The Only Way To Protect Us

They had arrived in shining blue-plated armor while carrying a helm with antlers growing on the top of its head, boasting about the lost glory of their ancestors, the Elf.

Nefaaya watched from afar, as the army officer stood before the villagers. His armor was elegant, bulk and intricately designed with white interweaving lines. A blue cloak was flapping behind him with a white hem. Unlike most of his subordinates, he has long and black hair tied behind his head. A handsome man with high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. Nefaaya judged that the man was in his thirties or perhaps much younger.

They established their camp on the lowest flat area found in the village. Fifty soldiers all wearing their full plate, a squire wearing an elaborate green coat and a woman with red hair, wearing a tight black tunic over a leather jerkin. She was carrying a ledger with her. There are a total of six tents, each topped by the flag of their country, a black stag standing tall in a blue field.

On the second day after their arrival, they set up their tables. All abled men and women lined up on either the one listing for soldiers or mages. But to put it shortly, there was no one who lined up for mages.

Nefaaya was convinced that she, Renaeril and her mother were the only mages in this village.

"Where would they go?" Renaeril asked her while they're having their language class. Her father prohibited them from practicing swords or chanting while the soldiers were still around their village.

"The front," she said uninterested.

"I mean what front... Father said that it was across the sea," he said.

She was about to answer when Nefaaya saw a suspicious boy running from house to house as if trying to conceal himself. As if he knew he was being watched the boy turned at her, blue eyes piercingly cold as he glared at her. Then he started running followed by a man who was threatening him about a beating.

Renaeril poked her shoulder.

"Huh?"

"Across the sea, don't you know where it was? My father said it was in the soil of the Nortic Empire."

Nefaaya nodded, still unbelieving that Marrius would volunteer to join the enlisting. Truth be told, she was convinced that the man would do something to put Renaeril in the listing.

Ever since the envoy of the capital arrived in their village two days ago, the village had become more restless than usual. As if the thought of soldiers in their land scared them. *Or perhaps the presence of soldiers in the village had made them more aware that this war was indeed real.*

According to Renaeril, there are families who are hiding their sons in a secret room. Nefaaya laughed at it as she scrubbed the dirt on her boots. But later as she made her way towards their house, she sensed the unusualness in the village. All the windows were shut and she could feel the eyes of the people inside looking at her. It was quite an experience. She ran the rest of the distance towards their home.

The sun was already setting when she finally reached the familiar stone that surrounds their house. Inside she could see that Nefri had already lit all the lamps in the house.

The door burst open, Nefri wide eyed, stared at her while Nefaaya breathed heavily.

"What happened to you?" She asked.

"Nothing," she said and headed in her direction. Inside, their dinner was already ready, Learo was nowhere to be found as he was still in the camp of the capital's soldiers, training with swords even though he was already adept at wielding it.

In the morning, she asked Nefri about the rumors that Renaeril had relied on him.

"There's a rumor that there weren't enough soldiers in the land," she said. "The families feared that the envoy wasn't for listing only but also to check for more able men in case the kingdom needed more."

"Why are there not enough men? Aren't there almost fifteen countries that build the whole southern continent?"

Her mother leaned down, "there's a rumor in the town. Klinberia was remaining neutral in this war. The neighboring countries are all convincing them to follow what was written in the Pact Of the Woods—the enemy of a southerner is the enemy of the whole South."

As her mother explained the situation to her, Nefaaya felt shameful. In the past year she had done nothing but learn about chanting and swords that she had forgotten to learn about the geopolitical situation of each country. Another failure on her side.

One evening as the three of them were eating dinner in silence, her father announced, "in three days we're moving towards the capital."

The silent dinner had become more silent, Nefaaya wondered if that was even possible. The light from the candle flickered as the wind entered the window, as if on cue the fire went out. It had taken longer than she had anticipated before Nefri decided to stand and searched for the nearest flint.

Nefaaya looked at her emotionless mother and at her ashamed father. She then asked, "you'll go home, right?"

He looked at her and nodded sincerely.

"I do," he promised.

The days passed like normal, Renaeril and her continued their language lessons while in the afternoon the two would play outside or inside her house. Chanting classes were prohibited. But sometimes the two can't help but do some small one's like shaping water.

One afternoon, a day before her father would depart, Renaeril asked a question out of the blue as the two of them sat in the shade of the huge tree.

"Do you think they would allow us to enlist?"

Nefaaya looked at the fast-moving clouds and raised her hand as if trying to reach it. "They would."

"Then why don-"

"I think that is also the reason why my father is enlisting and yours too," she started. "To protect us from what's out there. My father never spoke of war as... something grandeur despite being a soldier before."

"But the book in our wo-"

"Those are legends," Nefaaya said. "Do you know Erich Remarque?"

Renaeril shook his head

"He authored the greatest war book of all time. His book was not regarded the because of complicated and action-driven battles but of his accuracy in depicting human emotions."

On the night before her father would leave, Nefaaya dreamed of a world enveloped in war and that the only person left was her. From above she saw fireballs rained down on the land as the world slowly burned in fire.

She woke up sweaty, and found her windows open wide. Outside, she could see the Five Moons glaring at the village. It was already midnight—a time when all the moons of this world were in the night sky.

She tried to reclaim her sleep, but it had come hard to her. She decided to fetch a candle below to read some of the books in history that she had neglected in the last eight years.

But as she was making her way back to her room, she heard a sniffing sound coming from the open door of Nefri's room. She peeked and saw that she was hugged by Learo, almost cradling her in his arms as she cried. Nefaaya stepped back and made her way silently towards her room. There were things that required her intervention. And there were things where she better took no part, because it was the right thing to do.

When she could finally see the first light of the sun on the east, Nefaaya immediately made her way below. She wanted to see her father off.

The two were already at the table, eating casually as if it was just one of the normal days where Nefaaya would start her study.

Learo gestured to her to sit beside him.

As they ate their bread and sipped her milk, her father said. "I had many more to teach you, but sadly we have to stop the lesson for now."

"As I'm gone, don't try anything funny, okay?" He said. "Don't ever try to burn the village."

Nefaaya flushed and looked at him, "I promised no more fireballs."

Learo laughed, "take care of your mother... and Renaeril, you might as well be her older sister."

"We're of the same age," she replied.

"You know Renaeril... Renaeril is sometimes listless."

She finds herself agreeing. Her father talks more to her, usually of their fun memories during their classes. For example how Nefaaya attacked him with magic.

"You provoked me," she defended.

And Learo laughed at her before he fell silent, "I'll miss this kind of morning."

He said as he stood. The bag he would carry was already prepared. Learo headed outside, Nefri and Nefaaya followed her from behind. She glanced once more at their house before she started making her way out of the gate. And as Nefaaya passed on the gate she felt an ache, a realization. *When Nefri and I walked back to this house only the two of us would cross this gate.* The thought had made her sad.

All around them the doors started creaking as it opened, as every enlisted soldier moved out of their house. Perhaps coming back someday or never-coming back at all. Nefaaya sadly wondered how many of them would go back. How many soldiers would be able to see this place again, and how many parents and wives and sons and daughters would be able to see their love one's once again.

The thought had made her sad that she almost wanted to run to her father. No, she doesn't want to just run. She wanted to destroy the root of this. She looked at the camp. The officer was already outside, removing their camp. Nefaaya thought to destroy the envoy once and for all with all the power she had.

*If I do it, no people in this village would die and their smiles would remain,* she thought as her hand twitched.

"Nefaaya," her mother said in a broken voice. "No, you'll only destroy everything this people was trying to protect. You can't, we can't. That's the way it is… for your father and for the others it was the only way they could do to protect us."

A tear escaped her eye, Nefaaya wiped it. She didn't know why she had become emotional. Nefaaya before was a stoic person who had refused all emotion, who upholds rationality over everything. But now look at her, crying and almost destroying something out of her own whim.

She and her mother and the other villagers watched the men in their village descend and head towards the foot of the village. As the soldiers traveled on the flat lands below, the ascending morning sun blinded them making the soldiers look as if they vanished among the flat lands.

They stood there for a long time until the sun was already at its peak… until they all lost lost them in the wide horizon.