WARBRINGERS: Revenge and Revolution

OUTRAGE AND DESIRE OF REVENGE

PRESENT DAY

[SULIANA]

Suliana tossed and turn on her bed, wanting to find the most comfortable position to sleep. But it eluded her as forgiveness would to an unrepentant sinner.

When she closed her eyes she can still see Camia’s pale corpse, she can still see King Doroteo’s smile when he said that he should’ve r***d Camia first. She also thought of the Millos. Those horrible rebels. Camia believed in their cause. Camia wanted to help them, to support them. And still, they killed her, defiled her.

Suliana closed her eyes then raised her hands, imagined squeezing a neck. She imagined feeling a pulse beneath her fingers. She squeezed hard and visualized killing a faceless Millos. He didn’t have a mouth but he begged for his life. Still, she kept on squeezing.

But when Suliana opened her eyes, there was no Millos. She was alone with her dark thoughts.

I need to talk to Gon… I need him to tell me she’s happy now… I need him to tell me she’s going to be in a better place. I need him to tell me it’s going to be okay.

Suliana wept that night and wished that the shadows cast by the lamp would swallow her whole.

***

When Suliana woke up in the morning and went out of her room, she smelled her father cooking. Ham and cheese, drizzled with honey. It was her favorite food.

Suliana walked to the kitchen and saw her father setting plates on the table. He stopped when he heard her and raised his head to meet her gaze. She must look so horrible, operating in only two hours of sleep. Her eyes must still be swollen because of grief.

“Amira…” he said. “Come. I prepared your favorite.”

Suliana nodded and sat by the table. She looked at the plate, the food still steaming and she remembered Camia’s favorite food and how Camia would never be able to eat it again.

Camia would eat would so much gusto people around her would make fun of her for it. She would slurp and groan and burp. Her food would usually smear on her face like she wanted to wear it. Once criticized, she would say, “These pigs died for us. Show them the honor they deserve.”

Suliana bit her lip because she felt tears welling in her eyes.

“Amira…” her akir said. And since he couldn’t say anything, maybe because he didn’t know what to say, he just knelt on the floor and hugged her. And Suliana softened inside her akir’s arms like a little girl.

Suliana wished some words can ease the pain. Grief is the trail love had left behind. She knew that even in the future, grief is something no man would over overcome. It would stay in a person’s heart like shrapnel.

***

THAT afternoon, Suliana was determined to talk to Gon. She told this to her father and he let her, telling her that she needed all the love and support she can get. She went to the base of the krills, near the woods. Krilldom, is what it was called. They were separated from Cantatan simpletons. The walls of their houses are made of dried mud and the roof is made of dried hay, placed in a way that the houses would form a huge circle. At the center of the circle is a tall tower, where the krill traders live.

As Suliana arrived at the krilldom, all the krills were on the grounds, in front of the tower. The krill traders were there, assigning their tasks for that day. Baladin was the name of Gon’s krill trader. She looked for Baladin and saw him a few meters away, standing under an apple tree. He was holding a scroll.

“So Mandala, you will be assigned with soldier Maskien,” Baladin read from the scroll while scratching his beard. Suliana walked towards him.

“Gonze, Mastaro, Ahktar, you will be assigned at the field. There is a rat infestation…”

Baladin stopped when he heard murmurs from the krills. He looked up from the scroll and looked at her. He grinned, showing his rotting front teeth.

“Good day, my lady,” Baladin said. He was overweight, his hair long and his beard scruffy and gray. His lips fat and there’s white spit that’s always on the corner of them. “I bet I know why you’re here.”

“She’s going to pay for Gon’s day once again,” a krill with a bald head whispered to his friend.

“Boy, she sure loves Gon’s d**k,” the friend replied.

“If ever a woman as pretty as her would pay to ride my d**k, I’d be in heaven.” The krill who said that had a nose so flattened it looked like a snout.

“Shut up!” said Gon. He stood and almost lunged at the krills who made those remarks but some of his fellow krills stopped him by holding him back. “Disrespect her again and I’ll break your neck.”

“Ohhh…” the other krills said.

The krill with a snout for a nose raised his eyebrow. “Really, Gon? With than small hands of yours?”

“I’ll throw rocks at you then. Your nose will be an easy target,” said Gon, then smiled.

“You f*****g fairy--”

“Oh both of you, shut up!” Baladin said. “Show respect to the young lady! And sit the f**k down, Gon!”

Gon stuck his tongue out to the snout-nosed krill before sitting again on the ground. Suliana saw him glance at her with annoyance but quickly looked at Baladin again. She knew he’d scold her again later, but she didn’t care. She really wanted to be with him.

“You’re just a bunch of morons. I told you we should never use that kind of language in front of a lady unless she is a krill like you. If this young lady wants to pay for Gon’s day, you can only shake with envy, but you wouldn’t disrespect her or Gon, do you understand?”

“Yes, akir,” said the krills.

“Bunch of ugly morons,” Baladin uttered before looking at her and smiling sweetly. “So am I right, young lady? Are you here to pay for Gon’s day?”

“I will.”

He rolled the scroll with his hands before speaking, “Well, come with me inside the tower so we can have another deal, shall we?” Baladin tried to wink but it didn’t suit him. He looked as if his brain was shutting off.

“Be careful akir Baladin.” The krill with a snout for a nose still wouldn’t quit with his teasing. “If Gon gets jealous, he might try to pinch you with this tiny hand.”

“Shut up, Mastaro,” said Baladin sharply. “If you keep on teasing Gon, I might think you’re the fairy and you want his attention.”

The krills laughed and Mastaro’s face became as red as a beet. Baladin turned to Suliana and smiled at her once again. He motioned her to come with him and she did. And as she walked towards the tower, she can feel Gon’s stare at her back like a warm touch.

***

“ARE YOU mad?” Suliana asked Gon.

Gon answered that with another question, “Are you okay?”

Suliana couldn’t answer. She just sat there with him under the arinillo tree. They were too heavy now to sit on a branch. A dried leaf fell and landed on the top of Gon’s head. She picked it up, crumpled it in her hand, felt it disintegrate like her heart.

Gon smiled, a smile that did not reach his eyes. “What a stupid question.”

“Don’t worry, I expect that from you.” Suliana tried to smile but what she managed to do was a poor and somehow bizarre imitation of it. She looked up at the tree, listened to the sound of the leaves dancing with the wind. “We have a lot of memories here. Why is it that when someone is gone, the good memories hurt more than the bad ones?”

Suliana gazed at Gon again and she saw concern in his eyes.

“Some people need to forget to be okay again,” he said. “Some people heal when they remember.”

“I don’t want to remember,” Suliana said, her voice cracked. “For just one second, I want to forget. I want to pretend it didn’t happen. I want to pretend I will hear her laugh again. I want to pretend she’ll be able to tell me again that I am like…” Tears streamed on her cheeks. “I am like a sister to her.”

“I’m the opposite,” said Gon. Tears were also welling in his eyes now. “I want to remember. I don’t want to forget. Because… because what if there is no life after death? I don’t want her to be gone. I want her to be alive, at least in my head, in my memories. It hurts, I bleed inside when I try to remember her but I still do it. I don’t want to forget…”

Gon wiped his cheek with the sleeve of his shirt. He closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I can still hear her laugh. I can still hear her voice. I’m afraid… I’m afraid that once I stopped thinking about her, I wouldn’t remember how her laugh sounded. That it would fade in my memory like a stain. I’m afraid of that.”

Suliana held Gon’s hand, felt a little bit of comfort with its warmth. She kissed his hands one at a time. And with a heavy heart, answered the stupid question he asked earlier. “I’m not okay,” she said in a small voice. “And I want to be not okay with someone who feels the same way.”

Gon nodded and then pulled her for a hug. She landed on his chest, she felt his arms on her back. For a moment, the world wasn’t cruel and miserable. For a moment the heaviness was bearable. For a moment there was warmth.

She buried her face on his neck and smelled him, and wished he’d kiss her. Maybe a kiss would make her feel better. Maybe f*****g will take her mind off things. But she couldn’t and so she just embraced him, and shared this burden with him. He cried too. He sobbed. His body shook while he did. She hugged him tighter.

When that was over, she released him. She held his hand again and looked at him directly in the eyes.

“Gon…” she said with a look of determination in her eyes.

“Yes?”

“Do you believe in the saying that vengeance is not ours, it is God’s?”

Gon blinked, shook his head. “Suliana, if you’re thinking what I think you’re--”

“I don’t believe in that, Gon,” she told him. “Vengeance is not God’s. It’s mine… It’s ours.”

“Suliana--”

“Those rebels must pay, Gon,” said Suliana and squeezed his hand with so much ferocity. She was breathless with rage. “We must make them pay.”

She saw the frustration in Gon’s face but she didn’t care. She wanted to put justice in her own hands. She wanted to punish the rebels, to make her feel her pain. She’d thought about how lovely it would be, how excruciatingly lovely it would be to take someone they love as well. “We will make them pay.”