist and took off at a fast jog, lifting her off her feet and dragging the surprised knight toward the side of the hill that dropped off into the river.
"What-are-you-doing-unhand-me-" Wyatt stood and gave chase; the Harmonian whipped around at the drop-off, arm raised, and for a brief moment it looked like he was using Chris as a shield; then a dart glanced off Jimba's collarbone ineffectually - in stepping behind Chris, he'd actually stepped straight off the drop-off, dragging her over with him so that he'd hit the water first. "Have-you-gone-maaAAIIIEEE!!" Chris's shriek was cut off by a large splash in the river below; Jimba reached the edge, staring over. His balance wavered, and he only had enough time to recognize that the dart had been drugged and pull away from the edge before he passed out.
His daughter had forgotten him.