RUNNING

When she opened her eyes, she was already walking.

Walking one unsteady step at a time along the narrow white road in the moonlight. The path was barely three mans’ lengths across and dropped immediately to a steep cliff on both sides. Far below, identical plains, stained purple by the night ran into the horizon. Ahead, the path continued, until it disappeared into the mountains. But she wasn’t going to the mountains. She was just going forwards.

Who knew what was behind? She wouldn’t look. Trying made her head swim, and a glance was greeted by an icy hand gripping her guts. Cold blossomed from her feet to her hands. Terror. Whatever was behind her had to stay there.

Her pale pink Minnie mouse nightgown did nothing to protect her from the frigid winds. Frosty breezes tickled her skin, looking for weaknesses, where it could enter and bite her with cold and empty fangs. It wasn’t a good outfit for a journey. She didn’t remember picking it. She didn’t remember anything. She was just as sure that she had never been here before as she was that she had never been anywhere else. She had been walking forever but had not before a few minutes ago.

She was Circe. She didn’t think that was her name, but she knew that’s who she was. Circe alone walking nowhere.

The air was freezing, but the ground was strangely warm. A tiny blossom of heat bloomed and died with each step. Circe hugged herself and tucked her long blonde hair behind her ear. The wind picked it up and put it back in her face.

Something hard and sharp shoved into her back. A voice spoke like a mouthful of hay.

“Move one bloody inch and you’ll be looking for your guts on the canyon floor.”

Circe screamed. Loud. And very high. The sky tried to swallow it and failed.

“Hey, hey, hey! Screaming counts! Screaming counts as moving, okay? Hello? Do you have a death wish or something?”

Despite the apparent impossibility, Circe’s scream grew louder.

“If I give you a second to yourself, will you calm down?” the voice was desperate.

Circe ran out of breath and panted.

“Probably not, honestly. I’m pretty freaked out right now,” She gasped.

“Well, get yourself together. I don’t have all night.”

“Can I turn around?”

The voice seemed to roll its eyes.

“Is turning around moving?”

“Uh…” Circe didn’t want to have to think that hard. The voice sighed dramatically.

“Fiiine. Turn around.”

Holding her dress down through a gust of wind, Circe slowly rotated. A heavy weight sunk in her stomach and her knees wobbled. She puked.

“Ew.”

Circe looked up from the mess she made to see a girl about her age and half her height holding a disproportionately long sword and sticking a fat pierced tongue out as far as it would go. There seemed to be some sort of glowing squiggle over her head. She opened her mouth to say something and instead threw up again. The crisp night was interrupted by the putrid scent of vomit.

“I repeat.” The small girl folded her arms, letting the sword dangle. “Ew. I forgot how hard it is for beginners to turn around. Some people never get over it.”

“You mean…” Circe started. Then she groaned and gagged, but there was no ammo left. “It’ll be like this all the time?” The girl nodded and brushed chunk of purple hair out of her eyes. The rest of it was caramel and cur in a short angular bob.

“Ev’ry time you turn round. I got a good head for it. That’s why I do what I do. The world wants you to face the other way. But you did ask.” She shrugged and smirked.

“You could have warned me!” moaned Circe, clutching her stomach. It was beginning to fade, but she still felt sick.

“I could’ve.” The girl grinned. Circe straightened, wobbling slightly. The girl’s smile transformed into a scowl.

“I liked you better crouching. I don’t like looking up at people.” Circe bent over a bit, obligingly. She was still a good half foot taller.

“Who are you?”

The girl flipped her sword behind her back in her left hand and held out her right.

“M’ name’s Hydra. 1st scout of the xi regiment, 2nd quarter of the 10th legion.” Circe took the small hand in her own and shook it. For a brief moment, she studied Hydra. Despite her size, her grip was strong and Circe didn’t doubt that the rest of her was too. She had hard hazel eyes, made to cut glass, paired a small straight nose and a long flexible mouth. She was in a navy hoodie and had tall riding boots over denim pants. A plain black sheath was belted around her waist.

“Nice to meet you.” Circe smiled timidly. “I’m…” Hydra released the handshake suddenly and held up her hand, interrupting.

“Sorry. Don’t wanna hear it. You’re a stray. That’s what I know and what I need to know to do my job. I don’t like knowing extra.”

Circe chose to ignore the rude remark and just asked another question.

“Where are we?”

“Well, it ain’t Disneyland. That’s for damn certain.” Crimson gathered on Circes face and spread infectiously.

“I don’t remember putting this on but I’m pretty sure I didn’t pick it expecting to be seen in it! It’s a nightgown!”

“Whatever you say, hon.” Hydra shrugged and sheathed her sword. Then she grinned, folding her arms. “Either way, you’re gonna have to come with me. The rules are: no talking, no talking, and last but not least, no talking. Or else I gut you. And just for kicks, let’s have you walk with your hands above your head.”

---

Another girl opened her eyes. She wasn’t confused. She never had been. She knew where she was, who she was, and what she had to do. She didn’t like any of it, but it had been a long time since the world had taken her feelings into account.

Sheol stood and stretched her long arms. Her skin was like ebony and she held herself like a taut wire. Tight coils of hair surrounded her round face and large brown eyes. She cracked her knuckles and looked around her.

The girls were all still asleep, their markers glowing faintly and lazily above their heads. Only Hydra’s place was empty. They were a messy bunch, almost entirely useless. One of the slowest regiments. Most of them had started as strays and would have been left for the Degenerates or more likely left to die if Sheol hadn’t picked them up. She didn’t enjoy it. She felt a strange loyalty to the girls but she didn’t know many of them personally. Her seconds were the nice ones, they talked to people and sympathized with their irrelevant pain. Sheol was there to do the hard things. She was strong enough and smart enough to be an Alpha. But she had never refrained from giving help when she could. These girls were alive because of her. She saved them because she could. Because she was the only one who could. To honor the memory of those she couldn’t.

On a blanket too close to the edge of the cliff for comfort, a heavily freckled blonde rolled over and groaned in her sleep. Sheol nudged her with her foot.

“Hey. Wake up, dingus. Lest ye end up a pancake. That’s a long fall.” The blonde buried her head in her pack. But her mark brightened, she was awake. Sheol shifted between the girl and the ledge. Just in case. She wouldn’t stand for any casualties. Especially not stupid ones.

“Medea. For realsies. Up and at ‘em. I need you to rouse the troops.”

Medea heaved herself into a sitting position and sputtered at the hair in her face.

“Please can you do it? They’re all annoying and slow…” Medea whined and flopped backwards. Her hair hung over the rocks.

“Not at all like you, right?” Sheol shoved Medea’s head towards a safer position. “I’m honestly surprised you woke up so fast. Normally you act undead for at least twenty minutes. And watch the edge, Medea. I know you ain’t scared but I also know you’re a damn fool and we need our alchemist.”

“I still don’t know why I have to wake the pepples…” the girl rolled away from the cliff and began to construct a ponytail.

“Because I’ll be mean at them.” Sheol smiled tersely. “They actually like you.”

“Oh they like you enough, Shey.”

“They respect me. They’re scared at me. If I’m the first thing they see when they wake up, a couple will wet their little pants. That’s not liking me. But it’s acceptable. Now, be a good little girl and make everyone get up and pack before it’s too late.”

Medea stood and rolled up her blanket and shoved it into her pack. Then she wrapped her belt around her waist and double checked all the pouches and jars. Then she folded her arms.

“Sheol, you can be obnoxiously serious sometimes.”

“Oh, really. I thought I was a joy to be around. The life of the party 24/7. I’m trying to keep a lot of girls alive who are constantly trying to get dead. We have nowhere to run, no way to stop running, no place to hide. Give me a reason to be cheerful.”

“Nobody asked you to.” Medea raised an eyebrow. “If you hate it so much, we could leave. The two of us. Hydra too, I’m sure she’d come. We could catch up to the Alpha regiment. They’d accept us, you know they would. It’s not like anyone’s forcing you to take care of this lot.”

“You know that’s not an option.”

“Why not?”

“Because these girls would die.” Sheol buttoned her jacket and buckled on her arm guard. She swung her quiver over her shoulder, followed by her pack. “And it would be my fault.”

“Sheol, no it wouldn’t…”

“It would be my fault because if I had stayed, they would have had a chance.”

“Sheol! Listen to me!” Medea glared at her. “We don’t have a chance. With every regiment that passes us, the danger is worse. You’re just stalling. Putting it off a few days longer. But you and I aren’t slow, if we run…”

“Then what? A few more days? And the guilt? They need me. I have no right to let them fall behind. Their lives are not mine to choose what to do with.”

“But…”

“Medea!” Sheol snapped. Medea reacted before she thought, snapping to attention and looking forward. “I am your captain first. Friend second. I would give my life for yours but if you even suggest that I leave the others behind ever again then I will make you a stray.”

Medea tasted a ‘but’ on the tip of her tongue. Sheol knew it was there and waited. Medea swallowed.

“Yes, captain.”

“Now wake the troops.”

“Yes captain.”

---

“Why is there a glowy squiggle above your head? Why do you use a sword? Are there not guns here? Where are we going? Where are we? Why does it hurt to turn around? What do you mean that the world wants us to go the other way? What’s the point of a tiny path on a cliff ridge? Wouldn’t it be more practical to travel on the plains? Are you in the army? Do you really think that purple hair looks good? Do you know how I got here? Do you…”

Hydra breathed in for seven seconds, and out for eleven. Inner peace. That’s the stuff. The thing she needed. She was not lacking in the temper department and was beginning to calculate just how mad Sheol would be if she knocked this pajama girl off the cliff. Or at least cut off her tongue. Sheol wouldn’t have to know. But she always knew. She was one of the First People. And Hydra would be in deep dished trouble for sure. But it might be worth it.

Circe wasn’t included on Hydra’s decision whether or not to skin her alive, but she did have a lot of questions. Some important, some significantly less important. But all things she wanted to know.

“Where does the path lead? Why is it white? Are you cold? I’m cold. Is it hard to use a sword? Have you ever killed anybody? Who do you fight?” at this point she ran out of breath. Hydra took the opportunity and poked her hard.

“Did I not make the rules clear enough?”

“What?” Circe’s forehead wrinkled. “My hands are above my head.”

“NO TALKING!”

“But what’s the harm of questions?”

Hydra grabbed Circe’s hair and spun her around as the captive squealed. She jabbed a hard finger into the taller girl’s sternum.

“Here the deal, Minnie. Listen and listen good. I don’t do things I don’t have to, you get it? And if the proper authorities pay any attention to my bellowing you won’t be needing to know any answers to any questions. Capiche?”

“Not really.” Circe bit her lip and shrugged. “What do you want them to do with me?”

“Oh the naiveté.” Hydra rolled her eyes twice round and then stared Circe in the eye and slashed across her throat with one finger.

Circe gulped. She was so cold on the inside now that the air felt positively balmy.

“Okay I think I’ll be quiet now.”

“There’s a darling.”

---

The xi regiment woke slowly. Marks brightened one by one and with every glow, Medea winced. After years of running, the markers still scared her. Anyone could see them for miles around. Anything. But the unmarked were the first to go.

A small, but generously built, brunette tripped on her own feet and slipped towards the cliff. Medea jumped a pile of packs and grabbed a fistful of curls just as the girl squealed in fear. The alchemist jerked the girl back to safety and snarled.

“Echo! Watch your feet! This isn’t a game!”

“Sorry…” the girl blubbered, hugging her knees with one arm and massaging her sore scalp with the other.

“It’s your life.” Medea flipped her hair and scanned the rest of the troop. No one else seemed in immediate danger of careening to their deaths. Sheol was standing a bend further down the path, watching a glow in the distance. Hydra was returning. The captain was paying little to no attention to those behind her.

Shoving her baggy sleeves above her elbow, Medea walked up beside her friend. They stood in silence. Except for the glowing xi above her head, Sheol could have been just another piece of darkness. She was completely still except for the subtle tensing and relaxing of her shoulders and the twitching of her fingers. Motion was her reality. Her muscles were brimming with unused strength, almost bursting with pent up energy that she couldn’t let loose. It was harder for her to face forwards than to turn around, even with the world spinning her head. She hated the idea of retreat. Even from this. It was worse because she had seen it, and she had run.

Medea knew how Sheol felt. The guilt and shame. The anger. Medea had been there too, on that day, years ago. But all she could remember was the terror, when she looked back in her mind, she saw nothing. Just an empty space. It came from endless nights of trying to forget. Cowardly. But cowards lived longer.

“A stray.”

Medea jolted.

“What?”

“Hydra has another stray.”

“I can’t see anything.” Medea murmured, squinting into the night.

“I didn’t say I saw it.” Sheol drew her knife, the marklight glinting off of the silver blade, and pressed the flat against her lip.

“Ew.” Medea crossed her arms. “Get that out of your mouth, Sheol. You used it to gut a phaethon yesterday.”

“It’s clean enough.” Sheol’s eyes didn’t leave the approaching mark, but the knife rotated to the edge.

“Still gross. And creepy, I might add.”

Sheol didn’t respond. The knife stayed where it was.

“You know, you made it quite clear that you care about the safety of these tater tots,” Medea scratched her head. “But do we really need another one? You have enough stupid sheep following you, with a big enough wolf on your tail without adding to their numbers. Have you ever thought about having a number limit? Another new stray will slow us down and we can’t slow down. Tell me you don’t feel it getting closer.”

Medea tried to find emotion in friend’s face. Tried, and failed.

“Hello? This is not an unreasonable or unimportant question.”

Sheol didn’t move.

Or blink.

Or breathe.

Medea waved a hand in front of her face.

“Hey! You’re scaring me, Shey! Even you need to breathe! Now tell my why we have to keep this one!”

Sheol let out a long, shuddering breath. The knife drifted down her cheek and she began tracing the point along her jaw.

“Don’t you remember?” she asked. Her voice was cold and flat.

“I remember lots of things,” Medea flipped her pony tail. “I remember that you’re risking both of our lives for a group of slow girls who don’t recognize what we’re giving up, don’t realize the danger they’re in, and will never say thank you.”

“We’re not doing it for a thank you, Medea.” Sheol turned to face her. “I meant do you remember the night with the bodies?”

Medea froze. A scene she had long since forced out of her mind shoved its way back in. The Narrow in high fog. A smell. Tripping over something. Seeing what it was. Seeing piles and piles.

Forcing her eyes open, Medea choked. The night was clear, the path was empty, everything was fine.

“I don’t like to.” She mumbled.

“But you have to.” Sheol returned her gaze to path. “If you don’t, you follow them. Do you remember what I said to you that day?”

“You said some words my sainted mother, may she rest in peace, would have hit you over the head with the sharp side of a broom for saying so I don’t think I’ll repeat it. It was actually the last time I saw you emotional about all this. I think I preferred it. Reminded me you’re human.”

“I mean the gist of what I said.”

Medea didn’t answer. So, Sheol did.

“I told you that I would never let it take a life that I had the chance to save. I will steal as much death from it as I can, even if my own death is my only reward. If I have to run, I will run fighting.”

Medea still said nothing.

“You can go. I’m not stopping you.” Sheol looked down and put her knife away. “But I won’t let these girls die.”

“You know I’ll never leave.” Medea held her hand up. “It was you and me in the beginning and it will be you and me at the end. My life for yours. Don’t stop running.”

Sheol grasped her hand and smiled.

“Don’t stop running.”

“Caaaaaptaaaiiiin!” They both turned to see Hydra one curve away, shoving a tall and frail blonde in a Minnie mouse nightgown ahead of her. She stopped and cupped her hands around her mouth, leaning forward. “I picked up another stray and she’s a dandy piece of crap and I don’t mind saying so!”

Sheol waited a couple minutes for them to get closer before responding.

“You think everyone is, Hydra. And what have I told you about being crass? It distracts from your fascinating wit.”

“Oh yeah, like you’re never rude, boss.” Hydra puffed the purple bangs out of her face.

“She said crass, not rude. Get it straight, darling,” Medea folded her arms.

“I wanted to make her dead and I dint, ain’t you proud of me?”

Medea rolled her eyes.

“The proudest, sugar.”

The blonde raised a dainty hand and spoke haltingly. Her voice was a couple octaves above typical speaking range.

“Um… I’m Circe. Are you going to kill me?”

Hydra tried for a cute face and made pleading gestures at Sheol that were completely ignored.

“No. Now be quiet. I’ll deal with you after the report.” Sheol nodded at Hydra who sighed dramatically.

“No lights to the front, one color to the back. Too far to distinguish markings, but the regiment will probably pass us within the next ten days if we stick to the usual sloth’s pace. Seven curves down with have a stretch of T.T. that continues for four curves. At fifteen curves we have a nest of rooks about fifty feet down the cliffs so we’ll be getting dinner tonight. If the archers have been practicing. Clear sky for now, but there’s some thunderheads from the east. Maybe hail. They’ll either hit us late tonight or tomorrow and we’d better be bunkered down by then or it won’t be pretty, those are some big buggers. High winds, but not too severe. Finis.” She took a bow.

The blonde Circe person coughed politely.

“What is T.T.?”

“Shut up.” Medea and Hydra spoke at the same time.

“Treacherous Terrain.” Sheol answered. “What level, Hydra? I’d rather not have to go single file, is it wide enough for three across?”

“Just a 3 on the hydrascale.” Hydra shrugged. “Your basic crumbling cliffs, broad enough, I’m thinking. Nothing too slim, bad in wind, but we’d better cross before the storm hits. I’d say clumsies in a single and my scouts can spread the outer two lines.”

“Do you think they’re capable? To save outliers and to not need saving?”

“Yeah, I’ve put the proper fear of heights in them. Just enough to keep them cautious, but not so much to make them whimper and cry like a babe in arms.”

Sheol nodded and then leaned her head back, staring upwards. The others waited.

But not for very long.

“Orders, chief?” Hydra hopped on one foot and scratched her sword arm.

“What are you looking at?” Medea glanced nervously at the sky, but it was empty.

“The stars.” Circe answered. Sheol smiled at her.

“Yes.” She looked back up. “We might not see them again for a while. Might as well appreciate it while it lasts.”

They all stared at the sky in silence for a few seconds.

“Okay, we’re wasting nightlight.” Medea clapped her hands together. “Don’t space out on us, Shey.”

“Hydra, go give the scouts the run down on today’s formation.” Sheol slid smoothly into commands, still watching the sky. “Medea, stay with me while I mark the girl and then I’ll hand her off to you. Answer a conservative amount of questions and then give her to someone chatty. Then get the girls going. I just want movement right now. Three curves in, we go into formation until three curves past the T.T. Then you hang tight and I’ll take the archers forward. Then we’ll improvise. Now get out of here, Hydra.”

“With pleasure, el capitaine.” Hydra gave a quick salute and skipped off to bark at some terrified underlings. Sheol turned to Circe.

“What was your name again?”

“Circe.” Circe rubbed her arms and stared wide eyed.

“Circe, do you swear to follow my lead and the code of the xi regiment? Do you accept the mark and the protection of the First People? Will you give every ounce of your strength to fight for your companions as they will for you? Will you put yourself under our ordinances and, when necessary, our disciplines? Do you swear?”

Sheol watched Circe’s face trying to settle on a confused expression.

“I didn’t understand a w… a word you said!” Circe stammered. Medea leaned towards her.

“Basically, she said that she’ll be your captain, you’ll fight in the regiment, you get marked, you follow our rules. And now you say ‘yes.’”

“Fighting?”

“When needed.”

“But I’m a girl!”

“Shocker. Didn’t notice.” Medea scoffed and rolled her eyes. “So am I, as it happens. You do what you have to.”

“I don’t know how to fight!” Circe fidgeted with her nightgown. Sheol met her eyes. The poor girl was pink as a pansy and seemed frantic. Not atypical. But inconvenient.

“You’ll learn.” Sheol smiled, for the stray’s benefit only. “But you have to accept the mark.”

“That thing?” Circe jittered, waving her fingers at Medea’s mark. “But what is the squiggle? Why does it glow?”

“It’s the Greek letter xi. We don’t know why it glows; we don’t want it to.” Medea put her hands on her hips. “It appeared above the First People. It marks the regiments.”

Sheol sighed. They were wasting time.

“Just accept the mark. Questions later.”

“But…” Circe shivered. “I don’t know anything. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know how I got here. But I do know… well, I think… I feel…”

“Spit it out,” Medea snapped.

“I’m running from something.”

“We all are.”

“From what?”

Medea glanced at Sheol for help, but the leader was watching the stars again. No assistance in that department. Circe’s eyes bounced from one to the other.

“What are we running from?”

Medea sighed.

“Death.”