Hostile Fate
"ADELE!" yelled Sebastian.
Adele turned around just in time to see a man, four times her size, bouncing about on his
horse that bore a dirt-colored mane. The horse cantered towards her, she knew if she didn't act fast
she would be trampled beneath the horse's mighty hooves. The rider looked just as menacing as the
horse, not an inch of bare skin, tattoos that seemed to grow like vines along the lengths of muscle
on his arms. He carried a dangerously forged spear that glinted sunlight off its polished blade. From
years of handling weapons, she knew it would inflict considerable damage to her vitals. As the man
sped forward, Adele was already racing towards the man on her silvery white-maned horse, she felt
the wind tear strands of fair hair out of her braid. Before the man could deduce her actions, she
brought her sword in a slicing arc to open a long gash across his right arm. Blood oozed from the
open wound as he lost control of the horse and landed roughly on the field, motionless. She was
used to warfare and bloodshed, sometimes she wondered what it would mean to live away from
bloodshed, away from the battle, away from this cursed nation, but Adele knew to hope for a
normal life was too much to ask for.
She remembered the days when her mother used to take her to the sea, they would lay on the
shore and watch the sun rise and set across the ever changing canvas. She would catch clams
floating in the frothy waters and they would be set for a creamy soup that night. She would lay on
the grainy sand that gently massaged her back as she rolled in it. Wrapped in her mother’s arms, she
felt so safe, away from any harm...
Adele, Adele!
Sebastian's voice snapped her back to reality. She hoped he didn't see her face contorted with grief
from the nostalgia. "We've got a war to win, come on".
The battle progressed, the monotonous clash of swords, regular howls of agony and sounds
of tearing flesh and breaking bones. Adele had grown familiar with the chaos. She remembered the
first battle she had been in, barely thirteen, when she grappled another wheat-skinned boy. She had
to kill him or let him kill her. Gruesome nights followed, she'd wake up screaming and her sheets
would be wet, she'd sob nights together, grieving her mother's death or the boy who she'd killed
mercilessly. She had stood over his slowly crumpling body, as his life slipped through her hands
flowing out of him along with the blood spouting from the laceration in his abdomen.
Adele shuddered from the memory as she fended off four soldiers. Soon the nemesis were
outnumbered, scampering back into the thicket they came from.
Adele surveyed the battlefront, it had a cold malevolent atmosphere clinging to it. Bodies
lay scattered like foul mannequins. The reek of slaughtered bodies hit her from all sides making her
gag. Diffused sobs emanated from women and children as they bawled over their slain
acquaintances. She bent down, closing a soldier’s eyes. The blood had not yet dried, it was thick
and still wet. Just a few hours ago these warriors were alive and breathing. The wind howled in her
ears, almost as if it were telling her what a heartless assassin she had become. Cavalry and infantry
were slaughtered and lay amongst the heap of bodies. She felt herself tremble at the thought of the
hundreds of families whose lives had been ripped apart by this war, they would suffer just like how
she did after her mother's murder, just the thought of it made her insides twist. For the first time in
very long, she felt culpable after a battle. She was angry at the meaningless slaughter of innocents
to serve a selfish desire of the Royals. She looked around at all the slain warriors, and then up at the
cerise sky hoping her mother would answer her distraught mind. As the sun sank beneath the far
mountains that rose to pierce the crimson sky, the first drops of water hit Adele’s skin. A chill, not
from the cold, ran down her spine. Beads of crystalline, scarlet drops formed across her blemished
skin. She stood there gazing, as the blood washed off the bodies and moved in a stream of fierce
red, it looked as if the sky were shedding blood. The rain now fell in fat drops, plastering her golden
hair to her neck, she stood until the rain washed off her blood until the only reminder of the battle
would be the scars. For the first time, she dared to hope for a normal life, she even dared to fight for
it...
~ Nandhana