Area Six, January, a.t.b. 2015
Don Diego de la Vega was not a young man anymore. He and his wife, Esperanza, had been blessed in their forties with a beautiful daughter, and at the tail end of the Emblem of Blood, he had wanted nothing more than to retire with the love of his life to his estate, to raise their daughter and watch their vineyards grow. A few shrewd decisions and smart management of his holdings had caused both them and his wealth to begin to balloon precipitously, of course, but the days of true ambition, where he sought duels and spilt blood in the names and claims of other men and women of higher birth were far behind him, and his heartfelt wish, for the past eighteen years, had been that they remain there, very firmly.
And yet, what with all this foolishness with the higher nobles getting it into their heads that they deserved more than they already had, as well as their idiotic dream of declaring themselves the heirs of the Spanish Empire and 'reclaiming the glories of that bygone age', Diego knew with a weariness that went as deep as his bones that those days were stubborn, and they refused to stay buried. He'd done his best to stay out of it, to keep himself carefully neutral, but even in spite of all his best efforts, it seemed the foolishness was determined to find itself upon his doorstep. He might have laughed, he imagined, if he hadn't been so bleeding tired…
One thousand soldiers were here, rendering assistance to his own men as they cleared up the dead—both that of the enemy, and his own losses (keenly felt, for all that they were low in number)—so that the grass, now glutted upon the blood of invading soldiers, could once again nourish his diminished cattle. He had most of them, enough that it wouldn't even be that lean of a year, and in truth he could absorb the losses from the bottles of wine that he'd had stolen from him, since the really valuable stuff was closely-guarded so that it could age in absolute security—but it was the principle of the thing, really.
Still, life went on; and even in these trying circumstances, Don Diego, only son of the late Don Alejandro, may his soul rest in peace, would not let himself be known as a poor host. That was why he'd had as many of his servants as he could find prepare a hearty midday meal for all the thirteen hundred-plus soldiers who had defended his house from sacking, and that was why he, his wife, and his lovely daughter now hosted four of the twelve devicers who had saved the lives of himself and his family. Among the four, though, was the overall commander of the force that had so relieved them, and she brought with her a new set of troubles that would fester in the back of his mind for months to come, he knew it already.
The girl—for though she may have been a woman grown in the eyes of the law, she was still a child as far as he was concerned—was three and a half years Elena's junior. She wasn't particularly tall, standing perhaps slightly on the shorter end of average height for a girl of Britannia at maybe a hundred and seventy centimetres, with wavy, chin-length raven hair that caught the light with a darkly iridescent sheen like fine silk, and she was already a great beauty. Even in the skin-tight jumpsuit they gave the people who piloted Knightmares ('normal suits', he recalled after a moment)—which matched the girl's outmoded Knightmare Frame, with its colour scheme of black and gold with scarlet accents—and draped in a strange, long black coat with a high, upturned collar and two layers of metal pauldrons, she moved with a grace and elegance that seemed natural and effortless, and not as though it was the product of thousands of hours of seemingly pointless practise and rehearsal until it was muscle memory. It was as though she did not walk, but glode an imperceptible amount above the earth, never truly touching it, nor being bound to it; her fingers were shockingly nimble and deft, but there was not a sliver of wasted motion even in the most grandiose gestures she'd made in his presence since she'd come down from her Knightmare and introduced herself.
Princess Justine vi Britannia, she'd called herself, and she certainly carried herself better than most any prince or princess he'd ever seen, but try though he might, and try he did, he couldn't spot even a sliver of the Emperor in her, nor even any traits she might have taken from the Azure Comet beyond the colour of her hair. Her features were sculpted from ice, not carved from stone, harsh and stark and wicked; even her eyes, despite nominally sharing a colour with His Majesty, could not possibly have looked more different. There was a hardness in the girl, expressed in every glance and every expression, and her voice held the same sort of beauty he'd often witnessed in the blade of an artisanal razor. Even when her haughty mouth shifted into smirks or smiles as she made small talk with Elena and Esperanza, the former of whom seemed quite enthralled with the princess for all that his beloved wife seemed as hesitant as he felt, that hardness was there, and he had to wonder to himself at exactly what manner of upbringing could fashion a girl into something so alien, so subtly inhuman…
Her companions were also very strange, but theirs was a much simpler puzzle: there was a woman in her middle twenties, her tall and willowy frame pressed into a tyrian-and-gold normal suit, whose umbre complexion, straight, shimmering silver hair, and sharply Britannian features combined to made her seem almost exotic in a Justine's effortless grace was nowhere to be seen where this woman was concerned, but she walked as someone who wasn't unused to the harsh realities of sustained combat, with an economy of motion that would have had him wary of her, were he still the duellist he'd been in his youth. She'd introduced herself as Dame Villetta Nu, a baronetess by way of military accomplishment, for all that the more overt oddities of her appearance were as much a series of blatant markers of the woman's illegitimate noble parentage as any he'd seen in his wilder years; and yet, for all that she was an ennobled knight, like many others that he'd befriended and buried, she nonetheless conducted herself with ample courtesy, situating herself at the princess's side in a way that made her position as Princess Justine's aide, and perhaps even her retainer, abundantly clear. Her bright green, almost yellow eyes sparked with a calm, cutting intellect, as well as a formidable cunning, even as Dame Villetta's gaze flitted this way and that in a manner that made it abundantly clear (to Diego's mind, at least) that she was the sort who missed not the slightest detail, even while conducting a conversation. He'd come across those types at various points during his career (for all that they tended to trend towards the rarer side as far as the natures of people he'd encountered went)—and almost without exception, those were the kind you really wanted to have on your side instead of against you. The more he witnessed the by-play between the baronetess and the princess she served, the more certain Diego became that Villetta Nu was in no way likely to find herself breaking from that pattern; the danger she posed was subtle, but nevertheless undeniable, so long as one knew where and how to look for it.
Standing behind the princess, and leaning against the far wall with a plate in hand—a result of some very insistent admonitions from Princess Justine—was a remarkably handsome young man who looked for all the world to have stepped right out of a propaganda poster at an army recruitment office. Much like the rest of the company Diego and his family were entertaining, the strapping poster boy's body was garbed in a navy blue-and-gold normal suit, tall and broad-shouldered, well-muscled and athletic like a rugby player, with windswept teal hair and keen amber eyes that, while they perhaps weren't nearly as perceptive as the aide's, nonetheless remained alert and vigilant. He couldn't possibly be more obviously a trueborn son of the nobility, but the man who had introduced himself as Margrave Jeremiah, heir to the House of Gottwald, had walked into Diego's home with all the unconscious discipline of someone who had done his time and earned his stripes. Far from the sort of spoiled son of a prosperous family that had glutted himself and his gang of hooligans on Diego's wine and cattle, had harassed his tenants and his workers and his servants, leering at his daughter all the while, this one was the proud heir to a martial tradition, and he clearly took that legacy incredibly seriously. In many ways, he was what a powerful nobleman might have considered to be the ideal son. But as there were enough sons and daughters of the Imperial Family to fill several books with, without even mentioning the soldiers that princesses of the realm were traditionally meant to select for themselves, it fell to the unmistakable winged sword pin that Lord Jeremiah wore to clue Diego in on the man's position as the princess's Knight of Honour—though the notable ease with which the knight and the retainer bantered with one another made clear the fact that the pair were old war buddies, whose shared career (provided Diego's powers of deduction had not yet abandoned him in his advancing age) seemed to have been quite colourful indeed.
And to the other side of the princess from the aide was a tall, leanly-muscled girl who walked like a panther, bearing a thick mane of long, wild chestnut-brown hair that was bound back into a high, bushy tail, with what looked like very little of the consideration Diego knew from experience both Esperanza and Elena put into their own hair; her skin was sun-kissed and golden, and that, combined with the almond shape of her jade eyes—bright, questionably-sane, yet undeniably intelligent—made plain her origins in the Orient, though Diego himself was not nearly so well-travelled that he could easily tell apart the various different sorts of people who abided in those lands. Personally, he suspected she hailed from Area Eleven, but the few Orientals he'd encountered during his travels seemed prone to taking great offence at being confused for one another, so he did what he thought was most prudent, and kept any such assertions to himself. The girl's normal suit was in direct contrast to the princess's, white and gold with scarlet accents, and while she was very pretty herself in an exotic sort of way, coming across as every bit as wild as her hair seemed to suggest, but also loud, boisterous, bombastic, and gregarious besides, any attempts he made to study her face in greater detail were almost immediately stymied, as she tore into the food laid out in front of her ravenously, as though she'd linger on the brink of starvation, and they made her seem more like a feral dog than the companion of a princess of the realm. He was almost flattered; many had complimented him on the quality of the table he kept, but none before this one had gone to sate themselves with such gusto, either. She had not even introduced herself properly, before she fell upon the spread they'd put out for their lunch with all the slavering abandon of a wolf bringing down an especially majestic stag with a graceful leap. Juices and grease were smeared across her cheeks and down her chin, and he was fairly certain there were more than a few morsels she'd paid no mind to chewing and simply swallowed whole. He'd seen grown men fail to put down this much this quickly, and it very swiftly put to rest any ideas from his youth of Oriental women as these refined, restrained symbols of demure porcelain—weak, docile women who wedded weak men and thus begat entire litters of weak children. He'd hardly be surprised if this girl, for all that she seemed to be of an age with her royal companion, wound up successfully drinking under the table every soldier, vintner, and cattle-herder in his employ, one after the other.
"You'll have to forgive my friend Suzaku here for her lack of table manners, I'm afraid," Princess Justine began—addressing him directly for the first time since they'd sat down—with an apologetic smile. "She works up quite the appetite while fighting, you see. Burnt through a remarkably significant number of calories that she now needs to replenish with all possible haste. It was not at all our intention to offend the sensibilities of any here present."
The brunette, Suzaku, grunted her agreement for a brief moment before going right back to stuffing her face with meat and cheese and rice and beans. It was, Diego had to admit, something of a comical sight.
"None of us are offended, your highness," replied Esperanza, sounding as though she was making her very best attempt to keep from laughing aloud. Diego wished she wouldn't bother; there had been little enough cause to laugh with their home under siege by highborn wastrel brats who ransacked the place, and he felt their house would be much-improved were his beloved wife to once again find it in herself to fill its halls with laughter, as she once did. "Your friend, she eats with such enthusiasm—I tell you this, the cook will be overjoyed at the compliment her hunger pays to our kitchen…"
"She has done a great thing today," Diego added, following his wife's lead. "Just as you have,your highness—you and your soldiers saved us from quite a dire turn of circumstances. I do not think that words can express the debt of gratitude we owe you and yours."
The princess smiled slightly; and far from appearing tepid, the expression seemed to be incredibly sincere. "Yes, well. We're glad to have arrived when we did, and thus to have prevented any further tragedy that would otherwise have befallen your beautiful estate, Don Diego."
Suzaku, too, grunted her affirmation, but then her consumption suddenly stopped, her body seizing up as her shoulders racked with loud coughing as she choked. Without hesitation, the princess reached over and patted her friend on the back firmly, helping her dislodge the morsel that had gotten stuck in her throat; the girl muttered what sounded like an expression of gratitude under her breath, and then went right back to inhaling the food before her, as though nothing had just happened at all.
"I do not speak idly, your highness," Diego assured the princess, doing his best to put that moment into the past, for all that he took care not to miss a single detail of it, no matter how minute it might have seemed. "If there is any favour you require in recompense, and it is within my ability to grant it, you need only ask."
"Your gratitude is appreciated, Don Diego," Princess Justine said, nodding. "We need only to lodge here for a while. Three days' time, at the absolute most. We'll aid your people in cleaning up the results of the battle, of course, but there are a few things that need doing; namely, we need to salvage the Sutherlands that lay scattered upon the field, to recuperate a bit so that morale can remain high, and last, but not in any way least, we need to decide what is to be done with the prisoners of war that have resulted from this. I do not think it fair or equitable to expect you to quarter them, nor to be responsible for their security, after all."
"I do not have the manpower for such a duty, your highness, on that you are correct," Diego freely admitted, casting a scarred, callused hand out wide as he spoke. "But our Knightmare stables, they have a great degree of unused space, and ample tools to fit any needs that might arise. Though I will say, my own people are only really trained for basic maintenance…"
"No need to worry, Don Diego; I have brought the relevant knowledge along with me," the princess assured him, raising an open hand.
"Why do you come in Glasgows, your highness?" asked Elena—a girl, a young woman of nineteen years, who had inherited her mother's jet-black hair, her lovely hazel eyes, and her bewitching beauty. His daughter was his pride and joy, his and Esperanza's miracle child; there was little of himself he could see in his daughter's appearance (for which he thought her very fortunate indeed), but his own temperament could be seen in nearly every aspect of her nature. In his youth, he'd been direct to the point of tactlessness, and in this moment, she displayed that she took after him in that respect, among others. Of course, it helped to a degree that he was thinking of how to politely phrase the same question. "Aren't Sutherlands the model the army uses these days?"
"Well, I suppose that's the trouble, you see," the princess replied with a strained smile. "We aren't part of the Britannian army—not properly. We were commissioned by His Majesty as an irregular unit. Our task is to delay the rebellion's preparations until such a time that a proper counterforce can be assembled to put it down properly."
Diego sat in stunned silence as he worked through the implications in his mind. His hacienda was in no way cut off from the rest of the Empire's communications, of course, but the press hadn't tried to report on such a thing happening at all, seeming far more interested in almost obsessive levels of coverage with regards to Princess Cornelia's successful campaign in the Iberian Peninsula, as well as His Majesty and his response to not only the noble uprising here in Area Six, but also the string of victories one of his daughters was winning against the E.U.'s forces. "He sent you here to do that, with an irregular unit of, at most, one thousand?"
"Actually, the Five Hundred Eighty-Eighth consisted of myself, Jeremiah, and Villetta at the start of it," said the princess, gesturing airily as she explained. "My friends from the Academy elected to join us, of which Suzaku here is technically one—though she and I go back a fair bit further than that. The soldiers we have with us are all the household troops their families were willing or able to spare—though, in one case, it's actually her ex-fiance's family's household troops, who brought us from a bit over five hundred to one thousand soldiers as we speak. So, as you can plainly see, repurposing the Sutherlands we downed will give us a marked advantage in future combat. Though, I will say that deciding what is to be done with the prisoners we've taken from this rebellion is technically well within the bounds of my duties here…"
"…Your highness, your father has sent you on a suicide mission," Diego said gravely.
Princess Justine smiled wanly at that. "Believe me, we are aware of that. And I'm certain such does not escape His Majesty's comprehension, either. Truthfully, I would love nothing more than to be back with my wife right now, enjoying our honeymoon; but, c'est la vie. And since I have no real choice save to be here anyways, I suppose I figured that I might as well put down the rebellion myself."
"You're married?" Elena interjected, wide-eyed at the prospect.
"I am," the princess replied mildly, nodding once.
"But…you're younger than me," his daughter pointed out, seeming acutely taken aback.
"Believe it," Suzaku said as she came up for air, leaning back in the chair and patting her belly, her plate scraped so clean that Diego was mildly surprised it wasn't missing any porcelain. The girl jerked her thumb in her friend's direction casually. "Married a badass fuckin' bitch, too. Her wife's hardcore as fuck."
"My wife is every bit as vicious as she is beautiful, and I love her dearly," said Princess Justine with a rueful smile, reaching up to place two fingers to a point upon her normal suit's high collar. "But when the Holy Britannian Emperor gives an order, one does not simply defy him, and especially not as a member of the Imperial Family…"
Noticing Esperanza's significant look as the cue to change the subject that it was, Diego interjected with an observation of his own. "You said you would put down the rebellion yourself?"
"Well, not quite by myself, per se—I have no doubt my faithful friends will contribute greatly, to the point where it's really more accurate to say it's a team effort," clarified the princess, seeming to come out of her suddenly morose mood almost immediately in the process. "But in essence, yes, I did."
"And do you believe you can win under these conditions?" Diego began to pry.
"Well, not under these conditions, no," Princess Justine admitted, even as her full lips curled up into a smile that was sharp enough to draw blood. "But conditions are such funny little things, you know? Much like the direction of the wind, they're liable to change from day to day, if not sooner. Take the numbers that I mentioned a moment ago—thanks to the House of Steiner, we effectively doubled our combat strength en route to here. The difference in war potential between my Five Hundred Eighty-Eighth and the scattered, disorganised rebel forces struggling to effectively mobilise ahead of facing down the full might of Britannia is not so great that it cannot be made up for—however difficult and tricky, admittedly, such a feat might be to perform."
"How do you figure that?"
"Don Diego, you must understand that I mean no disrespect in saying this," the princess responded, leaning back in the chair as she did so, folding one leg atop the other and interlacing her fingers. "But truly, the less you know, the better. Plausible deniability might well be the most valuable asset that you and your lovely family have at your disposal, should the worst come to worst and a larger force come by your estate, seeking to extract from you some measure of knowledge of our movements. I put my friends at a high enough risk by their own behest already; I would hate to endanger you or yours with my loose tongue."
Diego nodded slowly. "Very well, your highness. I defer to your greater authority on the matter."
"Your cooperation is greatly appreciated, Don Diego, and I do mean that with the utmost sincerity," said the princess with a friendly smile and a pleasant nod. "Should I and mine prevail, you may rest assured in the knowledge that it certainly shall not be forgotten. Neither lender nor borrower be, and all that—I'm not the kind of woman who leaves her debts to go unpaid."
"You give that impression, certainly," said Esperanza.
Princess Justine's smile broadened, and then she shifted her posture, planting both of her feet upon the ground as she rose from out of the wrought-iron chair, her aide right behind her in rising from her own seat. "Well, this has been a lovely respite, and full glad are we to prevail upon the hospitality of your home, Don Diego, Doña Esperanza, Señorita Elena; but there is a great deal that needs to be done, and not a great deal of time to do it with, so I'm afraid that we really must be going. Suzaku?"
"Aye-aye, cap'n," Suzaku replied with a two-finger salute before rising from her own chair. "Well, I gotta say, it was nice meetin' ya, an' all. Compliments to the chef, and all that jazz."
"Likewise," Diego replied with a ghost of a smile on his own lips in spite of himself. "I've already seen to it that you're given the run of the place as you need. If there's anything else I can do for you, please let me know."
"I'll certainly keep that in mind," the princess agreed. Then she bowed to the three of them in turn, a small inclination of the head as an acknowledgement of their difference in status. "But with that, we must regrettably take our leave."
Jeremiah, the Knight of Honour, stepped forth and put his own plate, scoured clean, upon the table along with the other three; then, he turned on his heel in a pivot that would likely have brought a proud tear to a drill sergeant's eye, and followed swiftly after his liege lady as the four of them entered the hacienda, filing out of the balcony, and ultimately, out of earshot.
"She's so young," Esperanza remarked, shaking her head slowly. "Barely more than a girl…"
Diego nodded. "Aye, that she is. But I imagine she's had to grow up very quickly, with the life she's lived. Speaking of which…any talk of your marriage prospects, young lady, will have to wait for this war to be over. But after that, we'll start making overtures, if you'd like."
And where Elena might have been overjoyed to hear those words from him before, now she was much more measured, almost wary, in her response. "I… I'll give it some thought, Father."
The afternoon had weaned on to the early evening by the time they finished dragging the last of the Sutherlands they'd downed into the don's Knightmare stables, putting the Glasgows to work for the sake of having it done that much faster; Justine, Suzaku, Jeremiah, and Villetta had returned from their lunch with the don (though they'd all certainly been well-fed in the interim) with permission to use the area, and so the work had begun almost immediately. They'd left a good hundred soldiers alongside the don's own retinue to keep the prisoners under control—and thankfully, they'd all been accounted for, one way or another—as they did this, and now, as Marika descended from her Glasgow, she felt herself dwarfed by the four-metre tall tungsten giants with their indigo paint-schemes, for all that they'd felled each and every one of them with objectively inferior materiel. It was something she felt mightily proud of, and she was in such a good mood that she even spared a thought for how Kewell might have seen the feat they'd accomplished that morning, and dismissed the idea as fundamentally impossible. That the evidence of Marika's senses ran so thoroughly counter to her elder brother's suppositions felt in and of itself like an act of rebellion, a rejection of him and their family both, and she took an extra measure of pride in that.
She came across Lisa first, waving down her friend and the paramour of her childhood companion in one as she did so. "Oi! Bernadotte! That was some nice shooting out there."
Lisa folded her arms across her chest and cocked a violet eyebrow. "That's some mighty high praise from you, Soresi. What, you lose a bet?"
"Don't push it," Marika spat, scowling.
They managed to hold their matching expressions of animosity for a scant few moments, before the two of them both broke down into uproarious laughter.
"No, but seriously, thanks, Marika," Lisa replied, genuinely this time.
"I mean it!" Marika pressed, grinning as mirth shook her shoulders. "You were, what, laying flat on top of your cockpit block when you took those shots?"
"Yup," Lisa nodded, popping the 'p'. "Had the barrel propped up on top of the Glasgow's head as I fired. It was none too comfortable, if I'm being honest."
"Well, seeing as you managed to do that much in that kind of position," Marika began, folding her own arms under her bust as they conversed, "I shudder for the targets you'll pick now that you're properly equipped."
Lisa rolled her eyes playfully. "Thanks, Marika, but I don't think Lily's much for sharing."
Marika snorted. "Don't I fucking know it… Me, Odette, and a graveyard's worth of headless dolls. But you've got nothing to worry about in that department, believe me. As I've said before, you're really not my type."
"Yeah, your type's taller and older, with dark skin and silver hair," Lisa teased.
Marika coloured even as she grinned, and she swatted at the sharpshooter's shoulder lightly. "Shut up! Hells below, you're awful! And keep your voice down—she might hear you!"
"Hey, I'm just calling it how I see it!" Lisa protested, throwing up her hands in mock-surrender. "And besides, I'm pretty sure Villetta already knows you've got a massive crush on her."
"Because none of you can keep your mouths shut!" Marika cried.
"No, it's because you always go red and start stuttering whenever she talks to you," Lisa disagreed, shaking her head. "Honestly, if Villetta does know? It's entirely your fault…"
"Ugh!" cried Marika, looking up at the ceiling of the stables, acutely mortified.
"Good evening, ladies," came Justine's familiar voice, bemused and seeming to hold back laughter, but causing both of them to stiffen in place nonetheless. "Am I interrupting something, perchance?"
Both of them practically leapt away from each other, like children caught with their hands stuck in the cookie jar. "Justine! N-not at all!"
"We were just talking," Lisa added.
And sure enough, there Justine was, having come up into their periphery while they were distracted, and now standing there in her normal suit, her arms crossed beneath her breasts, and her armoured coat draped around her shoulders as she regarded them both with a wry, fond twist of a smile. Suzaku was off in the distance somewhere, but Jeremiah Gottwald loomed, blank-faced and dutiful, over her shoulder, clad in a normal suit of his own even still. "I see. Well, loath though I am to interrupt you two socialising, I'd like to take this opportunity to call for an impromptu meeting—if that's alright with you two, of course."
"Of course it's fine with us," Marika replied, shaking her head to clear her mind of her mortification and her face of the embarrassed flush that had suffused it. "Why wouldn't it be?"
Justine smiled at that, fiendish and sharp and genuine. "Excellent! Come along, then. We're going to try and make this quick, since we have quite a lot of work ahead of us."
"When don't we?" Lisa snorted.
Justine nodded. "I believe the adage goes 'no rest for the wicked', yes? Or at least, it's something to that effect, I'm sure. But in any event, we ought not tarry."
"We're with you, Justine," said Marika, letting a familiar certainty settle upon her in the process.
"Yeah, what she said," Lisa affirmed.
"Glad to hear it," said Justine, grinning slyly. Then, she whirled about, and lifted her hands into the air, clapping twice. "Everybody gather 'round, please! I'll need your attention for just a moment."
And sure enough, the low hum of murmuring from their friends came to an abrupt halt, the shuffle of footfalls heralding their arrival, which came about in pairs: Suzaku and Sif, Villetta and Lindelle, Liliana and Hecate, and Yen and Odette all joined the makeshift circle around Justine that she'd called for.
"First of all, to all of you, well done. Very well done, indeed," Justine began without further ado. "This was your first experience with live combat as a group, and you've all acquitted yourselves more than admirably thus far. I'd like to say that I'm very proud of you all, both for that, and for the work we've just done. In light of your collective contributions to this morning's strategically rather minor but personally quite significant victory, I rather thought we all might like to take a bit of a break; and to that end, I'd like to ask who's up for an arts and crafts project~?"
There was a bit of confusion that rippled through all of them at that choice of words, but it was Yen who gave it voice. "What kind of arts-and-crafts project?"
"Well," huffed Justine, seeming uncharacteristically excited at the prospect. "The good don's forays into agriculture have run into a bit of a pest problem of late, and so naturally, I offered him our services in building some scarecrows~. And we have an ample supply of raw materials as of this morning…"
It only took a moment for it to click in Marika's head what was meant by this. "You mean for us to execute the prisoners and display their corpses."
"Oh, nothing of the sort, I assure you," Justine replied, scoffing. "We can't risk releasing any of them, on the grounds that they can't be trusted to not run to their leaders and divulge our situation for some measure of reward—it's nothing personal, I imagine, just a very Britannian sort of opportunism. Similarly, we don't have the resources to keep them secured as we move, not if we're to retain any significant portion of our mobility. We can't exactly leave them in the don's care, either—he hardly has the resources, and it's a risk I wouldn't want to inflict upon any loyal Britannian or their family, let alone one who's sheltering us the way the good don is. Thankfully, however, we technically have the authority to deal with the prisoners as we see fit. So, we'll execute the infantry—they were only following their lord's commands, after all, and so they can hardly be blamed for this tomfoolery. But the highborn scions who were in command here are quite another story. And so, I propose that we make an example of them. Lindelle, you're of course free to recuse yourself should you see fit. I imagine there'll be quite a bit of blood involved."
The mossy-haired girl shrugged, equal parts resigned and nonchalant. "I'm sure there'll be quite a bit that I can do that doesn't involve directly spilling blood, so don't worry about me."
"If you're certain," said Justine, but she did not push further. "As for the method, I look to history, to the tale of a ruler of a certain country, whose nobility were aiding the enemy, and whose rag-tag forces were chiefly made up of a smattering of serfs and peasantry, wholly unequal in all conventional measure to the enemy they sought to vanquish. The ruler's name was Vladislaus the Third, and in honour of his story, I propose that we endeavour to provoke a certain type of image in the minds and hearts of our treasonous foes—those who lay claim to the spoils of an empire long since vanished."
"She means impalement," Suzaku (very helpfully) clarified. "She wants to put them on big sticks."
Justine turned to the other girl with a scowl. "I was getting to that!"
"Not fast enough," Suzaku replied irreverently, crossing her own arms across the white tank top she wore under her normal suit (the upper half of which was unfastened and bunched up around her waist). "As you said yourself, we've got a lot to do, and we're burning daylight."
"…Touché," the princess bit out, and the exchange got a collective chuckle out of everyone else.
"So you want us to, what, cut down a few trees and shave them down?" Odette asked, cocking her head and mimicking Suzaku's posture, thrusting a hip out for good measure.
"Precisely," Justine confirmed. "There's some suitable new growth we can use around here. Make a few spikes, stick them in the ground, and then use the Glasgows to put the commander and his gang on top of them so that they die slowly. It'll be a highly-visible message to anyone who comes around to see what became of them, it'll either terrify the highborns playing at war who are in charge of this rebellion or anger them—preferably both—and it'll serve as an adequate sentence, I daresay, for the crime of high treason and insurrection against the Crown. We do it enough, then we'll keep enemy morale low without alienating the local commoners and Numbers, which will serve to both ease our attempts to manoeuvre and to allow us to avoid fighting a spirited and entrenched enemy force, for which we are, I shouldn't need to remind you all, at once both sorely undermanned and quite severely under-equipped to boot. Our watchword moving forward, should any of you still be wondering, is 'asymmetry.' Victory depends upon our ability to cause mayhem and slip away with as much impunity as we can manufacture; and psychological tactics are especially useful in the kind of war we necessarily must wage, not only in order to survive, but in order to emerge triumphant, as well. Any questions?"
"Nope, not really," said Lisa.
Marika shook her head. "I'd say it's pretty clear."
"I'm up for it," Odette volunteered with a shrug.
Justine smiled sharply. "Excellent. Now, as many hands make light work, Villetta will be splitting the infantry into work crews to get this done in an expedient manner. Utilise the Glasgows however you all see fit to better hurry this along; in the meantime, I'll be making use of Don Diego's technical staff to help me cannibalise and repair the Sutherlands, retrofitting and repurposing them for our use. Does that sound like a fair division of labour to you all?"
"I mean, you're the only one who can hang with Lloyd when he gets to talkin' shop," Suzaku said with a shrug, generating a murmur of agreement from the rest of them. In the time between the ball held for Justine's sixteenth birthday and her wedding, Marika personally recalled having had several conversations with the Earl of Asplund, and having just barely survived each with her sanity still intact. The man could talk circles around any of them if they made the mistake of trying to get into the technical details of the sort of work he did, and while she didn't know about the others, she knew she certainly would never forget the time she overheard the two of them going at it; and what's more, they actually seemed to collaborate in the process. "So yeah. You handle the tech shit, we all get on the impalin'. Simple as."
"Very good," said Justine, nodding. "I look forward to seeing what you all come up with."
"If I may, your highness," Lord Jeremiah interjected.
"You may," Justine allowed with a nod.
"I'd rather lend you my aid with getting the Sutherlands together," said the knight. "It'll be easier to guard you, I'm familiar with the technical details of a Sutherland model, and I'm used to having to do my own maintenance when it comes to Knightmares."
"Is that so?" the princess asked rhetorically, seeming sincerely intrigued. "Very well then, Jeremiah. I'm sure I'll be glad to have you.
"Now then, let's be about it, shall we?" said Justine, her tone almost cheerful—which was weird for several reasons, not the least of which being that none of them had ever seen her in that kind of mood outside of the presence of Duchess (or rather, Princess-Consort) Carmilla—as she reached her hands up and clapped twice once again, bookending their meeting. "Class dismissed."
With that, they all dispersed into different directions, with Jeremiah dutifully shadowing Justine and the rest going off in pairs, the buddy system having long since been ingrained into each of them—with the exception of Suzaku and Villetta, who remained in the vicinity when all the rest had departed, and Lisa and Marika were the only ones left; and Marika, for her part, couldn't manage to look in their direction without a great deal of trepidation. Lisa's earlier words bounced around inside her head—that Villetta knew about her infatuation, that Marika had been entirely too obvious about it for it to stay hidden—but though Marika didn't know what she expected the worst-case scenario of this set of circumstances to be, it became clear in short order that that nebulous situation wasn't currently coming to pass.
"Lady Marika, Lisa," Villetta greeted each of them in turn with a brief nod. "I just wanted to say, as one of the two veterans of this unit, both of you handled yourselves very well out there, especially for your first time in a life-or-death situation. Lisa, I continue to stand in awe of your marksmanship; and I'd hazard a guess that, as a devicer, you could run circles around your brother, Marika. Granted, not that that's saying much, but all the same."
"Thanks, Villetta," Lisa replied for them both—Marika didn't trust herself to speak without in some way managing to embarrass herself. "So, how're we thinking of divvying this job up?"
"Well, with Justine and Jeremiah handling our upgrades, there's ten of us, so I believe that makes it simple enough," Villetta replied, shifting her weight onto one foot as she crossed her arms and looked up at the ceiling, her eyes flicking to and fro as she considered the question. "How we actually wind up crewing everything is likely to shift as the task proceeds, so we'll start out simple. Everyone pairs up, and I assign a hundred soldiers to each pair, rotating crews as needed. We'll have to do some logging first, anyways, just to get enough wood for all the stakes… Past that, we'll adjust assignments as the demands of the situation evolve."
"And when's our next resupply from the Homeland?" the sharpshooter asked.
Villetta lowered her head, and shook it with a rueful smile. "Hard to say, to put it bluntly. Justine is of the mind that they'll be infrequent enough that we'll need to prevail upon charity and foraging so that all of us stay fed, and while my own estimate is more optimistic—Lord Rathbone is very influential, and so I don't see him letting his daughter starve, to say nothing of Lord Rochefort—the risk is high enough that I'll be taking precautions for the eventuality that Justine's read of the situation proves more accurate. Though I don't believe we'll be wanting for bullets or bandages anytime soon, since unlike food, and to some extent water, bullets and bandages are non-perishable."
"I suppose that's the blessing of only having to worry about a force of this size," Lisa mused aloud. "A full-strength regiment will tend to eat through our food supplies reasonably quickly, but it's nowhere near the level of if we had trouble getting resupplies for something on the order of a division."
"Mm," Villetta hummed noncommittally. "On the one hand, I suppose you have a point; but on the other, if we had more troops, we might possibly have been able to spare enough of them to secure a proper supply line, and then we wouldn't be having this issue of it practically being left to chance… Is everything alright, Marika? You're looking a bit flushed… Are you feeling particularly feverish, by any chance?"
"Nope!" Marika managed to push out, her voice quivering with practically every word out of her mouth. "Perfectly fine! Right as rain, even, ha ha…!"
…Okay, so…maybe Lisa had a point, and maybe Marika could have done a better job in keeping it together, keeping her composure, maintaining decorum, and all that… But in fairness to her, Villetta looked at her with such concern that it sent Marika's heart thundering in her ears, and just how in the Hell was she meant to keep it together in the face of that?!
Lisa, friend of all friends that she was, wasted no time in sweeping in to rescue her. "She just needs a bit to cool off, maybe take a drink, is all."
Villetta nodded sceptically. "If you're quite certain. But please, if that changes, Lindelle's in charge of medical affairs, so go seek her out. I don't need to remind you that it's in all of our best interests for each of us to remain well enough to pull our own weight, after all."
"Don't you worry, Vee, I'll personally make sure Mari here's firing on all cylinders before our next sortie," Lisa responded for her—laying it on a bit thick, perhaps, but Villetta proved unwilling to press the issue, and accepted that assurance with a nod as she turned and walked away (though Suzaku certainly took the opportunity to flash a knowing smirk over her shoulder as they went to get the work started). When the two of them were gone, leaving Lisa and Marika in their wake, Lisa finally turned towards Marika, and she sighed in exasperation. "Really, Marika? Could you possibly be any more of a disaster?"
"Come on, Lisa!" Marika practically cried in response. "What was I supposed to do?!"
"I don't know, Marika, maybe try not to go into a full-blown sapphic panic attack every time she so much as breathes in your general direction?!" Lisa huffed, running a hand through her violet bob. "I swear, the heroine of a five-pence bodice ripper could come to life in front of us, and she'd still be more graceful under fire than you!"
"Hey! I am plenty graceful under fire, I'll have you know!" Marika objected, mildly offended at the implication. "It's just…this specific kind of fire that I'm vulnerable to."
"You know what I meant," Lisa sighed. "Or at least, I hope you do…"
"C'mon, Lisa, could you help a girl out?" the auburn-haired girl pleaded.
"And just how am I meant to do that?" the sharpshooter asked incredulously, before reaching up to grasp both of Marika's shoulders firmly. "Marika, I mean this affectionately, both as your friend as well as your best friend's girlfriend, but at this point, you are well beyond help."
"I don't mean it that way," Marika insisted, even as her thoughts began to race in light of how Lisa had qualified her point just now. "Just… I don't know… How'd you hook up with Liliana?"
Lisa blinked twice, her mind visibly grinding to a halt. "I'm sorry, what?"
"How did you and Liliana wind up in bed together?" Marika repeated. "It's a simple question!"
"But that's not the question you're asking, is it?" Lisa deduced with wide eyes. "No, you want me to be your wingwoman so that I can help you…seduce Villetta…"
"Don't say it like that!" Marika spat hurriedly. "You're making it sound lurid! A-and sleazy!"
"Fine, then," the sniper acquiesced, releasing Marika's shoulders and crossing her arms. "You, Lady Marika of the House of Soresi, want Dame Villetta Nu to make sweet, sweet love to you on a bed of rose-petals and goose-down; and you want my help to do it."
"Ugh! Do you have to put it that way?" Marika groaned, looking up at the ceiling and leaning back onto her heels as she complained.
"Yes, I do," Lisa replied, utterly shameless and completely deadpan. "I am contractually obligated to get you riled up at least once per Villetta Nu-related conversation. My relationship with Liliana depends upon it."
"Wait," Marika half-gasped, snapping her head down to face Lisa. "Does it actually…?"
"No," she scoffed. "But I had you going for a moment there, didn't I?"
The auburn-haired tomboy scowled, though it was really more of a pout. "Shut. Up."
"Sure, whatever," said Lisa, raising her hands in surrender with an insufferably smug smirk. "But, just for the record, you know I'm right."
"…Fuck you…"
Three days and four nights: Justine was determined to be gone from the estate by no later than the fourth morning. She was used to the crunch this sort of deadline put her under, and she knew well enough that her body and her mind could bear it, but it seemed that any such protests fell upon deaf ears every time Jeremiah came to the stables and found that she'd slept there. But there were few things more energising to her than getting her hands dirty with the mechanical insides of a Knightmare Frame, and so unerring was her focus that she couldn't help but see even the act of eating as an expenditure of time she could otherwise have better spent hard at work to ensure the machines that she and her friends would be relying upon to keep themselves safe on the battlefield were everything they needed to be, if not more.
Dismantling the Sutherlands that Lisa had downed was a fairly simple manner: she hadn't needed to shoot all of them to take them out of commission, of course, and since there were currently at least twice as many Sutherlands as she and all eleven of her companions might have needed to fight with currently sitting idle in the stables in various states of disrepair, there were more than enough spare limbs and other smaller, but no less integral parts for her to put together all twelve units. Here, the mass-produced nature of the design of the fifth-generation models worked directly to Justine's benefit: these were made to undergo field repairs, after all, and they were all assembled from interchangeable parts. With her direction, Don Diego's staff had enough relevant expertise and specific tools to help her screw, solder, and TIG weld together enough for all of her friends and her—with enough spare parts left over to make another dozen if she needed—and it took them all of a day and a half, working through the night. Thirty-six hours from start to finish. That was, she supposed, one of the things she might need to bring up with Lloyd when she got back, that the need for his machines to be able to be repaired was something he ought to take into consideration, even in the case of custom, one-off units like the Lancelot—she'd even taken a sketchbook and some basic pencils, courtesy of the don's daughter, to kill a bit of time devising solutions to the problems she foresaw with it.
But of course, the main time sink—and she'd always known this would be the case—was taking the operating systems of each Sutherland and reformatting them for the sake of her friends. And because she wasn't in the business of doing things by half-measures, she used the laptop purpose-built for such tasks to configure and customise the operating systems to an even greater extent for the sake of their individual use, tinkering around with the physical Knightmares themselves during the long spans of time she spent waiting for the code to compile, and then to write itself onto the Sutherlands' onboard computers, copying onto the keys for each unit… It was a lot of work, and as she was the only one with the know-how, she was the one who handled the lion's share of it, with Jeremiah rendering aid in seeing her will done on the Knightmares themselves. He was capable and he was handy, and as she'd predicted, Justine was glad to have him; but he could only do so much, lacking as he did the spark that allowed her and Lloyd to be colleagues of a sort, instead of merely employer's wife and employee.
It was the morning of the third day after the battle that Jeremiah walked into the stables with a yawn and a stretch, only to find her already hard at work, inspecting the finer details of the modified weapon that she'd built into the arm construction, its design slapped together on the road and field-tested against the very same Knightmares that she'd salvaged and cannibalised to give her friends a better fighting chance. It was a relatively simple weapon she'd christened the 'pile bunker,' a blunt name for a very unsubtle weapon in her opinion; and while the pile bunker was far and away a less elegant armament than any of the Maser vibration weapons Lloyd had designed for the seventh-generation custom units, it was nonetheless easy to maintain and fairly effective within its niche—namely, when an overconfident devicer got themselves into point-blank range, thinking to limit the effectiveness of her assault rifle.
"Your highness," Jeremiah greeted, his voice husky with lingering remnants of sleep, and his tone one of exasperation, however fond. "What on Earth are you doing on top of that Knightmare?"
Justine looked up from her perch astride the shoulder of the Sutherland, spared a glance towards the laptop sitting upon the extended seat of the cockpit block with a wired connection feeding the reformatted operating system into the onboard computer, and then looked down towards her knight, and waved. "Good morning to you, too, Jeremiah! I was uploading the new programs into my Sutherland's memory banks—I went last, as you can see, so once I'm done with this, I'll reformat my key, and we can get to painting them posthaste—and since that takes a fair bit of time during which I have very little to do, I thought I might as well make sure the pile bunker survived the transfer and the retooling. I mean, the prototype was done as we moved from Point A to Point B, and it was built with confiscated tools and materials, so I took this time to make it a bit sturdier, and try to head off any reliability issues I might otherwise have encountered…"
"Your highness, I hope you know that that is…entirely beyond the scope of my knowledge," he said with a heavy, tired sigh, moving towards the work-table upon which the sketchbook lay open to one of her latest pages, the probable cause of both of her naked hands being smudged with graphite. "Just…please come down from there…"
"You worry entirely too much, Jeremiah. But fine," Justine sighed, shifting herself to stand atop the Sutherland's shoulder. Then, she leapt from the Knightmare—which was four metres in the air—flipped to bleed off some momentum, and then landed upon the floor. She gave way and rolled as soon as she hit the concrete to further diffuse some kinetic energy, and then sprung to her feet with a refreshed huff. "There. Good as new, right as rain, tally ho, geronimo, et cetera, et cetera…"
Jeremiah scowled at her sourly. "That was not what I meant, your highness…"
"Then you ought to have been more specific," she fired right back. "Come now, Jeremiah. You've seen me perform far more daring stunts in significantly more dangerous situations… Don't you remember the Pendragon subterrane?"
"Yes, your highness, I do," sighed her gallant knight—who tended to be in a very dour mood in the mornings, she'd noticed. "But you endanger yourself quite enough in the heat of battle. To be quite frank, I don't think it unreasonable of me to request that you avoid such recklessness in situations like these, when such risks can be avoided…"
Justine thought for a moment, and then nodded. "I suppose you have a point there. My apologies. I know that I'm not the easiest charge to look after…"
"Your highness, I've counted myself as yours since the night of Empress Marianne's assassination," Jeremiah sighed as he moved to cut off her apology. "That's five years now that I've spent in your service, in one form or another. I've had plenty of time to learn how you are, and if I thought myself unequal to the task of defending you, I would never have accepted being named as your knight. I don't have an issue with guarding you, and I'm happy to do it—I consider it an honour, even, and there's nowhere I would rather be than by your side. All I ask is that you take care to remember that you're not indestructible. That's all."
Justine opened her mouth to reply, thought better of it, and nodded instead.
"Thank you," Jeremiah huffed, as he picked up her sketchbook and flipped through its pages. "I would hate to be counted among the knights who had to bury their charges, your highness. Theirs is a forlorn lot."
"Well, I would certainly hate for you to be rendered forlorn thanks to my actions," Justine remarked as she walked over to him and leaned her hip up against the work table. "And what of your wellbeing, then, hmm? You don't seem quite awake…"
"You scolded me for the amount of coffee I was drinking, your highness," Jeremiah reminded her.
"I recall," she replied, because she hadn't forgotten, couldn't forget, not truly.
"Yes, well," her gallant knight sighed. "Today, I took your admonitions to heart. If I seem short this morning, well…you now know the cause."
"Caffeine withdrawal?" Justine posited, cocking her head in curiosity.
Jeremiah glowered at her from under his brow. "And the fact that—unlike you, your highness—I'm not exactly what one might call a 'morning person' in the first place. It's why I started drinking coffee to begin with, quite frankly…"
"I can deal with you being short with me, Jeremiah," said the princess. "What I couldn't deal with would be you developing heart, kidney, or liver issues because of sustained consumption of the stuff over a protracted period."
"The risk of that eventuality is fairly low, your highness," her knight argued with another sigh. "But we've been over this before."
Justine nodded. "Several times, in fact. But that's fine. I don't personally see any issue in us looking after each other. Do you?"
"When last I checked, it was my job to protect you, your highness," Jeremiah pointed out.
"Loyalty is a two-way street, Jeremiah," said Justine, hopping her rear up onto the table. She wasn't in her normal suit anymore, instead working in a pair of cut-off jeans and a camisole to keep her sports corset from directly rubbing up against her skin. The outfit, together with her humble but sturdy tennis shoes, was one she'd brought with her specifically for tasks like this one, where she might need to get her hands dirty and didn't want to risk her nicer, everyday clothes. "You have to give if you want to get."
"I sincerely doubt that many of your royal siblings would agree with you on that," he replied.
"They commit their folly at their own risk," she said, shrugging. "After all, failure to understand that much is how Cornelia ultimately lost General Darlton to Friede's service. Personally, I don't know that Lord Guilford has much that secures his loyalty to Cornelia, save for his knightly oath and his infatuation. And even then, it is a princess's sole and exclusive prerogative to select her own Knight of Honour. I chose Jeremiah Gottwald, not some beaten hound."
That provoked a chuckle from her teal-haired friend and defender. "Fair enough, your highness… A two-way street, you say?"
"But of course," Justine replied with an airy gesture of her hand. "Just as a queen who fails to lead would be a fool to expect her subjects to follow, so too would any aspirant to the Chimeric Throne be a fool to expect loyalty without first giving it. I make a point to protect my own, even from themselves if need be. And like it or not, that also includes you, Jeremiah Gottwald."
Jeremiah chuckled again, shaking his head. Then he turned the page a few times in the silence that ensued, his amber eyes skimming over each prospective design in sequence, before he finally got to the one that she'd begun most recently, and yet spent the most time on nonetheless. "What is this?"
"The task of getting these Sutherlands battle-ready has reminded me of the necessity of repairs, and how any machine of war, however advanced or custom-built, must be designed and constructed to accommodate such an extensive degree of maintenance," Justine explained, kicking her legs out while she kept her seat on top of the work table. "One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I'd sketched out a few early concepts for different components that could potentially come together to form a mass-production model Knightmare of the seventh-generation, based on the last few briefings I've seen on the state of the Lancelot."
"You wrote 'Kay' here, and underlined it twice," said Jeremiah, pointing to a specific place on the page in question and tapping on it a few times, perhaps for emphasis. "I assume that's the name of it?"
"Preliminarily, yes," Justine confirmed. "Ser Kay was a Knight of the Round Table, after all, and he was Arthur's foster brother. Ser Ector was his father, and Arthur was actually serving as Ser Kay's squire at the tournament when he pulled Caledfwlch, Uther's sword, from out of the Stone of Selection. I thought it would be in keeping with the Arthurian theme that Lloyd's established with the Lancelot and the Gawain. Lancelot and Kay, two men whom at different points in his life Arthur considered either brothers, or at the very least tantamount to it. Though, admittedly, Ser Kay is somewhat less famous than Lancelot, and both of them are more famous than Lancelot's sword, Secace."
"I thought Arondight was the sword of Lancelot," said Jeremiah.
Justine shook her head. "That's a misconception. Arondight actually belonged to a knight by the name of 'Ser Guy of Warwick.' Guy was a character in 'Ser Bevis of Hampton', and he slew a dragon alongside Lancelot; the romance actually notes that Lancelot wielded Secace during the chivalric deed."
"Huh, you learn something new every day," Jeremiah mused as his eyes flicked over the sketches of what the mass-production model 'Kay' might potentially look like.
"I'm stepping on Lloyd's toes a little by naming it ahead of time," Justine noted as she began to turn her attention back to the Sutherland that would be hers. "But as I've kept well within the theme that he's established, I'm sure he won't mind too terribly. I actually might mention Secace to him when next I have an opportunity, just so that he's not stuck naming a future model of the Lancelot something stupid, like 'Victoria', or even 'Conquista.' Could you imagine?"
"Lancelot Secace?" Jeremiah said dubiously.
Justine grimaced. "Right, right, fair point. Maybe we could use the anglicised version of the name. 'Lancelot Sequence.' I think it has a nice ring to it. How about you?"
"What I think, your highness," said her gallant knight as he snapped her donated sketchbook closed, "Is that we have an awful lot of work that has to get done today."
Justine grinned, and hopped down from off of the work table. "That's the spirit. Let's get painting!"
By sundown on the third day, they were done.
Every last infantryman was accounted for—from one to one thousand—including the guy who had claimed to only be a messenger. Justine had judged him as just another servant, and so he joined the rest in the mass grave they'd assigned a work crew to help the local head honcho's goons dig. Suzaku would have thought that, as soldiers, they might as well have learned to dig a latrine, but Justine was of the mind that all they amounted to was a glorified militia, and had confided as much in her when Suzaku had gone to ask her opinion. It was a task that their guys, on the other hand, were very well acquainted with; after all, what was a mass grave if not a latrine that was two metres deep?
Well, okay, theirs was actually three and a half metres deep so as to fit in the plot provided and still be able to properly accommodate all the bodies, but in Suzaku's expert opinion, that was missing the forest for the trees.
So, yes. All the common-born had been shot and buried, killed quickly and relatively painlessly as an act of mercy, to then be entombed in an unmarked grave—a warrior's death, all told.
The forty-three noblemen who'd been in command of that one thousand and one, on the other hand, had not gotten off so easily.
They were arrayed in seven small clusters around the boundary of Don What's-his-face's estate, six to a group; long, sturdy hardwood pikes, fashioned swiftly but efficiently, with each having been sanded so smoothly that she rather thought someone could make furniture out of the result. Each spike had been dug one metre deep into the ground, and then the earth had been packed in around them to further secure them against being exposed by the elements. They had all done their best to ensure that all of those spikes would stay where they were for a good long while before moving onto the next phase.
Six noble sons at each of the seven clusters; and the eighth was for the commander himself.
It was an event of a sort: the infantry work crews gathered around each of the clusters to look on, as the pair who commanded the crews used their Glasgows to mount the highborn scions onto the spikes, only leaving them be once they'd determined that the prisoners' own weight would suffice to pull them down to the base, killing them in the process. It was a little bit of a culture-shock to her, if she was being completely honest; growing up in the old Empire of Japan, public executions had been decried as 'barbaric,' all while the government and the Imperial Japanese military conveniently refused to admit to any wrongdoing in the midst of their conquest of Manchuria, particularly in the city of Nanking, or even during the occupation of Korea. Here, in Britannia, the infantry had all grown up in a culture where that particular hypocrisy did not exist, and open execution for going against the will of the Crown was considered a spectator event. Not that that particularly disturbed Suzaku; far from it—the agonised shrieking of rebel blue-bloods as they slowly, torturously perished upon spikes was, to her mind at least, indicative of a job well-done—but it wasn't something she'd really thought to expect. It was a bit of a sobering reminder of how much she still had left to learn about her best friend's homeland—as well as, she supposed, the homeland she'd somewhat de facto adopted as her own.
In either event, once they were done, the work crews gathered together to have a bit of a party so as to celebrate the completion of their task, though she considered that perhaps it was meant as one last hurrah before they would be plunging head-first back into the crucible of war; but she, Villetta, and the others left the infantry to their festivities, and when the sun dawned upon the day of their departure, they rose before the rest of the soldiers and made a bee-line for the stables, to check up on how Justine and Jeremiah were making out with their own tasks. It was the first time since the beginning of the whole job to set up the impalement stations that any of them would be able to get a good look at Justine, the woman for whom they were all here, fighting this war outgunned and outnumbered, and Suzaku would be lying if she denied that she was glad to be able to hang out with her best friend again.
Thus did all ten of them file into the stables, the group of friends chattering amongst themselves in low murmurs, only to pull up short, one by one, at what they found there.
"My friends, it is good to see you all again," Justine greeted them. "I trust that the executions didn't prove too trying for you?"
"Justine…" Suzaku sighed from the head of the pack, stepping forth so that she could be seen more clearly, and crossing her arms. "What the fuck."
On the floor of the stables (which was, in her mind, a really fucking weird word to use to refer to a garage for Knightmare Frames, especially since Britannia was a country where horseback riding was still seen as a worthwhile pastime) before them, the place where they had left downed Sutherlands three days past, with none of the units being at all battle-ready for all that they were in good condition, twelve distinct Sutherlands now stood, not only pristine, but customised, to the point where they were obviously meant to be the successors of the Prytwen units they'd piloted in the Academy's war games. There had even been a few coats of polish applied to the armour, to better protect the paint and the plating both from the elements and from general wear and tear. And in front of them all, there Justine stood in the clothes that had become something of a uniform for her, her all-black outfit with the armoured coat that Taliesin had given her, with Jeremiah in his service dress uniform standing by her shoulder. It was as if this was some kind of exhibition for all of them, instead of the display of a truly ludicrous amount of work to get done in three days that she saw it as, practically from the word go.
Justine cocked an eyebrow, like she was somehow surprised by the question—and to make matters worse, Suzaku was one hundred percent certain that she genuinely was. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean…"
"Ya said that you'd be salvagin' the Sutherlands," Suzaku pointed out, gesturing broadly to the line of visually unique Sutherland units. "And instead, it looks like ya went and ordered 'em factory new."
"…Suzaku," Justine began, as though choosing her words carefully because she believed that what Suzaku had just said was something ridiculously stupid. "I have to ask, do the terms 'mass production' and 'interchangeable parts' mean anything to you? It's not like I constructed these from scratch."
"I harbour sincere doubts that she's actually slept at all in the past three days," Jeremiah interjected.
Justine whirled on him. "Hey! I did too sleep! Whose side are you even on, anyways?!"
"The side that looks after your health, your highness," the amber-eyed knight replied with no shame whatsoever.
Suzaku chuckled. "Got a little lost in the sauce again?"
Justine huffed. "Okay, fine. Maybe I did get a little carried away, just the slightest bit, but the results speak for themselves, so ha!"
"Justine…" Hecate chided softly.
"Look, I'll be able to catch up on my sleep debt once we've gotten on the road, good and proper, okay?" she sighed, caving to Hecate's implied admonition, if only by that much. "For Hell's sake, we only got around to painting them yesterday and let them dry overnight. This really isn't that big of a deal."
None of them said anything.
None of them needed to say anything.
"Why did I bring you all, again?" Justine asked rhetorically with another sigh.
"To be perfectly honest, Justine?" said Yen, stepping forth so that she could be better seen, herself. "It's quite telling that you think we'd ever have allowed you to leave us behind."
Justine paused at that, and barked out a laugh. "Yes, I suppose you have a point there. Alright, I will make an attempt to get more rest in the future. I can't promise anything beyond that."
"I think that's fairly reasonable," Yennefer accepted, nodding.
"Glad to hear it," said Justine with a wan smile. Then she jerked a gloved thumb over her shoulder, further into the stables. "In any event, your keys are on the work table. I wrote your passkeys and callsigns on the little slips of paper hanging on the end of them. Grab your keys, memorise your codes, mount up, et cetera, et cetera. You all know the drill by now, I'm sure."
At that, the other nine members of their little group all moved on towards the work table to get their keys, to the point where they'd started forming a queue even before actually reaching the table; but Suzaku stayed back, and walked up to her best friend instead, embracing her. "I hope ya know we're only like this 'cause we care."
"I know, I know," Justine huffed, rolling her eyes even as she returned the embrace after a moment of reflexive stiffness. "I guess I'd just hoped you'd all be more grateful than needlessly worried for my health…"
"Oh, don't get me wrong," Suzaku said as they broke the hug, and stepped back a bit to get a proper look at one another. "We're plenty thankful. But we've also got somethin' of a vested interest, one could say, in makin' sure you make it back alive, and in one piece. Not the least of which 'cause…well, you know Milly. Hell, ya married Milly."
"So in this metaphor, you all would be Eurydice, my wife would be Orpheus, and she'd be making the descent into Hades just to punish you for my death?" Justine asked with a chuckle.
Now, to Suzaku, that came right out of nowhere, and she quite honestly had no right idea of whom either Eurydice or Orpheus were, so she did what she always did whenever Justine made a reference to shit she'd never heard of before in her life, or if it otherwise went right over her head: she nodded and agreed. "…Sure, I guess. If ya wanna put it that way…"
Justine crossed her arms and scoffed. "Remind me to get you a compendium of Hellenic mythology when we get back. Honestly, Suzaku. We have that enormous library for a reason, you know…"
"Yeah, well, just because we have that big-ass book collection doesn't mean I have any idea of what the fuck I should be lookin' for," Suzaku countered. "So you're gonna have to…what's the word… Curse? Care? Core? What's the Britannian word for…? Curate! That's the word. You're gonna have to curate the shit I gotta read if ya ever expect me to get your references the first fuckin' time ya try an' make 'em."
"…I suppose that's fair," Justine conceded, nodding. Then, she jerked her head over towards the table where she'd left the keys. "C'mon. We need to be moving out, too. We've imposed upon Don Diego's hospitality quite enough already."
Suzaku nodded, and she gave her bestie a grin. "Aye-aye, cap'n."
Justine grinned right back. "'Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead'…"
"That's 'Henry the Fifth.'"
"Correct."