Okay, here we go.
Have you ever felt the future is the past, but you don't know how...?
A reflected dream of a captured time, is it really now, is it really happening?
She was on the edge of exhaustion, barely able to put one foot in front of the other. She didn't let it show, though. Couldn't afford to.
Grin and bear it.
From worrying, through troubling, into and past bad to turn down towards 'straight to hell'.
Thus, the downward spiral of the past few months had turned, twisted, and proceeded on its way without as much as a hitch, despite any and all efforts to halt it.
And hell is as accurate description as any, she thought, though the intense onslaught of noise made it hard to do even that much. Cardair's army had been pushing hard today, and despite their own determination they'd been on a steady, if staggered, retreat ever since the morning.
An artillery shell detonated nearby, close enough to shower her and those around her with dirt and bits of debris.
She couldn't bring herself to do as much as flinch.
Casualties had been ... horrific. Not on their side, thankfully, but that didn't change the fact that the enemy had paid a heavy price for each and every step.
A dispassionate, hollow voice in the back of her mind reminded her that they could afford to pay it.
Especially with their so called allies' aid.
An aide rushed up to her, bent nearly double where she stood tall, and started to try and pull her towards cover ...
... she let him, but kept looking. Kept watching.
Death was happening all around them. People she'd been responsible for, people she'd sent to fight, people who trusted her ... were out there, dying.
She didn't even realize she'd been brought under cover, and only a pair of arms wrapping around her in a hug broke her out of the numbness.
The next several minutes were people trying to get her to sit, to sleep, or simply to rest.
She sat, breath escaping in a hiss.
flash
And what remained of her strength and fortitude quietly slipped away.
For a moment, in this hectic, dreary, horribly new world, she was at peace.
She closed her eyes.
Maybe, for just a moment, she could afford to.
She didn't as much as hear it.
What was there to hear, after all. The artillery barrages were loud enough even from this far back that you had to shout just to make yourself heard.
The warmth splashed her face, her lungs filled with the coppery smell she'd come to know and despise, eyes snapped open with a sense of utter wrongness going through her at the sight that, at first, didn't wholly register.
When it did, there was no more fatigue. No more soreness.
Only pain and anger ...
... and she snapped awake with a gasp.
"... Madam President, are you alright?"
Momentarily startled and wild eyes scanned the darkened chamber.
One of her personal guard. Rain hammering on the windows, mutely because of the soundproofing.
No more. Nothing more.
Things snapped back into focus.
"Yes," she replied, momentarily gathering herself. "I'm fine. What is it?"
The woman looked like she was uncertain what to say, then firmed as she came to a decision.
"I was told you wanted to be woken when intelligence reported. They say they've found another leak."
The words worked like a shot of adrenaline, and it wasn't minutes before she was dressed and heading down to the bunkers underneath the Presidential Palace's West Wing.
It took her twice that to go over the report with a practiced ease she'd have preferred to never have acquired.
Necessity. She hated necessity with a passion.
Almost as much as she hated ...
creak
"Minister Bertram," her tone was neutral as the door swung back behind her, lock clicking as it locked into place. Things change. People change. Sometimes, in ways they never thought they would, or even could. "Fancy seeing you here."
Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Aries, Benedict Bertram. A kindly elder gentleman, thorough and very much unconcerned with anything outside of his field of expertise.
Trusted adviser in that particular field.
It's always the ones you'd never expect it from.
"Madam President," he responded levelly.
"Only one question, Minister."
"Your little _pets_ already asked me their questions," anger. Fear. Desperation. But mostly fear. Even behind the level tone.
"Why?"
"What? Why? WHY?!" he almost shouted. Almost, because his voice had already been hoarse when she'd come in. "Because we're dying, that's why! This nation, this country, we stagnate, never _dare_ to reach and improve things that could be done simply with only a slight reform of the laws! The technology is there, we need only to reach for it, and we could end it all! End the families going hungry during a bad harvest, end eating away at Earl's and the Republic's resources, end ..."
"Benedict Bertram," she said, coldly. Idealists. She hated idealists. All but one. And it wasn't herself. She'd ceased to be one that on that stormy, war torn afternoon. "You have been charged with conspiring with the enemy, giving up state secrets, and being a willing accessory to the suffering of this nation's people. Under Martial Law of the Republic of Aries, and as the Commander-in-Chief of her Armed Forces, having examined the evidence provided to me and hearing your own testimony, I judge you guilty of high treason."
It was a few moments later that she stepped from the room, letting the door swing half-closed behind her.
One hand went to the side, and one of the guards by the door took the offered sidearm, his expression stony.
Haruka Armitage, Acting President of the Republic of Aries walked away without as much as a glance over her shoulder, the hot brass of a spent bullet casing sizzling in her tightly clenched left hand.
I can't forgive them. I won't forgive them. I know it isn't what you would have wanted. I'm sorry that I'm not a good enough person to live up to your expectations. But I can't be anything else. For what they did to you, and to Aries, they will pay. I'll make them. Even if I have to burn Earl to the ground to do it.
I still love you, Yukino.
I figured, the first actual post-prologue scene should be one to give some substance to the world.
Also, this is likely contradicted somewhere in canon, but let's assume for a moment that a Robe needs to be active in order to give both Otome and Master the feedback thing. Handwave it away with 'aural pattern overlap required for synchrony and stabilizing of solid hologram energy manifestation designated as Robe' or something.
*handwaves*
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
Have you ever felt the future is the past, but you don't know how...?
A reflected dream of a captured time, is it really now, is it really happening?
She was on the edge of exhaustion, barely able to put one foot in front of the other. She didn't let it show, though. Couldn't afford to.
Grin and bear it.
From worrying, through troubling, into and past bad to turn down towards 'straight to hell'.
Thus, the downward spiral of the past few months had turned, twisted, and proceeded on its way without as much as a hitch, despite any and all efforts to halt it.
And hell is as accurate description as any, she thought, though the intense onslaught of noise made it hard to do even that much. Cardair's army had been pushing hard today, and despite their own determination they'd been on a steady, if staggered, retreat ever since the morning.
An artillery shell detonated nearby, close enough to shower her and those around her with dirt and bits of debris.
She couldn't bring herself to do as much as flinch.
Casualties had been ... horrific. Not on their side, thankfully, but that didn't change the fact that the enemy had paid a heavy price for each and every step.
A dispassionate, hollow voice in the back of her mind reminded her that they could afford to pay it.
Especially with their so called allies' aid.
An aide rushed up to her, bent nearly double where she stood tall, and started to try and pull her towards cover ...
... she let him, but kept looking. Kept watching.
Death was happening all around them. People she'd been responsible for, people she'd sent to fight, people who trusted her ... were out there, dying.
She didn't even realize she'd been brought under cover, and only a pair of arms wrapping around her in a hug broke her out of the numbness.
The next several minutes were people trying to get her to sit, to sleep, or simply to rest.
She sat, breath escaping in a hiss.
flash
And what remained of her strength and fortitude quietly slipped away.
For a moment, in this hectic, dreary, horribly new world, she was at peace.
She closed her eyes.
Maybe, for just a moment, she could afford to.
She didn't as much as hear it.
What was there to hear, after all. The artillery barrages were loud enough even from this far back that you had to shout just to make yourself heard.
The warmth splashed her face, her lungs filled with the coppery smell she'd come to know and despise, eyes snapped open with a sense of utter wrongness going through her at the sight that, at first, didn't wholly register.
When it did, there was no more fatigue. No more soreness.
Only pain and anger ...
... and she snapped awake with a gasp.
"... Madam President, are you alright?"
Momentarily startled and wild eyes scanned the darkened chamber.
One of her personal guard. Rain hammering on the windows, mutely because of the soundproofing.
No more. Nothing more.
Things snapped back into focus.
"Yes," she replied, momentarily gathering herself. "I'm fine. What is it?"
The woman looked like she was uncertain what to say, then firmed as she came to a decision.
"I was told you wanted to be woken when intelligence reported. They say they've found another leak."
The words worked like a shot of adrenaline, and it wasn't minutes before she was dressed and heading down to the bunkers underneath the Presidential Palace's West Wing.
It took her twice that to go over the report with a practiced ease she'd have preferred to never have acquired.
Necessity. She hated necessity with a passion.
Almost as much as she hated ...
creak
"Minister Bertram," her tone was neutral as the door swung back behind her, lock clicking as it locked into place. Things change. People change. Sometimes, in ways they never thought they would, or even could. "Fancy seeing you here."
Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Aries, Benedict Bertram. A kindly elder gentleman, thorough and very much unconcerned with anything outside of his field of expertise.
Trusted adviser in that particular field.
It's always the ones you'd never expect it from.
"Madam President," he responded levelly.
"Only one question, Minister."
"Your little _pets_ already asked me their questions," anger. Fear. Desperation. But mostly fear. Even behind the level tone.
"Why?"
"What? Why? WHY?!" he almost shouted. Almost, because his voice had already been hoarse when she'd come in. "Because we're dying, that's why! This nation, this country, we stagnate, never _dare_ to reach and improve things that could be done simply with only a slight reform of the laws! The technology is there, we need only to reach for it, and we could end it all! End the families going hungry during a bad harvest, end eating away at Earl's and the Republic's resources, end ..."
"Benedict Bertram," she said, coldly. Idealists. She hated idealists. All but one. And it wasn't herself. She'd ceased to be one that on that stormy, war torn afternoon. "You have been charged with conspiring with the enemy, giving up state secrets, and being a willing accessory to the suffering of this nation's people. Under Martial Law of the Republic of Aries, and as the Commander-in-Chief of her Armed Forces, having examined the evidence provided to me and hearing your own testimony, I judge you guilty of high treason."
It was a few moments later that she stepped from the room, letting the door swing half-closed behind her.
One hand went to the side, and one of the guards by the door took the offered sidearm, his expression stony.
Haruka Armitage, Acting President of the Republic of Aries walked away without as much as a glance over her shoulder, the hot brass of a spent bullet casing sizzling in her tightly clenched left hand.
I can't forgive them. I won't forgive them. I know it isn't what you would have wanted. I'm sorry that I'm not a good enough person to live up to your expectations. But I can't be anything else. For what they did to you, and to Aries, they will pay. I'll make them. Even if I have to burn Earl to the ground to do it.
I still love you, Yukino.
I figured, the first actual post-prologue scene should be one to give some substance to the world.
Also, this is likely contradicted somewhere in canon, but let's assume for a moment that a Robe needs to be active in order to give both Otome and Master the feedback thing. Handwave it away with 'aural pattern overlap required for synchrony and stabilizing of solid hologram energy manifestation designated as Robe' or something.
*handwaves*
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm