"Remember, if you need anything. Anything at all, just ask for Pymonsia on the wind and I shall do all I can." Sister Pymonsia promises the last of the refugees as I linger on the building's entrance. I've offered what help I can, what magic I can reasonably spare and what efforts I can, too. But, I'm not a woman of the people like she is. All my time in Thrurstradtur-Suhurlodst and away from the war hasn't really changed me.
I have changed, no doubt about that. Just not in a way that makes this any easier. Moving among people, mingling and hearing their fears and doubts. That is not me, though, I would rather that never be me, either.
I am who I am and that is never going to change, not in this lifetime. Whoever I am, it has survived so much since Giant's Victory. It survived my doubts and fears, my loss of my sacred virginity, and the life that was forming outside of the Valkinvar. This is me, Valkinvar-Imdvarce Vapooliar.
"Come, Sister Vapooliar, shall we make haste and fly?" Sister Pymonsia asks of me, giggling slightly with her renewed mood as the children wave after her. Their high-pitched voices making a chorus of sweet and giddy farewells. My helmet hides my smile, but it is there. Sister Pymonsia raises her hands, waving back at the children, a final spell for them as I fly ahead of her. She tugs her hair and robes back, gently toying with the last fragments of childish innocence.
She reaches me, the children becoming an unrecognisable blur, their sounds barely reaching us even with our enhanced hearing, "It is good that they still have the minds of children."
Sister Pymonsia looks my way at my remark, her smile wavering, then fortifying, "Yes... Yes. I have tried my best to make sure they keep such character. Even the Valkinvar, brought up to us at such a young age... Even we were never deprived of our childhood."
I nod away, barely able to remember any of it either way. I've simply been alive for too long to remember anything but the most distinct days of my childhood. Only the most memorable cases of my life and what has come and gone. A Valkinvar, that is what I am. What half of the city is built to house.
Half the city to one thing, to one god, War himself.
"Sister Pymonsia... About the circumstances of the war." I say, trailing into a louder voice as her expression quivers. A shake rocks her about and she comes to terms with my words. Her eyes close, the smile vanishing like so many of my previously pondered memories.
"Very well." Sister Pymonsia sighs as her actions take us higher and higher. The shield protecting Thurn's Forge takes form, its magic becoming viewable to the naked eye. I stop before it, knowing how it will react if I press on. Yet she doesn't.
She waves her hand, a spell coming to life that needs no spoken chant. The barrier parts ways, allowing such a small hole to form. Enough for one person to pass through, two and more if they follow perfectly. She glides up further, gently gesturing for me to follow. I aim myself and shoot up at my top speed, barely avoiding the clenching teeth of siege-enduring magics.
"Why have you brought us up here...?" I start to ask, only to find her flying even higher and higher. I keep up, clinging to the magic she is wastefully letting out so I can reduce my personal efforts. She finally stops, so high in the sky that there is no doubt as to what we are doing, even though we know it. We're flying.
"What do you see, Sister Vapooliar?" the Eurultus-Valkinvar asks, her voice taking on a harsh tone that is almost demanding. A general addressing a mere soldier. Authority by right of rank.
"I see the lands around Thurn's Forge. Jherikra's side of the Redstone Canyon." I answer, daring to glance down at the abyss, which is only even more endless now. Only now, it's not just the dark of that deep chasm, but the light of the open air. I shall fall for so long in light so I can desperately cling to its beauty, and then end up in another kind. One where halolight is but a gem in the sparkling distance.
Though, up here with the Eurultus-Valkinvar, I am as safe as I could ever be. Her personality only makes the safety even more of a safety compared to the others. No one would let me fall to my death if they can help it, but she certainly makes it seem like that. Love for all who call the city and her domain home. Unconditional love that seems so baffling to come from a mortal woman.
"All that you see, Sister Vapooliar, all that you can imagine from this point in the sky... We have lost it all." she answers further, practically struggling to breathe properly as the details come to her. I frown, thinking back to when I left Thrurstradtur-Suhurlodst. The machines they have there, they can show images of lands far off and out of view for whole lifetimes. I saw the flaming ruins of Muerteid, but one of the cities of the Seventh Line.
The very edge of the domain of the Eastern Orange Wind and her subjects.
In the time since then, only a mere half decade ago or so... All of it but Thurn's Forge has been lost. The cities captured, the fortresses felled. As close to Thurn's Forge's very gates with even the Line Before a smouldering wreck to this cycle.
"All the more reason for us to be fighting as hard as we can while we can. But, instead... Instead you strip Valkinvar like me of our ranks... Hound us all into the city like beasts for slaughter. A butcher down in Thurnmourer-Thunlanann understands the concept more than some of our sisters and brothers do, it seems!" I argue, throwing my arms out and reaching for my helmet. I toss it aside, letting it catch on Sister Pymonsia's magic and she brings it back.
She puts it into her hands, rubbing the silk-lace covered limbs and digits across the embarrassed steel. It bears no wounds of energetic, recovering battle. It still shines as much as anyone else's does these days. The war is stagnating and while we waste our time here, the south roars more and more with the sounds of the heretics and their airships.
"I can only say so much. My word and its value depend on it." Sister Pymonsia almost weeps as who knows how many sinister secrets worm their way about her head. I keep quiet, uncertain if I should let her carry on or say my earliest and most immature of thoughts. My fingers flex, stretching the leather of my gloves, and she looks their way. Her smile comes back, if only a little.
She reaches for them, taking my hands into hers, and she opens my palms up to the world.
"I know you're eager to do right by what you left behind, Sister Vapooliar. I know this is a struggling thought to process, what is happening right now. But please, try and trust me as much as you can. Efforts are being made... But professional courtesy and oath limits what I can do and say." Sister Pymonsia explains, doing her best to keep the natural weight of her eyes up against mine.
I nod slowly, taking in her words as her grip loosens, "We've been retreating for so long... Hiding under the shield while the Seven-Peaks Union of Jherikra flew about all of the city. Their airships firing away, held back only by the regeneration of the shield. And their apprehension to fire away at the ground of the city..."
"The siege was quite the event, yes. So many things we had to consider that simply never happened." Sister Pymonsia breathes, her stress almost visible in the very air itself. I walked the walls, like any of the Valkinvar did during the siege. I went over the plans and possible actions with what soldiers remained of our once great country. Our empire.
Nothing came of it, but still... One can only comprehend so much when all they can sense with is their eyes and ears. Sister Pymonsia and the other Four Points of the Compass had to sift through every scout report. However few they were still able to get. Points and points of each cycle wasted on thinking the same ideas over and over again. An endless rumination of our ruination.
"You can't agree on how to fight the war, can you?" I ask, the answer seeming so obvious even with the lack of information I have to work with. Sister Pymonsia's lips seal shut, but her head still finds the strength to bobble and move. A nod of confirmation.
"There are many difficulties right now and I hold not enough authority to push for what we need." she is at least willing to reveal to me as I make a habit of unsheathing my sword for the sake of a durable grip. My gloves spread across the handle, stretching out with such a harsh, aggressive sound. One that demands war and all of its violence.
"Surely we can push at least as far as the Line Before...? A line of defence that is meant to keep our enemies away from the gates of the city. Fortresses that failed in their first battle despite never being neglected or treated as ceremonious pomp!?" I demand to know. I beg to know...
"There is so much I am unfortunate enough to tell you about... You have much to learn, Sister Vapooliar. Youngest Sister..." Sister Pymonsia lets out with a sigh that passes to me as much as a bullet passes from barrel to dying man. One hand comes off of my sword, clutching the space above my matrimonial scar. A wound that I've never touched since the loss of my sacred virginity. I do not have the right to, anymore, but its meaning is the same, either way.
"I don't understand how there can be so much discourse that is disagreed upon that leads the very Valkinvar themselves to not even try to fight... The Line Before is right there, ready to be refortified. The Seventh Line is so far beyond it but still in reach! No scouts or sights have come back to us from the south. Whatever is going on near Thrurstradtur-Suhurlodst is a blessing, and we're wasting it with silence and atrophy!" I point out, getting my violent thoughts out into the open air as Sister Pymonsia retreats from my growing fury.
"Will you hear me, one last time, then?" Sister Pymonsia asks so gently, her voice begging much like mine has been since I found her. I turn her way fully, floating towards her as she returns my helmet. I put it back on and she takes my free hand, encouraging the other to return my sword to its sheath. It enters her free hand right after.
"Please... Eurultus-Valkinvar Pymonsia... Please make sense of this madness that is gripping us in a time of desperate action where we are nothing but still..." I beg right back, looking down and away. The wind whooshes and I blink. The ground shifts under my grip and a piece of plant touches my ear.
Sister Pymonsia steps back, leaving me to react to the sudden appearance of the willow tree. The willow tree she went through so much effort to have put on some of the most sacred grounds of our home. I stare in awe at such a simple beauty, one surrounded by so many masterpieces of art and masonry. Valkinvar armour and weapons of times long gone. Artefacts worth as much in gold as any brimming to the bursting point treasury might be...
Sister Pymonsia finds her knees and places them on the grass. A gentle gesture that sees her beginning the removal of her armour and cloth. Her hand trails to her right leg, the ceremonial slot on its side opening up and revealing a most sacred knife. She draws the blade, bringing it up to her perfect skin, marked by only a single flaw made of love.
Her hand gently cups her covering breast, hiding its nipple once again and lifting the hefty, motherly weight away. The full length of her matrimonial scar fills my eyes and her own take my attention. Her eyes are stone-like, her brow as fixed as the most stubborn of gemstones and their crystal deposits. A gulp swells my throat, almost bruising it.
"I swear on my name, both entitled and not... I, Pymonsia... I, the Valkinvar of the Eastern Orange Wind, the Eurultus-Valkinvar herself. I do promise you, Sister Vapooliar, Feather Vapooliar. Valkinvar-Imdvarce Vapooliar. I promise you this: You will not see our home become our grave. This war will end with us fighting beyond the city and reclaiming our home. All I but ask for is time... Time I pay the price for with my very, holy-married blood."
I step back further, almost tripping like one of the toddlers from earlier...
"Sister Pymonsia..." I breathe at the strange sight as she cuts into her matrimonial scar. Staining her armour and clothes red with blood that comes in from as deep as her heart.
"Sister Vapooliar, on my honour as a Valkinvar, as a wife-to-be of Honourable War himself, Waionr... I promise you that your confusion, your bafflement and all. It will not be in vain!" she declares, her usual cool nowhere to be found as tears roll down her flushed cheeks.
I nod unendingly, understanding that even in this dark ignorance, I and so many others are in... It's not out of some vile malice hindering us. Not from the likes of Sister Pymonsia or any of those leading the Valkinvar. If such a promise is made, I have no choice but to give her my trust.
"You idiot..." I breathe, a smile coming to my lips as I undo my short cape and hand it over to her. She smiles back at me, wincing as her magic seals her wound so intentionally imperfectly. She covers herself, letting her blood soak my colours for as long as I keep it dirtied. Though our memories will not forget this promise, I will keep her blood as further proof of it. Only when it has naturally left the strings and knits of my cape...
Only then will I forget her words, her heartfelt words.