Winter 1, 121
The desert was a quiet, calm, and solitary place. Gusts carrying sand and made it fall like mist. There was nothing to be heard besides winds. Astra walked for a while, several hours, observing the remains of some kind of battle that must have taken place long ago. The fallen were accompanied by old scraps of armor, an old wagon wheel, and some personal belongings.
As Astra walked, she thought she saw a silhouette between the cactuses in the distance, moving like a humanoid which probably wasn't good. She turned, and could have sworn that it was a mirage. A woman with pale white skin and short hair. The warrior looked into Astra's eyes, gazing down at her from her vantage point.
Her figure flickered and she appeared closer, close enough to speak.
"What are you doing here, stranger?" the mage asked. Astra turned to one side, then the other, looked at her, and shrugged her shoulders.
"Then, you have no reason to be here. It is dangerous. Go back where you came from."
"This place used to be nicer, more pleasant. It feels peaceful here," Astra said to the woman.
"Are you from the Kingdom of the Hazel Mists?" she asked.
"Yes, I am," Astra said.
"I see… Then you must be Astra. Your reputation is known to me… I am a mage in your father's employ… you should be careful, there are bad men nearby" as if she'd been a mirage all along, the warrior's body broke into a flurry of sand that floated off into the distance.
Astra just raised her hand to say goodbye. Astra didn't really fear danger being so close to the kingdom. Usually the types that were trouble could be seen from miles away. As Astra walked along, she could see some camouflaged individuals entering some kind of makeshift shelter that had been thrown together to brace against the desert winds. They looked nervous and had bags on their backs. It might be interesting to find out what was going on.
She continued along, against the soldier's warnings. It became clear that these were not just any kind of men. They were some of the most despicable kind of people in existence - people whose punishment, no matter how severe, would still be too light. Those who stole from the dead could not have any forgiveness, at least not in Astra's eyes. She was a woman who thought disrespecting the dead was not a great thing, even if she did end up killing quite a few. Hypocritically, she wouldn't see it a crime if she stole from the dead, but double standards were the norm as a princess.
"You three, a group of vermin without honor or respect, you better not move a single muscle if you even want to live."
The soldier's voice could be heard by everyone around even though she wasn't shouting. Even after making her voice heard, his slow walk continued, gradually approaching that group of people. Among them, the silhouette of a smaller person could be seen, and by its size, it could easily be identified as a child.
"And who are you? Nobody polices the deserts. You better go back home, woman. Don't you have to make a sandwich for your husband or something?" said the man, showing her what seemed to be a sword hanging from his waist.
They had not seen Astra yet, who was still sneaking along. She tried to go around them to enter the small shelter from where those men had emerged. She would look for cover behind some wall to prepare for action.
"If she has the guts to face them, she must know how to fight," Astra murmured to herself, pointing one hand toward those men, ready to strike. She would wait to gauge the skill of this soldier and those men before acting.
While another of the men also put down his sack and took up a dagger, the third - a man with his head wrapped in a cloth like a desert bandit, simply glanced at her over his shoulder and continued walking at a calm pace. That guy had to be different from the others. He didn't consider the soldier a threat.
The young woman's walk continued slowly but steadily, closing the distance between her and the scum. As she advanced, she heard words… no, those discriminatory insults directed at the soldier just for being a woman. Seeing that such vermin stood in front of her only caused Astra to smile mockingly as she continued forward. One after another, the men began to unsheath their weapons. However, the fair skinned young woman did not stop. Instead, she reached down to scoop up a sword that looked like it was a hundred yeas old, half buried in the sand. Perhaps she could scare them into submitting? She did have a knack for scaring people shitless.
Astra was about to attack when the soldier eyed her and shook her head. Then the soldier said, "let the hunt begin!"
With those words, she launched herself at the men. But to their eyes, the soldier vanished into a cloud of sand. By the time they registered her presence again, she was already behind them, spraying the ground with the blood that covered her weapon. Before they could react, they collapsed to the ground, colliding with each other.
"What happened? What just happened?" Those questions were written across their faces as they lay there, hands tightly clutching their lower limbs because the young woman had severed one leg from each of them.
"What do I see here?" she mocked. "Two worms on the ground. What should I do with these worms? Maybe kick them? Maybe cut off an arm? O..." She paused, bending her knees slightly and leaning in closer. "I should turn them into eunuchs."
Upon hearing those words and seeing the malicious grin of the soldier, the injured men screamed to the sky. That reaction left the soldier slightly surprised, but she quickly rose again and turned to look at the remaining man. However, she did not move from her spot, simply watching him as a light breeze began to blow.
"Still you do not wish to yield?" the soldier asked, her gaze locked onto the remaining figure.
Astra noticed a certain sadism in the girl's demeanor, evident in the way she spoke to the men after mutilating them. However, the man with his head covered in cloth, dressed in black, remained unfazed, leaving his injured companions behind. His posture was strange, suspicious. He did not seem as weak as his companions.
Then, after he was yelled at, the man dropped his sack. Several decayed heads rolled out onto the ground. His eyes, visible between the bandages, looked lifeless, dull. Maybe the soldier needed help with this guy. But for now, Astra would continue to watch. She hadn't planned to intervene in this kind of situation. Against normal men, sure. But against someone who had beheaded multiple people? She didn't think she had a chance. Perhaps she could take advantage of the chaos when the time was right.
Seeing those heads rolling out of the sack did more than just stun the soldier… it made her despise the killer even more. Before, she had considered them mere thieves. Now, it was clear they were something worse than simple thieves.
The young woman's eyes moved away from those corpses to stare at the face of the man. Due to the bandages, she could only see his eyes, but she did not need to see more than that. Astra's steps resumed, at the same time that her skin began to tingle with nervousness.
Her instincts weren't wrong. Someone else jumped out from behind hiding, throwing a poisoned needle from their sleeve at the man, who managed to intercept it with a flick of the wrist, causing a wave of sand to come up to protect him. Although this defense seemed strong, some needles managed to stick into the shield.
A second soldier dressed like the first revealed herself, next to Astra. "Be calm, princess. We will handle this threat."
The soldiers were a blur of sand and metal, assaulting the murderer from different angles at once. The murderer put on a good show, but there was only so much he could do before he was pinned down and immobilized. Not killed, no that wasn't the policy of the Kingdom of the Hazel Mists. Criminals like this were taken in alive. From there they'd be invariably sentenced to death, which Astra now knew meant they would be drained of their life force and sucked dry for every drop of blood they had.
"Princess," one of the soldiers said as she approached, "you should return with us. It is not as safe as it once was."
"Alright," Astra said with a pouting face. She wished she'd have been able to attack too but she could admit that she would probably not have been much of a help at all.
