"Goodbye Curly Head"

"Shadows Of Planes"

Over the hill, where the devils once laid waste to all that is Lawful,

Over the endless birch sea, the valleys of trenches and creeks of barbed wire,

Was the open country; Frozen and forgotten up north, bathed in the hellish sun down south.

And on that hill sat three innocent little souls, watching the sun bid farewell to rest beneath the horizon.

“... Leithanien, huh? Isn't it a bit rocky over there?”

“Rocky…? Oh, with all the Witch King nonsense?”

Isaiah dismissively flicked his hand, focusing his gaze on the setting sun.

“I don't think it's that bad. Besides, the positives outweigh the negatives, you know? No other place treats musical arts with such respect and importance!”

His eyes gleamed with excitement at the mere thought.

“... Yeah, but didn't they use to run some messed up experiments on people?”

“Oh, shush. That’s all in the past, and besides, it's not like Laterano's all guilt free either.”

Droz immediately perked up at the mention of his homeland, letting his binoculars fall to his chest and joining the conversation.

“Ey, fowlboy, feathers off my country.”

“... But I'm from there, too?”

“Yeah, but you're a…”

…

Andy and Isaiah both turned towards the giant. The words seemed stuck in his throat as a drop of sweat ran down his forehead. Was he actually trying to backtrack? Was he trying to awkwardly waddle away from his usually confident ramblings?

The bard raised his eyebrow, taking some sort of initiative for once.

“I’m… What, Droz? A liberi, is that it?”

“No, that's not… That's not what I meant.”

“Is it?”

His voice was soft, not even the slightest hint of anger hiding within. Just overbearing disappointment.

“Look, okay, I wasn't trying to go there, It's just…”

He went silent, his massive cheeks turning a deeper shade of red. Isaiah sighed and turned back towards the sunset.

“I get it. That's also part of the reason I wanna leave. It gets… Tiring, constantly being a second class citizen. It felt like having a billboard saying “Glad to have you here, cheap workforce! Know your place and don't forget you're not a sankta!” shoved in my face everywhere I went.”

Droz glanced away and turned back to his binoculars.

"... I'm sorry."

Silence enveloped the three, driving a thorn of guilt into Andy's side. Maybe he really didn't have it as bad as he originally thought. Maybe the sick, pseudo intellectual thought storms about his futureless life were a tad bit unnecessary. Maybe he shouldn't have ever came here in the first place.

No point in crying over spilled milk, eight months in. Just a mere hundred and twenty days separated him from his grand return back home with a hefty paycheck to his name and many, many stories to tell his favorite two morons. Oh, just imagine the looks on their faces when an armored transporter drops him off by the cinnamon shop… Andy could almost see and feel the relief radiating off of Mostima as she'd throw in a few snarky remarks, ultimately admitting she had missed him just as much as he did… Or, well, a bit at the very least. He could also imagine the other hyperactive airhead running circles around him, asking for her postcard, to see the pictures he's taken, how many devils he had shot…

… She'd be in for a bitter disappointment, though. In the eight months of deployment they haven't had a single run in with the violent nationalists. Not even a small group, nothing. At least they had the best seats in the house for the air show.

“Oh, hey, here they are, look.”

Droz pointed out towards the gray clouds as the distant roar of an engine grew ever so clearer. 

First, it was the massive, glistening windshields. The creatures’ many eyes. With the setting sun playfully flickering off the glass surfaces, painting its endless irises orange. Then, the enormous bodies - true wonders of technology born from a mess of cogs and wires, powered by four massive originium fueled engines each. Their wings, spreading out majestically and basking in the sun's warm embrace. On each of them, painted proudly was the crest of Laterano - an X shape with a trident adorned by a halo in the very middle. What lurks within such a beast? Rows and rows of unstable originium charges, all masterfully crafted to implode and expand on impact - the absolute pinnacle of Victorian engineering. In each one of those creatures laid enough firepower to level a small city and thoroughly cover it with black crystals, leaving it uninhabitable for the next thirty or so years.

Andy let out a small whistle of wonder as the flock of bomber planes flew high up above the three, towards the unknown. Isaiah’s response was a snort and a look full of disdain towards the metal beasts soaring through the sky.

“... There goes your “peacekeeping.""