To Haful: After your satisfactory application for cook for the Keinaza garrison, and after careful consideration, we have decided to allow you to be our newest cook. Report to the garrison kitchen by 05:00 tomorrow morning to start. -Keinaza Garrison, Grande Armée de Nikidia
The tip of her blade nicked his back.
“Nice, nice.” Ryko said, smiling as he rubbed the spot where he was nicked.
“Good eye, and reflexes. It takes quick thinking to do that.”
She jumps back and hesitates, before lowering her guard. “Thanks. I’m surprised I got that.” She said, breathing heavily. “You did good, too. I’s just lucky t’day.”
She shrugs. “Maybe yer just not used to facing someone who fights like me.” She says, twirling her blades, then holding one out to show Ryko. “'S far as I know these aren’t all that common.”
Louisa stares at him as if he’s speaking a foreign language… which, to be fair, he is. Then, without a word, she turns and walks out the door. What had she been thinking, staying with the rebels? It would’ve only been a matter of time before they got her wrapped up in everything, and the thought made her shudder. She was better off on her own… yes, much better. She just needed to get out of this god-forsaken city, hopefully without dying in the process. She walks towards the city walls, doing her very best not to look like she was hiding anything.
Sean stayed silent for a moment. “Well then I guess that’s that.” He said quietly before going to his desk, starting a few letters to friends he had in the nearby towns.
Hans hesitated for a moment. He felt like he should follow her, though he couldn’t quite figure out why he felt that he should. After some consideration, he walked out the other door. “I’m going for a walk.”
A familiar figure might pass in front of her on the street, riding atop her imposing steed. It was the Mademoiselle, doing a patrol for the day. (@jayzor17 )
Louisa ducks her head, staring at the ground. She needed to run, she needed to be anywhere but here - but her legs were frozen, somehow feeling like stone and like jelly all at once.
The Mademoiselle shakes her head. “Just another useless deserter. Not worth my time.” She says, turning, making sure her horse’s tail hits Louisa, and riding away.
Louisa stands there in stunned silence. She was… alive? Le Mademoiselle hadn’t burned her at the stake for deserting? Her brain is frozen, unable to process the fact.
“Do not expect such kindness again. The only reason you stand there alive is my lack of time to punish you adequately. If we meet again…well, you will not make it out the other end of the encounter.” She says as she rides away.
And suddenly everything comes crashing down around her. She was living on borrowed time. Her breathing starts to accelerate, raspy breaths coming one after the other but seeming to do nothing to bring air to her lungs. She sinks to her knees, oblivious to her surroundings.
Louisa doesn’t react to him at first, her breathing heavy and quick and her eyes fixed on the ground in front of her. Then she looks up, her whole body quaking like a flag rippling in the wind.
“I-I am dead,” she gasps. “I am already dead. She found me, and when she finds me again she’ll ki-, she, she’ll kill me. I can’t run, she’ll find me, wherever I go she’ll hunt me down and then I’ll die.”