Archive of Our Own

It was a normal enough Sunday for the Forger family. Loid had been called into work for a patient emergency as he told Yor, so she decided to bring Anya with her to do the weeks’ grocery shopping, as it didn’t make sense to have Franky babysit if she was doing something the girl could easily accompany her with. Not to mention, she had read somewhere that some children who had difficulties learning in a classroom environment picked up concepts better with something called practical learning, where they would have use skills such as reading and math out in the real world and apply them to daily tasks like finding specific ingredients in a store or comparing prices, so she figured Anya might be able to pick up a few concepts that she struggled with learning in the classroom.

The streets of Berlint were a bit busier than was typical for a Sunday afternoon. While the city did tend to see more activity on weekends and evenings when fewer people had to work, by the afternoon on Sunday, most people had finished their shopping and returned home to enjoy the last of the weekend with their family, or rest before returning to work or school the following day. The increase in foot traffic likely had to do with the upcoming military holiday that was occurring Tuesday, and the events around the city related to it. People would be visiting Berlint from all over to either hear the addresses that would be given by prominent current and former members of Ostania’s military, or simply to enjoy the day off. In fact, most people would be taking Monday off as well if their jobs allowed them to, as it didn’t make sense to them to go back to work for one day before a holiday instead of making it a four-day weekend.

As Yor was busy trying to pick out the freshest tomatoes from a display outside of a grocery store, Anya suddenly spotted something that caught her eye.

“Mama, look!” She shouted loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear, pointing at a woman with a prosthetic leg. “That lady’s a robot!”

Yor’s face turned red as she attempted to silence her adopted daughter. “Anya, it isn’t nice to point out people like that! And that woman isn’t a robot; she just has a prosthetic leg.”

Upon hearing the commotion, the woman in question let out a light chuckle and turned around to face them, allowing the two Forger’s to get a better look at her. She appeared to be in her late thirties or possible early forties, but the permanent look of exhaustion in her eyes from those who had been deeply affected by the war made it hard for Yor to tell. Her skin was littered with fading scars, and gold pin she wore on the lapel of her jacket signified her as a veteran. Along with her prosthetic, she also used a cane to walk.

“Its quite alright.” She told Yor. “I have a son about your daughter’s age, and while he’s completely used to the prosthetic since I got it before he was born, I know how children can be. It’s normal for kids to be curious about things they’ve never seen before, and if we don’t take the time to explain things like this to them, they’ll never learn how to exist around people that happen to be different from what they consider to be normal.

“Anya, was it? Your mother’s right; I’m not a robot; I’m just a lady that happens to have a metal leg. I lost my real leg during the war, and when I came back they gave me this one instead. It isn’t as uncommon as you might think for someone who was a soldier to have a prosthetic arm or leg because of the war, but most people tend to keep them covered up, I just never saw a reason for me to do so.”

The little girl gasped. “You lost your leg? I lose stuff all the time, but never something as big as my leg. Did you check under your bed? Mama always says that’s the best place to look if you’re missing something.”

Again, the woman just laughed. “No, sweetie, I didn’t lose my leg in the sense that I misplaced it, but I can understand your confusion. Even my own son wanted to go searching for my missing leg once he was old enough to realize most mothers don’t have a metal one and asked me why I didn’t have two real ones. What actually happened was my leg ended up getting too badly injured for me to be able to keep, so they took it and gave me this one instead. Granted, it doesn’t work as well as my old one did, but it’s better than nothing.”

The massive figure of Wesley Watkins suddenly appeared behind the woman. Although she was of about average height for a woman, his giant frame absolutely dwarfed her, the height difference between the two of them easily measuring over half a meter.

“Wynn, its time to go.” He said simply. “We are meeting with the Desmond family in a few hours for dinner, and we still have preparations to make beforehand.”

Ugh, the Desmond’s. The woman thought. Never a fan, and since Donovan Desmond isn’t in power anymore, I don’t see my husband’s reasoning in trying to keep up a cordial relationship with him. I swear, if that man was still in charge, we’d still be sending soldiers to die in the west. It’s only one night I need to pretend to like them; they only invite us for dinner around the holiday, anyway.

“In a minute, Wes.” She told him. “Let me finish my conversation.”

He let out an annoyed huff but didn’t say anything else.

“Wait, aren’t you Winonna Watkins, the Iron Soldier?” Asked Yor. “I knew I recognized you from somewhere, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.”

She nodded. “Yes, that’s me, although I don’t really use the moniker Iron Soldier anymore, not since I retired. I’m just Winonna Watkins now, mother and housewife.”

She had picked up the title of Iron Soldier during her years in the military, due to her unbreakable will, her unwillingness to back down from a challenge, and the fact that she managed to survive multiple situations that probably should’ve killed her. In her retirement, however, she felt the only iron left in her was that of her prosthetic leg, a constant reminder of surviving the horrors of war that many others did not.

Anya gasped. “You’re Bill’s Mama? But he’s so big, and you’re not!”

“I guess he just got his height from his father’s side.” She laughed. “I wish I could stay and talk, but my husband is waiting. It was nice meeting you two, its always nice to meet one of my boy’s schoolmates and her mother. Hopefully I’ll see you again sometime.”

Without another word, she walked off in the direction of a nearby car park, presumably where their vehicle was waiting.

Wow, I heard she had a heart of iron, but she actually seems pretty nice. Thought Yor. It’s almost hard to believe that she killed so many of the West’s soldiers during the war.

Mama’s a hippo-crypt. Anya thought to herself after reading Yor’s mind.

Part of Loid had been hoping that he’d actually get a chance to relax during the holiday. Due to a fair number of students having parents that were somehow involved in the Second East-West War of Unification, Eden College had decided to go ahead and cancel classes for the Monday before, figuring parents might like to take the opportunity to spend a bit more time with their children, and maybe reflect on the history of the war, and those they had lost during it, as the conflict had only ended about a decade ago, and the wounds to Ostania and its people were still rather fresh. Anya wouldn’t be attending school for four days in a row, and the Desmond family would be far too preoccupied for Loid to be able to try and improve the relationship between Anya and the youngest Desmond boy, as the National Unity Party was always deeply involved in these military holidays. WISE would have no choice but to put Operation Strix on hold for a few days, finally giving him a chance to get some much-needed rest.

The realist in him, however, knew that would never been the case. The holiday in question, Armistice Day, marked the anniversary of the ceasefire agreement between east and west, and always seemed to bring out those who took issue with how things had ended. Berlint would be hosting both prominent Ostanian military personnel and politicians and Westalian diplomats, creating a perfect storm for anyone who wanted to fan the flames of animosity between the two nations. WISE was very much aware of this and planned to do everything in their power to keep the unsteady truce between the two countries from being broken and preventing the sparks of war from being reignited. It was also known that the SSS would have a large presence in the city as well, so the agents of WISE would have to keep an eye out for them as well.

“Agent Twilight, I am sure you know why I called you in here.” The Handler told him as he stepped into her office.

He nodded. “The Armistice Day festivities have been a target for those wanting to disrupt peace between east and west in the past, so WISE is always on high alert during that time. If you called me to speak to you in person, however, I assume we’ve gotten word of very real threat to the peace from one of our informants that is set to occur during the festivities.”

“You are correct, Twilight. We’ve gotten word that the Ostanian Liberation Front, an extremist offshoot of the National Unity Party, is planning to use Armistice Day to break the peace between east and west, causing a new conflict to form between the two nations, and bringing about what they call the Era of Eastern Superiority. Instead of launching an attack against the Westalian diplomats like we’ve seen groups try in previous years, they plan to orchestrate a kidnapping and killing that will be blamed on the west. Their target: Winnona Watkins, previously known as the Iron Soldier due to her prowess and resolve during the Second East-West War of Unification.”

Winnona Watkins had actually been on their radar for a while, but not because on the reasons one might think. Despite being know for having killed dozens-if not hundreds-of Westalian soldiers on the battlefield during the war, she showed zero desire to cause any sort of future violence, and seemed to secretly hold anti-war, anti-National Unity Party, and possibly even pro-western beliefs due to her experiences during the war. If it were suddenly to get out that someone considered to be such an icon of eastern perseverance during the war, and the wife one of Ostania’s most prominent majors held such beliefs, it could potentially weaken the truce between east and west. Currently, nobody in Ostania seemed to have any idea that Winnona might not truly be the person she portrayed herself as, to the point where the SSS didn’t even bat an eye when she made multiple trips to Westalis over the years for shopping.

It was an odd feeling, knowing they likely knew the woman better than her own family did. While her military career was pretty common knowledge at this point, and her early life wasn’t of particular note to anyone, it was what happened near the end of the war-and what was still happening today-that put her on WISE’s radar. During her time as a soldier, Winnona had survived many situations that could have easily killed her and eventually found herself in one of Westalis’s POW camps along with many of her fellow soldiers. During one of Westalis’s unfortunately all too common POW massacres that took place during the war, she managed to escape, becoming injured while surviving in the wilderness, and later ending up hiding out in a barn owned by a poor family in one of the country’s rural sections. She slowly grew to trust the family during that time, ending up living with them before she was located by the Ostanian army and brought back to the country to have her leg amputated due to injury and infection at the end of the war.

As far as most people knew, the Westalian family that had taken her in simply went back to their normal lives after that. The West didn’t want the headache of having an enemy soldier stuck in their country, so they allowed her to be taken back to Ostania without issue, and everyone seemed to forget about that family after that. Everyone except Winnona, that is. She still made trips to visit the people she felt she owed her life to under the guise of visiting Westalia for shopping or other benign reasons the SSS never seemed to question, always bringing money and gifts when she did. Perhaps her continued relationship with this family could help pave the way to peace between the two nations, but for now it was better to keep the public in the dark.

Winnona Watkins and her career as the Iron Soldier were seen as a matter of great pride to the people of Ostania, and if anything were to happen to her-especially if it could be in any way traced back to the west-the peace between the two nations would suffer greatly, if not become broken completely. And it wasn’t even just the fact that Ostania would be losing a symbol of the country’s resilience during the war that would serve as a threat to peace between the two nations, but the potential actions of her husband in the aftermath. Wesley Watkins was a powerful major in the Ostanian army, and while he himself couldn’t outright decide to launch an attack on the west, he did have enough pull to convince the leaders of the country to allow such an attack to take place, especially if Donovan Desmond leveraged the incident to reestablish the National Unity Party as Ostania’s primary military power, which he almost certainly would.

“What do we know so far about the planned attack?” Loid asked the Handler.

“Not much so far.” She admitted. “The Ostanian Liberation Front seems to know what they’re doing a lot better than many of these terrorist organizations that we’ve dealt with in the past, leading us to believe that the top members likely had prior military experience, and may have held positions that required high security clearance during the war, and the fact that they have managed to keep their organization on the smaller side may be part of the reason why they didn’t find their way on to our radar until about six months ago, despite showing evidence of their group having existed for at least a few years.

“We were only just recently able to get an undercover agent within their ranks, and while he’s slowly building their trust, we fear that moving things along too quickly could cause them to react violently, launching other attacks earlier than planned in order to have the greatest impact before they are captured and brought into custody. Thankfully, although he was not directly told of the planned Armistice Day attack, he did manage to overhear the basic details of it. We currently have agents all over the city searching for any sign of the terrorist plot, and because of how many people that are currently visiting the city, including some from Westalis, we believe SSS presence will be high as well.

“As Watkins is the main target for this attack, I want both you and Nightfall to tail her directly, taking note of anything that may pose a threat to her or the peace between east and west in general. There will be agents and other people affiliated with WISE scattered around the city, report anything of suspicion to them, and they will get back to me. Any questions?”

He shook his head. “No, nothing I can think of.”

It was a pretty straightforward assignment, but not the easiest one. While Twilight had been trained to pick up any signs of danger, it certainly helped to know the MO of the people he was looking for, or at least the basic demographics of the group. Since WISE’s consensus had been that the Ostanian Liberation Front likely contained former military members, older men would likely be the type of people he was looking for, but it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for them to send younger members of the organization to do their dirty work.

Not to mention, if they were to be trailing a single individual over what would likely be the course of a few days, he would have to carefully coordinate with Nightfall, and employ multiple disguises, taking extra care to keep Anya and Yor from becoming suspicious about why he was working so much in the days leading up to a holiday, the time when most people were expected to slack off. Monday was easy enough; he could play it off as having to continue working hard on a day where most would either be excused from their duties or would simply call out sick due to how important his job was. As for the holiday itself, he figured he’d bring Yor and Anya into the main area of the city with him under the guise of having a family outing to enjoy the festivities Armistice Day brought and better educate Anya on the recent history of Ostania. He could sneak away later on to spy on Winonna and meet up with Nightfall while maintaining a close enough vicinity to keep up the illusion that he was simply a normal doctor and husband to those around him.

While Anya was in the same grade as Bill Watkins, they were in different classes and not friends, having only interacted a handful of times that he knew of, so he couldn’t use the excuse of letting the children play together as an excuse to hang around Wesley and Winonna Watkins and keep an eye on them. Had he known he’d have to spy on a member of the Watkins family in the future, Twilight would’ve made sure that Anya and Bill were in the same class and had become friends beforehand. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see the future and had no reason to believe the arrangement would be needed at the time.

And even if Bill and Anya had become friends, that didn’t guarantee that the plan would work. Although it would be unusual for the couple not to bring their son to an event where most people brought their entire families-especially those who had been chosen to speak-it was still a possibility. There was always some kind of illness going around Eden College, especially among the younger grades, so there was always a chance that Bill could’ve fallen ill, or his parents decided not to bring him along for whatever reason. Despite his outward appearance, he was still just six years old and considering what Loid went through with Anya on an almost daily basis when he had to bring her out in public, he wouldn’t blame the couple for leaving their son with someone else when they knew they would already be preoccupied.

The crowded state of the city streets would serve to both help and hinder the progress of the mission. The number of people occupying the area, along with the fact that many of them were visitors that nobody who lived in or frequented the area would have any reason to know meant it would be easier for Twilight and Nightfall to blend in. Depending on their target, in a situation like this they might even get away with switching disguises fewer times than normal, or even not at all, but Twilight didn’t want to risk this with his current target. Winnona Watkins was a former soldier and known to be hypervigilant on top of that. If anyone was able to spot someone seemingly appearing in their vicinity more times than what would be considered for the time and place, it would be her.

Of course, the busy streets would also serve to make it more difficult for them to keep eyes on their target, especially when they needed to be aware of any suspicious behavior from those in the surrounding area, not just what their target was doing. With so many people around, it would be easy to miss the suspicious behavior of one individual, especially if they knew what they were doing, and were able to conceal their actions from most.

Regardless of the circumstances, Twilight was confident enough in the abilities of himself and the rest of WISE to successfully complete the mission. After all, peace between east and west needed to be maintained, no matter the cost or effort required.

Despite the following day being business as usual for the faculty and students of Eden Academy, it didn’t seem as if everyone was taking things seriously, much to the annoyance of the faculty, including Henry Henderson. Nearly half of his students were missing, including many of the students who lived on campus and whose parents had called in saying their children wouldn’t be in until Wednesday, and those who did bother to show up weren’t conducting themselves with the elegance he expected from them. Of course, he did understand that they were still young children in their first year of formal education, so it was natural for them to be excited and have trouble focusing on a day that was bordered by days off, but it still frustrated him, nonetheless.

“Now children, I know that you will be off for the holiday tomorrow, and that the parents of many of you classmates elected not to send them to classes today, but that is no reason for us not to go about our days with the order and elegance expected from any other day.” He told his students. “In fact, I think it would be a great use of our time to learn of history of Armistice Day. While it occurred before any of you were born, it is still of recent memory to your parents, some of who may have even played a direct part in helping to bring an end to the war, so I feel it is important that you learn why you will be celebrating tomorrow, rather than just seeing it as a day off from classes.

“Students, if you will, kindly take out your modern history textbooks and turn to page 307. Don’t worry about your classmates missing such a valuable lesson, they will be given makeup assignments as homework when we resume classes on Wednesday.”

The children did as they were told, taking their textbooks out from under their desks and turning to the specified page, but it was clear that the focus they usually had for their academics just wasn’t there today.

“It’s no fair that my parents made me come to school today.” Becky quietly complained to Anya as Professor Henderson began his lecture. “Everyone’s parents are bringing them to work today, or just letting them have a day off, and even though our family’s company was involved plenty in the war, my dad is making me go to class. Of course, that Desmond boy gets to skip class, and even Emile and Ewen’s folks let them have the day off, and their families hardly had anything to do with Ostania’s history, so they’re just getting a free day off.”

“Miss Blackbell, unless you would like to find yourself being given a Tonitrus bolt, I recommend you save your chatter for your lunch period.” Warned Henderson. “While classes may not be in session tomorrow, and we may be missing a few of your classmates, proper classroom behavior is still expected while you are here.”

“Sorry, Professor.”

Seeing as it was the day before a holiday, and they were all still very young children, he hadn’t planned on giving out any sort of punishment-much less something as serious as a Tonitrus bolt-unless the students decided to engage in conduct that was outright dangerous, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to use threats of such as a way to keep them in line.

The cafeteria was noticeably emptier than usual when Anya and Becky arrived for their lunch period, making it obvious that it wasn’t just their class-or even grade-that was missing a significant number of students. While most students took up their regular seats at the various tables, some groups had moved closer together to make up for their missing members, and there were quite a few tables that were completely vacant altogether, a rare sight considering how busy this particular lunch period typically was. The room was a lot quieter than usual as well, to the point where you could hear every word of the conversations at nearby tables, rather than having most of it being lost in the collective noise.

The table Anya and Becky typically sat at with a few others from their class-which included Damien, Emile, and Ewin-was empty with the exception of George Glooman who had taken the opportunity to join his classmates for lunch for once. Although the other children had mostly forgiven him for accidentally deceiving them earlier in the year, and he wasn’t as ostracized as before, there simply wasn’t enough room on typical days for him to sit at one of the few tables his classmates occupied, and even if they had forgiven him, nobody was willing to give up their seat for him, forcing him to either sit alone or with the students from one of the other classes if they allowed him on days when all the other members of his class were present.

Although Becky and Anya weren’t exactly thrilled with the idea of George joining them for lunch, feeling like they would be forced to include him in their conversation, but they weren’t about to tell him to leave, either, as doing so would honestly feel like kicking a puppy. George just had one of those faces that made him look perpetually sad and pathetic, and although nobody in the class really went out of their way to be nice to him, they weren’t exactly mean to him, either. Most of the time they simply ignored his presence.

“I can’t believe my parents are making me come in today.” Becky complained again. “Almost everyone else is gone today, and they’re giving a makeup assignment to everyone that missed class, anyway, so it’s not like I would be missing anything. I think they just don’t want me hanging around the house or going to work with them. What about you, Anya? How do you feel about your parents refusing to let you take the day off as well?”

“Anya didn’t even know anyone was skipping school today.” The younger girl confessed. “But if we don’t have to do the makeup assignment, it means I’ll have less homework, and more time for cartoons and Bond. Mama and Papa are taking me to see the festivalties tomorrow, so I don’t even care about being stuck in class today. We haven’t been on a family outing in so long, but papa says he has the day off for the holiday, so we can finally go on one again.”

Loid claimed that due to a shortage of psychiatrists, and an increase in former soldiers beginning treatment for Combat Neurosis, he was taking on a lot more patients and working longer hours. Yor believed this without question, proclaiming he was doing a great thing for the soldiers mentally affected by the war, and doing her best to take up more of his responsibilities around the house in his absence (much to Anya’s disappointment when it came to mealtime), but Anya’s mind-reading ability meant that she knew the truth.

“It sure is a lot quieter here with everyone gone.” Said George. “I don’t mind being in school today; father is always too busy for me, and mother is rarely around, so there wouldn’t have been much of a point in staying home, anyway.”

I like it when there’s fewer students around, I don’t blend into the background as much and the ones that are here don’t ignore me as much. Thought George. Plus, I actually have a lunch table with my classmates to sit at, rather than having to once again sit alone.

Part of Anya felt bad for George, seeing as he was relatively forgotten by his classmates. But being five and not really having a good grasp on emotions or empathy yet, she wasn’t completely sure what to do with this feeling, so she mainly ignored it. Like the rest of her classmates, she wasn’t mean to him, but wouldn’t go out of her way for him, either.

“I guess it is nice not to have to with Damien and his little cronies today.” Agreed Becky. “Anya, you’re so lucky that your parents are taking you to do something fun on the day off, I’m stuck going to a lot of boring speeches and meeting with my parents. My dad says it would look bad for the company if he didn’t have his whole family with him, plus he gave Martha the day off so he couldn’t leave me with her even if he wanted to. He says she fought in the war or something, and that’s why he hired her in the first place, but I don’t believe it. She never answers my questions about it when I ask, always telling me that a proper young lady shouldn’t be nosy, and besides, I can’t see someone like her ever having been a soldier, she’s just too boring and plain.”

Maybe Anya will feel bad that I’m stuck doing boring stuff with my dad all day and will ask if I want to hang out with her and her family after I’m done with all those stupid speeches I’m supposed to attend. That would give me the perfect chance to show my Loid how smart and cultured I am when it comes to the history of Ostania.

Although Anya had briefly considered seeing if Becky wanted to hang out later in the day, reading the other girl’s mind quickly caused her to decide against it. “Its gonna be so nice to have a day with just me, Mama, and Papa. Maybe Bond if he’s allowed, but just our family and nobody else.”

“Yeah, that sounds fun, Anya. I hope at least you get to have a good time while I’m stuck doing boring stuff with my parents all day. At least my dad said that if I’m good, we can go shopping next weekend, and I can get whatever I want. Plus, we always get to go to that fancy restaurant for dinner so he can talk to other important people, so I guess the day won’t be a total loss.”

And I’ll still get to impress my Loid with everything I learn from all the speeches about the military history of Ostania the next time I see him.

Anya sighed. It didn’t look like Becky would be getting over her obsession anytime soon.

When Anya returned home, Yor was already in the kitchen working on some sort of unidentifiable dish that looked absolutely horrifying. Bond was seated in his usual spot by the front door, awaiting the return of his young master.

“Hi, Anya.” She greeted as the little girl walked inside, tossing her schoolbag by the door. “They let us leave a little early today since City Hall is going to be closed tomorrow and there isn’t a lot for us to do, so I decided to make a super special dinner for us tonight.”

Normally, I would use this extra free time to try and pick up another assassination job, but since there’s so many people around the city right now, the risk of a witness is much higher. Not to mention, I haven’t had time off of both jobs simultaneously in quite a while, so I might as well enough the holiday.

Anya made a slightly disgusted face at food being prepared. “I thought Papa was cooking tonight, that’s why we bought all those vegetables off that list he gave us yesterday.”

“Well, Loid works so hard, and he’s been so busy at work lately, so I thought it would be nice if I surprised him by having dinner all set when he got home, that way he could just relax and not have to worry about it.”

“Papa’s gonna be surprised when he gets home, alright.”

Bond’s food was starting to look pretty tasty. At least in comparison to what Yor was cooking, anyway. Anya was starting to wonder if she’s be able to sneak some of it for herself so she could avoid eating the disgusting dish without going hungry when the front door suddenly opened and Loid stepped inside. He seemed as exhausted as usual after a long day but kept up his chipper façade as usual.

“Papa’s back!” Anya shouted.

Yor put down the knife she was using to chop a carrot and smiled. “Hi, Loid. How was work today?”

“As busy as ever, unfortunately.” He replied. “Of course, I’m glad so many people are starting to seek help for their various psychiatric ailments, but it means the staff and I have been working more hours than usual, although the hospital director is currently in the process of hiring more doctors and nurses for the psychiatric department in hopes of remedying this. One of my patients did gift me a gift certificate that he could not use for a fancy restaurant today, and its more than enough for the three of us to have a nice meal out. The only problem is that today is the last day it’s valid, and I see that you’ve already started making diner. I wouldn’t want to waste your efforts. Perhaps I could call and see if one of my coworkers would like to use it instead.”

Yor quickly dumped the horrid dish she had been working on in the trash. “No, a nice dinner out as a family sounds wonderful. And besides, we can have meatloaf anytime. I don’t think I had the sauce right, anyway.”

It’s probably better that they don’t eat that, anyway. I know I don’t have the best track record in the kitchen, but this is the first time I’m actually worried that I might’ve made something truly lethal.

Loid eyed the half-prepared dish in the trash. That was supposed to be meatloaf? I never would’ve guessed.

In actuality, there was no patient, and the gift certificate was purchased by WISE as a cover to allow Loid to keep tabs on Winnona Watkins without having to come up with some excuse as to why he would be away for the evening or justify otherwise taking his family out for a dinner so far outside their usual budget. A WISE informant had let the Handler know that the Watkins family had a dinner reservation for that restaurant on that very night, and it was most likely that the Ostanian Liberation Front would strike in a public place, possibly sitting in wait for her to step out of view of everyone for just a moment, so it was most important to keep eyes on her when she was out and about. The Watkins family took home security very seriously, and even if someone did manage to slip inside, there was a much higher risk of invoking the wrath of her husband, and there was no way they would be getting out alive if they decided to cross Wesley Watkins. Winnona may have been weakened by the effects of war, but Wesley was still in pretty good shape, despite no longer being in his prime, and he’d shown in the past that he would stop at nothing to keep his family safe.

While Anya was vaguely aware of the situation at hand thanks to reading Loid’s thoughts, she wasn’t overly concerned at the moment, figuring this would just be a standard mission for him. He’d make some excuse and disappear as usual, take down some bad guy, and then come back like nothing had happened. All she could really think about was how relieved she was that she didn’t have to eat Yor’s potentially deadly meatloaf.

Because of how fancy the restaurant was, and the fact there would likely be many important people eating there that night, Loid had repeatedly warned Anya that she needed to be on her best behavior. He also let her know that their reservation was for a bit later than they usually ate, but that they should count themselves lucky that they were able to get any reservation at all so last minute (in actuality, WISE had specifically booked this time in advance, knowing the Watkins family had a reservation for the same time). They all dressed in their best clothes which only served to instill how fancy this place was in Anya.

Due to how busy the restaurant had expected it to be thanks to the holiday and everyone visiting the city, they had opted for a smaller preset menu with fewer choices. Loid was grateful that Anya wasn’t a picky child and would eat just about anything that was put in front of her (with the obvious exception of Yor’s cooking disasters), as many children her age would pitch a fit about having to eat such extravagant food without being given much freedom to choose what they wanted. Of course, it probably helped that Anya had come from a terrible orphanage and was expected to eat whatever flavorless garbage that was placed in front of her, so even being able to choose from just three entrees when they went out for dinner was still exciting to her.

As expected, besides the Forgers, the Watkins’s, and a few upper crust families that Loid recognized, there were very few children in the restaurant that night with most of the tables being occupied by couples or businessmen and politician. With how high the price per head was at this place, the only people who could afford it were those that had a reputation to uphold, and they would never dream of bringing their children out to a place like this if there was even the slightest chance of them throwing a tantrum or otherwise becoming an embarrassment around such esteemed diners.

The waitress, an undercover WISE agent, gave Loid a nod as she sat them at a table just a few away from the Watkins family. It was close enough to allow Loid to scan for threats, but far enough away that the family wouldn’t notice anything was amiss. Even if they did spot the Forgers (or if Anya realized that one of her schoolmates was close by and wanted to say hello), it could easily be passed off as a coincidence. Not to mention, a closer friendship between Anya and Bill was still on the table, and although it wasn’t part of the original plan regarding Strix, it could still be beneficial for the Forgers to become closer to such a well-known military family, especially since Wesley Watkins still had connections to Donovan Desmond.

Loid wasn’t afraid of Winnona being attacked in the middle of a crowded restaurant-especially when her giant husband and son were right next to her-but that didn’t mean someone couldn’t be hiding in wait, looking for their opportunity to strike as soon as she was alone. Like many veterans suffering from Combat Neurosis, Winnona wasn’t known to be fond of crowded spaces with limited avenues for escape, and although she might have taken some comfort in having her husband and son close by, it would only help so much, and it wouldn’t be long before she looked for an excuse to leave the crowd for few minutes to recenter herself. From his civilian job as a psychiatrist Loid had learned that a lot of people like her took up smoking not just for the stress relief it seemed to offer, but because it gave them a convenient excuse to leave the crowd, and if her would be assailants really were ex-military like WISE believed, even if they themselves didn’t participate in this behavior, they had to know somebody who did.

Despite how busy the restaurant was, service was quick, likely in a bid to hurry patrons along so that nobody with a reservation would be waiting too long and decide to walk out before being seated. It wasn’t long after ordering drinks and deciding on what they wanted that the Forgers were given their drinks and asked for their orders. The salad arrived quickly, Loid assuming that it had been made in a large batch beforehand-along with anything else that would stay fresh-with the main courses being made constantly throughout the evening in anticipation for people that would order them, rather than being prepped when they were requested. This was common practice for a preset meal, but felt extremely wasteful to him, as much of the food would be leftover at the end of the night and likely tossed. He’d worked undercover at restaurants like this before, and he knew that most of them would rather toss the leftovers than allow commoners like their waitstaff to eat it, but that didn’t stop some employees from sneaking uneaten bits off of plates that they were returning to the kitchen to clear or outright stealing from the trash at the end of the night. Most of these places claimed they did this to keep their staff from placing fraudulent orders in hopes of eating them when the meal was labeled as a mistake, but to Loid it always just seemed like another way for the owners to look down on the help, especially when it came to preset meals or buffets.

The Watkins family received their salads about the same time as the Forgers did. Loid observed Winnona glancing around the room from time to time, looking for potential threats and plotting exit routes, behavior typical of those dealing with Combat Neurosis. Besides the usual hypervigilance she seemed relatively relaxed as she listened to her son talk about school. As far as Loid could tell, the room was free of threats, nobody nearby seemed to be paying an unusual amount of attention to the Watkins’s or otherwise acting suspiciously.

When the main course arrived, Yor first took Anya’s plate and carefully cut the young girl’s chicken into bite sized pieces before digging into her own food. Similarly to Anya, Bill seemed to struggle to cut his steak with the knife he had been provided, seemingly unable to get the right angle. Despite being much larger than his peers, and having gross motor skills superior to most of them, his fine motor skills were just on par with children his age.

“Here, let me help.” Said his mother, taking his plate and knife and cutting up his steak similarly to how Yor had done for Anya, before returning it to him. “There you go, hun.”

Bill smiled. “Thanks, Mommy.”

Loid almost chuckled. Nothing like seeing Bill Watkins need help cutting up his food and hearing him refer to his mother as mommy to remind Loid that despite his giant stature, the boy was still only six years old and should be expected to act as such more often than not.

Wesley shot his wife a look. “You shouldn’t do everything for him, Wynn, he’ll never learn to be independent if you don’t let him do things like cut his own meat.”

“He’s only six, Wes, we can’t expect too much independence from him at that age. Besides, last time you insisted that he needed to cut up his own steak he couldn’t do it properly and cut way too big of a bite, choked, threw up everywhere after you managed to dislodge it, and didn’t want to eat meat for almost six months. He just got over that fear right before we sent him off to Eden, and I will not have a repeat of that, especially when he’s living in the dorms and I can’t make sure he’s otherwise getting enough protein. So, yes, I will be continuing to cut up tough meat like streak for him until I’m certain he won’t choke again.”

The incident had been terrifying for everyone involved, and although Wesley would never admit it, the fact that he had been the one to put one of the two people he cared about more than anything else in the world due to his selfish pride and insistence on being tough on his son the same way his own father had been on him still kept him up sometimes.

The situation had really made him think about whether he was doing the right thing as a father. He’d always believed that the reason he grew to be the strong and powerful man he did was because of how his parents had raised him, and he wanted the same for Bill, especially with the fact that a third war between the east and west was very possible, and Bill might end up having to follow in his parents’ footsteps as a soldier. He just wanted his son to be prepared to keep his country safe in case that happened. While he and his wife often had differing ideas of how they should raise their son, they were almost always able to come to a compromise, with Wesley often coming to admit that the way he had been raised, although it had achieved the desired effect, was somewhat problematic. That was, among other reasons, why he kept contact with his relatives outside of his immediate family to a minimum, and why Bill would never be meeting his only set of living grandparents. At least until he was grown and could understand why his father had made that decision, anyway. As of now, Bill had only been told his father no longer got along with his parents, and that they had never liked his mother, and while those statements were both technically true, they had decided to wait to give a deeper explanation of the situation until the boy was more emotionally mature and could fully understand it.

Wesley sighed. “Perhaps you are right, we don’t want another repeat of that incident. Bill is still quite young, and although his abilities are far superior to those of his peers, we can’t expect him to do everything on his own just yet.”

“Wes, stop just agreeing with me to avoid a conversation. We’re adults, we can talk about these things without it becoming an argument. I know you have problems with my parenting style from time to time but just ignoring it to placate me isn’t a solution.”

“Wynn, is something the matter? All of today you’ve seemed… upset.” His voice softened, and he chose his words carefully.

“You didn’t even want to play catch with me when I asked earlier, and you always say yes.” Agreed Bill.

Despite being a very active person before and during the war, losing her leg meant that Winnona couldn’t do as much physically as she once could. Her prosthetic had given her some freedom back, but between the pain and mobility issues it caused if she wasn’t careful, she couldn’t do as much with her son as she would’ve liked. She would’ve loved to get more involved with his athletics, but with prosthetic technology having the limits it did so far, playing catch with him was the most she was capable of doing, so she rarely missed a chance to do so. Of course, she hoped that prosthetic technology would one day allow her to fully participate in Bill’s life the way she always longed to, but that didn’t seem like it would be happening anytime soon.

Winonna stared at her plate. “You know me too well, Wes. Yes, I have been a bit stressed, but I shouldn’t take it out on you and Bill, it’s not your fault. Armistice Day just brings up memories I like to try and avoid, and those that never fought in the war act like we’re crazy or somehow selfish for wanting to keep that part of ourselves in the past, I’m sure you understand.”

He did. Although Wesley had stayed in the military after the war, taking on the role of a Major where he would see far less combat, there were parts of the war that he just wanted to forget. Watching his squadmates die, being told that the love of his life had most likely perished in a POW camp and that he should give up looking like everyone else had (something that he vowed not to do until he either found her alive, or identified a body as hers himself), the lives he himself had taken, these were the things the civilian public wanted to hear about, the things the rabid media liked to romanticize. They wanted to revel in the glory of the heroes they put on pedestals, not hear about how these former soldiers struggled to sleep at night, or thought about all the children that would never grow up due to their army’s actions whenever they watched their own children play so innocently. The horrors of war were lost on the civilians that couldn’t comprehend the sheer magnitude of it.

“Is this about your speech? Perhaps we will have to tell the organizers that you have fallen ill.”

She shook her head. “No, we won’t be doing that. As much as I hate going back to my days as the Iron Soldier, there are some things I just need to do, and this is one of them. I’ve just been under a lot of pressure lately, and the crowds aren’t helping. I always feel like someone is waiting for me to drop my guard, and the last couple of days have been worse for some reason, although I’m not sure why. I mean, if something were to happen in this restaurant, we’d have no chance. There are too many people packed in here, not enough exits and nowhere to hide. We’d all be gone in a matter of minutes. And the increased SSS presence in the area hasn’t been helping, it makes me think that they know something is about to happen but won’t tell the public in a vain attempt to pretend that everything is still okay until the moment it isn’t.”

“We can leave if you want to, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind packing up our food if we asked.”

“I’m fine.” She insisted, utterly embarrassed to be falling victim to her own mind in such a public place. “I just need a smoke to clear my head; I’ll be back in a few.”

As she stood up from her seat and headed out of the crowded restaurant, Loid did the same, telling Yor and Anya that he was just heading to the bathroom, but slipping outside as well. He didn’t smoke as personal habit but did so from time to time for undercover work, so he always kept a pack of cigarettes on him. After all, it would look quite suspicious of him to be standing around outside doing nothing, and he needed to make sure the Ostanian Liberation Front wasn’t lurking nearby, but she wouldn’t question someone else being outside having a cigarette as well.

As far as he could tell, there were no threats in the immediate vicinity, but that didn’t mean he should let his guard down. Keeping her unharmed was a matter of life and death, not just for her, but for those who would be send to fight in the subsequent war that would follow if she were to be killed by a group disguising themselves as being from the west. Not only did he need to keep her safe, but he needed to keep her and anyone else ignorant of the fact that there was any danger in the first place.

As she took a drag of her cigarette and stared into the distance, he placed a cigarette of his own between his lips before pretending to desperately search his pockets for a lighter he knew the exact location of.

“Dammit.” He muttered to himself before turning to Winonna. “I don’t suppose you’d let me borrow your lighter, it seems I’ve forgotten mine at home.”

“Sure, catch!”

She tossed him her lighter, gold with the initials WW engraved onto it, which he caught perfectly with little effort. Loid briefly wondered if he should’ve purposely fumbled the catch so that Winnona wouldn’t be suspicious of him but realized that she had zero reason to suspect that he was anything more than an average man who made a lucky catch.

“You know you could’ve just handed it to me, right? You didn’t have to toss it.”

She motioned to her cane. “Give me a break, I’m crippled and you’re at least four meters away. If it makes you feel any better you can walk it over here after you’re done instead of tossing it back. Frankly, I don’t give a damn either way. My arms still work perfectly fine, and my reflexes are as sharp as they’ve ever been.”

He opted to walk the lighter over to her after lighting his cigarette, not just because it wasn’t polite to throw things at a woman when you could just as easily bring it over to her (Twilight typically didn’t bother with this type of chivalry, especially when the woman in question would have no issue catching the lighter, but Loid Forger cared about that type of thing), but because it gave him an opportunity to get closer to her without his intentions being recognized. Not only would this give him a better position to look for potential threats, but he’d have a chance to better analyze her and see if he couldn’t figure out anything about her that wasn’t already listed in the file WISE had provided him with.

“Nice lighter you’ve got there.” He commented. “Not just in appearance, either. That thing lights like a dream.”

“My husband gave it to me for our anniversary a few years back. I like to think he picked it out specifically knowing I would like it, but considering we have the same initials, I’ve always wondered if he got it as a gift at an earlier point and since he doesn’t smoke, gifted it to me instead.”

“Regardless of if it was originally purchased by your husband as a gift for you or given to him by someone else, it is still a very nice lighter, and one of the more thoughtful regifted presents I’ve heard about if that is the case, as he actually did consider your interests when he gave it to you. When I hear from my female colleagues or patients about them receiving regifted items from their husbands, they’re always complaining about how useless and thoughtless they are, I remember that one of my patients was telling me a while back about how for her birthday her husband gave her cufflinks with his initials-different from hers-and claimed they were earrings. It has definitely given me some perspective, and their stories always remind me to show my own wife extra thoughtfulness when it comes to gifts and special occasions.”

“My husband is a better spouse and father than a lot of other men out there, and honestly, I’m not bothered by the fact that he might give me gifts that were initially meant for him if he sees that I can get some use and enjoyment out of them. Unlike you and I’m assuming everyone else in that restaurant, I wasn’t born into a place of wealth, I simply married into it after the war. Growing up, the gifts we exchanged were rarely shiny and new, rather just things we thought our family and neighbors would enjoy that we already had, often just repaired or crafted into something new. It was certainly an adjustment after leaving that life behind, but I think I’ve done well adapting to how the other half lives. Not that I could go back, anyway.

“I’ve enjoyed our brief conversation, but my husband and son are waiting inside, and if I take too long my husband will become worried that something happened to me and come looking, and I really don’t want to put anymore stress on my family than I already have today. Until we meet again Mr., er, I’m sorry but I don’t think I caught your name.”

“Loid Forger.” He said, holding out his hand for her to shake.

“Winnona Watkins.” She replied, shaking his hand. “Perhaps we will meet again.”

She dropped her nearly finished cigarette to the ground, grinding it into the pavement with the toe of her boot to snuff it out before limping her way back inside. Loid stayed a few minutes longer outside to finish his cigarette before heading back in himself so it wouldn’t seem like he was following her. Yor questioned why he had been gone so long but seemed satisfied with his explanation of there being a long line for the bathroom. Anya, on the other hand, shot him a slightly suspicious look, but he could never tell what she was thinking, and he brushed it off without another thought.

The Watkins family stayed a bit longer to finish their main courses and deserts, the Forgers finishing and leaving not long after. WISE kept eyes on Wesley’s car both while the family was in the restaurant, and on their drive home, but Loid didn’t see the point in this. If the Ostanian Liberation Front wanted Winnona’s death to have the biggest military impact, they would have to leave Wesley alive and hungry for vengeance, so taking the whole family with a car bomb or orchestrated crash didn’t fit their motives.

Despite the fact that she’d had a full day of classes, and it was getting close to her usual bedtime, Anya was still very awake, playing with Bond and running around as children often do. Normally, Loid would discourage this type of behavior but seeing as she didn’t have classes the next day, and they wouldn’t be heading out as a family until later in the day, he didn’t see any harm in letting her stay up a little later than usual.

“Can I please watch TV?” Anya begged. “I’m not even sleepy and Spy Wars might be on.”

“Don’t you have homework?” Asked Loid. “Just because tomorrow is a holiday doesn’t mean you should fall behind.”

I know she’s a kid and I shouldn’t be too hard on her, but Operation Strix directly rides on her becoming an Imperial Scholar, and considering her grades already aren’t looking so good, I can’t really let her slack off.

“Yes, but I can’t do it yet. We have to write a short paper on Amnesty day, but I don’t even really know what that is yet.”

“Armistice Day, Anya.” Corrected Loid. “You’re supposed to be writing about Armistice Day, the day signifying the truce between East and West after the second War of Unification. You can watch your show tonight if its on, but tomorrow I want you to really focus on what you see when you go out and listen to what some of the people there have to say.”

He was almost certain that all of the shows Anya enjoyed weren’t playing currently. Not only did media aimed at children typically cease being shown slightly earlier in the day, but with Armistice Day tomorrow, most channels would be showing news and historical documentaries attempting to capitalize on the holiday. As much as Loid hated how the media liked to romanticize the war and the people involved with it for viewership, maybe he could at least get Anya to watch something educational for once, as he doubted she’d learned anything about modern history during her time at that sketchy orphanage.

As Anya flipped through the channels, she grew increasingly frustrated as not only was Spy Wars not on, but there wasn’t a single cartoon or other show that captured her attention, either. Just news and other boring programs aimed at adults that she very much didn’t want to watch.

“The one time I’m allowed to stay up past my bedtime and watch TV there’s nothing good on.” She complained. “Just all this boring adult stuff.”

“Maybe it would be a good idea to watch a program about Armistice Day, seeing as you have to write a report on it.” Suggested Yor. “Hey, isn’t that your friend Bill and his family on the TV right now? We ran into his parents yesterday, remember?”

Although Yor was aware that Anya and Bill weren’t super close friends, the two of them did get along fairly well despite the dodgeball incident, and had they been assigned to the same class, he would have probably ended up in Anya’s little friend group. Not to mention, Bill was the most easily recognizable of Anya’s friends, seeing as there weren’t exactly a lot of 1.8 meter tall six-year-olds running around.

“The Watkins family has played a big part in Ostania’s military for generations, with every male born into the family having served.” Said the presenter. “Major Wesley Watkins even met his wife, retired Lieutenant Winnona Watkins-née Moore-when they trained and served in the Ostanian army together. Their son, William Watkins, at just six years old-although, as is common for the boys on his father’s side, appears quite a bit older than the typical child his age- already has big dreams of following in his parent’s footsteps and carrying on the Watkins military legacy.

“Although her husband still serves in the army, and regularly speaks publicly on military matters relevant to the general public due to his position, Winnona Watkins has mostly stayed out of the limelight following her retirement, instead opting to live her life as a civilian housewife and focus on raising the couples son, but for the first time since the end of the Second East-West War of Unification she will be speaking tomorrow in Berlint in honor of the tenth anniversary of Armistice Day officially being designated as a holiday is both Ostania and Westalis. While it has not been made clear if she will be speaking about the war, but many people are hopeful that this will finally be their chance to hear the harrowing tale of survival, perseverance, and true love from the Iron Soldier herself.”

It wasn’t uncommon for those who had fought in either of the wars to not want to talk about their experiences for obvious reasons, Winnona included. Unfortunately for her, her story was considered to be of great public note to the point where some even considered her selfish for being unwilling to share every detail of it. It was as if they had romanticized what she had gone through to the point where they forgot she was a real person who was deeply affected by what she went through, and maybe just wanted the privacy that was allocated to everyone else currently living as a civilian. She had made it very clear that she just wanted to be left alone, to live out the rest of her life as a wife and mother, but the public and media refused to let her have it.

“This is boring.” Anya complained. “TV is supposed to be fun, but this is just like being in school. Come on, Bond, let’s go play spies in my room!”

“Either you’re sitting here and watching something at least somewhat educational on the TV, or you’re going to bed.” Said Loid. “I don’t need you getting all riled up playing with Bond before bed, and besides, the family next door that shares a wall with your bedroom just had a new baby, and I don’t want you getting loud and disturbing them.”

Anya huffed. “Fine, but that just means I’ll be up earlier to play spies instead. Bond, let’s go to bed.”

The large dog let out a borf before following his young master in the direction of her bedroom. He didn’t mind staying up if Anya was going to, but he wasn’t going to argue with going to bed, either. For the most part his life with the Forgers was easy, so he wasn’t going to let himself be bothered by small changes in his routine.

“Don’t forget to brush your teeth!” Loid called after her.

Anya sighed. “Yes, Papa. I’ll remember to brush my teeth.”

Anya was awoken in the middle of the night by Bond whimpering and pawing at her chest.

“Bond, its too late for this.” She groaned, attempting to push the giant dog away. “If you have to go potty you don’t need to wake me up. You know where your litterbox is, and Papa says dogs can see really well in the dark and don’t need the lights on to know where they’re going.”

Bond continued to paw at her and whine until Anya was awake enough to see into his mind and realize why he had been so desperate to wake her up. He’d had a premonition and felt she needed to know right away.

She saw a staticky vision of Winnona Watkins being shot in the back of the head execution style as she sat tied to a chair. Suddenly, the scene flashed to a funeral with Bill sobbing into his father’s chest. Then Wesley Watkins announced the military’s plans to attack Westalis as retribution for what they had taken from both his family and Ostania as a whole. And finally, war. Houses being blown to pieces, people being killed on the battlefield, just all out violence and chaos.

Anya froze. When she had first figured out about Loid’s mission by reading his mind, she had assumed it would be a simple, run of the mill type thing, and everything would turn out fine as usual. Loid would take out the bad guys, and everyone would be none the wiser to what was actually happening behind the scenes. But Bond’s vision had predicted a much darker outcome, something that would not only leave Bill Watkins without a mom but would reignite tensions to the point of war between east and west, and Anya and Bond were the only ones who knew.

Thankfully, Anya knew from experience that Bond’s visions weren’t absolute, and by knowing the current outcome she could change things for the better. The only issue was that she had no idea what to do in this situation. She had no idea where Bill’s mom would be during the day, or how she could save the woman any better than the entirety of WISE, but she knew she had to at least try something. She wished she could tell Loid what she knew so maybe he could warn WISE to change their tactics, but by doing so she would be revealing both her and Bond’s secrets, which she was sure would lead to her being abandoned, and Bond being sent to some government facility to be experimented on, and she couldn’t allow either of those things to happen.

She knew she would have to do something, but it would have to wait until morning. There was nothing she could do right now-at least without raising suspicion from Yor and Loid-and if she were to stay up all night thinking about it, she would be too tired to actually do anything in the morning. Right now, her only option was to try and get some sleep so she’d be ready for what the day would bring.

“Don’t worry, Bond.” She assured the dog. “We’ll make sure that Bill’s Mama stays safe and another war doesn’t start tomorrow, but there’s nothing we can do right now. Our best choice is to go back to sleep and wake up bright and early so we can figure out what we need to do to change the future. From what I’ve gathered from reading Papa’s mind, is that as long as she’s with Bill’s Papa she’s safe, so we don’t even have anything to worry about at this very moment.”

Bond let out a quiet Borf, satisfied with his young master’s reply.

“Anya, wake up!” Yor called from the bedroom door. “I let you sleep a little later than usual, but we’re going out in an hour, so you need to have breakfast and get dressed.”

Anya groaned, burying her face in her pillow. “Five more minutes, Mama?”

“No, Anya. If I let you have five more minutes, pretty soon it’ll turn into half an hour, and we’ll be late to meet Loid.”

Anya finally sat up and looked around. “Wait, where is Papa?”

“He had to go into work for a little while, apparently there was an emergency at the hospital. He said he should be done by noon, and we’d all meet up at a café near the city center then. Its only about ten right now, but I figured if we headed out a little early we could make sure we know where the café is beforehand and maybe do a little sightseeing while we’re at it.”

Oh, right. Loid was probably off trailing Winnona Watkins right now in order to keep her safe, something Anya had sworn to wake up extra early in order to help out with, although she had ended up sleeping in instead. Still, if Loid was still out there working and hadn’t made any change of plans, it meant that Bond’s vision hadn’t come true yet. Or at least Anya hoped that was the case. Surely if something had happened to someone considered an important part of Ostania’s military history it would already be all over the news. Even if Yor hadn’t been watching TV or listening to the radio, surely one of the busybody neighbors that had overheard that their family was planning on going out to the Armistice Day festivities would’ve told her, as everything would’ve likely been canceled to deal with the tragedy.

As if on cue, Bond walked over to Anya’s bed, his ears perked up as they always did when he was having a vision. He showed her the same scenes as before, from the initial killing to the violence that it led to. This time around, however, when Wesley Watkins announced the military strike on Westalis, Anya noticed Donovan Desmond standing a few meters back from the massive man, looking genuinely pleased with the fact that this was all happening. While Anya couldn’t tell if Bond’s vision had changed, or she’s simply missed this detail the first time around, it was clear that Desmond had used the attack as a platform to seize power over Ostania once again.

Since Bond’s vision hadn’t changed, she could infer that while none of it had happened yet, the future had yet to change, and if she didn’t do anything, Winnona Watkins-and likely hundreds of people in both Ostania and Westalis-would be dead. At least she now knew that she still had time to act, even if she wasn’t sure when or where any of this would happen.

“Give me a minute to get dressed, and I’ll be out there in a second, Mama.” She called to Yor.

“Okay, Anya. Since it’s getting a bit late, and we’ll be eating lunch in a few hours and I don’t want to ruin your appetite, I’m only making you toast with jam for breakfast to tide you over until then.”

Anya was perfectly fine with this. Toast with jam was one of the few foods that was so simple to make that even someone like Yor couldn’t mess it up.

Although the streets were incredibly crowded, Anya wasn’t as bothered by hearing everyone’s thoughts as she sometimes was. The atmosphere was very happy and light, with most people having very little in the way of deep thoughts for her to overhear, instead devoting their energy to having conversations with those around them that were much easier for her to ignore. Even the thoughts she could hear were rather relaxed, not aggressive and sharp like those that would often overwhelm her. Despite the holiday being so heavily linked to the military and the past wars, the general consensus seemed to be that the day the war ended, and peace was reached was one that certainly deserved celebrating with people putting aside their differing opinions to focus on something they could agree on.

Despite the fact that the thoughts weren’t overwhelming, the sheer volume of them did bring about their own issues, as Anya had trouble telling where specific ones were coming from. And since a person’s inner voice typically matches their outer voice, if she’d never heard them speak before, she’d have trouble matching them to the person who was thinking them. While she might be able to tell if someone with bad intentions was in the area, locating them individually would be another challenge altogether.

When they arrived at the café, Loid was already there seated at a table outside with two empty chairs. He motioned for them to join him as soon as he saw them. While all three seats had cutlery and menus set out on the table for them, it didn’t look like Loid had ordered anything just yet, politely waiting for his wife and daughter in order to do so.

“Sorry we’re late.” Said Yor as she and Anya took the two empty seats. “This place is relatively new, so nobody I asked knew where to find it. Not to mention, there’s so many people around that I could barely see where we were going. Don’t worry, I made Anya hold my hand the entire time so she wouldn’t get lost. So, how did that work emergency go?”

“The job of a psychiatrist is never a boring one, let’s just say that.” He told her. “But it’s over and I’m ready to spend the rest of the day with you and Anya. I let the waiter know that you two were running a bit late, and that I wanted to wait until you two arrived before I ordered anything.”

For someone with only one leg, that Winnona Watkins sure can move fast. But I guess when both your husband and son have such a long stride, you learn to keep up. I’ve been following that family around all morning, and between that and the disguise changes, I’m already starting to run low on energy. And still no sign of the Ostanian Liberation Front. At least I finally get a break to sit and eat, even if I’m still technically working. Nightfall’s around here somewhere undercover-along with a few other WISE agents-so things should be under control for the time being.

“Well, I’m glad you at least get some of today off, hopefully there isn’t another emergency that they need you for.” Replied Yor. “Anya and I have been looking forward to the three of us spending some quality time together as a family.”

“Don’t worry; the afternoon staff is usually better at handling these things than the morning staff, so they shouldn’t need me back there today. They know I don’t get a ton of time off, so they promised to do their best to keep things under control without me, and anything that comes up that isn’t an emergency can be dealt with tomorrow. That way, I can finally have some quality time with my family. My patients should be fine without me for a little while.”

WISE picked this restaurant specifically because they felt it would appeal to the Watkins family, even going so far as to subliminally suggest it to Welsey after making him aware of its existence. If my calculations are correct, the Watkins’s should be showing up any moment.

As if on cue, the Watkins family walked up to the café sitting down at a table nearby.

“Hello, Anya.” Bill called as soon as he noticed her seated nearby. “I didn’t expect to see you today since there isn’t school, but I guess a lot of kids are out in the city today celebrating the holiday with their parents.”

“Bill, indoor voice, please.” Winnona scolded. “You can get up and go say hi to your friend if you want to, but there’s no reason to shout and disrupt the other people having lunch here.”

He looked slightly confused. “But we’re outside.”

“You know what I mean. Just get up and talk to your friend if you want to but come back when its time to order if you don’t want me to pick out your meal for you.”

He nodded. “Okay, Mommy.”

As Bill and Anya chatted, Winonna shot Loid and Yor a look. God, I’ve never seen this family before in my life, and yet for the past few days I just can’t seem to avoid them. First the wife and the daughter Sunday, then the husband yesterday when I was out smoking, and now all three of them just happen to be here at the same restaurant as us, it’s like they’re stalking my family or something. No, keep it together, Winnona. They’re just a normal family and I’m not in any danger out here. I need to relax.

Anya was a little worried about what Winnona was thinking regarding the Forger’s at first, fearing that she might be catching on to Loid’s true identity, but it seemed like that even if she did find out something that she wasn’t supposed to, as long as it wasn’t incredibly obvious, she would just brush it off as her being paranoid or her mind playing tricks on her. The real thing they had to worry about was her getting kidnapped and killed, something she seemed to be desperately trying to convince herself would never happen.

As a waitress that Anya was pretty sure was Nightfall in disguise brought menus and place settings to where the Watkins’s were sitting, Bill said a quick goodbye to the girl and headed back to where his parents were seated.

“The Watkins’s seem like a nice family.” Said Yor as she looked through the menu.

Loid nodded. “Yes, they do. A lot of Ostania’s more powerful families don’t spend a lot of time together as a family from what I can tell, so it’s certainly nice to see that some families are an exception to this. Have you two figured out what you want to order? If you’re all set I’ll try and flag down one of the waiters or waitresses.”

“I’m honestly surprised Berlint has a restaurant like this.” Commented Yor. “These aren’t really the dishes you would associate with a big, wealthy city. This is the kind of food you usually only find in the rural areas of Ostania, like where Yuri and I grew up.”

“It’s a specialty café, a lot of places like this are opening up around Berlint. After the second war a lot of people moved to the city from all over Ostania for work or marriage, and I guess people are finally starting to take notice and cater their businesses around it. I picked this place because I thought you’d like to experience the kind of food you grew up with and maybe introduce Anya to it as well.”

And it doesn’t hurt that from what I’ve gathered one of the few things Winnona Watkins has told her husband about her past was that she came from a rural area, and knowing how he’s actually one of the better husbands out there in regard to how he treats his wife, he’d certainly want to take her to a place like this once he was made aware of its existence.

“Anya, look!” Said Yor pointing out an item on the menu. “They have jam cake here. That was always Yuri’s favorite when we were growing up, and I’d always bake it for him for his birthday. Would you like to try some for dessert?”

Anya shook her head. “No thanks. If Unkie likes it, I don’t think I would.”

Anya was pretty sure that the people running this restaurant could make a much more edible jam cake than Yor ever could, but she wasn’t going to take any chances.

“Well, I’ll just order some for myself, and we’ll see if you’ve changed your mind after you’ve had a proper lunch. Either way, everything on the menu is something I’m at least somewhat familiar with, so if you do end up liking whatever you order I’m sure I can make it at home for you.”

While Anya wasn’t even sure if she would like anything this place had to offer if it was anything ever remotely similar to Yor’s cooking (she still couldn’t figure out if everyone from that area had such terrible taste in food, or if her adoptive mother was just an exceptionally bad cook), but if the food did end up being good, she didn’t plan on telling Yor out of fear she’d be served a disgusting version of the dish in the future and be forced to explain why she didn’t want to eat something she claimed to have enjoyed in the past. Loid had asked her to try and be nice when it came to Yor’s cooking, but that was often easier said than done.

Meanwhile, at the table nearby, Winnona Watkins seemed to have different opinions of the café.

“Everything on this menu is something I can make at home.” She told her husband. “If you wanted this type of food we could just have stayed home and I could’ve cooked. I really don’t get the point of this restaurant even existing. Those of us who grew up eating this type of food aren’t the kind of people who are used to having disposable income to go out to eat more than once in a blue moon, and unless there’s some sort of fascination the wealthy have with pretending to live like the other half that I’m not aware of, I doubt those raised in the city would have very much of an interest in peasant food. And these prices for a single serving are absolutely insane. For that much money, I could make enough of most of these meals for our entire family.”

“Wynn, the reason I picked this restaurant out is because while I know you’re perfectly capable of making any of this food if you wanted to, I think you deserve a break from taking care of the household once in a while and seeing as I have the means to do so, I am happy to provide.” He replied. “I know you are perfectly fine with taking care of things on your own, but I feel you deserve an easier life after everything, and I want to provide that to you. I chose this place because I know this is the kind of food you grew up with, and sometimes I just want you to be able to experience the things I know you enjoy without having to put in so much work to do so.”

Winnona didn’t talk much about her past, and Wesley didn’t pry, but that didn’t mean he knew nothing of where she came from, even if he wasn’t even sure where exactly in Ostania she was from (from what he’d heard, many small towns and farming villages had issues with record-keeping around the time she was born, and the Ostanian army needed soldiers bad enough that they would just take a rural-born recruits word for it when they said they were old enough to enlist but couldn’t get a birth certificate to prove it). Early on it was clear that she came from somewhere where the comforts of city life were nonexistent, and resources weren’t always plentiful due to certain behaviors and habits she retained. While he-along with the other soldiers from backgrounds similar to his own-would sometimes mock her for these traits before he got close to her and eventually fell in love (he very much regretted the way he’d treated her during basic training and the early days of their time on the battlefield together), her ability to make something from nothing came in handy quite a few times during their enlistment, and was probably what kept her alive after escaping the POW massacre and finding herself at the mercy of the wilderness.

Because of her childhood experience, however, she did not like to rely on others for help if she could avoid doing so, and more often than not refused to take what she felt were shortcuts, even if they would make her life easier. According to her doctors, this had made her a very difficult patient to deal with after she’d initially lost her leg, as she hated not having her independence. Wesley had suggested hiring a housekeeper a on a few occasions to make her life easier and give her more time for the things she enjoyed, but she always quickly shut it down. Granted, she had gotten a lot better at accepting help from her husband and son, but that was where she drew the line.

“You’ve been acting kind of weird lately, Mommy.” Said Bill. “Are you mad at us?”

She shook her head. “Not at all, Hun. I guess some of the habits I picked up from leaner times just like to make an appearance when I’m stressed, I drove your father crazy right after you were born. As soon as I give my speech today and we go home I’ll be back to normal, I promise. Say, we haven’t been camping in a while. How about next time you have a break from school we take a camping trip, just you and I.”

“Yes please!” He said excitedly. “Can you teach me how to fish this time? You said you would last time, but it rained too much.”

“Of course I will. Weather permitting, that is.”

Winnona knew that her physical and mental limitations due to the war meant she couldn’t always participate in the normal activities that a parent would, but she certainly tried her best. She didn’t do well with crowds (she wouldn’t even be out here today if she hadn’t thought what she had to say was important and needed to be said), so she wasn’t able to attend most of Bill’s sports matches and even missed his orientation day at Eden. She couldn’t help him practice with most of his sports, either, so their main mother-son activity was camping. Winnona had a good amount of knowledge about the outdoors, and how to survive out there, and Bill had the strength to do all of the heavy lifting that was needed. She couldn’t walk as far as she once could, but Bill had inherited his father’s strength and endurance and had no trouble carrying both his mother and all the camping equipment through forested terrain for miles if he needed to. Granted she hated the fact that she needed so much assistance to even get to a campsite, but she wanted Bill to experience life as much as possible, so she felt she could brush this off as one of the small sacrifices’ parents needed to make for their children.

Wesley narrowed his eyes. “I have no idea why you accepted that invitation to give an address today when it was offered. Not only do you know that crowds make you nervous and paranoid that someone will attack, but you’ve been asked to speak many times in the past and have always turned it down. The media still asks me personal questions on your behalf when I’ve been sent to speak on military matters, but I always tell them that it’s irrelevant to the matter at hand and not for me to speak on. Why now? What’s so special about this time around? I’m sure some people would say it has to do with this being the 10^th anniversary of Armistice Day becoming a holiday, but I know you well enough to be certain that this isn’t it.”

“I just finally feel like I have something that really needs to be said.” She told him. “Something important enough that I’m willing to put aside all of my fears and personal comfort to say it to as many people as possible. I know tensions between East and West are growing, and while I can’t stop another war from breaking out with my words, but maybe someone somewhere will hear what I have to say and take my words to heart with their actions.”

Winnona hadn’t shown the speech she had written to anyone so far, not even her husband and son. She had spent nearly a month writing and revising it but felt that if she were to involve anyone else in the process, her words wouldn’t be as raw and heartfelt as she wanted them to be. Any type of critique or even encouragement might cause her to second guess her words and possibly impact her message.

“Considering you have kept this speech secret from Bill and I ever since you started, I assumed you would either share something incredibly deep or reveal something about your past that you haven’t told anyone, not even us. I have been asked about what you plan on speaking about by multiple people, and I don’t think they quite believe me when I tell them that you haven’t told me a single detail about it.”

“Well, you are everyone else will just have to wait a few more hours until I give my address at five. There won’t be any Earth-shattering revelations, but I’m certain people will at least be interested in what I have to say.”

Since the moment she had accepted the request to give an address on Armistice Day, Winnona had been dreading speaking in front if a crowd of hundreds-along with maybe thousands watching from their TVs at home or listening through the radio-but she knew that this was just one of those things that she had to do. Maybe not for herself, but for her son and her country as a whole.

Just as the Watkins’s were about to call over Nightfall-who was currently posing as a café waitress, and doing an excellent job of staying undercover as always-a reporter armed with a camera and a notepad suddenly appeared, quickly making his way to Winnona before anyone could stop him. He snapped a photo of her displeased face before launching into an impromptu interview.

“Mrs. Watkins, I’m here from the Berlint Gazette.” He told her. “After ten years of living in reclusively and refusing to speak about the Ostanian military or your experiences during the war, you have finally accepted an invitation to speak during the Armistice Day celebration. What is your reasoning for finally breaking your silence? And what can we expect to hear from you when you finally address a nation that has been wondering about the Iron Soldier for so long?”

Loid shot the reporter a look of disgust. WISE was supposed to be keeping the press away from Winnona Watkins as well-not only because it would be easy for a would-be assailant to pose as a reporter and either plant a tracker on her or harm her when she was distracted by all the questions, but because the added stress may cause her to separate herself from those around her, or otherwise cause her to act rashly-so if this guy managed to get through, he was clearly persistent. The Berlint Gazette was a well-known tabloid with a track record of harassing public figures and celebrities in hopes of either talking them into an interview or getting a reaction out of them that would make for an interesting story. It wasn’t unusual for them to stretch the truth in their reports or forget to mention they were harassing their subjects into an interview and their reaction likely reflected that.

Winnona reached for her cane, clearly ready to stand up and give this man who decided it would be a great idea to interrupt her family time by bombarding her with invasive questions a piece of her mind, but Wesley put a hand on her arm to stop her before she could.

“Wynn, it isn’t worth it.” He warned. “You are already all over the news, so let’s make sure that continues to be for the right reasons. If you ignore him and don’t give him the reaction he seeks he will eventually back off, you know this just as well as I do.”

If they didn’t have public reputations to uphold, Winnona and Wesley would have no issue giving the man a verbal lashing-if not a physical one-but they knew doing so would just be giving him what he wanted and would cause more trouble for the two of them in the end. In their younger days, Wesley had always been the quicker of the two to snap, coming from a wealthy and well-known family that treated male aggression as boys being boys and rarely letting their sons experience consequences, but had strengthened his resolve over the years thanks to his career and his wife being the type of person that didn’t put up with that sort of behavior. Winnona, on the other hand, had been slow to anger during her time in basic training and the army-despite the bullying and generally poor treatment she received from many of her fellow soldiers due to her gender and upbringing-but had grown defensive and a bit paranoid after her time in the army, putting up more of a fight against anyone she felt was attempting to take advantage of her or put her in a bad situation.

Winnona smiled at her husband, attempting to ignore the reporter’s presence. “You’re completely right. If we don’t do anything interesting, he’ll have nothing to report on and will lose whatever paltry sum that gossip rag pays him per story if he decides to stick around. Bill, listen to your father on this one. Not many problems can be solved by just ignoring them, but general harassment like this can be, whether its reporters or schoolyard bullies you’re dealing with. If you give them the reaction they’re looking for they’ll keep coming back, but if you aren’t giving them what they want, they’ll have no reason to continue bothering you and will look for another target. Remember, the worst thing you can do is get violent with these types. Unless they were the ones to make things physical first.”

God, I can’t wait for this to be over in a few weeks when the media loses interest in me again, and I can fade back into obscurity. If I didn’t feel my words were so important, I would’ve refused to speak once again.

The reporter tried to push his way into the conversation one more time, but before he could get a word out, Nightfall suddenly grabbed him by the collar.

“I’m sorry, but this establishment isn’t open to the press, especially when they’re bothering our paying customers.” She told him before dragging him to the entrance of the outdoor seating area and physically throwing him out onto the sidewalk. “It would be in your best interest to never show your face at this establishment again.”

As the man scrambled away, gathering the remains of his broken camera that had been smashed in the process of him being thrown out, Bill and Wesley stared at Nightfall in shock while Winnona just smirked.

“You know, I’m really starting to like this place you picked out, Wes.” She said simply. “Good service like that is hard to find.”

“I think it would be a great idea to attend Winnona Watkins’s address to the public.” Loid suggested as the three of them made their way through the crowded streets of Berlint. “Anya has gotten much better with crowds in the last few months, and we really should attend at least one proper Armistice Day event so that she has something to write her paper on.”

Loid had planned their entire day around staying close enough to the Watkins family so that he could slip away and quickly intervene if his target was in danger without his family-or anyone else for that matter-becoming suspicious of his actions, but with how crowded the area would likely be around the time of the event, it didn’t make sense for the three of them to be around if they weren’t going to attend Winnona’s speech.

“That’s a great idea.” Agreed Yor. “Anya, how would you feel about listening to Mrs. Watkins’s speech later today? If you think the crowds might be too much for you we don’t have to go, but we still should try and find something at least somewhat educational for the three of us to attend. After all, you do want to get a good grade on your homework, don’t you?”

To be completely honest, nothing about the day had turned out to be as exciting as Anya would’ve hoped, and she didn’t really want to attend any speeches or go to any historical exhibits on a day off from school, but she really didn’t have much of a choice. Not to mention, being near Winnona Watkins was important for Loid’s current mission, and short of revealing her powers, Anya was willing to do almost anything to make sure it was a success. Not only because she didn’t want Bill’s mama to die, but because if WISE failed, war would almost certainly break out between East and West once again.

She nodded. “That sounds great, Mama. Bill’s mama is really cool, even if she isn’t actually a robot lady, and I bet I’ll get a good grade on my paper if I write it about her.”

“I’m glad to hear you’re taking your studies seriously today and not just using the holiday as an excuse to slack off.” Said Loid. “Since the address isn’t set to take place until five in the evening, we have time to enjoy some of the other things Armistice Day has to offer beforehand. Granted, we should probably hit a few of the more educational events taking place around the city so you have more to write about but I’m sure we can find a few things that you would find more entertaining as well.

“From what I’ve heard, one of the conditions Winnona Watkins put on even speaking in the first place was that attendance to her address be free and general admission, no tickets being sold or front row privileges for those with wealth or fame, so we have the same opportunity as anyone else to attend. Of course, there are some people who have dedicated their entire days to waiting for the best seats-including members of the media outside of a handful of TV channel, radio stations and newspaper who were invited to cover the event-so we won’t be anywhere near the front. In fact, we likely won’t be inside the building at all, but there are supposed to be screens and loudspeakers around the building so that everyone can see and hear. Still, we should try and get there around four so we’re able to at least get a good view of the screens.”

That was easier than I thought. Anya usually puts up at least some resistance when it comes to things like this, I thought I would have to fight with her to get her to go.

Winnona Watkins would be arriving with her family at the event hall around four in order to give her some time to get ready. Since she would be the one giving the speech, she obviously had no reason to be there so early. Neither did her husband and son, whom she had requested to join her on stage. At that point, there would be no reason to guard her any longer (but that didn’t mean WISE hadn’t planted agents among those at the front of the line, the event staff, and the invited media). The OLF wouldn’t strike when there were so many people around, especially when there was a chance of Wesley Watkins being harmed or killed in the crossfire. Once Winnona gave her speech, it was all over. Not only would she likely avoid making such a public appearance ever again, but a few weeks after she would fall back into the background, and if she were to be kidnapped or killed afterwards, the outrage the average Ostanian citizen would have for the crime would be lessened to the point where Wesley Watkins wouldn’t have to support to launch an attack on Westalis, no matter how much he would like to.

“There’s some activities for families near City Hall that we could check out.” Sugested Yor. “They were setting them up yesterday while I was getting out of work, and a lot of them looked like something you might enjoy, Anya. The Berlint History Museum is also offering free admission in honor of Armistice day, but considering the admission fee is pretty low to begin with, it might make more sense for us to go back another day, as the Armistice day 10^th anniversary exhibit will be up for a few months, while all of the activities that were planned for today aren’t here to stay, so we should try and enjoy them while we can.”

“I want to do what Mama said!” Cheered Anya. “Museums are boring.”

Not to mention, the last time she went on a trip bound for a museum, things hadn’t gone well.

“Armistice day isn’t meant to just be a fun day off; it’s an important holiday that marks the end of the second East-West War of Unification, and a day to celebrate all the brave men and women who fought to keep their country safe.” Said Loid. “We can do some fun things today as well, but we should still try and focus on the true meaning of the holiday. I know the war ended before you were born, but it is still considered to be recent history, so it is especially important for you to learn about.”

Anya was just a child and could be forgiven for not really understanding the implications of Armistice day, instead seeing it as just a day off of classes that she got to spend with her parents, but Loid had also met a startling number of adults who shared a similar sentiment. These were typically those who came from wealthy families who suffered no loss more significant than possibly a summer home near the East-West border. They never saw the horrors of war, with most not even able to name a single family member that served in the military, and those who had technically fought in the war being placed in carefully orchestrated roles where they would receive all the glory with none of the risk. It honestly made him sick, but since Loid Forger had never fought in the war or even had any family members do so, Twilight could not express this opinion without garnering suspicion.

I should be able to steer Anya and Yor in the direction of Winnona Watkins’s expected path without them thinking anything is amiss. He thought. Nightfall and a few other WISE agents have eyes on her as well, but I’d like to be as close as possible if and when a threat makes itself known. Honestly, it’s unlikely that she would even step foot anywhere near the museum today, as it’s probably swarming with media and incredibly crowded, things she’s known to avoid. I’m not sure what she plans on speaking about, as WISE hasn’t managed to get any information on her address due to her keeping the only copy of it she’s made on or near her person at all times, but if she’s willing to put herself in the spotlight once again to give it, it must be something she feels is incredibly important.

Anya knew that Loid wasn’t going to put up a fight to get her to go to the museum, especially since he was certain Winnona Watkins wasn’t going to be there, and tracking his target was far more important than educating his adopted daughter on Ostanian history, especially since she already agreed to go to the address which would give her plenty to write about for her paper.

“Loid’s right, Anya.” Agreed Yor. “While my parents didn’t die directly from the war, I do believe how the war rerouted supplies and personnel away from small towns like ours was a factor in their demise. And I know plenty of people who had loved ones taken away directly due to the war. My coworker Millie, for example, lost her soldier father during the war at a very young age, which I know affected her greatly, and Loid, you see people that served in the war or were otherwise affected by it every day, so I’m sure you understand how difficult that can be.”

Loid Forger had never served on the frontlines or even lost anyone directly to the war. His father had walked out on his family when he was very young, and his mother had died in an auto accident when he was in university. Twilight, on the other hand, had lost his mother in an attack by Ostanian soldiers-his father had most likely perished as a result of the war as well, but he couldn’t say for sure-and had joined the Westalian army when he was just sixteen under a false identity. Of course, Yor and Anya would never know this. He would always be just Loid Forger to them; they would never know him as Twilight.

He nodded. “Yes, even the people who were not physically injured during the war can have mental scars that need healing, and it’s my job to help with that. Since people can’t see mental and emotional injuries like they can, say, a broken leg, they sometimes don’t treat them seriously, or sometimes refuse to believe they’re even there, but doing so doesn’t help anyone. Much like with a broken leg, if you try to ignore it and keep going, you’ll only end up getting more hurt in the end.

“While we should celebrate the people that fought to keep our country safe, we shouldn’t celebrate the war itself and should instead try and learn from it. The best thing you can do today, Anya, is not only learn history from people who were actually there instead of TV personalities and reporters, but understand how bad war actually is, and how many people it hurts. You might just be a child now, but you and your peers will one day be the ones running Ostania, so it’s important that you understand why wars like this are never worth it for the countries who start them-or anyone else involved, for that matter--and that another East-West War of Unification should never happen again.”

“Don’t worry, Papa, I don’t wanna start a war when I grow up.”

Loid wished it was that simple.

He spent the afternoon carefully coordinating his family’s movements in order to stay close enough to the Watkins’s to keep an eye on them, but far enough away so that both families would stay separate and nobody would grow suspicious, and frankly he felt he was doing a pretty good job of it. The Watkins family hadn’t so much as caught a glimpse of the Forgers and Anya and Yor seemed to have no idea that he was actually leading them anywhere with his suggestions. Today might actually go according to plan.

Winnona Watkins had slipped away from her husband and son a few times, typically staying outside under the guise of needing a cigarette when the two entered a busy shop or pretending to be distracted by something in order to get away from large groups of people when she felt too crowded, but had yet to stray from WISE’s sight. If she felt she was being watched she might decide to disappear into the crowd, making her very difficult to track down without her massive husband and son around to stick out in the crowd, so it was very important that they avoid doing anything that might cause her usual paranoia to skyrocket.

As far as Loid could tell, nobody outside of WISE was secretly surveying the former Iron Soldier, but the massive crowds made it hard to tell. A few SSS officers patrolled the area, but they weren’t focused on her anymore than they were anyone else. They were likely aware that the chances of some sort of incident occurring in the city during the Armistice Day festivities were high (especially since a lot of visitors from Westalis and other neighboring countries that Ostania hadn’t been on the best of terms with during the war were visiting Berlint) but weren’t aware of anyone having concrete plans to do so. He didn’t consider them to be much of a threat at the moment due to them being far too busy scanning the crowds for possible lone attackers to worry about western espionage. Not to mention, they would be the last people to pose any threat to Winnona Watkins when, like the rest of the country, knew her only as a war hero and were completely unaware of her remaining ties to the west that WISE had worked so hard to keep hidden.

Loid also made good on his promise to make sure Anya was exposed to at least a few of the more child-friendly education events that were taking place around the city. Most of it was short talks given by the elderly veterans of the first war, simply teaching children about the history of the war or what kind of weapons or military tactics were used at the time, nothing too graphic, and a bit boring if anything, but Anya didn’t seem to mind. Despite her past (at least what Loid knew of it, anyway), she had always been a friendly child and liked talking to the elderly veterans and their wives, even if her questions weren’t always relevant to the topic at hand. He wasn’t sure how much educational value she was actually getting out of any of this, but she seemed to be enjoying herself and everyone found her to be quite adorable.

While she seemed to be doing a good job at hiding it, it was pretty clear to Loid that Winnona was beginning to grow exhausted by the crowds, despite her attempts to avoid being overwhelmed. Considering she typically only went out during the middle of the day on weekdays when most people were at work (and always dressed in clothes that obscured her identity and hid her prosthetic so she could avoid unwanted attention), and the largest crowd she had faced in years was at Bill’s family interview for Eden Academy (she hadn’t attended his orientation since that wasn’t mandatory), that wasn’t too much of a shock. Her husband asked her multiple times if she was okay or if she wanted to find a calmer area, but she always assured him with a smile that she was just tired from walking around, and that there was no reason he and Bill shouldn’t be able to enjoy the day because of her. Wesley appeared suspicious of her claims but was smart enough not to argue with his wife about this.

WISE was aware that allowing Winnona to be put under too much stress put both the mission and her life in jeopardy and had taken precautions to mitigate it such as keeping the press at bay, but there was only so much they could do without setting off alarm bells. Sure, clearing the street of crowds would help lower their target’s anxiety, but it would also draw quite a bit of suspicion from her, as the streets shouldn’t be so empty on a national holiday.

They only had to keep this up for a few more hours, after that their target would no longer be in danger. While her address was scheduled for five, they could start to let their guards down at four, as she would no doubt be getting ready to give her speech in a crowded hall with her husband and son by her side, heavily guarded by the SSS who would be expecting that if anything were to happen during the holiday, it would be now in a crowded hall filled with important people. While they couldn’t completely control who joined the crowd outside, they most certainly wouldn’t be letting anyone inside without proper identification and a walk through a metal detector. After her speech, Winnona would be returning home, completely drained from the events of the day, and likely wouldn’t be leaving her house until after her name had once again faded from the headlines, and she was no longer a valuable target to the OLF. WISE had taken every precaution possible for this mission, and while Loid was never one to be foolhardy when it came to success on missions that had yet to be completed, so far things were going quite well and exactly to plan.

As four o’ clock rolled around, and Yor suggested that it might be time for them to start heading towards the building where the address would be taking place if they wanted to get a decent spot outside, Loid had to stop himself from breathing a sigh of relief. Winnona should be safe inside the building by now, with WISE’s job being pretty much done. He dropped his guard for a moment to think what he might do with his evening off-maybe he’d enjoy a long, relaxing bath-but he was suddenly brought back to reality when the transmitter carefully hidden in his sleeve gave off a light vibration.

The mini transmitters were one of WISE’s newest technologies, small enough for an agent to wear on their person, and with a range of almost the entire area of Berlint, but couldn’t be used to send any sort of signal back to headquarters, and couldn’t receive any real information, only alerting agents with a buzz that their attention was needed. Since these transmitters weren’t supposed to be used outside of absolutely necessary, Loid knew almost instantly that something had to be wrong. He told Yor and Anya to go ahead without him, claiming he wanted to ring the hospital to see how they were doing without him and that he’d meet up with them in a few minutes.

As soon as they were out of sight, he quickly located a payphone, popped a few coins in the slot, and dialed the number. The location wasn’t exactly private, but that didn’t matter, as WISE agents were taught to always speak in code when dealing with official business, even on occasions when they were sure both they and the person they were calling were using secure lines and not being listened in on. To anyone that might overhear, Twilight would just be having a boring, everyday conversation.

“You’ve reached the Magpie, best short ribs in all of Berlint, how may I help you?” Asked the voice on the other end of the line.

The Magpie was a small restaurant in Berlint WISE had acquired during a mission called Operation Magpie (hence its name) and continued to run as something of an information hub for WISE and its agents. Of course, it was still technically a functional restaurant open to the public-the food was actually pretty decent considering it was a front restaurant--but everyone that worked there was somehow affiliated with WISE, and knew what the coded statements agents said meant, and how to respond to them.

“Hello, this is Loid Forger, I’m so happy to see that you’re open on Armistice Day.” He replied. “I would like to order some dinner for my family as a holiday treat, but I do have one question. How is the trout today?”

The Magpie had never served trout, but depending on the response he received after having mentioned Armistice Day, he’d know exactly why he’d been alerted.

“Give me a second to check.” Loid heard the phone being put down, followed by some conversation in the background, and finally the phone being picked up once more. “Oh dear, it looks like we’re out of trout at the moment. We ran out just a few minutes ago, it seems. If you want, I can speak to the owner and see if I can provide more information on other options, or you can call back later and see if we’ve gotten it back in stock, as we might get a delivery.”

That wasn’t something he wanted to hear when things had seemed like they were going so well. In missions like this one, the Magpie being out of trout meant that WISE had completely lost the target. At least it had only happened a few minutes ago, so there was still time to track where Winnona Watkins may have gone, and as far as anyone could tell, she hadn’t been killed. If he’d been told that the trout had probably gone bad, or that it had definitely gone bad, it would mean that the target was presumed dead or confirmed dead respectively, and there wouldn’t be much WISE could do to prevent war from breaking out once again, but he knew there was still at least a chance of turning things around.

“I think we’ll hold off on ordering anything for now in that case.” He replied. “One more question, though. The hospital I work at is hosting a workshop for visiting psychiatrist in the near future, and I’m in charge of finding a local restaurant that would be able to cater for the event. We’re renting out the auxiliary room of the Memorial conference and event building on Sycamore Street, the one where the Iron Soldier is giving her address today if that clears things up. Would you be able to deliver to that building or anywhere thereabouts?”

“Of course, we’ve delivered there plenty of times before. Typically, we come in through the alleyway that leads to the private lounge and deliver through that doorway if that works for you. The only issue is if there’s a large crowd, as we’ve had issues with things disappearing into the masses of people before.”

So, Winnona had snuck out the back door of the building while waiting in the lounge and had disappeared into the crowd. While that didn’t make her any easier to find, it at least gave Twilight an idea of where he should start looking for her.

“Thank you, I’ll call you back in a few days once I’ve confirmed the details of the workshop with my boss. I may contact you later today about the status of the trout as well, unless I am able to locate that type of fish somewhere else nearby.”

“You’re very welcome, Mr. Forger, feel free to reach out to us at any time.”

He hung the phone back up on the receiver before heading towards the event hall at a brisk-but not suspiciously fast-pace. He’s come up with an excuse for why he didn’t meet up with Yor and Anya right away, but right now the fate of both East and West was on the line, and that was a far more pressing matter than meeting up with someone as trusting and naïve as Yor who would never question any kind of excuse he gave her, no matter how suspicious it sounded in practice.

Meanwhile, at the Memorial conference and event building, Wesley Watkins was getting close to calling in a full-blown military operation to find his wife. She had claimed she was just going out for a smoke before she gave her address, but when he went to look for her after she’d been gone for almost twenty minutes, there was no sign of her. Not even a cigarette butt stomped into the ground to prove that she had even done what she claimed she was doing. It was as if she had vanished into thin air as soon as she stepped out of that back door and into the alley.

While Winnona did have a habit of disappearing with little to no notice from time-to-time, it wasn’t like her to do so in such a crowded area. And it was even more out of character for her to potentially skip out on her address, especially when she had put so much time into planning everything. She wasn’t the type to go back on her word like that and considering how much emphasis she had put on the importance of giving this speech despite her usual anxiety, he found it unlikely that she had left of her own free will.

He had talked to some of the SSS officers that were patrolling the area, along with the staff of the event center, and even a few passersby, but nobody had seen where she may have gone. The only silver lining was that nothing pointed to a violent struggle, so if she had been taken against her will, she hadn’t been badly injured. At least not yet anyway. He had no idea who would have any reason to take her-Winnona mostly kept to herself since the war and had no recent enemies that would want to harm her-which meant he couldn’t guess what their intentions with her might be.

Even if using his military influence to shut down the entire city seemed like a bit of an overreaction at this point, Wesley saw no reason why he shouldn’t be out there looking for Winnona himself after having alerted the authorities of her disappearance and not being taken completely seriously. He elected to leave Bill in the safety of the event building, however, as someone who was willing to abduct his wife may also want to hurt his son as well. Bill was incredibly physically strong, but there wasn’t much he could do to resist if they had weapons, which Wesley suspected anyone that managed to capture his wife would have. Winnona didn’t look like much at this point in life, but she could certainly still defend herself when need be, although there wasn’t much she would be able to do if, say, a gun was put to her head.

The only thing Wesley was sure about was if whoever did this left so much as a scratch on Winnona, he was going to make sure that they didn’t live to see the sun another day. Maybe not at his hands directly, but at least by someone else who saw the safety of Ostania and its citizens as the top priority. He knew that the SSS had made enemies of the state disappear before, and he would see to it that the same thing happened to anyone who dared harm his family.

As she headed towards the event building with her adoptive mother, Anya couldn’t help feeling like something was amiss. While it would normally make sense for there to be more SSS officers around when there were so many prominent people from both East and West around, there seemed to be more of them out than necessary, and instead of standing by and surveying the crowd for threats like they had done before, they seemed to be actively looking for something or someone. Unfortunately, they were all too far away for Anya to be able to read their minds, and considering the fearful attitude the average citizen had when it came to the SSS (including children like herself) due to their tendency to arrest anyone that seemed even slightly odd, she had no reason to get close enough to any of them to do so.

She tried reading the minds of a few of the regular citizens nearby, but it didn’t prove to be of any help. Nobody seemed to have any idea of what was going on, and while a few of them were cautiously curious about what might be going on, most of them were so used to seeing the SSS around and acting as nonchalant as possible in order to avoid any suspicion falling on them that they were completely unfazed. While there were a lot of people around with differing thoughts she picked up on, none of them were overly emotional, which kept Anya from becoming too overwhelmed by the use of her powers.

“I’ve never seen so many SSS officers in one place before.” Remarked Yor. “I guess they’re just being careful considering all the people that are in Berlint right now, including a lot of important diplomats from both Ostania and Westalis, and they want to keep things going as smoothly as possible.”

“Yes, Mama.” Agreed Anya, not really paying attention. Her mind was far too preoccupied with trying to find out what was going on by listening to the thoughts of those around her.

Dammit, Stardust, you had one simple job! She heard a man in the crowd think. All you had to do was keep an eye on the target and make sure she didn’t disappear for like an hour, and you managed to mess that up. The one time you look away she manages to sneak past you, and you can’t even catch what direction she went in or if she went willingly. This is why WISE never gives you any of the good missions.

Because of the sheer number of people around it was impossible for Anya to figure out who’s mind she was reading, but that wasn’t too important. All that mattered was that WISE had lost their target, and the whole world was in danger again. She had to find a way to alert her papa (without letting him know about her powers, of course) so he could save Bill’s mama and keep east and west from going to war again.

She wondered if Bill and his father knew about Winnona’s disappearance. Since neither of them were nearby she couldn’t listen to their thoughts and figure it out that way. Maybe that’s why there were so many SSS officers around, perhaps they were looking for Winnona Watkins since she was considered a pretty important person, and it would cause a lot of problems if something happened to her. They probably didn’t tell the public in order to avoid causing panic.

Anya knew that she had to find Loid-or maybe Bill since he’d probably be the easiest to get to help without becoming suspicious-but first she had to get away from Yor. As much as she hated making her mama worry, the future was at stake and she couldn’t let Yor know about her powers, or that Loid was a spy if she wanted to keep her family together. If Anya knew where Winnona Watkins currently was, she would probably find a way to lead Yor there instead, as the assassin would have no problem taking down any bad guys that might be around and freeing the other woman.

“Mama, I think I see Papa over there!” Shouted Anya, despite being pretty sure that Loid was nowhere nearby. “I’m gonna go get him and tell him to come over here where we are!”

Before Yor could physically stop her, Anya ran off into the crowd.

“Anya, wait!” Her adoptive mother protested. “There’s too many people here, I don’t want to lose you in the crowd!”

But before she could do anything Anya had already disappeared into the mass of people. Her small stature meant that concealing herself amongst the crowd of mostly adults was easy, and even Yor’s sharp and highly trained eyes couldn’t locate her within the chaos. Without making her training apparent and revealing her secret identity as an assassin, there was nothing Yor could do to find her, and Anya knew this well. Still, she knew better than to stay in one place when being tailed and quickly made her way further and further away from the woman’s pleading voice.

As she made her way through the crowd a strong hand suddenly grabbed her by the collar and dragged her into an alleyway. Assuming this was one of the kidnappers’ grown-ups were constantly warning her about, Anya was about to scream and hopefully get the attention of someone who could help her, before looking up and recognizing the face of Bill Watkins. That was actually fairly convenient.

“Anya, what are you doing out here alone?” He asked. “You’re so small, you could get stepped on by someone.”

“Hi, Bill. My Papa had to take a work call, so me and Mama went ahead and now I’m looking for him. Are you out here looking for your Mama?”

Anya realized too late that she slipped up by mentioning Bill’s missing mother, as her disappearance obviously wasn’t public information yet, but he either didn’t notice this peculiarity in her knowledge of the situation, or didn’t care, as he simply nodded and continued speaking.

“Mommy went out for a smoke, didn’t come back, and now nobody knows where she is. Daddy told me to stay inside the building while he talked to the police and helped look for her, but I couldn’t just sit around and do nothing, so I snuck out. I have to be careful that he doesn’t see me, though. I have to help find her no matter what and getting the SSS involved isn’t going to help. Mommy doesn’t like the SSS, she says they make her nervous. If she’s hiding, she’ll never come out when they’re around.”

“I can help you look.” Offered Anya. “I’m really good at finding people, just like Bondman.”

Bill gave her a confused look. “Who’s Bondman?”

“You don’t know who Bondman is? He’s the greatest spy ever, everybody should know who he is. His show is on TV almost every night.”

“I’m not allowed to watch too much TV; Daddy says it’s a waste of time, and Mommy says it’ll damage my eyes and rot my brain. They only let me watch things that they think have educational value, which probably doesn’t include that Bondman show. But I really could use your help. I don’t know where to start looking, and I don’t think Daddy and the police know, either, but maybe Bondman taught you something that they don’t know.”

Anya knew that her powers would probably come in handy a lot more than anything she learned from Bondman or watching Loid work, but she wasn’t about to mention them to Bill, especially since his father was technically a government employee and probably knew exactly who to turn missing experiments like her into. She could help him just as well by keeping her powers secret and simply chalking everything up to her knowledge of Bondman.

“Alright, let’s start looking for clues.” She told him. “Bondman says that if you’re looking for someone and you’re not sure where to start, you should check the places they usually go first, as they might be there, or someone else who sees them a lot may know something you don’t. What kind of places does your mama like to go to around here?”

Bill thought for a moment. “Mommy doesn’t go out a lot, especially when there’s a lot of people around, and she usually avoids this part of the city, but she had to come here today to give her speech. She doesn’t like crowds, so she might’ve gone to find somewhere quiet to relax before her speech. She likes places with not too much noise or people, like parks and libraries, but I don’t know what’s around here, since when I’m not at Eden I’m usually with her, and like I said before, she doesn’t visit this part of the city much, so this is my first time here.”

“Don’t worry, I live nearby and Mama and Papa take me out around here sometimes, so I know the area. There’s a couple of parks around, and I think a library, too, so we’ll start with those places.”

“Lead the way, then.”

Anya glanced out of the alleyway and into the crowd. “I can’t see past all those people, I don’t know which direction is which. It’s never that crowded when we’re usually here.”

Bill lifted Anya up like she weighed nothing (and to him, she probably didn’t) and carefully placed her on his shoulders. “There, now you should be able to see past all those people. Just tell me what direction to go in and I’ll head that way. I never have problems with getting through crowds.”

As Bill walked through the crowd, people parted around him, not wanting to be bumped into by his large frame.

“Now I know exactly where we are!” She exclaimed, looking around. “The library is that way, we should look there first.”

“Keep an eye out for my Daddy as well.” Said Bill as he headed in the direction Anya was pointing. “He told me to stay put, and he’s not going to be happy when he finds out I disobeyed him. If I’m lucky he’ll just send me back, but he’s more likely to ground me or maybe ever take me out of Eden and send me to that military school in the mountains like he’s threatened to do before. I don’t want to have to leave my friends, but if this is what needs to be done to save Mommy, then it’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

Anya knew that a good spy didn’t do their job for recognition, and that the satisfaction of saving Bill’s mama and keeping east and west from going to war again should be enough of a reward, but she really hoped she’d be getting a Stellar out of this.

The library was a bit busier than usual due to some Armistice Day event that they were holding, and the normal quiet and peace of the place just wasn’t there today. Bill was certain that his mother wouldn’t bother going there when it was like this if she didn’t have a good reason to or wasn’t doing it for the sake of her husband or son, so they ended up leaving without having a look around. The parks were a similar story due to the holiday and how nice it was outside, but there were a few quieter spots that they did check out, but they couldn’t find a single trace of Winnona Watkins.

Bill’s increasing distress as they continued to search with no sign of his mother was becoming obvious to Anya, especially through his racing thoughts. It made it nearly impossible for her to attempt to read anyone else’s mind, as his thoughts were far too powerful and managed to drown out the inner voices of anyone else around her. It was actually starting to give Anya a headache, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Operation Strix and peace between east and west as a whole was at stake, she would’ve given up helping by now and simply located Loid instead. If Bill was to mention that his mother was missing to the man, he could still be alerted without learning about Anya’s powers, but considering what she knew about the situation, she feared that doing so would take too much time, and by the time they found Loid it would already be too late.

“It seems like Mommy isn’t anywhere in the entire city.” Bill said sadly. “It’s like she just disappeared. I heard about people disappearing off the streets during the war, but I thought it stopped since then.”

Anya had learned from reading Loid’s that both WISE and the SSS had made their enemies disappear on occasion even after the war had ended, but she still had no idea when or how they made people disappear, as neither organization was known for doing magic tricks. Of course, thanks to her powers she knew that Winnona Watkins most certainly wasn’t the target of a disappearance at the hands of either organization, especially since both were actively trying to protect her for their own reasons.

“We can’t give up now.” Replied Anya. “People don’t just disappear, she has to be here somewhere, she couldn’t have gone too far without anyone noticing.”

“Why are you even helping me this much?” He asked. “It’s my Mommy that’s missing; you hardly even know her. Why would you risk getting in trouble or hurt to help find her?”

Anya paused for a second, trying to think up an answer that wouldn’t reveal her or Bond’s powers.

“It’s because we’re friends, and if my Mama was missing I’d want you to help me look for her.” She told him.

“Are you helping me because if you’re the one who finds my Mommy you’ll probably get a Stellar Star? Maybe even more than one because she’s considered pretty famous because of her time in the war, and they’d probably want to give you extra recognition for finding her than they would if you found a normal lost person.”

“Earning a Stellar would be nice.” She admitted, confident that revealing this much wouldn’t put her in any danger of having her powers revealed. “Since we already checked the library and the parks, we need to think of other places your Mama might’ve gone to.”

Bill thought for a moment. “I don’t think there’s anywhere she’d want to be in the city right now. Mommy hates crowds and doesn’t like going out much, only for shopping, appointments, and if me or Daddy wants to go somewhere with her, and even then she usually only goes out when she knows it won’t be busy if she can help it. She also isn’t supposed to drive because of her leg but does so anyway. Daddy has the keys, though, and the car is parked in a secured parking garage, so I don’t think she drove out of the city, either.”

“Then the only thing left for us to do is return to the scene of the crime! We have to head back to the event building and look for any clues that your Mama might have left behind, and we have to do so without the enemy seeing us or else our mission is a failure.”

Anya knew that the area being so busy meant a contaminated crime scene, so some of the clues might be damaged or missing, but a good spy could always find things other people couldn’t see, and Anya was determined to keep Bond’s vision from playing out. At the very least Loid would probably be there, so she could find a way to let him know about the situation without revealing her powers and he’d save the day with his awesome spy skills like he always did.

With all the shit she had gone through in her life, being kidnapped, having a sack thrown over her head, and being tied to a chair in some basement just made Winnona Watkins angrier than anything. Sure, she had almost been killed off multiple times during the war, but she thought her retirement would be the end of that. Apparently not.

She had tried to fight off the men when they cornered her in an alleyway where she was trying to get just a moment to herself for a damn cigarette, but between her being outnumbered, disoriented after her face was covered by the sack, and the fact that she just wasn’t what she used to be, they were able to overpower her. She didn’t even get to finish her smoke before they took her.

She wasn’t sure how they managed to get her here without being stopped (the sack did muffle her voice a bit so her shouts didn’t bring any attention, but you can’t just expect to walk through a crowd of people shoving along someone restrained and clearly being transported against their will without garnering attention), but the must have planned this for quite some time. After all, why would they kidnap her specifically on Armistice day of all days unless they had some sort of plan involving her or her husband? They had thankfully removed the sack not too long after placing it over her head, but by the time they did so she was completely restrained and not quite sure where she was.

Across the room a grizzled man with a prominent scar on his throat sat watching her, a gun held in his right hand but no longer pointed directly at her.

“I can’t believe we managed to capture the Iron Soldier so easily.” He smirked. “Seems like someone who was considered so unkillable during the war would be a little harder to take down.”

Winnona rolled her eyes. “Congratulations, you managed to kidnap a crippled veteran. The Iron Soldier is no more; she died back in the wilds of Westalis. The war’s over and I’m no longer a fighter; I don’t even carry a weapon anymore.”

She was sure that these people had already decided on if they wanted to kill her or not, so there was no reason in trying to be polite or watch her tone since the outcome would be about the same. Not to mention, she had used up most of her resolve keeping up her mask of a calm and collected war hero and mother, so she didn’t have the energy to keep pretending that she wasn’t a damaged and bitter person deep down.

“It doesn’t matter what you think you’ve become; the Ostanian public still sees you as the Iron Soldier and a symbol of Eastern strength and resilience, and that’s all that matters to the boss.” He told her. “And since you finally agreed to speak in public after ten years of people begging you to, you’re once again relevant, so the reaction of the public if something were to happen to you would be much greater, especially today when the war is on everyone’s mind.”

“And dare I ask how you think harming me will benefit your country? My husband is a high-ranking major in the army, and combined with the public outrage, will have no problem getting authorization to unleash a violent attack on Westalis. You might win this battle with the people of Ostania, but you’ll be starting a war you won’t win.

“After everything that happened in the first two wars, I don’t know why anyone would want to do anything that might start a third one, regardless of what side they’re on. I watched my fellow soldiers die in horrible ways, I’ve seen children left orphaned by the effects of war, I’ve seen entire towns of innocent civilians taken out by bombs. If you kill me you’ll ignite something that will lead to terrible loss on both sides, nobody truly wins a war.”

The man let out an ominous chuckle. “You think we don’t know what’s going to happen? We know exactly how Ostania will react to your death, and that’s exactly what we want. The government has grown far too soft since the National Unity Party was scapegoated as the cause of everything that went wrong during that time and thrown out of power, we need to show the people of this country that we can’t just let those western bastards get away with what they did to us during the war and the way they continue to destroy our culture and way of life in favor of their own. Sure, there will be lives lost-including yours-but it will all be worth it when Ostania once again rises to its true glory.”

Winnona wouldn’t lie, if they wanted to raise tensions to the point where Ostania’s leaders would be feel almost forced to launch an attack on Westalis, this was the way to do it. And she was about to find herself as an unwitting participant.

It wasn’t that she was afraid to die-far from it, in fact-she just vehemently opposed another war and hated the fact that she would likely be the catalyst behind it. She’d dealt with loss plenty of times in her life, knew that there were certainly fates worse than death, and wasn’t going to fight it when her time came. Hell, there were plenty of times when she was ready to accept her mortality, only for something to happen that caused her life to be spared. Her luck would eventually run out, and death would one day catch up with her as it had been trying to do for years. In fact, her biggest fear right now was leaving Bill without a mother at such a young age, as even if she knew her long overdo demise would catch up to her before he truly reached his peak, she hoped she would at least be able to hold on long enough to see him graduate Eden.

While she would never voice these opinions out of fear of not only herself being arrested, but her husband and son having their lives ruined as well, Winnona was what some would describe as a sympathizer of the West. She had gone into the war hating Westalis with every fiber of her being, certain that the people there were the sub-human monsters only capable of cruelty that the propaganda of the time depicted them as, and the people of Ostania were just fighting the war out of necessity to keep their families safe, but she quickly learned this to be untrue. Sure, Westalis committed their share of war crimes, but Ostania wasn’t innocent, having not only launched the attack that brought on the second war after years of tension, but participating in the same kind of actions it pretended to condemn (and later lying to its citizens about them).

There were bad people on both sides, but there were also good ones, too, like the family who had almost nothing but not only refused to turn Winnona in after she turned up badly injured in their barn (despite the fact that the bounty they would have received for doing so could’ve helped them immensely), but also provided her with food and medicine, and even let her live in their home with them until she was located after the war once she had grown to trust them. The Ostanian government had promised her that no harm would come to the family due to their selfless actions-something they actually kept their word on-but the family was mostly forgotten about in the East, except by Winnona. She still visited them every so often, bringing money and supplies when she did. She could never fully repay them for saving her life, but she still tried to help them as much as she could. Because of her status, the SSS tended to look the other way when it came to her solo trips to Westalis, but as much as she wished she could speak out against those still trying to stir up anti-Westalian sentiments, but there was only so much she could do without crossing the line. She’d hoped the speech she was planning on delivering today-carefully written in a way that would not lead to her being arrested for treason as a sympathizer of the west-would help to convince the people of both nations listening in that war was not the answer amid rising tensions, but now she’d never know.

“And the people of Ostania will believe that one of their respected war heroes was killed by the west when all along the blood was on the hands of those who could just as well be their own neighbors.” It wasn’t a question, she knew what they were planning on happening because of their actions, and they likely weren’t far off.

He smirked. “Exactly. Its unfortunate that we have to sacrifice one of our own, but the current administration is weak and cowardly, and they’ll never strike unless they feel overwhelmingly pressured to do so, but we must do something before those western bastards completely destroy the Ostanian culture and way of life. Just think of your death as being for the greater good. Because of you, your son will grow up in a better world. An Ostanian world.”

A world solely based on conservative Ostanian values was not a place she wanted Bill to grow up in-especially without her around to help keep him on the right path-but it didn’t seem like she had a choice. The Grim Reaper had been chasing Winnona Watkins for a large portion of her life, and now it seemed as if he’d finally caught up to her.

As they made their way back to where Winnona Watkins had initially vanished, Bill suddenly stopped and made a detour towards an alley between two seemingly abandoned buildings, both with their windows boarded up tight, when something caught his eye. Seeing how she was currently positioned on his shoulders, Anya didn’t have much of a choice but to go with him.

He bent down and picked up a wooden cane that appeared to have been abandoned in a hurry for an unknown reason, as it was simply in the middle of the alley where someone could step on it, or a car could even run it over, rather than being leaned up against a wall or placed to the side in a wat that suggested it might have been placed there deliberately by someone who had either planned to come back for it, or had left it behind by mistake. The cane was rather nice and showed no signs of being broken, so it didn’t seem like misplaced trash, either.

“This is Mommy’s cane!” He exclaimed. “She never goes far without it, otherwise her bones start hurting. Something bad must’ve happened if its here and she’s not.”

Anya was pretty certain that something had happened to Bill’s mother, but she wanted to be sure that they were on the right track and not following some red herring. They were running out of time, and on the off chance that this cane didn’t belong to Winnona and had an innocent reason for being there, they couldn’t waste what little they had searching around there if she wasn’t nearby. She couldn’t hear any thoughts outside of Bill’s, but that didn’t mean nobody else was around. The range of her powers wasn’t huge, so if someone was inside either building, she likely wouldn’t know unless they were standing right next to a wall that directly bordered the alley.

“How do you know that cane belongs to your Mama?” She asked him.

He flipped it over to reveal the initials WW carefully carved into the handle.

“Mommy put her initials on it just in case it got lost.” He told her. “She said that she accidentally lost her first cane, and since she didn’t want that to happen again, she carved her initials into the handle so if somebody finds it they’ll know its hers. We have to tell Daddy and the police so they can find her!”

“We can’t! We don’t know if we’ll have time to get help before something really bad happens to your Mama, so we can’t waste time looking for help. And if someone is watching us from around here, they might decide to remove any evidence while we’re gone, and if we bring your Papa back here and the cane and any other sign of your Mama is gone, he’ll think we made it up, so not only will we not be able to save your Mama, but we’ll get in trouble for not listening to our parents and running off as well. We have to do this ourselves.”

Not to mention, grown-ups liked to ask far too many questions in stressful situations, and Anya didn’t have an innocent explanation planned for how she knew all these things that she really shouldn’t.

Bill nodded. “Alright, I guess we should start searching around here, but if the police or Daddy come around here, I’m going to tell them what we found. I really don’t want to get in trouble, but I’d rather be grounded for the rest of my life than have something bad happen to Mommy that could’ve been prevented if I said something. And I’m holding on to her cane; she’ll need it when we find her.

“So, where do we start looking? You seem to know a whole lot about this spy stuff, so I’ll let you lead the way.”

He carefully removed Anya from his shoulders and placed her on the ground so she could look around.

To be completely honest, Anya didn’t really know where to start looking from here. Spy Wars usually focused on the more exciting parts of a spy’s job, such as daring rescues and battles with bad guys, things like looking for evidence they might’ve been left behind were usually only briefly mentioned, and Anya typically didn’t pay much attention to how Bondman found the clues, only that he always seemed to know exactly where to look. The only thing she remembered was him remarking about going back to the scene of the crime to look for leads on several occasions.

Still, she wasn’t about to let Bill know that she wasn’t completely sure what she was doing, especially with how confident she had been and how much trust he had put in her. Part of being a good spy was adapting to your situation and doing things on the fly when you needed to. She just needed to figure things out until they were close enough to either Winnona or her potential kidnappers for Anya to be able to read their minds and locate them that way.

She looked around. “Um, since you said your Mama couldn’t go far without her cane, we should start looking for her nearby. Maybe there’s a window or door on one of these abandoned buildings that isn’t boarded up that she could’ve gone through.”

Bill carefully scanned the two buildings for any entry points before spotting a window about two meters above the ground where the boards keeping it blocked appeared to have been haphazardly removed, leaving bits of splintered wood nailed to the window frame when they had been roughly pried away and cracked in the process. It wasn’t a huge window, and while Bill was certain someone of his father’s size would get stuck, he was confident that he could slip through without much difficulty, meaning an average sized adult should have no trouble fitting through, especially an average sized woman like his mother.

“Up there!” He exclaimed, pointing to the uncovered window. “Its big enough for me to fit through, and I’m already taller than a lot of grown-ups, so Mommy would have no trouble fitting through there.”

Anya looked up at the window and then back at Bill. “How are we supposed to get up there? There isn’t a ladder around here, and its even too high for you to reach.”

He spotted a large metal storage container that sat suspiciously close to the window, along with a few wooden boxes scattered around. While his parents usually kept the details of what they saw and did during the war to a minimum when he was around, neither of them had qualms about telling him about their days in basic training, and what kind of exercises they had to perform during training. From what he had heard, it wasn’t uncommon for the Ostanian army to use abandoned buildings for training, especially for soldiers that would be sent to the more urbanized areas of Westalis, and he distinctly remembered his mother telling him about how they would often be put in situations that required using both their physical strength and intelligence to complete tasks, such as getting into boarded up buildings like this one. Someone who was just in decent shape would have no trouble using the crates to get on top of the metal container and inside the window, and while he knew his mother wasn’t as strong as she once was, she could still be surprisingly agile at times, and it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility for her to get up and into that window if she saw a good reason to do so.

Knowing that there was no way someone as small and weak as Anya would be able to make the climb, Bill lifted the girl back on to his shoulders and carefully made his assent to the top of the metal container. If his mother was inside that building somewhere, they were going to find her and bring her out safe and sound.

After her kidnappers stepped out of the room momentarily-presumably to discuss how they planned to kill her and make it seem like the act had been carried out by the West-the idea of escape briefly flashed in Winnona’s mind. She was certain that in her younger days she could’ve gotten out without too much trouble, but if she was still as strong as she once was, they wouldn’t have gotten the opportunity to drag her here in the first place, and considering these guys seemed a bit more intelligent than your average domestic terrorists, they never would’ve left her alone if they weren’t completely sure that she had zero chance of escape. Her bounds her tied far too well for her to slip out of, and even if she did escape the ropes, she wasn’t strong enough to fight off the three men who had taken her hostage, and wouldn’t be able to outrun them, either. Not to mention, she was pretty sure they had taken care to choose a location where nobody would hear her scream, so it wasn’t worth wasting her last breaths calling for help that would never arrive. The situation seemed completely hopeless.

Suddenly she heard footsteps coming from the opposite direction of where her captors had gone, perhaps help would be coming after all. Maybe the SSS had managed to track her down to this location after she disappeared. She absolutely hated the way they kept the entire country in fear under their surveillance, but she had to admit they were efficient. Or it could’ve been her husband who found her. She’d always had a sneaking suspicion that Welsey had snuck a tracking device on her at some point-whether it be inside her wedding ring or another one of the gifts he had given her during the time they’d been together after the war, or he somehow convinced the doctors to put one in her prosthetic or under her skin during one of her many surgeries-and while she didn’t blame him for not wanting to lose her again after he spent so long searching for her when everyone else told him she was dead and he was wasting his time, but it still felt like a violation of her privacy if she were correct. Then again, the tracking devices she had seen used during the war were about the size of a brick and not much lighter and usually only used on vehicles, so unless they had gotten insanely smaller in the last decade, she was probably just paranoid.

But when her son and that pink haired girl from before, Anya (Winnona had never seen anyone with hair like that in her entire life, so she wouldn’t be forgetting her name anytime soon), her face instantly dropped. It was bad enough that she was going to lose her life, causing the country she had once fought to protect to fall into another bloody war, but now her son and this other innocent child would be killed as well due to seeing too much, their deaths also blamed on the west like Winnona’s would be.

She was incredibly curious how they managed to track her down in the first place, especially if the SSS had failed to do so. They were just children with no formal training in this type of thing, and no equipment or connections to aid them in locating her. Winnona knew that her husband would never have let Bill join in the search for her if he felt there was any danger to their son, and she figured Anya’s parents would probably feel the same, so it was strange that the two children were even out here in the first place. Not to mention, she didn’t remember seeing either of them when she had initially disappeared into the crowd in order to get a few minutes of peace before she had to deliver her speech, and her kidnappers were presumably careful enough to make sure nobody saw where they took her, so it wasn’t like the children had managed to follow her here without being seen, either.

“What the hell are you two doing here?” She whispered loudly. “You need to get out of here before the men who brought me here come back and get you, too.”

“We came to save you, Mommy.” Bill replied before rushing over to untie the ropes keeping his mother bound. “I didn’t want anything bad to happen to you after you disappeared, and Anya helped me track you down.”

Winnona rubbed at her wrists that were still a bit numb from being bound and stretched the parts of her body that had gone stiff due to her position. While she was relieved to be free of the ropes, she still worried about the fate of the two children, especially when she heard the muffled conversation of her captors in the next room suddenly stop before quickly starting again, likely in reaction to the odd noises they had heard coming from where they had left her.

“You two still need to get out of here.” She told them, standing up and taking her cane from her son. “I’ll hold them off for as long as I can, but I need you two to run as fast as your legs will allow and not stop until you’re somewhere safe with a lot of people.”

“But-but what if they kill you?” Bill said with tears in his eyes. “You’re the only Mommy I have.”

“They were planning to kill me for a long time before you kids showed up, and I’d rather have them simply take my life as planned, than take yours as well. Your safety is a lot more important to me than my own, and the only thing I need you to do besides getting yourselves to safety is let the world know that I was not killed by Westalians like they might assume, but by people from my own country. These people want to start a third war by taking my life, and we can’t allow that to happen.”

Suddenly, the three men who had captured her in the first place rushed in after having grown suspicious of the noise, quickly blocking any possible exit. They seemed a bit confused about what Bill and Anya were now doing here, but it didn’t look like they would be letting the two children go.

Oh crap, I can’t believe we have to kill some kids. Thought one of the men. I don’t have much of an issue with killing this lady if that’s what needs to be done, but killing kids is where I draw the line. But we can’t let them go, either. They’ve seen our faces, they know too much.

Damn, the Watkins boy is a lot bigger in person. Thought another. I guess he just looks smaller in pictures when he’s next to his father. No matter how strong he is, he’s still a kid and I don’t think he’ll be too hard to handle, especially when I’m armed and he isn’t.

“Please, just let the children go.” Winnona begged. “I’ll do anything you want, just don’t hurt them.”

The ringleader laughed. “Lady, we have you exactly where we want you, you’re in no position to try and bargain with us. Maybe if you taught your son not to stick his nose where it didn’t belong he’d be sitting at home just fine right now.”

When she had figured out their plans for her, Winnona was certain she wasn’t getting out of there alive, and part of her was just fine with that. She had spent her entire life dodging death, and frankly she was growing a bit tired of doing so, and while she hated the idea of her son growing up without a mother, she knew he’d still have his father. Having grown up in a single-parent home from when she was very young until the death of her mother and seeing how many children were orphaned by the war, she knew things could be a lot worse for him. Her main issues had been the war her death might cause, and him having to live through that reality, especially without a mother and with a father that would likely spend most of his time working in the event of a war.

But like hell she’d let Bill and one of his young schoolmates die. Plenty of Westalian children had died because of her actions during the war, and while she was always just doing what she was told and any loss of innocent life was never at her hands directly, that still didn’t excuse what she had done, and she vowed to make sure no more children were killed if she could prevent it, even if it cost her own life. And considering she was about to be killed before those two showed up, losing her life to save theirs didn’t seem like a big deal at all.

“Kids, close your eyes and cover your ears!” She demanded. “I’ll let you know when you can stop, but don’t move until I tell you to.”

“Why?” Asked Bill.

“Just do it!”

The ringleader chuckled. Guess she’s trying to spare them from seeing the gun and spending their last moments in fear. They’re probably old enough to know what’s going on, so there’s really not much of a point in it, anyway.

Despite Bill’s initial hesitation, he and Anya both did what they were told, closing their eyes tightly and covering their ears with their hands. Unbeknownst to everyone else, however, Anya got almost a complete play-by-play by listening to the thoughts of the three men.

Is this crazy bitch for real? Thought the ringleader. There’s one of her, three of us, and we’re armed; all she’s got is that cane, but she would need that to actually move fast enough to have a chance. Is she really going to try and-

His thoughts suddenly went quiet; Anya knew that could only mean one thing. Especially after reading the thoughts of the other two men.

What the hell? Did she just kill our boss? She was deceptively easy to capture and now she’s fighting back like she shouldn’t be able to.

Oh god, I think we’ve unleashed the wrath of the Iron Soldier! If she’s still anything like how she was described back during the war, we’re doomed. My life is more important than the cause, I’m getting out of here!

And just like their leader, their thoughts were quickly silenced as their lives were extinguished. Anya didn’t dare open her eyes or uncover her ears, so she wasn’t sure about the manner of their deaths, but she assumed they must’ve been violent and likely involved Winnona’s cane.

Presumably satisfied with her work, Winnona tapped the two children on their shoulders, prompting them to uncover their ears and start to open their eyes.

“Keep your eyes closed for now!” She demanded. “You can uncover your ears now, but don’t open your eyes until I tell you to. You’re not in any immediate danger, but I’d like to avoid the two of you seeing something that will probably scar you for life at such a young age. But we still need to get out of here as I don’t know who or what might be lurking around here. Bill, I’ll need you to carry Anya since I won’t be able to move fast enough with the additional weight and she’s too small to keep up with us if we run.”

“But Mommy, you can’t run anymore.” Said Bill. “You said that you can’t even walk that far without your cane, much less run.”

“Technically, I can run.” She replied, picking up Anya and handing her off to the boy. “I’m just not supposed to-especially without my cane-since it would most likely lead to me ending up in a lot of pain and possibly damaging my prosthetic or the remaining part of my leg, potentially leading to me not being able to walk at all in the future. But considering this is a life-or-death situation and had you two not found me I’d have suffered a fate much worse than spending my life in a wheelchair, that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

I’d honestly rather deal with being stuck in a wheelchair than having to live with the guilt of letting these children see a gruesome crime scene. Not to mention, my son hasn’t made the connection between what I was doing during the war and the outcome of it all for many Westalians, so he hasn’t learned that his mother is a killer just yet, and I’d like to keep it that way for as long as I can.

Winnona grabbed Bill by the arm he wasn’t using to carry Anya and quickly guided him out of the room and down a narrow hallway. She had no idea where she was going thanks to being blindfolded and disoriented when she was brought to the building, but she kept running. The remains of her right leg were in agony from the unnatural way her prosthetic caused her to run, and her lungs burned from her lack of strenuous exercise in recent years, but all she could think about was keeping the two children safe, the adrenaline running through her veins preventing her from feeling the effects of pushing her body past its limits.

“Alright, you can open your eyes.” She told them after she was certain they were far enough away to prevent either of the kids from catching a glance of the carnage. “Do either of you remember how to get out of here?”

“We got in through a window on one of the floors above ground.” Replied Bill. “I think we walked down two sets of stairs to find you. Mommy, are you okay? You don’t look so good.”

Winnona managed a smile. “I’m alright, hun, just not used to all this excitement. For now, just focus on getting out of here and to somewhere safe; you can worry about me later.”

God, I feel like my body’s ready to give out at any second. Hell, if it wasn’t for the adrenaline and the fact that I’m probably in shock, I would’ve easily collapsed by now. Come on, Winnona, get it together! All you have to do is get these kids out of here and somewhere with people around who can help them, and then you can die for all that matters.

While Anya knew that if Winnona passed after getting them somewhere safe a war would still be avoided, but she didn’t want Bill to have to grow up without a Mama, so she was determined to get Winnona out of there before her body completely gave up.

“Its that way!” She told them, happy that she was able to remember directions for once. “I remember that leaky pipe and the puddle underneath that we walked through. Look, our footprints from where we tracked the water on the floor haven’t even dried yet!”

“Great job, kiddo, let’s keep going!”

Sure enough, the stairs weren’t too far past the leaking pipe and puddle, and they quickly made their way up to the higher floors. From there they were easily able to find the window Anya and Bill had initially used to enter the building. Winnona climbed down first, showing an incredible about of grace for someone in her condition, before having Bill pass Anya down to her and climb down himself. From there they quickly made their way into a busy area with more people, only stopping when they were certain that there were enough witnesses around to prevent anyone who wanted Winnona dead from acting upon this desire.

As soon as people noticed the three of them and their slightly disheveled state, they began to stop and stare.

“Hey, isn’t that Winnona Watkins?” A woman in the crowd asked her husband. “I thought she was missing, that’s why they canceled her address. Was she just walking around here with her son the whole time the police were looking for her?”

“I’ve never seen the Iron Soldier walking around without her cane.” A man remarked to his friend. “I honestly didn’t think she could.”

“Mommy, we made it!” Said Bill, looking around at the crowd. “There’s a lot of people here, we’re safe now.”

Winnona opened her mouth to say something but suddenly collapsed to the ground before she could get a single word out.

“Mommy!”

“I forgot I’m not as young as I used to be.” She rasped from the ground. “I can’t handle all that excitement.”

An ambulance arrived shortly to collect Winnona and transport her to the hospital, Anya and Bill were escorted to where Wesley, Loid, and Yor were waiting by a police officer not long after, the three adults appearing more relieved that the children were alright than angry at them for running off.

“We will discuss your disobedience and your habit of endangering yourself later.” Wesley told his son. “But for now our biggest concern is your mother. From what I was told her condition seems to be stable, and her outlook for recovery good. She’s an incredibly strong woman, and considering what she’s survived in the past, I doubt she’ll see this as any more than a temporary setback, so I wouldn’t worry too much about her.

“I’ve been informed what hospital she has been brought to, so we should start heading there as soon as possible. We can have a doctor look you over as well while we’re there. Are you hurt in any way?”

Bill shook his head. “No Daddy, I’m fine. I just want to see Mommy.”

Before they headed off, Wesley turned towards Loid and Yor. “I apologize for my son dragging your daughter into this. His heart is usually in the right place, but he doesn’t always think about the consequences of his actions before he decides to act. I’m glad everyone is okay, but I recognize that things could have ended much worse.”

Loid couldn’t help but chuckle. “Don’t worry, knowing how Anya is, she probably encouraged his behavior a bit more than she should’ve as well. Neither one of them is completely innocent, and since everyone’s okay, I guess we should just try and put this all behind us. I’m glad your wife ended up okay, and hopefully her recovery is a speedy one. Any word on what might’ve happened to her between the time she vanished and when she reappeared with the kids?”

I’ll never understand how Anya seems to always get herself involved in things like this, but I can’t say her interference wasn’t helpful this time around. WISE was low on leads, and while I’m sure we would’ve found Winnona Watkins eventually, but with how volatile the situation was, I’m glad Anya and Bill somehow managed to find her.

Wesley shook his head. “The investigation is still ongoing; they want to interview Wynn after she’s had some time to rest. The police may contact you later if they decide they would like to speak with your daughter as well. I will keep you updated if I can, but there’s no guarantee that the information they gather can be shared, as they’re considering this to be a matter of national security. I was even told that despite my position, I may not receive an update at all. Because of my wife’s notoriety they fear the west might have somehow been involved in her temporary disappearance, and they don’t want to risk anything getting out to spies or informants.”

“I understand.”

And with that Bill and Wesley headed off, presumably towards wherever Wesley had parked so the two of them could drive to the hospital.

“Anya, I’m so glad you’re safe.” Said Yor, pulling the girl into a tight hug. “But you can never run off like that again.”

“Yor’s right, you could’ve been seriously hurt.” Agreed Loid. “After all that excitement I think it would be best if we just headed home and relaxed for the rest of the day, especially since the only reason we were planning on staying out so late in the afternoon was to hear Winnona Watkins’s address, which obviously won’t be happening today.”

Before they could leave, they were suddenly stopped by a woman dressed in a police uniform. Thanks to Anya’s telepathy making it rather difficult for people to hide their true identities around her she was quick to pick up on the fact that said woman was Sylvia Sherwood but said nothing for obvious reasons.

“Before you three leave I just need to talk to you.” She told them. “Because of national security implications of this incident, I must ask you to keep quiet about anything you might’ve seen until the investigation is complete. Not only do we want to prevent the wrong people from finding out things they could use to drive a rift between east and west, but out of respect for the Watkins family and their privacy.

“Little girl, you can’t even tell your friends anything about what happened or your involvement until these things become public knowledge, and even then it might be best to avoid the subject altogether. No matter what anyone offers you, or how badly you want recognition for your actions, you can’t talk about this to anyone. Do you understand how serious of a matter this is?”

Eden would no doubt give her at least one Stellar star if they were to find out she was even partially responsible for the rescue of a prominent Ostanian war hero like Winnona Watkins, but I’d rather slightly delay Operation Strix than risk anyone being led to believe that Westalis was behind this. It’s not worth the possibility of stirring up the conflict between east and west as that’s what we’re trying to prevent in the first place.

Anya nodded. “I understand. I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

She was a little disappointed that all her hard work wasn’t going to be rewarded with a Stellar, but at least the world was safe for now.

“Very good. I just want you to know that even though you might not be getting the recognition you feel you deserve today, you did a good thing and helped more people than you think. That being said, if you suspect a crime or disappearance has occurred in the future, please tell your parents or the police instead of trying to investigate yourself. You put yourself in serious danger today, and you’re lucky things turned out as well as they did. We might reach out to your family at a later date if we need a statement from you, but for now it would probably be best if we forget any of this happened.”

“Thank you, officer.” Said Loid. “We’ll be in touch if you need us.”

The Handler left without another word, leaving the Forger family to start making their way home as they began to process the events of the day.

The next day was business as usual. Eden Academy was once again in session, and while there was some chatter about the incident that had occurred the previous day (at this point it was all over the news), most of the first year students cared more about bragging about whatever fun things they had done on their day off than what all the grown-ups seemed to care about. Nobody bothered to bring up the subject with Anya, so it was easy to avoid revealing anything she shouldn’t.

Bill Watkins was absent that day, and from reading the minds of a few of his classmates, Anya had learned that he hadn’t even returned to his dorm yet. For a normal person this wouldn’t be too odd-his mother had been kidnapped and injured, after all-but for the son of the Watkins family, this was pretty out of the ordinary. Bill’s parents had always emphasized the importance of showing up for your obligations-including school-to the point where he’d even shown up to classes sick before. It made Anya worried that Winnona’s condition may have taken a turn for the worst. Still, she would have to wait until she saw Loid again and could read his mind, as he would certainly know if anything had happened.

Not long after arriving at the hospital, Loid was given word that the Handler had requested a meeting with him. Despite fearing that she might be about to send him on yet another mission when he still had so much work from his civilian job to catch up on, he still headed to WISE’s Ostanian base of operations. Luckly, it seemed like his workload wouldn’t be increasing yet again.

“I wanted to thank you in person for your great work on Operation Shephard yesterday.” Sylvia told him. “Winnona Watkins is currently recovering at Berlint General Hospital where we can keep a close eye on her, and WISE is currently in the process of tying up any loose ends.”

“It was really more of a fluke that things turned out as well as they did.” He admitted. “Did you ever find out what happened between the time we lost sight of our target and when she reappeared?”

“From what we can piece together she was kidnapped at some point by three members of the OLF but killed them and made her escape, likely after her son and your daughter found her. She bashed the leader over the head with her cane so hard that it snapped and then skewered the other two with the broken halves. I took the liberty of sending in a cleanup crew to take care of the bodies and the mess before the SSS showed up. These guys were all carrying fake Westalian passports and ID’s, must’ve thought that even if they did get caught or killed they could still blame the incident on the west and give Ostania a reason to attack. It’s a good thing we showed up at the scene before the SSS did, this still could’ve ended badly even with Winnona Watkins getting out alive. From what we can tell, none of the men are in contact with their families, and those within the OLF tend to isolate themselves from society and live off the grid, so we figured it would be best to just dispose of their bodies in the wilderness after removing any evidence of what happened. They won’t be missed.

“As for Winnona, she’s been telling everyone who asks that she simply got lost while trying to find a place away from the crowds and only wanted to get the children out of there as quickly as possible because she feared they may hurt themselves in the empty warehouse, or that the building might not be structurally sound. We sent an agent disguised as an SSS officer to interrogate her, and she stuck to her story, even under the threat of prison if she was caught lying. She even managed to convince her son of her version of events, and he was there. I’m certain people are questioning her story, and if she were a normal civilian the truth would probably come out soon enough, but considering the credibility she holds, the majority of people seem to be taking her claims at face value.”

Winnona didn’t want another war, especially now that she had a son to protect. She would do anything in her power to keep the world safe for him, even if it involved putting herself in danger. She would give her life if it meant her son didn’t have to deal with the hardships she’d survived, and as a mother herself, Sylvia couldn’t help but respect that. If she had been given the option to trade her life for her daughter’s, she would’ve taken it in a heartbeat.

“It’s almost unimaginable to think she had the strength to take down all three of those men. She always looks so much frailer today than she does in the pictures I’ve seen of her during her days as the Iron Soldier. I also read her medical record before the mission-including the stuff she insists her husband is not to be informed of-so I’m aware that her health is much worse than she’s led most people to believe. She shouldn’t be capable of this sort of thing anymore.”

From what her doctors had recorded, Winnona didn’t seem in denial about her condition, she simply wanted to keep those close to her from being burdened by her declining health. She was aware that she would most likely die before Bill even graduated from Eden, but did her best convince her family that the only lasting physical effect of the war on her body was her missing leg, and played off any other issues as due to her being out of shape or simply physical symptoms of Combat Neurosis (not to say she didn’t suffer from Combat Neurosis, she very clearly did and wasn’t treating it, but it wasn’t the reason she was often out of breath or got sick far more often than she should’ve).

Syliva gave a sly smile. “Sometimes when her child is threatened a mother can find strength far beyond her normal capabilities. Had Anya never showed up there with Bill, she probably wouldn’t have been able to fight back, and her kidnappers would’ve taken her life, but when faced with the possibility of her son and one of his classmates meeting a violent end, she found the impossible strength to kill three strong men in order to save them. Although rare, this sort of thing has been documented before, and only serves to highlight the power of a mother’s love.”

It was just one of those things that lacked a logical explanation but still occurred in spite of that fact. Loid knew that if he were to try and come up with scientific reasoning behind the phenomena it would simply drive him insane. He decided not to dwell on the subject and simply moved on with his day, relieved that he wasn’t about to be thrown into another taxing mission already.

Thanks to the time he had to spend catching up on his psychiatry paperwork, Loid arrived home late once again. Yor had apparently taken care of dinner, much to Anya’s displeasure, and was already washing the dishes. When she heard the door open, she turned to him and smiled.

“I went ahead and took care of dinner since I knew you would probably be home late due to having to catch up on the work you missed due to the holiday.” She told him. “There are leftovers in the fridge if you’re hungry. Anya finished her homework early, and since her cartoons aren’t on due to every station wanting to broadcast the news of yesterday’s incident, she decided to go to her room and play with Bond until bedtime.”

That figured. Although WISE could take care of cleanup and keep the incident from increasing tensions between east and west, there was nothing they could do to dissuade the media vultures from attacking the story and using it to increase their viewership. They had increased security at the hospital-especially around the ward Winnona was currently recovering in-for the time being, but there was little anyone could do to stop the downside of free press.

“Sorry, I actually grabbed dinner while I was working.” He replied. “I was going to wait until I got home, but I had a meeting when I usually eat lunch, so I hadn’t had anything since breakfast, and I took the first chance to eat that I got.”

That wasn’t a complete lie. Not having to pretend to like Yor’s cooking was a factor, but he really didn’t have a chance to eat until the late afternoon, and he knew that since he rarely got enough sleep, if he were to hold off on eating for an entire day, he would probably end up passing out at work. The last thing he wanted to do was end up in Berlint Hospital as a patient.

“That’s alright, I guess one of us can bring the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.” She paused for a second to remember what she wanted to tell him. “By the way, Major Watkins called this afternoon. He says that Mrs. Watkins is recovering well-he took the day off and kept Bill out of school so they could spend some time with her-and asked if we would like to come to dinner nest Saturday. Mrs. Watkins actually wanted to do it this Saturday since the doctors told her she’ll probably be out tomorrow or the next day, but her husband was worried she might not be recovered enough by then and convinced her to move it to next Saturday. I told the Major I’d get back to him, but I wanted to make sure you didn’t have any plans first.”

Loid had been trying for quite a while to get an in with the Watkins family in order to help WISE learn more about Ostania’s military operations but hadn’t seen much success due to the fact that Bill and Anya were in different classes, and despite them being friends, they weren’t close enough for their parents to have any sort of relationship. Perhaps this was finally his chance.

“I’m free next Saturday, so we can certainly go. It’s a little late tonight, so one of us should call him back tomorrow afternoon.”

He knew the Handler would probably have a mission for him that day, but once he explained the situation and how important of an opportunity this was for WISE, this would certainly take priority. She had other agents she could assign to those less dire missions, and it wasn’t every day one of her subordinates managed to get close to a high-ranking member of Ostania’s military.

Yor nodded. “I’ll call tomorrow after I get out of work since I’m usually out before you are. Major Watkins informed me that he’s been approved for duties that would allow him to remain closer to home for the time being, so he’ll be home to answer the phone after normal working hours. I have already asked Anya if she’s fine with the three of us going, and she agreed but wanted me to ask if Bond could come too since he’s also a member of our family. I’m sure the answer is no, but I promised her I would ask anyway.”

Initially, Loid had just been happy to successfully complete his mission and once again keep east and west from going to war, but this outcome was even better than expected. An easy win like this was always nice.

The next Saturday the Forgers made their way to the Watkins family’s house. It was a little while outside the city, but no more than an hour’s drive. It wasn’t really far enough away to necessitate Bill living in the dorms-and considering his size and strength, nobody was really worried about him getting kidnapped-but Loid figured the Watkins’s had their own reasons for having him do so.

Although Yor had thought asking about bringing Bond would be pointless, if not a little weird, she had done so anyways at Anya’s request, and to her surprise Wesley Watkins had actually agreed to let the Forger’s bring their pet so long as Bond was well behaved, citing the fact that his family had a large dog of their own who would probably enjoy the company. Neither Loid nor Yor thought it was a great idea considering that Winnona was still recovering and could potentially be injured if one of the dogs were to knock her over, but since Anya had been nearby when Yor made the phone call, there was no lying to her about Bond not being invited.

Because of the nature of the meeting, The Handler had given Loid that Saturday off from any missions, even allowing him to leave early on Friday in order to hit the grocery store for the ingredients he needed for a tart he would be bringing. Yor had offered to bake something herself, but considering Loid wanted to stay on the Watkins’s good side, and not be accused of poisoning the family, he convinced her it would be better if he took care of it.

“And you’re certain Major Watkins said to arrive at 3 PM?” Loid asked once again as he drove the family to the Watkins house. “It seems a bit early for dinner.”

Yor nodded. “I wrote down exactly when he said would be the best time to arrive. Mrs. Watkins should have most of her dinner prep done by then, and while her roast won’t be ready until around six, she figured it would be nice if the kids had some time to play and the adults could talk before dinner. Apparently they have a fenced yard where the dogs can play so we won’t have to worry about them, and Bill’s excited to show Anya his toys since he usually doesn’t have friends over.”

If this meeting went well it could become a regular thing, Loid was sure of that.

“What number did you say their house was again?” He asked. “The houses out here are a bit more spaced out than they are in the city, and I don’t want to miss it and have to drive too far back.”

“Its number 38, they said to look for the one with the tall fence. Apparently their dog can get out of any fence that isn’t three meters high and half a meter into the ground.”

“I think this must be it.”

He pulled into the driveway of a fairly large house surrounded by a tall, wooden fence. Despite the size of the home, it had a much less extravagant look than the ones nearby and even many of the homes in the city center. Loid assumed that Winnona had been the main input when it came to designing the home, as someone from her background would certainly prefer simpler décor than tacky extravagance.

“Bond, you have to be on your best behavior, or else Mama and Papa will be really mad.” Anya told Bond as they stepped out of the car. “And play nice with their doggy, especially if you’re bigger than her.”

Anya had never actually seen a dog larger than Bond before, so even though the Watkins’s had described their dog as large she figured it must still be smaller than him.

Before the Forgers could even approach the gate it was suddenly swung open with considerable force, revealing Bill standing on the other side.

“You’re finally here!” He said excitedly. “Mommy said you’d be here at three, but I waited outside all afternoon just in case you decided to show up early. Come on, Anya, I want to show you my toys and my bunnies!”

Before he could run off to play with Anya, Loid interrupted, figuring that allowing the children to tear off through the house might not leave the best first impression. “Hello, Bill. Before you and Anya go off and play I suppose it would be best if we greeted your parents first. Where are they now?”

“Mommy’s in the kitchen preparing dinner, and Daddy’s in the parlor brushing Ms. Gray.”

Anya shot him a confused look. “Who is Ms. Gray, and why is your Papa brushing her hair? Can’t she do it by herself.”

“Ms. Gray is our dog.” Bill explained. “She can’t brush herself because she doesn’t have hands. Come on in and I’ll introduce you to everyone.”

As soon as the door opened they heard the sound of a large dog barking excitedly and running towards the door, followed by Wesley Watkins shouting, “Ms. Gray! Get back here!”

Ms. Gray, a large, wiry-haired dog who was easily a bit bigger than Bond appeared to greet them, nearly knocking Bill off his feet as she ran past, despite his massive stature.

New friends! Ms. Gray love new friends!

In her excitement to meet them, she managed to knock both Loid and Bond over and would’ve done the same to Yor had the women not possessed the incredible strength that she did. When it came to Anya, however, the massive canine approached her more gently, giving a curious sniff.

Ms. Gray not hurt little friend! Ms. Gray good dog!

“Sorry about that.” Said Wesley as he finally caught up with the dog. “She really only listens to my wife.”

“She’s a nice doggy.” Replied Anya, stroking Ms. Gray’s fur. “She just has too much energy. Did she have coffee for breakfast? Papa always says that coffee’ll give me too much energy when I ask to try some of his.”

“No, she’s just always like this, especially around new people.” He explained. “Wynn has more experience with animals than I do, and she claims that Ms. Gray will calm down a bit when she’s older, but we’ve already had her a few months and that hasn’t happened yet.

“Why don’t we head inside? Winnona’s in the kitchen making dinner, but I’m sure she’ll be done soon. She refuses to let me help, even in her current condition. Mrs. Forger, would you mind offering her a hand? She may be a bit more responsive to help if it comes from another woman.”

Yor was about to say something about her own cooking abilities but decided against it. “Of course. Oh, and you don’t need to call us Mr. and Mrs. Forger, Loid and Yor are fine. There’s no point in being too formal when we’re not working.”

Twilight knew that some doctors were very insistent upon being referred to with that designation at all times, but Loid Forger was not one of those people. No, he was an easy-going man who cared far more about his family and his patients than some silly title, and Loid Forger would never go out of his way to correct his wife for something so harmless. Instead, he just smiled and nodded.

“Daddy, can I go and show Anya my toys now?” Asked Bill.

“Sure, but remember to play gently with her. You must be careful when it comes to small, delicate girls like Anya, you don’t want to hurt her.”

Wesley had been raised to believe that all women were weak and fragile, but Winnona had long since shattered this perception. Still, he didn’t think it would be too bad if he were to teach his son to be chivalrous, especially when it came to girls and women much smaller than him that would almost certainly be unable to defend themselves if the need arose.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful with her. And Anya might be tiny, but she’s really brave so she doesn’t need me to protect her. Come on, Anya, let’s go upstairs to my room.”

Bill headed off at a speed that was a bit brisker than his usual walking speed but still slow enough that Anya could keep up.

“Let your mother know if you’re going outside, you know she worries if you’re not where she expects you to be, and she can’t go looking all over the place for you in her current condition.” He called after the children before turning to the remaining Forgers. “Yor, I’ll show you where the kitchen is, and after Loid and I let the dogs out into the yard we’ll be in the parlor. If my wife rejects your help, too, or after you’re done, please join us. Wynn might join us if she’s feeling up to it, otherwise it will just be the three of us until dinner.”

Loid knew it was far too early to try and trick Wesley into accidentally revealing military secrets, but the earlier he started gaining the man’s trust, the sooner he could start using it to his advantage. It would be a bit more difficult to get Winnona to lower her guard as well. While she was no longer part of Ostania’s military, and WISE had already managed to compile all of the secrets she was keeping from both her family and country, he knew that if she felt any unease or suspicion around him and his family, the chances of the Forgers being invited back decreased significantly. WISE had made several attempts to infiltrate the lives of the Watkins family in the past, and considering this was the furthest anyone had ever gotten, he refused to let anything go wrong.

Before entering the kitchen, Yor made sure to knock on the door as to not catch Winnona by surprise. She knew that it wasn’t wise to sneak up on someone with that kind of background, and although the former soldier couldn’t move around as well as she could in her prime, her hands still worked perfectly fine and her reflexes likely hadn’t been too dulled by time. If she thought an intruder was trying to get to her, there was a good chance she’d decide to throw a knife or something before getting a good look at whoever was entering her kitchen, meaning Yor would either end up injured, or have to come up with an explanation of why a mere housewife was able to dodge a weapon thrown by the Iron Soldier herself.

“Wes, for the last time; I don’t need help. I am perfectly capable of making dinner for my family without assistance.” Was the irritated reply she received.

“Its Yor Forger.” She informed the other woman. “You invited my family over for dinner today.”

“Come on in, I suppose. I’m almost done in here, anyway.”

Yor entered the kitchen to find Winnona seated at the table chopping greens, presumably for a salad. A pot of stew was simmering on the stovetop, and the room was filled with the aroma of a well-seasoned beef roast.

“Let me guess, my husband sent you to see if I would accept help from you because you’re a woman?” She asked before Yor could say anything.

“Yes, how did you-“

Winnona chuckled. “Wes is a good man, but he still retains some of the beliefs he was raised with when it comes to the roles of men and women and believes that the reason I don’t want him helping me in the kitchen is because he’s a man when that couldn’t be further from the truth. He has no idea what he’s doing when it comes to cooking, and has no business being in the kitchen. Besides, I was raised by my mother to be independent and never feel the need to rely on the aid of others-especially men-and I intend to keep it that way. I might not be capable of doing a number of my household duties at the moment, but I’ll be damned if I can’t cook a nice meal for my family and yours.

“I really don’t need your help, but why don’t you stay here until I’m done? I’ve only had a brief conversation with you so far, so it would be nice to have a chance to get to know each other. We don’t normally have visitors, and while I usually prefer to keep it that way, you and your family seem like alright people.”

Yor took a seat at the table across from Winnona, placing the tart Loid had made in front of her. “Thank you for inviting our family over for dinner and cooking this lovely meal for us. My husband made a tart for dessert.”

“Well, let’s hope he’s a better cook than my husband. Despite the fact that I actually enjoy cooking and always make sure to freeze enough premade food to last the time I’m gone whenever I’m away from the house for a few days, every so often he gets it in his head that he should be helping in the kitchen as well. I swear, one day that man is either going to burn the house down or poison our son. But I suppose it comes with the territory, he was raised to believe the women belong in the kitchen, but cut his family off before we were married, and tries his best to be nothing like the man they wanted him to be, and everything like the man he thinks I want him to be. As much as I appreciate the effort, I wish he’d stick to commanding armies and leave the homemaking to me.

“As for inviting you over for dinner, I figured it’s the least we could do after all the trouble my family caused you. Between Armistice Day, that dodgeball game at the beginning of the year, and all those other times Bill played a part in your daughter putting herself in danger, you at least deserve that much from us.”

“I wouldn’t blame your son too much, Anya has always had a habit of getting herself into trouble, and even if Bill wasn’t around, she would’ve undoubtedly ended up getting herself into the same dangerous situations, anyway.”

Suddenly, the kitchen door slammed open. Winnona’s attention immediately snapped towards the sound, but once she realized it was just Bill and Anya and not some assailant coming to finish what the Westalian army had started she relaxed.

She sighed. “Bill, how many times have I told you to not to sneak up on me like that? If you’re going to enter a room that you think I might be in you need to make your presence known.”

“Sorry, Mommy.”

“Its fine, hun, it just scares me sometimes if I’m not expecting it.” She told him. “Now, was there something you needed from me? Otherwise, I want you two out of my kitchen. It’s not safe for you to be playing in here when I’m cooking something on the stovetop; you could get burnt.”

“Can I take Anya outside to see my bunnies?” He asked. “Daddy said to ask you if I wanted to go outside.”

“Sure, just make sure you close the gate to their pen before letting them out of the hutch. I don’t think Ms. Gray would hurt them on purpose, but she might give one of them a heart attack if she came barreling towards it.”

Just like what happened to the original Flopsy. I’m fortunate it happened while he was at school and I was able to find an identical rabbit to replace her with before he came home for the weekend.

Bill nodded. “Don’t worry, I will. Thanks, Mommy, I’ll let you know when we come back in.”

And with that he took off towards the backyard, Anya following behind and begging him to slow down so she could keep up.

“It’s hard to believe our kids are the same age.” She told Yor once the two children had left the kitchen. “Your daughter’s so small for her age, she almost looks like she should still be in nursery school or kindergarten. My boy, on the other hand, could easily pass as a university student. I’m told boys on my husband’s side tend to physically mature faster than their peers, not appearing to be their actual age until at least their early thirties. I believe it. I’ve seen pictures of Wes as a kid, and when we first met in our twenties I couldn’t believe he was only a few years older than me.”

“It’s got to be hard sometimes having a child that size.” Replied the other woman. “Anya’s enough of a handful as it is, and at her size there’s only so much trouble she can get into. Our biggest problem is that if she gets away from us she can disappear into a crowd or end up somewhere too small for us to follow her into.”

Winnona shrugged. “I don’t really have anything to compare it to, but I always assumed raising Bill was no more difficult than raising any other child, just a bit different between his size and the way people perceive him because of the way he looks. Although he can get a bit competitive at times, he’s generally a sweet and gentle boy with a good grasp on his own strength and capabilities. We were a little apprehensive at first when he asked for rabbits as a reward for getting into Eden, but he’s done such a good job taking care of them when he’s home that we even bought him a third one after he got his first Stellar Star. Minus the one Ms. Gray scared to death when I left the door to the pen open while taking care of them-I stupidly assumed that since she’s always been gentle towards creatures much smaller than her there was no way for her to harm them-they’ve all remained in perfect health, and he even calls me a few times a week to see how they’re doing and make sure I brought them from their hutch to their indoor cage if the weather is going to be bad.

“In fact, I’d say the hardest thing about having Bill as my son was giving birth to him, but I suppose that comes with marrying a man like Wes. You really don’t consider the fact that marrying a giant man means giving birth to his giant baby until its actually happening. Bill was over nine kilograms at birth, and I am not a large woman, but I certainly don’t regret having him, not that I ever want to do it again. What about Anya? Has she always been small like that?”

Yor hesitated for a moment. “I don’t actually know. Anya isn’t my biological child; Loid had her with his deceased first wife. I only became her adoptive mother under two years ago when I married Loid.”

Technically it was more like six months that they’d been married, but considering it was longer on paper, and Loid would be sticking to that one if he was asked, she figured it was better to go with how long their marriage certificate said they’d been together as not to create discrepancies that a military family like the Wakins’s would easily pick up on.

“I see.” Well, that somewhat explained where the pink hair came from. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed she was your biological child. You two just seem so close that I could never imagine you not having been there for her entire life. You play a much more active roll in her life than a lot of other Eden mothers do with their children, some of those kids seem to hardly even know their parents at all, and vise-versa.”

“That’s perfectly okay. Anya has always called me Mama since I first married Loid, so I understand why a lot of people might not assume I’m just the stepmother or may even assume Loid is Anya’s stepfather on account of her hair. Family’s always been very important to me, especially since I lost my parents at a fairly young age and raised my brother on my own, so Loid and I try to spend as much time with Anya as we possibly can, even if his busy schedule makes that difficult at times. Children are wonderful and I don’t know why anyone would bother having them if they don’t want to spend any time with them.”

“Some people seem to just have kids as an obligation, not an actual desire, especially those of means. The Desmond family comes to mind, as both parents seem completely disinterested in, well, being parents. It’s sad, really. Children aren’t fancy cars or big houses, they need love and care, and you shouldn’t just have one since everyone else you know has them. Sure, maybe you want a legacy, but if you’re not going to bother to raise you children yourself, maybe build a hospital and name it after yourself instead.

“And I can completely relate when it comes to the importance of family, as my father was killed in a farming accident when I was very young and I lost my mother to illness not long before I enlisted in the army. Had she not needed me to take care of her I likely would’ve joined at eighteen instead of twenty, as like with most farm kids, I left school after learning just the basics. The point is, you should spend as much quality time with your children as you can because you have no idea when the time will come when you can’t. Sure, Wes and I decided for a number of reasons to have Bill live in a dormitory at Eden instead of with us, but we always make an effort to do something with him when he’s home on weekends and breaks.”

Winnona had changed a few details of her life story for the public eye, but most of what she told people was true. The important parts, anyway.

Yor nodded. “I lost my parents fairly young, to the point where my brother barely even remembers them. Had I known I’d only had a short time to spend with them, I would’ve put more effort into spending quality time with them.”

“Unfortunately, neither of us can do anything to get back the time with our deceased family members that was stolen away from us. The only thing we can really do is work to spend as much time with those we still have here. If something happened to me-or god forbid, Bill-I would want to be able to say that I made every possible memory I could with him before we couldn’t make any more.

“I’m pretty much done with this, so how about we go and join the men? My husband is terrible with small talk, so I’m sure he’d be more than happy to have me rescue him. Hand me those crutches that are leaning against the table next to you, would you?”

She hadn’t noticed it when the other women had been seated, but as soon as Yor handed over the crutches and Winnona began to get up it became obvious that her prosthetic leg was missing.

Noticing Yor’s confusion she could help but let out a light chuckle. “I damaged both my hardware and the remains of my real leg so they decided it would be best if I took some time to heal while its being repaired. I think they’re going to use this as an excuse to upgrade me, as they’ve been trying to get me to agree to a new model for a couple of years at this point, but I don’t see the point in replacing something that is fine or can be repaired.”

“Do you need me to help you, or should I get your husband?” Asked Yor. “You really should be in a wheelchair for the time being.”

“Trust me, I’m fine. My doctor said the same thing, but I told him that either he would be giving me crutches, or I would be dragging myself across the floor with my arms and my good leg until my prosthetic was fixed. He knows how I am, so he didn’t argue.”

“Oh, I see.” Something about that level of stubbornness scared Yor than anything from Winnona’s past ever could.

Twilight was a master of reading the room and falling into place in any conversation. The one thing he always struggled with was starting a conversation with someone when they seemed unwilling to do the same. Wesley Watkins was a serious and disciplined man, and he seemed to have no issue waiting in silence for their wives to join them if Loid wasn’t going to start things off.

But in order to keep up appearances as a charismatic family man and build up a level of trust that would allow for him to extract the kind of information WISE wanted, Loid would have to not only start the conversation but keep it going until Yor was there. She was always better at making small talk and getting the conversation to a level where he could better manipulate it.

He smiled sheepishly. “You know, you spend so much time at work and with your kid that you sometimes forget how to hold a conversation with another adult. Outside of my patients, coworkers, and Yor, the only major conversations I’ve had with other adults were directly related to Anya in some way.”

Wesley nodded. “It comes with the territory of having a job where so many other people rely on you. My duties take me away for weeks at a time sometimes, so I prefer to spend what time I have available with Wynn and Bill. But I knew what I was getting into when I made the decision to take my current position.”

“I see. How is your son doing with Eden so far? Anya’s had some difficulty with the transition but I think she’s finally starting to find her way.”

“Bill has never had trouble with school. He’s a hard worker and incredibly disciplined. Smart like his mother. He is determined to become an Imperial Scholar and make us proud.”

The conversation stalled once again. Wesley simply stared at the dogs playing in the backyard, pretending he was genuinely interested in what they were doing instead of avoiding awkward small talk. After a few minutes, however, he turned to Loid.

“Wynn seems to have taken to your wife. That’s good, she doesn’t get along with a lot of other people. I like seeing her being more social like this, especially with other women. She doesn’t have a lot of friends.”

Loid chuckled. “Well, I guess that’s just one of the consequences of being a parent, you don’t get a lot of free time to hang out with friends. Between work and Anya, I don’t think Yor and I have had a proper date night in months, much less spent time with either of our friends that aren’t work colleagues. I’m sure Winnona understands the sacrifices that come with choosing to be a parent.”

“Maybe that excuse works for people like us, but not Wynn. She’s retired from the army and lives the life of a housewife now, and with Bill away most of the week at Eden and me at work, she’s often alone for most of the day. I know she enjoys her household duties, and has found hobbies to keep herself busy, she doesn’t go out in public unless she absolutely needs to, and safe for her solo trips out to the rural areas of the country that remind her of her home and occasional trips out to the veteran’s legion, she doesn’t leave the house when we’re not around.

“She’s had trouble adjusting to civilian life ever since I brought her back here from Westalis, but she’s only become more withdrawn over the years, like she’s given up on living a normal life at this point. I think one of her biggest problems is what other people see when they look at her. When I look at her, I see a beautiful woman and amazing mother that has survived and achieved so much, but most people see her as the legendary Iron Soldier and feel like they need to put her on a pedestal, or as just a military wife and brush off her achievements in favor of my own. I think she just got sick of people treating her this way over the years and stopped trying. She insists everything is fine, but I know she’s hiding things from me. I’d like to help her, but there isn’t much I can do if she insists her life is perfect the way it is.”

“Has she ever considered seeing a psychiatrist? While female veterans of East-West Wars of Unification are few and far between, and I don’t think I’ve seen a single one as a patient in the Psychiatry Department of Berlint General where I work, my colleagues and I all have experience dealing with both veterans suffering from combat neurosis, and housewives who have started to distance themselves from the outer world after leaving the working world and becoming mothers. While I can’t name names for privacy reasons, I’ve also personally worked with the wives of men in positions of power, people I’m certain you would know of if I said their names. Of course, if she’s not comfortable talking to me because our children are friends and she seems to be getting close to Yor, I can also refer her to one of my colleagues. We’ve actually just brought on a nice young man from rural Ostania who recently received his Doctorate in psychiatry from the Berlint University of Medicine. Despite being the youngest doctor in the department, he’s already making quite a name for himself and I’m sure Winnona would love him.”

While WISE’s infiltration of Berlint General Hospital’s psychiatry department was first a foremost a means of collecting information, that didn’t mean they weren’t putting an effort into actually helping their patients as well. Most WISE agents had some form of psychological education in order to better help read and manipulate people, and a few like Loid were given further training so they could work as actual psychiatrist, and WISE not only wanted to perfectly keep up this lie, but prove they were better than the East by actually helping the patients they were gathering information from. To morally outdo the East seemed like a very petty reason to do almost anything, but considering they actually were doing something good Loid saw no reason to complain.

Wesley turned his gaze back to the window. “Believe me, I’ve tried to get her help, and she did see a psychiatrist briefly after the war, but declared it a waste of time after only two sessions, and considering combat neurosis wasn’t spoken about as often as it is now, and I knew little of these things, I agreed with her at the time, which probably has contributed to her resistance to going back. Of course, it doesn’t help that I came from a household where feelings and emotions were seen as something reserved exclusively for women and pansies, and she came from one where hard work was seen as a solution for everything. She’s too stubborn to do anything she considers a shortcut, and I’m certainly not the person to convince her otherwise.”

“What if I get Yor to bring up the subject with her?” Suggested Loid. “Not right now, of course, but when and if they develop a better friendship. While Yor has never met any of my patients-at least that she knows of-or seen their progress in real life, I know she’s read some of the academic research papers my colleagues and I have published, so she could definitely speak well on the impact of proper psychiatry. Even if she never found a point to properly bring it up, it would still benefit Winnona-and you and your son, honestly-if she was able to have a good female friend. Why don’t we do this again in the future? I think it would be good for both our families. Next time we could host you three at our house.”

“I think it would be better if we did things here.” Replied Wesley. “My family tends to be more comfortable in our own home, not only due to Wynn’s neurosis, but because of Bill and I’s size. This entire house was built and furnished with my size and Wynn’s disability in mind, so we’d prefer to stay here.”

Loid had noticed that fact the moment he walked in. The doorways and ceilings of the house were higher than in any other home he’d ever been in, and most of the furniture was what a normal person would consider oversized but just looked like normal couches and chairs when compared to the massive frame of Wesley Watkins. Still, there were a few smaller pieces of furniture within each set, pieces more akin to a person of average height, presumably for Winnona. Most of the larger pieces even had steps attached to the side or that could be pulled out from underneath that would make it easy for a person of typical stature who also had a prosthetic leg to get up there as well. Even all the doorknobs and light switches were low enough so that Winnona would never struggle to reach, making them appear unnaturally low compared to the massive doors and walls.

“That’s probably for the best. Our apartment is on the smaller side, anyway, and the dogs seem to like having a large yard to play in together. Say, what kind of dog is Ms. Gray? We don’t often see dogs bigger than our Great Pyrenees, Bond, so I’m curious.”

“She’s an Ostanian Wolfhound, originally bred to hunt wolves but now mostly used as cattle guardians. The Ostanian military is attempting to train them for various roles. Ms. Gray was determined to be untrainable for such roles early on, and since she was considered in no way dangerous, she was given the chance to be adopted by the family of a high-ranking military member rather than being euthanized, and I figured Wynn would like a dog. She’s always been good with animals.”

While it wasn’t the most helpful information he could gather-both Ostania and Westalis were publicly known to have trained dogs, horses, birds, and occasionally other animals for military operations for hundreds of years at this point-it still counted as military intelligence information, and as far as Loid could tell the military training of Ostanian Wolfhounds wasn’t something WISE was currently aware of. It was no Project Apple, sure, but it was still something he could report back to the Handler and a clear sign that this was an avenue worth pursuing. If he were to get the Watkins family to trust him further, there was no doubt he’d be able to get even more information out of Wesley Watkins under the guise of meaningless conversation.

“I’ve heard of that breed before, but I don’t know much about what they’re capable of.” Replied Loid. “Any idea what they’re training them to do? Anya has always been interested in this sort of thing ever since we adopted Bond, whom she named after Bondman. I believe there was an arc where Bondman even had a dog that assisted him in his missions. I know its unlikely, but Anya would be elated if she learned she got to meet a dog with spy training.”

“I wouldn’t know; it isn’t my department. I’d assume they’re being trained for something standard like search and rescue, but I doubt it would be anything crazy like spy work.” Wesley glanced at his watch. “Wonder what’s taking our wives so long, even without assistance Wynn should be done by now.”

Loid shrugged. “Maybe they just got lost in conversation.”

He really hoped Yor and Winnona would join them soon. Next time he would have WISE put together a file and conversation shortlist specifically for Wesley Watkins like they had done in the past for other targets, but for now he was really struggling to keep the conversation going.

Bill had always been proud of his pet bunnies since the day he got them. Sure, he loved Ms. Gray-even if she did manage to knock him over sometimes-but she was a family pet and really belonged more to his mother than anyone. Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail on the other hand were completely his pets, he’d been the one to choose them, name them, and was responsible for most of their care when he wasn’t at school. He knew his parents had been a bit apprehensive when he asked for a pair of fragile, little rabbits as a reward for getting into Eden on account of his size, but he worked so hard to show that he could be gentle with such small and delicate creatures that he was given his third bunny, Cottontail, as a reward for earning his first Stellar.

Unfortunately, the fact that they got very few visitors meant he rarely got a chance to show off the pets he was so proud of. Unlike dogs you couldn’t really bring bunnies for a walk, and besides the occasional trips to the vet, they never left the house. He was just glad Anya was visiting so he finally got a chance to at least show them to someone.

“Bunnies are really small and fragile, so you need to be extra gentle with them.” He told Anya as they walked towards the hutch. “They bite sometimes, but not often, and it doesn’t really hurt since their teeth are only meant for eating plants. Mommy and I handle them a lot, so they’re usually really friendly and good with people, but they’re not used to strangers and sometimes they can get scared for no reason.

“They’re fast, too, so you have to make sure they can’t run away before you let them out of the hutch. Mommy always tells me to check the fence for holes, especially because it could’ve been made by a badger and they like to eat bunnies. She always says to keep Ms. Gray away from them since they’re scared of dogs.”

Before today Anya hadn’t even been aware that you could have rabbits as pet. Sure, she’d seen them running around in the park before, but she’d never even gotten close enough to see them clearly, much less read their minds, so she had no idea what they were really like. According to the book they had read in school, however, rabbits weren’t too much different than humans, they just liked carrots more. The rabbit in the story stole carrots from a nice rabbit, then gets his whiskers and tail shot off by a hunter in a terribly gruesome attempt to teach children that stealing is wrong. If anything, it just gave Anya one more reason to avoid carrots.

After they entered the enclosed pen Bill quickly shut and latched the gate so nothing could get in or out. He then opened the door to the hutch, allowing the rabbits to leisurely make their way into the pen. One was curious enough to approach Anya, while the second was more apprehensive, and the third seemed completely unfazed by the two children in the pen.

“Flopsy likes you.” Said Bill, motioning to the pure white rabbit that had approached Anya. “The white bunny with the brown spots over there is her sister, Mopsy. The brown one with the white tail is Cottontail, she’s the only one that’s not related to the others.”

From reading Winnona’s thoughts Anya knew that none of the rabbits were actually related but knew better than to say anything. Not only because she risked revealing her powers, but because Loid and Yor had recently explained to her that it is sometimes okay to lie, but only to protect someone or spare their feelings. She felt like keeping Bill from learning that his dog had killed one of his bunnies by scaring it to death, and that his mother had simply replaced it with a similar-looking rabbit was one of those situations.

For such small animals, the rabbits honestly had some fairly complex thoughts from what Anya could hear, even if she couldn’t be completely sure which were coming from which rabbit due to the close proximity.

Carrots, carrots, I love carrots!

My sister has disappeared and has been replaced with an imposter. They might’ve been able to trick the boy, but I know how my sister smells, and this thing isn’t her.

If only I had fingers and not these stupid paws, I’d be able to get out of this godforsaken prison and take over the world. Rabbits will roam free and humans will live in cages.

It honestly wasn’t uncommon for small animals to have delusions of grandeur like that. Small, yappy dogs especially seemed to think very highly of themselves, and cats liked to refer to their owners as servants rather than masters. Logically, Anya knew that a bunny couldn’t take over the world, but all the children’s books about anthropomorphic rabbits that they’d been reading in school lately gave her second thoughts about the matter. Even if they were small and didn’t have fingers, that didn’t mean they were completely harmless. She desperately wanted to tell Bill so he could warn his father to keep any military documents away from the animals, but in doing so she would have to reveal her powers to the family of a high-ranking military official, no less. Plus, she figured that the armies of the world could take down a few rabbits if it came to that.

“Wow, I’ve never seen a bunny so close before.” Said Anya, reaching over to stroke Flopsy’s soft fur. “I thought they only lived out in the woods, not with people like doggies and kitties.”

“Mommy says you can only have them if you live somewhere quiet and have a big yard because they need sunshine and don’t do well with a lot of noise. She also said that I’m not supposed to give them a lot of carrots, so instead they mostly get hay, greens, and these little pellets. Mommy lived on a farm when she was a kid, and she said they used to breed rabbits there for a while, so I’m going to listen to what she says about bunnies, even if I think they would be happier eating more carrots.”

Anya nodded. “In all the stories we read in school bunnies are always eating carrots and turnips, not hay or little pellets. But those bunnies can always talk and wear clothes, and your bunnies do neither of those things. Maybe bunnies only need to eat a lot of carrots if they talk or wear clothes.”

“I’ve never seen a bunny that talks or wears clothes, so maybe you’re right. Daddy says bunnies don’t do those things in real life, but he said he’s never even seen a bunny up close before I got mine, so maybe he’s just never seen one that does those things.”

According to the adults who’s minds she’d read, things like talking rabbits and fairies weren’t real, but her young mind still refused to believe this was true. She had learned at some point that grownups don’t know everything, and people’s thoughts only reflected what they saw as the truth, not what was factually true. Maybe they had just never seen these things before and were basing their thoughts on the assumption that if they had never seen something before it must not be real.

“In the stories the talking bunnies only live near farms, not in cities, so maybe that’s why your Papa’s never seen one before. You said your Mama used to live on a farm. What does she say about bunnies that talk and wear clothes?”

Bill shrugged. “She never wants to give me a straight answer. She always tells me that while she’s never seen one personally, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist, and that I should always keep an eye out when I’m somewhere they might live just in case.

“Do you want to go inside and see my toys? It looks like it might rain and the bunnies don’t like getting their fur wet.”

Anya looked across the yard to where the two dogs were still playing. “Should we bring Bond and Ms. Gray in, too? Bond doesn’t like getting wet, it makes him look all funny.”

Bill shook his head. “They’ll be fine, there’s a covered patio that they can stay under if they don’t want to get wet, and Mommy even built her a nice, warm doghouse over there that’s big enough for both of them. I’m not supposed to just let Ms. Gray in the house if it’s raining, anyway. She really likes playing in the mud when it’s all wet out, and if we don’t wash and dry her before we bring her inside she tracks mud on the rugs and shakes water everywhere.”

Despite the fact that he really seemed to have taken to Ms. Gray, Anya knew that the second it started raining Bond would quit playing with her and run for cover. He barely tolerated Yor giving him baths, so there was no way he’d let himself be soaked in the rain if he could help it, especially if it meant he’d be looking goofy in front of a female dog.

Anya helped Bill gather up the rabbits and return them to the hutch. After he had checked to make sure the hutch was sufficiently closed and locked the two children headed inside.

Like every other piece of furniture in the Watkin’s house, the dining room table had been specially built to accommodate the large height difference between Wesley and Winnona. The floor under the section of the table closest to the wall was lower than that of the surrounding area, that side of the table having longer legs to keep it balanced. Two large chairs sat within the lower section, allowing Wesley and Bill to sit comfortably without being much taller than the table or having to cram themselves into too low chairs. The other side of the table had normal sized chairs and just looked like a normal dining room table. Winnona had specifically opted to have the table fit only two of these larger chairs, the rest of a more typical size. She figured that very few people shared her husband’s large stature, so it didn’t really make sense statistically. In fact, the only other person of such proportions she’d ever met was Welsey’s own father (she refused to call him her father-in-law, lest she associate herself with him), but neither he nor his wife would step foot in the house as long as she lived. She’d vowed long ago that they’d never meet their grandson and Wesley stood firmly with her on that.

Although she had refused help when it came to the actual cooking, Winnona had no issue allowing her husband and son to set the table and bring out the food. It wasn’t like she had too much of a choice in the matter, as these tasks were completely impossible on crutches. Wesley had suggested they hire a housekeeper to help her out-even if it was just until she was back on her feet-but she refused. She could still do almost everything on her own, it just took a little more effort than usual. Not to mention, she refused to be one of those women who was only a housewife in name, relying on servants to do everything from cooking dinner to raising the kids. Her home was the only thing she really had control over at this point in her life and she planned to keep it that way.

“This is my family’s own beef roast recipe passed down to me from my mother.” She explained as everyone took their seats at the table. “Growing up, my family didn’t have a lot of money, and beef was a luxury we couldn’t afford often, so we only had a roast when it was a special occasion, like Christmas or a birthday. In fact, I can remember years when money was so tight that the roast was the only gift my brother and I received for either occasion, but that alone was enough for us. Although I could probably afford to make a roast every week-or maybe even every day-I like to keep it as a rare treat. It’s really more special that way.”

While Wesley had grown up in a family that had a roast every Sunday, he never felt it was his place to tell Winnona how often she could or couldn’t cook something. Besides, he always enjoyed her roast more than he ever had his mother’s, so maybe there was something to be said for keeping it a rare treat.

“Well, this looks and smells delicious.” Said Loid. “Thank you, Winnona, for cooking us such a great meal, and thank you both for having us.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of food!” Exclaimed Anya. “It looks like enough to feed my whole school.”

Winnona chuckled. “Since we were having three more people for dinner, I just doubled what I usually. I guess I forgot that my husband and son eat a lot more than the average person. Well, it certainly won’t go to waste. Leftovers never last long when you’ve got a giant husband and a growing boy in the house.”

Wow, this looks like it would be enough to feed our family for an entire week, maybe more. Thought Yor. I can’t imagine how high their weekly grocery bill must be if this much food is only considered to be two meals worth for them. I guess that’s why the fridge looked so big.

“Everyone dig in before it gets colds.” Said Wesley. “Wynn’s roast always tastes better fresh out of the oven. Bill, wait for our guests-especially Anya and Yor-to get what they want first, and don’t go back for a second helping until after our guests are satisfied.”

Bill looked at his father quizzically. “But Mommy said she made more than enough food for everyone, so why do I need to wait for them to take what they want first? Its not like we’re going to run out before everyone gets some.”

“That may be true, son, but the polite thing to do is make sure your guests are taken care of first and foremost, and whenever possible you should allow the ladies to go first. By being a gentleman, you can sometimes solve things without having to resort to long and messy battles, so the sooner you learn to act well-mannered, the better.”

“And someone’s social status should not be the deciding factor in how you treat them.” Added Winnona, looking at her husband the entire time. “If you want to be chivalrous like your father says, you have to treat all women with respect, not only those who come from wealth or live their lives in a way that is social typical for a woman in this part of the country.”

She had long forgiven Wesley for the way he-and the vast majority of the other members of her basic training class and initial platoon-had treated her in the beginning, but she still liked to tease him about it from time to time. She knew he regretted treating her like she didn’t belong despite the fact she held her own better than many of the men and referring to her as Country Mouse for over a year, especially since she did agree to marry him in the end. She attributed most of it to him simply being a product of his environment and had no issue overlooking the past so long as he kept his promise to do better with their own son than his parents had done with him.

Wesley coughed awkwardly. “Yes, listen to your mother.”

Sometimes I have no idea how I managed to get her to marry me. God, I am completely fucked when Bill becomes old enough to take an interest in girls. I sure as hell don’t understand women, and I doubt I’ll be of any help when he eventually comes to me for that sort of advice.

The dinner itself went as one would expect. The adults chatted about boring things like their jobs and what they did outside of work. Anya had zero interest in any of those conversations and didn’t bother listening, instead opting to explain to Bill why he needed to start watching Bondman. Despite his outward appearance of interest and his claims that he would give the show a try, his thoughts told a completely different story.

That Bondman show sounds really boring, I’m never going to watch it. But Mommy and Daddy said I should be polite to guests-especially if they’re ladies-so I’ll just tell her that I’ll watch it later and not watch it at all. Mommy says it’s okay to lie to spare someone’s feelings so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. If she asks me about it later I’ll just come up with an excuse of always being busy when it’s on, or if it’s only on during the weekdays I can blame it on us not being able to watch television in the dorms. That wouldn’t even really be a lie since they only let us watch if something important is on the news before or after classes and they want us to know right away.

In situations like this Anya’s powers were both a blessing and a curse. While she did get the disappointment out of the way sooner than later, she never even got to be excited about possibly introducing another person to the Bondman series.

“So, Anya, are you and Bill in any of the same classes?” Asked Winnona, attempting to get the children involved in the conversation. “I heard about you two playing dodgeball against each other and the bus hijacking incident, of course, and Wes tells me you two seemed friendly with each other at the Sheep Festival, but Bill never really tells me much about any of the students in his classes.”

Anya shook her head. “No, we’re in different halls and different classes for everything, but we sometimes hang out with the same group during breaks. Becky is in a lot of the same classes as him, though, and that’s why he hangs out with my friends, I think.”

During the first semester the children had been kept in classes only with other students from their hall as they got a feel for Eden. All of the classes that weren’t graded on anything outside of participation kept things exactly the same, and as for the other classes that were sorted based off test scores for the second semester, on account of Anya’s barely acceptable scores and Bill’s excellent ones, they weren’t sorted into any of the same classes.

“The Blackbell girl, right? I’ve met both of her parents due to their connections with the Ostanian military and Wes’s job requiring us to meet with the CEOs of the army’s largest suppliers in order to keep up a good relationship with them, but I’ve never met the daughter. Of course, my presence is rarely required at these meetings, so the last time I saw either of them was about four years ago, and since our children were very young and the meeting was scheduled for late in the evening, we left them in the care of Blackbell family’s usual childminder when we went out. Even if I had seen Becky back then, I doubt she would’ve acted or looked anything similar to how she does now.

“Who else is in your little group of friends? Bill never tells me much about his classmates, so I really only know about his roommates, Johnny and Louis.”

Winnona had always been a bit protective of her son, especially when he was smaller and not as capable of keeping himself safe, so her having left him in the care of someone else for the evening back then was an incredibly rare occurrence, and the only reason Wesley had even suggested the idea rather than just going on his own was because he knew the Blackbell’s childminder was none other than Martha Marriott, someone Winnona knew of and actually believed could keep her son safe.

Anya thought for a minute. “Well, there’s me, Becky, Damien, Ewen, and Emile. Sometimes other kids hang out with us too, like Bill, and this other boy whose name I think is Geoff or something, but I can never remember. All I know is that his Papa owns a medicine company and we were all sad when we thought he would have to leave Eden, but then he didn’t and people weren’t so nice to him afterwards.”

Poor George was so forgettable that even someone like Anya who saw him almost every day couldn’t even remember his name.

“This roast in amazing.” Said Yor. “What kind of spices did you use?”

If I could make a roast, even half as good as this maybe Loid and Anya would finally like some of my cooking.

“Well, it wouldn’t be my family’s secret recipe anymore if I made a habit of telling people what I used, now would it?” Replied Winnona. “Wes doesn’t even know what’s in it, but someday I’ll teach Bill how to make it.”

If he’s better in the kitchen than his father, that is.

“That’s too bad, I could never make a roast this good no matter how hard I try. But I do understand wanting to keep something sacred when it’s all you really have left from your family.”

Winnona nodded. “Unfortunately, outside of a few recipes I have little to remember my family by, as there was very little I could take with me as I headed to basic training, and I didn’t have anyone I could leave anything with. I actually buried a few things in a box on our old farm in hopes that the war would end sooner than it did and I would be able to come back and dig it up, but that place was sold well over a decade ago, and with how much time has passed I’d assume its either been dug up and disposed of, or unknowingly built on top of. Not that there was anything particularly valuable in there that was worth going back for.

“Nobody in my family has ever written any of these recipes down, so they tend to change a bit over the years based on personal preference and ingredient availability. But since I was taught the recipes by actually making them instead of reading them from a cookbook, they were a lot easier to bring with me when I left. I think I did write them down once, back when I was sure my life was near its end and I didn’t want them to die with me, but I’m certain those copies are long gone by now. But I’m sure you have family recipes of your own that were never formally written down but were taught to you by your parents to the point you know them by heart and now make them regularly for your own family.”

Yor chuckled. “Not exactly, but we get along fine without them, and I use the skills and lessons taught to me by my parents in other ways to keep their legacy alive. In fact, if it wasn’t for the strength and resilience they instilled in me, I don’t think my brother or I would’ve come as far as we did.”

She didn’t want to out herself as a terrible cook to the Watkins family just yet. If it wasn’t for the stew recipe she had figured out with the help of Camilla she wouldn’t have a single thing she could cook that anyone outside of Yuri really liked. She supposed she could count herself lucky that she had a husband who not only had no issue with doing most of the cooking but was actually quite good at it. Even if theirs was only a falsified marriage of convenience there weren’t many women who could say their husbands were like that.

After dinner they had the tart Loid had baked, along with Winnona’s berry crumble and some vanilla ice cream.

“You know, when you said your husband had made this tart I wasn’t really expecting much, but this is actually really good.” Winnona told Yor. “My husband can barely boil a pot of rice, much less cook a dessert that is not only safe to eat but quite delicious.”

“Mommy doesn’t like Daddy cooking for me when she’s not here.” Added Bill. “She thinks he’s gonna poison me or burn the house down.”

“That’s not very nice, hun. I’m just happy that your father is willing to help me with some of the chores, as I know a lot of women aren’t so lucky. I’m sure that when we first met Wes would never have imagined he’d not only be married to me but be begging to help out with chores.”

“It is a husband’s job to make sure his wife is taken care of, any man who does not do so falls short of his marital duties, regardless of his reasoning.” Wesley replied simply.

“Loid actually does the majority of the cooking for our household.” Said Yor. “He’s just a lot better at it than me, and he’s always said he enjoys cooking so I try and help out with other chores as much as I can instead, especially because he works so much.”

Loid nodded. “My mother taught me to cook when I was young, and I still enjoy doing it now in her memory. Once Anya gets a little older I plan to teach her to cook as well.”

Not for quite a while, though, she’s still far too impulsive for me to want to allow her anywhere near kitchen knives or the stove. It would be nice to have someone besides Yor to help me with the cooking, even if it will likely just be for a few years at most until Strix is completed.

It always made Anya sad to know that Loid would likely be leaving someday after his mission was complete, but a part of her wanted to believe that he would stay and keep their little family together if only she worked hard enough to help him. She hoped at the very least she’d still be with Yor and Bond, and not back in another orphanage. Maybe Loid would just fake his death in a convincing enough way after things were done and leave Yor to take care of Anya and Bond. If she was able to raise Yuri starting when she was still pretty much a child herself, she would have no trouble raising Anya on her own now.

Wesley looked around the table before turning to Bill. “It looks like everyone is pretty much done with dessert. Son, help me gather up the leftovers and dishes. Put any leftovers in the refrigerator so they don’t spoil, and the dishes can go in the sink for now. I will take care of them after our guests have left.”

“You will not be leaving my nice dishes in the sink for an indeterminant amount of time.” Winnona objected. “I only use the good plates when we have guests, and I intend to keep them nice for as long as possible by not letting food sit and stain them. Not to mention, I’d like to give the Forger’s their tart pan back before they leave.

“Why don’t I have Yor help me with the dishes, and you and Loid can round up the dogs, as I’m sure they need a quick wash before they come inside. I know Ms. Gray only really listens to me, but I’m in no condition to get her cleaned up at the moment, plus I didn’t really get a chance to talk with Yor, and this will give me a chance to do so. Anya can help Bill feed the rabbits. If this is all okay with the Forgers, I mean.”

“You were gracious enough to have us over and make us dinner, I don’t see why we shouldn’t help you clean up.” Said Loid. “I mean, its really the least we can do.”

“And its not like we have a housekeeping staff at our house, either.” Added Yor. “We’re more than used to doing our own dishes and cleaning up after ourselves.”

Winnona knew better than to ask the majority of people to give her a hand cleaning up after having them for dinner, but she figured that as commoners, the Forgers would have no qualms about her asking, even if they did come up with some excuse on why they couldn’t do it. She was actually a little surprised that they had agreed to help.

She nodded. “Great. All of you can start by helping to bring the dishes into the kitchen and leaving them by the sink, not in it. Normally I would help, but I’m afraid I would break them if I tried in my current state. After that’s done, Yor and I will take care of washing the dishes, and the rest of you can go and see to the animals. Bill, I saved you some veggie scraps from dinner for the rabbits, there should be enough for all three of them to have some, but not enough to make them sick. Don’t forget to give them their pellets and hay as usual, as the scraps are meant to be a treat and not their dinner.”

“Yes, Mommy.”

She didn’t doubt her son’s ability to take care of his pets, she just liked to remind him, especially considering he was so young, and considering all the times he’d forgotten to brush his teeth or wash his hair, she figured it was somewhat warranted.

“Are you sure you don’t just want me to take care of the dishes?” Yor asked when she and Winnona were alone in the kitchen. “I enjoyed our earlier conversation, so I’m fine if you want to talk some more, but there aren’t that many dishes here, and it really looks more like a one-person job. Not to mention, you probably spent hours working in the kitchen to make us such a nice meal, so I feel bad leaving any of the cleanup to you.”

Unlike cooking, basic household tasks were something Yor exceled at. They reminded her of her work as an assassin in a way; it was methodical, predictable, and something she could do without overthinking or feeling a need to strive to do something impressive. Just like killing, it didn’t need to be perfect or amazing; she just needed to get the job done and see that any mess was dealt with.

“I am perfectly capable of doing the dishes.” Replied Winnona. “Do you really think someone like me needs help just because of my condition? Honestly, you’re worse than my husband.”

“N-no that’s not what I meant. I just thought since you put so much time and effort into cooking us such a nice meal, it would be nice if I were to do the dishes for you. I didn’t mean to imply-“

The older woman cut her off with a chuckle. “Relax, I’m just messing with you. I’m sorry, you’re just so high-strung that it’s hard not to. But I understood what you meant, and while I’m grateful for your offer, and happy to accept some help, I can’t sit idly by and chat while you do all the work.

“Ever since I initially lost my leg there’s been a lot of things I can’t do, and now without the aid of my prosthetic, that list has greatly increased, so it’s always been important to me to focus on the things I can accomplish, even if it’s something small like making dinner or washing dishes. I know I’ll have my metal leg back soon enough, but right now I just want to keep up with what I can do. Just do me a favor and move one of the kitchen chairs to right by the sink. I can’t stand while doing the dishes right now, and while I’m certain I could get a chair over there on my own with enough effort, its probably easier and safer if I have you do it instead.”

Yor nodded, picking up a chair in one hand with the ease a normal person would have when picking up a broom, and placed it in front of the sink. “Of course. If you won’t let me do the dishes on my own as thanks for the meal, I’m going to at least help you in any way that I can.”

“Appreciate it.” She replied, hobbling over to the chair. “One more thing; the dish soap and the sponges are in the cabinet above the sink. I keep all my cleaning products up there since I normally do better when I don’t have to bend down. Plus, when Bill was younger and I was still worried about him getting into them, it felt safer to have them up there since he was too small to reach them at that point. Of course, he can certainly reach them now, but he’s old enough to listen when I tell him they’re dangerous and knows to stay away from them.”

Just as Winnona had said, Yor found the cleaning supplies in the cabinet. Ignoring the bottle of whiskey that was also up there, barely hidden behind a bottle of bleach, she grabbed a bottle of dishes and two sponges, tossing one to Winnona who caught it with ease.

“You know, I actually enjoyed having your family over, and I think Bill and Wes did, too.” She told Yor as she began scrubbing a plate. “We aren’t always the most social people, and I usually dread having guests, but its nice having people over that aren’t connected to Wes’s work in some way and don’t need to be impressed. We’ll have to do this again sometime, or at the very least you and I should meet up again. My husband’s schedule is quite hectic, and from his work, I assume your husband is the same way, but I’m practically a retiree at this point, and as a city hall clerk I would assume you get most weekends and bank holidays off, and aren’t stuck at work all night, either. Wes is always telling me I need to find more female friends, but I’ve never gotten along with the wives of his business associates; I guess we just come from too different worlds.”

Yor nodded. “We definitely will. Anya, Loid and I all have our individual friends, but we aren’t really friends with any families that we can do things as a group with; none of the people Loid and I know from work have children Anya’s age, and I don’t think I’ve even met most of the parents of Anya’s friends as they’re either constantly busy, or don’t like associating with commoners.”

She decided to avoid mentioning her friendship with Melinda Desmond in Winnona’s presence, as it was very clear the two women didn’t get along with each other due to their differing values.

“Unlike a lot of the Eden mothers, I was raised a commoner, so I’m somewhat immune to joining in with their class warfare. Even if I could still stand the crowds and the noise, I think I would still skip most of the optional events just as a way to avoid some of those women.

“I’m glad to see that Bill has found at least a few friends, though. I was worried about how he might do at Eden considering his size.”

“Why would you be worried about him because of that? I’d think his size would protect him from anyone who’d try and harm him. I mostly worry about Anya since she’s smaller than most of her classmates.”

“Either way, Bill is probably safe from physical bullying-even at the hands of students in the upper grades-but I more worried about the other children avoiding or isolating him for being different. Despite his size he’s such a sweet, sensitive boy and I know from personal experience that being the odd one out can cause the rest of the group to gang up on. He can also be a little bit on the competitive side when it comes to sports and academics, and I worry that because of his size people may mistake that for aggression, and parents might tell their children to avoid him. Something like that already happened when he was in kindergarten, after he accidentally knocked another student down during a game of football, and because of his size many parents assumed he must’ve done it on purpose and told their kids to stay away from him. He was absolutely devastated when most of his friends stopped speaking to him at the behest of their parents.

“I think its just hard for people to remember that despite his appearance, he’s still just a young child and should be expected to act as such from time to time, and I feel like we’re well-known enough that most people do know that he’s still a kid. From what Wes tells me, he also had an issue with the way people treated him when he was very young, and because of that-and the home environment he was raised in--he turned into a bully himself, and we both agreed we’d do anything we could to keep Bill off that path. While he is like his father in some ways, he’s a lot like me in others and I think that helps to balance him out and make him a good person. We’ve been encouraging him to make friends whenever he can, so I’m glad to see he’s succeeded.”

“I was a little worried about Anya as well during her first few weeks at Eden.” Yor admitted. “I mean, I still do worry about her academically, but I also worried about her getting along with other students, especially since she managed to get into a fight with Damien Desmond on her first day, but now the two of them actually seem to be friends. But I do wish she’d spend more time studying and less time on her imaginary spy training.”

“I think that’s pretty normal for kids their age. Bill has his own imaginary military training he likes to do. He already has decided that he wants to join the army once he graduates, just like me and his father.”

“Aw, you guys must be so proud that he wants to be like you when he grows up.”

Winnona paused for a moment. “I’m proud of the person he’s becoming, but I hope to God he never ends up in any branch of the military, but I can’t really tell him or anyone else that, as Wes is already going on about how our son is going to be the hero of Eden Academy and lead Ostania to victory in any future wars. I’ve been covertly trying to influence him into looking into other future careers, but so far I don’t think I’ve been successful.”

“I see.”

Yor knew exactly why Winnona wouldn’t want her son in the military, but she had enough tact not to mention it.

“I know plenty of soldiers who have come back with minimal scaring of any kind and went on to live normal lives, but I just can’t shake the fear that Bill could end up going through the same shit I did. I should’ve died out there at some point, and honestly sometimes I wish I did between the survivor’s guilt, the constant nightmares, and the feeling of paranoia that someone is always out to get me. I’ve heard about plenty of veterans ending it all because they just can’t cope anymore, and while I would never do that because of the people that rely on me, I understand why they would do it, sometimes it’s the only way they can find any peace. I don’t ever want my son to have to deal with that. I can’t predict if there’s going to be another violent war in his lifetime, but I don’t want him to do anything that would put himself in a position to see and feel what I did and continue to experience.

“I’ve been doing my best to let him know that we love him and will be proud of him no matter what he does with his life without directly stating that I don’t want him to join the army when he grows up, at the very least I want to make sure that being born into a military family doesn’t make him feel like he needs to follow in our footsteps. If anything, I would like him to go into agriculture. He comes from a long line of shepherds and woolworkers on my side, and I truly believe he would be good at it. I know farming can be dangerous in its own right, but I felt like we knew what we were getting into whenever we climbed into a feed silo or approached a particularly territorial ram, not just thrown into a battlefield with the promises of glory. It isn’t glamourous work, but it’s stable and exactly the kind of thing I would want for him. Frankly, I don’t even care what he does with his life as long as it doesn’t mirror my own experiences.”

As any parent that had lived through the trials and sacrifices of either or both of the East-West Wars of Unification, Yor could relate. It didn’t occupy her mind too often, but she did occasionally think about what would happen to Anya if war were to break out now, or even when she was an adult. Things would probably become more complicated with Garden, but other than that their lives wouldn’t change too much. Even if a draft was created, women would be excluded, and Loid’s position as a psychiatrist would absolve him from having to serve if he were to be selected. The chance of Anya joining the military if war were to break out in her adulthood was minimal at best. Ignoring the fact that female soldiers were still pretty rare, Anya just didn’t seem like she would ever be physically strong enough to make it through basic training and having a parent already working in the medical field, she would have a leg up when it came to opportunities in the field. The most dangerous job she could hope for would probably be a combat doctor or nurse, and even that would keep her relatively far away from the front lines and out of any real danger. War had very few rules, but killing medical personnel was seen by most as a step too far.

“I plan to tell him why I don’t want him to join the military when he’s a bit older.” Winnona continued. “But the stories I would tell him to get him to change his mind aren’t ones meant for a six-year-old, and I don’t want to scar him for life. At least not yet anyway. But if that’s what it takes to keep him from fighting in a pointless war, I’ll certainly take traumatizing him with my stories over having him acquire stories of his own any day.

“I plan on holding of telling him any of this-or even outright suggesting that he do literally anything else with his life besides joining the military-for as long as I can. I know this will start a fight between Wes and I, and I really don’t want to deal with that. I just hope I don’t end up waiting too long for the right time and missing my chance to keep him from doing something that could drastically impact his future for the worse.”

“Why would you miss your chance to tell him? Even if war broke out, he can’t drop out join the military until he’s eighteen, and I doubt his father will want him to do that since he’d only be one year away from graduating.”

The older woman paused. “I have no idea why I’m telling you this-maybe it’s because I never get a chance to talk to anyone who I don’t think will go and report everything I said back to my husband-but my health isn’t as good as it may seem. The doctors aren’t sure if this is something I contracted during my time in the army or perhaps whatever killed my mother was genetic, nor do they have any idea how to treat it, all they know is that my body seems to be slowly shutting down. Because they have no idea what’s even killing me, they don’t have an exact time frame, but they’ve been tracking the deterioration from when I first returned from war, and they’re thinking that if I’m lucky I may hold on long enough to see my son graduate, but that isn’t too likely.

“Obviously, I haven’t told Bill, but Wes doesn’t know, either. The hospital told me I can keep my medical records from him outside of anything he absolutely needs to know, and I’ve elected to do so. Them knowing that I’m dying won’t change the outcome, it’ll only serve to cause them more pain while I’m still here, and I don’t want them treating me any differently. God, I seriously hope whatever’s wrong with me isn’t genetic-I couldn’t bare the burden of possibly dooming my son to the same fate as me and my mother just by giving birth to him-but considering I’m around the age where she started getting too sick to hide it from my brother and I, and the doctor’s estimate would put me around the age where she passed. I have no idea what happened to my grandparents of her side, so I can’t really prove things either way.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Yor didn’t know how she was supposed to react when someone she barely knew told her they were dying, and that seemed like the safest answer.

Winnona gave a light chuckle. “Sorry, I’m really putting you on the spot here. I mean, you barely know me and I just told you I’m dying. You just seem trustworthy, and I don’t get a chance to talk to other women outside of the wives of Wes’s business partners, so I guess I got a little carried away, but it feels nice to finally have this out in the open with at least somebody. Please don’t tell anyone about what I told you, alright? Not your husband and especially not your daughter.”

God, it felt good to not have to bear the burden of nobody outside of a handful of doctors and nurses knowing she was dying. Winnona had plenty of other secrets she would’ve loved to get off her chest, but revealing a lot of them to anyone would result in her and her family being put in danger. She certainly didn’t want the public or her family to know about her health, but the SSS wasn’t going to arrest anyone if they found out she was dying. If it leaked that she was still visiting the family in Westalis that had saved her a decade ago, however, things would probably turn out a little differently. She planned on letting most of her secrets come to light after her death, as there was little they could do to her once she was gone. There were a few things that she would never let a soul know, however, things that could implicate or endanger her husband and son.

“No, it’s completely fine, I get it.” Yor assured her. “Don’t worry, I won’t repeat any of what you told me to anyone, not even my husband.”

“Thank you, I appreciate that.”

“I know its probably not my place to ask, but have you ever thought of speaking to a psychiatrist about all this? Sorry if I’m crossing a line by suggesting this.”

Winnona shrugged. “Well, I just told you that I’m dying and nobody close to me knows, so I think we’ve already crossed the line at this point. Look, you don’t have to worry about saying something that might offend me. I spent my first couple of years in the army surrounded by a bunch of who absolutely hated me for daring to want to be something besides a housewife or secretary, I think I’ve heard it all at this point. There is nothing you can accidentally say that would even phase me at this point.

“But no, I haven’t considered speaking to a psychiatrist. I mean, I did once at the behest of my husband, but I stopped going after a few appointments. It just… wasn’t for me.”

If Loid were the one in here he’d have convinced Winnona to start seeing a psychiatrist again in no time flat, but Yor didn’t have his way with people and decided it would be best to just nod and turn her attention back to the plate she was washing. They were almost done, anyway, and Yor figured Anya, Loid, and Bond were probably all done and waiting for her so they could all go home. It was starting to get a bit late, and it was approaching Anya’s-and very likely Bill’s as well, considering his age-bedtime.

“Thanks for having us over.” Said Loid as they stood outside the door, saying their farewells to the Watkins family. “We really should do this again sometime, it was nice. Perhaps next time we could start dinner a little earlier, especially if we’re planning on talking and having dessert, as its getting close to Anya’s bedtime, and she can be a handful to get to bed if she has to go to sleep as soon as she gets home from somewhere.”

“I was thinking the same thing.” Replied Wesley. “We like to keep Bill on the same schedule, even on weekends, so it’s getting a little late for him as well. We actually usually eat a little earlier when he’s home, but we weren’t sure if you three would want to eat at five. Of course, we should’ve assumed that since your daughter is the same age as our son, you’d probably want to eat early as well.”

“Bye, Anya, see you at school.” Waved Bill.

Anya smiled. “Bye, see you later.”

“Yor, don’t forget to call me.” Said Winnona, who despite her current condition had decided she wanted to be there to see the Forger family off. “I need more mom friends, and I don’t get along with a lot of the other Eden moms. I have the freedom to make my own schedule, so I can easily work around yours.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t.” Replied Yor. “And once again, thank you so much for having us over. There aren’t a lot of families we’re friends with, so we don’t often get invited over for dinner. We really will have to do this again sometime, maybe Loid and I can cook next time, and we can either have you over at our place, or cook the food and bring it here, whatever you prefer.”

Or maybe it would be best if I handled the cooking. Thought Loid. We’ve just managed to befriend one of Ostania’s most prominent military families, I can’t have it ruined by bringing them food that might make them sick.

He planned on calling the Handler later on to inform her of how things went, but right now he was going to go ahead and mark this one as a success in his book.

They drove home almost in silence, Anya half asleep and Yor and Loid not wanting to wake her if she actually had fallen asleep (it would no doubt be easier to get her to bed if they could just carry her there after she was already out, rather than having to listen to her arguments on why she should be able to stay up a bit later). Unfortunately for Yor, the silence gave her more time to think about what Winnona had told her.

Besides the missing leg, Winnona Watkins looks perfectly healthy. She thought. There can’t possibly be as much wrong with her as she claims. And even if she was dying, why tell me? I guess she doesn’t have any reason to lie to me, either. Either way, I promised to keep this secret, so I can’t even rationalize this with Loid. Up until Anya’s year graduates is a long time to keep a secret like this, but maybe she’ll reveal it herself before then. I mean, she can’t hide a terminal diagnosis forever, especially once she starts becoming more visibly ill.

Anya was about to doze off, but hearing those thoughts from her adoptive mother snapped her awake. Was Bill’s mama really dying? She had so many questions but knew if she asked them everyone would know about her power. Unfortunately, this was just another one of those situations where her powers left her wondering, and all she could do was wait and see how the situation resolved itself. At least it seemed like Winnona Watkins would be holding on for a while longer.