Sefirian Chronicles: Avielle's Inferno

The Great War

June 1998. Ikehoji Forest.

It was an end of an era; the extinction of history itself. For one cold night of June, the last Sefir fell. And so did the rest of the world's order.

The pungent odor of burning organic matter clung heavily in the air, sickly reminiscent of kindling wood or hair. A body, perhaps. A woman dressed in a tattered hospital gown, crouching in the forest's darkness, clenched her pale fists. She wished it was the latter. The shadows provided her cover, though the heavy downpour of rain rendered her eyesight useless. Pitter, patter. Fat droplets fell down on her beaten and bruised body, approaching the brink of total exhaustion.

But she had a mission.

Her ears picked up the sloshing of a dozen boots on wet mud from a hundred meters away. To a mere human, the sound would have been drowned by the rain, the cicadas, and the wind. But not her kind. She surreptitiously gripped her dagger and cursed at the wind howling at her ear, mocking her. The soldiers were closing in on her, and fast. It wouldn't take long before they find her and take her back to SIDHE.

She'd rather die than get taken alive again.

The sound of more shouting and thumping alerted her, and she calmed her pounding heart. She has no choice. She gritted her teeth and tried her best to track the footsteps she's been following for a few hours. The woman didn't know if she was going to find their general, but she would be damned if she didn't try until she was within an inch of her life. Mischa is their last chance, and she has their only hope of surviving this war.

A small cry caught her ears. Despite her broken wings, she tried to follow the sound as fast as she could. She ignored the searing pain coming from all of her body and wiped the blood dripping from her forehead with the back of her hand. Then, she saw it. Just out of the dense shrubbery, under the large Banyan tree, there lay a figure motionless on the ground holding a wiggling, crying bundle.

"Mischa!"

The woman limped as quickly as she can. She threw herself beside the body, taking it in her arms. She shook the body with trembling hands. Something wet stuck to her hands, and the coppery notes of blood clung to her. She realized what it was with a horrified gasp.

They had cut Mischa's wings off. Painfully and sloppily.

"Fucking bastards," she grieved and cried out in silent rage. Tears mixed with rain, blinding her momentarily.

"Yuko?" the woman looked up from the whisper and saw deep violet eyes, a sign of deep agony.

She perked up and pulled the other woman closer to her. "Mischa, stay with me. I'll get us out of here. Just hold on," she said, breathless.

Before she could move, Mischa put a hand on her forearm and shook her head weakly. "They broke me," Mischa rasped, motioning at her wings.

"It's okay," Yuko said through gritted teeth. "We can't let them win, Mischa."

As if to prove her wrong, Mischa started coughing out blood. Dark, coppery red blood ran from her mouth and nose, watering the ground with the rain. With the last bits of her strength, she handed the small whining bundle to her friend.

"Take her," Mischa insisted. "And please, survive. Please survive for us."

It was all that Mischa could take as she closed her eyes for the last time. Yuko heard the general's heart slow down and finally stop beating. She grieved. Mischa is the best of them; the fiercest and strongest of their kind.

The most beautiful.

Yuko put her hand on Mischa's forehead, uttering words of a language older than humanity.