A Nighean Ruadh

The Other Side

Featured Gaelic with Pronunciations:

- fèileadh mòr (fee-leygh moor) - great kilt

- A bheil Gàidhlig agad? (Ah veil gah-lihk ah-gahd) - Do you have Gaelic?

- Tha Gàidhlig agam (ah gah-lihk ah-gahm) - I have Gaelic

- Eileanach (ey-leh-nahk) - islander

- Sassenach (sah-sen-ahk) - English person, outlander

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21 June, 2131

Scottish Rebel Army Headquarters, Glasgow, Scotland

I fell to the ground with a rough grunt, landing on my stomach and palms. I took a moment to catch my breath, ignoring the pain of the hard 'padded' mat beneath me. With one hand, I wiped a small smear of blood from the corner of my mouth, then pushed myself up and turned to sit, looking up at my attacker.

Colonel Alexa MacLeod - for she was a colonel back then instead of a captain - looked down at me with a scowl on her face. "Give up already, Fowlis?" she asked me rather snidely. I returned her scowl with a glare, then pushed myself back up to stand, spitting a bit of blood out onto the mat beside me.

"I can do this all bleedin' day, Colonel " I said, picking up the wooden pole that I had dropped.

"Well, you won't. Take a break, Fowlis. You're too young to train as long as the rest of us, or so regulations say," said Colonel MacLeod.

"I wasna too young to swim thirty metres to a boat with a bullet hole in my shoulder, nor was I too young te sail across the Minch with that same injury and my brother in tow," I replied firmly.

"Ye might no' think so, but my commanding officers think so, and they won't let me train ye like I do everyone else," said Colonel MacLeod somewhat bitterly. "Cannae believe they let a fifteen-year-old and a thirteen-year-old join the bloody rebellion... Ye ken they only did it because yer family is dead, aye? Since ye've no one te care fer ye, and yer parents were killed because of the rebellion, they see ye both as a bi' of a... personal project. Ken yer place. Yer no soldier."

"Not yet, I'm not. But I will be," I replied, firmly and confidently.

"Aye, not if I've anything te say, and I write yer reports," she told me. "Take a break. Be back in an hour, no excuses." With that said, she stalked off. Being as young as I was, a lot of people in the rebellion viewed me as no more than a child, but given the fact that I'd practically raised my brothers and had to care for Cailean in the days following the killings, I'd say I felt a lot older than fifteen. Still, I couldn't stop others from thinking what they thought of me - I could only prove them wrong.

"Her bark's worse than her bite," said an English voice, and I started, surprised to hear it before recalling that there were some English sympathisers in the Scottish rebel army. I turned to see the source of the voice - Lieutenant Tom Randall, identical twin to Captain Richard Randall. Everyone knew who Tom Randall was, because he knew his brother well and could predict his movements better than anyone. He was sympathetic to the Scottish cause, while his brother wasn't at all. Tom hated the wretched King Edward IX, while Richard worshipped the tyrant. Tom had a caring heart, or so I heard some of the female members of the rebel army say, while Richard had a black void where his heart ought to be. Richard liked to inflict pain, while Tom liked to prevent pain. And that's who he was in the rebel army, besides intelligence against Captain Randall - an army medic. Lieutenant Randall approached me from his perch, where he'd been leaning against a support holding up the vast training room, with his hands in his pockets and a friendly smile on his face. "Don't worry about MacLeod. You've got spirit, and that's what the rebellion needs."