After the whole ordeal, Taeka decided to take more time to train her body, specifically, her senses. Getting into a meditative position with her eyes open, she tried to absorb every sensory activity going on around her: the dark horizon, dimly lit by starlight. The smell of fire and of the food that had been prepared. The taste of even the vapor in the air. The feeling of its gentle breeze and the almost nonexistent pressure that went with it. The sounds of the night that was now much more quiet. Well, now that the mistwraiths were mostly neutralized.
However, she did hear something. It was faintly the sound of Sasha and Konoe training their magic.
She could never do something like that. She wished she could. How many situations where she had narrowly avoided death could have been handled much easier had she known magic?
Taeka thought back to a time earlier in this crusade of hers, protecting her people from the conflict the two kingdoms had.
She had suffered a gunshot wound in her right shoulder, some lacerations across her body, a stab wound in her torso just above the liver, and a few broken ribs, combined with the exhaustion of her nonstop assault on the intruding forces. The Red Hand and Iron Warriors in the area were reduced from full-sized camps to around 5 to 10 survivors that retreated by her hand over the course of 7 days. The final conflict that had left the Gallen in such a state was in a building with failing structural integrity.
Taeka tried to make her way out of the building, but didn't prove to be fast enough. 450 tons worth of rubble had her literally buried alive. Only small gaps could provide oxygen that was wed with dust and powdered stone and gravel. Combined with her injuries, and the weights she wore which made her body feel even heavier- more so with the weight of the rubble compounding that- she thought for a brief moment that she would die.
Until she thought about how many more would die if she threw in the towel here.
Summoning all her strength, she stretched force her hands. Her muscles flexed as she yelled aloud. The rubble lifted with her arms as though she benchpressed it. Shifting the position of her legs as she hoisted her former tomb, she began to stand and rise. Discarding the fallen stone, she made her way back to the abandoned bases. Fires were still burning, and there were some weapons and tools that had not been fully packed. She sat down, noticing the tracks of the vehicles that had driven away.
"And stay out..." She said, before lying down and passing out, the closest thing to sleep she had obtained in a while.
It didn't seem fair to her. Why was she less gifted, less talented, less supernaturally inclined? Why did her home get caught in the crossfire? Why not one of the ones who could actually use Investiture? Why did she have to knock on death's door on numerous occasions, being saved by only an odd marriage of her luck and wit?
She swiftly shook her head, sighing as some of the more... intrusive thoughts almost took root.
