I coughed and spit as a hand grabbed my hair and pulled me off of the ground. "Obey. You are a soldier of Al Thamen. Nothing else," the voice said. I tried to crane my neck to look him in the eye, wincing from the pain. "Where's my brother?" I spat. In reply, he threw me to the ground and started beating me again. My bruises ached as my ten-year-old self stubbornly struggled against the man's grasp. Just as my vision started turning black, he stopped beating me and repeated his sentence. I remember thinking,"How long can this guy keep hitting me? Does he ever get tired?" Apparently not. Although I don't remember exactly how long this went on, I do know that it was long enough for the sun to rise and set several times outside the barred window. Finally, when my small body was at its limit, I heard the same monotone sentence repeated for the thousandth time. "Obey. You are a soldier of Al Thamen. Nothing else," I lay on the ground, blood dripping down my face, every inch of my body feeling broken. "I am a soldier of Al Thamen," my voice somehow managed to croak out from my aching throat. "Nothing else."

~~~~~~~~~~

"Kouha-sama, I beg your pardon," whispered one of the attendants. "I said, I want her as my attendant," the third prince said, pointing at my unresponsive face. "Are you sure, your Highness?" asked Judal, the Oracle of the Kou Empire, or rather, Al Thamen. "Didn't you hear what I just said?" replies Kouha Ren, getting annoyed. Judal blinked in surprise before laughing. "She's a palace guard. But not one that holds a very important position. So yes, you can have her," he said.

Becoming Kouha Ren's attendant was the first thing to happen in my life that wasn't controlled by Al Thamen. Before that, I was just a soldier guarding the palace. Guarding the place where the organization carried on with their hidden activites. Guarding secrets that they barely even revealed to me, their unimportant guard dog.

"Why did he want me as his attendant?" That was always the unspoken question I kept inside. But after some time, I realised. He has a thing for gathering people from strange places. The kind of people that are usually unnoticed or outcast. His other attendants were thrown away and left to rot. Kouha Ren was the one who saved them. No wonder they're so devoted to him.

Being an attendant was...decent. I found it better than standing guard outside of doors everyday. I wouldn't have minded for things to stay like this.

A hand on my shoulder stopped me as I was making my way out with Kouha Ren and the other attendants. "I know where your brother is," Judal whispered into my ear. The surprise and joy of the knowledge that my brother's alive is flushed down quickly by the realization that he is in Al Thamen's grasp.

"I have a mission for you."

I did not refuse. You are a soldier of Al Thamen. Nothing else.

~~~~~~~~~~

After I watched the knife sink into my target's chest, I let the wave of pain pull me in and drown my vision in darkness. The last thing I felt were my legs giving way beneath me.

Sounds and colours reached out to me through the darkness. The last screams of my neighbours. My brother wailing over our parents' bodies. Blood pooling against the floor. The man landing blow after blow on my small body. The life seeping out of the girl's eyes once my knife pierces her chest.

My eyes flew open and I gasped for air. I was choking, my lungs reaching for oxygen in vain. Escape. I needed to escape. I glanced around my surroundings. Clean white sheets, bandages around my wounds...a window! I scrambled towards it and somehow managed to open it while my lungs choked on the invisible water. I jumped out and run along the palace walls and roof. It was not until I reach the very edge of the palace grounds that my trained side kicked in. You are a soldier of Al Thamen. Stay and wait for further orders.

My breathing slowed, my body realising that it isn't drowning and noticing the pain from my wounds. I sat in a spot where the palace guards couldn't spot me. Spread before me was the Sindria sea. Its midnight waves tossed its salty scent towards me. I stared, strangely enthralled by the water.

I remembered playing by the water with my brother when we were little. But that was before we were kidnapped by Al Thamen.

When King Sinbad's right hand man found me, I went back with him silently.

~~~~~~~~~~

During my interrogation, Judal came, just as he'd told me. "I will let you have my little pet?" So my orders are to stay and submit to Sindria's power, then? Very well. I wondered if my role in his plan is finished, or if he still has something else for me up his sleeve.

King Sinbad assigned me to be his right hand man's assistant. Ja'far. Even with part of my face bandaged, I could see his distrust of me. No, it wasn't exactly distrust, but it certainly wasn't trust either. It was more like a...wariness.

Yamuraiha, on the other hand, was much more...talkative. I'd never had someone talk this much to me.

"About Ja'far, I know that he doesn't really welcomed you yet. But please, since you're his assistant now, can you please look after him? He's such a workaholic sometimes."

I nodded quietly since my neck was still injured and I couldn't talk. Hai.

~~~~~~~~~~

I followed him as we walked through the streets of Sindria on an errand. Sometimes, we passed through quiet paths lined with lush greenery. Other times, we had to squeeze through noisy crowds and colourful stalls.

"It's so different from anything I've ever se-" my thoughts are silenced by the sight of the sea before me. It was clear and sparkling, a bright blue during the daytime.

I wonder...what would it be like if I dived in?

~~~~~~~~~~

The man at my feet shook while passers by stared at us.

"You...you're not a normal woman, are you?"

I look down at him silently.

Of course I'm not.

~~~~~~~~~~

That night, I climbed out the window that I left open, ready for the nightmares that seized me every night, and wandered around the more empty parts of the palace grounds until I hear the sound of flowing water.

It didn't take long for me to find a way into the firefly field. For a second, a memory of me as a child chasing those glowing insects flashed through my mind. My brother and I used to think they were stars.

A stream cut through the long, green grass. I fished for the sheet of scrap paper that I grabbed from Ja'far's study and folded it into a lantern.

My parents used to tell me that this is to guide the souls of the dead to the afterlife. Who was I making that lantern for? The assassin I killed. I may not have known that woman at all, but I knew that I was just like her - a soldier of Al Thamen.

I unwrapped the bandages around my face and touched the crescent mark on my face. That's right. A soldier of Al Thamen. Nothing else.

At the faint sounds of footsteps behind me, I got up.

Ja'far.

I stood with my back to him while he talked.

"What I'm trying to say is, I don't know you. I have no idea what your goals or intentions are. The only thing I know is that you've been surprisingly cooperative since your capture besides running away in the middle of the night. I don't know what it is that you're hiding. But...once you're ready to trust us, and once we're ready to trust you, you can come to us."

I'm not sure what it was in those words that made me use my voice for the first time in days to tell him something that I haven't been called for years.

My name.

~~~~~~~~~~

It was just an errand to deliver some things to an official visiting Sindria. I never expected the beautiful sight that outshone the mansion's grandeur. As the gentle waves spread through the blue-green waters, a little smile also began spreading across my face.

When Ja'far asked me if I was okay, I covered my mouth. I still couldn't get that stupid smile off my face. Focusing on hiding my smile was probably why I failed to stop my bird from falling into the water.

"Look! I can see its head!" Ja'far yelled.

He wasn't even halfway through his sentence before my shoes were off and I jumped out of the window and into the water. Cool water rushed up my face. For a second, I panicked, remembering myself drowning in a bucket of icy water. Then I open my eyes.

Colourful seaweed and coral decorated the white sand, which gently shifted along with the waves. A school of silver fish swam amongst the seaweed. A lattice of sunlight rippled over it all.

Just then, I spotted an out-of-place bundle of feathers and swam towards it before finally heading to the surface for air. I turned when I heard Ja'far splash into the water nearby.

"Are you crazy?" he yelled.

"I got the bird," I said, holding up the drenched fluffy ball that was still chirping cheerfully at me.

Since his robe was weighing him down, I led him to the shallow part of the water close to the shore, where we tried to dry ourselves off. Sadly, that attempt was in vain because I failed to hide my snicker when I see Ja'far jumping away from a wave.

I froze in surprise when he splashed me with water. I smirk. "So that's how it is, huh?" I thought. We splashed each other with water until we were completely soaked. A water fight, how childish! But...it was the most fun I'd had in a long time.

Then I started laughing. A full-blown laugh that made me bend over and hold my hurting stomach. The kind of laugh that probably sounded embarrassing and made me look ridiculous.

But out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Ja'far blushing. "Wow. He sure looks cute when he's blushing," I caught myself thinking. "Come on. Let's head back. It's getting late," he said, running a hand through his soaked hair.

The 'hai' I replied with sounded much softer and happier than it usually was.

~~~~~~~~~~

"You're going to catch a cold," Ja'far said, trying to cover me with his robe for the fifth time. I shook him off stubbornly.

"Come on, (y/n). Just take the stupid robe!"

"No. There's no need for you to be a gentleman."

"Take it,"

"No!"

"Your bird's going to get cold!"

"Fine!"

After quite some fighting, we were both half-wrapped in Ja'far's robe. A vein popped up in his forehead. "(Y/n), why do you have to be so stubborn?" he muttered. "Shut up, you're going to catch a cold too!" I whispered back.

We half-argued, half-waddled back to the palace, half-covered by a single damp robe.

~~~~~~~~~~

I looked up as the fireworks went off, makeshift stars of white, red, yellow, green, and purple shooting fast across the sky, as if someone was throwing giant handfuls of coloured powder at the dark canvas of the night.

Wait...why am I so enraptured by these fireworks? I'd seen much grander fireworks back in Kou, except this time, I helped make them. Sure, I only gave the dark-skinned man a few tips about gunpowder, but the thought that I could play a role in making something so beautiful filled me with a happiness that I never thought I could feel again.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I glared down at Ja'far, who was sitting at his desk ready to finish the paperwork. You'd think that after the festival and the powder fight and the fireworks and all that, he would loosen up. Yamuraiha wasn't kidding when she said I needed to take care of him.

I picked up a stack of papers, sat on the floor and began to read. After all, I did tell him that as long as he kept working, I'd keep working too. But that night, I was just too tired to keep my promise.

And again, the nightmares clawed their way through my sleep. But this time, I woke up to see Ja'far staring at me.

"Crap! He saw!" I thought.

"Uh...do you want to stay here?" he asked.

I shouldn't. I don't want him to see any more of that. I shouldn't bother him.

I nodded, accepting the offer.

I dozed off several times during the night. Every time, the nightmares would come again. And every time, I felt Ja'far's hand on my shoulder, pulling me back into the odd comfort of the calm Sindrian night.

~~~~~~~~~~

I looked up at the Kou empire flag on top of a very familiar-looking ship – the royal ship. "Hey! It's you!" an even more familiar voice exclaimed.

I turned to see Kouha Ren approaching us. "I've been looking for you!" he said. "Come on, I can take you back to Kou-" he stopped mid-sentence.

"Kouha-sama. My deepest apologies, but I request for you to let me stay in Sindria. Thank you for coming all this way for me," the words came out of my mouth before I could really think about them. Why? I don't usually say things like this. Then I realised, those words were how I really felt in my heart. I realised that I didn't want to leave Sindria, the place where I sparred with the king and his officials, the place where I could stay up late with Ja'far, the place where I could laugh a full-blown laugh, the place where I could speak from my heart.

"Very well. I'll let you stay."

I bowed gratefully in front of Kouha Ren while my friends celebrated behind me.

"I must say, your eyes sure have changed since the last time I saw you," the prince said before finally returning to the ship. But as my friends squeezed me into a group hug, the joy in my heart quickly dissipated, for leaning against the ship's doorway was Judal.

~~~~~~~~~~

I stood behind Ja'far as he scribbled away at his desk, catching the familiar sound of his pen scratching against paper, a sound that I knew would soon stop.

"Kill him," was the message Judal had mouthed to me. I knew who he was talking about. Back in the Kou palace, he'd said casually, "Man, it sure would be great if we could kill Sinbad. But instead, you're going to have to save him first to keep things from getting too messy. Besides, if we really wanted to kill the king, there's something we must do first."

I pulled a knife out of my sleeve, his words ringing through my head.

"Kill the man closest to him."

I grit my teeth, fumbling with the knife before gripping it tightly, blood beginning to seep out of my reopened wounds. You are a soldier of Al Thamen. Nothing else.

Screaming inside, I lunged at my target.