5. Fire

Even brief encounters, connections, counted for something in the end. If she didn't believe that, then almost all she'd done had been a waste. But she believed.

Every right, every wrong. Every time she helped, every time she just looked on. Every cut or kiss or anything in between.

The small amount of time she'd had with him. Even if she probably needed to be done with him, and knew that, she had to take some kind of happiness from what she had been able to be a part of.

She still didn't get it. Clearly she'd stumbled upon something bigger than herself, but at the same time it had been a simple encounter between two isolated, slightly mad people that went well only initially. Then, reality had set in. Both their realities.

She'd been a soldier and all about that life until she'd met him. Take the hits, dish them out, lick thy wounds, then back into the fray. Love had never really entered the equation, though of course there had been the customary attempts at selling her off to a man (her Father's grand plans) when she'd been younger. Before she'd gone to war.

Ashira was what you'd call a “progressive country” on the surface. Women could wage or fight wars, technically, though generally had to sacrifice more in order to do it. How could a warrior also have been or become a housewife? It seemed to be one or the other in the eyes of many, including her own father – fight or nurture, never both.

So, she'd chosen. Fight the fight. Any fight, it had seemed, for a while.

Once she'd been scarred up and hardened, few men thought of her as a woman anymore. She didn't have to worry about dalliances getting in her way.

'Til that night. One night that changed it all. For better or worse, she just didn't know, even now.

*****************************************

Her first fight since escaping. Good thing the wizards were pretty useful, because she not only felt rusty but now a need to avoid killing. If only to differentiate herself from Them.

“Oop, hey calm down, you should go to sleep,” Lina rambled as she slammed a baton against the side of a shiny steel helmet. “Now.” The soldier dropped right to the floor, unconscious but at least alive.

“Oh, wait, we're not killing everybody?” A younger caster, also wielding a sword, said as his weapon dripped with the blood of the man on his hilt.

“We are, we are,” Negan half-snarled. With his open hand he blasted two attackers with blue flame that immediately began to liquefy their armor and their bodies.

“I mean, we don't have to?” the younger man responded. “Like, in theory.” He quickly parried a blow then touched the nearby soldier, shocking him upon contact, giving it a few good seconds before letting his enemy drop to the ground.

“The fewer of them, now or ever, means the fewer there are to come after us again.” The old man had space and a moment to set his staff down, place both hands on it, and begin a more complex spell.

“You know I used to do this kinda shit?” Lina demanded, breaking someone's knee and severing an arm. “Oh, fuck.”

“The more they can push us, the more power they have!” Negan snapped. His eyes were closed and everything around him started to glow and crackle. The handful of other casters exchanged glances here and there as they all fought.

The stone of the hall began to move from where the Elder stood, selectively throwing enemies off balance while leaving allies untouched. Then parts of it began to spear straight into the air, piercing through any and all armor or even magical protections. The stone itself had to also be magical and of a strong material for such a thing to work? Lina guessed.

She herself had no magical properties save nullification – she tended to resist poisons or potions and offensive or suppressing magics. She had had the trait since birth, it seemed, but never tested so thoroughly until the past few months. Apparently, someone had been keeping tabs on her then begun to make attempts on her life. She'd been poisoned multiple times without even knowing it, only finding out when others became sick when she'd shared something tasty.

“I'm not complaining, exactly,” she added once everything stopped moving except for things that were meant to move.

“No, I understand. They were your comrades. Some of these are elites, yes?” Negan walked around peering at corpses, sometimes pushing one with his foot, his dark eyes taking in details.

Lina crouched down to search the nearest soldier. “Were, yes. And yes.” You could tell by the quality of the armor and certain insignias featuring roses that these were mostly mid-tier and elite warriors, with a few more inconspicuous types thrown in. Elites were such by name and troop “quality”, generally being more educated and trained, more experienced, and better equiped, along with having certain beneficial alliances and permissions. So in a word – dangerous.

“They were serious, then. Wow. I thought this place looked enough like a dump to hide better,” the younger wizard from earlier said.

Negan coughed into a fist. “So did I, to be honest. Just unkempt and old enough to be uninteresting.”

“Ah. They took extra interest because of me,” Lina said, having already realized it once the windows had been smashed in and the doors obliterated.

“Bingo. Hey, we planned for it,” the kid shrugged. Red-haired, just old enough to join the imperial army, and probably came from a nice family. Nic was his name, she was fairly sure. All his talking made her forget some of his details.

“We wouldn't have drawn you here if we weren't ready for a fight. We do keep up on the present, however it may look,” Negan remarked. “We are a people with little left to lose. When this plane has become hell, why not risk everything to try to help?”

“Yeah. We all feel that way, even idiots like Nic. So.” The latest speaker was a girl about Nic's age, probably a little older, who specialized in animal communication.