It's her duty

"So you failed to seize the body of the boy," a woman in a hood said as she was staring away at the outside from the balcony she was standing on, "you disappoint me a lot, Ludena".

"Leave me alone already! How could I have known that he would how to use his power so soon?", Ludena was standing behind her and responded while she took off her hood to reveal her pretty face and her long purple hair, she looked quite young around her twenties but by her tough expression, one would think that she was not the friendly type of person. "It's not like I was underestimating his high capacity of reflection, I was pretty cautious to not reveal any hints that would lead him to figure things out but this boy's mind is sharper than expected".

She walked few meters to let herself fall on the couch left on the side. Besides one part of the room illuminated by the light coming in from the balcony, the other part was plunged into darkness. The shadow of the other woman was big and it expanded until the dark part of the room.

She was staring down, now, at the street and slowly a slight smile appeared on the visible part of her face like a king savoring his kingdom from the highest spot of the castle. [You look like a creep at smiling by yourself like that for no reason] Ludena was careful to not express her thoughts out loud as she wasn't sure what that woman was capable to do.

"Well, it can't be helped now. What is in the past stays in the past and we can't change things by lamenting and rejecting the fault on each other", she turned around and walked toward her partner and declared "at this point, we can only carry on our plan without the boy's help. You will have a new occasion to get him once we will capture him after invading that city".

"Have you finished conditioning your mindless slaves? I remember your last attempt to invade them was countered splendidly overnight", Ludena asked with a bored uninterested tone while playing with her hair, "for someone who is so eager to point out my failures you are sure quick to forget yours".

The woman raised one hand and showed her index finger, "one. It's not a failure because my intention back then was not to invade them", she then lifted her middle finger in a sort of forming a 'V', "two. It has greatly helped me to assert their overall strength so I can prepare efficiently my next attack".

"Nice way to say you've failed" Ludena whispered between her teeth while rolling her eyes, she quickly added a question to revert her attention, "so? What did you learn?"

The concerned one had, in reality, heard the first sentence but she chose to let it slide for now, "they have two awakened ones who can counter my dark spell and kill my minions, they're the ones put at the front line, thus constitute their principal force, but there is also... an odd one whom we should be cautious of".

Ludena looked a bit puzzled, clearly not seeing whom her partner was referring to. "I'm sure you saw him through that boy's memories" the latter gave her a hint.

The young woman closed her eyes and tried to remember by looking into the pieces of memories she stole from Matteo the limited time they were still mentally connected. Before he cut off their connection and ejected her indefinitely from his mind, Ludena could sneak in and steal from his memory the least valuable information. Whenever Matteo would feel that a piece of information was important he would unconsciously lock it in a protected part of his memories which would cost her much time and effort to get it, so instead, she would wander on the surface of his head looking for the valuable information he had judged not important.

It was through this way that they learned that Jamal was out of the city, even if it was a bit late, as it was on the same day they learned when he was coming back and to prepare the ambuscade they would later set for him, she looked for the itinerary Matteo had taken that day she arrived in Stainfall and after that, she took possession of one of her partner's minions to guide a small group of them to intercept him.

The drawback of that connection was that Matteo could too, look into her head though until here he was doing that unconsciously. It was this way that he learned their plan to intercept Jamal on his way back but also the fact that they were using the exiled criminals of this side of the city to transform them into undead.

Thinking about that Ludena remembered, "oh, you mean that Jamal guy?" She chuckled, "if I understand well, he proclaims himself to be their protector, is that right? He sounds as embarrassing as you are, Rabe".

"Don't laugh!" The latter took a particularly serious tone as she was trying to warn her partner, "that man is strong. For us, he is as much of a threat as the awakened ones, thus I would advise you to not lower your guard, this time we must not fail. We have to retrieve that girl and the boy at all cost".

"Yes yes," Ludena repeated, still with her bored tone of voice, "as long as you manage to give me an opportunity to take a glance at the brat I can invade her head and guide her to where you will be".

Rabe seemed not satisfied, she frowned as she asked her for more details, "what about the boy?"

"Huh? Do you want me to deal with that one too?" Though she had said simply as a joke, Rabe's angry glare quickly told her that it was not time to mess around, she swallowed heavily as she responded, "don't worry, I will use the girl's body to charm him and guide him wherever I want and in the worst case I take him by force".

The woman in front of her didn't reply immediately, she stared at her for a short moment before she nodded and walked silently to the balcony. "Prepare yourself well, we will soon make our move" she declared as she was staring down at the hundreds of immobile undead laying on the grounds in rows, just waiting for their master to complete the transformation process and give them the order to wake up and serve her.

•••

Don was going back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room as he was setting the table and placing the food, after he finished he took his time to observe the dinner he has prepared, and only once he was satisfied that he decided to go call Volga.

When he arrived in the room he found his fiancee just leaving the bathroom with one towel covering her hair and another one covering her body from her chest to above her knees as she just finished taking a shower. Don was at the door and for the first moments, he was silent and immobile, too captivated by the body of his beautiful lover until the latter took him back from his hypnosis-like state by calling his name more than two times.

"You wanted something? I heard you calling me".

Don blinked twice and stuttered few seconds as he was trying to remember why he was there, "hum... oh yeah, just to tell you that dinner is ready and I'm already waiting for you".

The woman nodded and walked towards her closet, "OK, give me minutes five minutes to put some clothes on and I will join you there".

While they were eating, Don was talking to Volga about the numerous progress they did at the hospital, many of them had already reached the end of their treatment with him and were able to go on their lives and slowly heal by themselves. "Daphne is already off her addiction and she even said that she is getting less and fewer nightmares at night and with this rhythm I think that she can-" he noticed that it's been she has been at her plate for a moment now without any reaction, "anything wrong?"

"Hmm?" She raised her head abruptly, turned right and left as if she was looking for the voice that talked to her before she landed her eyes on Donald, "you said something?"

"You have been staring at your potatoes for a moment now while looking lost in your thoughts so I was wondering if there was anything bothering you".

Volga plunged her fork into her plate taking a portion of mashed potatoes, stuffed it in her mouth and after she swallowed it, she shook her head responded, "I was just thinking about something but nothing important".

"Are you sure?" Don wasn't buying it at all as she didn't bother elaborating a good excuse, "you wanna talk about it? I know you have been looking preoccupied since you came from your meeting with Jamal and Lina", he paused, "is it concerning that danger he was talking about in the event of earlier?"

Volga's fork in her hand froze midway while her mouth was still open but since she didn't know what to respond she just shrugged and continued eating.

"I see..." Don sighed while putting his hands on the table.

Seeing that he started to frown she hurriedly grabbed his hand to reassure him, "you don't have to worry about that as he has said earlier, they have the control of the situation, they just need the cooperation of the citizens to accomplish some request but overall everything's fine so don't worry too much about that".

Don simply nodded and continued eating in silence, since from than he didn't pronounce a word until they finished Volga was worried that she had somehow unintentionally upset him so she was very glad when he came to propose her to go out for a walk after he finished washing the dishes.

"It's been a while I haven't been outside in such a nighttime, I even forgot how cold it usually is" Don declared while rubbing his right hand in his armpit to try warming himself up.

Volga knew that though he was trying to put a tough act, the reality was that he was pretty scared being outside on a moonless night. Despite the cold, while they were holding hands, his hand was sweating a lot and she would even find him instinctively clenching on her hand, from time to time, whenever they would hear noises such as the wind hitting the leaves of a tree or the movements of the animals. Volga didn't make any remark on it as she didn't want to hurt his ego, further, she understood very well how he was feeling since a few days ago, she was the one in that situation and trying her best to overcome her fear.

They walked few more meters without talking and she thought how nice it was to be together like that, only the two of them, enjoying each other's company, even from an external perspective that was just banal, for her it was a precious moment that helped forget momentarily the bothering thoughts in her head. She couldn't help but suddenly cling to him as a sweet smile appeared on her face.

"Do you feel better now?" Don noticed her change of mood from how she was kind of depressed earlier and how she looked somehow excited now, he couldn't help but smile at the thought that his plan worked.

"What do you mean?"

"Come on, I noticed how you were kind of upset and depressed after you came back from your meeting with Jamal, I even caught you trying to hide that behind fake smiles but every time you would doze off the expression on your face become so revealing that it's hard to not figure out", he paused and sighed, "I tried to talk and about it but when you answered you haven't been totally honest with me".

Volga lowered her head, slightly feeling ashamed as Don carried on, "I don't put pressure on you and make you feel cornered, I just thought since we are about to get married it would be nice to take the habit to talk to each other more honestly, open up more to each other so that we can understand each other much better and be there for one another and support each other whenever one of us would run into troubles".

The woman didn't know what to think of herself, she was feeling so ashamed that she wanted to slap herself on the face. While her fiance was there alone trying hard to figure out what was wrong so she could help, she kept pushing him away and avoid the subject selfishly.

She suddenly hugged him and started to cry in his arms while drowning his Jersey in her tears, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Don, I was feeling so lost and I didn't talk to you about that because I didn't want you to hate me for being so selfish with my desires".

Donald patted the back of her head to calm her a bit while whispering in her ear, "no problem. Just tell what's wrong and we will try to figure things out and find a solution together". He grabbed her head and slowly turned her face toward him so he could put a delicate kiss on her lips".

She wiped out her tears with the back of her hands and after she calmed down she pulled him by his wrist to go have a seat on a bench near to where they were standing and, while holding his hands tight, she started to tell him everything.

After she finished Don stayed a long time silent, he was taking his time to think about it as it was not an easy situation and Volga understood that.

He let out a sigh before he declared, "to be honest I don't know what to say about it. The enemy's force is not to be underestimated and according to what you have said, Jamal has decided already to not rely on us, who have accompanied him during these days of war, for the battle as he is considering us as normal citizens now, thus even if he says they control the situation they have a ridiculously small number of fighters compared to the roughly estimated number of enemies even counting in the abnormal strength of those two girls and Jamal himself... I'm not even sure if it will make any difference if you were to go or not-"

Volga pushed him by the shoulder, "don't underestimate me, I'm impressively strong too-" she paused as she suddenly realized, "wait. Do you really envisage letting me going with them?"

"I mean... you do want to go, right?"

"That's not the point!" She exclaimed before she lowered her voice to ask, "don't you want me to stay with you?"

"There is nothing that would make me happier than spending the rest of my days with you!" He declared, almost as loud as she was.

"So why?"

He held her hands tighter, and lowered his voice he added, "but there is nothing that scares me more than seeing you spending the rest of your days being eaten by the guilt and regret bit by bit, and knowing that I'm probably the cause of that".

"But I would never-" he put his lips against hers in a sweet kiss.

"Hey, do you think I don't know you? You're a hero, you have been dedicating your whole life serving and protecting the weak civilians, I'm sure even when you were young you still had that strong sense of justice and altruism, and before you knew more than a simple duty it has become your way of life. I know that because that's one of the traits that made me fall for you".

"I knew from all along that if something similar happened, I couldn't keep you away from doing what you are so good at, I have neither the right nor the power nor the desire to keep a dazzling light as you to shine. So many people need you, I can't keep you for myself only", he paused and chuckled as he realized, "I guess that's why Lina and I were able to understand each other so well. We are so alike in this aspect of our lives".

"Don! But I want to be with you!" She felt herself becoming emotional again as she had more and more difficulties controlling herself.

"I know. But you want to be there too. Don't worry I'm not trying to break up with you, the wedding is still on plan, you can't get rid of me so easily", Volga smiled at this small joke and that made him happy, "you just have to survive this battle too, when the world will be at peace we will be able to have our happy end".

She laughed, "you sure good at using words", she wiped out her tears and quickly revealed her eyes full of determination as she told him, "I promise to make it back to get the wedding we have been dreaming of".

"Thank you" he kissed her again but now on her forehead.

They stood and started to walk back home and on the way, Volga decided that the next day she would go face Jamal again but this time she wasn't intending to give it up.