a life worth living for anita_dee part 4
It’s much quieter on the return from the mission. The other two Berserkers are easily taken out once Seulgi locates them. Just for safe measures, she ends up lining the sector with hidden base charges and triggers to take out anything that follows.
It’s simple work but demanding of all her focus, and Seulgi lets herself get pulled into it readily. The taxing methods of rigging the mini-charges keeps her busy. That and the tracking of the area she does on the way back into the general Wilderness. It's quieter, somehow less menacing on the return journey to Krepala.
The transmission to the assignment for payment goes through easily, as does the message to both Joy and Jongin. Neither of them question further when she tells them Irene is gone. Joy looks a bit more upset than Jongin does though, who only looks somber.
“Do me a favor, dogbreath,” Seulgi says as Jongin simply nods with reverence. “Please don’t try to grow a beard again.”
“You know all the head Maji aren’t allowed to cut their hair,” Jongin tells her, some of the old light returning to his eyes.
“So you’ll look like a crazy wild man surrounded by your dogs,” Seulgi surmises. “What a future you have to look forward to.”
“Worth isn’t in appearance,” Jongin tells her before disconnecting the call. The nights are not colder, the thermal blanket offering just as much warmth as it always has. If anything, they’re warmer because Seulgi isn’t trying to steal it back from Irene after the shifter took it all for herself.
Back on ration bars as her wrist is still aching from the job, Seulgi ends up trekking most of the way back without much pause. Aside from washing the putrid stale blood from her skin of the hybrids, Seulgi only rests when it’s necessary.
Never before has the silence felt so deep, and never before has she realized how lonely this existence is.
Before, when she’d woken up Irene for the first time after her return to her humanoid form, Seulgi had thought she hadn’t valued ‘Flower’s company. Now, it’s deeper, missing Irene and her being… everywhere. She forces herself to swallow it down though, because sentiment like that isn’t safe or useful.
Seulgi has other things to do, like keep up running stats and repair the processor chip in her wrist so she doesn’t have to pay something to do it for her. She has to hunt and travel and keep up on the reports.
There are more important things in the world that her missing a wolf that turned into a woman that would wrap her arms around her own and smile like spring.
✖
On the borderlands of Krepala, Seulgi is startled from packing up for the morning by a soft click. Turning with her hand cannon already cocked and ready to fire in her hand, she finds the smiling face of Wendy greeting her.
After the monsters from Nara, the energy from the other mercenary is almost warm, welcoming.
“You know, I thought you’d have learned not to sneak up on me after the last time we met,” Seulgi says, turning back to her camp.
“I did, but you don’t have your pet with you this time,” Wendy says, striding into the broken down camp and sitting herself on a bounder with ease. Her long hair is pulled back in a plait, falling over her shoulder prettily. “What happened? I thought that wolf would have sooner died than leave you.”
“Well,” Seulgi says, pushing down the bitterness in her voice. “As you can see, I’m not dead, and she’s gone.” Pausing to roll up her tent and stuff it into her pack, Seulgi looks up at Wendy. “Things happen.”
“My condolences,” Wendy says, and her tone indicates she means it. “She seemed like a wonderful companion.”
“She was,” Seulgi admits, to both Wendy and herself. It’s the first time she’s spoken anything of it since Irene left. “But it’s just me now. As it was before.”
“Not for long,” Wendy says ruefully. At her tone and expression, Seulgi stops, looking up at her. The Nyx blooded mercenary gives her a bitter smile. “They’re starting the first waves. Any in this area are recruited for war.”
“Whose war?” Seulgi says, almost sick of the whole thing. Jobs and payment kept her busy, but for once she just wants to lie down and sleep. “Our war? Their war?”
“Everyone’s war,” Wendy says, her smile twisting even more bitterly. “They’re allied. Janus, Regal, and Krepala all against Utopica. They’re calling for open war.”
“As if we weren’t already in open war,” Seulgi grumbles, thinking of the thousands already slaughtered between the nations.
“This is different,” Wendy says. “This is the possibility for a reconciliation between the other three against-“
“Against the only one that could actually take any of them out,” Seulgi answers. She knows how powerful Utopica is, just recently taken out their labs and their latest prototype Beasts of human soldiers. She shivers at the thought of open war with them. “Why not Nara?”
“You know as well as I that Nara is destroying itself as much as it’s enemies in this,” Wendy tells her with a scoff, tucking a leg under herself. “Those parasitic implants they use to control everyone are going to kill them all one day, if the population doesn’t go mad on drugs and kill itself first.” Seulgi winces at the image, the stories from Nara painting horrific images in her mind.
“So,” she says heavily, looking down at her camp. In a few weeks this area may either be a desolate battlefield or a massive army camp. “Our time has come?”
Wendy laughs, her pretty face creasing at the comment as she sits back on the rock, swinging her rifle to cradle it in her arms. “Our time has been happening,” she says with amusement in her voice. “Now it’s the time of the soldier, and to do what we’ve always done.”
“Stay alive,” Seulgi says, and earns a bright grin from Wendy.
“I look forward to fighting with you,” Wendy says, standing up and picking up one of Seulgi’s packs. “At least I’ll know someone on my side knows what they’re doing.” She laughs again, the sound somehow melodic among the forest and filling some of the empty space in Seulgi’s chest.
✖
It’s weeks before the first camps are set up, but it’s all rushing to get to them. Not wanting to deal with protests, Seulgi sends Joy into the mountains with Jongin, telling the younger girl to bite her tongue and be ‘good’.
“You’re not my mother,” Joy huffs at her as Seulgi tucks her hair under a cap to keep it hidden.
“Thank fuck for that,” Seulgi says with a slanted grin, patting her cheeks. “Your mother left you in a barrel when you were six to go gamble away her sanity. I’m so glad I’m not her.” Joy sticks her tongue out at her, but Seulgi isn’t surprised when she jumps on her a moment later in a near bone crushing hug.
“Stay alive,” she murmurs into the skin of Seulgi’s neck, arms tight around the old woman’s neck.
“When have I not,” Seulgi tells, her hugging back just as tight before letting her go to the safety of the Orders with Jongin.
The war camps are a mess. Soldiers running about under barked orders from superiors and commanding officers. “Do you think they get off on all this power tripping?” Seulgi murmurs to Wendy as they walk to one of the officers tents.
“Probably,” Wendy says, casting a look at one purple-faced man, screaming at his cadets to pitch a tent properly. “It’s not like they can get anything else in this miserable place.”
“It’s a good thing you never had any manners,” Seulgi says with a slight smile. “Or I’d have to remind you of them.”
“Thank fuck,” Wendy says and laughs with her as they turn down the main path.
They had both been recruited early on, Regal offering the best price for mercenaries among the Tri-Allegiance. They’d been positioned in a different sector of the camps, lest their ‘natures’ influence the other pledged soldiers somehow. They also, because of their extensive knowledge of the Wilderness, are given higher rank and permission and duties for the planning of attacks.
Their general, a shorter man who is about as human as he is cyborg, is softer than he’d first presented himself. Cunning and with a brain for war and governing troops, Minseok ends up being more along the lines of someone Seulgi feels should be in charge of wars. The decisions he’s made so far in the brief small attacks they’ve had were all far beyond the simple decisions Seulgi has seen in some of the other armed forces she’s watched go into battle.
“This is a war,” Sehun, one of the soldiers who works closely with Minseok had told her when Seulgi had mentioned it to him. “Wars are not battles. War is larger than just one fight, it’s many.”
“Thank you for clearing that up,” Seulgi tells him dryly. “I was really confused about the two.” Minseok had thrown her a look that told her he didn’t approve, but still thought she was funny.
It had left Seulgi oddly pleased after reporting to him for duty.
“What’s the news this morning?” Seulgi asks, walking into the tent and nodding to the captain standing just inside. Chanyeol steps aside, nodding to her in turn and flashing her a small smile. “Anything exciting from Utopica?”
“I was hoping you could tell me,” Minseok says, frowning as he looks over their terrain board. The projected image of the three dimensional Wilderness glows in synthetic colors above the ground at about waist height. The Old Ruins are marked out in red, Utopica’s borderlands outlined in yellow and their lands in blue amid the green of the basic terrain. “You took out the labs in the western districts of the old capital, did you not?”
“I may have,” Seulgi answers, shifting her weight as Wendy throws her a look. “What about it? Are they using the labs again? Those were leveled.”
“They’re not using the labs, but I think they’re using a developed form of the prototype they had been creating in those labs,” Minseok says, nodding to Chanyeol. The other man produces from behind his back a battered and ripped up soldier’s pack, clearly been through battle. From it he pulls a few items, clicking them into the processors by the walls of the tent.
Immediately, the projection of the field map vanishes instead into a frozen image of what appears to be an attack. Soldiers, their soldiers, are fleeing while the monsters Seulgi had faced in the western districts charge into the viewer. They’re not exactly the same, but Seulgi knows them. The black skin, the eyes, the limbs and the forms of them sends a shiver up her spine again.
“When was this taken?” Seulgi asks, her voice darker as she looks at the image and notices a few differences. The Beasts had definitely been upgraded, perfected from the prototype she’d taken out.
“Last night,” Chanyeol answers, stepping into the image and flickering with the reflected light. “A special unit had been sent into enemy territory. We lost contact with them about twenty minutes after they crossed the Rhye and one of our men arrived back with this pack just before dawn.”
Swallowing down the tightness in her throat, Seulgi nods. “How is he?”
“Dead,” Minseok answers curtly. He doesn’t flinch, instead nodding to Chanyeol and switching the landscape back into view. At the look Wendy sends him, Minseok sighs. “It was for the better. He asked for it rather than any alternatives. Said he’d rather die than become half of himself.” He smiles with a bit of a twist, flexing his own bionics hand as if in reminder to himself.
Seulgi hasn’t met many who are so intimately constructed out of machine, but from the look on Minseok’s face, they have their own stories, and they’re not pleasant.
“What can you tell me about these creatures?”
“Soldiers,” Seulgi corrects, tasting the bile rising to the back of her throat once more. Minseok’s eyes widen and Chanyeol’s brow furrows. Seulgi takes in a deep breath. “They’re not Beasts, they’re soldiers. Part of the super line that Utopica had been conducting since they introduced the Genus project two years back. These-“ she gestures to the pack still held in Chanyeol’s arms “-are the next step, blending Beast with soldier to create-“
“Monsters,” cuts in a new voice as one of the majors steps into the tent. “We’re fighting monsters, ladies and gentlemen.”
“You’re late,” Chanyeol says, frowning at the major as he walks into the group, taking his hat from his head with a graceful sweep.
“I’m here though,” Jongdae says, grinning up at him. “That’s the important part you seem to be missing.”
“Here doesn’t excuse being late,” Minseok corrects and stares down his grinning Major. “Fall in.” He sighs, turning to Seulgi. “We need to know whatever you know about these things,” he tells her, glancing at Wendy. “Both of you, seeing as you’re the only useful mercenaries we have in this damned camp.”
“Thank you for that glowing compliment,” Wendy mumbles under her breath as Minseok turns to chew out a grinning Jongdae about time tables while Sehun sniggers in the background.
“Take what you can get with these kind of people,” Seulgi says turning to the other woman. “And be thankful we’re not with Song back in the third division.”
“True,” Wendy says, before turning back to the arguing men. “Do you think they’d mind if I called them all to order?” she muses, looking them over. “Or is that against their time schedules too?”
Seulgi snorts and hides her laugh into her hands, reminding herself that war is no place for laughing. Then again, they have to find a positive point somewhere amid the grim setting.
✖
Consider it an honor.
To hell with honor in Seulgi’s opinion. Honor can go and take it’s prideful ass and go stick itself up a tree for all she cares. She’s more invested in saving her own hide from certain death. The certain death being the territory she and about five hundred other soldiers are currently marching into.
“Ironic, isn’t it?” Wendy says from beside her, a military grade helmet from Regal strapped to her head. “We spend most of our time fighting to fuck up these bastards and in the end wind up fighting for them and dying just like the others.”
“We’re not dead yet,” Seulgi says shifting the bulky pack on her back and trying to adjust to the weight. She’s not used to carrying around so much equipment. Most of it (basically all of it) is entirely unnecessary in her opinion. The soldiers out here are just going to get slaughtered, no reason to burden them down in the fight for their lives.
“Thanks for that optimism,” grunts Chanyeol from beside them. He’s almost comical in how tall he is out here, a blatant target with his captain’s uniform. “We really need that for morale.”
“You know what’s great for morale?” Jongdae chirps from ahead of them, turning in the marching formation to grin at them. “A heartwarming war ballad.”
“If you sing I’ll shoot you myself,” Seulgi tells him pointedly. “Save the enemy the trouble.”
“They’d just rip your head off anyway,” Wendy reminds brightly, a twinkle in her eyes. “Then you definitely won’t sing anymore.”
“You two are seriously going to doom all of our soldiers before they even fight,” Chanyeol sighs, shaking his head at the two mercenaries.
“I like them,” Sehun chirps. Somehow, the young cadet had managed to fit himself in with his superiors, wiggling probably with his duties as Minseok’s page into their social world. He’s a sweet kid and Seulgi will be sad to see him die.
“See? Sehun has excellent taste,” Wendy says, grinning and punching the stringy cadet in the arm. “Pity he has to die.”
“Pity we’re all going to die,” Seulgi adds.
“Morale,” Chanyeol says pointedly as Jongdae does a horrible job at hiding a laugh. It’s morbid, extremely morbid humor at the entire thing, but there’s no point in skirting the truth. “Please.”
“Fine,” Seulgi says, looking up at him and tilting her helmet back. “We’re not marching into battle. We’re just all going for a very heavily armed picnic with Utopica and they’re going to make us flower crowns.”
“I said optimism not insanity,” Chanyeol tells her, though his mouth twitches.
“You get a gold star for effort though,” Jongdae tells her and throws her a thumbs up. “I liked it at least.”
“That’s because you’re a suck up,” Sehun chimes in and grins a moment later when Chanyeol laughs, clearly pleased with himself and Jongdae’s deflating expression.
They’re right on the border, the terrain mapped out for them earlier in the tents with extensive detail from Minseok. Seulgi is a relatively sure it’ll all go to shit once actual fighting begins, but it sounds like with his plans they’ll at least win the battle with some survivors.
The tensions are running high though, and Seulgi can feel it among the soldiers. They’re all thinking it as they pick between the Wilderness, that they’re walking to their deaths and too afraid to say it. Most of them have never faced death and, like Chanyeol, Seulgi understands wanting to avoid the topic and soften the concept.
But, unlike Chanyeol, Seulgi knows that sometimes it’s easier to deal with if the topic isn’t taboo. They’ll scare themselves into a quick death if they’re too afraid of death to fight.
“If you live-“ Sehun begins with a shake in his voice.
“When I live,” Seulgi corrects him as the young cadet steps up to her. “Stop thinking in ‘if’s, Sehun, you’ll just make yourself sick.”
“If I die,” Sehun rephrases, looking at her with weight in his brown eyes. Seulgi doesn’t correct him this time. “Can you deliver a message?”
Biting her lip, Seulgi steps back a bit from the younger man. “I’m a mercenary, Sehun. Not a messenger.”
“It’s for my family,” Sehun explains. “And-“ he blushes.
“What is it?” Seulgi asks, wanting to get it over with before Sehun gets too worded. She’s seen the color of his skin and the way he stays away from meals, the puncture wounds at his neck. Those who have been ‘turned’ are rare, but primarily because they bond immediately to those that select them to turn rather than feed on.
It makes Seulgi wonder who Sehun belongs to, who he left for war and who is waiting for him to come home.
Or not.
A low swoop in her stomach has her stepping closer, leaning into the younger man and his pale cool skin. “Just-“ Sehun takes in a shuddering breath and presses something into her hands. “Just give it to him. And tell my family I love them.” He smiles, a bit of fear flickering behind his eyes as he looks down at her.
“I give you my word,” Seulgi tells him, and means it as her fingers close around the token. She smiles herself, hitting him with a light punch to the shoulder. “Stay alive.”
The soft laughter and smile from Sehun has Seulgi’s smile widening, reaching up to bat his helmet a bit before stepping back. He reminds her just a little of Joy, the bright smiles and cute concern under the tall figure and serious looks. Except Joy is safe up in the mountains with Jongin, and Sehun is most likely walking directly into-
“Attack!” shouts from the far left, and Seulgi whips to the cry, hand flying to her hip. The hand cannons she usually carries are upgraded, the electromag charges replaced with a higher charge, guaranteeing a kill even if the chamber isn’t loaded with a bullet. At the far left flank of their unit, Seulgi can just make out a swarm of something seething around the soldiers in the area.
“At arms!” bellows Chanyeol’s voice from directly behind her, suddenly much louder than she’d ever heard him. “Soldiers! Brace for-!”
He never finishes, as instead of the surge from the left a sudden screech erupts directly in front of them and a massive Beast plows through the front infantry. It’s much larger than the Beasts Seulgi found in the western distracts, enormous broad leathery wings stretching from a body too thin to be human any longer as a screaming face with wide bloodshot human eyes stares down at the soldiers.
It’s exactly as Seulgi had thought, the footmen stilling for just a moment in shocked horror at the monster as it stares them down. “Fight!” she screams at the top of her voice, shoving through stunned soldiers forward.
The delay from shock costs men their lives, the Beast ripping through them as more of the abominations descend on them. The sudden dull thuds and cracks of weapons firing filling the air. Seulgi runs, legs never ceasing as she fires round after round into the never ending flood of Beasts rushing into the military flanks.
It’s a blur of endless movement, constant screaming sounds and the hard packing of bodies coming into contact amid the dull thuds and cracks of firearms going off. Amid the fray and the blasts from her own hand cannons, Seulgi can hear the high bangs of Wendy’s rifle, double loaded with specially designed cartridges infused with her Nyx magic. Lethal and something she never wants to deal with, Seulgi steers herself clear of it.
The new Beasts are something out of a nightmare, the human qualities tainting their voices to a grotesque scream that rattles her bones. They fight unlike anything she’s ever seen, and even the Janus T1200 units that have been called into action in the second rows of infantry aren’t a proper match. Seulgi watches them go down with a sort of bittersweet vindication, knowing their flaws from having taken them down herself.
The number of bodies ahead and around the area keeps increasing, more soldiers from the Tri-Alliance rushing up to take the place of the fallen and the Beasts keep coming. “Chanyeol!” Seulgi yells, turning from where she’s just taken down another monster to try to see through the fighting. The captain is no where to be seen, and Seulgi swears, running back through the battle.
They need to fall back, the area ahead too perilous and pushing forward just puts them into Utopica lands that are most likely rigged with mines. Watching how the Beasts are falling on them, it’s from the trees, not the ground, meaning the ground probably isn’t safe.
Snarling as something catches her arm, Seulgi turns with the barrel of her hand cannon pressed into the face of her captor. Jongdae stares back with massively wide eyes.
“Pax!” he shouts over the fighting. “Pax! I won’t kill you, promise!”
“Where’s Chanyeol?” Seulgi shouts, pulling away only to bring up her gun again and shoot directly over Jongdae’s shoulder. The shot hits directly into the eye of one of the Beasts, sending it screaming to crash into the ground. Jongdae stares at her with wide astonished eyes, flinched away from the gun.
“Do you always just do that?” he yells over the battlefield.
“Mostly,” Seulgi shouts back, twisting to check the area for assault. “We are in a war at the moment.” Shooting another Beast that charges into the area, she turns back to the Major with her teeth grit. “Where the fuck is Chanyeol?”
“Back in the second lines,” Jongdae shouts, pushing himself up to fire at his own targets. Seulgi almost stares as he draws a blade, electric blue and twists it with the agility of a specialist. “Something to do with the second wave of support.”
“Good,” Seulgi grits out. “Stay alive!” she shouts before running off, barreling into the thick of the fighting that has centered in the middle of their flank. The nest of Beasts all ripping through soldiers is nothing but a death circle and Seulgi fires into it. Any human she hits is as good as dead anyway, seeing as the Beasts will have taken whatever life from them by the time she can break it apart.
“Fucking wars,” Seulgi snarls, flinging herself to the side just as a Beast flies at her, dropping from the sky. “Fucking-“
The next words are smashed from her chest as one of the enormous leathery wings slams down on her, crushing the air from her and leaving her stunned. Gasping and fighting to regain herself, Seulgi opens her eyes to the wide gaping face of the Beast.
“Shit,” wheezes from her lips as the thing screams and dives at her. It crashes against her, but where the sink of teeth into her flesh should be comes nothing, just the painful rip as they catch on her and the head… rolls away.
“Stay alive!” bellows at her in fury, and Seulgi blinks up to the livid almost glowing multicolored eyes of a woman she never thought she’d see again. “What did I tell you to do? Stay alive!” Irene doesn’t hesitate to snarl at her as she leans down and grabs Seulgi from the ground, hoisting her up.
She looks vibrant, even dressed in full battle armor. It’s unlike the rest of the soldiers, instead perfectly fit to her in full micromail and plated with a metal Seulgi’s never seen before. In her free hand rests a bloodied sword, shining even in the dim light and grime as Irene glares at her.
Despite the fighting, Seulgi can’t even deny the rush of happiness at seeing her. It’s strong enough that she laughs, the sound bubbling from her chest as she takes in the shifter’s irate expression.
“I thought I told you do go away,” Seulgi says, biting down the smile on her face. It’s hardly the place for a reunion, the carnage around them extensive, but still, Seulgi can’t help but feel oddly delighted.
“Yeah, you did,” Irene snaps at her and then snorts in irritation. “Moron,” she adds before her mouth quirks. “I thought you would have figured that I was too good to give up.”
“I don't like pets,” Seulgi says. A moment later she pushes Irene down, out of the way as a Beast lunches, shooting it straight into the mouth and through the back of the head. Pulling back, she feels Irene’s arm hook around hers tightly as the shifter pulls her close, almost chest to chest.
“I’m not your pet,” Irene tells her, breath ghosting over Seulgi’s mouth. “I claimed you as my tribe because I want you to be my tribe.” Her eyes burn with that same foreign and exciting depth that makes Seulgi’s skin writhe in response, her heart racing. “That's my bond with you.”
As Irene’s grip on her arm tightens, Seulgi’s mind flashes back to the conversation with Sehun, and her eyes widen with the possibility. A bond that is beyond just the master and pet formula that Jongin had specialized and used on them and instead something stronger, deeper than that.
Similar to the kiss that latched Sehun to whoever his blood-feeding mate is.
“Oh,” Seulgi says, and Irene’s eyes flicker. Then she smiles, and her teeth are revealed to be pointed, vicious looking.
“Live first,” Irene says, pulling back with a pointed graze of her fingers to Seulgi’s side. “Then talk.” As she withdraws, she slowly disintegrates into ash, her body shifting in one smooth motion into the massive form of a wolf, twisting in the air as she launches at an approaching Beast.
A grin taking over Seulgi’s mouth, she nods, turning herself with Irene at her back for cover, and lets loose the fires of hell from her own weapons. It’s like being free, familiar with Irene’s patterns of combat so the two move together almost flawlessly, Seulgi maneuvering through Irene’s patterns and the two twisting through the battlefield to take down the hords of Beasts.
Among the carnage, it’s a beauty of violence between a team that that day earns the name ‘Unstoppable.’
✖
Two things come from the first battle with Utopica. The first is a victory for the Tri-Alliance. The second is that Seulgi and Irene as a duo spread like wildfire, labeled as the deadliest team on the field. Walking amid the tents, Seulgi smirks to herself as she hears some of the surviving soldiers talking about them, recounting the battle and claiming they’d seen unimaginable things.
Good, Seulgi thinks to herself as she hears them talk about how she supposedly took down fifteen Beasts in one blow. Stories like that are good, for both work and for intimidation.
It’ll put her and Irene at a higher profile and probably in a bit more danger, but it’ll also mean less will mess with her. Names have power, and they can do things that others without that status can’t.
The best is that so far, no one has seemed to understand that the wolf on the battlefield that did take down at least seven Beasts in one attack is the same as the woman who walked with Seulgi back at camp. It means that no one saw her shift, and that those who claim to are quickly silenced as being ignorant.
Minseok, to his credit, kept whatever observations to himself. The battle had seen shifts in his men that he hadn’t expected or counted on. The fight had brought out the hidden natures in most of the men, the mixed blood that shows just how few of them are pure human. The men suddenly shifting and changing in the midst of the fray, Sehun’s turned form as he moved at inhuman speeds and strengths, tearing through foes. The most shocking had been when Seulgi had come up against what she initially thought were more mutant soldiers from Utopica only to realize the half cat and gryphon were the major and captain of her division.
Stepping into the main general’s tent, Seulgi wouldn’t know from looking at Jongdae and Chanyeol that they were anything but human had it not been for the events the day before. Seeing her, both men incline their head in a respectful nod.
“At ease, soldiers,” she says, smirking a bit at the rare respect shown from both of them.
“I’ll prefer that you don’t try to steal my chain of command from me,” Minseok says dryly, turning from his makeshift desk to look at her. He smiles, the fresh wounds on his neck and face making the expression somewhat grim. “I’d like to think you an ally, not a threat. Especially after the display you and your familiar put on yesterday.”
Seulgi doesn’t bother to correct him on the term ‘familiar’. After Wendy had summoned up a horde of unspeakable monstrosities from who knows where, nothing is too far out of the question. Or the imagination. Instead, she laughs, stepping up to the general with ease. “Wouldn't dream of it. I didn't sign up to order around a bunch of new bloods to run blind into attack. You did.” Minseok’s smile twitches. “I’m just here for the pay.”
That had been the agreement. The Tri-Alliance is wise enough to know the mercenaries won’t ally themselves for too long, the tie of control and command too volatile. Their own allegiance isn’t meant to last either, and while their own citizens may be loyal, they know the mercenaries not to be.
The benefit is that those among the troops that are paid to fight are now marked in war. Like it or not, Seulgi’s newfound fame has just painted her on a side and her neutrality is done.
At the side of the tent, Jongdae lets out a scoff, poorly disguised. Seulgi ignores him, her eyes on the general.
“You’re later than I thought you'd be,” Minseok tells her, stepping back to the desk and swiping his hand over the main processor. “Wendy was here at dawn to collect her payment, and she wasn’t even the earliest.”
“I had business to attend to,” Seulgi says. Business such as smuggling Irene back into camp half naked trying to find the rest of her armor. It’s the sort of thing that keeps one up at night, breaking down a tent and reconstructing it to accommodate a wolf that doesn't actually exist. “I would hope that doesn’t effect my pay.”
“Not at all,” Minseok tells her, letting out a long sigh as he looks over the flashing projected screen before him. “Just means we can enjoy your charming company a bit longer.”
“And optimism,” Chanyeol grumbles from the side. He doesn't lower his eyes when Seulgi directs a sharp look at him, simply stares back with the steel countenance that tells her he knows. She lingers, wondering if he’ll speak up about Irene, and lets out a silent breath when he instead blinks slowly, giving a small nod.
It’s not much, but the knowledge of knowing the shifters themselves will keep their brethren safe is enough for her. She’d seen Chanyeol shift, larger than Irene had been in her own form and just as terrifying in battle as a great creature from the old legends. The soldiers are all calling what they saw a demon, risen by the Witch Queen who had summoned the dead army.
All things considered, Seulgi is rather satisfied her own name isn’t as terrifying as the others. Or as humiliating as Jongdae’s, who has been formally redubbed ‘cat-man’ by half the camp.
“Do you require anything else?” Minseok asks, turning to her. “Aside from payment of course.” He pauses, his bionic arm extended over the screen. “Of course, you would be offered more to stay on as a permanent member of the militia. Regal would pay you well to serve with it.”
“Just the payment,” Seulgi says, flashing him an empty smile as she steps back from the table. “In full, with the mark of completion towards the account. I’ll be out of the camps by nightfall.” She lets her smile broaden, stepping back further with a wide sweep of her hands. “It’ll be as if I was never here.”
“From what the troops are clamoring about, I doubt there will be chance of it ever being as if you were never here,” Minseok says, though amusement lights up his war-hardened eyes. “Regal thanks you for your services.”
“And I thank it for my money,” Seulgi says, with a bit of a mocking bow. She nods to both Chanyeol and Jongdae as she leaves the tent, her eyes lingering on Chanyeol for just a moment longer. At the entrance of the tent, she offers a smile to Sehun, handing him the necklace he’d pressed into her hands the day before. “Give it to him yourself,” she tells him, her smile genuine this time to Sehun’s shocked face. “Stay alive for him and yourself, not the war.”
“But-“ Sehun sputters.
“Why do you fight?” Seulgi asks him, and turns before Sehun can answer him. She’d found her own purpose for fighting yesterday, a resonance that she’d forgotten in the years of solitude and mindless jobs between nations and endless warfare. With it again, she feels invigorated.
Taking the back paths to her own tent, Seulgi slips in through to peace and sanity away from the soldiers constant stares and whispers only to stop dead. “That’s my bed,” she tells the woman currently snuggled into her blankets, grinning up at her. Irene is clean, her skin almost shining and smooth where it peeks from under the thermal blankets. Seulgi knows without checking that Irene is bare under the blankets. She swallows. “You know, I haven’t even had a chance to lay in that bed yet.”
“So come join me,” Irene says, her smile widening as she sits up, the blankets falling away to reveal her smooth skin, skated with those foreign markings and her soft round breasts. “What’s stopping you? The fight is over.”
Sighing, Seulgi drops her pack that she’d carried to the general’s tent, her holster following it with her hand cannons. “Why are you still here?” she asks, looking at the woman in her bed with a weight in her chest. Irene frowns at her. “You’re not bound to me, in war or in payment. So why are you here? You can leave and be-” she clears her throat from the rising tightness “-free.”
“I am free,” Irene tells her, and lets out a soft laugh. Pushing herself to stand, the blankets falling from her to crumple at her feet. “I am free and I chose to be here. To be with you.” Seulgi pauses, taking her in, all of her, not just the skin but also the tone of her voice and the tilt of her head, the fire in her eyes. “I chose to come back, after you ‘released’ me and fight with you. You know that battle would not have done as well without me yesterday. You wouldn’t have-“
“So you saved my life,” Seulgi says, not moving away when Irene approaches her. “Are you seeking repayment then?”
“Not everything in the world is money,” Irene tells her, stepping up and into her space, her warm breath ghosting over Seulgi’s lips. “Some things go deeper than debts and dues and payments and contracts. They’re more than just being set free.” Her lips curve up in a soft smile as her eyes soften, the colors held behind the brown pulsing gently. “Some bonds are made without being forced, they’re chosen.”
Biting her lip, Seulgi suppresses the shiver that threatens to rush through her as Irene’s fingers brush up her arm, wrapping around her wrist and holding. The touch is hot, searing almost as it spreads through her so like the odd shivers and crawling she’d felt every time she’d thought of their ‘bond’ earlier. “So what kind of bond is this then?” she asks. “Is this you making me your tribe?”
“Well, since you refuse when I try to call you mistress,” Irene begins and laughs at Seulgi’s protesting grimace. “Then yes, this is me showing you that I want to stay with you, not out of duty or contract, but because I want to be.” Seulgi isn’t familiar with how confessions in the shifters work, but she’s rather sure this is one. Taking in a slow breath, she tries to read it in Irene’s eyes, to figure out if she’s right.
“It’s dangerous,” Seulgi says. She doesn’t want to say no really, because she already knows she misses Irene when she’s not there. Irene is something that reminds her of the meaning in life, behind what she’s doing, and together they’re unstoppable in combat.
“So is all of the world apparently,” Irene says, her voice light and teasing as she steps closer. “I’ll be careful. We’ll be careful.” She hesitates for a moment, and Seulgi stills, waiting for her to lean in and-
Seulgi almost jumps when Irene does, tilting her head as she presses closer and, instead of pressing her lips to Seulgi’s cheek, drags her tongue over the skin instead. She pulls back, an expectant look in her eyes that falters as Seulgi starts to laugh. “What?” Irene asks, a pout to her pretty lips. “I was displaying-“
“You affections?” Seulgi asks, the rising feeling in her chest not unwelcome. It’s not wise for a mercenary to travel with a companion, two targets slowing things down and causing complications. But the world is changing, and she is no longer a simple mercenary. She can make a few exceptions. Laughter quieting, Seulgi winds her arms around Irene’s waist, letting her hands run over the soft warm skin and relishing in the soft hitch of breath from the other woman. “Did Jongin teach you that?”
“No,” Irene says, and looks a bit stubborn despite the soft flush to her cheeks. “That’s how you humans show affection. By licking each other or-“
She stops as Seulgi leans in and gently presses her lips to Irene’s in a soft kiss. Pulling back, Irene’s eyes are slightly muted, and the flush in her cheeks has risen. “That,” Seulgi tells her, enjoying the warmth that spreads through her at the heating look in Irene’s eyes. “Is called a kiss. It’s how we, I, show affection.”
“Do it again,” Irene tells her, a quirk to her lips as she shifts to wind her arms around Seulgi’s neck luxuriously. “Or-“ She never finishes, instead leaning in herself and kissing Seulgi. It’s inexperienced, but it takes very little coaxing on Seulgi’s part before she’s kissing with a bit more finesse.
Irene had always been a fast learner, and as she pulls back, breathless and flushed, Seulgi has the distinct impression that Irene will be happy to learn many other things.
“You’ll have to be a wolf for a lot of the time,” Seulgi tells her seriously. “Not many will take that long before they realize the woman I travel with is the same as all the creatures I fight alongside on the battlefield.”
“As long as you don’t call me ‘Flower’,” Irene says, her bright eyes dancing as she winds her fingers into Seulgi’s hair. She joins in with Seulgi’s laughter, resting their foreheads together.
“So what should I call you?” Seulgi asks, her humming gently as she lets her lips travel along the curves of Irene’s jaw and neck. Watching them for weeks, it’s almost a relief to press her lips to them and feel the soft sigh of Irene against her.
“By my true name,” Irene murmurs into her ear, voice thick and sensual, resonating with an unspoken power. “Juhyun.”
“Juhyun,” Seulgi repeats into the soft skin of Irene’s throat and gets a confirming hum of approval in response. “My Juhyun.”
“My Seulgi,” Irene whispers low into Seulgi’s ear, tugging her closer and with a light laugh into the softness of another kiss.
✖
The soldiers, and no other that they encounter, dare to get in the path of Seulgi and her Great Wolf as they leave the camp that evening. It appears as if their story has spread like wildfire through the Tri-Alliance and their cities. Even Joy, when Seulgi finally gets in contact with her, laughs for an unnecessarily long time over the communicator at her newfound ‘celebrity status’.
Agreeing to meet on the borderlands of Regal and Janus, most of the journey is made with Seulgi walking beside Irene in her wolf form. As much as Irene likes to tease, flitting about shifting to tease Seulgi’s patience by becoming a raven or a mountain lion (and once a dragon), she easily apologizes with a soft kiss. Seulgi knows she’s going soft as she ends up forgiving Irene for these shows of mischief, humoring her jokes. She also grows more and more attached and fond of the other woman as the days pass.
When they meet on the border down of Regal, Seulgi finds herself with an armful of Joy, who is positively frantic with excitement at the return of her ‘baby’. Irene, to her credit, leaps and bounds about playfully with her, tumbling among the grasses outside the town gates as Joy laughs loudly. It leaves Seulgi to turn to the other two who had arrived with Joy.
Jongin simply smiles and nods in greeting, his face once more hosting the patchy stubble that Seulgi bites down a laugh at. Beside him is Wendy, decked out in entirely new clothing that shines blue in the catching light.
“You might have told me you were more than just working as a mercenary,” Seulgi tells her, taking in the other woman in the clear robes of the Priestess Maji.
“Well, I had to have some secrets of my own,” Wendy says, a quirk to her lips and her coal-lined eyes dancing in amusement. “Besides, I rather like the new name. ‘Witch Queen’ sounds far more ominous than ‘the Blue Lady’ ever did.”
“And terrifying,” Jongin adds helpfully. “Did you really raise a horde of the dead?”
“Ask Seulgi,” Wendy says with a teasing smile and glance at her. “She was there.”
“Thousands of them,” Seulgi tells Jongin, enjoying the stunning and slightly awed look on his face. “An army of them enough to take down a whole city.” It's a drastic exaggeration from what had happen, especially since what Wendy had summoned were definitely not undead but most likely creatures from her own dimension.
“I thought you didn’t practice black magic,” Jongin says, turning to Wendy with a bit of nervousness in his tone.
“Surprise,” Wendy chirps, winking at him before she and Seulgi laugh at the breeder’s obvious confusion. “I also see you have your pet back,” Wendy observes, looking out to where Irene and Joy are tumbling in the grasses. At her words, Irene stiffens, snapping her attention to the small group, her bright amber eyes fixed on Wendy.
Laughing, Seulgi wraps an arm around Wendy’s shoulders, smiling as Wendy’s confident expression falters slightly. “I dare you to call her a pet one more time,” Seulgi says, leaning into the new Order Maji. “See how forgiving she is.”
As if summoned, Irene comes bounding towards them, her large form forbidding as she slips to Seulgi’s side, her eyes fixed on Wendy.
The Maji Nyx laughs, her voice lighter as she regards them both. “So you realized it then?” she asks, looking between the two as Joy calls for Jongin to her. “What she is?”
“I have a pretty good idea,” Seulgi says, and her own look of meaning is strengthened as Irene growls low beside her. “I’d appreciate it if that was kept quiet though.”
“The only shifter in my knowledge is Captain Park,” Wendy says loftily, stepping back and brushing her bluish black hair over her shoulder. “He was the only one any saw on the battlefield. I said nothing about your pet.”
Irene snorts at her, and Wendy, to Seulgi’s surprise, snorts back. It startles a laugh out of Seulgi seeing the surprised look on Irene’s face, matched by the calmer expression on Wendy’s. She waves it off as nothing when Jongin and Joy join them, asking what’s so funny.
“Your attempt at facial hair, obviously,” Joy answers before Seulgi can, and it spurs all of them into laughter.
The sound rises in the air, lingering even as Seulgi and Joy depart with farewells to the others, Irene close to Seulgi’s side as they go. For a moment, it leaves the world in a brighter light, the sunlight hitting around the Wilderness and the mountains in the distance with a sort of calming brilliance.
“So,” Joy asks, looking between Irene and Seulgi. “This is a thing now?”
“Yes,” Irene says, shifting into her human form suddenly and earning a yelp from Seulgi as she leaps to drape over her. “Definitely a thing, little one.”
“I’m never going to get used to that,” Joy says, wide eyed as she watches Irene laugh and Seulgi roll her eyes as the shifter’s arms wind around her neck. “Seriously, can’t you warn?”
“Then it’s no fun,” Seulgi says before Irene can, and earns a laugh from her lover, as well as a soft swift kiss to the cheek.
“And that’s what life is all about now,” Joy asks, a definite note of skepticism in her voice as she watches Irene pull away to shift back into her wolf form. Bounding ahead, Seulgi watches her, the sleek gray fur and the power contained in her form.
“Among other things,” Seulgi says, a soft easy smile on her face. “We all have to stay alive for something.”
The sun lights up the world into hues of gold and brilliance, and Seulgi’s heart beats fully as Joy smiles at her, as if truly happy.
“Yes,” she says, nodding and her eyes bright and full as her gait lightens. “We do.”
The Wilderness is full of dangers, from the Old Ruins to the new battlefields and territories laid out with the outbreak of true war among the five nations. It also holds the promise of a future, the space between where a victory may one day be held, and those who did stay alive through it all, can see and end to the fighting.
With luck, Seulgi will be there for it. With even better luck, she won’t be alone. She smiles with the idea of a future where that’s not her dream, but her reality.
✖
a/n: I sincerely hope those who read through this enjoyed it. Dear recipient, thank you so much for the prompts. I didn’t get to spend as much time on this as I would have hoped, and I apologize if this doesn’t hold up to what you wanted. >,< A massive thanks to A for getting me through this and helping me figure things out, and hugs to R and tlist for helping me push to the end.
It’s simple work but demanding of all her focus, and Seulgi lets herself get pulled into it readily. The taxing methods of rigging the mini-charges keeps her busy. That and the tracking of the area she does on the way back into the general Wilderness. It's quieter, somehow less menacing on the return journey to Krepala.
The transmission to the assignment for payment goes through easily, as does the message to both Joy and Jongin. Neither of them question further when she tells them Irene is gone. Joy looks a bit more upset than Jongin does though, who only looks somber.
“Do me a favor, dogbreath,” Seulgi says as Jongin simply nods with reverence. “Please don’t try to grow a beard again.”
“You know all the head Maji aren’t allowed to cut their hair,” Jongin tells her, some of the old light returning to his eyes.
“So you’ll look like a crazy wild man surrounded by your dogs,” Seulgi surmises. “What a future you have to look forward to.”
“Worth isn’t in appearance,” Jongin tells her before disconnecting the call. The nights are not colder, the thermal blanket offering just as much warmth as it always has. If anything, they’re warmer because Seulgi isn’t trying to steal it back from Irene after the shifter took it all for herself.
Back on ration bars as her wrist is still aching from the job, Seulgi ends up trekking most of the way back without much pause. Aside from washing the putrid stale blood from her skin of the hybrids, Seulgi only rests when it’s necessary.
Never before has the silence felt so deep, and never before has she realized how lonely this existence is.
Before, when she’d woken up Irene for the first time after her return to her humanoid form, Seulgi had thought she hadn’t valued ‘Flower’s company. Now, it’s deeper, missing Irene and her being… everywhere. She forces herself to swallow it down though, because sentiment like that isn’t safe or useful.
Seulgi has other things to do, like keep up running stats and repair the processor chip in her wrist so she doesn’t have to pay something to do it for her. She has to hunt and travel and keep up on the reports.
There are more important things in the world that her missing a wolf that turned into a woman that would wrap her arms around her own and smile like spring.
✖
On the borderlands of Krepala, Seulgi is startled from packing up for the morning by a soft click. Turning with her hand cannon already cocked and ready to fire in her hand, she finds the smiling face of Wendy greeting her.
After the monsters from Nara, the energy from the other mercenary is almost warm, welcoming.
“You know, I thought you’d have learned not to sneak up on me after the last time we met,” Seulgi says, turning back to her camp.
“I did, but you don’t have your pet with you this time,” Wendy says, striding into the broken down camp and sitting herself on a bounder with ease. Her long hair is pulled back in a plait, falling over her shoulder prettily. “What happened? I thought that wolf would have sooner died than leave you.”
“Well,” Seulgi says, pushing down the bitterness in her voice. “As you can see, I’m not dead, and she’s gone.” Pausing to roll up her tent and stuff it into her pack, Seulgi looks up at Wendy. “Things happen.”
“My condolences,” Wendy says, and her tone indicates she means it. “She seemed like a wonderful companion.”
“She was,” Seulgi admits, to both Wendy and herself. It’s the first time she’s spoken anything of it since Irene left. “But it’s just me now. As it was before.”
“Not for long,” Wendy says ruefully. At her tone and expression, Seulgi stops, looking up at her. The Nyx blooded mercenary gives her a bitter smile. “They’re starting the first waves. Any in this area are recruited for war.”
“Whose war?” Seulgi says, almost sick of the whole thing. Jobs and payment kept her busy, but for once she just wants to lie down and sleep. “Our war? Their war?”
“Everyone’s war,” Wendy says, her smile twisting even more bitterly. “They’re allied. Janus, Regal, and Krepala all against Utopica. They’re calling for open war.”
“As if we weren’t already in open war,” Seulgi grumbles, thinking of the thousands already slaughtered between the nations.
“This is different,” Wendy says. “This is the possibility for a reconciliation between the other three against-“
“Against the only one that could actually take any of them out,” Seulgi answers. She knows how powerful Utopica is, just recently taken out their labs and their latest prototype Beasts of human soldiers. She shivers at the thought of open war with them. “Why not Nara?”
“You know as well as I that Nara is destroying itself as much as it’s enemies in this,” Wendy tells her with a scoff, tucking a leg under herself. “Those parasitic implants they use to control everyone are going to kill them all one day, if the population doesn’t go mad on drugs and kill itself first.” Seulgi winces at the image, the stories from Nara painting horrific images in her mind.
“So,” she says heavily, looking down at her camp. In a few weeks this area may either be a desolate battlefield or a massive army camp. “Our time has come?”
Wendy laughs, her pretty face creasing at the comment as she sits back on the rock, swinging her rifle to cradle it in her arms. “Our time has been happening,” she says with amusement in her voice. “Now it’s the time of the soldier, and to do what we’ve always done.”
“Stay alive,” Seulgi says, and earns a bright grin from Wendy.
“I look forward to fighting with you,” Wendy says, standing up and picking up one of Seulgi’s packs. “At least I’ll know someone on my side knows what they’re doing.” She laughs again, the sound somehow melodic among the forest and filling some of the empty space in Seulgi’s chest.
✖
It’s weeks before the first camps are set up, but it’s all rushing to get to them. Not wanting to deal with protests, Seulgi sends Joy into the mountains with Jongin, telling the younger girl to bite her tongue and be ‘good’.
“You’re not my mother,” Joy huffs at her as Seulgi tucks her hair under a cap to keep it hidden.
“Thank fuck for that,” Seulgi says with a slanted grin, patting her cheeks. “Your mother left you in a barrel when you were six to go gamble away her sanity. I’m so glad I’m not her.” Joy sticks her tongue out at her, but Seulgi isn’t surprised when she jumps on her a moment later in a near bone crushing hug.
“Stay alive,” she murmurs into the skin of Seulgi’s neck, arms tight around the old woman’s neck.
“When have I not,” Seulgi tells, her hugging back just as tight before letting her go to the safety of the Orders with Jongin.
The war camps are a mess. Soldiers running about under barked orders from superiors and commanding officers. “Do you think they get off on all this power tripping?” Seulgi murmurs to Wendy as they walk to one of the officers tents.
“Probably,” Wendy says, casting a look at one purple-faced man, screaming at his cadets to pitch a tent properly. “It’s not like they can get anything else in this miserable place.”
“It’s a good thing you never had any manners,” Seulgi says with a slight smile. “Or I’d have to remind you of them.”
“Thank fuck,” Wendy says and laughs with her as they turn down the main path.
They had both been recruited early on, Regal offering the best price for mercenaries among the Tri-Allegiance. They’d been positioned in a different sector of the camps, lest their ‘natures’ influence the other pledged soldiers somehow. They also, because of their extensive knowledge of the Wilderness, are given higher rank and permission and duties for the planning of attacks.
Their general, a shorter man who is about as human as he is cyborg, is softer than he’d first presented himself. Cunning and with a brain for war and governing troops, Minseok ends up being more along the lines of someone Seulgi feels should be in charge of wars. The decisions he’s made so far in the brief small attacks they’ve had were all far beyond the simple decisions Seulgi has seen in some of the other armed forces she’s watched go into battle.
“This is a war,” Sehun, one of the soldiers who works closely with Minseok had told her when Seulgi had mentioned it to him. “Wars are not battles. War is larger than just one fight, it’s many.”
“Thank you for clearing that up,” Seulgi tells him dryly. “I was really confused about the two.” Minseok had thrown her a look that told her he didn’t approve, but still thought she was funny.
It had left Seulgi oddly pleased after reporting to him for duty.
“What’s the news this morning?” Seulgi asks, walking into the tent and nodding to the captain standing just inside. Chanyeol steps aside, nodding to her in turn and flashing her a small smile. “Anything exciting from Utopica?”
“I was hoping you could tell me,” Minseok says, frowning as he looks over their terrain board. The projected image of the three dimensional Wilderness glows in synthetic colors above the ground at about waist height. The Old Ruins are marked out in red, Utopica’s borderlands outlined in yellow and their lands in blue amid the green of the basic terrain. “You took out the labs in the western districts of the old capital, did you not?”
“I may have,” Seulgi answers, shifting her weight as Wendy throws her a look. “What about it? Are they using the labs again? Those were leveled.”
“They’re not using the labs, but I think they’re using a developed form of the prototype they had been creating in those labs,” Minseok says, nodding to Chanyeol. The other man produces from behind his back a battered and ripped up soldier’s pack, clearly been through battle. From it he pulls a few items, clicking them into the processors by the walls of the tent.
Immediately, the projection of the field map vanishes instead into a frozen image of what appears to be an attack. Soldiers, their soldiers, are fleeing while the monsters Seulgi had faced in the western districts charge into the viewer. They’re not exactly the same, but Seulgi knows them. The black skin, the eyes, the limbs and the forms of them sends a shiver up her spine again.
“When was this taken?” Seulgi asks, her voice darker as she looks at the image and notices a few differences. The Beasts had definitely been upgraded, perfected from the prototype she’d taken out.
“Last night,” Chanyeol answers, stepping into the image and flickering with the reflected light. “A special unit had been sent into enemy territory. We lost contact with them about twenty minutes after they crossed the Rhye and one of our men arrived back with this pack just before dawn.”
Swallowing down the tightness in her throat, Seulgi nods. “How is he?”
“Dead,” Minseok answers curtly. He doesn’t flinch, instead nodding to Chanyeol and switching the landscape back into view. At the look Wendy sends him, Minseok sighs. “It was for the better. He asked for it rather than any alternatives. Said he’d rather die than become half of himself.” He smiles with a bit of a twist, flexing his own bionics hand as if in reminder to himself.
Seulgi hasn’t met many who are so intimately constructed out of machine, but from the look on Minseok’s face, they have their own stories, and they’re not pleasant.
“What can you tell me about these creatures?”
“Soldiers,” Seulgi corrects, tasting the bile rising to the back of her throat once more. Minseok’s eyes widen and Chanyeol’s brow furrows. Seulgi takes in a deep breath. “They’re not Beasts, they’re soldiers. Part of the super line that Utopica had been conducting since they introduced the Genus project two years back. These-“ she gestures to the pack still held in Chanyeol’s arms “-are the next step, blending Beast with soldier to create-“
“Monsters,” cuts in a new voice as one of the majors steps into the tent. “We’re fighting monsters, ladies and gentlemen.”
“You’re late,” Chanyeol says, frowning at the major as he walks into the group, taking his hat from his head with a graceful sweep.
“I’m here though,” Jongdae says, grinning up at him. “That’s the important part you seem to be missing.”
“Here doesn’t excuse being late,” Minseok corrects and stares down his grinning Major. “Fall in.” He sighs, turning to Seulgi. “We need to know whatever you know about these things,” he tells her, glancing at Wendy. “Both of you, seeing as you’re the only useful mercenaries we have in this damned camp.”
“Thank you for that glowing compliment,” Wendy mumbles under her breath as Minseok turns to chew out a grinning Jongdae about time tables while Sehun sniggers in the background.
“Take what you can get with these kind of people,” Seulgi says turning to the other woman. “And be thankful we’re not with Song back in the third division.”
“True,” Wendy says, before turning back to the arguing men. “Do you think they’d mind if I called them all to order?” she muses, looking them over. “Or is that against their time schedules too?”
Seulgi snorts and hides her laugh into her hands, reminding herself that war is no place for laughing. Then again, they have to find a positive point somewhere amid the grim setting.
✖
Consider it an honor.
To hell with honor in Seulgi’s opinion. Honor can go and take it’s prideful ass and go stick itself up a tree for all she cares. She’s more invested in saving her own hide from certain death. The certain death being the territory she and about five hundred other soldiers are currently marching into.
“Ironic, isn’t it?” Wendy says from beside her, a military grade helmet from Regal strapped to her head. “We spend most of our time fighting to fuck up these bastards and in the end wind up fighting for them and dying just like the others.”
“We’re not dead yet,” Seulgi says shifting the bulky pack on her back and trying to adjust to the weight. She’s not used to carrying around so much equipment. Most of it (basically all of it) is entirely unnecessary in her opinion. The soldiers out here are just going to get slaughtered, no reason to burden them down in the fight for their lives.
“Thanks for that optimism,” grunts Chanyeol from beside them. He’s almost comical in how tall he is out here, a blatant target with his captain’s uniform. “We really need that for morale.”
“You know what’s great for morale?” Jongdae chirps from ahead of them, turning in the marching formation to grin at them. “A heartwarming war ballad.”
“If you sing I’ll shoot you myself,” Seulgi tells him pointedly. “Save the enemy the trouble.”
“They’d just rip your head off anyway,” Wendy reminds brightly, a twinkle in her eyes. “Then you definitely won’t sing anymore.”
“You two are seriously going to doom all of our soldiers before they even fight,” Chanyeol sighs, shaking his head at the two mercenaries.
“I like them,” Sehun chirps. Somehow, the young cadet had managed to fit himself in with his superiors, wiggling probably with his duties as Minseok’s page into their social world. He’s a sweet kid and Seulgi will be sad to see him die.
“See? Sehun has excellent taste,” Wendy says, grinning and punching the stringy cadet in the arm. “Pity he has to die.”
“Pity we’re all going to die,” Seulgi adds.
“Morale,” Chanyeol says pointedly as Jongdae does a horrible job at hiding a laugh. It’s morbid, extremely morbid humor at the entire thing, but there’s no point in skirting the truth. “Please.”
“Fine,” Seulgi says, looking up at him and tilting her helmet back. “We’re not marching into battle. We’re just all going for a very heavily armed picnic with Utopica and they’re going to make us flower crowns.”
“I said optimism not insanity,” Chanyeol tells her, though his mouth twitches.
“You get a gold star for effort though,” Jongdae tells her and throws her a thumbs up. “I liked it at least.”
“That’s because you’re a suck up,” Sehun chimes in and grins a moment later when Chanyeol laughs, clearly pleased with himself and Jongdae’s deflating expression.
They’re right on the border, the terrain mapped out for them earlier in the tents with extensive detail from Minseok. Seulgi is a relatively sure it’ll all go to shit once actual fighting begins, but it sounds like with his plans they’ll at least win the battle with some survivors.
The tensions are running high though, and Seulgi can feel it among the soldiers. They’re all thinking it as they pick between the Wilderness, that they’re walking to their deaths and too afraid to say it. Most of them have never faced death and, like Chanyeol, Seulgi understands wanting to avoid the topic and soften the concept.
But, unlike Chanyeol, Seulgi knows that sometimes it’s easier to deal with if the topic isn’t taboo. They’ll scare themselves into a quick death if they’re too afraid of death to fight.
“If you live-“ Sehun begins with a shake in his voice.
“When I live,” Seulgi corrects him as the young cadet steps up to her. “Stop thinking in ‘if’s, Sehun, you’ll just make yourself sick.”
“If I die,” Sehun rephrases, looking at her with weight in his brown eyes. Seulgi doesn’t correct him this time. “Can you deliver a message?”
Biting her lip, Seulgi steps back a bit from the younger man. “I’m a mercenary, Sehun. Not a messenger.”
“It’s for my family,” Sehun explains. “And-“ he blushes.
“What is it?” Seulgi asks, wanting to get it over with before Sehun gets too worded. She’s seen the color of his skin and the way he stays away from meals, the puncture wounds at his neck. Those who have been ‘turned’ are rare, but primarily because they bond immediately to those that select them to turn rather than feed on.
It makes Seulgi wonder who Sehun belongs to, who he left for war and who is waiting for him to come home.
Or not.
A low swoop in her stomach has her stepping closer, leaning into the younger man and his pale cool skin. “Just-“ Sehun takes in a shuddering breath and presses something into her hands. “Just give it to him. And tell my family I love them.” He smiles, a bit of fear flickering behind his eyes as he looks down at her.
“I give you my word,” Seulgi tells him, and means it as her fingers close around the token. She smiles herself, hitting him with a light punch to the shoulder. “Stay alive.”
The soft laughter and smile from Sehun has Seulgi’s smile widening, reaching up to bat his helmet a bit before stepping back. He reminds her just a little of Joy, the bright smiles and cute concern under the tall figure and serious looks. Except Joy is safe up in the mountains with Jongin, and Sehun is most likely walking directly into-
“Attack!” shouts from the far left, and Seulgi whips to the cry, hand flying to her hip. The hand cannons she usually carries are upgraded, the electromag charges replaced with a higher charge, guaranteeing a kill even if the chamber isn’t loaded with a bullet. At the far left flank of their unit, Seulgi can just make out a swarm of something seething around the soldiers in the area.
“At arms!” bellows Chanyeol’s voice from directly behind her, suddenly much louder than she’d ever heard him. “Soldiers! Brace for-!”
He never finishes, as instead of the surge from the left a sudden screech erupts directly in front of them and a massive Beast plows through the front infantry. It’s much larger than the Beasts Seulgi found in the western distracts, enormous broad leathery wings stretching from a body too thin to be human any longer as a screaming face with wide bloodshot human eyes stares down at the soldiers.
It’s exactly as Seulgi had thought, the footmen stilling for just a moment in shocked horror at the monster as it stares them down. “Fight!” she screams at the top of her voice, shoving through stunned soldiers forward.
The delay from shock costs men their lives, the Beast ripping through them as more of the abominations descend on them. The sudden dull thuds and cracks of weapons firing filling the air. Seulgi runs, legs never ceasing as she fires round after round into the never ending flood of Beasts rushing into the military flanks.
It’s a blur of endless movement, constant screaming sounds and the hard packing of bodies coming into contact amid the dull thuds and cracks of firearms going off. Amid the fray and the blasts from her own hand cannons, Seulgi can hear the high bangs of Wendy’s rifle, double loaded with specially designed cartridges infused with her Nyx magic. Lethal and something she never wants to deal with, Seulgi steers herself clear of it.
The new Beasts are something out of a nightmare, the human qualities tainting their voices to a grotesque scream that rattles her bones. They fight unlike anything she’s ever seen, and even the Janus T1200 units that have been called into action in the second rows of infantry aren’t a proper match. Seulgi watches them go down with a sort of bittersweet vindication, knowing their flaws from having taken them down herself.
The number of bodies ahead and around the area keeps increasing, more soldiers from the Tri-Alliance rushing up to take the place of the fallen and the Beasts keep coming. “Chanyeol!” Seulgi yells, turning from where she’s just taken down another monster to try to see through the fighting. The captain is no where to be seen, and Seulgi swears, running back through the battle.
They need to fall back, the area ahead too perilous and pushing forward just puts them into Utopica lands that are most likely rigged with mines. Watching how the Beasts are falling on them, it’s from the trees, not the ground, meaning the ground probably isn’t safe.
Snarling as something catches her arm, Seulgi turns with the barrel of her hand cannon pressed into the face of her captor. Jongdae stares back with massively wide eyes.
“Pax!” he shouts over the fighting. “Pax! I won’t kill you, promise!”
“Where’s Chanyeol?” Seulgi shouts, pulling away only to bring up her gun again and shoot directly over Jongdae’s shoulder. The shot hits directly into the eye of one of the Beasts, sending it screaming to crash into the ground. Jongdae stares at her with wide astonished eyes, flinched away from the gun.
“Do you always just do that?” he yells over the battlefield.
“Mostly,” Seulgi shouts back, twisting to check the area for assault. “We are in a war at the moment.” Shooting another Beast that charges into the area, she turns back to the Major with her teeth grit. “Where the fuck is Chanyeol?”
“Back in the second lines,” Jongdae shouts, pushing himself up to fire at his own targets. Seulgi almost stares as he draws a blade, electric blue and twists it with the agility of a specialist. “Something to do with the second wave of support.”
“Good,” Seulgi grits out. “Stay alive!” she shouts before running off, barreling into the thick of the fighting that has centered in the middle of their flank. The nest of Beasts all ripping through soldiers is nothing but a death circle and Seulgi fires into it. Any human she hits is as good as dead anyway, seeing as the Beasts will have taken whatever life from them by the time she can break it apart.
“Fucking wars,” Seulgi snarls, flinging herself to the side just as a Beast flies at her, dropping from the sky. “Fucking-“
The next words are smashed from her chest as one of the enormous leathery wings slams down on her, crushing the air from her and leaving her stunned. Gasping and fighting to regain herself, Seulgi opens her eyes to the wide gaping face of the Beast.
“Shit,” wheezes from her lips as the thing screams and dives at her. It crashes against her, but where the sink of teeth into her flesh should be comes nothing, just the painful rip as they catch on her and the head… rolls away.
“Stay alive!” bellows at her in fury, and Seulgi blinks up to the livid almost glowing multicolored eyes of a woman she never thought she’d see again. “What did I tell you to do? Stay alive!” Irene doesn’t hesitate to snarl at her as she leans down and grabs Seulgi from the ground, hoisting her up.
She looks vibrant, even dressed in full battle armor. It’s unlike the rest of the soldiers, instead perfectly fit to her in full micromail and plated with a metal Seulgi’s never seen before. In her free hand rests a bloodied sword, shining even in the dim light and grime as Irene glares at her.
Despite the fighting, Seulgi can’t even deny the rush of happiness at seeing her. It’s strong enough that she laughs, the sound bubbling from her chest as she takes in the shifter’s irate expression.
“I thought I told you do go away,” Seulgi says, biting down the smile on her face. It’s hardly the place for a reunion, the carnage around them extensive, but still, Seulgi can’t help but feel oddly delighted.
“Yeah, you did,” Irene snaps at her and then snorts in irritation. “Moron,” she adds before her mouth quirks. “I thought you would have figured that I was too good to give up.”
“I don't like pets,” Seulgi says. A moment later she pushes Irene down, out of the way as a Beast lunches, shooting it straight into the mouth and through the back of the head. Pulling back, she feels Irene’s arm hook around hers tightly as the shifter pulls her close, almost chest to chest.
“I’m not your pet,” Irene tells her, breath ghosting over Seulgi’s mouth. “I claimed you as my tribe because I want you to be my tribe.” Her eyes burn with that same foreign and exciting depth that makes Seulgi’s skin writhe in response, her heart racing. “That's my bond with you.”
As Irene’s grip on her arm tightens, Seulgi’s mind flashes back to the conversation with Sehun, and her eyes widen with the possibility. A bond that is beyond just the master and pet formula that Jongin had specialized and used on them and instead something stronger, deeper than that.
Similar to the kiss that latched Sehun to whoever his blood-feeding mate is.
“Oh,” Seulgi says, and Irene’s eyes flicker. Then she smiles, and her teeth are revealed to be pointed, vicious looking.
“Live first,” Irene says, pulling back with a pointed graze of her fingers to Seulgi’s side. “Then talk.” As she withdraws, she slowly disintegrates into ash, her body shifting in one smooth motion into the massive form of a wolf, twisting in the air as she launches at an approaching Beast.
A grin taking over Seulgi’s mouth, she nods, turning herself with Irene at her back for cover, and lets loose the fires of hell from her own weapons. It’s like being free, familiar with Irene’s patterns of combat so the two move together almost flawlessly, Seulgi maneuvering through Irene’s patterns and the two twisting through the battlefield to take down the hords of Beasts.
Among the carnage, it’s a beauty of violence between a team that that day earns the name ‘Unstoppable.’
✖
Two things come from the first battle with Utopica. The first is a victory for the Tri-Alliance. The second is that Seulgi and Irene as a duo spread like wildfire, labeled as the deadliest team on the field. Walking amid the tents, Seulgi smirks to herself as she hears some of the surviving soldiers talking about them, recounting the battle and claiming they’d seen unimaginable things.
Good, Seulgi thinks to herself as she hears them talk about how she supposedly took down fifteen Beasts in one blow. Stories like that are good, for both work and for intimidation.
It’ll put her and Irene at a higher profile and probably in a bit more danger, but it’ll also mean less will mess with her. Names have power, and they can do things that others without that status can’t.
The best is that so far, no one has seemed to understand that the wolf on the battlefield that did take down at least seven Beasts in one attack is the same as the woman who walked with Seulgi back at camp. It means that no one saw her shift, and that those who claim to are quickly silenced as being ignorant.
Minseok, to his credit, kept whatever observations to himself. The battle had seen shifts in his men that he hadn’t expected or counted on. The fight had brought out the hidden natures in most of the men, the mixed blood that shows just how few of them are pure human. The men suddenly shifting and changing in the midst of the fray, Sehun’s turned form as he moved at inhuman speeds and strengths, tearing through foes. The most shocking had been when Seulgi had come up against what she initially thought were more mutant soldiers from Utopica only to realize the half cat and gryphon were the major and captain of her division.
Stepping into the main general’s tent, Seulgi wouldn’t know from looking at Jongdae and Chanyeol that they were anything but human had it not been for the events the day before. Seeing her, both men incline their head in a respectful nod.
“At ease, soldiers,” she says, smirking a bit at the rare respect shown from both of them.
“I’ll prefer that you don’t try to steal my chain of command from me,” Minseok says dryly, turning from his makeshift desk to look at her. He smiles, the fresh wounds on his neck and face making the expression somewhat grim. “I’d like to think you an ally, not a threat. Especially after the display you and your familiar put on yesterday.”
Seulgi doesn’t bother to correct him on the term ‘familiar’. After Wendy had summoned up a horde of unspeakable monstrosities from who knows where, nothing is too far out of the question. Or the imagination. Instead, she laughs, stepping up to the general with ease. “Wouldn't dream of it. I didn't sign up to order around a bunch of new bloods to run blind into attack. You did.” Minseok’s smile twitches. “I’m just here for the pay.”
That had been the agreement. The Tri-Alliance is wise enough to know the mercenaries won’t ally themselves for too long, the tie of control and command too volatile. Their own allegiance isn’t meant to last either, and while their own citizens may be loyal, they know the mercenaries not to be.
The benefit is that those among the troops that are paid to fight are now marked in war. Like it or not, Seulgi’s newfound fame has just painted her on a side and her neutrality is done.
At the side of the tent, Jongdae lets out a scoff, poorly disguised. Seulgi ignores him, her eyes on the general.
“You’re later than I thought you'd be,” Minseok tells her, stepping back to the desk and swiping his hand over the main processor. “Wendy was here at dawn to collect her payment, and she wasn’t even the earliest.”
“I had business to attend to,” Seulgi says. Business such as smuggling Irene back into camp half naked trying to find the rest of her armor. It’s the sort of thing that keeps one up at night, breaking down a tent and reconstructing it to accommodate a wolf that doesn't actually exist. “I would hope that doesn’t effect my pay.”
“Not at all,” Minseok tells her, letting out a long sigh as he looks over the flashing projected screen before him. “Just means we can enjoy your charming company a bit longer.”
“And optimism,” Chanyeol grumbles from the side. He doesn't lower his eyes when Seulgi directs a sharp look at him, simply stares back with the steel countenance that tells her he knows. She lingers, wondering if he’ll speak up about Irene, and lets out a silent breath when he instead blinks slowly, giving a small nod.
It’s not much, but the knowledge of knowing the shifters themselves will keep their brethren safe is enough for her. She’d seen Chanyeol shift, larger than Irene had been in her own form and just as terrifying in battle as a great creature from the old legends. The soldiers are all calling what they saw a demon, risen by the Witch Queen who had summoned the dead army.
All things considered, Seulgi is rather satisfied her own name isn’t as terrifying as the others. Or as humiliating as Jongdae’s, who has been formally redubbed ‘cat-man’ by half the camp.
“Do you require anything else?” Minseok asks, turning to her. “Aside from payment of course.” He pauses, his bionic arm extended over the screen. “Of course, you would be offered more to stay on as a permanent member of the militia. Regal would pay you well to serve with it.”
“Just the payment,” Seulgi says, flashing him an empty smile as she steps back from the table. “In full, with the mark of completion towards the account. I’ll be out of the camps by nightfall.” She lets her smile broaden, stepping back further with a wide sweep of her hands. “It’ll be as if I was never here.”
“From what the troops are clamoring about, I doubt there will be chance of it ever being as if you were never here,” Minseok says, though amusement lights up his war-hardened eyes. “Regal thanks you for your services.”
“And I thank it for my money,” Seulgi says, with a bit of a mocking bow. She nods to both Chanyeol and Jongdae as she leaves the tent, her eyes lingering on Chanyeol for just a moment longer. At the entrance of the tent, she offers a smile to Sehun, handing him the necklace he’d pressed into her hands the day before. “Give it to him yourself,” she tells him, her smile genuine this time to Sehun’s shocked face. “Stay alive for him and yourself, not the war.”
“But-“ Sehun sputters.
“Why do you fight?” Seulgi asks him, and turns before Sehun can answer him. She’d found her own purpose for fighting yesterday, a resonance that she’d forgotten in the years of solitude and mindless jobs between nations and endless warfare. With it again, she feels invigorated.
Taking the back paths to her own tent, Seulgi slips in through to peace and sanity away from the soldiers constant stares and whispers only to stop dead. “That’s my bed,” she tells the woman currently snuggled into her blankets, grinning up at her. Irene is clean, her skin almost shining and smooth where it peeks from under the thermal blankets. Seulgi knows without checking that Irene is bare under the blankets. She swallows. “You know, I haven’t even had a chance to lay in that bed yet.”
“So come join me,” Irene says, her smile widening as she sits up, the blankets falling away to reveal her smooth skin, skated with those foreign markings and her soft round breasts. “What’s stopping you? The fight is over.”
Sighing, Seulgi drops her pack that she’d carried to the general’s tent, her holster following it with her hand cannons. “Why are you still here?” she asks, looking at the woman in her bed with a weight in her chest. Irene frowns at her. “You’re not bound to me, in war or in payment. So why are you here? You can leave and be-” she clears her throat from the rising tightness “-free.”
“I am free,” Irene tells her, and lets out a soft laugh. Pushing herself to stand, the blankets falling from her to crumple at her feet. “I am free and I chose to be here. To be with you.” Seulgi pauses, taking her in, all of her, not just the skin but also the tone of her voice and the tilt of her head, the fire in her eyes. “I chose to come back, after you ‘released’ me and fight with you. You know that battle would not have done as well without me yesterday. You wouldn’t have-“
“So you saved my life,” Seulgi says, not moving away when Irene approaches her. “Are you seeking repayment then?”
“Not everything in the world is money,” Irene tells her, stepping up and into her space, her warm breath ghosting over Seulgi’s lips. “Some things go deeper than debts and dues and payments and contracts. They’re more than just being set free.” Her lips curve up in a soft smile as her eyes soften, the colors held behind the brown pulsing gently. “Some bonds are made without being forced, they’re chosen.”
Biting her lip, Seulgi suppresses the shiver that threatens to rush through her as Irene’s fingers brush up her arm, wrapping around her wrist and holding. The touch is hot, searing almost as it spreads through her so like the odd shivers and crawling she’d felt every time she’d thought of their ‘bond’ earlier. “So what kind of bond is this then?” she asks. “Is this you making me your tribe?”
“Well, since you refuse when I try to call you mistress,” Irene begins and laughs at Seulgi’s protesting grimace. “Then yes, this is me showing you that I want to stay with you, not out of duty or contract, but because I want to be.” Seulgi isn’t familiar with how confessions in the shifters work, but she’s rather sure this is one. Taking in a slow breath, she tries to read it in Irene’s eyes, to figure out if she’s right.
“It’s dangerous,” Seulgi says. She doesn’t want to say no really, because she already knows she misses Irene when she’s not there. Irene is something that reminds her of the meaning in life, behind what she’s doing, and together they’re unstoppable in combat.
“So is all of the world apparently,” Irene says, her voice light and teasing as she steps closer. “I’ll be careful. We’ll be careful.” She hesitates for a moment, and Seulgi stills, waiting for her to lean in and-
Seulgi almost jumps when Irene does, tilting her head as she presses closer and, instead of pressing her lips to Seulgi’s cheek, drags her tongue over the skin instead. She pulls back, an expectant look in her eyes that falters as Seulgi starts to laugh. “What?” Irene asks, a pout to her pretty lips. “I was displaying-“
“You affections?” Seulgi asks, the rising feeling in her chest not unwelcome. It’s not wise for a mercenary to travel with a companion, two targets slowing things down and causing complications. But the world is changing, and she is no longer a simple mercenary. She can make a few exceptions. Laughter quieting, Seulgi winds her arms around Irene’s waist, letting her hands run over the soft warm skin and relishing in the soft hitch of breath from the other woman. “Did Jongin teach you that?”
“No,” Irene says, and looks a bit stubborn despite the soft flush to her cheeks. “That’s how you humans show affection. By licking each other or-“
She stops as Seulgi leans in and gently presses her lips to Irene’s in a soft kiss. Pulling back, Irene’s eyes are slightly muted, and the flush in her cheeks has risen. “That,” Seulgi tells her, enjoying the warmth that spreads through her at the heating look in Irene’s eyes. “Is called a kiss. It’s how we, I, show affection.”
“Do it again,” Irene tells her, a quirk to her lips as she shifts to wind her arms around Seulgi’s neck luxuriously. “Or-“ She never finishes, instead leaning in herself and kissing Seulgi. It’s inexperienced, but it takes very little coaxing on Seulgi’s part before she’s kissing with a bit more finesse.
Irene had always been a fast learner, and as she pulls back, breathless and flushed, Seulgi has the distinct impression that Irene will be happy to learn many other things.
“You’ll have to be a wolf for a lot of the time,” Seulgi tells her seriously. “Not many will take that long before they realize the woman I travel with is the same as all the creatures I fight alongside on the battlefield.”
“As long as you don’t call me ‘Flower’,” Irene says, her bright eyes dancing as she winds her fingers into Seulgi’s hair. She joins in with Seulgi’s laughter, resting their foreheads together.
“So what should I call you?” Seulgi asks, her humming gently as she lets her lips travel along the curves of Irene’s jaw and neck. Watching them for weeks, it’s almost a relief to press her lips to them and feel the soft sigh of Irene against her.
“By my true name,” Irene murmurs into her ear, voice thick and sensual, resonating with an unspoken power. “Juhyun.”
“Juhyun,” Seulgi repeats into the soft skin of Irene’s throat and gets a confirming hum of approval in response. “My Juhyun.”
“My Seulgi,” Irene whispers low into Seulgi’s ear, tugging her closer and with a light laugh into the softness of another kiss.
✖
The soldiers, and no other that they encounter, dare to get in the path of Seulgi and her Great Wolf as they leave the camp that evening. It appears as if their story has spread like wildfire through the Tri-Alliance and their cities. Even Joy, when Seulgi finally gets in contact with her, laughs for an unnecessarily long time over the communicator at her newfound ‘celebrity status’.
Agreeing to meet on the borderlands of Regal and Janus, most of the journey is made with Seulgi walking beside Irene in her wolf form. As much as Irene likes to tease, flitting about shifting to tease Seulgi’s patience by becoming a raven or a mountain lion (and once a dragon), she easily apologizes with a soft kiss. Seulgi knows she’s going soft as she ends up forgiving Irene for these shows of mischief, humoring her jokes. She also grows more and more attached and fond of the other woman as the days pass.
When they meet on the border down of Regal, Seulgi finds herself with an armful of Joy, who is positively frantic with excitement at the return of her ‘baby’. Irene, to her credit, leaps and bounds about playfully with her, tumbling among the grasses outside the town gates as Joy laughs loudly. It leaves Seulgi to turn to the other two who had arrived with Joy.
Jongin simply smiles and nods in greeting, his face once more hosting the patchy stubble that Seulgi bites down a laugh at. Beside him is Wendy, decked out in entirely new clothing that shines blue in the catching light.
“You might have told me you were more than just working as a mercenary,” Seulgi tells her, taking in the other woman in the clear robes of the Priestess Maji.
“Well, I had to have some secrets of my own,” Wendy says, a quirk to her lips and her coal-lined eyes dancing in amusement. “Besides, I rather like the new name. ‘Witch Queen’ sounds far more ominous than ‘the Blue Lady’ ever did.”
“And terrifying,” Jongin adds helpfully. “Did you really raise a horde of the dead?”
“Ask Seulgi,” Wendy says with a teasing smile and glance at her. “She was there.”
“Thousands of them,” Seulgi tells Jongin, enjoying the stunning and slightly awed look on his face. “An army of them enough to take down a whole city.” It's a drastic exaggeration from what had happen, especially since what Wendy had summoned were definitely not undead but most likely creatures from her own dimension.
“I thought you didn’t practice black magic,” Jongin says, turning to Wendy with a bit of nervousness in his tone.
“Surprise,” Wendy chirps, winking at him before she and Seulgi laugh at the breeder’s obvious confusion. “I also see you have your pet back,” Wendy observes, looking out to where Irene and Joy are tumbling in the grasses. At her words, Irene stiffens, snapping her attention to the small group, her bright amber eyes fixed on Wendy.
Laughing, Seulgi wraps an arm around Wendy’s shoulders, smiling as Wendy’s confident expression falters slightly. “I dare you to call her a pet one more time,” Seulgi says, leaning into the new Order Maji. “See how forgiving she is.”
As if summoned, Irene comes bounding towards them, her large form forbidding as she slips to Seulgi’s side, her eyes fixed on Wendy.
The Maji Nyx laughs, her voice lighter as she regards them both. “So you realized it then?” she asks, looking between the two as Joy calls for Jongin to her. “What she is?”
“I have a pretty good idea,” Seulgi says, and her own look of meaning is strengthened as Irene growls low beside her. “I’d appreciate it if that was kept quiet though.”
“The only shifter in my knowledge is Captain Park,” Wendy says loftily, stepping back and brushing her bluish black hair over her shoulder. “He was the only one any saw on the battlefield. I said nothing about your pet.”
Irene snorts at her, and Wendy, to Seulgi’s surprise, snorts back. It startles a laugh out of Seulgi seeing the surprised look on Irene’s face, matched by the calmer expression on Wendy’s. She waves it off as nothing when Jongin and Joy join them, asking what’s so funny.
“Your attempt at facial hair, obviously,” Joy answers before Seulgi can, and it spurs all of them into laughter.
The sound rises in the air, lingering even as Seulgi and Joy depart with farewells to the others, Irene close to Seulgi’s side as they go. For a moment, it leaves the world in a brighter light, the sunlight hitting around the Wilderness and the mountains in the distance with a sort of calming brilliance.
“So,” Joy asks, looking between Irene and Seulgi. “This is a thing now?”
“Yes,” Irene says, shifting into her human form suddenly and earning a yelp from Seulgi as she leaps to drape over her. “Definitely a thing, little one.”
“I’m never going to get used to that,” Joy says, wide eyed as she watches Irene laugh and Seulgi roll her eyes as the shifter’s arms wind around her neck. “Seriously, can’t you warn?”
“Then it’s no fun,” Seulgi says before Irene can, and earns a laugh from her lover, as well as a soft swift kiss to the cheek.
“And that’s what life is all about now,” Joy asks, a definite note of skepticism in her voice as she watches Irene pull away to shift back into her wolf form. Bounding ahead, Seulgi watches her, the sleek gray fur and the power contained in her form.
“Among other things,” Seulgi says, a soft easy smile on her face. “We all have to stay alive for something.”
The sun lights up the world into hues of gold and brilliance, and Seulgi’s heart beats fully as Joy smiles at her, as if truly happy.
“Yes,” she says, nodding and her eyes bright and full as her gait lightens. “We do.”
The Wilderness is full of dangers, from the Old Ruins to the new battlefields and territories laid out with the outbreak of true war among the five nations. It also holds the promise of a future, the space between where a victory may one day be held, and those who did stay alive through it all, can see and end to the fighting.
With luck, Seulgi will be there for it. With even better luck, she won’t be alone. She smiles with the idea of a future where that’s not her dream, but her reality.
✖
a/n: I sincerely hope those who read through this enjoyed it. Dear recipient, thank you so much for the prompts. I didn’t get to spend as much time on this as I would have hoped, and I apologize if this doesn’t hold up to what you wanted. >,< A massive thanks to A for getting me through this and helping me figure things out, and hugs to R and tlist for helping me push to the end.