2412, Diori 20, Reshpe

Denara screamed, her primal soul raging with the current of the war. This was what she lived for and this was where she would find herself in, again and again. It's as if this was all she's ever known.

War. Such a small word for an enormous event in anyone's life. Denara hated how every death, every sacrifice, and every incident of great importance could just be summarized in a tiny word which carried no weight.

She has lived for more than a thousand years and still, even when the language changed and even when the times have definitely moved on, the same word carried no meaning. War. It's just like saying something big happened and then one continues on without a second thought.

It was so easy to think of the Hundred Years' War as something which appeared and was gone in a blink. A hundred years was a short time. It flew by. As someone who fought in it, as someone who lived through all its grime, Denara thought it would be easier to face this brand new war.

She had never been this wrong.

Her heart pounded louder every time she heard someone cry in pain, be it an enemy soldier or one of her comrades at the front lines. She saw countless bodies fall down with blood, shatter into a thousand pieces, and lose more than just their souls. Every time the sun set and moons took its place, she heard all sorts of cries. Violent shrieks. Small gasps. Terrified howls. She saw tears of regret and even tears of anger.

She wanted it to stop.

That's why she was risking her neck out here once again. Denara, a fairy past her natural time, found herself in the same place she started out from. It's sickening. Was this how she's going to spend her life? Was war always going to be a part of her, if not, all of her?

Denara rolled to one side and raised her arms to block the incoming attack. The sword clanged, sending vibrations running through her forearm. She hardly felt it as she gritted her teeth and lashed out with her other arm, summoning a flurry of scalding waves from her synnavaim.

Water shot out from her palm, remembering the first time she discovered this trick with the water. Denara whipped her arm, the water hardening into a pole which hit a few unsuspecting soldiers dressed in black.

Cardovia and Synketros dressed their soldiers in black and Penleth preferred to keep to every race's traditional war attire. There was Canelis in her resplendent white robes, barreling through a sea of black, never once drawing the sword by her side, using shafts of light to momentarily blind enemy soldiers before disabling them through a quick jab at the back of the neck.

Elred, in an armor of glass the shard fairy had designed for herself, toppled soldiers with her glass sword, drawing blood but never enough to kill. Reeca, in her tree bark armor, fought side by side with her brother, Rhys, their orange and blue wings twirling in the air like butterflies dancing.

Eldan, wearing his usual green robes, dodged swords, daggers, and spells by riding his krou familiar, Sahili. Airese, Airene, and Cyrdel, all peace-loving brownies, bore metal bombs the heir, himself, had fashioned and sported a mismatch of plated armor and spare daggers which remained unused by their sides.

The sprites, Seravel and Nelnifa, were at the other flank, blasting their way through the blundering black-clad soldiers with combined fire and water, encouraging Denara to try that trick on her own. Hot steam made the battlefield hazy and dark, making it harder to spot where the battle had been leading them. Denara surged forward, tackling every dark clothed figure she came across. Her muscles remembered every combat move she thought she had forgotten.

Denara tumbled back as a woman swept a sword at her throat. Eyes darting, Denara used her backward momentum to wrap her legs around a soldier who had been engaged in battle with another of her comrades and with a twist, she brought him down with her. The female soldier lunged again, her sword made to skewer. Denara grunted as she threw the man forward with her legs. It wasn't a smooth move. Blood splattered and Denara didn't care what happened next as she rolled aside, dodging another soldier who tried pinning her down.

All around her, the war raged. More bodies littered the ground every second that passed, either felled by cannons from the flying island or shot by the handheld flintlocks some platoons held. The air smelled of odian powder, blood, and humid fog as bodies clashed. Weapons sang for blood.

Denara rammed her hands against the earth and summoned her magic. The ground swelled, her magic pulsing through the dry rocks as she rocketed upward. The earth pulled up as it built upon itself. Her eyes scanned the horizon.

The eastern flank was holding up well with Geradine in command. The ice sprites were used to following orders without actually being at war and have pushed the enemies as far as the ravine growing at the borders of Penleth. Good.

The western flank, where Anahel had made her last stand, was abandoned by the enemy after their last defeat. That strange and mysterious power the shard fairy had hidden from them until the last point had surprised not only Penleth but Cardovia and Synketros as well.

Penleth's walls had all their crenelations full of marksmen ready to shoot anyone who dared storm through the gates or go anywhere near two fortweres to the wall. That's how Reeca wanted to keep it at so they'd all have to follow.

Up above, Xanthy and Ariden were hijacking the flying ship's cannons seeing how it proved to be the main offensive instrument their enemies had in the battlefield. Sahili flew up close, along with three of Eldan's comrades from Dwanzeig, aboard their flying familiars. Air sprites and other fairies with wings dominated the sky and the nature fairies were doing their best to keep them at bay with timed blasts of sleep-inducing spores combined with a random slap using a vine grown like a giant hand.

Denara looked below before craning up her head at the sky. She would be more useful there.

She gathered the rest of her magic and summoned air behind her. She flew. It was a skill she had spent some hours perfecting. Denara hurtled up and yelled at no one, "What can I do?"

Eldan, who had been frequenting air and land, ducked his head to avoid a pocket of air aimed at his head. "Focus on the cannons if you can," he roared above the noise of explosions and raging air currents.

Denara was close to losing her hearing with this proximity but she pushed forward. She angled her body left and right, dodging spells against her. Xanthy whizzed past her some time ago, barking a powerful maxia spell as she went. Denara was about to reach the first cannon when a sudden force slammed into her side and threw her off-course.

She cursed, shaking her head to drive off the buzz off it. Ugh. What was that?

Magic bore towards her in surprising speed. It was no ordinary spell. Lights crackled with energy Denara had never seen before...except once. In that camp.

The Sovereign.

Xanthy yelled something—at least that's who Denara assumed screamed at her—about not engaging. Denara would have followed if not for the roaring magic following her every direction she thought to go as an escape.

"Ah, the anomaly," a silky yet dry voice said from nowhere. It's the same trick the Sovereign used when Narfalk was destroyed. Imbuing the voice somewhere else while the form and the synnavaim were in another. Denara had been paying attention to the military briefings and reports regarding the making-sense of who and what the Sovereign was.

"It was nice, knowing there is another like me," the Sovereign taunted, seemingly hidden by the infinite fluff of clouds or even the blue, empty sky. Denara swallowed the fear lumping at the base of her throat and focused on keeping her magic and her wits at the top of her head. Focus. Look for the source.

"Ah, you won't find me that way, darling," the Sovereign cooed with a snicker when Denara didn't bother engaging in a conversation. "Come on, try it. Strike and let me see that wonderful synnavaim of yours. Oh, it's been a while since I've seen such glorious trail in a young fairy."

"Thankfully for you," Denara eyed the mass of clouds floating in the sky. "I'm not young."

She sent her magic to the clouds. It's a branch of sprite magic she hadn't tested yet. Spears of light sped for the clouds and the sky exploded into a shower of forks of lightning—all aimed at Denara. She spread her arms and, being supported by her synnavaim, she grasped the lightning with her hands.

The voice was quiet for a while before chuckling. "Good."

Denara screamed as she drew her arms back then threw the bunched force of nature towards where the voice was coming from. The sky rocked as lightning flashed in a show of electricity and fire. It occurred to her that Xanthy and the others were still shouting at her to move away, to escape. It's a wonder the Sovereign haven't blown them all to bits as they were hijacking the cannons.

It seemed like the Sovereign was only interested in Denara.

Before Denara could react, a spear of magic tore from the sky and slammed into her. Blood came first, splattering in ugly patterns in the seemingly perfect white carpet of the sky. After that, came the pain.

Denara might have screamed or maybe whimpered . The pain crept to her head and registered it to be somewhere in her gut. She didn't dare look down, else she would see the bolt of hot-white magic jutting through her body like an errant horn. Not yet. Not like this...

"That's dirty, I'll give you that," Denara muttered to no one. The sky was laughing at her. It said something but the words lost meaning in her ears. Her magic desperately clawed at her injury, sending sparks in an attempt to heal it. Denara growled and wrestled its focus back to the spell she was working on. "But if you want dirty, I'll give you dirty," she rasped.

Instead of aiming at the Sovereign and wherever that son of a witch was, Denara focused all her magic towards the hull of the flying island. Pure, untainted sprite magic blasted out of her palms and slammed straight into the dark earth. Denara didn't need to look—her eyes couldn't anymore, anyway— but judging from the monumental explosion which shook the heavens itself, she succeeded.

In the end, Denara followed the briefing. She didn't engage the Sovereign in a battle. She's a good soldier. Soldier... that's what she was, wasn't she? She would forever be one. She was born a soldier. She'd die as one.

A face popped into her fading mind. She had loved it across two lifetimes while belonging to two different people from two different worlds. She needed to make it back to him.

Alive.

Denara screamed against the pain building in her system and summoned the last of her magic in one massive spell, even bigger than the one she used to attack the flying island. This one was focused on the trail she glimpsed at as she went down. It flitted through the clouds with an almost invisible veil around it.

Having spent all her time in a dim cave, Denara developed the capacity to see light with strange accuracy. She could examine almost anything with her naked eye as long as there were natural rays. This sky was just an endless looking glass.

"Playing dirty..." Denara smiled as blood forced its way out of her mouth in an unholy sputter. She extended her arms and sent every last drop of magic from her veins. The last thing she heard was the sky screaming in agony. The heavens shook in anger, reaching out for her and attempting to squeeze the life out of her muscles.

Then, she slammed into hard ground. She couldn't breathe anymore.