Smoke from the adults' cigarettes filled the banquet hall. It was an annual celebration for the Fivindus family. Today marked the anniversary of the Fivindus family becoming a prominent figurehead in Fukviyu. Being anointed as one of the Royal family's highest ranked noble families due to their contributions in the Luvian war.
Red and white liquid sloshed around in the banquet as adults filled themselves with liquor. Desserts from the royal capital had been imported all the way to Nautilus, and food lay neatly lined up on the long dining tables.
Selina stood there watching the adults fraternize, drowning themselves in oceans of expensive booze. With a plate of cake she wandered off toward the balcony and set the porcelain plate onto the marble railing. Her dad had told her to be responsible and form as many connections as possible during the celebration. But talking to the nobility irritated her. They boasted about the victories of war yet they had never held a gun in their lives.
Her soft hair fluttered in the wind and reflected the moonlight. Her breath fogged into mist, she had to step up as the eldest daughter of the clan head. She had been there on the battlefield alongside her father.
Selina Fivindus, genius? Prodigy? The next heir of the Fivindus family. Newspapers of her achievements and tribulations as a Fivindus were everywhere. Despite the praise and recognition she received, her feelings didn't reciprocate. Since childhood, she had been trained to fight, to kill, to use her abilities for the betterment of her country. And for years she obeyed her father and the royal family.
But the sights she witnessed in the Luvian Empire made a cog inside of her head spin the opposite direction. She had been trained to fight, to kill, but in practice she never thought that it would be so different.
There was no way to justify what happened in the Luvian Empire. The nobility and royals can parade around however much they wish but they will never understand. The justifications for the atrocities committed by Fukviyu were in the name of liberation. Freedom.
But is it really freedom when a mother cradling her son in their house, trying to shield him, gets brutally shot for being a Kawlite? When Selina reached the battlezone she heard shots from behind her, which was weird because they had already captured and secured this territory of the Luvian Empire. But when she checked up on the noise, she was appalled.
Unarmed civilians, mostly comprised of women and children, lay scattered on the ground in an ocean of crimson. Their brains hanging out of gaping bullet wounds, their lifeless open eyes staring back at her. Their mouths open, their bodies rigid and stiff like dead bugs, some of the children had their intestines wrapped around their necks and hung on lamp posts.
Some women had been completely disrobed, their bodies filled with carnal fluids and their eyes with despair and fear. A woman who was still alive, hiding beneath the corpses, looked up at Selina and reached out her hand. It was because she had a different hair color than the Fukviyians, the woman thought Selina was there to save her.
Suddenly she received orders to follow up an attack and turned a blind eye to the atrocity she had just witnessed. She remembered watching people slaughter a chicken before, how the blood poured out of the bird's neck. There was this unshakable feeling that resonated inside of her watching something die. A sorrow deep as the ocean, watching the freedom of a living being taken away. But she was taught that there were good reasons why they slaughtered animals, when she ate the meat of the bird, she understood that sacrifices had to be made for the survival of others.
But what she had seen was not done for the sake of survival. These were not birds nor animals, these were innocent people who were slaughtered without justification.
The moment she arrived at the location she was needed, they had to clear out a small village to make sure no Luvian soldiers were hiding. But there she saw a child.
A small boy walking the streets seemingly calling out for his mother. The boy frantically looked around, visibly distraught, on the verge of crying. His eyes were beginning to puff up, but that's when a loud crack shot through the air. A soldier next to Selina had fired and murdered the boy without hesitation. Her ears were ringing from the gun being fired and gunpowder flowing into her nose. She turned to look at the soldier who had just killed a civilian.
Those weren't the eyes of a liberator. They were filled with disgust, hatred, anger and desperation. She couldn't understand why, this was not war. This was merely a massacre.
As her regiment marched deeper into enemy territory Selina caught the glare of a scope and immediately threw herself onto the ground. She created mirrors to locate the enemy and fired a single crystal bullet which found its mark.
When she checked up on the enemy she had shot, she saw that the soldier was no older than 17. He was just a kid, like her. The bullet had hit him in the right side of his shoulder. She kicked away his rifle and took a closer look at him. Her hand twitched when she tried to lift her crystal gun up.
She raised the gun, aiming at the boy's forehead. He begged her to let him live. He had five siblings that he had to take care of. His father had already died in the war. He hadn't even gotten married yet.
He continued talking and the strength on the trigger of Selina's index finger weakened with every word. Orders.
She is a Fivindus. She was Selina Fivindus. She had a mission to carry out. Her finger squeezed the trigger and fired.
The boy's eyes slowly turned and saw the bullet embedded in the ground right next to him.
Selina took a step back and snatched up his gun before leaving. As she stood before a river, she held the rifle in her hands staring at the constant flow of water. After a few minutes of staring at her own reflection in the rippling water she threw the rifle into the river.
Fukviyu had launched a surprise offensive on the Luvian Empire when it was already struggling internally. The country had been stricken by famines and upheavals from the unsatisfied population. But due to the invasion launched by Fukviyu they had put aside their differences to fight together against something way more oppressive. This was known as the patriotic war of the Luvian Empire.
The most tense and strategic location of the war was in the country of Wien. A country sandwiched between the Luvian Empire and Fukviyu. Selina had been given orders of reallocation to alleviate the soldiers stationed in Wien. Wien was an important resource rich country that both countries wished to claim for themselves, neither wanting to give it up.
But eventually Wien picked a side and it was the Luvian Empire. For the first time, Selina watched as the Fukviyian army was utterly decimated by a Wienian and Luvian force. The intel she had been given was that the enemy commander went by the name of Erich von Stapel. Even though they outnumbered the Wienian army 6-1, the Fukviyian army was completely outmanoeuvred and split up into two by the Wienian army. Selina watched in awe seeing the Fukviyian army being defeated so effortlessly. An army known to be the strongest on the continent being beaten was unheard of. But she saw it with her own eyes. Erich von Stapel leading his soldiers. The Fukviyian soldiers that put down their guns to surrender were taken as prisoners of war instead of being killed. There was a hope that ignited within Selina. If he managed to defeat the Fukviyian army then no one needed to die, suffer meaningless deaths.
The war continued into the cold winter months where temperatures in the east plains could reach as low as -40 degrees Celsius. Ammunition froze, horses were thrown into ditches, soldiers suffered severe frostbite. The Fukviyian army was completely unprepared for a war of attrition, but especially a war during winter. Most of the soldiers from Fukviyu were not accustomed to the harsh cold. Both sides dug in for winter but still fired artillery shells on each other occasionally.
Finally reunited with her father again, Etros saw that the glint in her eyes had dimmed. Something inside her had left. She felt almost robotic at times, following orders like a dog without arguing. One sunny winter day the both of them managed to spend some time together eating. Over the crackle of firewood her father asked her how her campaigns had gone.
She responded that this was the first time she had been to war. And it was completely different from simply executing an assassination. Here you have no reason to shoot each other. When you execute someone, you do it for a reason. They are a corrupt politician, they are a child abuser, they are a rapist, but here it was just people. Humans following orders of their country.
Her father stared into the fire hearing his daughter tell him about her perspective on this war. He knew that war was simply done out of greed by both nations. Selina stood up, her gaze directed to the barracks.
"Say Dad, why do we hate the Luvian Empire and their people so much?"
Etros threw more firewood into the fire and told her that it all stemmed from history. A few centuries ago, both kingdoms were at each other's throats. Fighting over crucial resources. Then grew racial ideology, the Luvian Empire declared that all people of their kingdom were Kawlites. These Kawlites mass emigrated from the Luvian Empire into neighboring countries. The Luvian Empire most likely wanted their people to integrate themselves into the societies of their adversaries to help weaken the government's hold over the people.
The Kawlites were highly skilled workers and knowledgeable, often becoming rich. They owned banks, law enforcement agencies, parts of the military, were professors, teachers, doctors. The Royal Family then accused the Kawlites of the problems during the war. That they were sabotaging their operational systems, weakening morale and causing economic instabilities. And after a war which Fukviyu lost, they had to sign a humiliating peace treaty. Losing several key territories while also being severely crippled economically by huge war reparations. An inexperienced king paired with a crippling economy led to him ordering coins to be shaved to make more. And for the coins to be diluted with more common metals. And eventually the Fukviyian coin was worth nothing. People lost trust in the bank and investments were taken back. People's savings were suddenly gone and the country was plunged into the chaos of hyperinflation.
Unable to pay their war reparations, the Luvian Empire took over key industrial lands and took the resources of Fukviyu instead. Public anger grew as food was worth more than salaries. The Royal family saw an opportunity in the discord and blamed the Kawlites for everything. That they were the reason for their suffering, for their pain, for the humiliation. With the people on the Royal family's side, they began what is known today as the Kawlitian genocide. Hundreds of thousands of Kawlites were arrested and sent to concentration camps without trials. In those prisons they were mass executed. Due to losing communication with their people in Fukviyu, the Luvian Empire sent secret investigators and found out about the atrocities Fukviyu had committed against the Kawlites. This severely escalated tensions between the two nations again.
Selina didn't know what to say to her father's explanation. Only the thought that humans are insufferable, greedy creatures came. There are always reasons why things happened but not all reasons are good.
She walked off without saying anything to her father.
The war ended with Fukviyu as the victor. Selina remembered exactly how the war ended. The Prince of Fukviyu, Viego with the powers of the Aeon of Ember crushed the Luvian army. With their main army being completely wiped out, their general, Erich von Stapel, was completely outnumbered. The Luvian Empire eventually surrendered after dissatisfaction grew in the country. Due to bad leadership and years of famines, people couldn't stand another year of war and the emperor of the Luvian Empire was overthrown by a socialist republic.
Selina inhaled in the cold night's air, feeling her lungs cool off. She looked at her hands, they were clean. Then she heard a male voice at her side.
"What's a damsel like you doing all alone here?" said the man in a flirtatious tone.
That orange hair, that flamboyant suit, that face of a prince. Selina bowed, holding the ends of her skirt, formally greeting Viego.
"I'm just enjoying the night sky, Prince Viego, I will be back shortly."
Selina went back to gazing at the moon with her arms on the railing.
The Prince took a step closer to her and reached out his hand. Viego held Selina's chin, lifting her face up to get a closer look.
"You are the Fivindus' daughter."
"Yes, my name is Selina Fivindus."
He grabbed her hand, caressing it gently, feeling the hardened skin from constant training. A foul smile grew on his face as his hand kept feeling her trained body.
As his hand slithered up her arm and squeezed her muscles she remembered the orders of being responsible and making connections.
"No wonder they made you into a general for Fukviyu, you are truly toned."
"You flatter me with your words, your highness," Selina said in a dead tone.
Then a shout of a little girl came from the balcony door. It was Eterna, the crown princess. She started to tug on her brother to get back. She glared at Selina with eyes full of resentment before dragging her brother back in.
Viego promised Selina that he would reward her properly for her contributions to the war effort before leaving. Selina picked up her porcelain plate and took a bite of her cake.
"It's cold," she said to the moon before closing her eyes to make a wish.
"It's cold…" she muttered in a raspy tone.
Her heavy eyes slowly opened and she saw the white ceiling above her. She was in an office all alone. She was sitting on the bed with her feet touching the cold wooden floor. The sound of the doorknob rattling startled her and she readied herself.
Erich opened the door and greeted her with a gentle warm smile.
"Welcome back, Lieutenant Selina," he said, bearing the widest grin ever.
The loxes inside of her body stopped charging and she let out a huge sigh of relief.
She raised her arm that was in a cast to her head and saluted.
"Here to report back, Generalleutnant!" she said with the most serious of faces.
Erich chuckled before saying that the Umstürzlers were no more.
"There is no need for that anymore Selina Fivindus. Welcome back, Selina."
For a second she froze, not knowing what to do. But after those words her serious attitude slowly melted away into a soft gentle curve on her lips.
"I'm back, Erich."