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"The Face in the Water" (Road to Toran) “Ouch!” Metal clanged against the hard ground as Sonya winced and clutched her injured arm. A tall, lean shadow stood nearby, drawing in deep, heavy breaths. Sonya smiled to herself and quickly retrieved her weapon, returning with a swift attack that stopped short of the shadow’s own arm. “Don’t ever let your guard down. You know better than that.” Sonya eased herself as Yoshino stepped out of the darkness. Yoshino wiped blood from her cheek with the sleeve of her shirt and nodded to Sonya. “Never again, sensei.” Sonya sighed and smiled. “I think that’s enough for today. Let’s stop at the brook for a drink of water before we return to camp.”
“Damn, Yoshino, you’re getting good pretty fast.” Yoshino smirked at the comment, watching Sonya wash her wounds before applying medicine to heal them. Was it true? Perhaps. Then again, she might just be thinking that way because that’s what’s supposed to happen when a person practices. The pain was real, though, there was no doubt. Sonya cringed as the healing medicine stung her wounds. Yoshino knelt over the brook to wash her own wounds. She herself had gone through quite a battering during this last week or so of training. There were no scars or bruises thanks to the medicine that Sonya always seemed to have on hand, but even so, the changes in her could very easily be seen. Had Freed himself seen her the way she was now, he might have walked right by, dismissing the dirty creature as a common beggar. Indeed, as she looked at her reflection in the clear water of the brook, what she saw caused her to want to reach out and touch the image. Her hand struck the water’s surface and rippled the image, but it returned to stare at her once again. “So… that’s… me.” The face that stared back at her was weary and thin, the hair tousled into a strange mess, the clothes far from the starched whites they’d started out as. She remembered a face that was simply tanned from working outside; this one was tanned a darker hue and soiled. There was a subtle sadness in the eyes, but somehow there was a greater fire within them. How long had it really been? How long since Yoshino had left her old self behind, never to embrace it again? She herself couldn’t remember. It felt like an eon had passed since then. She almost had no memory of her former self, and yet it was so clear to her at the same time…. Wake up, wash up, make breakfast, eat, clean house, do laundry, make lunch, eat, do laundry, read letters, do more laundry, make dinner, eat, deliver laundry, wash up, go to bed, sleep, wake up…. She remembered that. She remembered every step she took every day; her mechanical paths had created ruts in the dirt paths around her house. She remembered the washboard, the clothesline, the trees from which it hung, and the waiting, the endless waiting. But somehow, if she tried to remember how she felt about all of it, all she found was a deep, dark nothingness that would not yield. Had she truly felt nothing during all that time? It was impossible for her to know, to return to who she was and find out. She dipped her hands and drew some water to wash her face with. It’s all right, she thought to herself. It’s better this way.
“How long?” “I… can’t remember.” “That long?” “No, it’s not that.” “Then how long?” Sonya sighed. “Two weeks.” “Two weeks,” echoed Yoshino. “And they haven’t heard from you in all this time?” “No.” “Don’t you think someone is searching for you?” “Why should anyone search for me?” “Because, perhaps, you’re the head of the Toran Navy?” “Am I?” Sonya narrowed her eyes at Yoshino. “How much do you know about the Toran military forces?” Yoshino blinked a few times, then sighed. “I may know that you’re one of Toran’s five generals, but I’m still extremely uninformed about military matters. Jowston wouldn’t give confidential information to a person as easy to kidnap as myself.” “How do I know you’re telling me the truth?” “You have your soldiers. Go ahead and kill me if you think I’m lying.” Sonya gave no answer. She turned away and stared through the trees above into the starry night sky. The moon was in its first quarter this night, a beautiful semicircle that reigned over its servants, the stars who lit the way in the darkness. The echo of an owl’s never-ending questions drifted to the women’s ears on a cool breeze. “Well?” Sonya closed her eyes and bowed her head to the darkness. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t be enemies, not now.” “No, we are still enemies. You cannot help being from the Toran Republic, and I cannot help being from the Jowston City-State.” “I….” Sonya’s voice drifted off, just another unfinished answer for the owl to question. “I am in your custody. Do with me what you will.” Sonya clenched her hands so tightly that even in the dim light, Yoshino could see the tendons in her knuckles. Her voice became tight, as if her throat was under pressure similar to that of her hands. “You fool. Why do you want to put yourself in such danger?” Yoshino’s tone remained nonchalant. “I’m not putting myself in danger. The danger is there. The danger is all around me. I have no escape if I want to live. You, Sonya, endanger my life. If we are seen by a Toran soldier, you will be forced to take me to Gregminster, or perhaps kill me. I am in danger as long as I am away from my home, as long as I am with you.” “Damn. How come I didn’t see this before?” “Because you were busy worrying about the danger you were in.” Sonya’s eyes turned downward. “There you go again, worrying about people other than yourself.” “Really? I don’t see it that way. In Radat, you threatened to kill me if I didn’t hide you. I was looking after myself then.” “But you never had to come along!” “That was me being selfish again, remember? I stopped pining away at home so that I could learn something about the world, and perhaps even something about myself.” “…So… these decisions you have made for yourself are what have put you in danger of losing your life.” “That is the way I see it.” Sonya stretched and yawned, then dropped the full length of her slender body on the ground. She lay there, staring up into the star-speckled sky again, wondering, thinking. “I still don’t understand why you would make a decision that would put you in so much danger.” Yoshino smiled gently. “I honestly don’t know either. It’s strange to think about it, but sometimes you just have to stop thinking about things and start accepting them the way they are. Sometimes things just can’t work out in the exact way you want them to.” Sonya smirked. “You know, for not having been out in the world much, you do seem to know a lot.” “Do I? I must have done a lot of thinking during those years of tedium.” A silence ensued, and the two women were still, observing the calm sky overhead. A thin cloud dulled the bright light of the half moon for a brief moment, and in those few seconds, the thoughts and musings of a lifetime seemed to hover over them, then drift away. Sonya yawned a big, gaping, masculine yawn. “I suggest we head back. I think our shift is over.” Yoshino gave a slight nod of her head, and they headed off to their tents.
“General Shulen!” Sonya’s eyelids felt like they were glued shut. “God damn it…,” she mumbled as she pulled her makeshift pillow over her head. It was just way too early in the morning for an emergency. Maybe it was a bad dream. Maybe if she ignored it, it would go away. “General Shulen!” Or, maybe she’d just have to beat someone up for it to go away. “Wake up, General Shulen!” The second option was beginning to look very appealing…. “General Shulen!” “Dammit, Jen, I know my name,” Sonya yawned without opening her eyes. “This had better be pretty damned good.” “General, someone has stolen our supply packs!” “What?!” Sonya leapt up so fast she felt the blood rush out of her head. She shook her head a few times, then bellowed, “How could you let this happen? Who was on watch?” “I… don’t know….” “What do you mean you don’t know?” “I mean, it’s already well into the morning hours, so I don’t know when it happened or who was supposed to be at watch at the ti—" Jennifer didn’t have time to blink. Sonya had rushed out of the tent in such a furious flurry that Jen could have sworn she heard some sort of sonic boom. Of course, she had no comprehension of what a sonic boom was… but it wasn’t really a sonic boom, it was just Sonya having a rather large temper tantrum. Jen shook her head and walked out to one of the most dangerous battlefields she’d ever encountered.
It was about noon, and Sonya had calmed down a lot faster than the sailors thought she would. Despite the mess she had made of their campsite, things were considerably more peaceful than they were a few hours before. The sailors sighed a collective sigh. At least something was sort of under control. “OK,” Sonya said breathlessly. “Now, I want to know if anyone knew who was on watch when this happened.” The silence that ensued seemed to last forever. Only the wind knew the passing of time, and that, through the trees, was faint. A squirrel stopped in its tracks in the tree above them, stopping to nibble a yummy nut that it had picked up for its lunch. The nearby brook sounded like roaring whitewater rapids in the sailors’ ears. Finally, Sonya shook her head and tried again. “Who was on watch after Yoshino and me?” Billiana began to tremble violently. Her quaking knees almost could not support her body. “I—it was me, General.” Sonya’s eyes narrowed, and her brows furrowed. “Go on. Obviously, something happened. Tell me.” “Well, General Shulen…. Nobody came to wake me for my shift… and… Yoshino-san’s not here to explain why she didn’t….” Henrietta added in a small voice, “There was a letter in her tent…. It said she was leaving us….” All eyes turned to the towheaded general, who merely stood, expressionless. They waited and wondered at the sudden disappearance of their new friend. The sound of their breathing was deafening. They watched Sonya blink, and their muscles tensed every time she did. Finally, she drew in a sharp breath, and every sailor immediately took a defensive position, whether it was behind her arms or up in a tree. But Sonya only let it out as a sigh as she fell backwards to the ground and lay there, watching the leaves of the trees sway with the wind. Her right hand found itself on her forehead, supposedly trying to lessen the pain inside of her head. “Why…,” she moaned. “Why, Yoshino…?”
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