5.4 KiB
After conscripting into a military group, a short but intense training regimen takes place. While it is obvious that Sara is unfit for direct combat, her apparent sense of combat strategy makes her stand out among the group, and after the training is over, she is made the leader of a small 5 person group consisting of her, Eron, Kaeros, Mira and Luno. They are sent out on small missions like escorting merchants, guarding mansions and patrolling the streets. While initially, they are all somewhat cautious and distant from each other, they grow a little closer through the time spent together. Saras leadership leads them to complete all their missions splendidly, almost suspiciously so. It is as if she always know exactly what to say, where to be, what to do. They most notice this when talking to her, as she always knows what is bothering them, reassuring them about whatever their troubles may be, sometimes before ever bringing them up. And most strangely of all, even though everything is going perfectly, she seems to grow more weary and exhausted.
They start doubting her commands, feeling left out and asking to be involved in her planning. For her to let them know beforehand what they were about to do. Sometimes she would throw them into truly dangerous situations, like she was playing with puppets, but every time she would tell them exactly how to navigate the situation so they came out fine. Whenever they did refuse a command, she would seemingly already incorporate that into her scheme and still make a the situation play out fine, but it was obvious that it would have gone better had they followed her command.
They get an important mission to be the personal guard of a religious figure for an important ceremony. During the ceremony, Sara gets knocked out my a group of attacker, and the group falls apart immediately. Without her at the command, the group lacks any sort of cohesion, as they only relied on her to tell them exactly what to do, and Mira dies. They are all devastated by Miras death, and them failing this important mission, but Sara seems most shaken of them all. Her usual weariness and exhaustion seems to transform into desperation and paranoia. And at the same time, there is a rift forming in the team between her and the rest.
The incident made them also feel helpless without her, made them aware of how much they depended or her, but also made them feel like she was not there with them, but reigning over them. Like they were her pawns, to be played in her grand strategy in which they never could take part. And even if they asked, she never divulged any of her plans beforehand. They only way to win was to trust her, but did she trust them?
After the incident, she kept pushing for them to get more mission related to deities, taking part in finding forgotten altars of the ancient long-dead deities. All of them were just suspicions by locals, so they only found empty caves and natural formations, and Sara grew ever more weary and desperate. Like she was looking for something, or hoping to find something.
Meanwhile, missions started going worse. Before they were going flawlessly, but now they started to have minor hiccups. They were getting injured more often and more severely. When before, Sara knew exactly how to get people to do what she wanted, now would sometimes make them angry, cause unnecessary fights, and not warn them of incoming attacks as often. When they asked her about it, probing her for whats wrong, she would oftentimes just stare at them blankly, and dismiss their concerns, saying everything is alright.
So they grew scared, scared of what was happing to her, but also of her. They knew that they were hopeless without her, but she wouldn't relinquish her grip on the leadership, and any attempt of them to prove her wrong just proved even more how much they needed her. And they had to do something before she grew so distant from them that she let one of them die. As she was now, did she even see them as human anymore? Was she herself even human anymore?
So they planned while they were sure she wasn't listening, because they feared that she would convince them that everything is fine, that there was no reason to worry. It felt like she could peer into their soul, know all their weaknesses and play them like a fiddle, just as she always did with others. They grew convinced that she was possessed by something, or hiding some kind of dark power. With her being so eager to search for these old altars, they knew she was searching for power, and they became fearful of what would happen if she got hold of even more power. Would she just discard them like used toys? Would she even care anymore what happens to them?
They decided that should they find an ancient altar, they would kill her before she could become too powerful. She wasn't invincible, her getting knocked out at the ceremony was proof of that. They would use a knife to pierce her heart from behind while she was most distracted, return to the city telling them that she fell off a cliff due to the ground giving out under her, and that they hadn't found any ruins, so no-one would go look to find any traces of what they had done. They then would demote themselves to the lowest rank so they could build up their skill from the basics without relying on her, or run away from the military. The guilt would probably haunt them for the rest of their lives, but if all continued as now, how much longer would their lives last?