Memories

Flames. Gunshots. The sounds of war. All of that is secondary now. Your lasgun has long since run out of charges, your grenades long since used. Now it's all you can do to keep the woman in your arms from bleeding out. The sounds of the latest artillery barrage slamming into your position reach your ears, then-

You awake to a sharp pain, though it's far less than what you were feeling before. Looking around briefly, you quickly notice that you're not in a warzone anymore, nor are you in the medical wing of the barracks. After all, your sheets are remarkably free of bloodstains and leftover vomit. Reaching up, you notice a roll of gauze wrapped around your head... then you see her. The Sister from before, staring coldly at you. 'Damn, I could have sworn I was dreaming something important. It felt like I was, anyway.' "Come." She says, grabbing you by the arm and managing to tread the line between helping you get to your feet and wrenching it out of its socket quite nicely. "We must decide what to do with you."

She leads you to a room that seems designed for the express purpose of being intimidating. Then again, your first impression of the space may be colored slightly by the amount of guns pointed in your direction. After a bit of ceremony, the Sister who brought you here-who you now realize is the tallest of the bunch, and doesn't seem to have taken her armor off yet-looks at you expectantly. It seems you're expected to defend yourself in front of the Sisters here, though you've never heard of such an event occurring before. Granted, you've also never heard of surviving what you had before either, so you try to keep your spirits up while you think about how to keep a group of fanatical, space toting space nuns from making a couple new holes in you.

You almost prefer the artillery.

Then it hits you. A burst of inspiration, perhaps a way to get out of this frakking mess alive. You make your case well, and while the expressions of the Sisters do not change, you can tell that you've made an impression. By the end of the proceedings, you've managed to convince them that your life is worth sparing... but only by virtue of the stony-faced Sister taking you on as her responsibility. You're still not sure how that works, though you're given the impression that you're effectively owned by her now. Still, at least you're alive, and it's best not to look a flamer-bearing gift horse in the mouth. Still, you were surprised when she did it- after all, she hasn't exactly been looking at you with fondness.

So it is that you find yourself in a sparsely decorated room, setting up some crude facsimile of what a blind man might call a bed while the Sister watches you from the corner of the room, arms crossed. "Freya." She says as you finish. You turn to her. "My name. It's Freya." After a moment, you nod, and she walks over to her own bed. Needless to say, as utilitarian as it is, it looks like a plush heaven compared to yours, and it creaks loudly as she sits on it, armor and all. "Come. Help me take this off."

You start in surprise, opening your mouth before promptly being silenced with a pointed stare. Walking over to her, she guides you through the process in a manner not dissimilar to your Sergeant, giving clipped, precise instructions. She removes her gauntlets herself, and moves to guide you with her hands when you fumble a few too many times. Though her grip is like iron, and you can practically feel your bones creaking under the pressure, her skin is surprisingly pleasant to the touch, despite the callouses she's developed from many years of war.

Your mind decides to ruin this completely innocent task-which has absolutely no subtext whatsoever-with but a single stray thought. You haven't seen a shower yet in your time here, and this will be the first time she's been out of her armor. You can't help but wonder how well she keeps herself. You also wonder if the carpet matches the drapes, but you suppose both of those questions will likely be answered at some point.

Of course, that point will be far in the future. Definitely.