Location : Kova/Tsuki Border

Time : Late Aries

Person : @seraphimslayer

They’d sent everyone else out from the war tent, passing underneath the red fabric to the bitterly cold night, leaving Sunisa and Asif to stare down at the battle maps and information scattered on the table infront of them.

There were too many choices in front of them, and none of them good. And it was so hard to think here, adrenaline from the last battle still pumping through her veins, the blood not yet washed from her skin.

But a rebel had managed to escape, slipping through their fingers and back into Kova. If they followed, they could learn more, stop acting purely defensively and actually start to hammer back at the rebels. Or should they just ask for help? Work alongside the Kovan army instead of constantly in fear of it? Could they even possibly work alongside each other?

With a frustrated sigh, Sunisa pushed back from where she was hunched over the table, moving to pace by the doorway. 

Time : 994 AL

Location : Mud and fighting and blood

Person : @seraphimslayer

Their company of twenty had charged in with horses, had decimated the village, had torn children hiding behind mothers with frozen eyes and led the parents to slaughter, had followed rumours of rebellion.

Still, the sick feeling lingered in her stomach, the ache of a broken heart still bleeding in her ribs, a pain which had dulled and spread across her body since she had first ridden out. Something within her had fractured and frozen, and her body worked on automatic as she pointed her sword at villagers with nothing and demanded glory for the heavens.

They mixture of Tsuki and Paol soliders had thought they had burnt out the resentment, the agony, the rebellion, so they relaxed a bit, gathering the horses to go back out again. Sunisa was stood in the center, discussing with Asif what to do next, when the glint of metal off the cold sun caught her eye. 

She nodded as she listened, trying to focus on what she had seen, but the realisation only clicked when the arrow was flying through the air. There had been a girl, barely ten, her father killed. She must have found his hidden bow, must have taken all of her strength to pull the string back, must have been burning to fire the arrow. 

( Sunisa sometimes wonders what it was like to burn. )

The arrow flies through the air, and time slows as she sees the trajectory, as she hears the way Asif continues speaking, as she sees the fury glinting in the child’s eyes. She’s the only one who can do anything.

So she doesn’t think as she cries out, as she reaches forward to push Asif out of the way, as she’s too late to twist her own body away, as the arrow pierces her gut. She doesn’t think.

And then she’s thinking and time is passing too quickly as a sharp pain hits her, fiercer than the ache she had before and she watches as the child’s eyes widens as they missed and she’s falling back against Asif and it -

(tw gore death)

The battle had broken out faster than anyone had expected, separating people in the mad rush of the fighting. There had been eight of them on patrol when they got ambushed by some rebels, twenty of them flying out of the trees and into their path. 

One of the knights died immediately with an arrow in his throat, his hands trying to stem the flow of blood before collapsing to the ground. Then they were surrounded and Asif and Sunisa found themselves back to back, strangely natural at this point. With the odds greater than two to one, Sunisa found herself fighting desperately just to keep them back, knowing that some of the dying screams were their compatriots.

Finally, she got a break and pushed forwards, sliding her blade through the side of leather armour and wrenching it clear. She breathed out in dual horror and satisfaction, before raising her sword to complete the same task. 

But the next enemy wasn’t within striking distance. They were hidden in the trees, a crossbow firing a bolt directly at Asif’s back. She screamed out as she watched, as she leaped towards him, as the bolt buried itself in her collarbone instead.

Asif swiftly dispatched the man infront of him and turned, shock an unusual look for him. It was quickly replaced with a blood-thirsty anger, and he threw a knife into the back of the one who had tried to shoot him.

Then her eyes were closed, and she felt a cold steal up her arm, a numbness in the back of her chest. Time seemed to speed past and stay still, until her head was being lifted into Asif’s lap. His hands were covered in gore, but he still pulled stroked the back of her head, stilling as she hissed from the pain of the movement.

He was muttering something, she realised, that shadow near visible at his back. But white was stealing across her vision and she blinked twice, tried to focus on his eyes.