~
In the midnight sky, a purple haze crept across the vast wheat fields while quiet gallops in the distance filled the ears of little Regina Lepue. The skunk turned and saw the cavalry of red-and black armoured soldiers through the rickety, weather-worn wooden posts of the six-foot high fence that lined the village perimeter.
“Regina, get back here!” Regina felt a hard tug at her arm, and she was yanked to security against her mother’s hip, just as a cloud of frantic townsmen raced past, fumbling for the swords and maces at their hips.
“I wanna go with Daddy!” Regina protested. She broke free from her mother’s clutch, and ran after the group of armed animals just as another dozen came from around the block, yelling and shouting commands at each other before they passed by the two skunks in a hurry.
“Regina, wait!” her mother called after her, but Regina was already merged with the others.
Regina found her father near the entrance to Altas Village.
Thomas Lepue gazed out past the village’s wide-open gate, with sword held at his side. As the townsmen rushed past him through the gates and into the night, Regina’s father looked over at his six-year-old daughter. A small smile of relief formed on his otherwise fretful face.
“Daddy!” Regina shouted. She started to take a few steps towards him, but Thomas stopped her with an extended paw. The sound of the armoured cavalry was almost upon Altas Village.
Slowly, his sword-arm rose, pointed out past the open gate.
Regina felt the cool wind against the fur upon her tender cheek.
“Gloria, take Regina out of the village,” Regina’s father said as soon as the girl’s mother caught up. “There’s nothing for us here now.”
“Thomas, I’m not—” Gloria started to say.
Regina became distracted by streams of orange light that arched in the air, towards Altas. At first, she thought they were fireworks, until they rained down upon the streets. As townsfolk around the skunk family were felled by the aerial onslaught, Regina watched in shock as thatched rooftops surrounding her burst into flame.
Next thing Regina knew, the town was filled with the red-and-black soldiers – shadows coming out of the night – crossing weapons with every able-body in Altas Village.
“Daddy!” Regina wailed when they became separated by the in-town skirmish. She watched her father block the attack of an arbitrary soldier in the crowd. Her father thrust forward, but the bandit parried the attack, and with brute force, leaned against Thomas with an arm. Regina saw a quick flash of the soldier’s sword thrust down overtop her father, but before she could witness his fate, the backs of two other fighters met, blocking her view.
“Thomas!!” Regina’s mother screamed, and before Regina could rush between the two men to chase after her father, she felt her mother’s grip around her tiny arm, and was ruggedly dragged backwards. In a brash attempt to once again break free from her mother however, Regina tripped over her own feet and tumbled into the damp street, where she knocked her head against the cold, wet, cobblestone.
Regina awoke with a start.
A moment passed before the skunk realized where she was again. She rolled onto her back and gazed up into the dull morning sky, hidden by the shadow of crisscrossed tree branches overhead. Regina clenched her eyes tight, and after she found her bearings, rolled onto her other side and saw the heretic across the way, quietly packing away the dinner supplies and the bonfire spit into his open camping pack. Beside her was a bowl of grey goop.
“What time is it?” Regina croaked and pushed up up on her arms. The heretic’s cloak slid down her chest plate and into her lap.
“You’re awake finally,” rumbled the heretic without looking up from his work. “Get some porridge in your belly. That bowlful is cold now, but it’ll have to do. We have a lot of ground to cover before tonight.”
Regina eyed him warily for a moment before she looked back down at the bowl of porridge. She took the bowl into both gauntlets, and started to dab two metal-clad digits into the substance, until she realized what she was doing. Regina took off the gauntlet and resumed.
The porridge was freezing cold and like mortar down her throat, but Regina said nothing as she ate in silence.
The events from the previous day flashed in her still-groggy mind, and all she could think about was Dwain and Garia. Regina hadn’t been off of the continent of Galheist Region since she went to school in Mecia when she was far younger. That had been the only time she had ridden in an Alliance airship, albeit with a number of others who were at the ripe age for compulsory two-year education at the Capitol.
It had taken Regina only a day by the sky-vessel to reach Mecia, which was on the far east of Castor Region.
Syreen, in Lylia Region, was far closer geographically, but Regina dreaded the thought of how long it would take her and the heretic to cross the Gabriel Sea by mere boat.
They trekked, still under the disguise of Alliance archers, over the vast meadows and lush fields that lay beyond Keeto. Regina didn’t know where the heretic was taking her now. She wracked her brain, trying to think of the continent’s major landmarks aside from its five townships.
She thought back to the conversation by the bonfire the night before.
“You can’t tell me that even after all these years, there isn’t a tug in the back of your mind that wonders ... You’re the daughter of Retainers, after all,”
She reflected on the heretic’s words to her.
“...Otherwise, you wouldn’t have warned me against attacking Alliance troops – twice – nor would you have attacked one of them to save me, for whatever reason.”
Basic instinct.
That was the heretic’s theory as to why Regina followed him to the Temple of the Wind Crystal the day before. Was he right? Was there something inside the skunk, unconsciously driving her to do such a thing? Such an illogical thing she never in her right mind would have done before?
Regina thought about Dwain again. He wouldn’t have known about her being a hostage yet. She wondered what the conversation between them at Garia would be like. It would be a relief to see him – even under such awful circumstances.
After a full twenty-four hours with the fox, Regina still didn’t know the heretic’s identity other than his ethnicity. She was too afraid to ask him his name, even though she had been strong enough to both beat him with his own staff, and then yell at him later on for disrespecting the memory of her parents.
Even if I did ask him, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to tell me, she thought begrudgingly.
The hospital.
Regina’s chest tightened every time she thought about her job. She should have been at work that day. The thought looped in her mind countless times during her steady and silent ride with the heretic.
Never once as a nurse at Altas Hospital did Regina miss a day’s shift.
She hoped that one of her colleagues would have the sense to realize that, and alert the Alliance outpost in Altas.
Maybe if the soldiers saw that she wasn’t at her home at Sharktapus Beach, a missing report would be made public.
Then again, Regina thought, if that one soldier from the Wind Temple – the one the heretic didn’t kill – went back to Keeto or Altas and let Doblah know what was going on … maybe she was marked as a wanted criminal now, too.