Nua looked out over the prostrate faces that went down before her. “Sinners. You are sinners. But don’t worry, your sin will be cleansed in time.”

“I tell you I speak for the will of one god, and nobody… outside of his direct servants, is created with purpose! Your lives were NOT inevitable. You made mistakes, yes, you had misfortune, yes, but this did not have to be!” She punched her right hand down into her left, then winced as she reminded herself, ‘Yeah, don’t do that anymore.’ and swept her eyes back and forth.

“If the stars decree everything, then why do anything? Why struggle or fight, was Bracer created to smuggle and you created to stop him? Once you’ve decided everything that happens is because the result was intended, you’ve given up the ability to choose to do anything. It’s made you weak, your actions worthless… if we were not going up against people with the same weak beliefs as yourselves, I would fear defeat even with Lady Solution at my side. No wonder your people think nothing of tributing lives to keep the beastmen at bay!” Nua raged and thundered down at them as she tried to imagine how she would have lived if those had been how her people thought.

‘Weakness… weakness… weakness and sin. This is why evil is the only good, because good is just… passive, while evil is always active.’ She swore repeatedly under her breath as those thoughts ran through her head, until something else occurred to her.

“One more question.” Nua asked intensely.

Nervous eyes gazed up at her.

“Under your law, how are different religions treated?” Nua inquired, leaning forward as if to catch the answer more quickly with her eagerly twitching ears.

The elven woman spoke up, “Mistress… I… I don’t think any of us understand the question.”

Nua felt a chill down her spine as she recognized the option. ‘Can I… do this? Should I? If I’m saving their lives by removing the belief that everything is decided for them, by removing the belief itself… for them, will that... can that paradox be justified? They seem to have no laws pertaining to this, and, except for Solution, I’m alone out here. Perhaps a… compromise will be best.’ She concluded it in a matter of moments and formulated a plan as fast as she could.

“From this night onward, you will bend your knees to my god, in praise with me. You will hear my stories of his greatness, and learn the ways of my faith. I will not force you to abandon your own. But if your stars take issue with my decision…” Nua touched her blade gently, “Let them come have words with me.”

Solution was shaking beside her, and Nua could not help but notice it. “Sergeant Vargas, take them on a twenty bowshot run down the road and back. I will see you in about three hours.” Nua gave the order with less bark than she felt, but her sideways glances at the shaking Solution kept her off kilter.

“As you say… Captain Aiwenor.” He said and rose to his feet, calling the other twenty-five to order and taking them to the road, they began a steady jog away from the camp.

After they were alone, Nua faced Solution head on. “Are you... alright? Lady Solution, are you upset?” Nua struggled to process the shaking, but couldn’t, ‘Never… ever have I seen anything like this out of her, is she about to cry… why would she do that even if she were capable of it?’ Nua wondered as she shuffled through every memory spanning more than fourteen years, and came up with nothing.

Until Solution arched her back, threw back her head, held her belly, and laughed louder than Nua had ever heard her laugh before. Nua raised her left eyebrow. “Teacher?” She asked tentatively, unsure if she should approach or not.

“My student… do you know what you’ve done?” Solution had a joyful inhuman smile, taking up more of her face than Nua had ever seen, rising almost to her eyes before it curled inward.

“Ah… no, Teacher, I don’t.” Nua scratched her head as Solution brought her hands down hard enough on Nua’s shoulders to drive her boots a few inches into the soft earth.

Solution drew Nua close to her, close enough that Nua’s ice cold breath caressed her own lips and cheeks with their sweet death like mystery. Her arms folded around her student, and the powerful fingers dug into the back Nua despised for its ugliness. Pressed tight into the embrace, Nua gave herself over to it and looked slightly up at the blue she admired. “My student… you’re not ‘winning’ souls with this. You are ‘taking’ them, ‘stealing’ them away from their gods or stars or whatever stupid thing they believe. You are twisting their souls to suit your whims and serve our divine lord. To compel them to worship as you worship, listen to your praise… you will twist them away from who they are and what they believe… and I am… impressed, by the utter ruthlessness you display in doing it.”

Nua didn’t get angry, her answer was banal, if anything, as she brought her hands up to cup her Teacher’s cheeks, she whispered almost lovingly, “Teacher, this is how it must be. With those beliefs of theirs, they do not even have anything they ‘want’ to be. They are the epitome of what you have said you despise. The purposeless, the lost, the weak. I can’t twist souls away from their wills, if they have no wills of their own. If they desire to be nothing but objects of fate, mere pawns, puppets on strings…”

Nua raised herself up on her tiptoes and her left hand of death stroked the back of Solution’s golden curls, and whispered with her death cold breath, “Then I will be fate. I will be the game master. I will pull their strings, until they cut those strings themselves, end the game, and choose to declare themselves something more than the animals I happened to buy.”

“Tell me… Teacher…” Nua whispered duskily, “Do you want to put another scar on me… I feel your nails digging in, and I know you shaped them to do just that… do you want to hurt your student…? Or… can I offer something more, to you who have given death itself into my left hand?”

Solution traced her hands up to the center of Nua’s back and dug her nails in sharply enough to draw blood. “Yes… yes there is something I want to do… and yes… it is going to hurt you tremendously… the pain will be beyond that of the loss of your hand, and I will take my time… but when I am done, student of mine, you will never see yourself as you did yesterday.”

Nua’s death cold breath was briefly ragged but intense at the digging sensation. “If you want to mark this body, to scar it… what’s one more scar to the many before?” Nua said through gritted teeth. “Scars defined me, giving one scar to you who taught me and helped to make me strong, would be the only one I’ve ever offered myself for. So fine, I offer it to you. Do what pleases you, Teacher, whatever it is, I will bear it and live with the aftermath.”

As if to prove to Solution the raw truth of her words, or perhaps to prove them to herself, it was Nua whose left hand came to take that of her Teacher, and pull her to the command tent. It was Nua who disrobed herself, and took the leather sheath of her knife and put it between her teeth to bite down against the pain she knew was coming.

And when Solution told the naked elf to lie on her stomach, Nua did so without complaint. Solution had not exaggerated a thing, and it was a testament to Nua’s martial arts, her strength, and her pain threshold, that through all the screams of pain that followed, she never begged that her Teacher stop.

When she was done, Solution lay atop her student, breasts pressing down upon her still trembling pupil, and whispered, “When you see what I have done… you will never look back there, and call yourself ugly again, ‘My’ Nua.”

In spite of the agony in which she still lay, and not knowing just what her Teacher meant, she felt a warm glow of happiness that had a smile forming on her face even as she drifted into unconsciousness.

The following morning when they emerged from their tent, it was to gravely concerned looks and whispers of dismay, relief, and uncertainty. “Don’t ask, it’s your mistress’s concern alone.” Nua said calmly, then stretched out with a contented groan.

With nothing else to be said, though not without a sideways glance, the little force lept into training under Nua’s observant eye. Swords, positions, archery, repeat. She began to train them in the combat control method of her faith, with grips and throws, and among them all, Vargas proved to be a natural. Natural enough at it that Nua approached him herself.

“You were a soldier in Komestra, and you mentioned having been found on a battlefield years before that, do you not remember ‘anything’ about your training?” She had her hands behind her back as she looked him up and down while his sparring partner heaved on the ground with the wind knocked out of her.

He shook his head, “Unfortunately no, mistress. The person who healed me wasn’t familiar with my uniform, but it was black, like the invaders, so I just always assumed I ‘had’ been part of the ones coming from the north. But… with no idea what happened, and just my name on a tag? Well I just went with them.”

“Well I’ll be frank with you, slave, you’re doing exceptionally well. I’m rather surprised you were taken alive.” Nua spoke sincerely but put special emphasis on the final word, concealing her true thoughts. ‘If only you’d throw off that foolish surrender to the stars…’ She cursed the lights in the sky that she had always loved, casting her eyes briefly to the blue sky above as if to dare them to speak against her, but Vargas saw none of this as he bowed low in front of her.

“I was outnumbered twenty to one, I am also amazed I survived. The thing is, Captain Aiwenor, Mistress… as it went on, I felt different. Like my body was returning to its former self… perhaps when I was a soldier before, I was a good one.” He shrugged dismissively.

“Well Sergeant Vargas, if you survive with me long enough, you’ll get plenty of chances to remember that feeling, and when you do, I hope you’re ready for what comes after, because if I’m right, you might be pleasantly surprised by what possibilities open up for you.” Nua gave a cryptic smirk and turned to walk away, “Resume your training, Bracer will have to move slow and avoid the roads, so we’ve got some time before he gets here, but that’s no reason to slack off.” She added as she went over to check the next pairup.

‘Black uniform huh, sounds like he might have been one of the Dark Savior’s soldiers during the push south. That would explain why the local scouring the battlefield didn’t recognize it. Well, if that’s the case, and he recalls who he was and how he fought, he may be the very first I set free.’ Nua contemplated the thought idly as she watched her slave warriors drill running to the ambush site.

She was still watching from her place near the mound of now mostly eaten corpses, when Solution approached her with a live deer. Nua didn’t even hesitate, she brought her left hand down onto its head, and watched it shake as Yersin sapped the life from it. It shook, helpless in her hands, until it was dead.

“Thank you, Solution, what does that make now?” She asked as she thought it over. “Twenty?”

‘Twenty-two.’ Yersin replied, ‘It’s not as good as people, but… death is death, I’ll take it as an appetizer to help you better when the main course arrives.’

‘Good,’ Nua replied calmly, ‘There are enough dead bodies among the villagers that, outnumbered or not in lives, we should be able to even up the odds, but how many can you raise at a time?’ She asked as she looked around at the hundreds of dead that she had prohibited her soldiers from burying.

‘I can raise many hundreds, however I need more mana than I have presently. As it is, I can raise perhaps twenty, however death feeds death, and if they kill, or you do, that can be increased during the fighting.’ Yersin answered with a very hopeful note.

‘Excellent, thank you, Yersin.’ She replied, and cut herself off to address her Teacher.

As she did so, she subconsciously reached behind her and touched her back with her right hand. ‘What did she ‘do’ to me… I’ve never felt so much pain before…’

She didn’t ask, Solution only smirked when she saw Nua’s gesture and only smirked when Nua asked the question, so instead Nua chose to say, “How many more do you think you can bring me before the end of the day, Teacher?”

“Many.” Solution answered bluntly. “But I will bring bears next, they should have more mana.”

“Good, I’ll start rotating lookouts this evening while we wait for Bracer.” Nua replied calmly, looking to the North without thinking.

“You expect him tomorrow?” Solution asked doubtfully.

“No, but I’d rather be prepared if he gets here early, than have our ambush ambushed, because I was unprepared, Teacher.” Nua answered by rote, and it was given a nod of approval from her guide in death.

“When he does get here, I…” Nua started to say, only for Solution’s finger to touch her lips and a sultry, crooked smile appeared on the lips of her Teacher.

“Want to hunt, don’t you?” Solution asked, and Nua’s ice blue eyes sparkled in answer.

“These are the kind of men I hate most… I want to watch the dead walk.” Nua clenched her left hand closed, and she could feel the silent Yersin’s happiness.

“Alright, when they arrive, I will move the rock to block the path, you stalk them the rest of the way in from behind. I will join you afterward.” Solution proposed eagerly, and Nua was nodding with the same eagerness before the last word was spoken.

Solution then ventured off to bring Nua a bear to kill, prompting Nua to answer questioning looks from her warriors with, “You’ll be eating well for the rest of the trip, just enjoy that knowledge, and leave your Mistress to her work.”

They returned, slowly, to their practice over the course of the day, and true to her word, Nua fed them well. Also true to her word, as they ate, she spoke of her lord and the heroes of the west who fought in his name. She spoke of their elevation and the reforms that took place, and what it meant to be a god and to follow one. “...Your religion is convenient for the powerful, it makes exploiting the weak, easy, because you’ve already decided that the decisions of those over you, were actually dictated by the gods. As a result, you fear to do anything for yourselves. I have seen religions make slaves of others, but never have I seen one so amputate the soul of a people, as that of the Starwatchers. You march to your deaths like cattle for all your lives, and try to change nothing. Your gods want this of you? Then why follow these gods? These ‘stars’ you love so much?” She looked up into the night sky and watched them twinkle.

“They are beautiful… I will give you that. But if I don’t like something, I’ll fight to change it. If I had not argued with the Dark Savior, she would have exacted a slaughter on a scale that you can barely fathom. But because I chose to argue, I got a compromise. You deprive yourselves of choice, and so deprive yourselves of responsibility. You aren’t slaves because of your collars, or because I bought you, or even because you lost a damn war. You are slaves because you have embraced the mindset of slaves. I said this before, but I must say it again. I am so glad that I have never believed as you do. Damn your stars.”

They didn’t look up at her, they were silent, eyes downcast. ‘You’re so cruel! You’re torturing their souls to rip into their very identity, you know that! Their beliefs are their only comfort in their collars and living with Tlalmok as neighbors… are you really going to take that from them?’

Nua’s conscience clawed at her for lambasting them as she did. And she roared back at it within her own mind, ‘Yes! But without that, perhaps they wouldn’t have these damn things on their necks in the first place! Sometimes medicine is bitter, and the truth is painful beyond words! But that doesn’t make it less true! They broke themselves for a false hope, if I want to make them free one day, they must have the mindset of the free, not the servile… or they’ll just be slaves all over again.’ She reasoned and raged both at once, at war with her conscience, it was enough to bring out her mercy.

She dropped her empty bowl of stew on the ground and spoke. “The food was good. And you all trained very… very hard today. I’m extremely proud of what you’ve done in such a short period of time. All the other things aside…” She swept her golden eyes out in front of her, “I believe in you. I believe you can do this, that you can win, grow stronger, ever stronger. That we will triumph and you will be more than you ever thought you could be. It is my job to believe in you. I am your Mistress, I am your Captain. And what you give to me of yourselves, I will return to you tenfold.”

Hopeful eyes were raised up to her, and she continued on. “You will eat well of the meat we’ve harvested, but soon, Bracer will be here. We have perhaps one more full day, so we’ll set a watch for him. When he arrives, I will begin my private hunt. Solution will signal the start of the fighting by moving the boulder into the southern road to block travel. Then you let the arrows fly. Fire until you run out, then and only then do the rest of you charge the sides. And one more thing… when I raise the dead to avenge themselves… do not fear. My undead will do you no harm.”

Pale faces and shaking bodies led to dropped and toppled bowls and cups, and as one, all twenty-six of them prostrated themselves in front of their Mistress.

Nua looked over to her Teacher in dismay, “What did I say?”