Chapter 21

-EDITED-

Embers' schedule laid out before her. Wake up early, talk to herself for a little while, eat, train, wash, bed. Repeat, it was mundane, but it kept her mind off the doom she would be sent to. She wondered if they would send her straight over to Suglion or if she would receive more professional training before the first battle.

Ideas of what will happen to her never left her mind but took the back seat. She didn't express her fear of death or hope to live to anyone but Wilbur and Atherton. Wilbur only perceived that she wanted to win many battles, while Atherton began to realize how fragile she was.

Ember was seeing Atherton for who he was. A male who was neither good nor bad. He struggled with morals but was at least trying. Ember was focusing on her anger. If she got angry in a battle, the turnout would cause an abundance of deaths, including herself. It was an eerie idea, dying. Your life was not permanent in this world was difficult to grasp.

Ember had known that she would not be remembered and if she did was, she would be a stepping stone. Still, the fact she was staring death and fate right in the eyes was nerve-wracking. She often broke down while bathing. Sometimes she just wanted to jump out the window and die. She didn't want this, but she had no choice. All she could do was hope.

It scared her that hope wasn't enough. When faced with the fact that you are nothing a speck, what are you meant to do? Ember fought against it. She didn't want the Queen to catch onto her plan. If she did, Ember did not doubt that the Queen would kill her and bring Pele.

Nightmares had become a regular each night. It wasn't creepy, just nerve-racking.

Memories had been leaking into her life and depressing thoughts, though the depressing thoughts weren't of any surprise to her. She was never a fan of strict schedules, because of the mundanity of them. Memories of her and her mother spending time together were the most common, often followed up by thoughts of much pain and suffering she was sure her father was through. He didn't handle her mother's death well, imagine having your daughter ripped away from your arms.

Ember sighed as she went back to focusing on her push-ups. But her father kept making its way into her mind and childhood memories of her mother. She was never one to think back to simpler times, as they were long gone and she had taken them for granted. Despite her obvious forming depression, she focused on the mundane of it all. Because she recognized that Astarte was right, she would be sent off to a military training camp if they did even think about putting her on the battlefield. Which she knew in her mind that they would.

They were drawing out the process. Which really didn't help her nerves, it was thought of seeing people die in front of her that was the main source of her nightmares. She had been war tales from her grandfather before he had passed 10 years back, and when he told her, the stories would haunt her dreams for days to come.

Lately, her mind had been using such tales as nightmare fuel for her. It often a retelling of her grandfather's stories but scarier. If it wasn't for the fact she couldn't force herself to stay awake, she would just stay awake. She didn't want to hold her buddies her arms as they bleed out because she didn't get there fast enough. To watch the blood spill on the battlefield, it made her want to hurl.

While her nightmares often stayed behind for the night, it turned the familiar and comforting memories of home against her in the day. It was torture, that her home was so close but she could never return, even if she lived. It was a painful cycle, the thought she could follow the mountain range to find her homemade her just want to escape. But she knew the consequences, the Queen made sure that she did.

There was one thing during the day, or rather the night, that she looked forward to. She was spending more time with Atherton to fill the hole in her heart. She felt so lost and Atherton was comfort from a place familiar. He would comfort her if a nightmare was too much to keep silent about.

He would soothe her and tell her everything would be okay. Even if it was platonic, it was nice to have someone comfort her on these nights. She had even let him sleep next to the bed instead of his corner of depression blankets. She had also seen a change in him over the two weeks during her schedule. He had become more aware of what he said or at least minded what he said. Which, while the bare basics of manners, it was a good start for him.

Especially seeing how far he had come from just being rude. Because she spent so much time in her head, thinking about these horrible things, she found flaws in herself and had focused on fixing them.

But there was a downside of her schedule, other than the forming depression and existentialism, Atherton had pointed out that she had become a shell of who she used to be. He often made comments that she needed to take care of herself, to put herself first sometimes. Ember listened. She just didn't care. There were plenty of people more important than herself that she could save.

Ember often wondered if her father would be proud of her if she came home from the war, would he be proud of her or disappointed? She often wondered if he would prefer her to die rather than serve the Queen. It was during these thoughts that she would often remind herself of Hestia and Pele. Of their homes and families.

She thought back to the interactions and the hopes and dreams that Pele wanted to achieve in life. Of all the smiles that Hestia showed and the slight grins, she would see on Pele's face from time to time. She didn't want those faces to hold anything but happiness. She would die for those girls, they were like the sisters she never got to have.

Them being in danger because of her often made her sick. The protective need she felt for them was weird, but she reminded herself that she was older than them, it was natural for her to want to protect them. It was the same way for anyone else.

When she couldn't sleep at night from fear of the nightmares that waited for her to return, she thought about humans. She thought about if there were some good ones out there. If some didn't have any intention to hurt her or anyone. Them being morally correct was in sherds when she thought back to the memories that came from them. All of them never pleasant., Chris was one of the few humans that cared for other species, but their good deeds could never shine through the darkness that so many other humans left.

She still cared for Chris and people like him, because they cared, they knew that the Gods created everyone equal. She believed that because of what one person did shouldn't define an entire group. But for the humans, she barely up-held any idea of such an ideal. She had seen- felt what humans could and would do. All the threats to her well-being never left her mind, but only repeated in her mind. She wondered if humans even cared for the other species.

It should be obvious they didn't, seeing as they just enslaved near an entire species without a second thought. But she wondered as she knew that there were people like Chris out there.