.* Hakan Lure & Caia Grey *.
Caia was too young to remember most of that particular tragedy, and what she did remember was nothing good. She wasn’t actually present for the battle; she was only four years old, and therefore stayed behind with the rest of the children and disabled. She could remember some scenes afterwards like the procession of corpses returning from the battlefield, her father carrying back her mother with her grandfather limping beside him, all three dyed in red and black blood much like this prison. There was a ceremony, where they froze the bodies of the dead and weighed them down, dropping them in the ocean since it was impossible to bury them in the frozen wasteland. Caia didn’t remember much of that either. She was tired, only four years old and trying to stay awake in her grandfather’s arms. She didn’t understand yet what was happening, and didn’t until her father told her a few days later that her mother was
never coming back, so stop asking.
Her eyes were closed when Arren called the ghosts, fighting back her screams with groans as electricity racked her body. It was painful, mind-numbing in fact, and so when it lessened and stopped, Caia was curious why? He couldn’t be giving up, unless he was handing reigns over to Hakan now. Whatever he was doing, she didn’t want to be caught unawares, so as soon as she was able, she opened her eyes again.
Hakan watched the ghosts with mild interest, realizing where they came from and what parts of their lives they were reenacting. Smart of the druid, he had to admit, to use a family trauma against the hunter. Humans were easily affected by death. However, he recalled the information implied the incident was approximately twenty years ago, written down as a failure and victory in the records. He wondered if this would really have much of an impact on the hunter, since she must have been extremely young at the time of its actual occurrence. He wasn’t kept waiting for the answer, as when Caia opened his eyes he felt a wave of surprise followed closely by anguish when, he assumed, she too realized what was before her. He also noticed she her eyes flickering from ghost to ghost as though she was looking for something. What she was looking for, he could easily guess. “An effective method.” He stated simply to Arren. “You are causing her a great deal of distress.”
Caia didn’t know a lot of these people personally, nor did she know anything about them. But she recognized a lot of faces from photos and video clips. It only took a few seconds to realize what was happening, and she could tell by the number of ghosts that it wasn’t all the Greys. A lot had died that day, more than what this cell could hope to fit. Slowly, Caia struggled to sit up a little more against the wall, her eyes searching each of the faces, her mouth twitching every time one of them died. She wasn’t present at the battle. She didn’t see the carnage, and her grandfather refused to describe any of it to her. She didn’t even know how her mother died. Witnessing the dying moments, even if it was a replay and everyone was already dead, stabbed at her heart. She could feel herself wanting to do something to prevent it all, but it was a scene of the past. She couldn’t do anything at all.
“Cooperate?” Still suffering from the electrical shocks, Caia paused to breathe every so often as she spoke. “Why should I? You think ghosts can subjugate me? Force me to obey your demands?” Caia, trying to hide the distress Hakan so blatantly pointed out, laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding me. The answer is still no.”
.* I want to protect, so I will dirty my hands for you *.
.* Emotions are an entrapment for reliable analysis *.