Delta - 16.2

It had been a very long time since Harry had seen her mother and this wasn't really how she had pictured it in her mind. She thought maybe her mother would have said something with some real feeling, rather than just the fake shock that their gallant soldier had survived the war. Wasn't really anything that she had been looking forward to. Or dreamed about as a young girl far away on another planet.

And then the question came, with the remembrance that Harry was far from the favorite. Among all of the brothers and sisters she knew that she had, she was the eldest, set to inherit the crown if she wanted it. But when she had been sent away with the baby, there were ten other children vying for the spot and obviously the ‘baby’ was always the favorite. And obviously she was never around enough to have such a position.

"Where's your sister?"

Harry looked back and forth between her mother and her aunt, trying to decide on the proper response and then remembering she didn't give one anymore.

"She didn't make it along for the ride."
"But she is going to make it?"
"No, she is not, Mother. Because she didn't want to come back here and frankly neither did I, but your army was willing to pay me a lot of money."

She saw the fake shock that rose in her mother's eyes, or possible real shock, but she couldn't really tell with this person. If she was remembering correctly from the last time they met, Harry was told that she wouldn't be sent away to some far off, end of the world colony. It was going to be a nice, safe place to live out the war.

"You have no right to talk to me like that. You are a citizen of this kingdom."

Not anymore, bitch. The singular curse ran back and forth through Harry’s mind, trying to decide if she wanted to speak it aloud or if it would just be dismissed. Just like her.

"I have spent enough time away from this land that I doubt I qualify as a citizen of Tanis. Glorified protector of the traditions or not." fair point, she left at the age of ten
"Just because you are a member of the prophecy, does not mean you can cut yourself out of your duties to our life."

Harry's shoulders got very heavy for a singular moment and she wondered why she came back all of this way just to be belittled.

"Mother, I do hope you know I could have gone anywhere in the galaxy if I wanted someone to yell at me. And yet I came here to your throne room because you asked me to come back and protect these lands. Now that your people have torched the soil, left it barren from the bombs they threw in the air, and then expect the rest of us to clean up the mess."

She really didn't mean to sound that political, but the words just ran out of her mouth. This had not been her war but, yet she had been brought here to fix it, to clean up the whole goddamn thing because they couldn’t manage.

Evidently.

"Yes, we have asked you back to serve in your role that was predicted long ago. And of course, much has changed since the last time you served. For instance, how do we know that you're still so powerful?"

Harry looked down at her own gloved hands, with the small horns peeking out around the edges of her wrist. She remembered the day the leather bits had been given to her, out of the fear that she might hurt someone along the way, and “Oh we couldn’t have that happening.” They ached from the cold wind that blew through the palace, but she felt them slowly coming alive when she noticed the small pools of water that bubbled up from the springs in the floor.

"You wish to see the power that I have retained? In all of my years away and not in the presence of your own version of training? I have been training with an army, Mother, but they're certainly not a one you would approve of."

The glove slipped off her hands as if there were magnetics in the fingertips being pulled back to the roots in the floor. Harry extended a hand to either of her sides, pointing them vaguely in the directions of the pools of water on the floor, while tapping her foot and humming a tune. It wasn't the traditional song that she was supposed to sing but after being shipped around in an earth tin can, 20th century earthen rock music had become her tune of war.

Water jets bubbled all throughout the pavers in the floor, rising up into the air and joining in one large cloud shortly above her head. She saw the others in the room glance wearily at the form, obviously questioning whether or not she had the ability to keep it raised. The doubt was practically dancing across the front of their minds.

"You don't mess around with, Jim."

For one singular moment, Harry considered stepping away. Or worse, she considered ripping her mother's head off with a single stream of water. Going straight through her ear would probably do the trick. She had done it before to the soldiers back in Raedl.

But this was her duty.

The words ran back through her mind as her arms crossed over her chest, fists now closed as she was preparing to blow out every window in the joint. Her arms went out quickly, a short delay in damage caused a ring of laughter in the halls, and then all she could hear were the screams of the people in the village below. Glass lay in out of the room, windows all gone along with the makeshift shutters that had been laid in place to protect them.

A second chorus of laughter came up from the throne section, along with a not so sarcastic round of applause. All others in the hall seemed impressed, while still worried about the amount of damage done in the room.

"Very good, Ehrietta. But perhaps you can still do better."

Harry expected the words to come from her mother, but they came from a voice far back in the hall, in the shape of a dark crimson cloak that slowly approached the bench with folded hands.

"Bahtaa."

Now Harry willingly took someone in her arms, stopping the general before they could make it up the path entirely. Here was one person that she had missed along the way. Perhaps she had done a lot of work with the different armies she had encountered in Raedl but there was no one like Bahtaa to teach her how to fight. Even while their blessings differed, they were still the one person who managed to bring her to some realm of control.

The form loosely made of crimson robes remained at arm's length while asking, "Shall I fetch you a set of robes from the wardrobes and perhaps weaponry to suit you properly from the armory?"

Harry gently patted against her hip and thigh where the two guns rested. She knew of the traditional weapons that she would be expected to use, and even though she wished to use her own, tradition was tradition.

"Perhaps the robes for tomorrow dear fellow. I am far from the size and shape that you require of your warriors."
"So you are being fed now?"
"Yes. Yes, I am."

There came a call from the other end of the hall, more like an unpleasant cough that was dissatisfied with the amount of time they had spent in the hall. Bahtaa looked between the far end where the thrones sat and the place where they now stood with Harry. She saw the life drain from their face but, yet they continued up the carpet, stepping over the limbs of the trees and shards of glass that came in the way.

"You wished for my presence your majesty? Perhaps for the return of our long-lost comrade."
"If you mean the princess, then yes. I did not believe she was still a member of your knight's court or ever was though, Bahtaa."
"Perhaps not officially but she is the greatest soldier we have ever known, no matter her age or how long she has been away from our care."

Harry was reminded of how there were a few people she had left behind, just a few people that kept her guilt where it remained deep within her heart. They were the ones who brought her back and Bahtaa was one of the ones who kept her ambitions in line. It was true she wasn't in the best form as other soldiers were required to be, but she still was looking forward to the thought of new robes.

Now that she was back and official...

She tried to keep herself from glancing over their thoughts, with the initial conversation being too far away to hear, but soon there was an exclamation, a clamor and Bahtaa walked down the row. They collected their arm around Harry's and drug her out into the corridor, giving her no time to answer the calls of the royal court.

"Bahtaa, what was the point of that? Surely there was more for discussion."
"No. There's absolutely no need for you to be back in there after all the time you took to escape from it. Let's go down to the wardrobe department and see about getting you a proper set of fighting robes. And maybe others-"
"Bahtaa, I don't know how long I'm going to stick around and I don't care much for dresses."
"Even still we can get you suits and good cloaks. Look at the tatters you wear and even no whip or sword. Just these odd little pistols."