Nuri quickly spread the word of their compromised meeting location, as quickly as she could anyways. She attempted to keep up the facade of being okay, that she was unaffected by what she did. Even if she tossed and turned in bed, unable to find sleep. And when sleep did finally find her, it was filled with visions of her blood soaked hands. Her feeble attempts to wipe it off on the dried leaves on the forest floor. Her quiet sobs and begs for forgiveness haunted her. She had always been a very religious girl, she kept some kind of peace of mind while her father was off in war, sending off a prayer to protect her father each night with her mother. The sudden peace only helped to solidify her faith. She sent prayers each night for safety to her sister but had recently fallen to begging for forgiveness, whispering the prayers her mother taught her when she was young. Stumbling over the words as the tears ran down her face and soaked her pillow. But aside from the dark circles under her eyes forming, she kept up a successful facade of being okay.
But Aaliyah knew, she always did. Nuri was easy to read for her, something that Williams found incredibly useful. No matter how hard Nuri tried to hide what she was going through, no matter how successful she was at fooling everyone else, she couldn't fool Aaliyah. On one of the rare days the drills didn't last long, leading to some leisure time, Aaliyah found Nuri staring off into the forest.
"You had to do it." She whispered, sitting next to Nuri on the grass. "There wasn't anything you could do to help her."
Nuri's jaw clenched, she was so sick of hearing that she had to do it. That there wasn't anything else she could do, she had to hear it everyday from herself. "I know." She spat, treating the admission like pine tar on the tongue. "Doesn't make it easier." She wouldn't try to hide herself from Aaliyah, she had seen her at her worst and was now witnessing a new low.
"I had to do it before too, just a young boy. Not much older than Bluebird." Aaliyah said as Nuri rested her head on her shoulder. "Beetle was his callsign. I didn't actually know his name, just that I had to help him." She interlocked her fingers with Nuri's, a lump forming in the back of her throat as she thought back to it. Aaliyah told Nuri the story, how he wasn't injured until they made it out of the jail. He tripped over a tree root and twisted his foot. "I could have dragged him the rest of the way, but I feared there wasn't going to be enough time." She said, choking up on the last words. "There was enough time for me to take his life."
"Aaliyah, I-" Nuri tried to speak but Aaliyah hushed her.
"It was only weeks before you showed up with all your passion and hope." Aaliyah laughed, looking at Nuri with the same smile that she had given her when they first met. It held a new meaning to Nuri, understanding what hid behind it. It was bittersweet, knowing that you had snuffed out life only for another to enter yours. Aaliyah closed the distance between them, it was far from their first kiss. But it felt like one, the gentle way Aaliyah moved her plump lips against Nuri's chapped ones.
Nuri's hands held Aaliyahs face, a mirroring bittersweet smile on her own lips. Aaliyah's lips tasted like honey that she snuck from the ration stores she had with her tea. Pushing her body closer to Nuri's body, she parted her lips slightly to allow Nuri to slip her tongue inside. Pulling apart when her chest constricted for air, Nuri looked into Aaliyah's blue eyes with new found emotion. "You can be a monster Nuri, and I will still love you." Aaliyah said, her breath stolen by the kiss they had shared.
"Escape with me." Nuri blurted out, unsure of what she was really doing. The heat of the moment still clouded the part of her brain that made the smarter decisions. "I mean it, we can leave. We're both trained soldiers, capable of handling swords, bows and shields. We can do it, just the two of us."
Aaliyah looked at Nuri, flabbergasted by her sudden change, "Leave everyone else behind? Williams? Alice?" She asked, sure that Nuri wasn't thinking. She was right of course, but that didn't stop Nuri from nodding along, invigorated by Aaliyah's love confession. "No, Nuri. We've worked too hard to leave this behind. I've worked too hard to leave this all behind. If we're leaving, we're leaving with everyone."
"Aaliyah." Nuri pleaded, she wasn't sure if she could take this anymore. She would have to wait five more years for Elowen to finish up her studies, only for the chance that she'll come for them. That she'll join them in dismantling this operation. "I can't." She whispered, "I can't do this anymore. Five more years I'll have to wait for Elowen. If you want to wait for someone who might not even show, go ahead but I can't. I'm tired of waiting, of doing nothing." She said, "I love you Aaliyah. I'll burn down cities and topple governments for you, but I won't sit and suffer for no reason."
Nuri stood up, not seeing a reason to try and convince someone who had already made their choice. "If you love me, you'll stay." Aaliyah cried, "Stay with me." Grabbing onto Nuri's wrist to try and get her to sit back down. Nuri pulled her arm from Aaliyah's grips.
"If you love me, you'll let me go." Nuri muttered before walking away. She tried not to think about the way Aaliyah probably cried that night as Nuri laid in bed. She tried to think about freedom and what that would mean for her. No more drills, no more slop but where would she go? Home? No, the government would go there first. To Elowen? Try and cross the Academy walls to talk to her sister, maybe but after that? Would she escape on a boat? Flee to some other country or continent?
Nuri wasn't sure and she wasn't thinking clearly right now. Aaliyah had kept her grounded for these five years and without her or the rose tinted view she had for the resistance, what was she going to do? Maybe, for once in your goddamn life Nuri, she screamed in her mind, just do it.