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Towel draped atop his head to dry his hair, Shin slumped down at the foot of his bed, utterly defeated.
In spite of the poor water pressure (a result of the high altitude) the hot water had washed away the chill of the snow down his neck, but not his scalding embarrassment.
Exasperated, elbows resting on his knees and head bowed, he tried to work through his encounter with Lena.
What the hell was that?
How many times had he taken down foes point blank? And yet he’d choked at such crucial… At a time like that… in front of…
And to top it all off, while holding the door to re-enter the base, he’d taken a foot of snow directly to the head.
Her giggle at his misfortune still rang in his ears. A bell of shame tolling the untimely death of his dignity.
His comrades could never hear of this.
The soft pit-pat of water as it dripped from his hair onto the wooden flooring seemed like a ticking clock, judging him as his mind raced.
Lena had talked about her ideals so easily. Her dreams and wishes spilled out of her mouth as though they were no different than greetings to an old friend.
How could she carry all that hope with her wherever she went? Surely she understood that her ideals were impossible, heartbreak waiting to happen masquerading as pretty ideals. A mindset destined for tragedy.
How could she bear to live like that?
But even then… Judging Lena that way filled him with shame.
What did he have?
That familiar hollowness in his chest gave him no answer. He had nothing, no desires of his own. Only the self-preservation to see his friends live until the next day.
If she knew she’d think I was an animal…
Eat, sleep, kill, survive… Instinct was all he knew, or perhaps all that mattered…
That one wish, to show Lena the sea. He couldn’t even tell her.
Distracting himself from his spiral, Shin rose to his feet. Pulling on his underwear and drying the back of his neck with the towel.
The inside of the base was well insulated against the many feet of snow outside, but it wasn’t perfect and the chill still crept in through the crack of the door, raising bumps on his bare skin. Their pre-deployment briefing had been very clear that keeping dry and wearing layers were a key component of maintaining normality on the cut-off mountain base.
Reaching for his undershirt Shin caught a glance of himself in the small mirror above his room's basin.
The white of the snow outside reflected the moon more brightly than he was used to, illuminating his figure in an eerie glow. Like this he surmised that his appearance was somewhat ghoulish.
Assessing himself, Shin realised that he’d never paid much mind to his appearance.
He was above average in height, he supposed. His body was lithe from years of manual labour and active combat, but not toned in the way he’d seen televised back in the Federacy. Shin wasn’t sure if his body-type could be considered good or bad, only that it had been enough to keep him alive.
Yes, keep him alive.
On closer inspection the scars of countless battles marked him from head to toe.
The burn from when his cockpit had taken heavy damage left the skin on his right calf taught and pink. The ugly scar across his forearm where an inexperienced child had removed some stray glass, they’d stitched him up but an infection had set in quickly and left its mark in his flesh. Countless scars across his knuckles from fights, and cuts on his fingers from manual repairs.
He and his squad had hands calloused by years of hard work, something that he was proud of and regarded as a necessity and not a hindrance, but after living in the Federacy for a few months the group had quickly realised that such hands weren’t normal. That the “civilised” world valued a softer touch.
The kind of hands Lena had…
He couldn’t force himself to dislike any of these things about himself, his pride as an Eighty Six wouldn’t allow it. They’d made do with minimal supplies and little to no medical personnel. But he had to admit that the worst of them could be considered unsightly. Especially after setting foot in the grand halls of the United Kingdom’s royal family.
He couldn’t imagine prince Vika having to tourniquet a leg with strips of an old shirt and a discarded shoe. The thought was almost comical.
His body marked his experience but… Others probably would disagree.
That wasn’t even the worst of it.
If his form was abnormal, then his mind… That was in another league.
Kill me! Just kill me! I want to die!
Don’t leave me behind. Don’t leave me behind. Don’t leave me behind.
Hom…e…H…Hom…e…
The Sirins of the United Kingdom’s army were housed separately from the human units, and yet he could hear them regardless of the thick walls of the base. Distance was the only thing that dampened their voices, and here that was negligible.
If she knew the backdrop to his thoughts at all times… Maybe the fact he could hardly get his words out was the least of his concerns.
And then there was…
Shin traced the line of the scar at his neck with his thumb, deep in thought.
A gift from his brother. The headless reaper. Who would he be without it?
The cold moonlight spilling in from the window washed the colour from him, leaving him looking pale and gaunt and tired. The ring of light skin that had never faded circled his throat like a noose. A mark he’d covered for years because, even in his youth, he’d noticed others found it unsettling.
He’d moved past all that, right? Liberated that sense of shame when he’d gunned down his brother's ghost back in Legion territory. Put that sin behind him.
Still, he wasn't sure if he wanted Lena to see it. Not with those keen eyes of hers.
Even with all her optimism, what could she say?
To like it would be a lie, what positive spin could she put on such a repulsive scar? The hatred of his own kin.
Defeated, Shin felt revulsion creeping up his back.
Why think about these things? These thoughts were all superficial and irrelevant.
Lena would never have to worry about his appearance in this way. Whether she would look at him with disgust didn’t matter… Next time he could tell her. That he wished he could show her the sea. That fact that he didn’t know what would follow that… Once that goal was gone… Those were outside of his control.
Why would someone like her allow him to wish for more? She had her own hopes and dreams, his lacking vision would only serve as a deadweight.
Unable to meet his own scarlet gaze in the mirror, he pulled the shirt over head.
She shone so brightly it only seemed to bring attention to his own shadows.
Lena shut the door tightly behind her. Back pressed against the wood she fumbled for the lock.
How embarrassing.
She’d steered a pleasant evening off course. Pushed her ideals onto Shin when all he’d wanted was to show her the view…
There just seemed no helping it. The sorrow in his demeanour, their time spent apart… There was so much in her that she wanted to tell and share with him that it was like a floodgates of thoughts and dreams whenever they spoke.
He must think I’m a narcissist…
Trampling over his ideals with her naive hope for a better world.
“If the war ends then…”
He hadn’t even been able to finish his sentence.
What had Shin wanted to tell her?
Probably that he’d like to leave the military. Travel far away and settle down with his comrades. She couldn’t blame him for wanting to be around people who were like-minded, to seek out some well-earned peace and quiet far away from the hell he knew so well. But still, the idea felt deeply uncomfortable to her. Even after all these years, Lena wasn’t sure what she’d do without his footsteps to follow.
Childishly, she wanted to stay by his side for as long as she could.
The thought sent a pang through her chest, a realisation that left her feeling… Exposed.
Burying that feeling as deeply as she could, Lena instead sought to prepare for bed. Stripping off her uniform, making sure to fold it in preparation for the next morning, and replacing it with her ivory nightgown. It wasn’t quite thick enough for the harsh mountain environment, but the bunker was incredibly well insulated and, while impractical, the gown was one of the few items she had left of her old home.
Something about wearing it felt like removing the weight of her blood stained crown for a fleeting moment, a moment where she could instead be Lena, the young woman.
She carried out her nightly ritual without disturbance. Following a wash with a clean white towel she enjoyed a (slightly peculiar tasting due to the circumstances) cup of chamomile tea as she brushed her hair until it ran sleekly down her back. The familiar practice calmed her nerves, and by the time Lena sank back against her pillow she was moments from being carried off into sleep.
Except sleep never came for her.
She ran through her tasks for the following morning, it was an early start and her agenda for the day already ran into the late afternoon, that was without factoring in any unanticipated movement from the enemy. Because of that It was vital she be well rested.
The unyielding thick walls of the base, combined with the several feet of snow outside, trapped all sound in the room with her. The high-pitched hiss of the plumbing seemed unbearably loud, rivalled only by the ticking of her pocket watch placed atop of her neatly folded uniform. It’s ticking counting down each second as one without rest.
Lena felt heavy in her heart. A slow-moving sort of ache that came over her in waves and crept into the spaces she tried to clear in her mind. A foggy sort of distraction that sought to chase away the drowsiness she had worked so hard for.
It had been a picturesque evening. Before her conversation with Shin had taken a turn (and before he’d ended up covered in snow) it had almost felt intimate.
A moment shared between herself, and the boy she’d longed to meet, that she’d never forget.
The night sky high in the mountains had sprawled out endlessly, unhindered by work humans and untouched by war. Littered with more stars than she could have ever imagined. The moon casting a cold light that reflected upon the snow beneath their feet, shimmering and captivating all at once.
Shin’s figure had stood out as a stark silhouette in comparison, his winter coat and dark hair contrasting against the white all around him. His eyes however were as striking as always. Crimson red set behind dark lashes that were so often focused on something she couldn’t see.
It had been difficult, in the moment, to tear her gaze away. To ignore how his ears turned slightly pink in the chill, or his hot breath rising as mist in the cold air.
Thinking about it sent a thrill through Lena’s body, her mind groggy with a feeling she didn’t quite recognise.
Now that she considered it, she’d only had such a quiet (or rather private) meeting a handful of times in her life. Rarer still with a boy and never under the context of such a thoughtful gesture.
He wanted to show me the stars…
A fluttering feeling awoke in Lena’s heart.
Tossing and turning she wrapped her arms around her spare blanket, enjoying the sensation of her thighs pressed tightly together.
How would that hot breath feel against her skin? The brush of his hair against her cheek? His shoulders were broader than she had expected upon their meeting, or perhaps the voice she’d first become acquainted with belonged to a younger man than the Shin she knew now…
She had to admit, under the starlight, he was quite handsome…
Oh no.
At the revelation of her own train of thought Lena’s eyes snapped open, her blush scalding and hot with embarrassment.
Vladilena Milizé, what on earth is going through your mind right now?
It was an innocent enough thought, right? Right?
‘Handsome’ was pretty objective, beauty standards existed and if Shin’s sleek yet rugged form adhered to them that wasn’t a reflection on her!
She was a healthy young woman after all! It would be more peculiar if she didn’t notice his appearance!
The rationalisation sounded exactly like words spoken by Annette. The memory of a conversation from their youth played out in her mind. “It’s okay to have needs, you know? Lena, I have a novel I think you’d enjoy… Let me lend it to you? I think it would help you!”
Lena sat up in bed.
She did not have needs, especially not those kinds of needs and especially not while she was deep in enemy territory!
How shameful, utterly unprofessional of her to have thoughts… Feelings like that about any of her colleagues… Even more so about…
He would be repulsed to know that she had considered him that way, even briefly.
She was his superior officer after all, it was wholly inappropriate.
Lena’s yawn was so deep the sensation was transmitted through her connection.
“…We boring you out here, Colonel?” Theo scoffed.
It was late morning and the squad were patrolling the base’s perimeter, their Reigenleifs struggling with the snow banks blown in by the night’s harsh north winds.
“Hm?” Lena didn’t immediately catch on to the joke, distracted by something. “Oh, I’m sorry! How rude of me…”
“Colonel, you’re resonating with a large number of units daily,” Shin’s voice was as collected as ever but his concern, while unclear to him, was obvious to his squad-mates. “You should increase your rest periods to accommodate-“
Lena cut him off, strangely she sounded embarrassed. “Oh no, it’s nothing to do with that! I was up late with paperwork! Nothing for you to worry about, Lieutenant.”