Sunlight in the Cellar

Artur never fully understood how Lana worked. He never was able to fully figure it out. He remembered the first time he saw her he didn't quite know what he was looking at. Then again, the pair had met under the strangest, and most painful, of circumstances far from normalcy.

Artur had been fourteen when they first met.

The basement he and his brother hid in was dark. The sun had pierced through the cracks of the cabin introducing the heat of the summer but still they had waited. Now the darkness threatened to envelope them as they hid among sacks of wheat and barley. 

He had been watching the door guardedly. Armed only with a shotgun and an adrenaline ready to swing at any moment, he felt his hands tremoring uncontrollably. Kal, Artur's little brother, lay pale, and cold next to him over the sacks of rice and barley in the heating basement.

He was waiting, his finger on the trigger. "Artie,"He heard his brother mutter. Artur remembered how weak the voice had sounded, how little there was. He looked away from the door, paling as he saw his brother's bullet wound. His mind went blank, his heart collapsing. He couldn't speak. Kal.

Gunfire split through the air, slicing through the atmosphere in the barn. Artur resumed his position, nearly pulling the trigger before he realized that the bullets had not come into the basement nor was the door open. Outside he could hear loud grunts and screams from men on all directions around the basement. All Artur could do was listen in tense silence. "Artie, what's happening?"

"Ssh, quiet."

All the bullets outside continued to engage in rapid fire, Artur didn't even have time to think just prepare for any movement to come into their room. He felt like a coward.

Then, in a break between the weaponry, the air weighted with fear, Artur saw movement in the cellar door. He pointed and fired a shot of his rifle watching as the door slammed shut, the bullet reverberating through the air. He waited for a few heavy minutes before he heard the opening and closing of the main door leading down into the basement. A ball rolled down the steps, landing at the bottom of the stairway. Artur looked at it curiously before seeing the movement of the cellar door, a shadowy slender figure opening the cellar doors wide open, letting sunlight rush in, blinding Artur. "Put the gun down, I'm not here to harm you."A young female voice cautioned.

Artur, eyes adjusting to the light, could make out a figure standing right in front of him. No, crouching, blades in two hands, unsheathed and shining. It must have only taken here seconds to leap down and spot them, crouch into position and unsheathe her weapons. He saw her face, covered by a patched up leather mask. "You're with them,"He whispered, "You're with the Trues, you better stand back now--"

"Easy! Easy!" She raised her voice somewhat, but her voice remained very steady. He watched as she sheathed her blades. "I'm not a True," Slowly she raised her hand to her face, removing the mask. "You can put the gun down, I won't hurt you,"

He wasn't able to tell if she was telling the truth. He didn't know. Even as his eyes adjusted to the light and he could make out the lines of her face. He just looked up, weak, and dirty, seeing blades at her hips and hearing men speaking outside. He trembled, looking over at Kal before turning to look at the girl.

"Please,"He felt cowardly, foolish, for pleading in front of a girl. In front of anyone. Here, now. But he didn't care. He lowered the machinery, feeling himself shake as he took the gun off completely, setting it aside, "Please. Whoever you are, help us."

His eyes were adjusted now and he could see her, sunlight pooling in behind this shadow, igniting her hair with golden radiance, disheveled, falling out from her bun in strands. But all he saw was her gaze as she seemed to struggle with words, before saying softly, "I'll do my best,"She said, seeming to hesitate then whispering, cooly, "I promise."Her dark eyes concealed no ulterior motive. He never heard her make a promise since.

Shortly after, Artur had heard voices rushing outside, shouting and footsteps racing. Lana had pulled on her mask and told him to wait there. More people began flooding into the basement through the cellar door. He saw Lana motion to him and his brother before a specific shadow member, covered in a dark mask of their own, a strange gas-mask covering their mouth. He watched, as they raced next to his side, checking his pulse and eyes before moving to Kal. Artur watched them carefully, ready to launch if she so much as made one wrong move. She touched the wound, Kal releasing a sharp moan, Artur grabbing the Shadow's wrist in one swift motion. The shadow looked up at Lana before turning their gaze back towards him, not moving.

The heat of the air bringing sweat down his temple, the fear and the adrenaline were still messing with his mind, leaving him somewhat disoriented. But none of that mattered: soon after he felt a sharp prick and ache in his upper arm, everything fading away quickly as he slipped into unconsciousness.

Low mist in the valley had swept in and surrounded them. Even now as he watched Lana gauge her environment, he could only sense the strength among them that radiated from her.

How a girl of so little had become so much to the great scheme of criminals when he saw a call to royalty, beauty in her veins. Days he spent trying to figure it out, putting together a puzzle, yet it remained a mystery to the boy. Perhaps it would be for the rest of his life.

Compared to most, Artur was one who knew Lana's ways better and yet it still felt sometimes like he was at the drawing board.

Lana felt, to him, nothing short of a splinter breaking in two and yet she had no clue how much strength lay beneath her surface. There was an eerie chaos, hardness, violence that surrounded her but a clear stability in who she was and what she was going to do.

He watched as she sharpened her blade under a tree, his eyes tracing the curve of it. He stood, strolling over to where she was. She didn't look up, not until he reached her. She looked up. Something in Artur fluttered. Oh the power that midnight dark-eyed gaze had... it was cold and kindled fire at the same time.

Artur held out the canteen silently. She stopped sharpening. Artur waited for the "I'll get it later," or "Not thirsty". Instead, she took the canteen without a word. Those angel eyes gave him one final glance, a glance with a thousand swords, and Artur nodded before walking back over to the fire.