Hana

Here I am. Admittedly, even her silhouette is unsettling; it is a kind of armor that most see only marred in blood and war, outlined against roaring white flame. How strange it is, then, that the armor is so… intricately detailed. The colors, the grooves, the adornment… by all measures, Hana was merely a footsoldier—fodder for the End—but her armor is stunning. It was made by a craftsman whose goals were sparse, whose only escape from the barren wastes around the Vaskhul camps and the maddening machinery of war could be found in the grinding, hammering, sparking of steel.

Her posture doesn’t quite match the armor, though. She slumps, nervously. There are no eyes in her helmet, no facial features that I can focus on, but I can see her nevertheless casting a gaze into the corners of the room as if she expects the shadows to meld together and attack her.

“Hana?”

She perks up, sitting up into a stiff posture, nodding.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.” I sit down across from her. I try my best to hide it, but it’s clear she knows that her presence is a little… intimidating. It’s a tall, bulky suit of armor meant to cast a striking shadow, and one thoroughly drenched in runic art that has come to signal imminent mortal danger to anyone in Woodveil.

“If it will help,” she says. Her voice is low and hesitant. I don’t think she really wants to be here, and I admire her efforts all the more for it. “Please, let us pass the pleasantries. Ask your first question.”

I’m a little taken aback by that. She’s just… barreling through. “What drives the Vaskhul to fight?”

“Have you ever felt like the world is… unfair? Have you ever wondered why…” she pauses, for a moment, as if to think. She struggles to gather her thoughts for long, I would eventually come to notice. I don’t blame her. “… why you have to suffer. Why you get sick. An intelligent being made this world, supposedly for us, but we all go through suffering. Sometimes, we go through truly horrific things.” She tries to scratch her leg, perhaps a nervous tic, but is frustrated by her limiting metallic shell.

“The Elder Vaskhul, the first of them, knew the depths of suffering that we had been built to experience. They wondered why the Architect could possibly permit such a thing. They wanted to expose the flaw, to bare the Architect’s evil to its face and demand it answer them why. So… they spread the suffering. They brought it to others, tore their souls apart until they were shells whose only memory was that horrific torment, and convinced them that it was the world which was responsible for their nightmare. That if they could destroy the world, it could be remade into a place where no one could ever feel anything like that again. But… in truth, the Elders, I think they just hated the world and wanted to see it burn.”

“… I see. Do you… remember anything of your past life?”

“No. They were thorough,” she intones, again picking at her armor, clearly frustrated that it’s not the human body that her soul must still distantly recall. “Sometimes I get faint memories. Little wisps that pass through my mind, but when I notice them and try to catch them, they always slip through my fingers. Sometimes I notice a familiar smell or a familiar sound, but I can never place it.”

“How much of your time among the crusades do you remember?”

“A lot of it. The silences inbetween were the worst part. The crusades… the feeling of being among Her flame is… almost incredible. The rage, the passion, it flows freely in Her presence. To be able to exact that revenge is intoxicating. Every crusade was a wild frenzy, and only the commanders would remember much of what happened after. People who had become numb to the flame. I think all their emotion burned up in those fires, so they only did what they knew and what they could to survive. But in the time between, you weren’t allowed to do anything but work. Make weapons. Make tools of war. Wait. You can’t sleep, you can’t eat, you can’t do anything but work or stare at walls if they let you. You can’t do anything but try to capture those memories from the flames before they burn up completely, and then balk at them.”

She speaks… vividly. Again, I’m getting anxious—I worry that she’s going to… flip, somehow. But by the end of her answer, her voice is hollow. There’s no more anger left, I don’t think.

“So, the Vaskhul don’t get to make art? Do anything creative at all?”

“Our lives were bare by design, but… it was not as if we couldn’t write if we really wanted to. It’s just that… some people tried. They’d feel this distant feeling inside themselves that urged them on, but when they’d start to really get… into it, I think they were inviting Her in. We revered Her, but we didn’t want Her at the same time. Every spark of anger you felt had the potential grow into a wildfire, and from that fire would emerge Her form. If you started writing about your experiences, your emotions, you’d just dig up layers of rage and regret, and that was a doorway for Her. There was this unspoken rule among the lower ranks that we couldn’t do that.”

“So… you avoided Her, even though She was supposed to be your god?”

“Yes. She is cruel, and hateful, and Her flame is exhilarating but exhausting. If you ruminate in that place for too long, they will start to burn you too, and I think we all wanted to hold onto that little bit of control we had left. Her rage was ours, but if we came to accept Her too much, or if we embraced the fury too much, we would lose everything left of ourselves to Her.”

“How did you… come to defect?”

“They put me in charge of the prisoners. When one of them escaped, I ran after them as long as I could, far into the forest, but they got away. I realized I was lost… but… I didn’t want to find my way back. I just kept walking.”

“Do you think the others feel the way you do?”

“They are empty. The fire fills up their souls when the time is right, but it’s always temporary. The crusades, when they happen, give us that feeling of being… whole, and purposeful, and alive, back. But I saw so many of them staring at nothing in the camps. They were excited and full of fury one moment, and the next they’d be silent, unmoving. Sometimes, someone would stop in place and they’d never move again. Their armor would just become… vacant, and then it would be dragged off to be used for the next Vaskhul. Either you’re angry and ready to kill, or you feel nothing at all.”

“Do you feel like you have a chance to reintegrate into society?”

“People have… people have surprised me. I was always told that the people outside the Vaskhul camps were horrible. They would hurt you for no reason, do strange things and worship profane gods that liked to watch people suffer. But many have been kind. Most seem to… give me the benefit of the doubt, to acknowledge that my life was not my own until now. After all, the Vaskhul have little capacity for espionage…” She lets out a little laugh. It’s the first bit of levity I’ve seen from her. It makes me smile, too.

“What… is the mood, of the Vaskhul commanders? Did they seem confident?”

“No. They are in despair. It was clear to us, even as they tried to retain what twisted version of ‘morale’ they had built, that our advance was over. The crusades had come to an end. So many of us were beginning to burn out, because without Her flame driving us, we would simply lose the will to continue. There was no more action, no more outlets for our anger and nothing more to live for. We were merely waiting to be attacked. The Grasp, the Bearers, and the Revenant have all brought the Vaskhul’s plan to waste. But… I sensed that they had a new plan, last I saw my commander.”

“I see… well, that’s both good and unsettling to hear. Ah… what do you wish to do now that you have your freedom?”

“I wish to be a seamstress,” she speaks lowly, almost as if she’s ashamed. “I find sewing to be calming. It is hard to do with my armor, but a mage has been teaching me how to use spells for finer control.”

“That’s wonderful to hear.” I’m happy for her! To see her pursue such a peaceful thing… it gives me hope for her. “Well. I think that’s all the questions I have for now…”

“If you have anything else you wish to know, please send me a letter. I will respond as soon as I can.”

We exchange pleasantries, and depart. In truth, I am more interested in her than in the Vaskhul; someone so resilient that she still holds onto her personhood after all that she went through… but, the information on the crusaders is valuable, too.

It’s good to know they’re worried.