It was early in the morning when Ruth first saw her.

The Admiral's men had gathered the citizens of the township to welcome the return of their lord and master -- celebration and jubilation prompted by the watchful eye of a rifle. Half-hearted balloons and parade floats littered Kireh's central square, soon cleared away by the guards as Admiral Barridad's shuttle came down to land, sending fearsome gusts of wind smashing against the ground.

One nearby house rattled ominously. It wouldn't be out of the question for it to collapse -- it had happened before, after all.

Oleg had snuck the two of them into Kireh to observe Barridad's arrival. If anyone found out that two members of the resistance were here, they'd be killed without a doubt, but Oleg seemed confident that wouldn't happen. He was a brutal, roughspun man, with a face that looked like it had been smashed into place. A pair of too-small spectacles balanced atop his jagged nose. A bulky coat covered his form -- sometimes, Ruth wondered how he could handle wearing stuff like that in the jungle heat of Mirios, but he'd never give her a straight answer.

Ruth herself wasn't really one to talk, though -- the fourteen-year old had her hands stuffed into the pockets of the dusty-red hoodie she was wearing, and the heat was sweltering, even with the Aether she was using to combat it.

They lingered at the edge of the crowd, watching the proceedings. Nobody was looking at them, but still… Ruth couldn't help but feel suspicion crawling over her back.

"We shouldn't be here," she growled quietly, staring straight forward. "Bad feeling."

Oleg's voice didn't rise above a whisper. "No choice. They need someone to report on the Admiral. We can't fight him if we don't know where he is."

Ruth scratched her arm anxiously. "Still don't like it. This is too exposed. We shouldn't be here."

Oleg shushed her, looking up at the sky. Her own eyes flicked up to follow his gaze -- the door to Admiral Barridad's shuttle, now landed, was slowly opening.

From what Ruth Blaine understood, Admiral Zed Barridad was essentially the devil. He'd worked his way up to the upper echelons of the Supremacy's military, killed countless people fighting their wars, and was given the planet of Mirios as reward. By extension, of course, that included the people of Mirios: he could do whatever he wanted with them. It was how he got his kicks.

Enjoy it while you can, Ruth thought, as the Admiral himself stepped out of the shuttle. I'll tear your guts out.

Despite his reputation, Admiral Barridad wasn't especially imposing to look at. A man of average height and thin appearance, with dark hair quickly turning grey. The closest thing he had to a distinguishing characteristic was the faded moustache contaminating his upper lip. If it wasn't for the white-and-gold admiralty uniform he wore, Ruth probably wouldn't recognize him.

The crowd went silent as Barridad appeared, all the babbling and muttered complaints dying in a moment. They remembered what had happened last year, after all. Barridad smiled thinly as he addressed the crowd, his soft voice echoing through the square:

"I have arrived," he said, hands clasped behind his back. "That is all."

And with that, he turned and began striding away, flanked by two heavily-armed bodyguards. Ruth went to move through the crowd -- to follow Barridad's path -- but Oleg stopped her by grabbing her arm.

"What?" she snarled up at him, annoyed.

Oleg nodded towards the shuttle. "The other one. Remember?"

Right, Oleg had mentioned -- apparently, this year the Admiral was bringing one of his daughters to join him on his little sojourn. The formerly illegitimate result of an affair between himself and a Minister's wife, apparently. From what Oleg had said, the Minister had ended up drowning in an unfortunate accident, and the daughter had ended up here.

Ruth couldn't imagine Barridad had anything good in store for the girl. This wasn't the kind of place you came to with anything but sadism in mind. This was a planet that wanted to eat people, and it so often succeeded.

The girl -- she was around Ruth's age -- stepped out of the shuttle, hands clutching her arms nervously. She had the Admiral's formerly black hair, but not his face: Ruth supposed that, at least, was a mercy.

The girl's nervousness was obvious, her hands fidgeting with the hem of her simple white dress. Barridad's daughter looked around the crowd as if she'd fallen into a nest of snakes. That probably wasn't too inaccurate -- there weren't many people who'd look favourably upon a relative of their tormentor.

"Robin Barridad," Oleg muttered from her side. "What do you think? Could you kill her, if we have to?"

Ruth imagined the feeling of her metal claws sinking into Robin Barridad's flesh, the satisfying surrender of matter as her blows caved her face into a bloody pit, of the electric heat of blood coating her fingers. It didn't seem difficult. The girl looked weak -- in a place like this, she was dead already.

Corpses like her should have the good sense to stop pretending they were anything else.

"Yeah," Ruth smirked. "Of course I could--"

She locked eyes with Robin Barridad, and it felt as if she'd been struck by lightning.

The girl looked at her, their eyes meeting across the ocean of the crowd. The girl's bright green gaze looked into Ruth's shadowed gold, concealed beneath her hood. And then, Ruth's enemy smiled sweetly at her.

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The words caught in Ruth's throat like they'd grabbed onto it with hooks.

Oleg looked down at her, slightest concern infiltrating his mountainous features. "What's wrong? We made?"

"No," Ruth shook her head slowly. The other girl had already looked away, being led to follow her father by the guards. "No, I'm fine."

She didn't feel so sure anymore.

----------------------------------------

Six years later…

As Ruth's consciousness returned, the first thing she became aware of was the headache. To put it simply, her head ached. Ruth supposed that feeling pain was probably better than not feeling anything at all -- so long as things could hurt you, that meant you weren't yet dead.

Slowly, she opened her eyes, welcoming with a hiss the sunlight on the other side. Wherever she was, it was bright -- not bright enough to be outdoors, but probably near a window or something.

It was quickly becoming obvious that what Ruth had assumed was a headache was actually more like an everything-ache. It felt like someone had thrown her in a tumbledryer and left her there for a couple of hours. It --

Ruth's eyes snapped fully open as her last memories finally came back into clear vision. Skipper's Heartbeat Shotgun, the ship going down, Bruno projecting that giant forcefield. What had happened?! She couldn't just lie here -- she didn't have the time!

"I wouldn't move so quick, if I were you," a soft voice said -- and at the same time, a sharp blade came into position to tickle against Ruth's throat.

Ruth's eyes adjusted to the light -- and her position became obvious. She was in some kind of crude wood cabin, sunlight streaming in through a green-glass window. Apart from the bed Ruth was lying on, which seemed to be more part of the floor than anything, the only pieces of furniture were a table and chair over by the door.

She wasn't concerned about the furniture, though. What she was concerned with was the young woman holding the sword to her neck. Ruth did her best to subtly gulp, hoping that wouldn't cause her throat to scrape any further against the blade.

"Good to see you get the gist of things," the girl said, not moving the sword. She was young, younger than Ruth -- in her late teens at the very most. Messy blonde hair covered one of her eyes, while the other glared emerald.

What really caught Ruth's attention, however, were the bony protrusions extending from each of the girl's temples. Like antlers, they winded in the air for a short distance before suddenly terminating in clean cuts, like the ends of them had been chopped off at some point.

The girl didn't miss where Ruth was putting her attention. "Y'really don't know what you're looking at, do you?" she murmured. "What are you?"

Carefully, Ruth spoke: "I'm nobody. Where am I?"

The girl raised an eyebrow. "Where do y'think you are?"

Ruth glanced around the room, carefully paying attention -- outside, she could hear the tweeting of birds, the clicking of insects. Out in nature somewhere, maybe? Her eyes flicked down to her own body -- to the ropes binding her hands and feet. Clearly she wasn't here on friendly terms.

"I dunno," Ruth said. "You tell me."

The girl ignored her response. "What's your name?"

Probably, she shouldn't give her real name -- that's what Bruno would have advised. She took a few seconds to come up with a convincing alias: "Dragana Hadrien." Nailed it.

An amused smirk played across the girl's lips. "I already know your friend's names, stupid -- and you took way too long to come up with that. Are you an idiot or something?"

Ruth went to sit up, only to fall back down onto her back when her bindings didn't permit it. "You have my friends?" she demanded, anger finally entering her tone. "Where are they?!"

They had to be alive, then! If they'd told this girl their names, that meant they had to be alive!

"You'll see 'em," the girl said carefully. "Soon as you answer my questions. One: where the hell did you come from?"

Ruth considered it. In this kind of situation, should she consider her friends hostages? If so, she couldn't mess around. "Mirios," she sighed.

The girl furrowed her brow. "Mirios?"

"A planet called Mirios," Ruth nodded.

If anything, though, that clarification seemed to confuse the girl more. She stood up, taking a few steps back -- if nothing else, Ruth appreciated the increased distance between herself and the sword.

"Planet…?" the girl mumbled. "What do you mean planet? You're -- that's -- you're lying. Don't screw with me."

It was Ruth's turn to be confused. "How am I screwing with you?" she asked, sitting up as much as her restraints would allow. "Everyone comes from a planet -- unless they're born on a starship, I guess."

"A starship?" the girl echoed. Her sword fell limp at her side. "That's -- you mean the thing we found you in? No, no, you're screwing with me."

"How am I screwing with you?" Ruth repeated, growing angrier as the girl continued to say things that made no sense. "What, you've never seen a starship before --"

Oh. Oh, now she got it.

She'd heard about places like this before. Planets that had become cut off from galactic society -- whether by choice or circumstance. From the sounds of it, this place had been cut off for so long they'd forgotten there was even anything beyond their little planet.

These places were called Lilith Worlds.

"What?" the girl interrupted Ruth's train of thought, pointing the sword at her threateningly. "Why'd you stop, what'd you--"

Now that Ruth looked at her properly, it was easy to see just how young the girl was. From a distance where you could pay attention to how much the blade in her hand was shaking rather than how sharp it was, she looked more frightened than anything. A kid out of her depth.

"What's your name?" Ruth asked, doing her best to sound non-threatening.

The girl hesitated before answering. "Lily," she finally said. "Lily Aubrisher. Why?"

Ruth smiled sadly. "I'm real sorry, Lily."

It happened in an instant.

With a flash of red Aether, Ruth easily broke free of her restraints, closing the distance between her and Lily in a single step. An Aether-infused punch from one hand shattered Lily's sword easily, while the other seized her in a headlock, pulling her close.

Ruth had Lily in her grasp before the girl even had time to blink. Still, the girl opened her mouth -- presumably to shout for backup. One of Ruth's thin, sharp claws pressed against her throat put a stop to that.

"I don't want to kill ya," Ruth said quietly, truthfully. "But I can if you make me. You understand?"

Slowly, carefully, Lily nodded. "What do you want?" she whispered -- it was her turn, now, to be cautious of the steel pressing against her neck.

Ruth narrowed her eyes. I don't want to lose what I have. There was only one answer she was interested in.

"Where the hell are my friends?"