“Go again.” 

The youth looked down at the paltry pile of pebbles on his side of the dusty cavern floor and furrowed his brow in consideration. 

His opponent, also stuck straddling that awkward line between boy and man, held out something enclosed in the shell of his cupped hands and waited. And waited. This far beneath Ala Mhigo the tunnels were deathly silent. Deeper in there lay a trail of torches to light the way but here there was only the flickering lantern light between them. The shadows along the walls jumped every time the candle flame spit. 

“Gods’ blood, Connor! Go!” Rundulf finally exploded. The sound of his exasperation bounced off the walls of the catacombs that ran like a rabbit’s warren beneath the city. 

When the Garlean Empire had finally moved in over the tattered remnants of the beleaguered city-state, the Imperial army had sealed the tombs, the last resting place of Ala Mhigan dead. To keep out the ‘rabble rousers’. It might have worked if the Empire had found and sealed all the entrances. But they had failed to understand what a labyrinth they had on their hands. Miles of tunnels going back hundreds of years. It was all too easy for an intrepid Resistance to make camp within a few long forgotten spaces. A secure place for seditious talk. 

“Don’t rush me.” 

Or, an idle argument between two bored adolescents attempting to stay alert with nothing but stone and dust around them. 

“Pick a bleedin’ number or I swear to Rhalgr I’ll --”

“Three high.” 

Rundulf grunted and opened his hands, sending a cascade of flat stones clattering to the dirt. The boys leaned over the stones, peering in the dim lantern light to see which ones had landed with their white painted faces up, if any. 

Alas, only two displayed their pale faces.

“Ha! That’s another for me!” Rundulf crowed, a fist punching up into the darkness. 

Shaking his head, Connor flicked a pebble from his ever-dwindling pile towards Rundulf’s own. “Gods, I hate this game. Can’t we do somethin’ else?”

Just then, beyond the lantern’s reach came the soft sound of a throat being intentionally cleared. And the game was suddenly and hastily forgotten. With eyes wide with surprise, Connor grabbed the lantern and swung it in the direction of the noise as Rundulf surged to his feet, ready for a fight. 

The swinging lantern light fell on one slight and slender girl and both boys visibly relaxed. Aislinn was nearly half their size, a spindly collection of knees and elbows destined to forever be the runt among them. The antithesis of a threat. 

“What’re you doin’ down here, North?” Connor sighed, lowering the light. 

“Lookin’ for da.” she said simply as she made to pass them, only to have Rundulf block the way. 

“You know he’s with the others. Plannin’ out next steps. He’ll be up when they’re done.” 

“I didn’t know that.” 

Connor laughed as he knelt down and collected the stones again in preparation for another round. “Not sure you were supposed to either. Good job, Rundulf.” 

The larger boy, realizing his mistake, merely folded his arms across his chest and grunted. The less he said, the better. 

“Sit and play a few rounds, Aislinn. They should be heading up soon.” Connor said, clattering the stones in his hands. 

She studied him for a long moment and then wordlessly shook her head. The catacombs were as dark and foreboding as she remembered. It was bad enough that she had ventured this far on her own. When they were children she had been forced to spend a night down in this place, sharing a sarcophagus with a moldering skeleton. A fact he should have remembered just as well as her. She had no intention of staying and ending up the subject of another cruel child’s prank. 

“What’re they discussing?” she asked instead. 

Rundulf sullenly shrugged and broke his silence. “Probably tryin’ to figure out a abetter way to get information out to the other cells. Last two runs didn’t go so well.” 

Aislinn peered down the tunnel. “They aren’t choosin’ the right people.” 

“Says you.” Connor snorted. 

“I do.” she replied, turning that unerring gaze back on him. It was unsettling. The way she spoke so flat. She was too serious by half. It was too old an expression set in too young a face and it crawled under his skin. A part of him was almost certain she knew it too. 

“Suppose you know who they should send.” 

She jutted her chin up. “I could do it.” 

Rundulf’s guffaw echoed off the stone. “Don’t think they’re that desperate yet.” 

“I just caught you two unaware. And you’re supposed to be on watch. I coulda snuck right past and you’d have kept playin’ your game.” she countered. 

Rundulf opened his mouth to reply but Connor held up a quelling hand. “We’re flattered, Aislinn but we ain’t exactly Imperial patrols now, are we? Those runs are serious. You need your wits about you the entire time.”

“Are you explainin’ a run to me like I haven’t been here just as long as you?” Aislinn asked, her question more of a barbed statement than anything. 

Her tone must have gotten through, for in the lantern light she could see the tips of Connor’s ears go red with embarrassment. 

“Clearly someone needs to. Your da is never goin’ to let you go. No matter how much you keep harpin’ on him. It’s gettin’ pathetic.” 

Aislinn blinked at him. The only sign that his words had struck true. He regretted them the moment they were out of his mouth. He was forever doing the wrong thing when it came to her. Forever the arse. 

Wordlessly, she turned and retreated out of reach of the lantern light, back the way she had come. He groaned under his breath and hung his head. 

“Look, maybe it needed to be said.” Rundulf said, returning to his side of the makeshift playing field. 

“Shut up.” 

“Coulda let someone else do it though.”

“Shut up.” 

“Fine. Go again.” 

With an air of resignation Connor held the stones out over the floor when there came the sudden sound of swift steps hitting the dirt. Once again Connor and Rundulf sprung up but Aislinn was quicker. One stride, two, a dodge to the left, a duck under Rundulf’s swinging arm and she breezed past them, down the corridor towards the meeting of generals. 

“Gods damn it!” 

She heard them giving chase and almost laughed. In a world where it seemed everyone was bigger and stronger, Aislinn had learned to be faster. They would never win in a race against her. She sailed down the torchlit passage with an elated sort of satisfaction. 

The three careened around the bend, Aislinn remaining just frustratingly out of reach until they burst into the large burial chamber at the end of the tunnel. The men and women gathered within turned in haste towards the interruption. The slithering sound of several swords leaving their scabbards drew Aislinn up short with Rundulf and Connor stumbling behind her in their effort not to bowl her over. 

“Hold.” 

“It’s just a couple of young ones.”

“Bloody hells, aren’t those th’ ones you put on watch, Jorund? Fat lot o’ good it did.” 

Winded, her wide eyes took in the gathering amidst the flickering torchlight and for a sparse moment she regretted the impulse that had driven her here. No. A small voice inside refused to let her back down. She was tired of sitting on the side lines. Tired of watching the others do their part while hers seemed to always be to sit at home and anxiously wait for their return. Passed over time and again. She could do something. She could be useful. Why couldn’t anyone see that?

“I can do it.” she said, hating the way her voice sounded so small in the cavernous chamber. She shook her head and tried again. “I can do it. I can make the run.” 

“Aislinn?” her father’s voice rumbled the way it always did but in this space it seemed to reverberate. He was a wall of a man and he didn’t so much push through the others as much as they parted for him. Thick arms folded across the barrel of his chest as he stared down at her. Looking into his storming eyes she knew there would be a talk about this later. 

“You’re looking for people to make the run, aren’t you?” she pressed. “To pass information to the cells outside? I can do it.”

“No.” Jorund ground out. 

“Yes, I can. I made it past those two. Probably could’ve snuck right by without them lifting their heads.” she waved an arm back towards Rundulf and Connor who stood catching their breath. They passed each other a dark look. “I’m quick. I’m nearly invisible. No one pays me any mind. And those patrols aren’t going to be looking for someone like me. They’re not going to suspect me of carrying Resistance intel.” 

There was the briefest pause of silence and then, “She makes a good point, Jorund.” one of the other men spoke up. 

“I said no.” Jorund snapped his head towards the man, glaring in his direction.

“We’ve been sending our boys who could fight if it came down to it but maybe that’s the problem. They look like they could fight. Empire ain’t gonna look twice at this wisp of a girl.” he continued on, undeterred. 

“And if she runs into trouble?” a woman next to him countered. 

“You heard her, she can run.” 

“She can outrun two boys, not a imperial patrol, Bernier. I don’t know about you but I’m not comfortable sending a girl headlong into the waiting arms of Garleans.”

Behind her, Aislinn heard Connor make a low noise in the back of his throat that sounded distinctly like an ‘I told you so’ to her.

“Oh, but sending our boys is alright?” 

“Don’t pull that shite. I know as well as anyone here what a patrol will do to the girl if they get their hands on her.”

“I’m tellin’ you, they ain’t gonna be looking twice.” 

“Quiet.” Jorund’s voice, instead of rising to meet the others, had grown soft and still. It brought an immediate halt to any conversation. He stared down at Aislinn with a dark sort of anger but she saw something behind that. Something raw and broken. Something that told her he would forever see her as the child she had been, the little girl he had bounced on his knee. And any hope she had fostered of taking a meaningful part in this Resistance faded to nothing. She knew his answer before he even opened his mouth. 

“She’ll get caught. And do you think she’ll hold up under questioning? Or do you think she’ll spill every little detail she knows and bring the Empire down on us? We’re the only ones feedin’ th’ others intel from the inside. We can’t let something like tha’ happen.” he growled and though he spoke to the others, he kept his flinty gaze trained on her, hammering the words home. Willing her to understand once and for all. “She’s too much of a risk. Send Connor.”

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