Aaaah, I am almost half-terrified to share this with all of you! One of the things about NaNo is that because of the pace you have to work at, you have very little time to self-edit, if any time at all . . . meaning that this next chapter is going to be really rough. Like a diamond that you can't even see. More like a diamond hidden in a god damn volcano.
Despite my own anxiety on the matter and all of that, I present to you Chapter 12 of Project: Hope. All the back story you need is that A) L'Fae has little loyalty from her platoon because she's gay and dating a woman, B) Elisa is one of L'Fae's friends, and C) God Peter is the ruler of the country in-hiding because of the antagonist. Have fun!
. . . eep.
Word Count: 3,701. It's a long chapter. I'm sorry.
***
It had all started so fast.
L’Fae had just been patrolling with her squadron, attempting to go to each of them and talk to them a week after Jade confronted them. They’d just been circling outside of Evane, and she hadn’t thought it would be risky - she’d gone to them each and tried to make her case, tried to get them to listen to her. She wasn’t as successful as she hoped; most of them flat-out ignored her, if not lashed back with a hateful word or two. But some of them listened, at least, and that gave her hope. Somehow.
But that had been what occupied her when the Rebel Angels attacked.
She immediately shouted for them to draw their arms, and her team did - all of them. But from there, only a fourth to a half followed her commands, and she had to go between air and land and arrows and the bo staff off of her back to attack. It was frenzied - she couldn’t see a damn thing happening as she fought and shouted out orders, her mind swirling too much for her to figure out what she was even ordering, who was even listening. She had no idea.
“Somebody go get backup!” she shouted at one point as she knocked down a man and turned to her forces, spotting Tamesis. “Go get backup, quickly!” she ordered. “Please-”
A flash of pain - and then she screamed and grabbed her left arm, just able to knock the Angel in front of her down and out entirely.
“L’Fae!” Tamesis went to fly closer, clearly concerned and her purple eyes blazing. “You’re injured-”
“There’s no time for that! Get reinforcements, now!” she shouted, and thank goodness, Tamesis listened and flew away, fast. L’Fae looked down at her arm - it was covered in blood. She cursed and put a hand to it, trying to think quickly of what to do, but she could only reach down to the hem of her tunic and rip a black strip from it to tie over her wound. It wasn’t deep - just a gash from a sword wound - but it bled and stung, so she tied the makeshift bandage tight. And then she turned back to the fight.
They were evenly matched, and she knew that from the first. But her group was easily outnumbered three to one, and she could tell, but she still grit her teeth and spun her sharpened staff, taking out eyes and leaving gashes and even stabbing a man through the chest when it was necessary. There was so much blood - she almost couldn’t handle it, how sweet it filled the air, to the point where she could taste copper on her tongue. She bit her lower lip and kept fighting, her spirits sinking as around her, some of her Angels began to droop and then drop to the ground, joining the several injured fallen among the grass.
At one point, she was nearly knocked out of the sky, brain spinning and the sky above her mixing as she spiraled down and fought to regain her balance. She tried, and for once, succeeded; the moment she was upright, though, an Angel came at her in white and purple, sword fully brandished, and she steeled herself and dodged his blow if only to smack him with her staff, to cut open his cheek and wind him-
If only to swing at him once more and have her staff, out of nowhere, shatter.
She gasped, flew back. But the Angel before he, he smiled, and he raised his sword with an evil grin and-
“Commander L’Fae, we’re here!”
She saw the man’s face pale, and she looked behind her and saw them: reinforcements, flying towards her with white and black wings and clothed in dark red and black, and she thanked the beings above and looked back to her enemy renewed-
But he had run. And before she could fully understand, the Rebel Angels retreated.
***
“Everybody move, we have fifteen casualties and counting, somebody get Ms. Rudolle over here-!”
The sounds all melded together as L’Fae ran into the medic ward, and she had to stop and cover her ears from all of the noise. Her arm throbbed in pain; her hasty bandage was coming undone, soaked in her own blood. She could still taste it in the air, that sickeningly sweet copper, and everything was so busy she couldn’t handle it, she thought. So many people lying on the floor with medics kneeling next to them, taking pulses and wrapping wounds and muttering reassurances, and L’Fae thought she was going to be sick.
She pressed herself against the wall and tried to breathe, tried to listen to everything and its lull. It felt like her mind was running too fast, like she was in overdrive. She felt like eyes were on the back of her shoulders and neck, even though nobody was behind her, and she took in a deep breath through her nose. She ran her fingers through her hair and felt the braid running through her hair, separating her bangs from the rest, come undone - it fell away and down her left shoulder, slowly unraveling as she tried to get her senses back, tried to breathe.
Breathe . . . Breathe . . .
“Are you alright, L’Fae?”
She looked up and saw her - Elisa. She was wearing a medic’s typical robe, covered in blood, wrapped around the waist with a sash of red. So much red - L’Fae shut her eyes immediately and covered her mouth, trying to fight bile as she felt herself shiver.
A hand on her shoulder. After just a moment, she felt it, and she heard Elisa’s voice: “Calm down. You’re just high off of adrenaline, okay? I heard what happened. Sounds like it was pretty sudden.”
She spoke through her open fingers. “Y-Yeah,” she stammered. “I-I still- I still feel like I’m being watched.”
“Feeling of impending doom?”
L’Fae could only nod.
“. . . Hmm. Again, adrenaline, and a little bit of shock. Sit down, okay? I’ll tend to you before I get to the others.”
L’Fae listened and obeyed, sliding down the wall as she pulled her hand from her mouth and to her injured arm, still stinging harshly. She opened her eyes, saw Elisa looking down at her with that familiar mix of concern and nurturing, that familiar mix . . . Dulled. L’Fae swallowed, licked her lips. “A-Aren’t there people in more trouble than I am?” she asked as she pressed her wings to the wall.
Elisa shook her head, took her arm, and started undoing the hastily-tied bandage. “The most serious ones injured will be getting here in the next few minutes,” she explained as she pulled away the fabric and leaned in to see the cut across L’Fae’s arm. “I’m part of the intensive care unit, so I need to wait until they come to do anything, really. Sword wound?”
L’Fae bit her lip and nodded.
“Alright, that’s not too hard, then,” Elisa nodded and looked back to her, but at least then, she was able to force a tiny smile. “You’re an emergency medic, right? Because this sure is an emergency.”
“Y-Yeah,” L’Fae nodded. “Do you want my help?”
“Yeah. Let me fix you up and I’ll show you what I need.”
***
She needed a lot, and fast. L’Fae was surprised at how quickly they had to move, how rapid everything seemed to surge around her as she got her wound stitched closed and started helping Elisa, and that was even before some of the worse injuries started coming in. Several of her group had minor wounds - a few of them were harmed more seriously, and some more from the reinforcements that had pursued the retreating rebels and been injured badly.
Still, that eerie red. It made her want to choke.
L’Fae ended up working as Elisa’s assistant for the most part, helping the injured sit up while Elisa stitched their wounds shut, laying wet cloths on the foreheads of those who were feverish with infection. She rarely had to do anything medical herself; a few times, Elisa asked her to sew up a cut or a gash while she attend to more serious tasks, and L’Fae helped as well as she could, even if her stitches weren’t as perfect as her friend’s.
And the scary part of it was just how focused Elisa seemed to become when she worked, how quiet she worked and how few reassurances she could give at the same time. Strangely enough, L’Fae was reminded of the first time she had arrived at the Devil’s Clubhouse, willing to join the Devils in protecting the people so much that she had run away from home. She’d turned up beaten, bruised, and tired - and Elisa, who met her at the door, responded by wrapping her in a warm hug.
There wasn’t time for any of that then, though. So much had changed, L’Fae thought as she fetched another basin of water, that such memories became more and more distant with each day that passed. She wished she could back to it, go back to saving the people without fear of her identity being found or her friends being killed. Back then, she’d known that they were all strong enough to protect themselves, or else didn’t go and fight at all.
But now, she wasn’t so sure.
The worst moment that day was when they started helping a Devil L’Fae knew from the Clubhouse, a man named Asten Smith, whose daughter sat by his side as he laid down on a thin pile of blankets. He had a stomach wound and numerous cuts along his body, the worst of which barely sewn closed. Elisa worked hastily and gave no orders, so L’Fae forced herself to make her own orders: talk. Comfort. And don’t let that father die.
L’Fae held Asten’s hand while she looked to his daughter, named Channery and about her age with pure white hair and dark blue wings. “You two are close?” L’Fae asked at first, unsure where to start.
“Yes,” Channery nodded, her bright blue eyes filled with unshed tears. “My mother and father divorced, and she made me stay with him. I have no siblings or other family, so Dad’s the only one I have left.”
“Don’t say that,” Asten grunted as Elisa took a stitch into his arm, his voice weak and coarse. He squeezed L’Fae’s hand. “You have all of the other Devils here to look after you in my steed. You know that.”
“I-I don’t know,” Channery shut her eyes and shook her head. L’Fae could see her tenseness, pulled in on herself like she didn’t know what to do with herself. “Dad, I can’t lose you. You know that.”
“I-I’m also not-” Asten coughed, his grip loosening. L’Fae’s heart ached in sympathy. “I’m not well enough to hold out, Channery . . . You know that. You’re a little over twenty now - you’ll have to find a way to survive, somehow.”
“But . . .” Channery swallowed.
L’Fae looked up at her and frowned. She remembered so well being in Channery’s position, after she’d ran away from home . . . She tried to give her a reassuring smile. “I ran away from home a few months ago, and I was very very scared. But I survived. Am surviving,” L’Fae said. “You’ll be okay, too, whenever your dad dies. That time isn’t going to be now, but whenever it is-”
“I-I know,” Channery shook her head. “I shouldn’t worry so much, I suppose . . .”
“You worry too much over these old bones,” Asten said with a dry laugh.
Channery shut her eyes and shook her head. “Dad-”
Suddenly- a sharp intake of breath. L’Fae flinched, but the hand in hers had gone limp, and Asten dropped into her arms like a rag doll. Elisa jumped and immediately dropped the needle she was trying to thread, leaning over Asten’s face and listening for breath while she took a pulse.
Channery had gone deathly pale.
“I-Is he-”
L’Fae swallowed and looked to Elisa as she sat up with her eyes shut, still feeling for a pulse, still focused and so far away and too, too solemn-
Elisa shook her head.
“. . . I’m sorry, Miss Channery. His heart gave out, I . . . He’s dead.”
L’Fae felt it like a punch to the gut, like a kick to the chest. She let go of the corpse and grabbed at the hem of her dress, already covered in blood, the loss running through her so fast it was like-
“Oh, Father . . .!”
Channery doubled over and buried her face in her father’s shirt, body heaving with every lost sob and last regret she had, and L’Fae could only watch with a heavy heart, unsure what to say, what to do, how she was supposed to react-
Next to her, Elisa finished packing away her supplies and stood up, took a few steps away.
And L’Fae felt her voice shake.
“E-Elisa?”
Elisa stopped, her back turned, her ruby curls cascading down her back after having escaped their tie hours before. All she said:
“We have to keep moving, L’Fae.”
L’Fae pressed her lips together and fought off tears. She couldn’t help but look at Channery, crying all alone, and feel bad - but still she stood and turned back to her friend, followed her away from the mourner and the mourned, as their duties called ever louder.
But even so, L’Fae couldn’t help but notice that when she’d looked at Elisa, she’d been able to see that her white-knuckled fists has shook far more than her own body ever could’ve.
***
Hours later, L’Fae finally tripped her way down the hallway to her room, sleep dragging down each one of her limbs. She rubbed at her eyes, feeling them sore, and tried to ignore every ache she felt settling in her muscles from fighting so hard both on the battlefield and in the medic ward. Her arm still stung from its wound; her heart hung heavy. As she turned the corner into the hallway near her room, all she hoped for was that she could change out of her bloody clothes and fall into her bed.
But the moment she picked up her eyes, she knew she wasn’t so lucky. Because God Peter, in a white button-down shirt and black slacks, leaned against the wall opposite her door and spread his wings out wider than L’Fae could’ve ever imagined. And to her surprise, he held a book in his hands.
She froze the moment she saw him; her heart beat a million times a minute. But once God Peter saw her, he started, stood up fully as he closed his book and marked his page with his thumb. “There you are, Lady L’Fae,” he said with a quick smile. “Might I have a moment of your time?”
“. . . How long have you been waiting out here?” she asked as she pulled out the key to her room and started unlocking her door. “I’m sure you have more things to attend to rather than wait for me, sir.”
“I chose to retire early, honestly. And please don’t call me ‘sir’ - it makes me feel too pompous.”
“Yes, sir.”
God Peter made a small chuckle behind her as she opened her door and stepped into her room. “Was that sass, Lady L’Fae?”
She tried to force a small smile. Tried, and failed. “A little, sir.”
Her room was sparse, even more so than her room at the Clubhouse. All she really had was a bed, table, and oak chest, the three of which had to store the meager belongings she’d managed to save from the Clubhouse’s destruction. Among those items was her bow, the one she’d brought from Cath and had saved from the fire due to Natasha’s help; it was the one over her shoulder, and she pulled it off her back and knelt to lock it away in the chest, safe and sound, before leaning her (new) bo staff against at the foot of her bed.
She heard the scrape of a chair behind her as she stood, and when she looked back, God Peter was sitting with his book in his lap and his wings tucked in to his back. “You sound tired, Lady L’Fae.”
“I must say I am,” she agreed as she yawned and rubbed her eyes. There was still blood underneath her nails; she shivered and pulled out her own chair so she could sit across the table from him. “I’m sure you heard about what happened earlier today?”
“Yes, I did,” he said. “It sounds like you fought well. After all, ‘the true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him’.”
L’Fae narrowed her brows and bit her lip. “Um . . .”
“Oh, um- my apologies,” God Peter looked away, turned pink in the face. “I’m a prolific reader, you see - and sometimes, literature speaks for me. That was a quote from G.K. Chesterton, he was- he was a writer from Valhalla, actually.”
“Oh . . .” L’Fae bowed her head. “My apologies, my lord. I’m afraid I’m not a good reader, nor a developed one.” After all, she’d only read Of Mice and Men and The Great Gatsby in the previous months, and those two books were locked in her chest. She didn’t have time to read them with the war. She shook away her shame and asked, “What did you need of me, sir?”
God Peter sighed - presumably at the fact that she had called him ‘sir’ again. “I come to you with two questions, Lady L’Fae. First: are your soldiers well? No harsh casualties?”
L’Fae shook her head. “No bad casualties for my platoon. Mostly just minor injuries, except - well, a Devil in the reinforcement squad died. A heart failure, I think. He . . . He died in my arms.”
“Oh, dear . . .” God Peter sighed and shook his head. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Again, you all fight for my sake; it’s cruel for me to ask for your lives.”
“I don’t . . . Think we’re just fighting for you, sir,” L’Fae tried to reassure, fisting her hands in her lap anxiously. “I mean, I fight to protect my friends and family. Jade fights to avenge his fallen father. Natasha fights for-” she stopped, shook her head. “My point is, um, I think we’re fighting for more? You are the leader of us all, yes, but I think we’re also fighting to protect what we care for, so we each have our own motivations and egoistic ideals, although those egoistic ideals do offer us more men to fight with us, which draws the question of how egoistic those ideas really are-”
God Peter chuckled. “And you say you don’t read.”
L’Fae looked at him and felt herself flush. “I-I ramble, I know. I’m sorry, sir.”
“Don’t be. At least, not too much,” he shrugged. “But you’re willing to fight . . . That’s good. That segues perfectly into my next question.”
She licked her chapped lips, bitten all the day through with worry. “What is it?”
“I was wondering if you could tell me anything about Miss Sheridan?”
L’Fae froze - and in her mind came up the mental picture of Elisa. Elisa, with her hair unbound. Elisa, with her back turned. Elisa, with her shaking fists as she looked away from the dead.
. . . Elisa, who hadn’t shed even a tear at the pain around her and just shook like mad when she had to feel . . .
“Wh-Why do you ask?”
God Peter shrugged. “Jade and I had been talking about asking war medics to join the efforts, except that when we started talking, he mentioned that Miss Sheridan had been acting oddly as of late. You were with her in the medic ward, I heard?”
“Yes, I was . . .” L’Fae started, but her curiosity won her over, “What’s a war medic?”
“Hmm? Oh- it’s a newer idea, one that I had considered without telling Evina. It might give us an added edge,” he said as he reached up and rubbed the stubble on his chin. “My thought was having a part of our medic force join us on the field of battle with the ability to fight and defend themselves. They could take care of injuries without men needing to retreat, and if the strategy worked, we could have an army of men and some additional fighters when necessary.”
“Oh . . .” L’Fae went, but in reality, she was trapped in her head. When she thought about it . . . She’d never seen Elisa fight. She was sure that Elisa could, she was almost certain of it, but she had never seen her even on the training grounds. Why? L’Fae bit her thumb in thought; she’d always known Elisa as, besides one of her closest friends, a medic and secretary to the Devils. Of course, the latter role was greatly diminished by the fact that they had joined with another force in much more than just clean-up and defense jobs, but if Elisa could fight, she could become a war medic, help protect more people on the battlefield. After all, they’d lost men that day because of the distance between the fight and the ward. More lives could be saved . . .
. . . Yet she remembered Elisa’s fisted hands and got the eerie feeling that it wasn’t as simple as she thought.
“I,” L’Fae swallowed, shook her head. Her firey locks sways in front of her eyes. “I don’t know if she’ll agree to it.”
“I wondered about that,” God Peter agreed. “Jade seemed to describe her as being preoccupied as of late, although with what, we don’t know. Perhaps if you could speak with her-”
“I could try,” L’Fae agreed, but her hesitation held her back. “Why do you think that I could do it? Shouldn’t Jade do it?”
God Peter looked her in the eyes, so straight-on it made her shiver. And then he said, in all seriousness:
“Despite your inability to keep quiet and your timid, almost frightened nature . . . You might have more power to hear somebody’s plight than even I. And that, Lady L’Fae, is an important talent to have.”
***
I shouldn't need to say this, but I will: this is my, T.J. Janneff's, work of fiction. That means it is FICTION, and MY fiction at that. Please don't copy, reproduce, or sell this stuff. If you want to show it off on another forum or share this post, go ahead, but lemme know first, because I put effort into this post for a reason . . . so just don't be a jerk, okay? I hope you enjoyed the taste test of my work!
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