Oblivion was nearly ready. There would be little time for rest once it began, battle would rage on all fronts and time to flee would be sparse. Lara lay her head awkwardly against the supposed doomsday device after taking her rifle apart. She had done so nearly two dozen times to keep focus and fend off the grasping fatigue. It had been a long night filled with long conversations and lots of jumping shadows. She sat there alone for a moment with nothing to focus on and, in that brief window of boredom came clarity; thought. Arch raced through her mind, she didn't even see him die; she just jumped straight into the fight. Could she have saved him? Could she have pulled the arrow before it blew and stemmed the bloodloss?

The generator whined a little louder and vibrated a little harder but it had been doing so progressively all night. It started to get somewhat annoying and so Lara pulled her rifle back together and moved back to the camp.

Reese was still yet to return and Iris must have joined him some time ago. "Iris." Lara grunted to herself with a small laugh. It seemed that 'Iris' was sick of her assumed moniker and intended to return to her original name. It would be strange to get to know Serah again after all these years. Lara wondered what it was that had triggered the sudden desire in her old friend to return to the name of a dead woman. She remembered when Serah became Iris. She watched the funeral at an inn somewhere near Taipei alongside Reese and Sash. They toasted to their own deaths and started new lives.

She remembered her first day with Raptor, the day she met Archi. He saved her life at the same time as he introduced himself.

It was winter, as it always seemed to be when she was sent out on missions. Raptor needed a scout and Garrison requested her. They pulled her from her marine unit a few days after half of the unit had been wiped out because of her. She expected to be court marshalled, but instead she was promoted to Sergeant and placed in special forces. It was a kind of probationary period before she could be accepted fully and as a result, she didn't get to meet any of the squad but Reese and Garrison.

Reese had never wanted her in Raptor, he constantly pushed her away from the unit and had been endorsing other candidates for weeks before Garrison settled on Lara. It seemed that he stopped blocking her from the squad after she lost her unit. When she asked Reese why he no longer kept her from signing on, all he had to say was: "When your CO died in the field, and you had no way to contact command, you took charge and took into your hands the lives of your men. That was commendable - but not enough. Then... When you realised you had an objective and to complete it, you would need to choose between your mission or your men; you chose the mission. That's Raptor. You made the decision most would consider wrong, but we know to be necessary. We do the awful things that nobody wants to admit happens and I think you finally understand it."

His words didn't inspire pride in her. She remembered the feeling of her decision, the guilt and terror. She remembered having to fight some of her squad, her friends, in order to complete the objective. She wondered if she could truly make that decision again, most of all if it meant Reese's or Serah's life.

Garrison decided to test her resolve and capacity by sending her out on her own, much to Reese's protest. Lara was young, though, and still held the arrogance and assumed invincibility of youth. She agreed to the mission and was sent to Siberia where she would track down a band of raider Macks that had been harassing Alliance supply lines.

The snow was thick and the air colder than she had ever felt. When she was in the Marines, she had been trained for beach assaults and aerial drops into the desert. A blizzard in a forest was new in every way to her and Garrison knew as much. He intended to test her fully in the most adverse circumstances possible.

She wouldn't fail.

Reese dropped her seemingly at random and she got to work straight away. First, she climbed atop the tallest tree she could find. She pulled out her marksman rifle and adjusted the telescopic lense to its furthest setting but she saw no sign of a Mack caravel. She decided to rely on her own experience with the Macks and checked for a path her people would take.

She stayed atop of the tree for long enough that a thin layer of snow had formed on her shoulders but it wasn't in vein. She spotted what she had been waiting for, a pair of crows. They flew east far above before dipping beneath the trees. Lara climbed down from her perch and followed along sunward.

A kilometer later, she found a small stream that hadn't frozen over completely. The birds had set up a nest just above it and Lara followed along downstream. It wound and meandered through the entire forest. The day grew long and sky grew grey. The snows started again, gently at first; but not gentle for long. She decided shelter would quickly become a priority lest she freeze. She again, surmounted an old fir tree and scanned the horizon before the snows could become too thick to see through. She was in luck, a fire billowed smoke far off in the distance; it looked large enough to support dozens of people. It had to be her target.

She trudged onwards for hours as the grey sky grew near abyssal. She couldn't tell if the sun still shone above the clouds anymore, she could hardly even see her own hands through the snow coated winds as she walked forwards. Her white ballistic armour plates blended perfectly into the scenery, almost too perfectly as she found herself stumbling over herself time and time again.

The temperature dropped quickly and the winds howled violently but they carried with them the scent of cooked meat and revelry. She was downwind of the camp and close enough that had the gale force wind not been scorching past her ears, she doubtless would have been hearing shouting and dancing from within.

The camp slowly presented itself; an oasis of flame and food. A circle of ten or eleven massive wagons marked a perimeter, or perhaps a wind barrier. She slunk her way behind one and pulled from her pack a pair of golden glasses. The lenses within switched to a infrared screen on the left eye and heat scan on the right eye. It didn't help much through the fluid wall of ice that surrounded her, but it helped her spot a pair of Macks warming themselves before a colossal bonfire. She pulled her rifle but refrained from taking a shot. She realised that even at close range, the hyperactive winds would rag her bullet around and probably send it floating off to the horizon. She decided instead to plant a set of explosives on each of the wagons that surrounded the base.

She ducked and buried herself beneath the snow as a patrol sauntered lazily past her. Once they were far enough away, she crawled beneath a turreted car and attached yet another explosive when a second patrol came by. She listened to them talk amongst themselves.

"You see the last haul?" The first of three asked. He wasn't quiet, the winds and snow drowned out half of what he said but Lara could piece together the rest.

"I heard you guys hit a weapons convoy." The second guard answered.

"Yup." Confirmed the first. "At least three tonnes of explosives and fifty top-tier rifles. I even heard that the boss picked out a heavy MG for himself."

"Damn, wish I was there." The third moaned. "I need a new rifle, this scutta' ain't cutting it no more."

The men carried on but stopped before the next vehicle over. They smashed a layer of ice from the rear door and slid it open, huddling within and striking a match to light a shared cigarette.

"Nah, brother. It was better that you stayed here. We needed somebody to look over the young." The second said before taking a drag.

"Let the women!" The third shouted. "We need every man out there, give the ladies some iron and let them take care of themselves."

"You'd trust your wife with a piece?" The second mocked. The others joined him in a laugh and Lara used the distraction to sneak past and plant an extra explosive beneath the tyre arch of their truck.

She repeated the process and slowly rigged each vehicle to blow. The snow didn't let up, in fact it only seemed to worsen minute by minute. The frost had her, her clothes were stiff and her joints stiffer. Her thermal layers helped somewhat but it wasn't enough. It didn't help that she wore metal plates beneath her camo layer as they would stick and freeze against her skin and she could feel them tear off a layer of flesh whenever she moved beyond a certain degree.

She knelt against the outside of the final truck and fumbled with the explosive. Her frozen hands couldn't engage the magnetic pull and it fell limply to the snow. She followed it down, collapsing above it and digging through the top snow as she tried to find where it fell when a shadow grew over her. She pulled it out and attempted to reengaged it while a cloak fluttered in the storm a few inches behind her. She would have felt him breathe down her neck had it not been for the overwhelming winds. She would have heard his wheezing cough had the blizzard not numbed her ears so thoroughly. She may have smelt the blood and iron had she been paying attention to anything beyond her frigid digits.

But she certainly felt the club hit the back of her head, and the syringe pierce her wrist.

It wasn't warm by any stretch of the imagination, but the winds didn't tear the flesh from her bones; nor did the ice form on her lashes. The alloy plates didn't sear her chest, nor did her helmet weigh her neck down.

She awoke in a drab little room. Steel chains held her arms lazily above her head as she slumped on the cobbled stone floor. A light breeze knocked the daze from her and she turned to see a slit in the stone wall through which a jet of sunlight burst forth, the blistering cold trailing close behind. She brought her feet beneath her and stood straight, her bound arms free only to the level of her waist.

She was captive, as much was obvious. She felt a bead of sweat, or more likely blood, drip down the back of her neck. She couldn't raise her hands high enough to check though, and so she knelt and contorted herself in a way that let her check. Her hand ran through her hair and came back red. She had been knocked out from behind, but a concussive loss of consciousness would last a few seconds, not nearly long enough to get her locked in a cell. Her mask would filter out gas so she would have been drugged while she was out. She found a small circular bruise on her wrist just below the much larger bruises from her chains and she realised she had been injected with a sedative.

That was enough orientation for her, it was time to escape. They had stripped her armour and equipment, leaving her in a tank-top and underlayer thermal pants. She searched her cell for a weakness but found none. It was clearly an improvised area, thrown together in a night, but it seemed crafted by experienced builders. Wasn't this a Mack band? Macks didn't build structures like this.

Click

"What was that?" Lara thought. A small click had sounded from within the building.

Click

There it was again, like a lighter flipping open and closed. It was closer, just around the corner. "Samoti?" Lara called out. It was her bands language, a way of identifying herself as a sister. She asked who was there.

Click

"Andatoli, Samoti?" She called out, her shivering body did not transfer to her voice. She sounded cool and calm. In truth, she was - more so than she ought to be.

Slow and mocking footsteps echoed through the room, each accented by a click. The foot came into view from to her left. A black combat boot heralded a dark, long flowing hooded cloak; beneath it stood a mask and a man yet deeper within. She couldn't see his eyes but she could feel them. He looked her up and down as he flick the lid of a small device open and closed. It was her detonator, rigged to blow all of her explosives.

"I suppose you would be the Ankou?" She asked. He didn't answer, he just walked towards her cell door and opened it.

Click

He stepped up to her, inches from her and yet a full meter above. Had she spread her arms as far as she could, she doubted she could wrap them even half way around him. He was a menace and a colossus. He stowed the detonator behind his belt before lazily releasing her restraints.

Lara stumbled somewhat but kept her balance. She looked up at him and readied to pounce but realised he was already walking away from her.

"Ankou!" She called. "I'm not here just to follow you."

He swung the door open and allowed the bracing cold to encompass Lara fully before he stepped outside.

Though begrudgingly, Lara did end up following him out. She was quickly blinded by the fresh snow and temporarily calmed blizzard.

The Ankou didn't go far; good, she didn't want to chase him. He stood on a small hillock overlooking the entire caravel and she walked up beside him. His band danced and lay beneath them, nearly a hundred adults and thirty children. She saw boys and girls playing around an old lady as she shouted for them to calm themselves. She saw a group of children playing out some pretend battle and another group throwing snowballs. She saw one girl, alone beside the old woman. She was the only child to wear a mask, the sight broke Lara's heart. She could see the nearly lifeless eyes of this maybe ten year old girl. To wear a mask meant there was somebody who relied on you, who wouldn't survive without you. The girl mustn't have had parents, else the mask would have been a dire insult to them.

"What do you want?" Lara asked in the language of the Macks. He turned to the crowd of people and raised a hand. They all turned and raised one back in a salute before each scrambled to their own vehicle. He looked to Lara as engines spooled up and children loaded in. She couldn't tell through the mask if a man smiled at her or if a beast snarled at his dinner.

In his hand, lay the detonator. He didn't offer it, but seemed to show it off before he tightly gripped it and clicked off the cap as he hovered his thumb over the button.

"You can't?" Lara insisted. "They're your people?"

What was most certainly a grin shone past his hood and mask.

"They're your bombs." He whispered in a course and graveled voice.

Click.

They detonated in unison and the disperate flames melded into one central bonfire. It was seconds before all that remained was charcoal and memories. Instinct took her and she ran to the blaze in hopes of saving somebody, anyone - one of the children at least. She burnt her hand against the aluminium frame of the old truck in which the first group of children were funnelled. She need not have bothered and the slow, insulting clap that rang from atop the hillock reminded her as such. All were dead, nothing remained.

The Ankou strolled to her side. Had her eyes been bladed, she need not worry about a fight; he'd have been diced to raw elements.

"Why?" She pled as she cradled the reminder that a child had once been.

His silent streak returned and instead of answering, he lowered his hood; exposing a mound of burnt flesh riddled with steel fragments. After basking in the air around him, he began to unfasten his mask and let it fall away.

His face was heinous. Shards of embedded metal jutted from his lips and looked almost like the teeth of a skull. His pale blue eyes hid behind columns of flesh that seemed to have melted before them and where his cheeks should have held his tattoos, instead a hole exposed his strangely dancing tongue.

She knew what it meant for him to remove the mask. It was a promise and a challenge. He swore one of them would die; he challenged her to swear the same. She agreed as her still numb fingers limply rubbed against the buttons holding her mask up. She managed, after some awkward struggle, and stood proud before him.

A grin crept across his damaged visage but she didn't let it take root. She pulled a shard of flaming metal from the truck and threw it straight into his shoulder.

She charged straight away. He swung out for her and she rolled under his arm, cupping some snow and flicking it into his eyes. She jumped up and landed a few ineffective punches on him before flipping backwards to avoid a bladed slash. He thundered like a freight train and she didn't face him. She ran aside and circled behind the smouldering truck while he followed close behind. She ducked right but jumped left, causing him to shift his momentum the wrong way and letting her get behind him. She dove straight onto his back and sought something to grip onto. She found the thick piles of skin that masked his eyes and gripped them tight with two fingers each as she pulled her legs over his neck and started to choke him.

He wouldn't go that easily and turned his back to a smoking ruin, leaning heavily backwards onto the smouldering metal. He placed all of his weight into Lara and laughed as she screamed. The smell of sizzling flesh nearly knocked her sick but she managed to pull her hands apart with all of her might, tearing the flesh apart and spouting blood across his face and into his eyes.

The laughter quickly devolved into screaming as he fell forwards and writhed on the ground.

She retrieved his knife and, while he knelt face down, dove atop of him with the blade facing his spine.

With a speed and precision unbefitting of a man of his size, he span and grasped the blade - allowing it to go through his hand - as his other hand reached out and caught Lara by the throat. He lifted her a full meter above the ground before crashing her down into the snow. It wasn't such a hard landing until he did it again, and again, and again until Lara couldn't breathe nor move her arms any longer.

He stood over her, and looked down on her. He dug the knife from his hand and readied himself to plunge it deep into her heart.

With all her might, all her will and all her heart, Lara Black kicked him in the balls and ran away...

She kept running. She didn't look back nor did she run in an aimed direction. She simply ran and ran, and ran until she could run no further. Her useless arms flailed pointlessly behind her as she tripped and scrambled over every log and twig. She cut her bare feet on every exposed pebble and grazed her cheek against some thistled branches.

The cold, the pain... The fear, it all got to her in one and the exhaustion grasped nearly as hard as he had. She was midway through a hastened step when the world grew faint and her muscles gave out. She skidded to a stop with her bare face getting buried in the snow.

It must have been in vain, though. No sooner had she passed out then could she feel the grasp of a particularly large man as he mounded her over his shoulders and seemed to drag her off to someplace afar.

Cotton and kindness. She didn't need to open her eyes to know she was safe, as much was obvious in the luxurious mattress and warm sheets. Garrison must have found her and took her home.

The scent of winter rose and seasoned rabbit, the crackling of the hearth and... Singing?

She opened her eyes and didn't see her home as she expected. A quaint little cabin with embroidered red curtains, a bubbling kettle and oak fired stove. A woman sang at the end of her bed as she half mindedly stirred away at a pot. She was beautiful, her pale skin marked only with laugh lines and freckles. Her arched nose scrunched as she sniffled away a sneeze. Her curly brown hair had been twisted around a pen into a messy bun behind her head. The woman wore a long, flowing blue dress rimmed with white and gold trimmings.

"Once you awake properly, drink." The woman ordered unprovoked without turning to look at Lara.

Lara finally lifted her head from her pillow before turning to the bedside table; on it lay a bowl of strange green and purple herbs floating atop a brown... Soup?

"Wha- Who are you?" Lara grumbled through her damaged larynx. She pulled herself up and shifted across the lightly squeaking mattress to draw the strange concoction provided for her. Though it smelt of simple salt and pepper, it tasted of curdled acid and refuse offal. She swallowed down the thick, clumpy cream that lay beneath the top layer of what could be described as oil had it not bubbled and popped with some green and orange pollutant.

She felt each lump and texterous grain flow down her throat and work away at her wounds, rapidly soothing her bruises and pains.

"I believe the English is 'Thank you.'" The woman whispered between verses of her song. She had a noticeably thick accent though Lara couldn't place it. The woman grabbed a pinch of red powder and threw it into the kettle.

"Where am I?" Lara asked.

"Nope, try again." The young woman simply responded.

"Huh?"

"You do speak English?" She asked as she stubbornly refused to face Lara.

"I- Yes?" Lara answered.

"Then say thank you. My father took great pains to carry you here."

"Your father?" Lara asked. "The man who carried me?"

"Yes. He will return soon. Say thank you when he does." She answered.

"Oh." Lara grunted, she didn't mean to sound impolite but her disinterest was palpable as she scanned the room for what remained of her gear. She saw her thermal layers neatly folded over a chair beneath her tank-top. Then she looked for her mask...

Her hands clawed at her face; searching, grasping for cover. She wore no mask, she had left it in the snow. She sat there before a stranger, an outsider, without a mask. Nobody had ever seen her face, at least not those she didn't want to. Nearly a decade since she donned her mask, since she had bore her face so carelessly.

The woman still sat with her back to Lara, had she done so intentionally? Did the woman know Lara to be a Mack, what it would mean to look at her?

Lara pulled the sheet that had been carefully draped over her up to her face and sunk herself into it.

"Thank you." Lara whispered from beneath her cotton shield. The girl laughed at this, and stood with her back still turned.

"Good." She warmly said. "You are covered?" She asked.

"Yes." Lara answered.

The girl turned on her heel and her dress sprang out around her as a coat of snow fled from the bottom trim. She looked directly into Lara's eyes with a strange intensity, as if she forced her own eyes to stick to the one spot. She seemed to fight the urge to look at Lara anywhere but into her eyes. Her warm and somewhat excited expression quickly dropped into a much more curious, if not confused, look. Her hazel eyes glared out from beneath her covering fringe and fell to Lara's hands as she pulled the sheet over her face.

"Why do you cover your face?" She asked. Lara shared in her confusion, why had she kept her back turned had she not known her to be a Mack?

"I'm not wearing a mask." Lara simply replied, her voice returning to near full strength already.

"A... mask?" The girl repeated with a near vacant expression. The vacancy was quickly ejected by a look of sudden understanding as her eyes grew three sizes and her white painted lips fell apart.

"You are a Mack?" She whispered before stumbling backwards and tripping over a small stool in the middle of the room. She clambered back to her feet and stumbled over to the far wall where she ripped a rifle from the wall and raised it firmly, yet inexpertly, at Lara.

"Woah!" Lara called as she raised one hand high and held the other still against her cover.

"You are with the Ankou?" The girl accused.

"No!" Lara protested, she would have shouted but her injuries denied her such emphasis.

"You lie!" The girl insisted.

"Often, but not now!" Lara hastily replied. She had hoped the small joke could defuse the armed girl but was quickly proven wrong as a bullet rang out a few inches from her head.

"Okay, okay! Sorry. I am a Mack, but I'm a good guy... Kinda." She explained.

"Why are you here, if not being with him?" She questioned.

"I was sent on a mission from the Phoenix Alliance. I'm special forces, I was sent to kill the Ankou and stop him from raiding Alliance supply lines."

"So the Ankou is dead?" She asked.

"I... Doubt it." Lara admitted. "His band is though." There was shame in her tone, she made some attempt to mask it but for the most part failed.

"His... Band?" She asked as the rifle wavered and shook. It wasn't clear if this was from hesitance or simply because the girl was much too small to carry the oak rifle upright for long.

"His raider party, the other Macks he fought with."

"You killed them all?" She asked.

"That's... complicated. He's the only one left; that's the important bit. I need to find him and finish this." Lara declared as she lowered her hand and tucked the cotton sheet closer to her body.

The girl seemed to consider for a while before allowing the rifle to fall forwards with an exhausted grunt.

"My father will decide the truth." She grumbled as she sat at the table across the room from Lara, rifle less than an inch from her hand.

"Why did you turn your back?" Lara finally asked after both women took a moment to calm and collect themselves.

"What?" The girl replied.

"Earlier, you asked if I was covered and you kept your back turned from me until I was. If you didn't know I was a Mack, why didn't you turn?" She asked.

A small, but noticeable blush glew from across the firelit room enhanced in radiance by the window behind her shining snow white light around her sharp and well defined face.

"Well..." She began in a new timidity. "Your clothes were soaked from the snow; I had to remove them. It seemed... Inappropriate to know your body before I knew your name." Her tone shook with an embarrassment that Lara apparently lacked.

"Oh." She simply laughed. "Lara, my name is Lara Black."

The flush did not disappear from the girl but she did manage to maintain eye contact.

"Snegurochka Moroz." The girl replied.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"That's... Your name?" Lara asked. She smiled but knew she had no chance of appropriately pronouncing the name without an embarrassing amount of practice.

"Just... call me Grace." Her embarrassment hadn't faded as she answered.

"Are you sure? It's a beautiful name; just not one I've heard before." Lara protested.

"You sound English; I doubt you could pronounce 'paprika' satisfactorily. Grace will do fine."

"Rude." Lara said through a small chuckle at the sadly accurate insult. "Welsh, though. Not English."

"I live in a shack in the Siberian forest. What is a Welsh." Grace impatiently replied. She seemed a paradox as she spoke, her voice both laconic and warm. "Oh." The girl mumbled as her eyes finally waned from Lara's. She strolled over to a wardrobe beside Lara's bed and dug out a slim blue scarf and threw it to the injured soldier before returning to her far table.

"It's beautiful." Lara genuinely thanked as she wrapped the scarf around her face. She let the cover fall away and sat up completely until Grace shifted away and loosed an intentional cough. Lara realised that the cover had fallen a little more than she had intended and calmly covered herself again.

"Oops, sorry about that." Lara awkwardly laughed. Grace didn't return her eyes to her, instead cupping her face in her hand and looking deeply into the apparently very interesting floorboards as the previously subtle blush spread much further along her face.

"So, ahem..." Lara coughed, trying desperately to end the awkward silence in the room. "When will your father return?" She asked.

"Soon." Grace answered quickly, muffled beneath her hands. "He heard gunshot." Lara turned her head to the hole in the log wall behind her. It was further away than she had realised.

"Cool..." Lara awkwardly replied before returning to the silence.

Wind howled and whistled against cracks in logs and stone. Lara could have sworn she could hear each individual snowflake land gently upon the roof of the cabin through the tense silence that persisted between the two women.

"Can I ask?" Lara began. She scrambled to find a suitable question but nothing came naturally to her. She elected to just speak and hope what came out would be acceptable.

"How... old are you?" She finally asked. A deep embarrassment enveloped her as she remembered Serah telling her never to ask a woman her age, for some reason people seemed to find it rude to do so.

"Nineteen." Grace answered.

"Oh, me too!" Lara replied. It was a lie, she knew her exact age to the very day. She was Eighteen years, two-hundred and twelve days old. She marked the day down every morning as a first victory of each day, a small reminder that nobody had killed her yet. Telling Grace as such seemed to be somewhat too intense for an already awkward conversation. She elected to simply round up instead.

"You are special forces at nineteen?" Grace asked.

"Yup, youngest the squad has ever had."

"You sound proud."

"It means I'm the best, why wouldn't I be?"

"The best at killing. Is there pride to be found in murder?"

"Sometimes." Lara answered, the pride much lessened. "When death of one means life for many."

"So it is a calculus? Pride is derived from the loss of life in ratio with saved lives?"

"No..." Lara considered. She somewhat wished that Grace would return to her embarrassed silence rather than this probing inquisition.

"Then from where does your pride pull?" Grace pressed.

"I... am not sure." Lara admitted.

"Is it from great victories?" Grace suggested.

"I don't think I've technically won a single battle yet." She admitted again.

"Then is it from the respect granted from a position of superiority?"

"I'm a sergeant, not even an officer. I'm effectively nobody's superior and I certainly get no respect."

"Then why are you proud, Lara Black?" Grace pushed.

"I- worked hard and got to be amongst the best?" Lara half heartedly answered.

"Is that the truth? You are proud of your hard work?"

"I... Don't think so?" She hesitated. "Why do you care?"

"I meet few, especially few of my age." Grace admitted.

"Yeah, and I bet most of them don't accidentally flash you after you shoot at them." Lara masked her genuine introspection from Grace's questioning and placed over it the hope that a joke would distract the girl enough from pushing the issue. The returning blush seemed to approve her hopes.

"I- am sorry I shot at you." Grace bowed. "I do not believe you are with the Ankou, nor should I treat your people as a monolith."

"Oh." Lara was taken aback by her sincerity. "Thank you, for that and for taking care of me. Also, sorry about the whole 'flashing' thing." Lara joked. She half expected the girl to shrivel away again at the mention but was quickly caught off guard by the girls melodic laugh.

"Believe me, I am used to much less pleasant sights." Grace joked.

"Pleasant?" Lara teased as she squinted her eyes at Grace. "Never been described as pleasant before, especially not while lying naked in somebody else's bed." She laughed.

"Well, I could think of a few other thing to descri..." Grace fumbled her words together before being interrupted by a thunderous crash!

"Snegurochka! What happened?" A booming voice called from just beyond Lara's view.

"Otets, uspokoytes'! Eto bylo nedorazumeniye." Grace called out. She rose with startled gasp as a colossal old man thundered into the room. He held an old fashioned, bolt action rifle and scanned over the room with it with a precision and speed that clearly suggested a military background, despite his 'jolly' figure and bushy beard.

He lowered his rifle quickly but kept it close at hand upon noticing Grace's own rifle lay bare across the side table.

"You are awake?" The festive looking man noted. He stowed his rifle using it's sling so it clung tightly to his back.

"Yes, sir." Lara answered, suddenly aware that only a sheet protected her modesty. "Thank you for helping me." She continued.

"I may have held my aid had thee wore her mask. Tell me, ashen lady, be thee a Mack of Ankou's kin?" The old man asked in a tone as paradoxical as his daughter. His strange cadance and extravagant use of language seemed to clash against his modest and unassuming crystal blue overcoat and simple white rough cotton shirt. The hastily re-stitched holes that littered every inch of his far from interesting garb did not seem to belong to a man who make use of 'thee' & 'thine'.

"She isn't father. She is with the Alliance. She came to kill the Ankou." Grace recounted.

"A child, sent alone to slay a monster?"

"No." Lara firmly denied. "A soldier, sent to stop a murderer."

"So may be; and yet still thee be alone. Will you flee now, and seek your aid - or is your mission yet to be at a finale?"

"My mission is over when the Ankou lies dead at my feet. I thank you for helping me, but I have to find him. If I take too long, he'll flee." Lara explained. She stood and pulled with her the sheet to cover her modesty as she made her way to her neatly folded clothes.

"Await, child, for the frost will have you; and the ice will kill you as the snowflakes encircle like shining valkyries. Sing ye with covered lips, sing ye as a swan would - should you leave my home this day." He quietly recited as he placed a hand on her arm and gently moved the scarf aside to reveal her still bruised neck.

Lara couldn't parse his meaning and shot a confused glace to his daughter.

"The blizzard hasn't let up." Grace translated. "Go out into that wearing so little as you plan and death won't be a far reach."

"I can't just wait here. I need to complete my mission, plus he had my equipment! I can't signal home without it." Lara coldly insisted as she pulled away from the old man's gentle hand.

"A beast would share a birds fate in a blizzards such as this. If the songbird wishes for home, we can help her sing." The old man continued in his strange prose. Lara turned to Grace for translation yet again.

"The Ankou won't be able to wade through this blizzard any more than you can. If you need to reach your Alliance, we have a radio." She explained. "There is time enough for rest."

Lara struggled with the thought of waiting. She leant left and right, shifting her weight around ready to push off and run into her next battle. Movement did not come, and she stood statuesque, covered in her sheet. Lara's eye caught on a small shimmer through the window, a flake of snow drifting calmly amongst the chaos of storms. She tracked it down until it escaped the view of the window and doubtless fell to the thousand, thousand others beneath her sight. Her eyes lost their focus and caught not outside, but on the glass; the reflection. She saw the fidgeting brunet and her hulking father as their gazes fixed, not outside, but on her. The father coiled back and his eyes darted between her hand and her own eyes. His daughter's gaze seemed to drift somewhat more, with eyes much less protective and more... Entranced. Lara could not actually see Grace's eyes, but she felt the pervasive - almost greedy - inspection lap over her.

Lara pulled her eyes from the window and looked straight at Grace, who quickly pulled her own eyes up to meet her.

"You have a radio?" Lara asked, ignoring the strange leer.

"We do." Grace breathily answered. "Get dressed and I'll show you."

Newly alone in the room, Lara hastily attached her thermal layers and pulled her tank-top over her head. What had been a simple grey top was now stained crimson with holes torn through the belly and back. She tenderly lowered it onto her burnt back and straightened it out along her waist. She caught herself in the mirror. A strange, though small, anxiety grew within and knotted away at her stomach. She saw her white hair - or ashen as the old man had put it - it was tangled and dirty. It seemed the blood she had seeped over it had been somewhat subdued during her treatment, but it still stained patches of her hair a drab carmine mixed with rusty brown.

Her face was swollen and bruised, as much was tragically apparent even beneath the ill fitting scarf with which she barely managed to cover her nose and jaw. She traced a finger along a new scar upwards along her belly. It wasn't as deep as her others, and would fade with time, but it reached nearly to her ribs and around to her hip. Her finger flinched back after a jolt of pain ran through her as she reached what seemed to be a staple holding the severed flesh together.

A bead of blood seeped from beneath the staple and ran it's way down to soak her shirt like a small splotch of summer wine spilt after a tipsy mishap.

"May I come in?" A small voice asked from behind the slightly ajar door.

"Just one sec!" Lara answered. She rubbed away at the extra blood, to no avail, before throwing her hair over to the left side of her head - gathering strays from the back and wrapping them in an elastic band she found laying on the dressing table. "Okay." She finally confirmed, still fidgeting with pointless adjustments to her hair and clothes.

She span on a heel to face the small forest woman as she entered the room. She entered alone and visibly nervous.

"Where's your father?" Lara asked. She caught herself in the mirror again and noticed her strange posture, she stood straight up with her back arched. She was nearly on rocking on the balls of her feet. Lara quickly pulled her eyes back to Grace, else she look self-obsessive and vain in being distracted again by her own reflection. Grace didn't seem to notice. In fact, she seemed to avoid looking at Lara at all. Her eyes shifted and jolted between ornaments and far off snowflakes, never settling near the stranger in her home.

"He's getting some more firewood." Grace answered. She didn't seem shy by any means. Her voice wasn't shaky nor did it hold the tell tale signs of one made uncomfortable by conversation. It seemed as if she simply didn't know how to properly converse with somebody other than her father.

"He's an... Interesting man?" Lara said. Her attempts at politely broaching the subject seemed unappreciated as Grace's initial response was to simply loose a short, though painful sigh.

"You mean he speaks like a six-hundred year old vampire." Grace groaned.

"I wouldn't have quite put it like that, but yes; I suppose." Lara laughed.

"His cadence has always been such, it gets tiresome at times but has its merits."

"Me thinks such hath rubbed off on yee too, my good and fair lady." Lara teased. The woman snickered and moved further into the room, taking a seat near the dressing mirror Lara had used moments ago. She opened a large draw and struggled to remove its massive contents.

After a moments struggle, one Lara would have offered to alleviate had it lasted a second longer, Grace displayed a large, square canvas box. Where the fabric had once been tan, it was now a faded gray stained with possibly decades worth of grime and stains. She unfastened the lid and pulled it away. Beneath was a metallic box holding dials and switches. Lara knew straight away what it was, it was an worlds war radio. After the Martians destroyed most satellite communications, the armies of the world created these boxes; first generation comms. They were capable of communicating using some horrifically complex sciences to communicate anywhere in the world using something akin to radio waves but not quite so simple.

She would be able to tune into Raptor's emergency frequency and let Reese know what was going on.

"That's amazing!" Lara fawned. She walked behind the seated woman and leant over her shoulder to get a better look at the device but quickly stood straight upon realising how close she had accidentally gotten to Grace. She awkwardly coughed and moved to a safe distance aside Grace, but still close enough to get a view of the ancient device.

"Do you know the frequency?" Grace asked as she began flickering through settings on the device.

"Depth eight, freq: Seven-Eight-German-Twelve." Lara recited. Grace configured and fiddled and deftly adjusted until finally the pervasive static gave way to a familiar voice.

"Sparky, read?" The voice mumbled through the static. It was Reese but he sounded almost defeated. He repeated "Sparky, read?" a few times before the device was dialed in enough to send reply.

"I've half a mind not to answer till' you switch me back to Dagger." Lara answered.

"Kid!" Reese shouted, elation and relief blatant and unabashed. "Where are you? Are you okay? What happened?" He sputtered, each word coming out almost before the previous had finished.

"I'm okay, a lil' beat up but some pretty lady and her dad are taking care of me." She answered with a grin, she didn't need to look at Grace know she had started blushing again, and that her breath had markedly picked up.

"Give me your location, I'll send a pick-up." Reese said, ignoring her comments.

"Negative, sir. The mission isn't complete."

"What? I've seen the caravel, kid. It's gone." Reese pointed out.

"Yes, sir, but the Ankou escaped. He'll rebuild and come back stronger than ever."

"That doesn't matter, your mission was to stop the attacks on our supply lines; not to kill the Ankou. Your mission is complete." Reese declared. "Pull out."

"I..." Lara hesitated. "Negative, sir."

"Lara, don't be fucking stupid. There's nothing left to prove, you're in the squad. Come home." He pled. A shiver ran down Lara's spine, Reese almost never called her by her name. For him to do so, he must be genuinely scared. What she had to do would break his heart, and hers.

"I'm... Sorry, Reese. I have to do this, he's seen my face. No, fuck that; he killed kids!"

"Give me your location, we can take him together." Reese pled again but the elation of earlier had passed. He knew her mind was made up, and that there was nothing he could do.

"When I leave, you'll get the location. When I win, you can hate me. I need to do this, I need a win of my own. I need to know I that belong... Beyond you carrying me." She finished before switching off the old contraption.

Silence flowed through the old hut like a thick fog, obfuscating the palpable tension between the two women as they sat worlds apart; almost shoulder to shoulder.

"That was foolish." Grace finally mumbled.

"I know."

"Then change your mind."

"Never." Lara whispered, worry and stress twindging her falsely jovial tone. She turned to the forest woman beside her and smiled through her cloth mask. "Thank you for helping me, I really mean it." She heartily said. Grace didn't reply but finally brought herself to look at the Mack. Blue met hazel and something was said that neither of them spoke nor heard, but both knew to be true.

"Though I have one more thing I'm afraid I have to ask for." Lara poked a finger out from beneath the gash in her ragged shirt before wiggling it about.

"You don't have anything more... Appropriate, that I could borrow?" She asked. Grace smiled warmly and took her stand.

"Of course, though I doubt I have much in your... Aesthetic?" Grace said in a mocking tone.

"What? You don't like my clothes?" Lara asked as she ran her hands down her thermal pants, straightening out some creases and brushing off a stray hair.

"Oh, no. Bloody wife beaters really do it for me. Especially in the middle of a blizzard." Grace sarcastically laughed as she turned her back to Lara and walked to a musky old chest. She cracked it open and blew away a layer of dust before rifling through it contents.

After a moment of searching, Grace produced a series of clothes that looked ill suited to her. Where Grace wore a long flowing dress, in her arms were a series of jumpers, cardigans and comfy wear of all colours and fabrics.

"These are yours?" Lara questioned as she ran a tentative hand along one, off shoulder, oversized cat t-shirt.

"Ha, no." Grace wistfully denied. "My mother's. The moths have probably had at them for quite some time now, make certain what you choose is whole."

Lara looked over her choices. What she may have worn typically had to be disregarded in favour of warmer, better covering clothes.

"Your mother, is she...?" Lara hesitated but her meaning was caught by the woman in front of her.

"Yes. A long time ago now." Grace answered with a forced, though well practiced, smile.

"I'm sorry." Lara consoled.

"Why? Twas not your doing." Grace deflected as her eyes fell to the clothes she held. "I think this will suit." She said, trying to move the conversation along.

"I just-" Lara stuttered knowing Grace clearly didn't wish to discuss the subject. "I lost mine as well, I was too young to remember much of her though." She confided before letting the room fall back to silence for a moment.

She picked quietly over the clothes, her eyes lingering on the jumper that Grace had selected for her. She took it to hand and looked it over. A faded white jumper of some plasticy fabric that hadn't been used in clothing since before the old war. She did like it somewhat, though it was far from her typical apparel and its material felt like an affront to nature. She drew it from Grace's arms and placed it to her body before the mirror. It would be a little large on her but such seemed to be its intended purpose.

"It suits your hair." Grace half-mindedly said.

"It would do, without all the blood and mud." Lara awkwardly laughed. She turned her back to Grace and slowly started to remove her shirt when Grace walked a little closer to her.

"You may want this." She offered. Lara turned to her with her shirt half removed and saw Grace with one hand over her eyes and her other outstretched holding within it a small cloth. Lara picked it up and Grace suddenly span her back to Lara yet again.

Lara unravelled the cloth and realised it was a balled up sports bra, black all over with a branded yellow band beneath.

"Oh, thank gods." Lara sighed in relief. She quickly put it on and though it was slightly too tight for her figure, she was grateful for the support in the coming battle. "I've never been so happy to wear a bra in my life." She joked.

"I never wear sports bras. They always do murder to my neck." Grace laughed, her back still turned.

"Need to go a size up then, darling." Lara nudged as she finished dressing. "It's tight on me, and i'm not quite as - ahem - 'gifted' as you are." She said, tapping Grace on the shoulder and spinning her around to reveal the slightly embarrassed face returning.

"Oh, no. That's my mother's as well." She explained, her words rushing a little too quickly from her lips.

"Huh." Lara grunted. "Not even bought me dinner, and you're dressing me up in your mother's clothes." She teased. "I don't mean to shame, of course." She continued, her surreptitious smile barely masked by Grace's scarf.

Grace didn't entertain her teasing, staring daggers into the soldier as she stubbornly refused to allow the grin held in her eyes to reach her lips.

"Do you enjoy making me uncomfortable?" Grace asked in a falsely serious tone.

"A little." Lara admitted.

The night wore on in the same fashion. The two went back and forth for a couple of hours as they awaited dawn. They exchanged stories of childhood and battle. Grace spoke of a time she felled a great beast, only to later admit it had been a just a hare and that she had cried for days afterwards.

Lara told a tale of her time studying at We'illa, just after the Rebellion had ended. She and two boys from her class had been tasked with capturing a flag by any means. The two boys were faster, stronger and taller than Lara and managed to run off ahead of her until she managed to steal a tear gas launcher from a nearby drill instructor. She covered the flag with CS gas and simply strolled through it without concern thanks to the filters in her mask. Naturally, her training officer had forced her to run thirty kilometers as punishment for using tear gas on her classmates, but in her eyes; it was entirely worth it.

The first crack of morning sun rippling through the sky barrier and shimmering into the cabin window interrupted their laughter as they still nattered on. Lara held a hand out to capture the skybeam as her smiling eyes faded to gray.

"The blizzard's gone." She pointed out.

"Yes." Grace hesitantly agreed as her eyes drew from the dawn to the soldier. "Call your squad, Lara." She pled. "Let them help you."

Lara rose and crossed the room quickly. It had to be quick else she might be convinced to do so. She pulled open the door and let a blast of ice crack her skin as a mound of snow that had settled a meter deep before the door collapsed inwards and covered her boots.

"Hey Sneg-" Lara attempted.

"No."

"Come on, help me say it." She begged with another lying smile.

"Call me Grace." She coldly ordered.

"Okay, Grace..." Lara reluctantly acquiesced. She took a deep breath and steeled the strange nerve that had pulled at her earlier.

"Wanna go out some time?" She casually asked. In truth, there was naught casual in her words. She was terrified beyond what she could understand. She had been prepared all her life for battle, for death; but rejection?

"Just like that?" Grace questioned. Lara had expected her blush to return but it hadn't, she seemed cooler than Lara only more confused and in deeper thought.

"Yeah?" Lara eked, suddenly the shyer of the two. "Why not?" She kept an impossibly calm tone, a gift from her infiltration training, no doubt.

"I mean... I've never..." Grace mumbled.

"Dated?" Lara finished for her.

"Well... I guess?" Grace confirmed.

"Not a lot of candidates out in the woods, hey?" Lara uncomfortably laughed.

"Not really, but I don't think that's the issue." She seemed deep in introspection, as if the words coming out of her were as much of a surprise to herself as the world.

"I guess I always assumed the strapping young soldier to whisk me away would be..."

"A brunette?" Lara finished. She knew what Grace meant but felt making a joke would ease the sting of inevitable rejection.

"A man." Grace bluntly corrected. "I don't know that I'm... Gay?" She seemed to struggle for each word like her fluency in English had suddenly been reduced to a journeyman speaker.

"Well, I mean; I'm not gay." Lara said, dragging out the word. "Big muscly men are hot as fuck, but you know... So are you?" She explained.

She should have closed the door before getting into the conversation, the warmth of the vast hearth had been all but drowned out beneath the hail winds. The breeze filled the air between the two as Grace sat, looking like she was questioning every aspect of her own life.

"I'll make deal." Grace said, her accent coming out thicker than before.

"I love deals."

"Return alive. Then you're paying. Deal?"

"Deal."

She closed the door behind herself and walked along the tracks towards where smoke still billowed, even now, from the explosions. Her new clothes granted her flexibility and warmth, but little in the way of protection. She would need to be more careful than she had been. She planned to sneak up on the Ankou as his smouldering camp crowned over the treeline. She followed her own tracks in reverse as she stalked along the frozen wastes.

The smouldering carcass of what could have once been called a truck obscured the hillock on which the Ankou had stood. She rounded it, sticking low and close to cover.

He was nowhere to be seen. She walked to where their fight had taken place in hopes of picking his trail up again. There lay her mask and his, along with much more blood than she had expected. An imprint lay of a body, around it the displaced and packed snow had thirstily absorbed the blood and spread it out into a great oval. She traced the outline, it was deep and large, the Ankou must have passed out from blood loss too. Lara hadn't realised she did so much damage to him, had he collapsed before she even managed to run off?

A set of footprints lay slightly obscured beneath the fresh snow, but each divot was deep enough that she could still make out the direction of travel. His tracks weren't covered by the thick canopy and should have been completely buried beneath the snow. Had he only recently moved? Lara couldn't imagine how a man could survive out in a blizzard all night and simply walk away the next day.

She followed the tracks back to the shelter in which she had been held. The door creaked before her hand and her eyes took a moment to adjust.

Only shadows kept her company. She skulked alongside them as she searched the somewhat decrepit building. She dashed between flickering sconces and followed the flames like she herself had taken the form of smoke. Each step was taken like a dancer; graceful, delicate and with focused intent. She avoided damaged planks and humped steps as to glide silently through the dead corridors before she came upon the final doorway. It was smeared in blood and left slightly ajar. She peered into the room within, and saw naught but damp walls and a shaded window.

She moved closer, edging the door open as it's hinges cackled under the strain. The room came clearer into view as light flooded in from the corridor.

It was vile. The filters in her mask couldn't withhold the stench as a blast of putrid air rushed out to equalise the air pressure. Entrails bunting hung delicately from the ceiling and dripped down a brown and red ooze which ran along the curve of the splayed viscera into a single central puddle.

Pieces of men were pinned to pieces of women and her eyes wouldn't allow her to look to closely at the dripping crib that rocked gently in the far corner of the room.

A series of stitched corpses had been positioned around a campfire to enact some wholesome scene as they grilled a fresh corpse.

They all wore masks, or what remained of their masks that lay on caved skulls and missing jaws. She realised that they were the Macks that the Ankou had blown up. Was it some sick memorial?

The teeth that sprinkled the ground like confetti and the small, the fleshless fawn - hanged by a piano wire like some kind of piñata, and the countless other horrors within that a memory cannot contain made the scene feel celebratory rather than mournful.

She heard him first. A deep, guttural breath fought its way out of his lungs. The sound of gargled blood followed shortly.

He sat with his back to Lara in the farthest corner of the room. He groped and tore and ripped and shredded at something obscured by his massive body. Doubtless, another of his creations ready to join the celebrations.

A cloud of smoke gathered within above the campfire and desperately fled out of the newly opened door, flooding the corridor with the scents of seared flesh and burning hair.

She took another silent step into the room and the man... The creature, seemed undisturbed. She searched for a weapon, anything to help slay the monster, but she found nothing. She stepped closer knowing she would have to simply choke him out and hope she could overpower him this time.

Another step, this one not so silent. A whole human heart interrupted her step and squelched underfoot. She saw the Ankou flinch and realised her window of attack was rapidly closing. She dove at him, her outstretched arms seeking his throat as she neared, and neared, and neared.

She floated there, as she dove, and the world seemed slow. Her hand finally reached him and then it reached in him, and then through him. She fell hard in front of the beast and - ignoring that she had just fallen through him - reeled back for a second attack. That was when she saw what he had been so fervorously stitching and molesting.

A woman lay in his arms. Short white hair, piercing blue eyes, a torn white mask revealing a smile with a gap between the front two teeth.

But then the hair turned black, and the soft features of the woman turned to the hardened features of a much older man. A beard sprouted and his equally piercing eyes caught life and jolted to hers.

"Ducky." He calls her. He fades and is fading until he stands and is stood. He looks her in the eyes and draws a knife, but he couldn't use it... It was Jackson, her father. But then it isn't. Jackson is dead. This creature stands before her right now, it wears his face then it is shifting and it is getting closer. The blade raises as black hair turns red and flowing, it thrusts as blue eyes turn a copper fuzed flame. The queen, the sister, stabs and stabs into Lara's belly.

A grin forms behind metal shards that look like teeth as mocking words pour out.

"Kid." It calls her.

"Take my hand." It cackles. It's beautiful face melts away and Lara feels the knife twist and turn from her kidneys to her lungs.

"It's not real." The Ankou laughs as he squeezes her throat so hard it feels like her eyes are about to burst. Then his hand melts away as something enters her own. Something warm and soft.

"You're safe." The beast growls beneath his ornamental organs as blood drenches over it and it resumes its favoured form of the Rebel Queen. She crawls backwards but a wall blocks her from behind, then the sides and in front. Then the ceiling grows miles high but also crushingly low as the weight of the building settles on her chest and breath struggles to find a path inwards.

"What year is it?" A corpse asks her. It twists and snaps it's own neck as it cackles along with all others in the room.

"I- I don't know!" Lara shouts into herself through her freshly slit throat.

"Come on kid, you can do this." A new voice mocks. She looks to her left where, from within the crib, crawls a horror and amalgamation of inhumanities which had burnt itself into her every waking moment. It's legs snap and crack as it crawls- or creeps - it's way across the room until it's faces come inches from her own. She looks at it from the holes that had been her eyes but she can still see it in perfect detail.

"Twenty-one Seventy-three." She whispers. The cackling grows louder but the wall behind her fades away.

"No!" The flame roars. "Feel my hand. We are home, Elysium. What year is it?"

A weight takes her shoulders but it feels different, real. It holds her tight and makes her feel safer and grounded.

"Feel the floor." A severed head orders. She does, dragging her bare hand across the dusty cement floor... But she's wearing gloves, and the floor is wet with blood and made of wood.

"Where are you?" Nothing asks. The room sinks away and Jackson looks at her. He places a hand on her cheek, winks, calls her "Ducky" and disappears.

"Styx." She answered. "I'm in Styx, on a mission."

This wasn't real, it was a dream pretending to be a memory. She had killed the Ankou with a single strike in that room. Serah didn't stab her, her throat wasn't slit. She was safe, she won the day and got the girl.

She won.

"Is this victory?"

Lara stood to face her final apparition. She knew now, that this wasn't real and the visions would have no power over her.

"You should really aspire to greater."

She saw him. Arch, headless and dead. Speaking with a tongue protruding from the stump of a neck that remained without his head.

"Kid?" Reese asked, he made no attempt to hide his worry. He wrapped her hand tightly in the red cloth as Serah clung herself to Lara's back. She nestled her head into Lara's neck and squoze her tightly.

She was dazed, confused and scared but she was aware. The campfire warmed her. Her brother looked her in the eyes and Serah acted as her own weighted blanket.

"I'm... Okay." She whispered.

"Oh, sweet child." Serah cried in relief as she held the visibly shaking Lara even tighter.

The breeze hit as the sun cracked through the ceiling for the first time. It warmed her inside and out. She took a deep breath, hunched down beneath Serah... and bawled.

"I'm okay." She shuddered.