Another New Beginning [Aspen Reintro]

Aspen turned and wordlessly followed when the small group of Silver Wolf mages, her former guild mates, made its way to the guild hall, passively and without initiative. It was the first time in a good long while that the ex-Paladin had gotten to take a good and thorough look at the building that she had unconsciously considered home for a comparatively extended period of time. Indeed, those emotions attached to a vivid association with the word "home" resurfaced when Aspen laid eyes on the guild hall. For all intents and purposes, even though she was more or less unaware of this fact, this was home. Not Pergrande, nor, surprisingly, Fiore, but these sheltered walls overlooking the Phoenix Mountains. It was here that the girl experienced her first real life outside of the machine of oppression and despair that was the Empire of Pergrande. To be back here after all this time, to walk the hall again after so long... the thought alone evoked an emotion that she couldn't quite place, and for the particularly stoic girl, was hard to process or even properly recognize.

Still, she was lost in thought. The impressions and emotions that flooded her mind and diffused any and all attempts at rationality clouded her vision. She couldn't, and indeed, wouldn't think about it much more. Every time she thought about it, the barriers she had put up to keep herself together threatened to break. She had to keep her head in the here and now. She was safe. She was surrounded by people who would help her. The Pergranti mercenaries were dead. She had to repeat these facts to herself, an internal pep-talk that continued, again and again, to keep herself sane.

Occupied with her own concerns, she walked through the familiar barrier that surrounded the guild, the shield shimmering as each individual passed the nigh-invisible separation between the outside world and the guild. This was officially Silver Wolf's territory. The reaction only intensified when they found their way into the guild hall proper. She breathed the familiar air in deeply, a sigh of relief leaving her cold lips. A small portion of a weight that had accumulated over years worth of struggle fell off her shoulders, and she could stand just a little bit taller here. Just a little bit, but every little bit counted. Still, despite that, the stares of those curious onlookers didn't exactly make their return to the guild easier. She felt like a guest, a foreigner who did not belong there. Shadows seemed to stretch out just a little longer, and a subtle paranoia set in. It was here that Pergrande had first found her. What if they were still here, could still reach her here, were among those looking at her? She put those intrusions aside. If she wasn't safe here, she wasn't safe anywhere. That prospect had accompanied her for months, years at this point. No more.

She readily took her place when the group found its way into the lounge, accepting the drink that Yuvon prepared for her, though when Mercury brought the bottles over, she immediately went for one of them. She didn't care what it was. As long as it had alcohol in it, she would be quite content with whatever. The girl didn’t bother as much as glancing at the label, simply popping open the lid and taking a few good gulps from the glass container. It burned, almost unbearably so, but the girl had been used to the sensation at this point. Perhaps that was just what she needed to feel just the faintest bit alive again, the booze washed down with the sweet cup of hot chocolate. The drink seemed excessive, but it was just the thing Aspen needed to warm her after the cold of the Phoenix Mountains… and prepare her for what was inevitably to follow, the others undoubtedly waiting expectantly. A subtle fog set in, dulling her mind. It was the effect of the alcohol, no doubt about it. No time like the present, huh? She had decided. Aspen would hesitate no longer. She’d get right to it. The ex-Paladin took a deep breath.

"Suppose we go to the explaining now". She sighed. The Pergrandean had to sort everything that had dragged her down over the past year, organizing it into a cohesive line of thought before being forced to spill it all. It wasn’t like she necessarily wanted to reveal all these things about herself, Aspen was a secretive and reserved person by nature, but she figured that she owed them her honesty. In this matter, at least. Honesty and the full truth.

"As some of you may know, I am originally a citizen of the Pergrandean Empire". That much might’ve been clear, but she emphasized the face so they would all have a common starting point. "As you saw earlier, Pergrande doesn’t exactly play nice with refugees who manage to get out of the country, and that goes for me especially. The nation is entirely closed off and has been for the past 500 years. To “keep the peace”, or so they say, at least. I was lucky for even managing to escape. I’d gotten into a position of trust in… well, an organization that they call the “Paladins”. Little more than glorified henchmen of the regime". That, in turn, also meant that Aspen had been one of those henchmen, of course, a fact she hadn't revealed before.

"My brothers occupied fairly high positions within that organization, and I abused the family’s status to get stationed near the border. “Espionage Mission”, I called it. When the nearest chance presented itself, I ran. I… killed a fair few of them on the way out. Got this scar in return". The girl made a small, almost dismissive gesture toward her left eye and the large visible cut that descended down her face in an almost exact vertical line. Though she tried her best to sound as matter-of-fact as she could in her presentation, to keep up the usual monotonously stoic front, it was evident that the girl was struggling with the memories she recounted.

"Took me a little while and a lot of resources, but I ended up here. Couldn’t have gotten much further away from Pergrande, to be honest. I figured that they would come looking for me, but I’d assumed that they wouldn’t, couldn’t find me here. Especially at Silver Wolf. As you know, Leona-", the girl turned towards the guild mistress and spoke to her directly as the one who’d inducted her into the guild all those years ago, back when the woman was still an Ace of Silver Wolf, "-the guild captured my interest. It was… everything I imagined and so much more. I learned a lot here. This is-... was my home". Even through a neutral expression, the girl wavered once the words were spoken, somehow seeming profoundly sad. She took another swig from the bottle she’d claimed as her sole possession before continuing anew. It, of course, implied that she thought the guild had long banished her.

"But I underestimated my brother and the intelligentsia of the Empire. I underestimated their influence and the extent of their activities. They found me. Right here in the guild hall. I… I really don’t know how, but my brother… I must’ve been too careless". She paused, her gaze now firmly locked on the empty table before her and the bottle between her hands. "It must’ve been about… 2 years since then. They got me in my room when I was sleeping. They sent Paladins. I don't understand how they got into the guild hall, don't ask me. I killed the first two and incapacitated another two, but one of them snuck up on me and stabbed me with... a needle? I don’t really know. Before I knew it, I was breaking down, vomiting blood, and the assassin they sent was escaping. I tried to pursue, but… my magic… it… it was gone. Erased. No matter what I did, it wouldn’t come back… and it hasn’t to this day". At these last words, the girl was trembling in her seat, eyes glimmering again with the faint shine of beginning tears, though Aspen managed to choke them down... for now.

"They injected me with… with some kind of poison". Her voice, while bearing that characteristic and quite distinctive Pergranti accent, spit that last sentence out like it was laced with acid, one of her hands on the table balling into a fist. "What I have since been able to discern is that it contained a heavy metallic element. I assume that it is based on Oblivium, Pergrande’s premier resource. The Paladins love to use it against mages, but I had no idea that they’d developed a substance that can permanently erase an individual’s, and still… it’s true. I’ve lost mine and it will most likely never return". She could no longer stop the tears at this point, two streaks silently running down her face. All she had worked for, all she had ever aspired to be, the freedom she had yearned for. All of it had been taken, stripped away from her for a second time.

"I did what I thought would be best for the guild. I wanted to lure them away from everyone here. So I ran. I went into hiding for a while, and tried to experiment a little with the technology I’d gotten from those assassins… and with my contaminated blood. Not many hopeful discoveries, I’m afraid, apart from the fact that my body's fucked". She paused again, albeit only briefly, still trying her best to keep her composure. She’d never told anyone any of this, and, despite her nonchalant wording, it was hard just to utter every single one of those syllables.

"But… ever since the war began, Pergrande’s gotten a lot more active. I had to abandon 3 hideouts this month alone because agents of the Paladin Order found me. I can’t go on like this anymore…".

She would now once again look directly at Leona. "...which is why I have come back here. To be entirely honest, I just… don’t have the energy to keep running anymore". When she had spoken these words, the emotion seemed to burst out from her. Tears began to flow and the face that the girl had so carefully tried to keep stoic scrunched up into a grimace of tragic despair. "All I ever wanted is a home. A real home. Friends. Peace!". Perhaps this was the first time that the girl had gotten this emotional in her life, but it kept spilling out of her now that the floodgates had been opened. The pent-up emotion of a lifetime was unloaded upon those that had saved her. One of her fists slammed into the table as her trembling shoulders sunk, her head and eyes once again lowered as tears fell onto the wooden surface before her in plentiful droplets. Her voice quivered as she spoke again. "I just want to live. Is that so wrong?". It was a rhetorical question, of course, but she couldn’t help but ask it. This exact question had been on her mind ever since she had escaped Pergrande, perhaps even before that.

"I know that it’s a deeply selfish request-", her voice rang out again, though much quieter, weaker this time, "-but I have to admit that… I’m afraid. I’ve been so afraid of them that I have been running for so long. I ask you, Leona, and all members of Silver Wolf. Please, I don’t want to die. Please-", she had been reduced to a state of begging now, still in tears, the sheer despair that had kept her occupied all this time now bare for all to see.

"-please just help me".

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