533 Kilometers Beyond Federacy Borders
April 4th, Stellar Year 2146
.:I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry:.
In the twilight of an early spring evening, amid stands of snow-scattered pine trees all lit in burnished orange by the radiance of flames, there stands a horde of silver-blue Legion drones. They number in the dozens. Perhaps in the hundreds, and all are alight with cannon- and gun-fire. A single Feldress darts among them, one in a sea. Surrounded by targets. It scores more kills than can be counted.
It's a smaller, more agile model. Four smoothly tapered legs, thinly armored but sturdy all the same. A cannon mounted at its back, the barrel jutting out over the egg-shaped cockpit like the tail and stinger of a scorpion. A crimson optical sensor sits at the streamlined tip of its chassis like a burning red eye. On its flank the Reginleif bears the Mark of a headless skeleton wielding a shovel.
.:God forgive me. Let me live. God forgive me. Let me-:.
Undertaker glides low, drifting on the snow with its legs bent flat and wide. Its body ducks beneath the pass of a 120mm cannon shell. A rocket salvo rains down from afar and the Reginleif springs up in a jump as the ground is struck. Plumes of spray of snow and dirt are flung into the air. Flames scatter against the Reginleif's underside. Still soaring, Undertaker fires its cannon into the canopy of a massive Lowe, and the tank-type freezes a moment, as if in need of time to process the impact. Then it explodes.
The Reginleif lands and spins, stabilizes. There's a moment to think. Shin sees a bladed dragoon-type Grauwolf at one side of him. Three Ameise at the other. Undertaker pulls back as the dragoon lunges and lets the larger drone barrel into the Ameise, watches it destroy one of them and scatter the other two. Then the Reginleif springs into the dragoon's back, brandishes its own blades. Undertaker slices the drone at the legs and spine and lets it fall, then springs away.
.:It's so hot:.
Shin is noiseless inside the cockpit. Utterly silent. Even his breaths are silent, though every breath burns. Blood drips from his nose. A rill of it streams from the corner of his mouth. His eyes are the same shade. His ribs hurt. Everything hurts. His eyes show a bladed concentration.
The two Ameise stagger to their feet and bear their machine-guns on the Reginleif. They open fire, but Undertaker's already jumped. Up in the air. The drones swivel their guns to follow, but there's a burst of pressure and the rapid slide of an uncoiling wire as the Feldress fires its wire-anchors into a nearby tree.
Undertaker's trajectory swerves into a low flight. It soars half a meter over the tops of the two scout-types, barrels upside-down and turns its blades to cut them both neatly across the canopy, then rights itself again as they sag and die. Pour their mercury blood across the snow. The Feldress releases the anchors and hits the ground, skidding on the snow.
All in less than a second.
.:I want to go home:.
But more come.
.:Where are you?:.
And more after them.
.:Save me:.
Always more.
Pack of Grauwolves. Three. Undertaker dodges the first and shoots it in the back as it passes, but the second is only barely behind. Its blades come down. The Reginleif swings up its right-hand sword to parry, catches the swing, pushes back and into the enemy. It darts the left blade deep into the drone's frontal plating and pierces the processor - the closest thing these scrapheaps have to a brain - with a satisfying snap. And then the third comes from behind.
.:AaaaAAAaaaHhaAaaaAAhRHaghaa!:.
Shin locks the pile-drivers in Undertaker's legs. He detonates all four gunpowder charges at once, and the explosion beneath the Feldress' feat launches it into the air. The third Grauwolf misses Shin and plows into its dying ally instead. Both collapse in a graceless heap. Shin lands on the Grauwolf's back. He unlocks his drivers, positions one foot over the dragoon's spine - triggers it. The tungsten pile, propelled by the explosion of a gunpowder sachet, pierces the machine's central processor. Its voice is the banshee wail of a woman in agony. Its voice is silenced.
He sees the Lowe from the corner of his vision. Its cannon is set on him. An Ameise perched on one of the thicker trees grants the tank-type its sight, the small drone's optics a brilliant, searing red in the fading light.
.:I hate you:.
An instant before it fires Shin slams the accelerator pedal with his foot. The engine screams as power rockets through the Feldress' limbs, as Undertaker flings itself aside. The Lowe's 120mm shell slams the ground and a curtain of snow flies up. All the world is drowned in white. Nothing can be seen beyond it or within it, but Shin knows where to aim. Knows by instinct that he will not miss.
All at once: A beam of fire through the hazy snowcloud. The instant crumple of steel and the detonation of a HEAT warhead. A jet of molten metal spewing into the Lowe's internals, and then the dull whumph of its final explosion.
.:I should have never-:.
But there's always more.
.:I'm sorry, my love:.
A barrage of rockets burns 76mm holes through the cloud of snow. Undertaker leaps away, but nowhere is safe. It lands on the only patch of ground not occupied by a Legion drone, but already it's surrounded. A salvo of machine-gun fire deflects off the cockpit. More rockets fly down. The Feldress leaps again and lands among a pack of Ameise. Clear on top of one of them. Pile-driver, select and trigger, and with a resounding cry of pierced metal that one goes down. A flash of the high-frequency blades and two more die. Spin and sever, and that makes four. Five. Six.
.:Monster:.
Shin can push through pain. He has pushed through pain, unimaginable pain just to get this far. But his ribs are red-hot agony. His lungs breathe fire. His arms and legs are drenched in molten lead.
.:I HATE YOU:.
He can only go so far.
.:Just die already:.
It's impossible to know what takes out Undertaker's leg. There's simply too many. The leg is destroyed and the Feldress falters, its rhythm broken. A Lowe's cannon shell strikes the fuselage. A glancing blow, or else he'd have been vaporized, but it still breaks a hole through the metal hull. Freezing air floods the cockpit. Shin can see the outside world through the breach. The hordes of silver-blue drones just beyond.
Another burst of machine-gun fire rips through Undertaker's rear and the engine screams with a rattling wail that sounds far too human. His speed zeros out.
A Grauwolf approaches the immobilized Feldress. It prods tentatively at the fuselage with its sword-arm, like a child poking at the body of an animal to ensure it won't pounce. Then Shin hears the sickening whine of ultrasonic vibration through the breach in the cockpit. The sound of a high-frequency blade spooling up, readying for the kill.
"Sorry, Kiriya," he whispers.
"I can't keep that promise."
—
Seven Minutes Ago
Shin stood before the snow-soaked, abandoned hull of the Vanagandr. There were two in the clearing. One was a shattered wreck on the bridge above the stream. The other one, marginally more intact, he found sitting not far off. It seemed to call to him somehow. His hand began to itch from his side of its own volition, reaching out to the still and solemn derelict, and Shin, unthinking, stepped forward with it. He brushed snow off the spot behind the Feldress' first right leg and revealed the Personal Mark of a headless skeletal knight wielding a longsword.
Dullahan.
This was Shourei's Vanagandr.
".:Are you sure it's safe to be outside right now, Shin-kun?:." Grethe asked through the Para-RAID, and as she did turned her Feldress in slow, wary turns.
"Yeah. I don't hear any of them nearby, so it should be fine."
Valkyrie dipped its headless chassis in some approximation of a bow. It stepped tentatively closer a moment, one of its four legs coming down a few meters away from where Shin stood. The Reginleif was a much lighter Feldress, only ten tons against the fifty of the moldering Vanagandr before him, but the ground still shook where Valkyrie stepped.
Shin stared at the Personal Mark for a few moments, its shape framed by a border of plastered snow, flecks still crusted to parts of the skeleton-knight's sword and armor like smeared ashes.
He circled around to the other side of the Feldress, noting the massive wound carved into its flank. Probably by a high-frequency blade, judging by the smooth, seamless nature of the cut. He climbed his way in through the breach and into the gunner's chair. More snow had filled it, a fine layer of it coating most of the chair and the controls. But where there was no snow Shin saw the characteristic maroon-brown shade of long-dried blood. So long-dried it would have flaked off and disappeared, been washed away by now if there weren't so much of it.
No body, though. The survivors of the battle must have removed it.
Shourei probably hadn't died here if he had to guess. This was the gunner's chair that had been plastered with all this blood, and he was told his brother preferred to pilot. Besides, Shourei's Para-RAID signal had made it all the way to the Republic. It wouldn't make sense if he'd died before then.
But someone had died here all the same. Shin wondered what the dead man's name was. Wondered if Freki squadron had been given enough time to bury him before they moved on. Wondered if he would find the dead man's grave if he looked hard enough.
But that would be beyond pointless. Shin climbed out of the Feldress and dropped to the ground, feet crunching on the snow. He went back to his own Reginleif, its coat of bone-white paint already flaked in places, the armor scuffed in others, its form made weary by the harshness of travel. He opened the cargo canister at its back, a small trunk-space about the size of a footlocker. He retrieved his plasma torch from it.
It always took some time to cut through a Vanagandr's plating. They were built incredibly tough, but at the end of the day they were just machines, just metal and rubber. Shin cut out the a metal chip about the length of a finger and dropped it into his gloved palm. As he felt the heat of the welded edges through his gloves, he contemplated cutting out a second. Even if he hadn't reached his brother's final resting place yet, this was Shourei's Vanagandr. He couldn't think of a better piece of him to carry, and he might not come across this wreck again on the return trip. He might not even make a return trip in the first place.
He contemplated on it, but stopped with just the one.
When the metal chip's edges had cooled enough, he placed it in his jacket pocket. It was still warm. A mass of solid heat against his chest, just enough to be pleasant against the bitterly cold air.
.:It hurts:.
Shin's eyes widened.
.:Mama:.
His hand dropped to his pistol.
.:DON'T LET ME DIE:.
The world exploded.
A shell struck the Vanagandr and a single moment stretched itself out before Shin's eyes. The world was slow as he watched the steel hull crumple, the metal ripple like a wave from the point of impact. And then the blast. An instant flash of light and heat burnt into his eyes. And then the pressure. A warm and heavy hand pushing flat against him, up on his legs, his feet. His balance shifted. He couldn't feel the ground. He was floating - flying. Being thrown.
The moment passed.
Shin slammed against a tree and he felt something snap. Ribs if he was lucky, his spine if he wasn't. He coughed out air and breathed in smoke and it singed his lungs, constricted them. Strangled him. He couldn't feel anything at first. And then came the pain. A brilliant agony like coals being buried in his chest, like running fractures of molten magma shot all through him. A good sign. Probably hadn't broken his spine if he could feel so much.
.:AaaaAAAaaaHhaAaaaAAhRHaghaa!:.
A Grauwolf burst from the deep snow, a cloud of white thrown up, the pulse of its rocket-cannon igniting six shells at once. The thudding sighs of impact, then the ear-splitting detonations as three nearby Reginleifs burst into fragments. And all the while the Legion drone screamed with a woman's pure liquid agony.
There was a moment to question. Where? How? A moment to deny. But I didn't hear them! A moment to feel guilt. Ah. They're dead because of me.
And then a moment to act.
They emerged from the snow, a pack of crude humanoid figures with bulbous bodies and too-round heads, with cruel and thin metal arms and legs. All of them gave off the same electronic beeping sounds, almost like voices. Self-propelled mines. Shin, still slumped against the tree, still reeling, his vision blurred, drew his pistol. He racked the slide in one smooth motion. A metal rattle and the satisfying click of a chambered round.
They ran for him.
Even with armor-piercing bullets, self-propelled mines required two shots to kill them, one to crack the plating and the second to drive a bullet home. He fired twice and dropped one. Fired two times more and down went the second, and when the third got too close he sprang to his feet, tapped its chest with his freehand as it passed him in a smooth pirouette to the drone's backside. Even now Shin was graceful. Agile beyond measure. His Nouzen blood would never let him stumble.
He shot the self-propelled mine twice in the back of its spherical head and it crumpled, fell and died, liquid micro-machine blood spilling silver from the wound.
A fourth slammed into him from behind, blade-like metal arms wrapping around his torso. Broken ribs screamed their protest. But Shin felt neither pain nor panic. He felt only the unbroken rhythm of his heart. Steady and cold. He twisted his pistol back behind him and pressed it into the chest of the thing holding him, fired twice and its grip loosed, fired once more, then again and its hold broke entirely. The self-propelled mine with its crude human outline and its optical sensor positioned like one large eye seemed almost human in its helplessness. Like a child as it fell to the snow. Like some deformed infant as its legs and arms trembled helplessly, as it failed to stand. As silver metal blood spilled from the holes in its body.
Its beeping cries shifted rhythm, pulsing faster, a signal for detonation. Shin shot it once through the optical sensor. It fell silent.
Then a crash through the treeline. Shin turned to face an Ameise bearing down on him, the muzzles of its 7.62mm machine-guns glaring at him like two beady eyes. Shin realized, not in words, because in that moment words would be far too slow, but by an instinct surpassing language - that he was dead. There was nothing his pistol could do against an Ameise.
A roar of automatic fire.
The Ameise jerked and stumbled as a hail of bullets chewed into its flank. It turned halfway to the new threat before the deafening blast of a cannon sent it up in smoke and metal shards. Shin was still standing when the Reginleif leaped into view, skidding on the snow, machine-guns screaming.
".:Shin! Get to your Feldress! I'll cover you!:."
The Reginleif jumped again out from under the arc of a Grauwolf's blade, riposted with a pulse of gunfire into its flank. It turned clockwise to face another horde of self-propelled mines on the other side of the clearing, and as it moved revealed the Personal Mark of a woman's face silhouetted behind a wooden roundshield. Valkyrie.
With two sweeping passes of its 12.7mm machine-guns the mines were destroyed, rent apart into scrap and oil and thick silver blood. The Reginleif spared neither moments nor mercy, streaming gunfire until the very last moment, until it was all but forced to evade the arc of another Grauwolf's high-frequency blade. The whining edge sheared the coating off Valkyrie's cockpit, but the Feldress was unfazed. It took a moment to fire its cannon at a target Shin couldn't see, then reversed and charged straight into the dragoon, slamming one leg into its metal face and triggering a pile-driver directly into its central processor.
Shin saw this only from the corner of his eye. His focus was set squarely on Undertaker, which seemed all too far away for him to run. And yet he ran anyway, even as his ribs seemed to split apart with every step.
Valkyrie turned to face a Lowe clambering out of the stream-bed, but the drone had already seen her. Was already lining up its sights. It fired. The devastation of its cannon threw up a haze of snow so dense Shin couldn't see an inch in front of him. But he could hear plenty. He could hear the screech of ripping metal, the smaller pops of secondary munitions-explosions. One last scream through the Para-RAID. And then he heard nothing at all. Not from Grethe.
There was a passing instant where shock held him. Shin looked blearily around, eyes up and turning. He saw Legion on all sides. He saw the Federacy's soldiers caught off guard, most of them dead already. The main force was another kilometer behind them, several minutes away. The Legion had ambushed them. But how? He should have heard their voices. And even if he hadn't, he should have been ready all the same.
The instant passes. These thoughts go as quickly as they came. All bleeds into silence. Shin is focused. Despite his bruised and broken ribs, he finds the strength to sprint toward his Feldress. The canopy is open, the chair awaits. Undertaker calls to him.
—
Seven Days Ago
"You know, Shin-kun, there's a reason we brought seasonings in our travel supplies. Don't you think it's a little rude to rabbit-san if you cook him so carelessly?"
Grethe Wenzel sat across from him on a folding chair, her Reginleif behind her. She stirred a spoon around in her steel mess cup, filled halfway with a watery stew of rabbit meat (square chunks boiled to a dull gray color) and foraged herbs (huge, tough pieces chopped roughly in half or not at all) before bringing it to her lips, which retained an impeccable crimson coat of lipstick even as she ate.
Shin gave a noncommittal shrug. "I think it tastes fine."
"Do you really? Huh. You're not joking…" She set down her spoon and sighed, furrowing her eyebrows. "What is Ernst feeding you? He hires a maid, doesn't he?"
"Teresa's food is fine too."
"Is that so?" She picked up another chunk of meat and vegetables and lifted it on her spoon, pale broth spilling back down into the mess cup. "So the meals made for you by a top class live-in maid and… this… are on about the same level to you? Both 'fine?'"
Shin shrugged again.
"One day, Shin-kun, I'm gonna get more out of you than that dull voice of yours and those tired shrugs."
Shin didn't have much of a response to that.
Though he did remark to himself that the Lieutenant-Colonel was acting a bit too familiar. Partially because she was his commanding officer and should have been obligated to maintain a certain professional distance. But mostly because they'd only just met in person a few days ago. They were basically strangers; even he couldn't help feeling a little annoyed at the sisterly lets-all-be-friends tone of her voice.
"Are you bored, Lieutenant-Colonel?" he asked in a tone bent toward mild amicability.
She smiled ruefully at that. "Are you asking me to leave now?"
"No," Shin said honestly. He was hinting at it.
Now it was her turn to shrug. There were no words between them for awhile after that, neither of them having much to say. At least Shin didn't. And in that brief quiet he listened to the sounds around him, as he often did when there was nothing else to occupy his too-sharp senses.
He was met with a dull, vaguely pleasant drone of chatter from four full platoons' worth of Federacy soldiers, primarily Feldress operators, though there were a few squads of exoskeleton-touting armored infantry. Alongside them were the sounds of labor from the support retinues: the boisterous cries from professional Vargus hunters and foragers, hired on to supplement their packed supplies; the crackle of cook-fires, the sizzle of frying meat, heavy thwacks from logs being chopped where the civilian volunteers took on the menial camp tasks; from the section given to the cadre of charitable humanitarians, doctors, diplomats, and chroniclers there was mostly restful silence. Though their lot was eager at the thought of encountering another surviving country - assuming the Republic of San Magnolia still stood - they were a group mostly unaccustomed to the rigorous nature of overland travel.
This wasn't some ragtag band that had tagged along for the journey, but an entire expeditionary force almost three hundred strong. A pittance maybe, when compared to the standard brigade-sized element more often deployed for long marches into enemy territory, but their numbers still made for a sprawling camp whenever they settled in for the night.
In total, they'd spent nine days on the road. So far it had been uneventful. Shin could hear the Legion's voices, of course. He could hear them all the way to the ruins of the old Imperial Capital, and a good distance past that too. For the moment, there was no danger. There wasn't even an autonomous patrol within fifty kilometers of them.
Shin found it slightly suspicious. Almost like they were letting the expedition move further in. The Legion wasn't supposed to have much ability to strategize, and they shouldn't have been able to know the expedition's location without any scouts in the vicinity… but he still couldn't help the sharpening of his awareness, the tingling sense of readiness that always came when things were progressing too smoothly.
"Tell me, Shin-kun," Grethe said, setting aside her mess cup. At a glance, Shin saw that she'd polished it clean, not a speck remaining of tasteless meat or overboiled herbs. "Why did you choose to go on this mission?"
"I thought Ernst told you."
"He said it was your brother's signal we picked up, and that you'd want to find him. But that's just what he said. I don't know if that's what you would say."
"What other reason would I have?"
She smiled at that. "Lots. You're fourteen years old, you know." She said it almost like it should have been a surprise to him. "A kid your age might set out on account of a rebellious streak. Wanting to get away from their overbearing father and all that. Or maybe you got bored of Sankt Jeder and wanted to go on an adventure."
"Adventuring? In a Feldress?" Shin could imagine that someone might find it fun to travel, but doing it in a war-machine like this left nothing at the end of each day but aches and blisters. Didn't sound like much of an adventure.
"Children are children, boys will be boys. And boys love giant robots." She leaned over and tapped the leg of her Reginleif - Valkyrie - for emphasis. "You wanna know a secret, Shin-kun? Girls do too. At least the cool ones."
Shin wasn't sure if he did love giant robots. Love was a powerful thing. It was not a word he could ever use lightly, and he did not feel love when he thought of Feldresses.
In all truth, he wasn't sure if he loved anything. He heard the word get thrown around a lot, and he was sure enough on the textbook definition. But as a feeling, he'd only known love once before, and that had been when his father and mother were still alive. When him and Okaa-san could still communicate with their unspoken words. That soothing, wondrous warmth had surely been love. But that was years ago now, and he'd never felt anything like that since. Certainly he didn't feel that from looking at Undertaker, poised and inactive at his back.
He didn't even feel that for Frederika and Kiriya. Sometimes he wished he could. Sometimes he felt like it was an insult to them that he didn't feel more strongly.
"And why do you want to find him, Shin-kun?" Grethe asked softly. "Why do you consider that your duty?"
It just is, he could have answered. Would have answered if he weren't sure she'd be dissatisfied with such a meager reply, and thus would have cause to press him further.
After nearly a full minute had passed, a time spent entirely in thought, he answered.
"I don't remember my brother," Shin said simply. "I know his name was Shourei because Kiriya told me. I know he was kind to me because Kiriya said he was. But beyond that, he might as well have never existed."
A pause, in which Grethe said nothing.
"I don't remember my father very well either, but I can remember his funeral. And that helps. My mother, she never got a funeral. To this day, I don't how or where she died. But I can remember her very well, and that helps too."
Another pause. To breathe in and out.
"I don't have anything like that for my brother. Nothing that wasn't given to me by someone else."
"Do you want bury him, too?" Grethe asked.
The steady crackle of the campfire, the drone of the voices all around them, and the faint whistle of the wind as it rustled the leaves above them.
"Maybe," Shin answered.
Or maybe I don't want to find him at all. Maybe I want to get to the Republic and see that it was a fluke all along somehow. Maybe I want to die before I get there. Maybe the thought that I had a brother I could have grown up with, that could have taken care of me like I took care of Frederika, only to have lost him before I could ever have the chance to know him… maybe that's just too cruel.
"I'm tired, Lieutenant-Colonel," Shin said. "I'll try to cook better next time."
Grethe smiled at that. "That would be nice, Shin-kun. Have a good night."
—
Seven Years Ago
A black-haired, red-eyed boy stares at the retreating shape of his mother's back as she walks further and further away. Toward the end of the hall where the massive double-doors lie open, where a blade of sunlight forces its way into the dimness of the chamber. He stares as she marches toward the light, and it's clear on his face that he wants to cry out to her. Don't go. Please, don't go. But he fights down that impulse. Suppresses it. Chokes it until it dies, because a good Nouzen son does not break decorum.
The scene breaks, fades into particles.
In the darkness of a child's bedroom, night fallen and curtains drawn, the only light came from the glow of two crimson eyes. Frederika Rosenfort was the last ruler of the fallen Giad Empire. She was an heiress possessed with the blood of the crown's two greatest warrior clans, and cursed to see the pasts of those she knew. Cursed - not because of what she saw, though certainly that could be terrible enough - but because she always had the choice, and because she always made the wrong one.
She had made a habit of recalling sweet memories from the minds of others as a way to cope with the pains of the present. It was a truly vile habit, she thought. The theft of another's comfort was a violation running deeper than any other. Frederika knew that. She had a self-awareness that surpassed most adults, and the shame to match.
The next memory was one of her favorites. It happened only two years ago, but even so she went back to it almost every day, as if to keep the scene as fresh as possible for as long as possible.
Kiri is standing at the foot of a huge oak tree, looking up with exasperated concern at the little girl clinging to a branch fifteen feet off the ground. Clinging to the branch and bawling her eyes out as Shinei silently pats her head with an expressionless but still somehow warm look on his face. He could climb down and back up again a dozen times over if he wanted to, but stays with her anyway.
She never recognized herself in these visions, not in that instinctive, instant way she could recognize Shinei or Kiri at a glance. But that didn't matter. Whenever she saw this memory from Kiri's eyes, she was reminded of just how much he cherished her, how far he'd go to protect her. There are far more dramatic memories for that of course. Times when he came back to her bloodied and smiling, times when he took on unimaginable pains for her sake. But this memory was the purest somehow. The one most perfect.
The glow faded from her eyes, but only for a moment. Next she looked at the day through Shinei's eyes, and she was shown the view of an older brother a little closer to her age. An older brother who didn't scold her for her antics, but joined her in them, even if he wore the same face whether he was helping her collect cool beetles (she was okay with those kinds of bugs, just not spiders) or keeping a lookout as she filched their guardian's paperwork. He was a brother who would get yelled at right beside her when she got caught, would pat her head while she cried then tell her at the end in a quiet, listless voice that she brought it all on herself - without mentioning that even so, he had taken the fall right alongside her.
She loved to relive this day. The warmth of the sun and the big oak tree, Kiri trying to coax her down as gently as he could. It's one of the few times she could recall when all three of them were together. Usually Kiri or Shin were off in battle. Sometimes they both were, and those days she could remember even more clearly than the good, because they were each and all so terribly lonely. Those were days where she couldn't help but walk around the empty palace and see all the places where people should have been. People she'd seen countless times in other people's pasts, but never in her present. People who had died.
Seeing these memories could drive away that despair. It could bring her such joy to relive those rare, perfect days as often as she wanted.
But her power was still a curse.
She was five years old when she first saw Shinei's past. She'd looked because of his scar. He'd worn it openly back then, not covering it with a scarf like he did now. It had been fresher then too, not its present faded brown but a purplish-red inflamed color. It was a scar that looked painful just to wear, to say nothing of the agony he must have felt as he was given it. She had known even at that young age that she shouldn't look. That it was wrong. But she did it anyway; ultimately, that was the true nature of her curse. She was all too weak of will, and so she could never let people keep their secrets, their shames, their worst pains. She would always steal glimpses into them. Even when she swore to herself that she wouldn't.
For all the things that Kiri and Shinei taught her, they never had to teach her shame. Frederika learned that all on her own.
And she was reminded of that yet again, as she failed to stop herself from seeing the bloodiest depth of Shin's past.
He is ten years old. He steps into the Imperial throne room with a Nouzen entourage surrounding him, four dour-faced, black-haired adults walking in front and behind him. By tradition, he should be escorted like royalty. They are granting him his Boon, after all. But their positioning and the way their hands hover above their sidearms makes it seem as if they're escorting a prisoner.
Frederika was three years old. Too young to have her own memories of this day. In the vision, she sees herself as Shin saw her. A little girl barely graduated from diapers, sitting in attendance of the court in her own reserved chair just to the right of the Emperor and Empress, the father and mother she never truly knew. Kiri stood at attention by her side, hands behind his back, shoulders squared.
Shinei wears an expression of utter, empty misery. It's an expression that shows no pain. It's not a frown and it's not a grimace. It's the lack of light in his eyes. It's the paleness of his lips and the sallow hue of his skin. It's the way his glance never breaks or shifts, always set on the same point dead ahead, as if he isn't truly seeing anything at all. His entourage leads him to the foot of the throne. One puts a hand on Shinei's shoulder, and the boy bows with a rote, mechanical motion, more like a puppet than a person.
Then they spoke. Frederika couldn't hear voices in her visions, couldn't hear any sounds at all, but Kiri taught her a great deal about the customs of the Empire-that-was, and what he didn't teach her she managed to pick up through countless journeys into countless histories. She knew enough to guess.
'This one has performed a great service to the crown, your Highness,' says one of the Nouzens. 'We humbly request he be given to the princess as one of her royal guards, and trained by Kiriya. We believe he will be of great use there.'
It would also keep the half-breed out of the Nouzen clan's affairs, safely sequestered in a palace ten kilometers away from their compound.
The Emperor made a show of consideration. Even before the rebellion, the royal family had become all but puppets to their nobility. But after it, once the Nouzen clan assumed responsibility for the war, the Emperor became even less than a puppet. There was no possibility for him to refuse. Nonetheless, appearances had to be maintained.
'And you assert this one to be of true loyalty? To be faithful to the crown and his ward, Augusta Frederika Adel-Adler, forever and always?' the Emperor asks, stroking his black beard.
'I do, your High-'
That's when it happened. It was a coincidence so perfect that afterward many believed it was staged. The only proof to them that it wasn't, in the end, was just how many died for so little gain.
A man sprints through the open doors. A tall man of black hair and eyes. Not Onyx, but Eisen, iron features and a powerful physique. A Vargus? It's all anyone has time to think. And then he pulls out the grenade.
There's a rush of motion. Shouts and screams she can see but not hear. The Nouzen entourage rushes to the Eisen man and tackle him to the ground, but they're not fast enough to stop him from pulling the pin. Shin's broken, dead-ahead stare shifts focus for the first time. Onto that small green orb about the size of a child's fist rolling away from the tangle of men and limbs, somehow forgotten. Rolling toward Frederika.
Shin moves of his own volition.
He runs to stand in front of the three year-old princess. He spreads out his arms-
-as the grenade explodes-
-and the shrapnel opens his throat in a sloughing grin.
And he dies.
The first time Frederika revisited this memory, she looked at Shinei's face just before the grenade exploded, and she saw stalwart resolution in his eyes. Pride and duty and the willingness to die in order to protect her. She saw the very same expression that Kiri would wear when it came time to put his life on the line for hers. But that was just at first. The more she came back to this day the more she realized she was wrong. It wasn't pride on Shin's face in the split-second before the blast.
It was relief.
He was glad to be killed.
After Frederika realized that, it was impossible not to see the echoes of that expression in everything Shin did. Even when he smiled at her, she could see it. In the red darkness of his eyes lay that belief running deeper than all else: that he should not be alive. That all he had left in this world was to wait for his proper place to die.
Kiri often told her she acted too old for her age. To that, Frederika could only ask, how could she not? How could she not be forced to grow a little faster when there was so much pain in those she loved? When she could see it all just by opening her eyes?
There was a knock at the door. Frederika knew immediately who it was. She willed the past to disappear, and the crimson glow faded from her eyes.
"Hime-sama? Are you in there?"
"Yes, Kiri," she said.
"Can I come in?"
"You may."
The door opened slowly, and the light that came through it was far too bright. So bright it was almost painful, and Frederika had to shield her eyes. When she had finished adjusting, Kiri remained at the doorway instead of coming in, visible only as a silhouette, his outline sharp with the lights at his back.
"You were watching him, weren't you Hime-sama?"
Frederika smiled ruefully. "How do you know?"
"You excused yourself to bed after dinner and didn't even bring a dessert to your room. The only reason you'd do that is if you were worrying about him." Kiriya stepped inside, and in the dimness of the bedroom his black hair and eyes were the exact same shade. "It's only been two days since he left, Hime-sama. You should have more faith in him."
Frederika curled in her bed, hugging her knees to her chest.
"I'm scared, Kiri."
"Don't be. Shin's strong."
She shook her head. "What if that's not enough?"
"Hime-sama?"
"I think we were being selfish when we made him promise to come back to us."
Kiriya had no response for that. He glanced down and away.
"What if we gave him a burden he can't carry, Kiri? What if it's too much for him? What if he does die, and his last thought is that he couldn't keep our promise?" Frederika blinked and realized she was crying. She wiped a tear from her eyes, but another took its place, and when she wiped at that one two others sprang down her cheek.
"I don't want Shinei to die at all… I really, really don't. But if he dies thinking it was his fault… then I don't… I…"
Frederika was older than her seven years in many ways. By her nature as the last Empress of Giad, and by the gift her blood had given her she'd been forced to grow older. But as her voice trembled with tears and raw emotion and her face contorted with imminent sobs, she was as much a child as any other.
Kiri came closer and knelt beside her bed, so that Frederika sat just a little taller than the level of his eyes.
"Hime-sama, what would you have me do?"
Frederika swallowed back tears. A sudden resolution firmed itself within her.
"I… I want you to follow him, Kiri. I want you to keep him safe."
Kiriya's face was deadly serious, the look in his eyes as sharp as a blade of polished obsidian.
"You'll be left alone here, Hime-sama."
She sniffled. She thought of those lonely days in the palace again, when neither Kiri nor Shinei were there for her. How she'd wander the empty halls and see all the places where people should have been. How endlessly, painfully long those days would feel.
"I know that, you fool." But in a moment she banished the thought, and steel took its place.
"Kiriya," she said, and her voice had hardened. "You are my knight."
"Yes, Hime-sama."
"You will follow my word as if it were an extension of your will."
"To my dying breath."
Frederika nodded strongly, blinking away the last of her tears.
"As your Empress, I order you to defend Shinei with your life."
Kiri nodded stoutly, thumping his fist to his chest in a hard salute.
"I accept."
"Good." All at once the tension seemed to melt from Frederika's body. She collapsed back in her bed feeling loose as gelatin. "I'm glad."
Kiri stood back up, wearing a small, gentle smile.
"You know, Hime-sama, if we're talking about burdens, then don't you think you're doing the same to me? It's going to be a difficult march, catching up to them when they have a two day headstart."
Frederika lifted her hand like a flag and waved it dismissively. "Making unreasonable demands is the privilege of an Empress."
Kiriya chuckled at that. He bowed his head before turning to the door.
"Of course, Hime-sama. I'll be off, then."
"Come back safely."
Don't you just love a good long chapter?
Not me. Writing them is hell. Sometimes a rewarding hell, and sometimes a hell you don't want to escape from, but still hell.
Hope you enjoyed this one!
-Verbosity