[KQ] Bigger A(spire)ations

Roana I am more than just a piece in their game Roana tried to warn them. She tried to shout. She didn’t need to know all the ways whatever this thing was to know an explosive when she saw one. But it all happened much too fast and in a flash of light she suddenly felt weightless as she flew through the air, Krosis being pulled from her hand and flying alongside her. It lasted only a moment as her body hit the ground and skidded along her bad shoulder, gasping for air from the pain as arms and legs were pelted with shrapnel. As she came to a halt, she gasped for air, staring at the sky, alive, if only just so. Slowly she turned her head, her claymore stuck into the ground just out of reach. Everything ached, the world spun, and yet she rolled to her good shoulder and forced herself up. The ringing in her ears was disorienting and… blue eyes narrowed. Was…there a woman? She was gorgeous but unfamiliar, standing behind Ronin. Ronin. Her heart stopped as she saw him, drenched in blood, clothes littered with holes. She didn’t need to guess and stammer. Roana knew what such wounds would do having seen such on battlefields in Northwind – the only thing missing were the arrow fletchings. No… no no no no no! ”Ronin!” she cried out, forcing herself to stand and stumble forward, her sword all but forgotten where it stuck in the ground, as if to signal their victory on the field. Tears, unbidden, streamed down her eyes as she forced herself to walk. Why? Why was she walking, why was she here?! Her feet brought her up next to Remi, next to Ashetta, her expression the definition of guilt-ridden remorse. ”It was supposed to be me…” she said hoarsely, but with great surety. She didn’t need to guess it. She didn’t say it for comfort or for vanity. When she had hugged her boys that day she had done so knowing it would be the last, knowing that come that night they would be orphans and accepting that. She had come to death’s door so many times over the years; it was her time. And yet here she stood, limbs trembling, lungs aching, tattered and torn but still whole enough to continue forward. But Ronin ”I am so sorry, my friend. What can I do?” she said, hardly above a whisper. What assurance could she give a dying man, one who died undeserving of his fate while she still lived for some purpose some reason that she did not understand and knowing she deserved to die while he lived on.