“Look, I’m good.” He reached for something on his back “Take this, it’s food.”
At last, success in the interaction between the two, hesitantly she took the meat from his hands and munched it like a hungry dog. Her eyes however would not step off of him during her feast.
“What’s your name?”
She didn’t answer, she was either too busy with the meat or too suspicious of him.
“I’m Liv”
“Manna.” She replied with her mouth full, here he knew she was probably a slave, kingdom girls would never talk or eat like that, plus a kingdom girl would have died by now.
He looked through the house, this was definitely an alchemist's house: the characteristic flasks, accompanied with the bleach-flavored fragrance, the hundreds of books scattered across, the mistreated slave with dozens of scars on her body…
Be it either with wizards or humans, cruelty always find a place to nest.
No one really knows when the war started. Perhaps no one really cares, what once was a war for survival quickly became a war of hatred, where the lives of innocents amount to nothing in the battlefield, issue that becomes critical when the battlefield is the entire continent.
The wizards with their magic, and the humans with their machinery, both brought the world to the state it is today. For a bigger purpose, both claim to be doing what’s right, but do any of them ever look at the sky? The purple sky, altered by the countless battles, that hides our land from sunlight. Do any of them really care? One cares, a pirate cares, a witch cares.
Pillagers, bandits, pirates, whatever they’re called, contrary to popular belief, they end up being the less harmful culprits in the whole war. They are usually the ones that appear after a battle between the two bigger powers, collecting valuables to sell on the black market. There have been times where they acted violently but their cities to plunge are very often ghost towns: the steam-suits and the mage-knights do the “cleaning” work, mercilessly.
A few towns remain unharmed, until recently Getterlund was the last remaining academic city of the eastern district of Frankia, matter which the king seemed to ignore two weeks later when he was presented with the war report. It was in Getterlund that a slave was rescued by a lone pirate, it is in the village of Barrelin that they both dine now.
“So… You’re from Roume?” She didn’t answer.
In fact, from the moment they got in the inn to the present moment, she hasn't said word, and besides her characteristic “eyeing around” she barely moved. The waitress would break the statue by bringing a plate with food and drinks.
“So you’re alive after all...” Liv kept her eyes on her, something (maybe pure curiosity, maybe not) kept his interest locked tightly “I was in Roume...” Ignored again “It’s a mess, franks really don’t care… Well everywhere is a mess...”
She ate, and ate, drank, and kept eating. He wasn’t eating, the attempts to initiate a conversation replaced his hunger with frustration.
“Do you have family in Roume, I can take you there you know...” Again ignored “I have some friends in the mountains, they-”
“Not from Roume.” She interrupted him, truly not a kingdom girl.
“You’re a slave...” Liv’s confusion was understandable and needs explanation: around four centuries ago, king Clovis II put an end to the war against Roume with a smashing victory, and to top the cake of triumph he condemned all citizens of Roume to eternal slavery to the Holy Kingdom of Frankia. Roume maintains it’s diminished “country”, but frank nobles can do whatever they wish with it’s people.
“Not from Roume.” With her mouth full.
“Where else then...” She looked at him, what did he mean? “Franks keep slaves from nowhere but Roume.” True, due to their strong religion and it’s humanistic nature slavery is seen with wary eyes. Unless we’re talking about those devilish roumans “Don’t tell me that besides killing they also enslave their own now...” She seemed surprised, shocked perhaps, it seemed like Liv said something she wasn’t expecting “What?”
She drank, quite a lot, the whole glass.
“Would you give food still if witch?”
“What...”
“Ah ah ah ah ah!”
He didn’t laugh.
“Wait!”
Rushing, sweating, quick steps over the ash field, the pirate stormed out of the Inn �" running away from the harmless witch. Harmless, that is, in the eye of the ignorant spectator.
“I will deal with roumans, I will deal with ethiops, I will deal with francs, but I will not! Deal with witches.” A sudden stop followed by a locked aim on the pursuer’s forehead “Do not follow me.”
“A-” She was scared, not as scared and she would have been if she hadn’t been fed by that same hand now threatening to kill her “Am good, swear!”
“I’ve seen enough to know that getting involved with your kind never works well, for neither side. Do not follow me.”
She didn’t move, she stayed right in front of the steam gun. Gun which he would not fire. A quick exchange of gazes was enough for them to realize that no one was going to leave, and no one was going to die.
He sighed in defeat.
“What do you want...”
“Food.”
“I gave you enough food.”
“Need more.”
“Why don’t you just…make it appear? Aren’t you a witch?”
“Witch can do that?!”
“Lord...”
“Teach food spell!”
Liv was losing patience, this witch involvement (categorized as maximum level felony by the kingdom) was becoming more real each reply he gave to her. It seems that even a cold, insensitive, war pillager has a sense of law awareness. As much awareness as he does have of his surroundings �" a distant lashing noise from the east �" that is the noise of war.
“Oh..f**k...”
“Something...coming.” She felt it as well.
He took her hand “With me!”
He started running towards the south where Liv believed to be out of course from the incoming destruction. Manna, opposed to the composed Liv, kept looking back, curious of what he was running away from �" another aspect of her he does not expect.
At the first glance she saw nothing.
At the second glance she saw panicking people escaping from broken windows and doors.
At the third glance the sky was darkened, the weak sunlight being clouded even further.
A big bang proceeded, followed by a fourth glance that saw flying men in steam suits fighting what she could only assume to be a “monster”. Encircled by a dark miasma, the fight developed into a cataclysm wreaking havoc in both sky and land �" the inn was no more, Barrelin was no more. Flashing lights, violent screams, and silent cries, was all she could see and hear. All that happened in under one minute.
At this time Liv held her confused face and looked at her.
“Alright… We good.”
“What...what is that?”
“Madmen.” He took a torch out of his bag and lighted it, it was still midday however “This will only get worse.” He took her hand and resumed the escapade, now with a slower pace, in the dark he wasn’t as sure of where to head to.
“Someone crying.”
“They all are darling...”
“Is closer.”
“Keep walking!”
“Liv! Crying is closer.”
At that moment, the upper body of a steam suit came flying over them, clashing against a big tree right in front of them. Liv panicked as he first thought they had been found out, to his relief it was only another dead warrior. On approaching he saw the driver’s intestines coming out of the suit, painting bloody red the grass. His face was not visible: also his helmet’s visor had been “painted”.
Still being held by Liv’s firmer grip, she pointed to the man.
“Crying. Help. Liv help!”
“I believe he’s dead...”
“No, inside.”
“Inside?” He finally understood what she was saying, he understood where the silent cries she heard came from, so well he understood that when she tried to walk to the body his hand would not let go yet “I don’t think you want to see that...” Her eyes said otherwise.
Free, she walked closer, disregarding the fleshy mess on the ground she concentrated her attention on the suit’s chest. She tried hitting it, scratching it, and even holding her hands above expecting her magic to manifest, but to no avail.
“Get back, I’ll open it...” Liv, at rescue, used his knife onto the junctions in the suit’s chest, lifting it off of the suit and diverting his eyes away immediately, not even he is ready for that kind of image “Come...”
Manna saw a severed woman’s head, seemingly lifeless and expressionless, inside the suit’s chest, connected to various wires and impaled by tubes �" this is how the francs power their ingenious suits, this is how they’re on even ground with the wizards �" and from that head, she felt the same energy that emanates from herself, still emanating, nevertheless emanating from a severed form of life, severed from body and from all kind of censorial input. This, she found wrong. Liv did not comment, he felt anything he could say would worsen the situation since he’s not that kind of empathic companion.
“Liv, gun, kill.”
“You want me to shoot it?” He wasn’t so surprised, perhaps he had done it before.
“Yes, shoot.”
He did not hesitate.
Later on, breaking the outgoing silence that followed the incident, they stopped to camp. Liv thought she was sad, she was not. He thought that the carnage and cruelty affected her deeply, it did not. She was instead processing the idea of what the world was, and of what it could become, she didn’t feel sorry for the woman whose head had been so cruelly treated, she felt it was wrong.
“Why them fight?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She was not eating, the absorption in her thoughts made her hunger feel less urgent.
“Don’t let it get to you, that’s the worst you can do.” She wasn’t paying attention “People like me, we find our path amid the rubble and walk the s**t out of it. Never looking back.”
“Moon.” She pointed up “Beautiful.”
“Is it?” In reality, she could only see the moon because she was a witch, normal human eyes can't see through all the purple toxic clouds in the sky.
“Oh! Can’t see!”
“Yeah...”
“Uhm...”
Liv went back to eating, and she gave in to her hunger. Although still thinking about the same matters, the next question that popped up was “how often?”, in her special language of course:
“Happen a lot?”
“You mean the battle?”
“Monster and flying mans!”
“Monster? You mean the spirit.” He took a bite of the crispy roasted squirrel before jumping on the subject “I have tried and failed to calculate the behaviours of this war. You don’t expect it, you listen and perceive. I’m always ready to listen close �" to their engines �" and perceive �" the miasma’s spread �" and with those you can calculate their direction. It’s not about knowing when, it’s about being ready. A shame those people at Barrelin weren’t as ready. A stroke of luck you were with me, ahah.” Although she had felt them coming as well.
They did not speak much, she was still thought-absorbed and he was still clueless on what to do with the witch, his charge for pillaging is just forced labour. A “witch sympathizer” gets worse, way worse. Perhaps he likes her, he’s into short haired girl after all...if she classifies as such… Regardless, he too uses this forced transition on his mind, it is nighttime, and tomorrow morning a long walk to Gadia’s port awaits them.
“Sleep well, tomorrow you’ll need that energy.”
“Yes!” She laid down obediently.
“Alright… I’ll stay on watch.” As he sat, alone, he wonders what she might have gone through at Getterlund, with the lack of bodies he believed they had all escaped leaving only the witch behind, but why would an alchemist leave behind his precious guinea pig? It seemed strange to him “How bad was it...at Getterlund?”
She didn’t answer, but he saw her laid down body twitching the moment he asked and took that as the answer.
“Ah… Don’t wanna talk about it? I feel ya.”
“No...”
“No?”
“Will Liv hate Manna?”
He did not understand her muffled words.
She turned around to him, with eyes that he had not seen on her before, dark crimson with hidden terrors inside: “Will Liv hate bad witch?”
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