"What's going on!?" yet another sister Valkinvar demands to know as my bed continues to be swarmed. It only took one sister to spot the mess and then dozens came on over. Too many are here. They're on the ground, surrounding me, in the air in defiance of the rules of the barracks, and there is no order to be found. No order, only an insatiable mass of questions and demands.
"Why is there broken armour on your bed?" one asks.
"What's going on?" another somehow manages to get through the crowd. My head snaps from one head to another, unable to figure out which one to focus on. There's too many of them. Too many seeking answers, too many demanding them.
Why is there broken armour on my bed? Battle-worn armour that has been disgraced of its ornamentation and left to frolic in filth! Why has the name plaque at the end of my bed been disgraced so crudely!? They want to know who the name is for!
Ogawa. Ogawa... Ogawa! Her name was Ogawa!
The sister Valkinvar-Imdvarce, who took over my post after I fell in battle. The one stationed at Giant's Victory as it burned to the ground. The sky quaking with the war-horns of the heretic airships. She died in defence of her home against a menace years ago and she was left to return to clay like a sacrifice in a ruined temple!
"WHAT'S GOING ON HERE!?" roars a new face, an unknown face. She forces her way to the front of the crowd, the shine to her braided hair only enforcing her will. I flinch back before such power, pedalling back and colliding with my bedside table and drawers. A handful of sisters squeeze by, looking down on my bed and gossiping away.
I look one way and then another, a cold sweat bubbling out across my skin. The heat of a hundred angered voices and frustrated frowns, and I still feel cold. So many. Too many allies and yet they all feel like my enemies.
Why is Ogawa's armour here!? Why is her name carved so crudely at the base of my bed!? Why is such a thing here now of all times!? How did they even come to know my relation to...?
"Sister Vapooliar, what's going on?" a gentle voice asks behind me, her gentle grip almost sending me into the air. I snap around to face her, a pair of open, ungloved palms awaiting me. My eyes dash between two brothers and five sisters, landing on her. Silence somehow breaks out across the barracks and a monster that only exists in socialising bares its teeth to me.
The slightest trip up and...
"I..." I struggle to get out, unable to focus as my sabatons shake away with nothing but terror. I've face down armies of heretics, stood among the barrage of guns and have dived through the smoke and fog of war. Blood has soaked my face as much as the gore-mixed mud has. Yet, nowhere have people ever driven me to terror like this before.
My allies, of all people. My fellow Valkinvar. My sister Valkinvar-Imdvarce. They're driving me to terror with eyes alone, no guns or blows at the ready.
"I..." I struggle to get out again, a gulp choking me as much as any bloodthirsty grip on the neck might. Some sisters are aware and try to back people off, but others are too determined to know. They *need* to know why Ogawa's remains are on my bed. They *need* to know why her armour is separated from the body. Why... Why! Why!?
"Alright, everyone, back off! You're getting too crowded even for me!" one sister snaps and another snaps right back at her. More and more voices join the verbal fight and even as an opening clears its way for me. I do not move. I cannot move. My bed is a display for desecrated steel and my name is irreplaceably tied to it.
"Sister Vapooliar?" one sister asks.
"Valkinvar-"
"-Vapooliar?"
"Vapooliar?"
"Vapooliar!"
"Vapooliar!?"
"EVERYBODY BE QUIET OR I WILL BUTCHER YOU ALL BEFORE THE HERETICS EVEN GET HERE!" I roar with all I have, throwing out a threat of the highest order to at least get somewhere. They all back away as I heave with raw anger. There's no other way about it. They keep backing away, my dominant arm clutching at my sword, as they all do the same. They understand my circumstances and ease away their sword-grips.
In time, I copy them and blink away what frustrations I can as my eyes burn. Not with light, just misery. Unrelenting misery and fear. I have to explain the situation. There's no way I can explain the situation any other way...? Can I-!?
Maybe... Maybe.
"This is the armour of a fallen Valkinvar." I answer, my jaws half-clenched with the struggle to keep my voice anything but meek under the pressure. I can't hear it, for the most part, but my mind is hearing it all, anyway. The gossip, the assumptions, the impatient thoughts, questions, and demands. It's hearing all of it even if their lips do not move.
The name catches in my throat, I can't sieve away the details. I need to speak the details. People will find out anyway, and there's nowhere for me to run. Not now. Not with my mark of shame and these scratches on my armour. Even the Eurultus-Valkinvar's medallion means nothing now.
"This is the armour of Sister Ogawa... She died defending Giant's Victory when the heretics breached its walls. I... I... I needed to find new armour. I needed to replace what I had lost, and hers was all I could-"
"LIAR!" one sister snaps, the air bursting with a sonic boom. I look her way, finding a fist coming right for me. It strikes my eye socket, throwing me across the barracks. I blink away, powdered bed frames still falling around me. I keep blinking, feeling only a dull ache even as the blow clearly repeats in my head.
"THAT'S ENOUGH!" another sister snaps, several others getting in with her to stop the violence. I bring myself up with no one's help and stumble about, so far from my bed now. One... Two... Three... Six beds ruined by that blow.
"I'm not lying... I did what I had to, to get back into the war effort..." I almost sob, choking on my words as the tears flow more freely. So eager to come out, but not in a way that annoys me. They're plastered across my face, flattened by rubbing palms as much as anything else.
"GET BACK INTO!? WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!?" one sister roars, her demands spurring on even more. I flinch at the truth, knowing full well what I am compared to all of those here. All of my still-standing sisters. When I hid away for nearly a decade, they were all still fighting. Losing sisters by the hundreds, brothers by the dozen... Our homeland was burning, and I was eating cake in some school beneath my capabilities...
"I... I... I-" I can't get out, unable to find a friendly, protective face anywhere in the massing wall of people. Even those restraining others are finding the ability to look over their shoulders. Right at me. Right for me. Answers. Give them answers.
Answers!
"I WAS ORDERED TO HEAD OUT OF GIANT'S VICTORY WITH FORTY-THOUSAND IRONCOATS! I WAS TO AWAIT REINFORCEMENTS NEAR THE THRURSTRADTUR BORDER! WE WERE TO ENGAGE THE HERETICS AS WE HAD ALWAYS FOUGHT THEM! VICTORY WAS MEANT TO COME AND INSTEAD I WAS MET WITH RED-FEATHERS AND THE FIRST SIGNS OF THE AIRSHIPS!-"
"Sister Vapooliar, it's alright-!" one sister tries to calm with me, only igniting further efforts.
"SHUT YOUR MOUTH! I FOUGHT AT GIANT'S VICTORY AS A LONESOME FEATHER FOR GRAND-CYCLES! ON MY OWN AND WITH NO SUPPORT! THEN I AM SUDDENLY FACE TO FACE WITH THE VERY COMMANDER OF THE ENEMY'S ARMY! PRINCE JHRARTUR HIMSELF SHOVED HIS BLADE INTO ME!" I roar away, tearing off my armour with animalistic fury until my top half is bare.
I squeeze the flesh around my would, almost tearing a chunk of myself out to throw at them. I squeeze harder and harder, bringing needless pain to myself to show off the stab wound. The hole Prince Jhrartur thrust into me at that massacre of a battle... He slaughtered the army, then cast me across the country, thinking I was dead myself!
"HE SLAPPED ME OFF OF HIS AIRSHIP, HURLING ME ACROSS THE LAND INTO THRURSTRADTUR'S PROPER WHERE OSIBINDAH FOUND ME! OSIBINDAH FOUND ME AND THEY TOOK MY SACRED VIRGINITY AS IF THEY COULD FORCE ME TO BE ONE OF THEIR FOUL EGGLAYERS! THEY BROKE ME AS MUCH AS PRINCE JHRARTUR DID! I HID AWAY FROM THE WAR BECAUSE WHAT RIGHT DOES ANY VALKINVAR HAVE TO FIGHT WHEN SHE CAN'T EVEN SQUASH SOME BUGS!? HUH!? HUUUUH!?"
The crowd flinches away, eyeing the strange, spikey bulges near my crotch with renewed feelings. Fear. Contempt. Hatred. Pity... Pity...! Pity!
"I HID AWAY FROM THIS WAR AND THEN I FOUGHT MY WAY BACK INTO IT! I AVOIDED THEIR AIRSHIPS UNTIL I REACHED MY OLD POST AGAIN! I CLEARED GIANT'S VICTORY OF EVERY HERETIC AND FREED THE CITY LIKE ALL OF YOU FAILED TO DO! ME! ME! MEEE! SISTER VAPOOLIAR, THE FAILURE SO WEAK THAT HER HAIR IS TAINTED WITH WHISPER BERYL! I TOOK SISTER OGAWA'S ARMOUR BECAUSE I NEEDED IT! BECAUSE I HAD ONLY MY SWORD TO MY NAME AT THAT POINT! A SWORD I THEN SHATTERED AT THE SIEGE OF THE LONG BATTERY FORT, HOLDING OUT WITH MORE THAN A DOZEN SISTERS AGAINST THE HERETICAL ARMIES, THEIR AIRSHIP AND THEIR WAR-WITCHES! I FOUGHT ON AND ON WITHOUT GIVING THEM ANY QUARTER!"
My voice breaks, leaving me tired and limp in the distance. My shoulders rise and heave away, unable to calm down, the same as my breathing. Magic rushes to me, trying to heal my sore throat and I deny it. Tears keep on flowing as the berth between me and others grows. I choke on my voice, keeping it locked up as my fists refuse to loosen up, even as spilling blood begs me. The pain demands it. The blood begs... It begs...
"I fought all the way back here... To the home I love... To the life I've struggled to get out of my head... I've fought and fought and fought for no reason... I'm not going to see Waionr when I die... Not like you lot... I don't have the right any more! I don't have it anymore..." I sob, struggling to keep myself upright as I stumble into another bed, snapping one of its posts.
The crowd stays silent, bubbling away with all kinds of emotions. Like any pot of boiling soup or stew. Some colours make their way up, others vanish. Some emotions have left them, others have stayed. All the information. It's all true, no lies are there... But who knows if they care about the truth or not? They're not me, they're nothing like me.
They haven't seen the world outside of the Valkinvar. They flew in Wings and Duets and more. I spent my time as a Feather, on an unimportant front. The front of Giant's Victory, the pitiful Siege of Giant's Victory... Until the day the airships came. I was alone, with no one there for me.
I was unprepared because no one had cared to tell me about it. If they knew at all. I had to fight with all I had against a threat I knew nothing about. In the ruins of my army and of ancient times long gone against guns, which made the very earth vanish.
It didn't rupture with the sound of iron-shot impacting. Or granite balls shattering. No hills of soil erupted as high as the skies would let it. That was it. The earth vanished. The people vanished. The army died, and the blood flew about, splattering the valley.
I was gone grand-cycles... Years... Years I was gone, and I came back to that same massacred. The bodies nowhere near ready to become clay. I walked and flew across a country that was burning. A butchered country.
A desecrated land and I've watched that same land whittle away and now I'm locked up in a city, with the half-body I had to use just to fight this far...!
"I am being judged for simply trying to survive a war which had forgotten me long before I ever ended up in that hive... You all hated me even before then. I was always the runt, the slowest ever initiate to become a Valkinvar proper... My bed wouldn't even be here if I didn't make a point of asking about it. You never even wrote my name down in the archives and yet you judge me... You all judge me for fighting my way back into the war... Alone... Frightened... Scared... No reason to even fight anymore and you..."
I break down into tears, unable to carry on as my body shakes and quivers to the sounds of gossip and rumours. All of it is not true. Whatever words come to their lips are lies. Lies, lies, lies!