Arthur takes out a device he found on the black market. To Ajax, it looks like an odd version of a collapsible telescope.
“A telescope?”
“Yeah, you’ve told me the numbers of everyone in the area around that tent but I still want to be able to see them.”
“Hm, alright.”
“...um, sir, what’s your name? Arthur already told me his name but not yours. I don’t want to have to refer to you as ‘white armour’ or something…”
Arthur and Ajax turn to hear Gazhiza, the beastkin woman, ask this question. In the meagre starlight and the reflective white leaves of the Spectabile trees, her pretty violet hair sparkles; currently Daniar is sitting behind her with a curious look as well. Ajax looks into her golden eyes, considering her question. Actually…
“Wait, Arthur, what did I ask you to call me?”
“...”
“Ha… I didn’t tell you my name, did I?”
“...No. It was a bit awkward to ask at this point… we’ve already been here for some time but it feels odd asking your name. I honestly feel like I can trust you but I don’t know your name? That’s weird, right?”
“N-No, it’s fine, it’s fine, I get that feeling… Well, I can’t tell you my real name but you can call me Wen. Just Wen.”
“Wen… Understood! Wen, Arthur, please, I have to offer my gratitude for saving me and my brother, Daniar.”
Both Gazhiza and Daniar clasp their hands together and bow their heads towards Ajax. Ajax can see Daniar’s sky blue hair; he lifts his head and looks at Ajax with deep green eyes. Truly, Ajax and Arthur had both saved the two of them from death. Not just that, they’re also on their way to save Daniar’s daughter…
It feels too good to be true. But honestly, there are a number of humans who believe in the equality of human and demihuman lives and truly abhor festivals such as these. Many treat beastkin as their brethren and a great deal of humans have also laid down their lives to abolish demihuman slavery.
Arthur looks at both Daniar and Gazhiza with wide eyes hidden by his ice helmet. Arthur turns his head slightly away from them, blushing at their heartfelt gratitude.
“I-It’s alright, Daniar, Gazhiza, w-we just… we did it because we could. Don’t think of us as brave, if you had my reserves of power or Arthur’s own abilities, you would do the same for me as well. Haha…”
“I would hope both Daniar and I would, but you two actually did. For that, we owe you our lives.”
“Yes, Wen, absolutely, we owe you everything…”
Arthur and Ajax sit there, dumbfounded and still red with embarrassment under their helmets. Now shouldn’t be the time for gratitude. There is still Daniar’s daughter that they have to save.
At this moment, Ajax notices a sound he doesn’t like. The soft crying of a young woman.
“Arthur, take out your telescope. Look towards the entrance of the tent.”
“Wh-What’s happening?”
Gazhiza notices Ajax’s sudden return to a serious atmosphere. Arthur looks through his telescope towards the entrance to the tent where a guard is sitting. A woman is weakly standing in front of this guard. From her appearance, it seems like she’s struggling to remain standing.
“Wen, there are three guards around the entrance, right now. There’s also a beastkin woman… another one of the ‘sacrifices’ I’m guessing. He’s… he’s trying to touch her. Wen, we have to deal with these guys first before the guys in the tent guarding the demihumans, right?”
“...”
“Wen?”
“O-Oh, he’s already left, Arthur.”
Daniar informs Arthur about Ajax’s departure while he continues looking through the telescope. Ajax is no longer beside him but, fairly soon, Arthur sees him approaching the three guards in front of the tent from one of the nearby trees, used as cover. He’s already there… his speed is impressive, truly.
Sure, even Arthur could run that distance faster than an olympic athlete back on Earth. But, to not even alert those in front of him of his approach. That takes some serious finesse. Ajax is currently on another level compared to this still fledgling hero.
“...Hmm, Wen’s already there. He doesn’t really need any help with the fighting right now.”
Two of the men at the entrance to the tent have to continuously patrol the perimeter of it to prevent anyone from somehow creating an opening into the tent from some other side. They were pausing to look at the man at the entrance, their superior, with jealous eyes; he turns them away and tells them to get back to work.
He wants to have some fun with this beastkin woman.
She’s going to die tonight after all. No man will ever get to taste her after tonight, right? Isn’t that a waste? It’s not like that creepy noble Siristine will notice his depravity, what gain would she have from accusing him prior to her death anyways? Not that Siristine would even care…
The two men start patrolling the tent again. Ajax uses this opportunity. He finds one man walking on the right side of the long tent. The man doesn’t notice him. He silently approaches him from behind and freezes his head instantly. He carefully holds the man’s body upright so he doesn’t fall over loudly and carefully lays him on the ground.
He does the very same to the man walking on the left side of the tent with no trouble. Nobody notices his presence yet.
The man groping the beastkin woman sits on the left side of the tent entrance. He has a somewhat loud voice as he holds her. Ajax considers… if his voice were to suddenly disappear, wouldn’t the guards in the tent notice? What would they do then? Would they come out to see what happened? Would they raise their guards…
Ajax senses the beastkin woman. Her heartbeat is not particularly in distress, most likely because of the effect of whatever drug these “sacrifices” have been given.
Arthur continues watching the entrance. He just saw Ajax kill one of the three guards on the left side of the tent. He couldn’t see the kill on the other side but he sees Ajax waiting currently close to the beastkin woman and the sleazy scumbag who is pawing at her, thinking about something.
Then, he sees Ajax grab the woman from the grasp of the man’s hands. The woman falls to the ground in front of the man, making a slight yelping noise. Before she even touches the ground however, Ajax has already frozen the head of the sexual predator who was attempting to defile her.
Without missing a beat or even stopping to help the beastkin woman, Ajax rushes into the tent.
“Oh, shit! He’s already rushing into the tent!!”
“I-Isn’t that too sudden, Arthur!?”
Daniar panics. Gazhiza holds him and tells him to quiet down. Meanwhile, Arthur quickly looks around the forest to find the location of every enemy patrolling the forest at the moment. He finishes his reconnaissance work and looks towards Daniar and Gazhiza.
“Ok… well if he’s going to do this so suddenly, let’s move carefully towards the entrance to the tent. I’ve noted the location of every guard patrolling nearby, they’re pretty sparse in this area. I can only see about two of them pretty far away from here.”
“Isn’t this where the ‘sacrifices’ are? Why are there so few guards here?”
Gazhiza asks this question in curiosity. Prior to being taken from this tent, she could have sworn that there were a great deal more guards before.
“Ajax mentioned to me that there was some kind of incident. I think the guards somehow learned about it and left the area to go there. Perfect for us anyways if their defenses have weakened. Move quickly, ok?”
Daniar and Gazhiza nod affirmatively and they move from their current location behind a tree towards the entrance to the tent. Arthur carefully notes the current location of the two guards as they move quietly from tree cover to tree cover. Eventually, they reach the entrance to the tent and can no longer see the two guards in the distance.
They do however see a beastkin woman curled up trying to remain as silent as possible. Arthur gestures to the woman. She sees him and the two beastkin. Daniar and Gazhiza gesture to her to come towards them as well. Her eyes which had been crying earlier look truly surprised. She moves towards them slowly, taking her time because of her sedative treatment.
“Gazhiza, talk to her, it might be easier to help her right now if she talks to another beastkin woman.”
“O-Ok.”
The woman reaches them. The three of them can see that she hasn’t been physically harmed by the guardsman.
He took only to sexually assaulting her and she barely had the strength to stand upright so she didn’t resist his advances either. While he had been touching her, moving her hands towards her genitals, she had felt panic ensue and might have resisted.
However, right before he reached that area, she felt her right arm being grabbed and fell forward onto the ground. It hurt a bit. She didn’t see who had so suddenly pushed her to the ground but his hand was… cold. Too cold. She first looked at her right forearm which had a slightly red cold burn.
Then she looked towards the man who had been holding her, noticing that he had stopped talking. She gasped.
She looked at his head and noticed that his head was frozen. There was a layer of frost on the surface of the skin of his face. At that moment, she heard some shouting inside the tent. Falling into a state of psychological shock, she chose to just remain silent, traumatized by every single event of tonight.
Currently, she holds Gazhiza. She doesn’t speak. She only silently holds Gazhiza. She understands that she has been saved but she has already been put through an unbearable experience. This woman here, this woman of her own race, is part of the group saving her, she can easily tell this at the very least.
But… after tonight, she won’t ever be the same. A piece of her has already died, never to return. Gazhiza hesitates to speak, seeing the state of this woman. Gazhiza doesn’t even ask the woman’s name. She just holds Gazhiza, her eyes tearing up once again.
Arthur listens carefully for any sound within the tent. There is currently no sign of battle. For now, he lets Gazhiza take care of the traumatized woman.
Ajax slowly peeks out of the tent and Arthur sees him. He gestures towards Arthur to come to where he is. Arthur, Daniar, Gazhiza and the woman holding her slowly walk towards the entrance to the tent together. They brace themselves for what Ajax has done inside the tent…
There’s a dim light allowing Arthur, Daniar and Gazhiza to see the area inside the tent; it comes from a torch on a makeshift light pole in the middle of the tent space. It is quite a large tent, capable of sheltering fifty or more from the nightly winds outside. The demihumans inside are blindfolded still.
They sit back to back in groups of four or five. Some of them are crying beneath their blindfolds and cloth gags. Others are sleeping, probably from the effect of the sedative treatment. Those who were still asleep didn’t wake up even after they heard the noise of the battle between Ajax and the five guardsmen within the tent.
Arthur notices the five men who Ajax had fought. They’re currently lying on the ground with multi-colored blankets over their heads and torsos, dead. For now he ignores them and looks up towards Ajax. Then, he calls Daniar who is trying to see which one of these demihumans are his wife and daughter; the area is a bit dark to be able to clearly tell.
“Daniar, help me remove their blindfolds and gags.”
“R-Right!”
Arthur and Daniar start removing the blindfolds and gags of the demihuman sacrifices. None of them are bound at their hands and feet. The sedative did the binding for them. One by one, Arthur and Daniar help them all.
Ajax moves towards Arthur and tells him what he had done in the tent.
“I killed the guards, no one else died. I didn’t want any of these people to see them so… I just took some of the extra blankets in this tent to cover them up before you guys could remove their blindfolds. I’m surprised they would give these demihuman ‘sacrifices’ blankets honestly…”
“I see… Did you have any difficulty with them? Just jumping into the tent was… kind of reckless, don’t you think?”
“I thought so too at first, but the minute I took care of that first creep guard at the door, I knew they would raise their guards when they stopped hearing his voice so I thought that to get the most out of the element of surprise I should just run in after that to quickly kill the rest…”
“...Yeah, good call. Alright, I’ll start healing whoever needs to be healed after removing their blindfolds. Actually, Wen, did you… find the draconid or the beastkin who were killed?”
Ajax and Arthur had been told earlier about the two who had been killed trying to protect themselves.
“No. They didn’t leave them here. I asked one of the demihumans here and they said that the guards took them away somewhere. After we free these people and get them to safety, I’m going to find the two of them. If they’re just thrown away somewhere in the forest, I think it’s up to me to bury them properly, before any animals find them, at the very least… Fuck, tonight is just fucking terrible.”
“They’re all so injured. They’ve all been hurt so much. What monsters…”
Ajax looks closer at the faces and bodies of the men, women and the few children that Arthur and Daniar spend time helping. Bruises, some with broken arms, most crying, most… have already lost something they can never regain even after being saved tonight by Ajax and Arthur.
That’s what Ajax feels. He wasn’t going to solve everything but…
“...I’m going to go back outside to deal with the rest of the guards in the area. For now, they’re going to be safe. Do you need any more help from me right now?”
“No, I don’t think--”
“Karu! Alinde!”
Arthur and Ajax turn as they notice the face of Daniar with a look of joy as he sees his daughter and his wife. He immediately moves to remove the blindfolds from their faces. They’re sitting right next to each other trying to speak to Daniar, their speech being muffled by the cloth gags.
“Daddy!”
“Daniar, you’re ok! H-How did you--”
Karu, Daniar and Alinde talk to each other. Ajax gets a look at the now happy family. Alinde is human and Karu, Daniar’s and her child, has beastkin ears and bright red hair. As they continue talking, tears spring forth from their eyes.
Daniar had prepared for tonight. He had prepared for tonight to be the last time he ever saw either of them alive. He had been brought onto the carriage preparing to die after having told Alinde and Karu his final “I love you” to them. The guards had removed his blindfold and cloth gag as he was leaving the tent. He turned to see them bound and spoke those last words.
He had apparently been sitting very close to them but he couldn’t see or speak to them while blindfolded and gagged himself.
As soon as the two of them heard his voice, Daniar could hear Alinde pleading behind her gag for the guards to reconsider what they were doing. The last thing he saw of his daughter was her crying.
Right now, the three of them hold each other. Gazhiza watches the beautiful reunion, the traumatized beastkin woman, currently not holding her. She rushes over to them and joins the embrace. They’re still alive together. They’re still alive together and that’s all that matters. That’s all that could possibly matter.
“Mommy, I… I really thought that I… would never see daddy again…”
“I know, dear… daddy knows too, but… but now… we’re together, Karu… we’re still alive… we’re still alive here with you… We love you, Karu. I love you so much, Daniar…”
“I love you, Alinde…”
“I love you, daddy, I love you, mommy…”
“I love you too, Karu… We’re going to… we’re going to live together again. We’re going to get out of this place and… live together again. I promise you, Karu… I promise…”
Daniar’s voice breaks as she tells Karu this. Karu starts sobbing. Ajax watches her anguished cries as well as the soft tears of Alinde and Daniar.
Their whole life, they lived in fear; fear that their family would be discovered. An illegal love, a love that came with punishment, but right now, they do not look in their surroundings. They don’t have to fear in this moment of those around them seeing them. They don’t have to. At this moment, they’re… they have been saved. Reunited.
Reunited.
Reunited.
Ajax beholds this scene. He turns around and starts walking outside. He walks in the starlight, not looking at it right now. He immediately moves to dispatch the four guards remaining in the surrounding area. Arthur might have seen only two through his telescope, but there were two others some distance outside of view who were still wandering around here.
Without much effort, Ajax kills the four of them. However… after he kills the last guard… he pauses. He looks up at the starry sky. He thinks of the child. Her name was Karu, right? She is so young.
Her father had been taken away from her. She thought she would never see him again. How much… How much had she looked like Rita? She is a beastkin child, with the characteristic beastkin ears on the top of her head and her hair was not very human either. It is red but not the shade of red that human hair might have, oddly enough, but…
Ajax considers the similarities of Karu to Rita, her own sister. She’s also been taken from him. She doesn’t know where Ajax is either. He doesn’t know how his family is doing without him. How is Rita doing without him?
How long has… how long has it been since he’s thought about them? He’s… he’s always been so busy… he wanted to help all of these people, he wanted to train so he could help even more of them, he wanted to keep moving forward… but…
Ajax removes his helmet, piece by piece. Parts of his skin rip off in the process but they heal almost immediately and he barely notices the pain. He continues looking up into the starlight. He’s realized something. With this realization, tears start streaming down his own face. At first, they’re soft streams. Then they start to get heavier and heavier. He starts truly crying.
All of this… this war he’s entered of his own will… He’s been trying to repress it all the while. The fact that he had been ripped away from his family. From his mother and father… from his sister, Rita… he had tried to forget… he had tried not to think of their memory. He knew he would one day see them again, but…
He cries right now. He pushes himself to remember them. He tries to remember their faces. He can see them somewhat clearly but… it’s blurry now, blurrier than when he was with them. He doesn’t have any pictures of them in this world. If he continues to repress their memory, he’ll forget about them.
He won’t be able to remember their faces, he won’t be able to recognize their voices…
It will be to him as if they’ve actually died. He’s been making a huge mistake. Trying not to think about them while living in this world, trying to ignore the pain of their loss… the biggest mistake he could have actually made… something so small like trying to take his mind off of his grief has become like this.
What has he already forgotten about them? How many formative experiences with them have already been overwritten by experiences in this hellish place?
It’s almost like he hasn’t acknowledged that he’s lost them. There is no way for him to reunite with them right now. Even with all of his power, he cannot bridge space to see them once again. His sister, Rita… she won’t remember his voice, will she? She won’t remember anything about him. He’ll return to her as a stranger. She’ll have moved on, believing him to be dead.
His emotions overflow as he cries in the starlight. He had forgotten his loss and has remembered it once again. He remembers everything that has been taken from him, once again.
He cries.
