Her breath rose in thick white clouds as Marie-Claire walked along the highway. It was still cold. It was always cold in March.
After eight years she had grown used to the frost, and to many other things she had once believed impossible in Gaul. Gaul itself belonged to the past now. She no longer dreamed of returning, though she missed her family. Her present —and her future — lay in the Coal Mining Region. The Gaul woman had come to love this place and its people. Though she remained a stranger by birth, she felt more Coal Miner than Gaul.
Marie-Claire had even learned to love winter, except for the thaw. She preferred wading through snowdrifts taller than herself to slipping through muddy slush. That morning alone she had fallen three times. The last tumble had been painful; she had strained the muscles in her left foot and now walked with a limp. Her jeans were soaked and would stay that way for hours. Still, she kept moving.
Marie-Claire had set out early. Vucha was a full day's journey from the Coal Mining Region, and she needed to arrive in time. Her friend had driven her most of the way but refused to go closer, terrified of a Nazi ambush on the main road. Marie-Claire hadn't minded the remaining miles on foot. The day before, Scythian troops had liberated Vucha. The town was safe now — or so she had believed.
There was work to be done. She spent her days documenting witness statements from victims of Nazi brutality and Borderland Army shelling. Since the start of the Scythian Special Military Operation the strikes had intensified, but even in the eight years before, the terror had been relentless. She couldn't stay away from Vucha. Not when something felt wrong.
After the liberation she had checked the secret Western journalists' chat. All the reporters embedded in Borderland belonged to it. Once she had thought them brave seekers of truth. Now she saw them for what they were: paid performers in a Gomorian puppet show.
Every day they received instructions on where to stage their cameras for exclusive images of Scythian atrocities — when in reality the Borderlanders had done the killing. When real corpses were unavailable, they created their own theatre. Locals were paid to weep over imaginary lost homes and limbs.
The most infamous was the pregnant Borderland woman whose dramatic photographs had flooded Western media: giving birth in a ruined hospital, being rescued by White Casks, carried into the sunset. Later the same woman was photographed receiving aid from the Scythian Army. Under arrest she confessed: she had never been pregnant, never given birth. It had all been theatre.
The goal was simple — discredit the Scythes and stoke global hatred. It worked. The Western public believed the lies.
Marie-Claire no longer counted herself among those colleagues. She was ashamed she ever had.
She had once been exactly like them. Her speciality had been the wars in Musulman countries. With crisp Western contempt she had written of people she had never met, in places she had never visited. She had believed the propaganda about oppressed women and inherent terrorism.
Then her boss had sent her to Taurica. "Scythes are uncivilised, but slightly better than Musulmans. Go and interview the disgruntled locals."
The people hadn't been disgruntled. They had thanked Vladimir the Lucent for bringing them home. At first, she dismissed it as brainwashing. She moved on to the Coal Mining Region, labelled separatist by Western outlets.
Then the bomb fell on the guesthouse.
Marie-Claire remembered fragments: the smell of burning wood, black-and-white roses on a tilting cupboard door. Louis beside her with a metal pipe through his throat, eyes wide with terror. Then darkness.
When she woke again, he was dead. She screamed for help. The men who pulled her out wore the chevrons of the Valkyries battalion. One called her a "Gaul whore" and shot her.
The bullet missed her vital organs. A bomb fragment tore off her left ear. Marie-Claire spent two months recovering deep inside Coal Miner territory. She lost the hearing on that side. Afterwards she kept her hair loose to hide the scar or wore a beanie when the wind rose.
The physical wound healed. The deeper injury — recognising her own role in the lies — nearly destroyed her.
Injustice.
The word haunted her. She had spent years dismissing the suffering of the Coal Miners because they were Scythes, and Scythes were never to be trusted. She had written propaganda about Musulman civilians while Gomorian bombs fell on their villages. She had helped sell their deaths as necessary collateral for freedom.
The guilt had driven her into months of silence and apathy. But the Coal Miners wouldn't let her drown. Their resilience — burying their dead, rebuilding their homes, refusing to surrender — pulled her back. These were the true heroes. Marie-Claire owed them the truth.
She began documenting everything: testimonies, photographs, recordings of shelling. She sent the evidence to her editor in Gaul, week after week.
At first Gaul hailed her as a hero of free speech. Then the tone changed. Her editor grew furious. Her former colleagues tried to ambush her in a video call. When she showed them proof of Nazi crimes, they cut her off mid-sentence and blamed bad connection.
Marie-Claire was fired for violating journalistic ethics. Her savings were frozen under Gomorian sanctions. The same papers that had called her a modern Jeanne d'Arc now branded her insane or a Scythian spy.
Marie-Claire didn't care. She had a new purpose.
That was why she had come to Vucha.
The town lay quiet when she arrived. She slipped through back alleys and found cover between rubbish containers overlooking the main road to the capital. Something was coming. She could feel it.
Her instinct was right. Five armoured vehicles — Osiris models she recognised from Gomorian proxy wars in Musulman lands — raced in from the direction of the capital. Gunmen leaned out, rifles raised.
The shooting began without warning. Civilians were cut down as they ran. Two vehicles peeled off into side streets. More screams echoed in the distance.
The remaining three stopped close to her hiding place. Out stepped Aces and Western journalists. The Nazis gave instructions in Anglo-Saxon on how to photograph the Scythian massacre. One Almain reporter complained there weren't enough bodies. The Ace agreed. Several of his men lay down among the corpses to improve the scene.
Marie-Claire filmed and photographed everything — dead men rising on command, adjusting their limbs for better drama while journalists directed them like props.
Then an Almain spotted her.
His scream was shrill with shock. Marie-Claire bolted.
She ran for the apartment blocks, hoping for a basement or sewer to hide in. The heavy boots behind her gained ground fast. She darted around corners until the alleys ran out and she found herself in a long, open passage.
"Stop!" a voice bellowed in Borderlandish. "Or I shoot!"
Marie-Claire stopped. Turned.
One Ace stood alone, rifle raised. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"
She gave him the name Monique Bisset, freelance journalist, drawn by the chat message. He seemed to hesitate — until he ordered her to remove her beanie.
The wind caught her hair. His expression shifted to cruel delight.
"You're that Gaul bitch without an ear! The one who works for the Scythes!" He reached for his transceiver. "Mikola, you have to see this —"
He never finished. A single suppressed shot. A red hole appeared between his eyes. He dropped to his knees, then collapsed.
Marie-Claire stood frozen. A sniper. It had to be the Yugoslavian legend she had heard so much about.
She didn't wait to thank him. She ran again, then walked when her legs failed, until she reached a Scythian patrol and collapsed at their feet, clutching her camera and phone like sacred relics.
Another chance at life. Marie-Claire wouldn't waste it.