“Admiral Tar!”

The insistent knocking on the thick metaline door of her office, together with the strong, clear voice on the other side pulled the chief military officer from her meditative state.

It was an unspoken rule in the earth nation’s military hierarchy that the admiral’s afternoon prayer should not be interrupted under any circumstances. Except, of course, in case of a state of emergency or first rank war alert. This thought alone prevented K’hip’aris Tar from spilling the full amount of her faithful wrath upon the poor soul who dared disturb her sacred communion with the Goddess.

“Enter”, still, she managed to slip a decent amount of haughty discontent in her voice.

The young woman who came in, made her face contort in a frown of distaste which thankfully managed to match her tone from before. The breastless, although not without their purpose in society, still induced unpleasant shivers down her spine. But of course, she reminded herself with a bit of delay, this late in the afternoon, only males, breastless and infidels were not praying.

The newcomer, apparently sensing the internal struggle, behind the usually stoic face of the admiral, stood hunched over at a more than respectable distance from the heavy desk. She knew very well what earth nation women in general, and military women in particular thought about someone like her. For although everyone knew well enough that female breasts were a delicate part of the body, which in no way shape or form determine the sexual prowess of their bearer, somewhere in the development of modern civilization, they had become a symbol for female strength, and by association - of courage, fighting spirit and power. Therefore, the women, who for one reason or the other were left without a pair, were treated as asexual beings, whose status in society was sometimes comparable to that of beasts of burden.

But this changed quickly of course, when one of them was hired to guard the harem of a high-ranking citizen. Breastless or not, to prevent them from falling into the temptation of being surrounding by beautiful young boys all day long, a slightly more intrusive manipulation was required, one which entailed the removal of actual key parts of the female reproductive system.

In truth, some thirty-odd years ago, this was the sole function which women like her could fulfil. As of very recently however, it was decreed by the Tyrranian High Senate and Her Excellency the Empress, the breastless were being slowly integrated in other aspects of the Earth nation society. The admiral’s guest for instance was working as a communications officer for the secret services - a position, which without pressure from the capitol would have been nothing more than a desert mirage for someone like her.

Although it seemed that adjusting to all this was harder for other women, than for the breastless themselves. Which at the end of the day made life more difficult for both groups.

“Lieutenant?”, the admiral prompted, cutting through the heavy silence which had settled in the air.

“Admiral!”, the young woman started, suddenly standing straight in the best semblance of military attention she was capable of. “We received a cryptogram from general Shankh’s spec-ops team, my lady!”, the commanding officer’s raised brows made her remember the key phrase which was going to save her carrier. “It’s urgent, my lady!”

After another dose of bone-crushing silence, Tar raised her brows once more and patted the desk in front of her. Seeing the confused, startled expression of the newcomer, she attempted to soften her features as much as she could, before repeating the gesture.

“A-ah, yes, here you go!”, the young woman suddenly got the hint and leapt toward the desk to drop the small black disk on top. “U-um, the cryptogram, my lady…”

She was probably going to try and make a few more futile attempts at restoring military etiquette, but the sharp gaze of the admiral cut her short. So she simply clenched her hand into a fist, hit her shoulder with it in the typical salute and disappeared from the office.

Tar remained staring at the now closed door for a moment, until the sound of the other’s footsteps faded off. Then she finally turned her eyes to the disk lying on her desktop.

General Shankh was, without a doubt, one of the best the Earth military had to offer. She was an excellent leader and warrior, this much was true, but her task at the moment had more to do with information gathering and espionage. Two things, which women like Shankh simply could not consider a job well done in the name of Goddess and country. Nevertheless, the general was not only one of the most loyal warriors, with which Tar had had the privilege to work, but also a perfectionist. She accomplished any given mission with the necessary attention to detail, even if the specific objectives and means did not appeal to her as much as open battle. It was precisely because of this that the admiral had placed her in charge of the AWA squad.

Shankh was also not a commander who would send out urgent cryptograms for nothing. No wonder that the communications officer was in such a hurry to deliver it, that she didn’t even notice it was time for prayer. There were indeed not many things that could pique the general’s interest so much that she would consider it imperative to notify high command. What could have made her do so now?

Tar gave the black disk one final squeeze with her hand, before dropping it into the open slot of her terminal. The text that appeared with a dulled click on the screen, after she entered the decrypting passwords made the line on her forehead more pronounced.

What were these Western infidels plotting?

What could this mission entail, so classified and important, that the Ruling over sea would personally decide to lead it? Or was her presence more as an escort to the criminal?

Tyrannian authorities had put out a life-long warrant for her arrest, pertaining to her terrorist acts from a decarotation ago. Was the Ruling attempting to present the Empress with her as a gift?

The mere thought of it scalded Tar like boiling water. Although the majority of the earth nation’s citizens believed that the union between Her Majesty Fekh and the young prince of Magmalia was a sure thing, the admiral had enough experience with politicians and their duplicitous nature, which never failed to make her frown in disgust. If in the last moment, that infidel from the North decided to gift her son to the Ruling...

She knew well that it was entirely possible for Aquina Wotar’s reasons for travelling to be completely unrelated to her read of the situation, but still, the risk was too great. She reached for her keyboard and opened a comms channel. In a second, she heard the soft jingle which meant the call had gone through.

“I authorize “Scarecrow.”

She heard the confirmation, shut off the intercom with a swift gesture and crossed her fingers beneath her chin. Let us see...

************************************************************************

The cave was enormous, or it looked that way because of the pitch black darkness all around. It kind of reminded her of the place she woke up at on Alaiah.

She blinked a few times to chase away the stars dancing before her eyes and tried to adjust her sight to the dark. She wasn’t entirely sure if she was imagining things, but in a bit she started seeing relatively ok - it was almost as if someone had lit up a large candle or torch nearby. The return of her sight brought some of her confidence back and she started walking through the cave, staring intently at each small crevice in the walls and floor, looking for clues.

Everything looked somehow really impressive and beautiful. Her legs were moving of their own accord, taking her somewhere, and quite some time passed before she realised that this “somewhere” was looking to be quite deep within the dark innards of the cave. Oddly, she felt no fear. Something was telling her that whatever she was about to find would be important, valuable, unique and sublime and it seemed to attract her towards it with great force. And the closer she got to it, the lighter she seemed to feel. She thought that if she jumped high enough, she might actually fly.

Something golden glimmered for a moment in front of her and shook her out of her reverie. She had really wandered deep inside the cave. Again, she didn’t waver - just her trance was momentarily replaced by impatient curiosity.

There it goes again! A bright-yellow shine, as though a bunch of sun rays had managed to sneak somehow through the impregnable stone walls of the cave. Linda focused all her attention in the direction the glimmer seemed to be coming from and squinted her eyes to focus her sight… She was just starting to feel a bit silly when it came again - it ran across the nearest wall and died down again. But she’d already seen where it was coming from.

She had absolutely no idea why she was running - it wasn’t as though that thing, whatever it was, was moving. She wasn’t too sure how she knew that either. All she did know was that whatever was waiting for her, when she reached the source of mysterious golden light, would still be there. Still, she picked up her speed once more.

And came to a screeching halt.

She blinked a few times, to make sure she was seeing alright. Didn’t help - it was still there.

On the cave floor, before her eyes, a sleight figure lay, curled up in a ball, dressed in wide white robes with gold linings. The linings were expertly woven into the fabric in the shape of tangled snakes. Or were they dragons? The mysterious being’s hair was flowing down its shoulders, all the way to its waist like a magnificent waterfall of liquid fire - blond, with copper hues, dancing along each strand.

The creature had its back to her, but the inexplicable sixth sense which had led her here insisted it was a boy. An incredibly beautiful boy. The type of young man, worth climbing the highest mountain or swimming the murkiest waters for. Worth killing a thousand heavily armed women for… Linda shook her head. Where the hell were all these thoughts coming from?

A sudden noise, like a harsh intake of breath, pulled her out of her head. The boy’s fine figure had straightened a bit, as if he had stood on his knees, or on all fours, hard to tell from her angle. Her legs had carried her halfway through to him already, when she heard the same noise again. Was that a hiccup? Or a sob?

His shoulders shook underneath the heavy robes and the fiery waterfall of his hair and she heard it once more.

Linda’s brows furrowed at her forehead and she stopped about a step short of him. All of a sudden a whole myriad of thoughts and feelings swept over her, each more confusing than the rest. On the one hand she wanted to run outside, find the people responsible for hurting this sublime being and exact her vengeance on them in the cruelest way she could imagine. At the same time, she felt like kneeling down beside him and holding him tight in her arms until she was done squeezing the last drops of sadness and pain he had inside. Something so stunning didn’t deserve to suffer a day in its life…

Before she could help herself, she reached out and placed a hand on one fragile, trembling arm. The copper-blond curtain of hair slipped from one of his shoulders as his head turned. Linda felt her breath hitch in her throat. She had never seen a more perfect face in her life. High cheekbones, an aristocratic nose, full lips… And his eyes - dark-brown on the edges and bright-yellow around the pupil - looked almost non-human. Then again, he most likely wasn’t human by definition.

Her awe didn’t last long however, as a wave of terror washed over her entire body, when she saw the beautiful face twist up in a terrifying grimace, until nothing was left there from the boy she had just seen. The nose and chin were now elongated, his eyes turned to colour of raging fire and his robes tore to reveal a pair of enormous golden wings, at least sever meters in spread. In a manner of minutes, he had turned from a sublime, elegant being to a huge beast with a long, sharp beak and menacing claws, whose head was almost reaching the cave ceiling.

For a moment, the magnificent golden phoenix simply stared at her with its huge amber eyes, its head slightly tilted to one side, as though considering something. In the next, without warning, the mighty wings flapped and it gave out a blood-chilling shriek, which snapped one of the stalactites loose and it shattered mere inches from Linda’s legs.

She wasn’t going to get a better warning than this, so she threw one last glance at the enormous bird, before darting through the dark corridors, as fast as her legs could carry her. Although she realized her chances of escaping the beast were quite limited. Especially since she heard how close its huge wings were flapping and the second cry it gave out passed through the air between them like lightning. The small hairs on Linda’s neck stood up and she wasn’t entirely sure it was just from fear.

Her legs felt like lead, she was gasping for air and terror was beginning to suffocate her, as though she were under water. She was just thinking she couldn’t take anymore, that she would collapse on the floor any moment now, when the saving thought came.

It’s alright, it’s just a dream.

Just a dream...