To Alena's surprise the children were quite good at pulling up Potatoes. Alena could only dream that they'd actually make quota and she'd keep their farm, but at the pace they were on they just might make it. Of course the old you'll end up freezing in somebody else's shack if my farm gets foreclosed tends to be a great motivator for most people. She was doing all right coping with Tau's death. She made sure to take a long walk into the forest if she ever felt she needed to scream, best not to scare the children if it's not necessary.
Alena woke up to the shouting of children in a language she did not understand. She pulled herself up out of her bed. She wasn't wearing pajamas, she always went to sleep in her farm clothes. They were far from comfortable, but she assumed that if you were too tired to sleep in jeans and a button up flannel, than you weren't working hard enough that day. She walked down her stairs like a zombie to the children running around the downstairs floor of the house in circles. Of the children their were two boys and three girls, Alena hadn't asked the woman what relation they were to her. She seemed a little young to have all those children, but Alena hadn't the care to ask.
She knew their names though. One little boy with short hair, probably five or six, his name was Thento, which Alena, didn't want to admit out loud, was just the stupidest sounding name. There's an older boy, Brusi, who Alena had been told is height years old, though he had the build of a ten year old, and the potato pulling capabilities of a thirty year old lumber jack. As for the girls, Ashi and Star were twins, but they didn't act like it, they fought pretty often. And the oldest girl among them was named Alara, and she was also the most mature, and the most fiesty.
Brusi was at the lead of the group had a helicopter in his hand and was making buzzing sounds while the other children chased him. When the boy ran passed Alena she reached over and grabbed the helicopter right out of his hand, this caused him to lose balance and stumble, "I need sleep." The children were silent, she looked at the boy, "Do you like this?" She held the toy in front of him. He nodded. "Do you know what it's called?" The boy shook his head. "This is a helicopter."
The boy smiled and said, "Helicopter!" in an accent that even Alena had to admit was adorable.
"Yes. Helicopters are horrible flying death traps, you'd be best to stay away." She stuffed it into her pocket The last time I let a kid play with planes she ran off and got killed in the Naval Air Arm. "Trust me when I tell you that flying isn't safe."
Star looked at Alena and said, "You suck!"
"Well I'm glad to see your speaking has improved. I know you'll be needing it when I throw you out of here for being rude to your elders."
The girl stood defiant, "Aunt Ishare thinks we're safer here, but she said we'd go south to see the summer lands. This place is just cold and wet."
Alena looked at the girl and frowned, "Well, I'm sorry to know that my home isn't quite up to the expectations you held for it."
"It would be okay if you weren't such a Coryke," Alara chimed in.
At that moment Ishare, the woman who had been traveling with the kids, stepped through the door. Her hands brown with dirt. Her eyes scanned back and forth at the angry children standing before finally asking, "What's wrong?"
"She stole our toy!" Star yelled.
"My toy actually." Alena responded, "I was explaining to them why flying contraptions are dangerous, and then your daughter berated me. She said she doesn't want to live here."
"Well surely it's okay for them to just play-" Alena wasn't amused, and Ishare caught on. She turned to her kids, "Please be gracious to our host."
Alena nodded in affirmation. She thought she ought to be respected in her own home. She reminded them all bluntly, "I'm not your host for much longer if we don't meet Quota."
To Alena's surprise Ishare snapped back, "We're not your slaves. We'll do our best, but we can only work for so long so fast. And don't think that if we do have to move we won't."
Alena nodded her head, "You're not my slaves. I'm just reminding you that you guys all have as much of a stake in this as I do." Alena looked across the ground for other toys. The children had apparently dumped out Tau's old box. There was another helicopter, several planes, and thankfully a tank. She picked up the toy tank and handed it to the boy, "You can go outside and play with this." The children didn't have to think twice before they darted outside.
Alena looked at Ishare, "Want some coffee?"
"What's coffee?" She said, before continuing, "I say... I've heard it before, I know it's a drink I just don't know what it is."
Alena walked over and grabbed some coffee grounds out of the cupboard before pouring them into the electric powered coffee pot in her room, then she poured in water. "When there's a part of you that wants to give up, coffee replaces that part of you with a little bit of black gold to keep you going." She hit the one button and the machine made it's signature rumbling sound. Alena could tell Ishare didn't understand what she just said, "Just try some. Then you can decide if you like it or not."
She nodded and took a seat at their small dining table in the corner of the room. The morning light was shining in through the windows illuminating her face. She had flowing brown hair and brown eyes. Alena sat down across from her to wait for the coffee to finish heating up. Alena looked at Ishare and studied her face, before finally asking, "What's it like over the wall?"
"Cold. And filled with death."
"I always heard it was beautiful."
"It's not."
Alena decided to ask another question, "Why come across now?"
"The men got weapons. They heard about some sort of a war, they decided to attack while the Sentryborn were still distracted." She said, "But that's not why I went over." She frowned, "Our village was attacked by the Horde. So we were forced to flee, we had no where else to go but Over the wall. Me and my family climbed, most of my tribe were shot descending on the far side of the wall." She looked out through the window, "We're all that's left."
"The horde?" Alena asked.
The woman nodded, speaking in an accent so foreign Alena could not put it to memory, "Monsters. Men frozen in time. Their bodies are decayed and crippled by ice, but their souls are sustained, frozen to their horses. The cold is their weapon." She rubbed her shoulders almost instinctively, "Most men freeze to death, the lucky ones. What the storm spares the Horde finishes." Alena shrugged it off, probably just another tribe that attacked them, men can look like monsters if enough fear's involved. She looked out the window, "Those poor children. They watched their families slaughtered. They all want me to march further south, but I know if the Zytrian Government catches us they'll send us back, or worse."
"You'd be surprised." Alena said, "The Queen is quite progressive. She might let you all stay if you promise to help her win her war. You're human after all." She smiled and grabbed the radio on the table, "But, I think your instincts are right. If there's anything I've learned in my life, it's that you can't trust the government." She flipped it on and tuned it to the proper station.
"What's that?!" The woman cried out as Alena filtered through the station.
"It's a long wave radio. It uses radio waves to communicate across long distances by bouncing off of the Ionosphere." Alena could tell that Ishare didn't get it, "Imagine light, but light that's so red that you can't see it, being shot across the sky so high that it bounces off of a giant wall of electrically charged particles in space. Then it bounces down and bounces back up and down until it hits this radio antena which transfers it into an electrical signal that causes electrons to vibrate at frequency known to us as audible sound." The woman's jaw was near the floor with confusion, "I was an apprentice radio technician in a past life. Maybe I should open it up to show you how-" Alena stopped, seeing Ishare's fear at the prospect. Alena's facial expression went flat, "It's magic."
Ishare nodded, "I see."
The radio was finally tuned to the proper station and the familiar voice of the radio man sparked on, "Word has arrived that the evacuation of the Air Base at Craitious Island in the Eastern Ocean was a success. This marks the last of the Eastern Islands to fall into enemy hands." The man paused, "Here with us we have a guest. The Lady Marksmanship Captain, Illensa Dietery."
"It's wonderful to be here." The voice of the woman was stern, and surprisingly agressive.
"You're here to explain the value of Marksmanship to Zytrian women. Correct?"
"Yes, Allen. The aggressive deployment of our great men into the military is a situation familiar with many women in this country, and it's a situation I'm personally familiar with as my own husband has left to fight. I had half a mind to wait in the sun room for my husband to come home, But I couldn't just sit still with all the news on the radio of the possibility of an Invasion. I know a family is only as strong as the person who defends it. And in the absence of my husband that duty fell to me."
"So you learned to shoot?"
"I already knew how to shoot. I was the captain of our lady marksmanship club at South Mountain Highschool. But I know that's not an opportunity afforded to most young women in Zytria. So I took it upon myself to teach as many of the women in my town how to shoot as possible. So that if the Atherians ever attacked, we'd know how to protect the house with our husbands gone."
"Can you shoot?" Ishare asked Illena
"So you were recruited by the Qu-"
Alena shut off the radio. "What did you say?"
"Do you know how to fire a rifle?"
Alena nodded, "Of course. I taught my kids too. Tau, my daughter, she was one hell of a shot. 'Could hit a dime from a mile away."
"So when the Atherians attack you'll protect us."
Alena threw back her head laughing. "No, oh God No!" She laughed even harder, "I don't know what you've been hearing about this war or from who. But in our context, the Atherians are the good guys. When they show up, I'm going to be feeding them dinner and throwing a party."
Ishare looked confused, "But, the Zytrians are your tribe."
"My tribe? Not if Yorrin came before me and begged it so. They're all monsters, they have what's coming to them, they killed my-" Allena paused. "The Zytrians would throw you back over the wall when this is all over, but the Atherians would probably let you stay. They're the ones you should be rooting for."
Ishare paused for a second, "Can you teach me to shoot?"
Alena paused, "What for?"
"The world is in a scary time." She shook her head, "A woman is nothing if she cannot protect her family."
"I can teach you to shoot a gun. But I can't give you the courage you need to use it when the time comes." Ishare just nodded, "Well, let's head outside."
She got up out of her chair right when the coffee maker made its distinctive dinging sound. She continued to the door, "Don't you want your coffee?" Ishare inquired.
"That stuff? It tastes like dirt. You wouldn't have liked it anyways."
Alena walked to the tool shed, and once again tugged on the piece of metal chain that hung from the ceiling. The gun rack swung down, but instead of reaching for the shotgun, her hand found the old hunting rifle. She stepped outside to see Ishare standing akwardly in the floral T-Shirt and blue jeans she'd borrowed from Alena. She seemed worried, "Trust me, if you do this right, the only person who'll have anything to fear is the guy on the other end of your gun sight."
Ishare nodded.
Ishare and Alena walked for quite a ways away from the farm until Alena leaning against her hunting rifle was standing ontop of a barren hill. Overlooking a field of corn, with a scarecrow standing inside of it. It looked as though one of the corns had simply sprouted arms and legs and just decided, I'm gonnna show these stupid humans that we corn have feelings too. Which made it all the more ironic what was going to happen next.
Alena displayed the gun to Ishare. "This thing doesn't have a safety, and it's bolt action which means that if you want to fire it." She pulled back on the small metal clamp with a ball at the end until it clicked into place about an inch back behind where it once was, "You have to yank this metal bit back." She held up the rifle, putting the stock into her shoulder, "You might be tempted to hold the gun right up to your face. Don't, it's a fantastic way to end up with a broken cheek bone and a rightfully bruised ego. Keep the stock on your shoulder, your head about an inch from the gun, and your eye behind the gunsight." She took aim at the scarecrow, "Then take the gunsight and aim at your target. Tug hard on the trigger." She pulled the trigger and with a flash, and the scare crow shook as a poof of pulverized straw burst from its head. She extended the gun to Ishare, "Your turn."
Ishare took the gun into her arms, and pulled on the bolt of the gun, it clicked into place. She then held the gun, awkwardly extending it away from her body, and fumbled it into the general direction of the scarecrow. When she pulled the trigger, there was a flash of light, and a loud yelp as the gun twisted out of her hand and cracked against her wrist before falling to the ground. The bullet impacted into an unfortunately positioned corn about 15 feet from her target. Ishare backed away from the gun and started cursing at it in a language that Alena did not understand.
"Look." She picked up the rifle, "You can't be afraid of the gun, you have to see it is a tool. You've got to hold it in your arms as if you want it to be there."
"But you told me to keep it away from my face."
"Yeah but not so far away that you can't see down the rifle sight."
Ishare was defiant, "I don't need a gun. A bow and arrow will do! That machine tried to kill me, it exploded in my hands. My wrist still hurts."
"Yorrin save me. You sound like my husband! I swear I can't help some people when it comes to guns!"
Ishare replied with fire, "Well where's your husband! I say get him out here so that we can have another voice of reason!"
Alena's passion drained from her, "He's not coming out anywhere."
Ishare calmed herself, in a motherly voice she asked, "What happened?"
"They took him away." She handed Ishare the gun, "And they'll take you away too if you let them. It's a scary time in the world, us women have to know how to protect ourselves."
Ishare nodded. She took the gun into her hands and tugged back the bolt. She held the stock firmly against her shoulder. The sound of corn husks rustling against the wind was interrupted by the crack of a gunshot that echoed down through the plains.