The Sands of Time are Soaked in Blood

Mar 26, 2010 12:03


Miranda hadn't brought much with her, just a duffel bag of clothes and a few scant necessities. She held it tightly on her lap, silent and somewhat nervous as the Jeep rolled and bounced along the desert sands. She hadn't been home long, not even a day before the Earl had spoken to her about her failed mission with Daisya. He wasn't angry, didn't even seem to be disappointed- but he had insisted that she stay out of the public eye for a while. She'd asked to be sent to work alongside Sokaro in order to become stronger, something that seemed to please the Earl immensely. One day to pack her things and an eight-hour flight later, and here she was. Her nerves were worsened somewhat by the silence as they drove, as it gave her time to think the past two days hadn't. The baby girl- Joy- that she'd be charged with taking care of in the Dressing Room had disappeared when she was sent home, and she worried what had happened to her. She wondered, too, about the friends she'd left behind there; whether the Tyki she thought of as family would keep himself safe for once, or if the one who'd helped her take care of Joy would miss her.

Her brother's silence continued as he pulled the vehicle to a stop just outside the ring of tents. He got out without a word and expected her to follow; she scrambled after him and stopped when he did in the center of camp. His men got up from what they were doing or left their tents to gather round them, darkly curious about the new arrival. They were a rag-tag bunch: a host of nationalities, heights and builds assembled into something of a human wolf pack. The subtle ways they acted toward Sokaro made it clear to the observant that he was their leader. The way they leered at Miranda, a sliver a woman in her brother's massive shadow, made it clear to even the densest of fools that she was little more than fresh meat in their eyes.

"This is Miranda." Sokaro's voice was gruff but neutral as he spoke. "Don't bother watching out for her, but don't expect me to care if she kills you." There were some jeering laughs among the men, as if a waif like her could even hope to threaten them. Sokaro paid them no mind; it was their fault if they pushed her too far. Likewise, he wouldn't be protecting her if his men got too rough. She'd asked to come out here, she'd have to deal with it on her own.

On that note he left, sand crunching beneath his boots as he walked off and then ducked into his tent. He had strategies to plan and field information to read, since it had undoubtedly changed in the few days he'd been gone to pick up his sister on the Earl's order.

Outside one of the men stepped closer to Miranda, looming as he slowly circled around her. "So you're the boss's sister, eh? Scrawny thing like you?" He gave her a light shove and she haphazardly lashed out to hit at him; he laughed. "What do you think you're going to accomplish out here, princess? This sure as hell ain't a place for vacations."

"I-I'm going to learn to fight," Miranda answered, scowling as he and the others laughed.

"Fight! Princess, I wouldn't trust you not to shoot yourself with a cap gun."

"I-I'm stronger than I look," she insisted, glaring despite her nervousness. Even if they were only humans, she couldn't allow herself to simply kill them right off if they bothered her when part of the reason she'd be sent here was because too many people had seen her in her black form. She wasn't especially confident in her ability to fight as a human, but she wouldn't give up.

"Oh I'm sure." The man stepped closer, grinning broadly as he towered over her. "You got guts, at least. I like that in a woman." He grabbed her chin roughly and she jerked away, backing up a step.

"Don't."

"Why not, princess?" He stepped after her, grabbing her wrist this time. "Pretty thing like you, all alone out here..." He pulled her closer, a knife in his free hand now that he held to her throat. "You walked into this."

In a panicked movement Miranda phased through his hand and used the brief moment of shock the man suffered from to her advantage, swinging her fist up against his face in a blow that made him stagger back. "Don't!"

The man rubbed his jaw and then laughed, loudly. "Regular spitfire, ain'tcha?" He dropped the knife and lunged; she met him head-on and they tumbled to the ground. There they grappled with each other, wrestling and struggling for a long while. Miranda used her phasing sparingly, only when there was no other option. It continued like this until finally she came out on top, one hand fisted into his hair as she forced his face into the ground while the other pinned his arms painfully behind him. She was breathing heavily, covered in sand.

"I'm stronger than I look," she panted, releasing her hold on him to stand. "D-don't try that again."

"You'll have to be a bit more persistent than that," he growled, but did nothing else as he got to his feet. Miranda ignored him, but as it turned out he was right. She didn’t find out until evening, but there were no extra tents. Not trusting any the men enough to share with one of them and knowing better than to ask Sokaro for help, she spent the freezing desert night sleeping up by the fire- or trying to, at least. She woke to the feeling of a gun pressed to the back of her head.

“Get up.”

Miranda suppressed a wicked grin as she stood, slowly turning around to face her would-be assailant. “You don’t need a gun,” she murmured, fingers resting on the zipper of her jacket.

“That so, princess?” The man asked, leering openly. Miranda nodded, stepping closer and pulling him into a kiss. The man made a pleased sound that quickly turned to one of surprise and then panic as insectile legs skittered over his tongue and down his throat. He pulled away and dropped his gun to clutch at his neck, eyes wide with fear. Miranda watched with satisfaction as he gagged and coughed, blood dribbling from his lips.

“You wouldn’t mind if I took this, would you?” She asked, picking up his gun from where it had fallen. She inspected it for a moment, before pressing it to his temple. “I’ll put it to good use, I promise.”

The shot that rang out stirred the men and Sokaro from their tents. From most of their expressions it was easy to tell they had expected to find Miranda the victim of the shot, not the cause. She ignored their stares, but before her brother turned back into his tent, she could have sworn she saw half a glimmer of approval in his eyes.

After that Miranda at least had a place to stay. She took over the dead man’s tent and “inherited” his equipment, which she learned to use in both the heat of battle and in her own free time. She witnessed and eventually came to commit horrible atrocities, war crimes and slaughters she hadn’t even thought of as a Noah. They nearly sickened her at first, her remaining humanity repelled by their sheer brutality. Yet after a while she came to think of them as commonplace; saw them as simple, inevitable facts of war.

When she wasn’t fighting or practicing with the weaponry, she was reading the handful of books Sokaro had, silently watching him strategize, or scuffling with his men. After the first night they had continued to test her, pushing her constantly but with less and less persistence as she slowly improved. She relied less and less on her abilities as a Noah and eventually showed herself to be just as willing and able to kill them as her brother while using nothing but her skills as a human. Finally the day came when could consistently and easily beat every man under Sokaro’s command, and so she sparred with him instead. He always and often thoroughly trounced her, but she didn’t mind. By the end of every session she always felt stronger, and occasionally they would leave the camp to fight with their Noah abilities.

It was during one such training session that Miranda discovered she could do something extraordinary. It had been nothing more than an experiment, a thought that struck her seemingly out of nowhere. Sokaro had knocked her to the ground for the umpteenth time that day and she was taking a moment to recover, while he rummaged through the pack they’d brought for water.

Miranda picked up a pebble from the ground and tossed it in the air, catching it as it fell back down. She bit her lower lip and tossed it again, gasping when for two seconds it simply hovered.

“Ah!”

Sokaro glanced at her as he drank, only mildly curious about her outburst. Miranda met his eyes for a moment and then tossed the pebble again, making it hover for a similar length of time. He watched this and he nodded, a twitch of a smile on his lips. “Good,” he simply said, and she felt a swell of pride within her breast.

She could reject moments in time.

cannon: training, ooc: drable

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