Flashback

Grineer thoughts

Tenno Thoughts

It was a quiet night, out on the Plains. Stars shining from up above, reflecting off an azure river. Wind, whispering an ancient song, rustling through the grass. Private Krakkr, freshly deployed to Earth, sat on a rock, watching over the camp, reassured in the notion that the sniper who was perched above them all would keep his back safe. All in all, a peaceful night. There had been a disturbance, earlier, when they came across a party of fishing Ostrons. The had killed them of course. It was Imperial Policy-any natives that did not submit themselves to Grineer dominance would be killed.

5 of them, 3 male and 2 female, carrying those silly primitive fishing spears, standing on the lakeshore, joking and laughing as they worked. That was their first mistake. It was really only evidence of the superiority of Grineer Culture, their right to take in lesser cultures and uplift them. If it was a Grineer fishing party, they would've done it much differently. Two outwatchers, to keep the group safe, two throwers of the spears to kill the fish, and the last one to clean the spears of guts and bone, so that they were always ready to be thrown. No joking, no laughing. Simple. Efficient. The way things should be. When the patrol had heard the fishing party they had, as was mandatory and proper, demanded their surrender. The natives had refused, for reasons Krakkr could not fully understand. Did they not see the superiority of the Grineer, of their technology, of their form, of their culture? What had their stupid pride gotten them? Bullets and death. They had died swift, clean deaths. Efficient, and straightforward. As it should be. Except for one male, who had managed to scratch the Captain's armor with his spear. That one did not get the luxury of a quick death.

His screams died before he did.

Krakkr turned his eyes back to the field, his rifle slung loosely across his chest. Rocks, grass, the sniper hut, there! Something was wrong. A glimmer in the darkness, a glint of steel-Private Krakkr died without ever feeling the round enter his the other end of the scope, the Warframe, a black Mag with silver inscriptions nodded. One down. Gathering herself, she bullet jumped towards the sniper hut, feeling the gras fall away below her feet, her body wrapped in the midnight air, flying across the ground. Jumping in to the sniper's hut, she finds herself face to face with a stupefied Grineer Sniper, its ugly face contorting into hatred and disgust. Her Nami puts a stop to that. And now she flies onto the camp, her Syndana flowing out behind her like the wings of the Ostron goddess of death she had inspired. And what name had they given her? Alina Lolo, or Night Butterfly. Not quite the awe inspiring names she had heard others been given-Blood Maw, Earthshaker, Flamebringer-but still. It gave her a quiet dignity that belied her deadliness, and it was something entirely hers. And at the very least she had done better than some others-she knew an Oberon who the Ostrons called Tree-Stepper. Probably why he was so camp was silent-silent in life, silent in death. And as the sun crept over the Horizon, and the first ships came screaming down to the surface, nobody saw a Butterfly slipping into the caves.