"86th District," Western Theater

April 14th, Stellar Year 2146

Shin found it specially, exceptionally, exquisitely annoying the way Shiden Iida lounged. Ostensibly a prisoner in the middle of an enemy camp (enemy by some definitions, anyway), her choice of posture was to sprawl lazily out across her stiff bunk in the corner of the 4x4 meter holding cell. She laid on her non-injured side, one arm curled beneath her head to supplement the narrow pillow provided to her. The other arm was in the process of relaxedly shuttling grapes between her mouth and a plastic tray on a nightstand.

Shin's nightstand to be specific, a folding polymer construction whose typical purpose was as his book-rest. The reason it was in Shiden's cell, and not in his personal tent where it damn well belonged, was because he'd been asked very politely to get something she could use 'to put this tray on… unless you feel like feeding me, ladykiller. Wink.'

Yes, she said the wink out loud.

The time was somewhere between early morning and way-too-early morning, judging by the waning moonlight that filtered through the barred windows of the mobile jail cell. The day had barely begun, and Shin was already done with it.

"You're surprisingly obedient, aren't you?" Shiden said, a moment between swallowing one grape and popping in the next.

Shin was very reluctantly glad his glare couldn't kill, if only because his superiors would have been cross with him if he murdered their prisoner after all the effort it had taken to capture her. Even if most of that effort had been on her part.

If she just so happened to drop dead, however, of her own volition, without him having any hand in it and thus no need to take personal responsibility…

Well, he was pretty sure it wouldn't bother him too much.

"I've never had grapes before, you know," she said, before eating another one.
"We can't grow 'em this far north, so I only read about them in books. Surprised you guys even have any, considering how long you musta traveled to get here."

"Mobile freezers," Shin said tersely. "It helps morale to have some luxuries on ice. Breaks up the monotony of military rations."

"I'd say it's workin' then. My morale's doing pretty good, all things considered."

"I'm so glad to hear that," Shin said, voice duller than a baseball bat.

Shiden beamed.

"-yes, exactly! Threw himself straight into battle, and he risked everything to do it!" came the irritated voice of Kiriya Nouzen from somewhere outside the window. Probably talking to Grethe, if Shin had to guess, bonding over a shared love for complaining about everything Shin did.

"What did we tell him, time and time again? Be careful. And what does he do? He starts a fight with a dozen Legion!"

Shin slapped his hand to his forehead.

"Friend of yours?" Shiden asked, still not putting away the fucking grapes.

"Family."

"Even worse, then."

"Yes."

Grethe's reply was sluggish with freshly shaken-off sleep, but bright with an enthusiasm so energetic the sound alone could have powered lightbulbs. "Right, right… but you're telling me he saved a girl? A girl his age?" A pause, pregnant with gravitas. "Is she pretty?"

Shiden grinned. "Looks like your CO's got her priorities straight," she said.

"That is not the point Lieutenant-Colonel. We made it very clear to him that the mission was reconnaissance only. Combat was to be a last resort-"

"He rescued a pretty girl on the battlefield, even though she was from the enemy side… And you say he even nursed her back to health? And she volunteered to go with him after?" Her voice indicated she was perhaps five seconds off from squealing.

Shin pushed his hand into his forehead so hard he was surprised it didn't pierce straight through his brain. Shiden laughed like a lunatic, one arm curled over her stomach as she put a hand over her mouth to stifle down her laughter.

"Lieutenant-Colonel-" Kiriya tried to cut in, choosing to manifest their shared genes by speaking in the exact same sick-of-your-shit tone Shin had defaulted to all night.

"It really is just like A Rose Blooms! I'm so excited to meet her!"

Shiden did just barely manage to grate out a few words in between fits of suppressed laughter.

"She your- big sister- or something?"

"No. And she'll never be. Not in a million years."

"Shiiiiinnn-kuuunn~" Grethe sing-songed as she swept into the holding cell. Kiriya followed behind. His face suggested he was equally split between feeling sorry to have inflicted Grethe Wenzel on Shin, and feeling vindictively satisfied that Shin's recklessness was being appropriately punished.

"Who's your new frieeeennd?"

Shin offered a firm salute, holding a candle-flicker hope that a show of professionalism might stave off the worst of her theatrics.

"Lieutenant-Colonel. This is Processor Shiden Iida of Halberd Squadron - a soldier of the Republic. She volunteered to help us in our mission."

Grethe straightened and squared her shoulders. For a moment Shin was allowed to believe the universe might not be so cruel a place after all.

"Pleasure to meet you, Iida," she said, sticking her open hand through the bars. Shiden shook it, and as they shook, Grethe destroyed Shin's hopes with a whisper.

"You should know that our Shin-kun is very popular with the ladies, so if you want him, you should snatch him up quick."

Shin groaned. Shiden, to his absolute horror, seemed to consider her advice with an air of seriousness.

"That so? Bein' honest, I don't usually go for pretty boys. They're hot, don't get me wrong, but most of 'em are even more delicate on the inside than they are on the out." She shrugged her elbow in Shin's direction. "I gotta say the jury's still out on him."

"He's a real softy," Grethe agreed. "But hey, so, Kiri-chan over here-" ('Kiri-chan' looked very much ready to commit murder) "-was super stingy on details. BUT, he did say Shin saved you from a Legion ambush. Is that true?"

"No, I said that he recklessly endangered himself to-"

"That's right," Shiden said, speaking blithely over Kiriya as if he weren't desperately trying to make a point. "But it's only half the story. Not that it's your fault, Kiri-chan. I bet Shin didn't even tell you the other half."

"If I get called that one more time…"

"Yeah, he saved my ass out there. Twice, if you count the bandaids," Shiden said, tapping her bandaged abdomen, "but I saved his too."

Grethe, having pulled out one of the chairs and sat down near the bars, leaned forward with great interest. "Really?"

"Really. He was torching up some small fry, right? With that flame-thrower. But there was a Grauwolf, got too close to him. It was about this close to dicin' up his Juggernaut like a metal onion, and him inside it. Seriously, dude woulda been meat if not for me."

Grethe nodded furiously, eyes sparkling.

"No," Shin interjected. "I would have been fine. The blade would've destroyed the SHADE, but I was going to dodge the next one."

"You saved my prototype?!" Grethe squealed. "Shiden-chan you angel!"

"Yep, yep," Shiden said, waving off the praise as if it were perfectly natural. And of course completely ignoring everything Shin said.

"So here I am, right? I just crashed into this building. My side's numb, I look down and there's a piece of metal the size of your mom lodged in my gut, and blood's pumping outta me like a fucking faucet. Feel like I'm three inches from dying, but I can still hear the battle from outside my Juggernaut. And I'm not about to let whoever jumped in to fight for my sorry ass do it alone."

As he listened, Kiriya seemed to lose some of his murderous anger. The traitor.

"I keep a rocket launcher stowed on the outside of my Juggernaut, just in case I ever need one. And what do you know, I guess I did. So I hop out and grab it, and I start to head downstairs. Except, when I'm holding the launcher with both hands, I can't keep the hole in my kidney plugged. So I gotta one-hand the bitch.

"But we do what we have to, right? I get downstairs. Vision's blurry, feel like I'm two steps from blacking out the whole way, and I'm at the entrance when my legs go numb. Gotta lean up against the doorway just so's I don't keel over then and there. I bring up the launcher, and I see two Grauwolves and some fancy-ass Juggernaut that I figure's prolly the one that saved me. The Juggernaut sets one of them on fucking fire, as you do I guess, but the next one comes up from behind, and I see it real clear. I can tell the Juggernaut ain't gonna have enough time to dodge."

She mimed the stance she took, left side braced against the wall, right hand on the handle, head dipping down to align the sights. Even just holding out her arm on its own without any extra weight her hand was trembling. Shin wondered how shaky she must have been when she was taking aim at the moment itself, both Undertaker and the Grauwolf being palm-sized targets at that distance. And yet the shot couldn't have been more accurate. Just a fluke? No. Something told him the concepts of 'fluke' and 'Shiden Iida' didn't occupy the same philosophical sphere.

"So I take the shot," she said, and gave a lazy, one-shoulder shrug. "Not much more to it than that."

A pause followed after. A silence shortly broken by Grethe sniffling loudly. "So you both saved each other. That's even better…" she said in a tone of borderline reverence. "I always knew romance wasn't dead…! The movies weren't lying!"

Kiriya flashed a smile of profound kindness, black irises warm. "Thank you, Shiden," he said softly, his voice giving no hints whatever of the murderous intentions it had carried just minutes prior.

"I owe you a debt for saving Shinei's life." (The prototype. Shin amended firmly in his head. That's the only thing she saved.) "Never hesitate to call on the name of Nouzen if ever you need it," he said with a very distinct tone that Shin recognized, but refused to dignify: the tone that countless older brothers throughout history had used when they'd finally come around and accepted the hopeful young girl or guy who hoped to court their younger sibling.

Which was… No.

"Soooo…" Grethe asked, voice trailing. "When's the wedding?"

Shiden burst out laughing.

And Shin. Wanted. To. Die.

—

That debriefing (read: emotional torture session) was about as far as they got for the morning. Shiden didn't touch on anything that might help the mission itself, the state of the Republic or any explanation of what she meant when she said that Shourei had betrayed the 86. Grethe and Kiriya didn't push her for it, either.

For all that the four of them were military soldiers each with responsibilities and tasks to attend to and people to come home to as soon as they could, there was an unspoken agreement between them. Leave it to tomorrow. Plans and second steps would come together much more firmly after Shiden's wounds had a little more time to heal, and when Shin wasn't nursing black bags under his eyes.

Shin looked out the barred window of the mobile jail. He listened for the sounds of Grethe's footsteps. Waited for them to fade into the distance. And by the time they did, after a long stretch of minutes on account of his sharpened hearing stretching far and full, the sky had begun to take on shades of navy blue, brightening inexorably with the dawn.

"They're fun, your brother and sister," Shiden said. Shin glanced back over his shoulder at her.

"I told you, they're not my siblings." He tried for exasperation, but his voice only came out tired. It had been a long day. "Kiriya and I are only faintly related. We're not even cousins. I would have to get a family tree if I wanted to know exactly what we are. And Grethe's just crazy. She likes to play pretend."

Crimson lips quirked in a lopsided smile, Shiden tilting her head as she regarded him. "Seemed real enough to me," she said.

Shin smiled back, just faintly. So faintly he was sure she wouldn't notice a change at all, and yet she seemed to all the same, when her smile deepened at the corners.

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" he said.

A pause.

"She always that, uh, direct about your love life?"

"Unfortunately. It seems to be her favorite subject, for God-only-knows whatever reason."

Shiden nodded. She reached out for the tray again, but only woody brambles remained, all the grapes picked off about half an hour ago.

"Not yours, I guess?"

"Love? No. Not really."

Another.

"Does the flirtin' bother you?" she asked with a look of ever-so-slight apprehension. "I don't mean anything by it. Well… not too much, anyway. I flirt with just about anyone I like the look of, long as they could take me in a fight." She glanced down through the corners of her eyes in thought. "Come to think of it, that's not very many people actually," she said, and chuckled.

Shin wondered. Did it bother him? When he asked himself the question, the answer didn't come quickly. Something seemed to. Not the flirting itself, he figured. He'd dealt with that before. Grethe wasn't kidding when she said he was popular; he'd attended an academy during his all-too-short civilian days, and was often on the receiving end of too-long touches and high-pitched laughter at jokes he didn't tell. It never unbalanced him.

But there was something specifically about Shiden that did.

He had to think about it. Cross over freshly-made memories and think of all the moments where emotion had broken through where normally it wouldn't. And there were many. More than was usual for him. It didn't take him long to realize that most of those feelings had been one variant or another of annoyance.

The same annoyance Kette used to cause him.

She and Shiden had a similar way of talking, he realized, blunt and to the point and smiling all the while. Or grinning. Or baring their teeth and calling it a grin. They also shared the same habit of poking out people's boundaries solely to figure out the best ways to toe right past them. Had the same talent to speak just one or two words and instantly piss Shin off.

"…Yes," he admitted, finally answering her question. "It does. A little bit."

Because it reminded him of what he did to her.

At some point Shin had stopped looking at her. He watched the world outside the window, his view run through with iron bars. He watched the stars melt with the daylight, winking out one-by-one, and then in tens, and then in their entirety.

"Oh, okay" she said. "I'll lay off it, then."

"Just like that?"

Kette wouldn't have given up.

"Just like that. Be a little gauche not to, considering."

"Considering what?"

"That you're grieving. Your eyes are so cold. Could tell just from looking at you that you've lost some people. It leaves a mark."

Shin had nothing to say to that. He wondered if he should have. But at those words his heart froze solid, all feeling murdered within him. His lungs were tight and no words came out.

"Hurts to think about, don't it? Like a splinter stuck just a little too deep in your skin. The kind that when you dig at it, try to get it out, you only ever manage to make yourself bleed. Makes you wanna just live with the pain you got, try to ignore it so's you don't make it worse."

Shin leaned forward, hands on the windowsill. The dawn continued to brighten. The first shades of hesitant orange took hold on the horizon.

"We've all got a ghost or two out here, Shin. It's just the way of it for us." She paused, seeming to hesitate. "Mine's named Shana."

There was a sudden rawness in her voice. A pain and faraway longing characteristic of grief with years put behind it, but not enough of them. This was a grief for which there could never be enough. When Shin heard that deeply seeded melancholy, even just once, he knew that he and Shiden were not the same.

"I'm sorry," Shin murmured. His throat felt tight and dry.

"Yeah. Me too."

Maybe there should have been more. Words between them; a touch, hand on shoulder to reaffirm some warmth; even something as small as a single shared look. But there wasn't. Shin continued to stare out the window as Shiden's voice trailed to silence, holding that moment without motion, sound or heat. He held it until that critical portion of the dawn when the sun breached the horizon, and annihilated the night beneath shades of gold.

Shin watched the sun rise until it became too bright and he had to look away, and when he did he made sure to turn counter-clockwise, so he wouldn't have to see Shiden for even a moment. So that Shiden wouldn't see what she must have missed - that Shin hadn't lost Kette, nor any of the others whose voices he no longer heard. Whose faces had begun to melt from memory.

Vance and Tori. His father and mother. He hadn't lost them; he'd taken them. Those he hadn't killed with his own two hands were dead because of him all the same. Because he was a tainted child who only brought misery to those who loved him. Because he was a traitor who took hold of the hand that fed and pried off its fingernails one after one. Because he was the grim reaper bringing death wherever he went, the ferryman at the river Styx, hauling his bounty of stolen souls.

Because he was the Undertaker.

He went to the door. Paused for an imperceptibly short moment. Pushed through and was gone.

Have a happy Saturday!

I was hiking the other day and decided to climb a radio tower near the mountain's summit. There was no ladder, and the first ten feet of the tower had this steel sheeting over it that I guess was put there to deter folks like me, but they underestimated my sheer stubborn stupidity. There was like this power-pylon thing connected to a shack, that connected to the tower, and it was held up by these steel support poles. So I fireman shimmied up one of them, which let me access the tower itself, then I climbed that sumbitch straight to the top.

I kinda just sat there for awhile, because the day was gorgeous and the tower was on top of the mountain, so I could see forever. Right out to the horizon line, and it was gorgeous. I wish I could share pictures on this thing. While I was chilling, a couple hikers from below came up the trail and saw me. We kind of just stared at each other for a moment, before I waved awkwardly, and they waved awkwardly back. Then we had a wonderful long distance shouting conversation.

It was a good day.

- Verbosity