I leaned back in my chair, the leather creaking softly under my weight, as I studied the woman standing before me. Captain Mareona held herself with a rigid, military poise, yet there was a flicker of something familiar in the set of her jaw and the sharp, attentive light in her eyes. It took a moment for my mind to sift through the memories of the past six years, back to the early days when my grandmother had sent a contingent of four hundred soldiers to ensure my survival in this desolate state.
"You look remarkably like Captain Ela," I said, my voice cutting through the silence of the office. "Tell me, what is your connection to her? Are you perhaps her mother? Or given the lines of experience on your face, perhaps her grandmother?"
The mask of military stoicism on Mareona’s face shat
