PA: Home To Roost

Those in the secluded but well-built farmhouse probably thought everything was normal. There were crops growing in the field that needed tending, and a pair of horses in the pasture that would require attention. Hickory-scented smoke curled from the chimney, making several stomachs rumble in protest. Dew still drenched the grass; the cleared land was so shaded, it would likely stay wet for most of the day. Silently, biding their time, men with chipped axes and old swords waited, their scout on one last rotation, making sure there would be no surprises.

Their targets started the day late, letting the horses out before gathering to eat together at the table: a husband and wife and three or four little copies of themselves. The eldest was a blossoming young woman, perhaps eleven or twelve in age, while the others were still androgynous from a distance, small and thin and prone to flapping their useless little wings as they moved about; it was difficult to tell exactly how many there were because they looked so alike. Their plan was to take out the man, and then the rest would be theirs to take at their leisure. What were these fools thinking, living so far from any neighbors? Did they think their wings could protect them? Within a couple of days their “guests” would have the property stripped of everything of value and no one would be the wiser… except, perhaps, the wife and her daughters, but that would from hindsight.

The father was the first to leave the house after breakfast, passing from the back door into one of the nearby outbuildings. Sometime later, the brats starting yelling, and a fragile little bird, wings barely bigger than those of wild vermin, scrambled out the front door, going into the barn for a time before disappearing among the smaller outbuildings. The scout returned, nodding silently: there was, and would be, no one else. The little flock had become fish in a barrel.

One of the axe men moved ahead of the group as the rest split up – three to capture the horses, the rest to capture the future slaves and whores. Since there was almost never noteworthy resistance from the woman or the children, only the landowner needed to be removed, so the axe man was the only one expecting to use his weapon. It would be all too easy; the man was unassuming, as bird-boned as the rest of the bunch, and unarmed. But targets could prove troublesome when they had everything to lose, so best to cut him down and be done with it. The brigand grumbled oaths under his breath as some of his group got impatient and started after the horses, making the beasts bray in alarm. He quickened his pace. It looked like the man had gone into a smaller barn, the sort used for egg-layers and dairy animals, livestock that would need tending regardless of weather. The buildings were very well made; a pity they couldn’t take it over as a base! The shelters would keep for years even if they didn’t take care of them, because the current, unfortunate owners clearly had. But these folks would eventually have (welcome) visitors, and it’d just get too complicated if word got out of their location. Their current base was far more secure, even if it was rundown.

The bandit was a single step away from the door when it suddenly swung aside. The man had barely registered there was someone standing in the doorway before the axe fell. He was given no time to scream.

Meanwhile, the first man to reach the house pulled his rough, scarred iron sword from its sheath and tried to slide the door back, only to find it jammed. He stepped aside for another who wielded an axe, which tore through both the paper and the lovingly hewn wooden frame in a single strike. Two young voices shrieked in fright. “Don’t try to fight, and we won’t try to kill you!” the swordsman yelled, though he didn’t have to; the entire flock was in the common room they’d barged into, the children huddled behind their mother, whose wings blocked them into another room.

The woman cringed from the loud, coarse voice that obviously meant harm, no matter its “reassurances”. Her wings flared to better shield her young, her empty hands held defensively near her chest. She was pretty, in a common sort of way, two-toned hair woven into a braid that trailed over one shoulder. The loose cut of her dress and its sagging neckline suggested she was still nursing one of her little brood. “Please,” she said, voice quiet but strained, “what do you want from us?”

“Want?” the man who’d cut down the door echoed, then laughed at the absurdity of the question. “We don’t want anything, because everything you have is ours.”

“Don’t try to fly, little dove, because we will shoot you down,” the swordsman added with a leer. “You’re already down a husband. Wouldn’t want a little thing like you losing anything else, now would we?”

They, and the four who followed them, had a good laugh as the tallest of the youngsters pressed angrily against her mother’s wing. “No, Shuu-chan,” the woman said, risking a glance back. “We’ll do as he says. We won’t run,” she promised, head bowing, but copper eyes remaining on them. “But… please… what will you do with us?”

The axe wielder lowered his eyes, letting them find their leisurely way back up to her face. He tilted his weapon so the blades faced outward, lifting her chin with the top of the hilt. “Really?” How naïve could she be? “Anything we want,” he sneered, using his closeness to look straight down her dress. No prisoner would do anything with an axe against their throat.

It was a pinch. Just enough to make his jaw twitch. The blade passed through the underside of his chin and into his brain before he had time to realize there was a sheath down the front of her dress, one with a narrow-hilted knife still tucked inside. It was a different blade, from her sleeve, that skewered his skull.

“I am sorry to hear that,” the woman murmured, moving her foot out of the way as the axe crashed to the floor. She drew the narrow blade as the swordsman moved forward, using the other knife’s hilt as a handle to force the corpse off to the side. She grit her teeth as the much heavier blade slammed into her own. But the knife was of far better quality, and it – and her arm – held the blade back. Reaching behind her with her empty hand, another, familiar hilt greeted her grasping fingers. Blessed child, so angry she’d tried to attack with it! But their eldest wasn’t ready to use her mother’s sword in battle; she’d only recently graduated from using knives. The girl could hardly hold the advanced blade through half a set of drills. “Yua, your sword!” Shuu’rei snapped, swinging the silvery sword blade straight through her opponent. She always took excellent care of her treasure, no matter where in the house it was scattered. The weapons heavy and solid enough to cut through bone did with ease. “Keep Zen-kun and Gracie behind you!” Fighting inside their modest home was difficult, with little room to spare for striking, but Su hadn’t completely lost her edge in the decade since she’d retired.

They had lost two children before Yuina survived to term; they had talked, nearly through the night, the next time she had suspected a pregnancy. In the end, Su had turned in her cloak (but the daggers were hers). As much as she owed the people of Ylisse for finding purpose again, she had to move on with her life, to something quieter. Simpler. Safer, for Yuina and for those who would follow.

Something like her life should have been. And so they had gone back, to her home. Literally and otherwise, they had rebuilt the life she’d lost.

“You foolish bitch,” a grizzled fighter growled at her, the whites of his eyes yellowed around contracted pupils. He was missing several fingers and a chunk out of his axe. There was a touch of hysteria in his voice. How had so tiny a woman taken down two of his men? “What were you even thinking, building out here? The land must have come cheap! Do you know what happened here? Why no one lived out here?”

Shuu’rei raised her sword and readied her knife, her knuckles white around the two hilts she held. This one had been here before, had he? “Thirty years ago, come spring.” She turned the larger blade, staring over it – through it – through him. “This land was already mine.”

His eyes managed to widen, just a little further. No wonder it had been so similar – the fence, the barn, the lay of the house. Fewer outbuildings, but in near the same places. Back then, one of the little birds had gotten away.

Then a bruise bloomed in the middle of his forehead, and his eyes rolled back. Gradually, almost reluctantly, his body crumpled beneath him, his axe tearing into his own arm, but it didn’t matter. An arrow had passed nearly all the way through his skull, shot from only a few feet away.

Evaunder already had a second arrow strung. He snapped one wing open, shielding the children – but not hindering his wife. He’d been attacked in his own home, his family threatened by trespassers, and now their common room was going to reek of blood. Up close and pissed off, he was far more threatening than they had accounted for. “Get. Out.”

The remaining three bandits didn’t hesitate. They’d thought they were going after crows, not eagles; a simple raid on a bird’s nest proved a fool’s errand into a dragon’s den. They were tripping over themselves and the wreck of the door to escape with their lives.

Vaun’s hands began to shake as he lowered his bow. He tossed it on the table as he turned to the others. “Are you all right?” he asked, drawing his wing back just enough to see for himself if they were. His words were not directly to anyone in particular, but his eyes were on his wife. Ignoring the blood on her hands, he held her as tightly as he dared; as the little ones burst into tears and hugged any limb they could cling to, he wrapped his other wing around them. The wing that had held them back circled Yuina, but did not pull her forward; her bared sword was still gripped in her white-knuckled hands. She still needed a moment.

Shuu’rei nodded against his chest, relief momentarily overcoming her ability to speak. Was he all right?

She didn’t need to word the question to receive an answer. “You know how I get when you worry,” he assured her with a nervous chuckle. That was true. He was cautious by nature, but if she became nervous or tense, he could easily slip into paranoid. So close to the anniversary… the crying horses had made her anxious, which only became worse when she realized their youngest wasn’t in the house. “They only sent one after me. Breloom; took him out with one Aerial Ace. The ones bothering the horses won’t bother us anymore, either. And To-kun’s in the herb shed,” he added, that the rest of the tension could leave her body. They were all right. “Were any of them…?” he asked quietly.

She nodded slightly. “At least that one,” she murmured, looking down at the one with the arrow through his head, knowing he could tell what she meant even without seeing her face. “I don’t think the others were old enough.” An offshoot of the same band, or perhaps the very same one two generations later. Had their raiding party been so small, back then? She didn’t know. She could never know.

“I’m sorry,” Vaun whispered. “He might have been able to tell you-”

She cut him off. “I would not want to hear anything he had to say.” It was hard enough not knowing what had become of her mother and sisters. Actually knowing, from his perspective, what had happened to them? That would be even worse. Some information was better left unknown. Reluctantly, she pulled away. “We need to get them out.” Poor Vaun. He hated blood. “Maybe… once they’re outside, it would be best to see Max and Rae a while. You could stay there with the children, and they could help me clean up here.”

His expression was conflicted, both tempted and insulted. “Even flying it takes two days to get there, and Yua can’t fly very far yet. And in the meantime, we leave them outside to get eaten?”

Shuu’rei looked away. “You could take Yua and To-kun. I could manage Zen-kun and Gracie.” Yua had finally managed to set aside her sword, and was trying to calm the two little Noibats. A year apart, yet so alike…

Inside, Shuu’rei was conflicted, too. Trying to find some compassion for these men, some urge to treat them with respect and dignity – and finding none. It wasn’t like her, but it wasn’t hard to understand, either. These men had acted like depraved beasts; depraving them of compassion and dignity while real beasts worked over them… it almost felt… justified. Her eyes lingered on the man who’d known what had happened, here before. Him, especially. She felt no regret that he had died quickly, or that she hadn’t killed him herself. Long ago, he’d helped to destroy her family. And now, her family had destroyed him.

If that wasn’t justice, what was?