At first, the general only felt like the hit was a minor bother to her, as she knew that it would heal in an hour or two, but when the little baby in her arms started crying, her head felt like it was on fire. Her eyes burned with anger as she closed them.
She felt the darkness all around the inn become a part of her body and the first thing she did was to make a shield around the bodies of the two children, so that when the darkness turned into a big spear and slashed through the two women, the blood that spurted out of their bodies wouldn't touch them.
After she successfully skewered the two women, whimpering with fear behind her, she opened her eyes to let go of her control of the darkness. The first thing she looked at after opening her eyes was the slightly pale and cold 2 year old's body. With the baby still crying in her arms, she bent her body and picked up the body of the other child too, her eyes overflowing with pity and sorrow. The moment she had cast a shield on his body she had known that his body was too cold to be alive, and with the help of the memories she had obtained from him, she had gotten to know that he had died from starvation, after the people had refused to feed the children.
She had no idea how this little girl had survived the hunger inflicted on her by those barbarians. She tried to bounce the baby in her arms in an effort to quiet her down, but failed miserably. When she reached the floor below, it showed that every one of the people had a cage of darkness around them even as they were suspended in mid air.
It seemed as if time itself had stopped inside the cages of darkness, the women who had been dancing had their bodies frozen in odd poses. Two men who had been fighting each other were in an extremely tilted position- one on top of the other- as the man on top had his punch held back. A bard was standing on top of a table - between a lot of food - with an extremely vivid expression and with his arms open towards the ceiling, as if symbolizing something very big. At his feet sat a crowd of people with a variety of expressions on their faces, ranging from horrified to excited.
As soon as the commander stepped out of the inn - into the crowd - , the shadow cages immediately moved back to their original positions and the people proceeded with the actions they were doing, while not even being aware of what happened to them.
* * *
Walking out of the crowded part of the street with almost everyone who saw her staring at her, the general hurried her way to the nearest report office. When she saw the sole huge and black building in the entire street, she walked straight inside it, not offering acknowledgment to the soldiers who saluted her at the door and opened it for her.
As soon as she stepped inside, she commanded the first soldier she saw.
"Get him to the graveyard and tell the earthmaster to try and bury him as soon as he can."
Yastaz and Vensah had many common beliefs, and one of them was that the soul of the people who die wanders around in pain in the land of the living, until they're buried. This belief was also frequently used as a punishment for criminals, as in the event of them dying during their sentence, their body would be thrown in the sea, for their soul to never see peace again. Thus, the people who bury other people and ease their pain would be extremely respected and called earthmasters.
The soldier who saw her tried to question her about the blood on her head that was ceaselessly flowing down her nape, but when he saw how forced her cold expression looked, he stopped and heeded her command.
While still bouncing The baby in her arms she looked around for another person to order. She got what she wanted when a soldier stepped out from the inside of the building to look for the source of the crying sound that was reverbating in the entire building.
"Get me so-"
"God! Commander, you're bleeding heavily! What the heck happened?Is this your baby? Did Commander Wyven and you fight? How co-"
Hearing all the shouting and crying invading her ears, she Finally started to feel the pain of the wound, her head started to hurt, her ears were ringing, and her view was blurring. It was probably because of the bloodloss.
With her head spinning, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath and raised her hand, straight and upwards in a way that its backside faced the man in front of her. He immediately became silent, successfully interpreting the gesture as a command to become quiet and to not move as it was often used on the battlefield.
"Cassius, bring me a lot of fresh milk and a bottle to feed babies. NOW!"
Irritated with how he was staring at her with a dumbfounded expression, she screamed the last word at him.After he rushed out the door, with wobbly steps, she went and sat at the seat reserved for people who were waiting for their turn to make a report. There were many people in the room who were staring at her in awe and fear, as she was a sensation in the kingdom, being the first and greatest female soldier. The child in the seat next to her started to cry from horror, looking at her. But she was too caught up in comforting the baby in her arms, with a worried countenance.
All of a sudden, the chief barged in from his office, searching for something. When his eyes finally spotted the commander who had all her attention focused on the whimpering baby, he rushed to her with a medical practitioner by his side.
"Commander Elaine! I just got to know that you're here and that you're injured, please come inside and get treatment."
He saw how she had all her focus on playing with the baby and used the tactic he always used when Commander Wyven had all his attention on Commander Elaine.
"And besides, you don't know how to comfort babies, while this doctor right here knows a lot about dealing with little kids."
At first, she looked at him sharply with a scowl on her face, but when she heard that the doctor was well-versed in dealing with kids, she looked at him with admiration in her eyes. She suddenly stood up and stared at him in the eyes intensely.
"Teach me, now."
The doctor looked dumbfounded at the events that were constantly taking turns. He didn't know why the chief was lying about him being good with kids. He was horrible with kids! With the commander looking at him so intensely and with the general constantly winking at him from behind the commander, he uttered the first thing that came to his mind, with a shockingly good imitation of a serious expression.
"She's hungry… A-and she - uuhh…. MAY be cold, so you should take her inside the office as it's uhm... warmer"
After saying this he saw how the general was constantly pointing towards the office from the commander's back and quickly added the extra words in an obviously suspicious way.
The general was easily able to see through the act of the doctor and general, but seeing that his point of the baby being cold made sense she walked inside the office, where she was treated and after a while Cassius brought a milk bottle and a lot of warm milk with it.
As the little girl kept sucking on the milk in the bottle with little hiccups, the commander seemed to be falling more and more in love with her by the second. Before she even realized it, the office seemed to be a bit too crowded, as many soldiers whom she knew were staring at the baby and her, debating about what their relationship was, and if the baby was a girl or a boy.
The most ironic thing was that the stations and duties of some of these soldiers were very far from here. But unlike normally, she didn't dislike this feeling of attention, rather she liked it, even though some of the soldier's guesses were as weird as suggesting that because she wasn't pregnant her husband must have given birth to the baby.
After the little girl finished two entire bottles of milk, she had a healthy flush on her face and she drowsed off to sleep. The soldiers kept bombarding questions in whispers to her and just as she was about to scold them, she heard an angry, cold, and an extremely familiar voice break out from behind the dense crowd.
"What the heck is happening over here?"