Run

General Agreian Jei Owen was, as expected, the last one to hear about the incident: Calintz, Captain of the Tears of Blood, had been gravely injured during the last assignment that his troop had given, one that had involved moving deep into enemy territory to set fire to a Yason outpost. One of the Four Warriors had been there. Calintz had stayed behind to buy his troop time to escape. Just before Lehas could send out a search party their captain had returned, soaked in blood and managing to limp up the road by using his sword as a walking stick. It was only after he had taken a head count of his men that he had allowed himself to collapse, right there on the stairs leading up to his base.

No one had questioned Agreian's sudden decision to leave the Alliance headquarters in Lester on the pretense of conducting a private survey of the area without an escort. So it was that he rode alone, moving through monster-infected wilderness and dispatching the occasional Blast Worm all the way up to the gates of the Tears of Blood headquarters. He made his way through the base, closing himself off from the bewildered eyes that followed him across space and the hushed words that rose up in his wake. General Agreian moved where he willed and it was easier for him to justify things if he himself were to believe that.

Calintz was the restless tiger in the cage of his room, pacing shirtless across the floor with his sword in hand. The sunbeams trailing in from the windows washed over sweat, bandages, bronzed skin and the crisscross of older scars before getting lost in snow white hair, in the depth of silver-blue eyes. Even when he was injured he moved with an indolent ease that was almost grace. There was no useless movement, no wasted energy. It made Agreian remember many things, like the taste and touch of those fingers currently curled around the hilt of that sword and how they used grip something else.

"You're here. I should be flattered, shouldn't I?"

"I was expecting you to lecture me."

"I'd like to think that I know my place better than that."

Years of practice enabled Agreian to pick up on the slightest hint of amusement in that somber voice or spot that small curve that indicated at a smile. Strength and rage and principle lay beneath the stillness, manifesting only in small gestures and a few choice words. In that sense, at twenty-three Calintz was already an old man, even beyond the fact that war had a way of aging anyone. He would only grow older in the days to come.

"So what brings the General to the home base of the Tears of Blood?"

"Nearly two months since the last time. It's been too long."

The blade sang as it whistled through the air, drawing the patterns of a school that had burned down ten years ago, in the dead of night. Calintz moved from form to form, steps tracing progress away from Agreian in the doorway. Distance was the way the silver-haired man defined their relationship. With the place they were in and the positions they held, it was the only option open to them.

By late afternoon no words were said and nothing was given but a kiss, and even that was not an invitation. Agreian would leave the Tears of Blood headquarters and return to Lester in the evening, to a lone desk and another empty bed.