I sometimes think of what was. The time when Rei said she’d stay with me forever. Sometimes I feel…. I feel more than I should. Slingers never dwell upon the past except to learn lessons from mistakes which must not be repeated.

Rei…

Rei was different. I vowed to be there. When she needed me. And I failed her. Failed me… us.

It’s hard to forger. Difficult to remember. It’s been so long, the flashing knives and the flames. The Keep that failed. The rubble that won. Even justice cannot always triumph or protect you from that which you fear.

It’s hard to explain sometimes how Slingers feel when we are not on. In a sense there is a never ‘off’ for us, being a Slinger is not a job. We just are, but what exactly are we? I was asked once to describe it.

Kids. There were kids, in the Keep and I had to tell them. I…ok. I said it was like a shadow. You were there, all the time. You see the world. Feel it be a part of you but you are apart. You feel all. Everything. Keenly. You feel the pain and the thoughts. You understand a lot. Then, when you have to act, when you are on a mission, enforcing the Emperor’s Law, you feel alive. Made flesh. A shadow no more.

I have since those early days in the Keep when the swords shone bright in the noonday sun and the traitor’s cause lost its impetus, wondered, why. Why me? Why did I become what I became? Why did any of us?

We trained so hard and believed so deeply that it was difficult to understand why we chose the path we did. In those days we focussed on surviving. The pressure was immense, the road difficult and we were so completely lost within it that understanding why was not a priority at all.

I do not really know if what I have is an answer. We never discussed it so I can only speak for myself.

It was a cold December day with ice on the ground. We were three strong. Dressed in black, conspicuous against the ice, unless we were covered in it. Lesson one: invisibility is not just camouflage, it depends on movement. The ability to present what others expect to see.

Loki and Naku were with me. A little older. More experienced. I was the youngest. Expendable.

The mission was simple: get into the house. Past the Emperor’s guards. The ‘house’ was a shack in the woods but the Emperor’s guards were real enough. Three layers thick with perimeters all around. Standard watch formation from the Imperial House which also meant patrols.

The secret: nothingness.

It was the first day and I was scared. Not scared as in fear but scared as in apprehension. The unknown. You face that every time. Faster heartbeat. Raised tension in your shoulders.  A kind of tingle in the pit of your stomach. Let it go. Fail to rein it in and it takes you over.

You then start to shiver. Your heart hammers. You want to let your bowels go. Debase yourself. Become a cur, a nothing. Invisible because you are beyond contempt.

That’s how it feels before it starts.

On a dark winter day I woke up earlier than usual. I was asleep at my father’s house but he was not home. He was away, as usual.

I did not, as I usually did, call for servants or walk to the kitchen. There was snow outside my bedroom window and I could see the glow of reflected early morning light come in through the window. So I did what I have never really understood why.

I put on my clothes and shoes and moving quietly I opened the window and jumped out. It was a six foot drop to the ground below and I rolled with it feeling both the exhilaration of doing something illicit and the bite of a morning chill that was sharper than usual through my thin clothing.

I wake up in the morning and struggle to force my self to stay alive. When I sleep it is like darkness. I unplug, unless I sense danger. In the morning everything comes flooding back. Who I am. What I have done. What I lost. What I need to do.

The day always begins with doubt.

It shouldn’t. I know that. I have to prove equal to my task.