Etulas - 2. Memoria pt 1

[Angelica]

*Earlier that day*

The sun creeps over the horizon like a vexation, draining away the darkness that has become a friend. It's cold connective grasp resonates with something within me. Among the still shadowy terrain, I find my home. There no one can find me. Not even I can find myself. To a degree it provides a temporal escape, allowing one to just exist, void of everyday abstractions like thought or feeling. The illusionary lights, continue to stretches out its golden daggers, reaching for the farthest corner of the corpse-of-a-nation I call home. It awakens the enslaved population, announcing the dawn of yet another day of captivity. Another day in the ruins of what once was Ètüläs.

I rise, cold, unmoved, unwilling and barely living. It’s the same monotonous tune I dance to daily. My sword, like a pet, waits patiently for my attention as I step into my armour and tame my hair in a side braid. The left side of my head stares back at me, bare, in my reflection. The scar that stretches across it, a macabre line of creased skin, is my very first battle wound. A memory of the day that propelled me into a life, not of my choosing. Each fleshy crevice and rugged edge becomes a story that marks the skin. A living diary, sans the writing. I pass my callused fingers over it but feel nothing. The nerve damage was extensive and that area of my head is now numb to any form of sensation. Numb like my heart.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, when the world seems to be asleep and not a sound can be heard, I stop breathing. Just long enough to feel my own heartbeat, to reassure myself that I do, in fact, still have one.

I tire of my reflection and reach down for Allira. A blade as strong-willed as the one who named her. The one I now wield her for. Securing her safely to my side, I find myself comforted by her weight. It keeps me grounded and alert. I leave the sanctuary of my house and walk out into the, still empty streets. It is early morning and the suns have yet to heat the cadaverous plains of the city. A breeze stirs the red dust from the unmarked, sandy streets and the eastern mountains loom in the background, dark and secretive. Rumors run wild in the towns about those mountains. Many believe that they hold the key to the origin of the magik. A disease that, without warning, afflicted a many species, including the Ètüläsians, forever plunging the world into chaos.

“ Some say it's a curse but I think it's a gift. The mystical life force present within us all. It binds us to to different elements of nature and gifts us abilities that allow us to bend and manipulate these elements to our liking.” His voice is like a ghost song and my mind is an endless canyon. Filled with curves and weathered walls for the haunting sound to bounce off of as it echoes endlessly. With a closing of my eyes, I’m suddenly transported... To a moment... A memory...

The sensations still alive in my body despite the passage of time. Time. It's unforgiving, meant to heal but has done nothing but pass. Losing it's meaning as days and nights blur into one without him by my side. As I retire from living and content myself with the dull loneliness of existence. My days painted in blood, my nights disrupted by thoughts of what might have been…

“You do realise he can’t understand a single word you’re saying right?” I asked as I looked down at him over my swollen belly.

“She is a smart girl and is finding this bedtime story most interesting.” He answered, spoiling our unborn babe with a tender kiss.

“Is that so?” I challenged.

“As a matter of fact, it is. She told me.”

“Oh she did, did she?” I asked, the question laced with my surprised laughter

“Yes, yes she did. Just hold on and she’ll tell you too.” He assured me and so we both fell into silence, a doubtful grin on my face. After a minute he whispered:
“Baby? This is the part where you kick to prove daddy right.”

Another laugh rattled my rib cage and he tried to silence me with a kiss but only succeeded in muffling out my chuckles.

A sting, which can, now, barely be described as a tickle, pierces my heart and proves to me once again that it, in fact, is still there. Still beating despite its definite hollowness. I suspect that, granted I had any tears left, my eyes might, now, in this moment, be coated with a thin layer of moisture, but they remain dry. For I have cried all I had to cry, I’ve shed every last tear. There is no space for such emotional luxuries in the life of a warrior. No time for lamentation amid war. There is only blood, and the sulfuric scent of fear clinging heavily through the air. If you listen closely, in the distance, echoing from those very mystical mountains, you can at times hear the tortured cries of the nearing battle.

Cries of hatred.

Cries of revenge.

Cries of defeat.

Cries not unlike the one that cuts through my ruminations, though decidedly less mechanical, more human. One as shrill and prudent as that of a *skur'vn invades the air with such verbose tenacity that it almost catches me off guard. The device firmly planted on my table side bleeps a pedantic white. Unfortunately, it seems that the comfort of my abode will have to wait.

Rushing through the metallic doors of the inner city, I find myself entering a grand building situated at the centre. Walls of coppery black extend ominously into complex archways and curvatures, intricate detailing engraves itself into the cool stone. Here it stands in all it's culminated glory, The Organisation.

“ Captain Angelica!!!” comes the thoroughly uneasy voice of a girl.

“Anria, there better be a good reason for summoning me. As I told you before, thinking you saw a *neiro scurrying down the hall is not an emergency.” I state. She stares rather intensely, her gaze unwavering, a feeling of disquiet falls over me. This isn't a joke?

“Follow me,” she commands

“You're serious?” I ask taken aback. She nods methodically.

“Minerva is waiting in the operations room.”