When Yujo woke up from her nap her hazy vision focused on the clock. When the fuzz cleared, she read the time as 11am. Knowing that she needed to be presentable, she willed every bit of energy to pull herself out of bed and move over to the sink to see herself.
The first thing that came to her attention was just how much of a mess her hair was. She pulled her hand though her hair. Its normally soft bloom was now a tough, entangled mess. Yujo bit her lip, shook her head and pulled the sink tap’s lever up.
Cold water rushed out of the facet and swirled around in the small white bowl accompanied by a unique hiss. Cupping her hands into the water, she pooled it into her hands and threw it upwards. The water slapped her face. In that instant the images that the eye in the wall sung to her flashed rapidly in her mind. They were still utterly indecipherable but they did serve as a painful reminder of what happened.
She took the towel lying on the top of the toilet set, patted herself dry and took another look at herself in the mirror. A shrunken wreck of a person might have been staring back at her but at least she had a clean face.
A buzzer rang out and the hallway door opened wide with a creek. A platoon of militia personnel dressed in various ranks walked through.
In front was the Grand Marshal.
Yujo’s knees felt weak as the cluster walked towards her cell and the Grand Marshal ordered a guard to pull out the key to open the cell door. If she was going to make a run for it she would have to do it as soon as the door opened.
“Yujo Sippe Psalms,” he ordered in a voice deserving of his commanding figure, “You are to come with us. Is that understood?”
Defeated before she could even start, she slowly nodded and offered no resistance as the guard locked a pair of handcuffs over her arms.
With a wordless shift of his head, he ordered another two guards to Yujo’s side and turned to face him.
“Follow us.” He commanded and started to walk out of the jail with the rest of his marshals.
With no choice but to obey the order, Yujo held her head low and walked out of the jail hall and into the main reception. There Rosemary was pacing up and down across the reception sitting area. The bags under her eyes made it clear that she had not slept at all since Yujo last saw her.
Yujo could only watch as Rosemary noticed her and began to rush over only to be denied physical contact with her ward by the Grand Marshal's hand. She stepped back and gave him a stern look that only made Yujo flinch.
“I assume you are Rosemary McKenzie?” He asked in his cold tone.
“Sister, Rosemary McKenzie, sir.”
If he was bothered by the correction or the tone Rosemary was taking with him, he wasn't showing it.
“That’s one of my wards that you are roughhousing. If you would be so as kind and give me a moment to talk to her I would very much appreciate it.”
The grand marshal looked at her. “That is not possible now, Mam. Now if you would follow us…”
Now it was Rosemary’s turn to block him.
“No. Not until I can talk to Yujo…”
He gritted his teeth and muttered something about needing some damn coffee.
“Listen. I understand you want to talk to your ward but-”
Yujo closed her eyes as she watched the war veteran refusing to not step the metaphorical land mine that was Rosemary's temperment. In an instant, she had pushed herself forward and pointed her finger right at his face.
“Alright, you best listen to me, pal.”
Rosemary’s accent slipped into a central mem drawl.
“As part of my order, Yujo is goin’ nowhere until I can talk to her. I am aware of my rights as well as Yujo's as citizens of Abraham. Is that perfectly clear, Grand Marshal?”
The room fell silent as the casually dressed Nun stood mere inches away from a war hero. The same war hero it could be argued, who lead to the republic to victory during the war. Yujo closed her eyes, waiting for him to have her arrested for her actions.
“Could someone please get me that damn coffee.”
Yujo opened her eyes and saw one of the militia personnel had gone to do just that.
“Fine.” the Grand Marshal spat tersely. “You have two minutes to talk to Ms. Psalms but after that you will stop screwing around and come with us to the interview. Is that understood?”
“Yes, That’s perfectly fine by me.” Rosemary said with a shrug.
With a motion from the Grand Marshal, the two guards moved away from Yujo to allow her the space to talk with Rosemary. The weight of it all made her ready to burst into tears right in front of Rosemary. It took everything to stop herself as Rosemary held her in an embrace.
“You are still in a whole load of trouble, Young Lady.” Rosemary whispered to her.
Yujo barely squeaked out an “Uh-huh.”
“But I've seen far worse scrapes. Now come on. We’ll face this together, ok?”
Another squeak of confirmation slipped out of Yujo.
"Atta girl.” Rosemary cooed, ruffling her hair before stepping away.
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Satisfied that she had calmed Yujo down, she backed off and allowed the guards to return to their positions. With that, the Grand Marshall ordered Yujo, Rosemary and their guards out. On the forecourt of the HQ a militia jeep that was waiting for them.
An hour's drive later, Yujo and Rosemary found themselves sitting on a bench on the waiting room bench of Abraham’s Militia Grand Hall.
Rosemary was the first to cut the silence between them.
“I’m not going to ask why you went out for a dive and why you did it without a boat hand, Yujo. I can hazard any number of guess for that. I do know for a fact that you would never do something as downright stupid as crossing the bolder.”
Yujo, staying silent, looked up at the ceiling and watched the single long light bulb flicker.
Her still dried out hair waved slightly as she sighed.
“I’m sorry.”
Rosemary smiled. “I know you are, Yujo, but we both know you would go and do it again in an instant if you thought it would do anything to help St. Aldrin’s.”
Yujo said nothing, her guardian knew her too well.
“Honestly…” she said as she got up to kneel to Yujo’s eye level. “We are far too alike. When I was your age…”
She paused to think about how to finish her sentence. “Well. I did a lot of stupid things. Things I did because I believed what I was doing was right.”
Rosemary bit her bottom lip. She was trying to prevent this from being about herself. She drew her breath and grabbed Yujo’s hands.
“I will always be there for you when you do the stupid things you do because you believe in them, do you understand, Yu?”
Yujo nodded.
The door next to them opened and the grand marshal motioned both them and the guards inside. The inside of the room was sparse. Besides the table, the only real item of note was the lingering smell of synthetic nicotine. It stuck to the back of Yujo’s throat, causing her to cough.
“We only had enough time to make one of the break rooms into something presentable.” The Grand Marshal, now dressed in a tidy shirt and tie, explained as he sat himself in a chair on one side of the table. He motioned Yujo and Rosemary to sit on the other.
It was then that Yujo noticed the young woman with cream brown skin and chestnut velvet hair that flowed to her shoulders standing next to the marshal.
She was also dressed in full uniform. The standard regalia of a typical militia unit which consisted of a black jacket, a long skirt and a small tidy beret sitting on top of her hair.
Yujo recognised her as a member of the communications unit. A thought passed her mind and made her wonder if she was the one that caught her communications with John Smith. She noticed Yujo and recognised her existence with a smile. She then noted something on their terminal and pressed its surface.
"Interview on the 12th of Augustus started 1205 MST." She said to her terminal, her accent an obvious hint that she came from the Obarian islands. She then turned her attention to the Grand Marshal.
"You're ready to go, sir."
“Thank you Ensign Mamusul, he said, motioning for her to take a seat.
“As I have told you before, Ms. Psalms, as things stand now you are being charged for misdemeanor dangerous diving, and felony ceasefire contravention."
Yujo felt Rosemary squeeze her hand.
"Given you haven’t undergone your service, the maximum term, would be seven years including your service.”
“I understand that sir.”
He nodded before he motioned for the communications offer.
“The circumstances, however, have changed.”
After a moment to process that statement, Yujo shook her head in confusion.
“I’m sorry?”
The communications officer handed over a scroll bearing a wax cap with two marks. One was a blue wax cap featuring a tall polygonal statue of a human surrounded by water. The other was a red cap picturing two selk surrounding a globe with their spears pointed to the ground.
“We received these two scrolls two days ago by a pack of selk on the border. These are official communicate with the selk royal family and their Chief Justice.” He explained.
“Excuse me?” Yujo asked.
The Grand Marshal took a moment to drink from the cup of coffee that sat next to him before he continued to explain.
“The border patrol encountered the selk pack waving a white rag on one of their spears where they had tied a white rag on their spear. After some confusion, the pack gave us these two scrolls.”
That gave Yujo and Rosemary pause.
All other cases of people caught crossing the border had the selk involvement limited to a simple confirmation of their desires. Yujo could only guess why she was being singled out with this special treatment.
The Grand Marshal motioned to the unopened red wax capped scroll on the table.
“I would suggest you read the contents of that scroll very carefully.”
With a nod, Yujo reached over and picked up the scroll, pulling off the red wax cap from top and freeing the scroll from its bind. She pulled the scroll open and began to read the text within.