"86th District," Western Theater
April 16th, Stellar Year 2146
—
"Is he dead?"
"No. Well, I don't think he is…" her voice trailed. "But Shin, your brother, he…
"He betrayed us."
Shin said nothing, only pushed Undertaker back into a steady canter, silent across the snow.
"That probably doesn't mean much to you. I mean, you mighta saved my life, but we're basically strangers. And my people are nothing to you, but Rei's your brother, and-"
"What did he do?"
Shin faced his HUD, but he could feel her gaze on the back of his head, sharp and curious at the tone of his voice. It was cold even to his own ear. At the thought of his brother, he felt anger. Why was that? Why in this place, after all this time? It was a furious, cold intensity. Anger of a kind he could barely comprehend, it was so vast.
"It's a long story," she said.
Shin gave no reply. His silence prompted her to continue.
"Four years ago, he and his soldiers came to the 86th District. Halberd Squadron went out to meet them. The Captain at the time, a girl named Alice, was the one who found him. I was ten back then. Wouldn't be conscripted for another two years, but we all heard the stories, even in the camps. The exile from the Empire, come to offer the 86 a chance at freedom.
"He went to all the Squadrons' bases in his Juggernaut, painted black and crimson. Said they were the colors of his clan. He even visited a few of the internment camps, the ones the Republic didn't keep guard over. Like mine. Everywhere he went, he told his story. Said the Empire was still alive. Said he and his soldiers had made it across the no-mans-land to get to us. Said that if we came back with him, fought with him, he would get us all homes in the Capital. No more fighting. No more dying. We'd be behind the Legion, not in front of them.
"I guess that means we'd be on the same side as the Legion, but at that point most of us didn't care about what was right or wrong anymore. Rei came to us with a chance to get away from the 86th District. We wanted to take it."
Shiden's voice wavered. She stopped talking, and Shin was left in silence, not a single sound from Undertaker's servos, no purr of the engine or steel whir of servos. He passed by the lonely, snow-plastered ruins of shattered buildings. Solemn corpses of Legion and Feldress both.
"About a year later, he was singing a different tune. The white pigs' tune. He got on the communication relays - the systems they have at all the bases, where orders come from the Republic - and he told everyone that the Republic was going to change. He spat out some bullshit about how everything we went through, our fucking genocide, was only on the shoulders of a few evil men. Rei said he made sure they were punished for it.
"He said the rest of the government was going to do better. They'd make things right for us 86. Get us behind the wall, make us citizens, make us equal. Nobody believed him at first. The white pigs making things right? Gotta be a joke, and not even a funny one. But then other people started getting on the relay too. People some of us had known for years, and they were all talking about how they were chefs or artists or writers now. Said they didn't have to fight anymore.
"Do you get it, Shin? We had hope. When your brother came to us, he gave us hope for the first time since this nightmare started. He made us believe there were better days ahead for us. He promised us things would be better, if we fought for it."
There was anger in her voice now. The anger of betrayal.
"The worst part is how many people still don't get that he was lying."
—
"We call them the Bleached," Shiden said, thumping her fist on the war-room table.
She was dressed in a Federacy outfit, steel-blue dress shirt and smart slacks accented with a deep red trim. It wasn't a military uniform or anything of the sort, but Kiriya thought it made a good change over her previous attire of tattered combat fatigues. The color scheme matched Shinei's flight suit as well, which he was sure Grethe appreciated.
"The 86 who turned their backs on us," she continued. "The bastards who took Rei's deal. They live behind the Gran Mur, or right outside it on the safe side of the minefield. They eat white pig food and sleep in white pig sties, and in return they get trained to oink on command. 'The Republic's changed,' they'll say to any 86 who'll listen. 'The old government who enacted order 6609 is gone. The new government is trying to fix their mistake.'"
The bitter fury in the girl's voice was unmistakable. She made no effort to keep it from showing on her face. Kiriya could understand. It was a misery like none other to be betrayed. It hollowed out the soul.
"After four years of genocide, why would the government even try to change?" Grethe asked softly.
"'Cause they knew you'd show up. The Empire or the Federacy or whatever you call yourselves. Eventually you'd come knocking, and when you opened the doors you'd see a lot of not-so-pretty things, and maybe you'd start asking some not-so-pretty questions.
"Before Rei, their plan was to eliminate all of the 86 by the time the war ended, so there'd be no one left to tell the truth. But after Rei showed up on their door and showed 'em the Empire was still alive and kicking - and kicking strong if they could get a human soldier past the Legion - it got them thinking that maybe they'd have to do something a little more clever. It'd be impossible to hide all the evidence, especially on short order, but it's a hell of a lot easier to pin the blame on someone else, like a conveniently dead president. And that gets more convincing when you can train a bunch of former victims to say exactly what you need them to."
"They're trying to rewrite history," Grethe concluded. "And use the Bleached as their mouthpieces."
Shiden twisted her lip in a sneer to show exactly what she thought of her traitor kin.
"The Republic put up posters everywhere. All over the bases, the camps, even the ruins closer to the wall. I remember one of 'em with this hot Rubella girl; ginger hair, huge tits, working in this cute little pastel cafe. Their way of sayin' that we could be her if we wanted to. Or maybe do her," she added, and laughed. "Just head to any of the induction stations and they'll take you behind the wall, and soon enough it could be you baking pretty croissants in flowery pink ovens."
She laughed again. Bitterly this time.
"But nothing's actually changed. I'd bet my perfect chocolate ass there aren't even a dozen Bleached who hold jobs in cute cafes. Almost all of 'em end up in the military for one reason or another. And sure, they might go to the same academies as the Alba, drink the same liquor, have the same kinds of parties. I've heard they're even training some of the white pigs to operate Juggernauts. But when it comes to actually fighting, who do you think they send first? I'll tell you, I've pried open a few downed Juggernauts in the last couple years since they started this whole thing, and I ain't seen a single Alba inside any of them.
"Better not complain about it though," she said, and showed teeth in a steel grin. "Better not say a single bad word about the new government, or you go right back outside the wall, where you'll still die, but you won't get a single drop to drink before you do."
Kiriya listened on in contemplative silence. It seemed as if Shinei had heard most of this before, judging by the disinterest in his face, but then again, Shinei almost always looked disinterested.
"Some of us still have our pride. We don't need Alban booze to keep fighting, and we damn sure won't take their handouts. We'd rather live free, not shackled to comfy chairs. But there ain't many of us left, and we're dyin' faster all the time - the Republic doesn't mind sending their obedient piggies to the slaughter, but they'd rather let the wild ones go first."
She pressed her hands to the table, fingers splaying out, eyes downcast and hooded.
"Us 86 are used to fighting, and dyin' too, and we're no strangers to suffering. But we always suffered together. That was what made it bearable - our line in the sand, you know?" She heaved a long sigh, and suddenly all her anger, her vibrant force of personality and easy humor seemed to take on a physical weight, sagging her spirit down and revealing a core of hard-packed despondency. "But nothing could've prepared us for being turned against each other like this."
She shot a look between the three of them, first to Grethe and then to Kiriya, lingering last and longest on Shinei. Kiriya did not miss the way he glanced away, unwilling to meet her gaze.
"You asked for a history lesson. Now you got it. What else you need from me?"
Kiriya and Grethe shared a glance. "Nothing, for now," Grethe said. "Thank you, Shiden-chan."
She clicked her tongue. "Shiden's fine. That '-chan' shit stopped fitting on me years ago."
"I'll remember that, Shiden."
She gave a terse nod.
"Shin. Come with me, there's somethin' I wanna talk with you about."
Shiden didn't wait for a reply. Her tall form pushed through the swishing flaps of the command tent and melted into the daylight. Kiriya's ears might not have been as sharp as Shinei's, but he could still catch the sound of her footsteps in motion, growing distant. Apparently she wasn't waiting around, and expected implicitly that Shinei would follow. He looked annoyed at this.
"It's rude to keep a lady waiting, Shin," Grethe said.
"Doesn't seem to me like she's doing much waiting," Shinei said stubbornly, but walked out anyway, leaving Kiriya and Grethe behind in the war tent.
They stayed as they were, Kiriya planting his arms over the table, studying the map as Grethe lit a cigarette between her fingers. Her eyes were set idly on the beam of light pouring through the gap in the tent flaps. The same direction Shiden went.
"Did Shin tell her about our mission here?" Grethe asked.
"I'm unsure. But she spoke as if she didn't know," Kiriya said. "Does Shin know what our mission is?"
He felt it was a valid question. The boy's actions - breaking stealth for an unrelated local, revealing his identity to them, bringing them back to a camp whose location was supposed to be kept secret - suggested that he may have forgotten.
"He should. We sat through the same briefing: track down Rei's signal; recover him if he's still alive; give him his last rites if he isn't."
"And you know that this is as far as our task goes. We have no other obligations. The local politics are interesting, but not our concern."
Though merely an offshoot of a Nouzen branch family, Kiriya was still a noble. He understood the politician's art of double-speak perfectly well. And although Grethe was not nobility, she was the scion of the largest military-development company in the Federacy. She would understand his subtext.
Those questions were unnecessary. You're going to get yourself involved in something you shouldn't.
"On paper," Grethe said. "In reality, the expedition wouldn't be carrying three dozen diplomats and historians in tow if that was all we came here for. Rei's signal was being broadcast from the old capital of the Republic; the thought of making contact with another country who survived the Legion was the only reason this mission got approved."
The briefing was just a front. Getting involved is the mission. At least as far as those in power are concerned.
"What are you suggesting, Lieutenant-Colonel?"
She took one last drag from her cigarette before tapping it out into the ashtray. There was a sharp look in her amethyst eyes. A look that Grethe would never wear if Shinei were present. She was too committed at trying to be the older sister he never had (and never wanted) to show him the depth of raw calculation that ran through the core of her being.
"I'm suggesting we don't know enough about this place."
"I agree," Kiriya said, cautiously because he got the feeling she had more to say than just that.
"And when you don't know enough, the first thing you should do is acquire a lay of the land."
Kiriya said nothing.
"Shiden spoke of Rei with a bit of familiarity, didn't she? She might have even met him herself. Or her squadmates could have. How much could we ask of them, do you think? Maybe they even have connections behind the Gran Mur. Her Squadron could be an asset to us."
"Favors beget favors, Lieutenant-Colonel. They'll expect us to help them in turn."
"Yes, they will."
There was an edge of certainty in her voice, as if she'd made a decision already.
"Expectations are a great thing, Kiriya. Expectation warps perception. What we need is information. Halberd Squadron can help us acquire that. If we share with them what we already needed to learn for ourselves, they would perceive it as a favor repaid, and be liable to help us again in the future."
There it was: the puppet-master in her. Perhaps the same puppet-master that lay in all people of great intelligence, the drive to manipulate that came from always possessing the means to do so, and the creativity to fabricate a motive just as easily.
"And if they instigate a rebellion? And implicate the Federacy in the process? That's not the kind of diplomatic incident you can talk your way out of, ma'am."
"We founded the Federacy through rebellion, Kiriya. Our nation is built on a bedrock of ideals. If the state of the Republic truly is as dire as Shiden says it is, and President Zimmerman were here to see it, he wouldn't leave it as it stands. He would urge the country to change. And if it did not, he would force it to change."
"You've lost me. Are you planning to use the 86, or help them?"
"Right now, the former. But if it's worth helping them, and their cause is right, I don't see why we shouldn't. It's what the President would order of us."
"The President isn't here, Lieutenant-Colonel. We are; some three hundred travelers far from home with limited supplies and families to come back to. If you think we should make contact with the Republic, I will not argue. But there is a difference between that and aiding a rebellion."
For all his adherence to regulation, Kiriya had never been afraid to glare at a superior officer. He did so now, black eyes sharp as obsidian.
"I understand the value of ideals, ma'am, but this goes too far. We do not belong to this country. We have no responsibility for its people. So why would you have us risk everything for them?"
"I have many reasons, Kiriya," Grethe said, and smiled, lips curling in a blood-red crescent. "The least of which is that the Republic may no longer appear to be engaged in genocide, but it's all-too-possible they've just slapped a new coat of paint over their operation. If Shiden's testimony is correct, they haven't changed at all; they're just being more opaque about it. President Zimmerman would not stand for this. And neither will I."
"If Shiden's testimony is correct," Kiriya pointed out. "We don't know that it is. She only offers one perspective."
At that, Grethe's smile deepened a touch.
"Correct. Any talk of rebellion gets us well ahead of ourselves. Like planning our hundredth step when we haven't even taken our first - so let's talk about that instead."
"And what would your first step be?"
"Recon," Grethe said sharply. "Infiltration, to be blunt. You're right; we don't know enough, and what information Shiden has for us is one-sided, to say the least. But we can learn more before we make any final decisions." She glanced again at the tent flaps through which Shinei had left. "We have the Silent Reaper in our midst, after all."
"No."
Kiriya spat the word from his mouth like it had been accompanied by virulent poison.
"I refuse. You are not going to send Shinei to wear false faces and earn the trust of friends he'd be later pressed to murder. I won't let you."
"It's not your choice to make, Kiriya. You're not his father."
"You're right, I'm not - because Reisha Nouzen died for the sake of a clan that went on to exploit his child until he broke. You didn't see him when he first came to us, Lieutenant-Colonel. He didn't speak for a year. For a month after he woke up, he wouldn't eat or drink at all. He would sit in his bed and stare at the ceiling for hours until he fell asleep - I fed him by hand, every single day. He would have died if I hadn't."
Kiriya gripped the edge of the table hard enough to white his knuckles.
"I won't let that happen to him again."
Grethe's amethyst eyes softened. She studied Kiriya's face for a long moment, in which she plucked and lit another cigarette from a pack in her shirt pocket. She took a drag before she carried on.
"Shin's brother is somewhere behind that wall, 2nd Lieutenant. We have to find him. Even if we were to shelf all thoughts on the local politics, we still need to enter the Republic to accomplish that objective. And I would rather we do it secretly until we have a proper lay of the land."
"Why? What will secrecy earn us that honesty would not?"
Grethe quirked an odd half-smile.
"The only time you'll see a person be truly honest is when they think no one's watching." She took another drag. Held the smoke in her mouth before releasing it in a silky cloud. "We know nothing about Shourei's place behind the wall. For all we know, he's a prisoner one wrong move from execution. And that wrong move could well be the arrival of diplomats from his home country."
"Or he could be in a place of power as an adviser or honored guest, waiting for the chance to welcome us into the Republic," Kiriya countered. "Or he could be a four-year-old skeleton in a shallow grave a hundred kilometers east, and all this discussion is rendered moot."
"Agreed. He could be anything. He could be in any situation, or in any amount of danger. Until we know for certain, caution is best. And that means being quiet."
Kiriya glowered down at the map spread across the table, chewing on her words and wishing they could be less accurate.
"We could send someone else."
Grethe's face suggested this would have been a wonderful idea if it were possible. Somehow that only angered him more.
"We have no one else. Never mind the expedition, Shin's the best infiltrator in the whole Federacy. If you'd been on my side of the war you'd know it. The Silent Reaper was a myth that killed, and no one would have guessed it was a boy not even into double-digits at the core of it. I certainly hadn't, until Ernst slid his file across my desk."
Kiriya grit his teeth. Balled his hands into his fists at his side. She spoke of Shin like she hadn't gushed to him about cheap romance movies barely a week after meeting him. Like he was some interesting specimen, and not the boy she'd been befriending over the last two months. Like he wasn't the younger brother Kiriya would have marched a hundred barefooted miles for just to see him give one genuine smile.
"So that's it, then?" he hissed. "You acted like his older sister this whole time, made a fool of yourself in front of him and me both, all so you could earn his trust for this moment? So you could make sure he won't refuse when you give him this order?"
Grethe regarded him coldly. "You're being unfair, Kiriya."
"I don't think I am."
"You think combat is better for him? That he's perfectly safe as long as he's in a Reginleif? Because you never said anything like this when I deployed him into battle."
"Shin's strong. He's a far better operator than most men twice his age, and it does him no harm to kill Legion."
Grethe's laughter was cold too. "Spoken like a true Nouzen. You really were born in a warrior-clan, weren't you, Kiriya? Do you actually think combat doesn't harm a child's mind as long it's not humans they're killing? You think the stress doesn't affect him?"
"What you plan for him would be worse."
"Would it really? He'd be off the battlefield. Shiden mentioned academies. Shin's the perfect age for a military academy, and I couldn't think of a better way to gather the information we need while keeping him safe."
Kiriya stepped around the war-table with fluid grace, marching to within inches of her, locking eyes. A curl of smoke off the glowing tip of her cigarette was all the barrier between them.
"The last time he was assigned undercover, he was eight years old. He came back broken. I still don't know everything he had to do while he was among the rebels. He refuses to speak about it. But if your mission does that to him again, I swear on the name of Nouzen that I will murder you, Grethe Wenzel."
Crimson lips quirked at the corners into a slight crescent. The soft purple of her eyes held a gentle light. She took another drag on the cigarette, and that inhale of breath was the only sound that filled the tent. Within that sphere of quiet, standing face-to-face with her solemn expression, Kiriya's anger seemed suddenly, somehow misplaced.
"I was going to be married, you know," she said.
Whispered - her voice was little louder than the breath between her lips.
"I met him before the rebellion. He wasn't even a soldier then. Just an engineer working on the floor of my father's factory. But he enlisted when the fighting started. He said it would be shameful if he were to stay safe and sheltered while his fiancée was on the front lines."
She took the cigarette out her mouth and flung it in a perfect arc into the ashtray. There it smoldered into ash.
"We talked a lot about the family we would have when the war was over. He wanted a daughter, I wanted a son. He'd say we could have both, and I'd laugh."
She held Kiriya's gaze.
"I didn't really care what kind of son I might have. He could be smart or dumb, fast or slow. He could spend his afternoons reading books or going out to parties, or both, or neither. But whatever person my son would be, I wanted him to be kind. That's how I would raise him."
Kiriya tried to speak. Grethe put a finger on his lips and silenced him.
"Shin is kind. I don't think he realizes it. If he does, then he tries his hardest to bury it in battle. He believes fighting is all he's good for, and you're too much a Nouzen to realize how damaging that is. Over time it'll break him as surely as anything else. Shin is someone who needs to be needed. That's why he keeps going out into battle day after day. I want to give him a task where he'll still be useful without having to fight."
Kiriya stepped back from her. Grethe stepped forward.
"Shin is not my son, he'll never be my son, and I'd never pretend at it. But he's a child, and I'm an adult, and that makes it my responsibility to do right by him. He needs time away from the battlefield. Productive time away - a vacation would only make him feel guilty, as I'm sure you saw over the the last two years."
Kiriya wanted to deny her, but could not. Shin had been at peace for an entire two years before joining the expedition, and he had been miserable every single day. It was his place on the battlefield - his valuable, necessary place - that brought him purpose. But even Kiriya was aware of how unhealthy that was. To cope with combat, one had to discard necessary parts of themselves. Sometimes those parts returned. Sometimes they didn't. Sometimes they came back chipped and worn, sanded away bit by bit with every battle until eventually there was nothing left that could come back.
Grethe's words were logical. Her approach was kind and thoughtful. Yet even so, Kiriya couldn't help but remember sterile white walls and the smell of antiseptic chemicals. A boy with a bandaged throat and eyes like two discs of frozen blood. Empty, lightless eyes staring out at nothing.
"Lying doesn't suit him, Grethe. And like I said-"
"He came back broken. I know, you've made that clear, and I understand. But it'll be different this time. For one thing, it won't be the Nouzens giving him his orders. That'll be my job alone."
She clasped his hands in hers.
"It'll be okay, Kiriya. Shin will be okay. I'll make sure of it."
Kiriya looked at her hands for a moment. They were warm.
"I still don't like it," he said.
"You don't like anything, grumpy-pants."
Kiriya's eyes flashed down at the red curve of her lips, the point of her chin and the shirt-collar beneath it. He looked up again. He shook off her grip, but not unkindly.
"Take care of him," he said tersely. "Or rather, make sure he takes care of himself. He'll forget the most basic necessities if you don't remind him daily."
"Is that your way of giving me permission, Kiri-chan?"
Kiriya said nothing. He stepped back from her again, and this time she didn't follow. He turned toward the exit.
"Will you take it back?" she asked just as he put his hand on the tent flaps.
"What?"
"When you said I was only manipulating him so he would agree to my orders, it really hurt my feelings. Could you take it back?"
Kiriya glanced back at her. He studied her face, kind eyes framed below warm, short-cut blond hair. He knew the calculation that ran beneath her surface. For someone of her intellect, manipulation came as naturally as breathing. She understood the human mind too well, its impulses and drives, its motivations, and how easy it was to push these forces around with a single expression or a few choice words.
And yet despite himself, Kiriya wanted to believe in her.
"Yeah," he said. "I'm sorry for saying that to you, Lieutenant-Colonel."
Her smile was radiant.
—
They settled the base camp on a relatively flat plateau halfway up the east side of a small mountain, shielded from the Republic's view by its alpine slope. In the two days since the camp had been set-up, Vargus pathfinders had been hard at work. They had managed to establish a network of trails snaking through and around the grounds for the purposes of hunting, gathering, training, and simple recreation. Shiden led Shin up one of those trails now.
Eventually they came to a stop at a rocky overlook, blocks of flat granite providing a seat from which one could see miles of snow-covered plains stretching westward to the Republic. The wind, blowing strong and cold had cleared the rocks of snow, leaving a seat for them, their legs dangling over the ledge.
"Since trying to read your expressions is more useless than a condom on a cucumber, I guess I'll just come out and ask ya," Shiden said during a lull between the gusting wind. It was the first thing she'd said since she asked him to follow her out here.
"Why are we still on the same side, Shin?"
Shin sat nearly two arms' lengths away from her, looking down past his folded hands to the white ground far below, though he glanced up at her as she spoke.
"Been thinking about it since that first night, after I told you what your brother did. Like I said, me and my people, we should be nothing to you. When I told you Rei betrayed us, you shoulda turned right around and… I dunno. Did something? I mean, if I'm your brother's enemy, that should make me your enemy too, right?"
She ran a hand through her reddish-brown hair.
"I'm not built for thinkin' Shin. So I'd appreciate it if you could clear up some of my confusion."
It was, unbeknownst to her, a tall order. Shin thought to lie. Not to deflect the question, but because he thought it would be easier than trying to explain his serpentine meander of the truth. But for no reason he could understand, no lies came to mind. The truth was all he had left.
So he told it. He recalled a conversation he'd had with Grethe not so long ago, when she'd asked him a similar question. He told Shiden what he'd told her then; that he had no memories of his brother, and no knowledge at all that wasn't given to him by someone else. Not his name and not his face. Nothing.
"When you said he betrayed you… if I were my brother's ally, then yes, it would have meant we'd be enemies. But, truth be told, I don't know what my brother is to me. He's why I came here, but I don't know anything beyond that. I want to find him, but whether that's to rescue him, to help him, or to bury him, I don't know. Maybe I won't ever know unless I see him with my own eyes."
Shiden seemed to think on that for a long time. The bitter wind cut through them both, and Shin saw her shiver from the corner of his eye. She had only her slacks and dress shirt, while Shin's flight suit was thoroughly insulated. Without a word he began to unbutton it.
"Uh, ladykiller, you really think now's the time for it?" she said, eying him sidelong as he stripped off his panzer jacket. "It's kinda cold up here, I'm not really in the mood-"
He draped the jacket around her. Shiden was tall for a girl, standing nearly eye-to-eye with him, but as he put the jacket around her, he noticed, perhaps for the first time, how narrow her shoulders were, how thin her neck, how slender her arms. She was by no means delicate, but she was a girl all the same.
"Idiot," she said. "Now you'll be cold. Come here, let's at least share the damn thing."
They really are alike, aren't they? He thought. You'll kill her too, won't you? Because you're good for nothing else.
"I'm fine," Shin said in a tone of such frigid severity it brooked no argument.
Shiden looked at him for a long moment. She shrugged and looked back over the expanse of snow-blanketed plains.
Shin joined her in that. They said nothing for a time, a silence of contemplation between them. It wasn't entirely uncomfortable. Without the outer shell of his jacket, the wind sliced through his clothing. A wave of goosebumps tightened across his arms and back. The cold stirred something distantly in his mind, not quite remembrance, but something close to it. Words came forward. He decided not to stop them.
"It feels like every memory related to my brother was ripped out of me," he said. "And the hole left behind is the only reason I know he even existed in the first place. I need to see him. At least some trace of him, just to make sure he's not some… figment of my imagination. I know it sounds… idiotic, but-"
"It's not stupid at all," Shiden shot back heatedly. "Our memories are… they're more important than anything! Our memories are what make us people! If you lose them, you lose some of yourself with 'em, and if you lose your memories of a person, then… then it's like a little bit of that person's… their existence gets lost too. They lose some of their mark on the world…" Her voice trailed off as she seemed to become aware of the passion in her voice. She glanced back at Shin with a look of sudden embarrassment, darkening her cheeks. "Or something like that anyway," she tacked on.
Shin found himself smiling. A light, gentle smile he only realized he was making when Shiden began to stare at him like he was a creature she'd never seen before, prompting him to wonder what for, and then to realize the weight of the expression on his face, warm and different to the mask of emotionless placidity he was used to. When he realized it was there, he wanted to wipe the expression away. But he didn't, for whatever reason. Maybe he couldn't.
"What was her name again?" he caught himself asking.
He shouldn't have. He was crossing a line he'd sworn never again to cross, feeling his boundaries shrink and his walls come down, if only by inches. It was because Shiden was so similar to her. It had to be. It was prompting him to make the same mistake.
"What?"
"Your ghost. The one you lost. You told me about her in the jail cell."
"Oh. Her name was Shana." Her voice tightened. Her two-toned eyes took on a sheen of far-away dreaminess that Shin had come to learn was how Shiden expressed her grief. She wasn't one to cry over the ones she lost. She would simply pine after the days they used to share.
"Tell me about her," he said.
I'll remember her with you. To deepen the mark she made on the world.
(you'll murder her like you murder everything else)
"There's a lot to tell," she said in a hoarse whisper.
Shin waited in patient silence.
"Everyone loved her. She was… Shana was everything I wasn't. She was smart, she was gentle, she was kind. Beautiful, too. Gorgeous. Her skin was a drop darker than mine, and she had the prettiest black hair. I don't know how she did it, but it was always perfect. Always. Even right outta bed, it had this way of falling down in these amazing long curls."
Her smile was far-away too. Distant.
"That didn't stop her from fussing over it though. Way too damn much, if you ask me. Morning and night, she'd be at her mirror, combing and brushing and straightening or whatever it is you do with hair that long. I spent a lotta hours outside that girl's bedroom. Every single time I'd wish she could hurry the fuck up."
She sighed.
"Now I wish I could get one more day just like that. Including all that standing around in the hallway."
Once again Shin found himself gazing at the sun as her voice winnowed to silence. This time it was declining, not rising, and this time his view was not run through by iron bars. At some point he'd found himself sitting closer to her, separated by one arm's length rather than two. And this time, he did put a hand tentatively on her hers, and found her fingers were just as cold as his own. She looked back at him, and him at her, and they held each other's gaze for a moment too long, and then both looked away.
"I'll remember her," Shin said.
Shiden, still glancing off to the right, gave a small nod.
"Thank you."
Happy Saturday!
I've got a vacation coming up soon. Come June 13th, your boy is gonna be driving coast-to-coast, all the way from Maine to Cali and back again. I've wanted to do a road-trip like this since I was in middle school (I'm 21 as of today) so I'm super fucking stoked for it. I got my car kitted out for roadside camping; sleeping bag, foam pads, battery-powered fan, the works. It's gonna be fun. I've got a bunch of friends I'm gonna try to meet up with along the way as well. And you best believe I'll be drinking in a different bar every night. Hopefully singing too, if I can find some karaoke joints.
I'm hoping I don't get murdered doing this, but you know, I guess I'm always down for new experiences.
- Verbosity