Tearful Memories I

"We need to hurry." Jenabas gestured for her army to move quicker. They had left their injured soldiers behind under Silverfield's care and were returning back to Otone. She bit her fingernail anxiously. The capital was under siege as they were moving right now. Most of their forces were here at Silverfield which left the kingdom very weak right now. Even if they were to rush back to Otone as fast as they can, it would still take them days. By then the battle may already be over.

"Princess." Jenabas turned to see Jackel running towards her.

"What is it?" she asked him. He seemed worried about something.

"Our supply depots have been destroyed."

"What!?" Jenabas put her hand on her head. "The demons planned this." The army had set up several bases along the way to Silverfield and they had stored supplies in them for when they were heading back. But with them destroyed, it was no longer possible for them to make it back due to their lack of supplies.

"What about how supply line?" Jenabas asked Jackel. Even though the supply depots may have been destroyed, there was still the chance the supply line was still going. But the chances of that were very unlikely since Otane probably recalled back to deal with the attack.

Jackel shook his head. The supply line was gone as well. "Should we quickly head back to Silverfield and ask for some?" he suggested.

Jenabas considered the option. It was probably their only choice if they wanted to make it back to Otone but it would put a great strain on Silverfield because not only were they recuperating from the battle, but the throne was also just replaced.

"I don't see any other way for us to make it back," said Jackel.

"If only we had horses..." Jenabas muttered to herself.

"Princess!" a soldier ran up to them and waited for Jenabas to permit him to speak.

"What is it?"

"Silverfield dispatched a small squad to aid us." The soldier pointed behind them and Jenabas and Jackel turned to see a small group of knights galloping towards them with spare horses and large bags of what looked like supplies. She recognized the knight at the front of the group.

Siegfried and the other knights stopped a few feet away from the princess. Siegfried greeted her. "We heard you were in trouble and we were ordered to assist you. We only brought a couple of horses but we can send a small squad ahead first. There will be another group arriving in a few moments to supply the rest of your soldiers for the trip."

"That'll work." Jenabas quickly hopped onto the empty horse that Siegfried was leading and pointed at a few of her mages and soldiers to follow. "Rohen, Ansel, and you bunch over there, you're with me." The two fire mages and the soldiers got onto the empty horses as ordered.

"Princess, what are you doing?" asked Jackel. "Wait, you can't be serious-"

"Jackel, you're in charge of the army in my absence. Everyone, follow his orders!"

"Yes!" The soldiers all shouted in unison.

"Okay, let's move!" Jenabas started to gallop away and her soldiers followed. The knights all looked at Siegfried and awaited his order.

Before Siegfried can order his knights to start moving, Jackel said something to him "Sir Siegfried, please keep the princess safe."

"Don't worry, I will." Siegfried turned to his knights and said, "Alright, we better catch up. They're already pretty far ahead." The knights all rode off and pursued the Otanian soldiers that were ahead of them.

***

"Nina, please come out of your room. You haven't eaten anything," Nina's mother called out to her. She stood worried outside her door. Although it was unlocked, she didn't open it since she didn't want to force her to do anything.

"I'm not hungry," replied Nina. She had hardly eaten anything for three days now, but even so, she didn't feel all that hungry since she didn't have much of an appetite.

"Nina, please," her mother begged. "Your body is naturally weak just like mine. You need to eat at the very least."

Nina waited a few seconds before saying, "I just need a little more time." She hugged her pillow. It was stained with tears and her body smelled of sweat. She hadn't left her bed the entire time and laid there weeping in intervals.

After a while, Nina's mother sighed and gave up. "I'll ask the servants to leave some food outside your door." After telling her that, she walked away.

Nina stared emptily out the window. Her room was facing the back of the mansion and she could see the grassy field with the silver flowers where Kies trained. She missed seeing him there. Every once in a while, whenever she slept late, she would wake up to the sounds of Kies practicing his magic in the backyard.

She would watch him for a while and laugh whenever he did something goofy. She remembered one time, he had blasted himself in the face with his own magic on purpose for whatever reason, causing him to do a backflip and roll across the grass.

Nina continued to look around the yard and saw a small tree. It was the tree that Kies had gotten himself stuck on when they were younger. Kies thought it would be fun to climb the tree and so he did. After climbing to the top, he was too scared to climb back down and sat there on one of the lower branches for the entire day until Nina had found him. They spend hours trying to get him down from the tree and in the end, they come up with the idea of having her catch him. She ended up almost getting crushed by him.

Nina couldn't bear to look outside anymore and got up from her bed for the first time in days to close the curtains. It hurt too much. Almost everything in the backyard reminded her of the times she spent with Kies. After closing the curtains, she went back and laid down on her bed again.

But it didn't seem like it mattered since the inside of her room contained many things that evoked the same memories as well. There were the books that she read to him when they were younger, the terrible wooden carving that they tried to make which had bloodstains from Kies cutting his finger, a poorly made bracelet out of dried stalks and small beads, a pen and a bottle of ink that Kies had gotten her for her previous birthday, a small pouch, an overly large shirt, a few colored ribbons, hair ties...

Nina felt her tears start to come back again. She stopped looking around her room and buried her face in her pillow.

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