Kurai sat by the collapsed portion of the wall and looked over the ruins below and the central spire. The sun had gone down and it was hard to see anything at this point but she was still able to see the basic shapes of the buildings around them.
The rusty door to the chamber had been barred shut leaving the chamber they were in pretty secure.
“Toughest foe you’ve ever fought.” said Janette as she tried to flavor her bland rations with some spices.
“Oh, man.” said Arcaea as she thought about it. “I once fought another dozku while unarmed.”
“Damn. Were they armed though? Did they have guns or anything.” asked Kurai looking back at her friends sitting around the small bonfire they had lit in the middle of the chamber.
“She had a pretty big sword.” explained Arcaea. “The hardest part was to get close to her. So the story is I was paid to protect this wealthy moonlet family during their journey to Keystone. This was probably just a week before I met you guys. Anyway, I had my weapons but while we were flying over the Sorndal Woodlands our ship got shot out of the sky. Luckily the impact wasn’t deadly but it did leave us very vulnerable. I had my old cleaver and a rifle but I used up all of its charges shooting at the bandits that shot us down.
“After a little bit of fighting and a little bit of killing it was down to just me and their leader. She had a gigantic sword but my rifle was out of charges and I had dropped my cleaver in the heat of the battle.”
“So what did you do?” asked Janette.
They were all looking at her with eyes wide open with excitement.
“I dodged most of her attacks and managed to get close enough to wrestle her to the ground. After a lot of wrestling she managed to push my face down into a puddle where I proceeded to slowly drown.” continued Arcaea.
“In a puddle?!” asked Kurai both amused and horrified.
“Yeah, that would have been a shameful ending for old Arcaea Sidonis. Luckily the family’s youngest son managed to get his hands on a gun and shot her in the head. He was the only one of the moonlet brave enough to step up and do something. He’s now my favorite kid in the world. I should really go and see them when we get back to Keystone.”
The girls mock clapped at her story’s end.
“What about you, Raven?” said Arcaea, passing the metaphorical torch over to her sunborn friend. “What was the toughest foe you ever fought.”
Raven thought about it for a moment before answering. “I fought a ruukai once.”
“What?!” the others said in unison. “Are you torking kidding me?!” Kurai added.
“I never kid.” said Raven with a sly smile.
“How did that happen?” asked Arcaea.
“This was during my Magistry days. We were out looking for dozku insurgents because Infinitum really didn’t like the idea of them fighting for their freedom and stuff.” said Raven.
“So this was the second rebellion?” asked Arcaea.
“Yeah, this was during the final year of the war so about seven years ago.” said Raven, fully aware of the fact that she was talking about a war where her people fought against Arcaea’s people. “Anyway, we thought we were tracking a group of dozku, turns out, we were actually tracking a group of imperial ruukai instead. Oopsie.”
The others laughed at that comment.
“Aren’t the ruukai like, super strong?” asked Kurai.
“Oh yeah. They’re huge, mean and they’re built like urthogs, or at least some of them are.” said Raven.
“Drim.” Kurai said. “How did that go?”
“Pretty well, actually. Only lost some of our fellow valkyries but we did manage to kill all of them.” said Raven very casually.
There was a moment of silence before Arcaea asked something she had been meaning to ask for a while now. “Who were some of the worst valkyries you knew in the Magistry?”
Raven looked at her dozku friend, understanding the multiple layers to that question.
“Well, you know me. I disapprove of the Magistry very vocally. I’m sure that’s one of the reasons some of you trust me enough to travel with me.” said Raven, looking at all of them, one by one. “That being said I cannot bring myself to say that all of them were terrible. There are plenty of good people in the Magistry and among the valkyries. I saw a lot of those good people die during the rebellion.
“However, I do have a few valkyries on my drim list.” she continued. “Most of them were once my closest friends. Siv Alister was always very ambitious, ready to do anything to gain more power. Then there was...Daizel Rowan, ironically called Daisy, who was one the most uncaring psychopaths I had the misfortune of working with...and knowing. Apparently she’s gone missing these days. Who knows what she’s up to. But one of the worst ones is a valkyrie named Abra Attica. She was the same age as me but rose up through the ranks very fast. She was the most skilled fighter I ever knew and a brilliant tactician. However, she was also extremely vicious and had no qualms about killing unarmed civilians or even children.”
“Drim…” said Kurai before trailing off.
“Yeah. It’s pretty torked. Of all the bad ones, she might be the worst. If you ever meet her on a battlefield, just run the other direction.” added Raven. “She’s the only one I could never beat in a fight. In fact, last I checked, she remained completely undefeated in both sparring matches and in war. Never lost a battle.”
“What about the Lavenders?” asked Arcaea.
Raven gave her a curious look. “The Lavenders? Can’t say I know them too well, by reputation only. But I did meet the Iron Lily on a couple of occasions. She is the commander of the valkyries after all.”
“The Iron Lily?” asked Kurai. “That sounds badass.”
“Yeah. She’s the matriarch of the Lavender family.” explained Raven.
“Oh man, my family hated them, and the Atticas too.” said Janette. “Used to talk about Liliana Lavender and her daughters all the time. Apparently they were some of the most skilled valkyries out there, although I heard some of them died in the second rebellion.
“She had five. Regalia Lavender was the oldest.” Raven continued to explain. “She served as a captain in the rebellion but she’s dead now. Decime was one of their most prominent tacticians, she’s still alive from what I hear. Then there was Optima, she was something of a prodigy I hear. She’s dead as well. The two youngest are twins who are still too young to be fully awakened as valkyries yet.”
“Are they powerful? Or were they powerful, I guess? The ones who fought in the war?” asked Kurai.
“Oh yeah. There is a reason why Liliana is the commander of the valkyries. Her daughters were maybe less so but still pretty powerful.” said Raven.
“I heard Optima was particularly nasty. I mean they all were/are but she was apparently on a whole other level. From what I hear, the Lavenders have something of a family curse.” said Arcaea.
“The Lavender Madness.” Janette added.
Raven laughed. “The Lavender Legacy they call it in polite society. Yeah, I’ve heard that as well. It apparently makes them extremely ambitious but it always leads to tragedy.” Raven elaborated. “Or so they say.”
“And did it for the Iron Lily?” asked Kurai.
“You can say that.” continued Raven. “She spearheaded the campaign against the dozku rebellion which gained her a lot of power and fame. It also destroyed her family and took away two of her daughters. Two of her heirs.”
“You feel sad for her?” asked Arcaea.
“I feel sad over the insane amount of people that died during that war on both sides. It’s easy to call one side or another the good one or the bad one but it’s not that simple. Loss is loss and that whole war could have been averted if people just stopped being so scared of each other.”
Arcaea smiled. “True.”
“Do you miss any of it?” asked Janette.
“The Magistry? Or the Sisterhood specifically?” asked Raven.
“Either one.” Janette clarified.
“Not really. The memory of the things I loved has been tainted by years of war and horrors.” said Raven, sadly. “I think I miss the innocence of childhood but even that time has been heavily tainted by the fact that our mothers were grooming us from to become killers.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance. A storm seemed to be getting progressively closer and closer to the ruins. It would soon begin to rain.
Kurai seemed deep in thought for a moment and then she looked sheepishly. “This might be a really stupid question and I don’t mean for it to sound offensive or anything…”
“Oh please, go ahead.” said Raven with a kind smile. “There’s nothing wrong with asking questions.”
“Okay...so, uh...are all the valkyries women?”
Janette and Arcaea looked at Raven, awaiting her answer, even though they clearly knew.
“Most of us are.” answered Raven. “Most of us have, at least, a touch of femininity to us. There seems to be a lot of strange restrictions to who could become a valkyrie and who couldn't when they were making the original twenty seven. For instance, there has never, at least to my knowledge, been a dozku or varg valkyrie. For some reason it has only been sunborn and moonlet. Now, whether that was due to some cosmic reasoning or just due to good old fashioned bigotry, I cannot say.”
“Wow. Weird.” said Kurai.
“Put that on to the long list of unanswered mysteries of the world.” said Janette.
“Indeed.” Raven agreed.
"And they've never made any more valkyries since then?" asked Kurai.
"I mean, we have children, but not all of our children grow up to become valkyries. But the family lines that exist today have existed since our creation at Blackborrow." replied Raven.
“What was your family name?” asked Arcaea.
Raven simply looked at her, silently.
“It seems to me that the valkyries put a lot of stock in legacies and lineages. So...which one do you belong to?” she asked again.
A faint expression of sadness manifested on Raven’s visage.
“I gave all of that up after the rebellion. After all the terrible things I did I left my name and family behind. I haven’t used my family name in ages.”
Arcaea maintained her gaze upon Raven. It wasn’t a harsh look but it wasn’t a sympathetic one either. After a few moments Raven sighed and relented.
“My name was Raven Fairfeather. That was the family I belonged to.”
“Does that mean you’re Raine’s daughter?” asked Janette.
“I am indeed. You know her?”
“Only by reputation. I’ve never even seen images of her, or most of the other valkyries for that matter. But I heard she was mostly famous for being a loud and rambunctious woman who had a lot of daughters.”
“Well, the daughters part is true of pretty much all of them but Raine was very loud indeed.” said Raven.
“Sorry about your mom’s death.” Janette added.
“Thanks.” said Raven and the room went quiet again. “Well, I should probably perform the ritual and empty my nilshards. I only have a couple of empty ones left at this point.”
“Raven.” said Arcaea.
Hearing her name made Raven stop. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting but she was ready for whatever it might be.
“I didn’t fight in the second rebellion but I had family members who did.”
Raven’s expression got even sadder at the mention of this.
“I just wanted to let you know that I don’t blame you for anything that occurred during that war. We both lost people to that conflict and both sides did terrible things. I just want you to know that you don’t have to blame yourself for the things that happened there.”
Raven smiled and a tear trickled down her face as she reached out and gently grabbed Arcaea’s shoulder. But she said nothing. She just smiled, then walked to one of the corners where she laid down her nilshards and began her ritual. Arcaea wanted to say something, to add something to her statement, but couldn’t think of a single thing to say. She knew that Raven hadn’t believed or accepted what she had just said. The guilt that her sunborn friend felt was so deep that it would take her a long time to learn to let go of it.
“Weird.” said Kurai.
“What?” said Janette.
“Do you guys see a little bit of a glow coming from the mountains?”
Janette and Arcaea looked at each other, puzzled. They then walked over to the opening and looked out into the darkness. They could just barely make out the silhouette of the mountains. At first that was all they saw. Just a massive, jagged mountain range that filled the north-western horizon. But then Arcaea began to see it. Specks of light on the mountainside as if some unseen people had built dozens upon dozens of bonfires.
“That...certainly is weird.” said Arcaea. “Maybe the people who came looking for the mines just decided to live there.”
“Just on the mountainside?” asked Kurai.
“It could be anything else, really.” said Janette. “We’ve seen a lot of weird things out here in the Badlands.
Thunder boomed up above and soon rain began to fall outside. A chill filled the air which only made them feel lucky that they were able to stay indoors, safe and, most importantly, dry. Soon they were no longer able to see the mountain because of the rain and so they sat down around the fire once more. Raven continued her ritual in silence while the other girls just sat and stared into the flames without saying a word.
Arcaea found herself thinking of her mother and siblings the night before they went to war and how sure they had all been certain that they would win. They had never returned and like so many others, their bodies had never been recovered from the toxic wastes of Dozkai Regalis..
Kurai’s head shot up all of a sudden.
“What is it?” asked Arcaea.
“Listen.” Kurai said and they did.
At first Arcaea heard nothing but the heavy rain outside the ruins. She was about to open her mouth and ask if Kurai was losing it when she heard it.
A whimper. A low sob coming from...the other side of the barred door.
The girls looked at the door and at Raven, who had stopped her ritual and was looking at the door as well.
“What the tork is that?” asked Janette with genuine fear in her eyes.
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