Sann's POV

No amount of silence could erase the sound of screams assaulting her ears. The chaos seemed to rise out of nowhere. One minute it was pitch black, next there were soldiers everywhere as far as the eyes could see. The sounds of clashing steel and armour hit her like a wall and her breath caught in her throat.

She looked around as the gruesome vision of the battle played on around her. Rivers of blood flowed on beneath her feet as armours of humans got pierced again and again by spears, arrows and swords. Horses screeched as they fell by catapults firing giant stones at them. And in the middle of it all, she stood as calm as a lake.

She looked down at herself, she was wearing a shiny armour of steel with intricate swirls of gold carved on it. Her helmet had wings on top of it just like the ones on her back. She felt herself move her wings as if to stretch them after standing idle too long. The feeling of the giant muscles covered with white feathers feeling foreign after not having them. She could feel the power in her own form, like she could send the twenty men closest to her tumbling away with one swift clap of her wings.

And still she was calm as a cloudless day. She knew this scene, she knew this place. This battle. This wasn't her first battle, nor would it be her last. She looked down at her hands and saw a longsword gripped there. She didn't know how it got there but she relished at the feeling of it. It felt right. Loosening and re-tightening her grip on the hilt, she felt the reflexes rising to the surface, and looked around her once again. All of this was familiar, like she was supposed to be here.

And then, without her consent her body started moving forward, closer to one of the two men duelling before her. She could do nothing, say nothing as she dodged and ducked from the unknowing blows from the other soldiers battling one another. She was invisible to everyone, or they simply chose not to attack her. As she closed the distance to the two men who were fighting, she saw the one with blackened armour run his sword through the other's abdomen.

His opponent made to open his mouth but only blood dribbled out of his gaping mouth. Any noises he made were quickly gobbled up by the scene around them. As he tried to move his hands to pull the sword from his body, he looked around with terror in his eyes.

There was no one to help him, even Sann knew this but still, the man in his desperation sought out his fellow soldiers. And then just as fast as the one in the black armour had attacked, he pulled his sword back and the man crumbled to the dirt.

Sann spared no glance to the man lying lifelessly to the ground but came to stand by the one that defeated him. Beneath his dented and scratched black armour, there were countless cuts and a rather big gash on his left leg. He took off his helmet and his curly blond hair spilled out. It was plastered to his forehead with sweat, blood and grime, and the blacks of his eyes were enlarged from the adrenalin of the battle. His chest rapidly rising and falling, his lungs trying to supply his muscles' increased demand of oxygen.

He dropped to his knees, suddenly out of strength, now that the blunt of his wounds catching up to him.
He lifted his left arm and speared the tip of his bloodied sword down into the ground and took strength from the hilt, trying to rise back to his feet. But his left leg was losing too much blood too fast. And he stumbled back down. A familiar look of pain and discomfort etched onto his face.

Sann stepped infront of him and she could feel herself changing forms, her armour became dull, covered in dirt, her already tall stature increased more in height and her wings were hidden into thin air. She became one of the soldiers who fought for their lives around her.

The kneeling soldier before her raised up his dark eyes, looking at her tiredly from beneath his blond curls. He wasn't getting back up again and they both knew it. That's why she was here.

She lifted her left hand and placed it on his shoulder in a comforting, steadying touch. Her altered voice came out as a male's baritone, rising up over the roaring of the battle. "You fought well, rest now."

She had no control over her voice or her words. Or her hands, she realised as her grip on the hilt of her sword tightened and she raised her arm. She was trapped in her own body, held prisoner as the events played out. Her breathing never quickened. Her eyes never blinked. And for a moment, all the soldiers around them seemed to freeze. Silence ruled.

And when she blinked, everything rushed back as she brought her sword down and into the man's chest. There was no scream, no fight from the man. Just his once life filled eyes slowly draining as she looked right back at him.
~•~

Sann opened her eyes into the darkness filled tent as she tried to breathe gulps of air down her throat. She was cold and sweaty as she tried to right herself. Her muscles protested as she turned her disoriented gaze to her side and met a pair of warm caramel ones.

"Lady Sann are you alright?" Christopher asked as he looked at her from head to toe. He was kneeling beside her cot and seemed to just stop short of touching her, like he was about to take off the twisted covers from her grasp and check for himself that she was alright.

His own brown wavy hair was messy and his concerned eyes looked riddled with sleep. He had his brown pants on and a loose white tunic that dipped low enough to show a hard chest. The thin ropes at his collar hung untied showing a generous amount of his torso. Sann seemed to forget her nightmare for a second as her gaze focused on the slightly dipped line of muscles that seemed to start at the base of his neck and go down between his pecs and then disappear underneath the white material of his shirt.

The moonlight that filled in the tent through the flaps shined the contours of his body like a river flowing through hard rocks. It all came together and swam perfectly to create this mirage standing before her. Her eyes looked up again and at the left side of his neck, she noticed a red angry gash that started below his ear and ended on his collarbone. It had closed over and scabbed but seemed recent enough that it was still angrily pulling at his flesh.

The visions of her nightmare, humans getting skewered on swords and dying countless of times rushed back at her. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. When she reopened them, she was in the tent again, not the battlefield.

"Are you hurting? Can I get you a doctor?" Christopher asked as he angled closer to her, close enough to touch her now. His scent filled her senses, pulling her down to earth and what was real. It was a clean fresh scent of mahogany and earth and something else. Something she couldn't quite name. It was like fresh wood burning around a campfire and a quiet night. As she breathed him in more, she felt herself relax.

"No need to call for a doctor. It was just a..." She trailed off, not quite finding the right word for it.

"A nightmare?" Christopher asked as he slightly dipped his head and looked right at her.

"I think it was a memory." She replied in a hushed tone. The air in the small distance between them felt still. All of her senses were on high alert and she didn't know if the goosebumps rising on her skin were due to what she had seen or the human before her.

Christopher seemed to finally notice how close they were standing and stood up from his crouched position beside her cot and put some distance between them. He lifted his right hand to comb his fingers through his disheveled long wavy brown hair. He almost seemed nervous.

"I'm sorry I barged into your tent this late at night. I just heard distressed noises coming from your tent and..." Christopher trailed off averting his gaze to the entrance of the tent. Then he looked back at Sann and said, "Bringing you to a camp full of men might not have been the best idea. We are a small band disposed from the army but there are still at least hundred fifty men. I don't know all of them. I can't attest for their intentions. I am afraid I might have put you in danger by bringing you here."

Sann untangled her legs from the woolly blanket and sat upright. She was still getting to know humans, especially this human standing before her but the gnawing feeling of already knowing him from somewhere was making it easier for her to feel more at ease. He was one more piece she had to solve in order to understand what had happened to her, but she was beginning to trust him. He had brought her to safety, fed and clothed her and he was here before she even knew herself that she needed help.

"I never truly thanked you for finding me and bringing me here, to safety." She said, it was the least she could do to try to absolve him of this guilt. "And I don't want you to feel any worse on my behalf when you have already done so much for me. You didn't have to help me or lie for me. I-" she lowered her eyes onto her hands. They felt so much more small than in her dream. No it was a memory, she was sure of it. She felt smaller somehow, less powerful than who she was before.

"Thank you. I really appreciate your help." It felt hard to voice the thoughts that came into her head, but this human had been nothing but kind to her. If she was dangerous, he had a right to know so he could protect himself against her. She looked up at him and her breath caught at the sight. He seemed more unearthly than her at that moment. Like he was the celestial that had wings not her. His brown hair and hard angles of his jaw were  outlined with the blue hue of the moon's light in a silver bath. He stood tall, almost touching the roof of the tent at the highest point of it. Her human form was also tall but there was at least a head's difference between them.

She hadn't looked as carefully as she did now but his whole form was riddled with strength. It was evident in the width of his shoulders, the sizes of his arms and in the power that he held himself upright. He would be a worthy opponent to whoever that fought him. She hoped it would never be her. And even at the risk of turning her first ally in the human realm into an enemy, she was sure she was doing the right thing as she said, "I don't think I'm good Christopher. Neither do I think I was an angel as you claim me to be. I... I killed humans in my memory." Her voice came out little more than a whisper in the silence of the night.

She was scared of looking up at the face of a man she just met hours ago but knew that losing even him would assure the final blow on her heart. She would be utterly, terribly alone with no one and no home left. Her whole chest started caving in on herself at the thought. But before she could lose herself in her despair, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Christopher move and crouch before her sitting figure.

She was looking down at his warm eyes and there were no judgment or hate in them. The sight made breathing easier again. His gentle, strong voice calmed the hole inside her chest. "Look around milady, we are in an army camp. No one here would have the right to judge you for killing a human. All of us have blood on our hands." He looked down at his hands, it was as if he could see the blood stained right there but Sann only saw his calloused hands open before her, stained with nothing but slightly tanned white skin.

He looked up at her again, his eyes held a melancholy in them that held a thousand words but his mouth was curved in a smile. His features didn't match and it was hard to decipher him. "It doesn't matter if you are an angel or something else and I don't know what you remembered in your dream but the fact that you show remorse more so than some of the soldiers I fought beside, tell me more about your humanity than anything else."

He stood up from the ground and looked down at her from his full height. His eyes seemed less saddened now and there was a mischievous glint in them. "All the more, I appreciate your concern for my safety. My earlier request stands, if you do plan on hurting me at some point, give me a heads notice." He smirked and he flashed a pearly white smile. It was all Sann could do to watch mesmerised trying to understand him. How could he smile and joke, when a second ago she had told him she kills his kind, potentially being his enemy? Christopher gave her no time to dwell on it as he slightly bowed and said, "Goodnight Milady." Before exiting the tent and leaving her alone with her thoughts.

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I'm happy i am over the intro parts and can continue with the itty bitty parts now. Really getting into it.

Love to hear your thoughts

Thank you ♥️