Summer challenge: Women of Summer: Middie
Title: Et Tu
Author: ingvild
Characters: Middie
Rating/Word Count: PG, 399 words
Summary: War may turn children into traitors.
She can’t look them in the eyes.
They think it’s only because she’s hurt and scared after her experiences. They don’t know that she deliberately got herself into that situation, so she could attach herself to them.
So she could betray them.
Her father was wounded in an air raid, and cannot support the family. Her brothers are too young. She’s the only one left to support them.
Some would say that she herself is too young, but Middie has not been young since the war began.
She hates them, although she cannot with certainty say who she means by “them”. The Alliance, who would scout a young, desperate girl and turn her into a spy, a traitor? The rebels, who cannot yield under the Alliance’s yoke and continue to oppose? The mercenaries, who only fight for money and oppose the Alliance because otherwise the war would be over, and they would not get paid?
Does she hate them for taking her in, for treating her kindly, making her upcoming task even harder? Does she hate No-Name, for presuming to say that they are the same?
Perhaps she hates herself most of all.
It is necessary, she tells herself. Not only to save her family, but to save the entire world. If this mercenary company falls, other mercenaries will give up their struggle against the Alliance. Without the hired guns, the Rebels will have no choice but to surrender the fight. There will be peace.
Peace, under the rule of a government that does not hesitate to turn a child into a Brutus, a Judas.
Hopefully, she will not have to kiss anyone. She does not think she could manage to hide her self-disgust if she let anyone get that close.
She hates them all, she decides. The Alliance and the Rebels and the Mercs and herself the absolute most, and the universe and God and maybe even her family, a little, because without them she would never have been in this situation.
And while the hatred festers and grows inside her, pushing aside those other emotions that she does not, under any circumstances want to explore, she cooks for them and she talks to them and she avoids their eyes, because she is always, constantly, giving away their location.
Her father would be very, very disappointed.
Author: ingvild
Characters: Middie
Rating/Word Count: PG, 399 words
Summary: War may turn children into traitors.
She can’t look them in the eyes.
They think it’s only because she’s hurt and scared after her experiences. They don’t know that she deliberately got herself into that situation, so she could attach herself to them.
So she could betray them.
Her father was wounded in an air raid, and cannot support the family. Her brothers are too young. She’s the only one left to support them.
Some would say that she herself is too young, but Middie has not been young since the war began.
She hates them, although she cannot with certainty say who she means by “them”. The Alliance, who would scout a young, desperate girl and turn her into a spy, a traitor? The rebels, who cannot yield under the Alliance’s yoke and continue to oppose? The mercenaries, who only fight for money and oppose the Alliance because otherwise the war would be over, and they would not get paid?
Does she hate them for taking her in, for treating her kindly, making her upcoming task even harder? Does she hate No-Name, for presuming to say that they are the same?
Perhaps she hates herself most of all.
It is necessary, she tells herself. Not only to save her family, but to save the entire world. If this mercenary company falls, other mercenaries will give up their struggle against the Alliance. Without the hired guns, the Rebels will have no choice but to surrender the fight. There will be peace.
Peace, under the rule of a government that does not hesitate to turn a child into a Brutus, a Judas.
Hopefully, she will not have to kiss anyone. She does not think she could manage to hide her self-disgust if she let anyone get that close.
She hates them all, she decides. The Alliance and the Rebels and the Mercs and herself the absolute most, and the universe and God and maybe even her family, a little, because without them she would never have been in this situation.
And while the hatred festers and grows inside her, pushing aside those other emotions that she does not, under any circumstances want to explore, she cooks for them and she talks to them and she avoids their eyes, because she is always, constantly, giving away their location.
Her father would be very, very disappointed.