Awaiting The Dawn

1: The Undoing

There was a scuffle, according to what Hisa heard ahead of her. She tilted her conical hat upward to keep its veil from blocking her view.

There was shouting, screaming, crying.

Clinks and clanks of metal to metal, arrows being notched, orders being yelled.

She saw dust rise to the air, blood of the injured on the ground.

Men of the Fire Tribe lay wounded, broken arrows clattered beneath feet. Between the soldiers standing and the ones too hurt to move, Hisa counted around four dozen people. The ones still able to attack continued to shoot arrows, kept fighting by their annoyingly loud commander.

What they battled exactly, Hisa did not know. She continued her walk by the cliff, not stopping to check the injured or ask the situation.

Her only care at the moment was to reach the edge, throw down the knife left to her by a deceased companion, and then leave.

No one paid her any mind.

Not because she blended in as a fellow soldier, nor did she have a power that'd allow her to move about unnoticed. All simply had their eyes on one place. One direction. Just when she was only a few strides away from the cliff-end, Hisa looked in that direction as well.

Her eyes caught the sight of bright crimson.

Her breath caught.

A girl stood tall against the soldiers' leader. She was in an elevated area, so Hisa had to crane her neck up. Her back was all Hisa could see of this girl, small and weak, a sheltered sparrow that never knew life outside her cage.

Except Hisa knew who she was. Knew she had a fire to her even without looking in her eyes. Knew this fire would only grow as her journey progressed.

"I may be a naive princess, but I'm not foolish enough..." The girl stood unwavering to the young lord. "...to listen to anyone who acts so senselessly!"

The air seemed to quiet, until a gruff yell broke the stillness. "You idiot! Why did you reveal yourself?!"

It was a young man holding a glaive. He cut the soldiers around him as quick as lightning, only to sway a moment and get slashed across the chest. He was, Hisa realized, the one who caused all those wounds on the Fire Tribe soldiers.

Sure enough, he was the crimson girl's companion. The Wind Tribe general, Son Hak.

He fell backward, into the cliff's edge, only a hand barely kept him from pummeling down. The princess ran for him, and Hisa could see the girl's desperate eyes in her mind, despite her unclear view of the girl.

Hisa just knew those eyes burned.

Then it hit her. She'd seen a vision of this before. A long time ago. This situation did seem eerily familiar.

Hisa was able to see fragments of the future ever since she was young, many containing the princess. If she concentrated and touched the ground, looking into the near future, Hisa could likely detail precisely what was meant to happen right then. Though the mental toll of it kept her from doing so.

Should she consider it an honor to physically witness such a spectacular moment?

The Fire Tribe's commander yanked at the princess' hair. But she kept reaching ahead to where Hak hung from the cliff, unable to get closer because of the man named Tae-Jun.

Then it happened.

The princess took his sword and sliced off her long crimson locks, recklessly descending down to her friend that was about to fall.

The Fire Tribe noble landed on his bottom.

Hisa wasn't far from there either, though her presence wasn't given more than a second glance. Those two were the focus.

If she wanted, Hisa might have been able to defeat the two soldiers that were about to stab the young man's hand and force him to his death. But she saw no reason to.

Neither of them would die, not from a tiny cliff at least.

The princess struggled to swing the stolen sword at a soldier, who evaded the blow due to her poor strength and form. A shout from their leader ordered them not to harm her. The princess dropped the weapon and went to her companion, attempting to pull him up.

The weak princess cried as she gripped his hand with all her strength. "If you die, I'll never forgive you!"

It was impressive he hadn't lost consciousness yet from his injuries, and Hisa had caught someone mentioning poison as well. Not only that, but he was holding himself with just one hand.

There was noise all around. The leader, Tae-Jun, rushed down from higher ground to the princess. "What are you doing?!" His voice rang clear with panic as he yelled at the soldiers near the edge. "Get away from her!"

He ran to her, but before he could reach the princess, both she and her guard dropped down the rock.

Hisa didn't need to see more. She continued walking toward her goal; the end of the cliff. The ledge was wide enough for a fight to break out without much risk of falling, so Hisa had no need to approach the anguished Fire Tribe noble.

Unfortunately, her mind wasn't in the present, fixated on a number of thoughts.
The dragons. The princess. The knife. Her friend Suzu. Kouka kingdom as a whole. Dinner.

Just as she took a step closer to the edge and held the knife with her arms out, ready to let go of it but in need of an extra moment for the sake of sentiment, she, perhaps by the sudden uptake in wind or her own clumsiness, slipped across the rock and unintentionally threw herself off the cliff.

Again, to be clear, it was not intentional.

All she could do was clutch the knife in her hand and curse in her heart.

'Dragon's toenails be damned!'