There was a rap on the door, and she called for them to come in, not even looking up from her files. "What do you want?" Gaia growled irritably at the soldier who had come in. He seemed nervous, which meant bad news was to follow.
"General Gaia," he said gruffly, shifting his weight. "I'm afraid I must inform you that the head of the soldiers was murdered last night in his tent." The general's head whipped upwards in surprise, her eyes widening. If the messenger had looked nervous before, he was petrified now.
"What?" She exclaimed, blinking.
"He was stabbed through the chest with his own knife while he slept." The messenger clarified, shifting from one foot to the other. Gaia thought about it for a moment. Her head soldier hadn't been a heavy sleeper, so whoever had done it must have been light footed, quick. Able to get past the night watch with ease. It could have been a moonblood, they were always quick on their feet. Then again, a moonblood could never traverse the land towards the warmblood camps without setting off some sort of alarm, and that didn't solve the problem of how they managed to get into his tent in the first place. The only people capable of such a thing were her own trained assassins, and she'd given them no such orders. None of them had questionable loyalties, either. She’d made sure of it.
"Didn't he have an apprentice?" Gaia asked suddenly, receiving a nod in return. This could prove to be interesting. "Fetch her."
The soldier nodded and left, leaving the general alone.
Around half an hour later, a small, black-furred warmblood girl was practically dragged into the room, baring her teeth. "Let me go!" She spat, pulling on the arm the soldier had in a death grip. "You've got the wrong apprentice!" Gaia was confused and quite alarmed, as what was to be expected by such a violent interruption of her thoughts.
"Soldier!" Gaia snapped. "Release the child!"
With a pained expression, he obliged, and the apprentice tugged her arm back, glaring at him, before turning her dagger like eyes towards the general.
"I'm not a child." She practically spit, and the general's eyebrows flew upwards. Her head soldier's apprentice had some guts, addressing the head of the army like that. She could be severely punished for such a blatant disregard of authority. Though… Gaia recognized the child. After all, there were only a few girls in the camp, and she was likely the only one that had gained the title of apprentice. Cassandra, her name was. She’d wandered into the camp a few years after her parents were killed in a freak accident involving a fire. She’d been an aggressive, but timid and uncertain little girl back then. Now, it was if her entire personality had been swapped.
"Leave us." Gaia said, waving a dismissive hand towards the guard. He obliged without a word, heading towards the door and visibly relaxing. Obviously, his captive had given him a hard time while she was being transported over to the tent. Cassandra folded her arms and looked away from the general, scowling, which only supported the idea.
"I didn't do it." She muttered, still not making eye contact with her superior.
"Didn't do what?" Gaia acted as if she hadn't utterly undermined her authority with the informal way she spoke, simply raising an amused eyebrow.There was something definitely wrong here, and she had a sneaky suspicion she knew what this was about.
"Didn't kill him." Cassandra clarified.
Gaia shook her head, any doubts that Cassandra had, in fact, killed her sensei were gone. It was written all across the girl's face. But how and why had she done it? “No, I wasn’t going to ask if you killed my captain. You can’t honestly expect me to believe you did.” The general said, standing smoothly from her desk. The girl didn’t look at her, simply folding her arms and staring pointedly towards the wall. “You’re too small.” Gaia continued. “Weak. You’d never have been able to do something like that in cold blood.” Cassandra’s eyes narrowed, and she glared at Gaia with contempt. The general knew that she’d hit a button.
“I could have done it.” Cassandra growled under her breath, her ears backwards and her tail flicking once in irritation. She folded her arms, crinkling her nose in contempt.
“Oh? You could have?” Gaia said, suddenly very interested, walking out from behind her desk to stand in front of the miniature soldier. “Enlighten me as to how.”
Refusing to meet eyes with the General, the girl began to speak, her words slow and careful as she tried not to give herself away-- which only made it more obvious that she had, in fact, killed him. “He sleeps in a tent just in front of mine. The guards only go around the tents, not between them, so it’d be easy to sneak underneath the fabric in the back of his quarters.” She hesitated for a moment and the general urged her on.
“Oh, but apprentices aren’t allowed to have weapons in their tents.” Gaia said passively. “You couldn’t have possibly managed to sneak one into yours.”
“No, I didn’t need to.” She agreed, gaining more confidence in her story. “Sensei kept a knife underneath his pillow. With a small hand like mine, sliding it out would be easy. Then all that’s left is one clean stab to the chest and he’s done for.” There was a fire in Cassandra’s eyes, one that the general liked seeing.
"My captain was not a heavy sleeper. He would have heard you come in." Gaia countered, and the girl just rolled her eyes.
"The fool was arrogant; too lazy to fetch his own food. He makes me get it. A little bit of sleeping aid slipped into his water would prevent him from waking so easily."
“What makes you so sure that you could do it?” Gaia asked, sitting down on top of her desk and folding her arms. “You’ve explained how. But why? Why did my head soldier deserve to die?”
“You don’t know everything about that bloody scumbag of a captain.” Cassandra spat, and Gaia was once again taken aback by the passion that lay in her voice. “I don’t care which side he was fighting for, he deserved every second of that painful end. I was so sick of him beating me senseless...I thought it was time he knew what that felt like.”
The general nodded slowly, her hand on her chin. She was a little disappointed. If Cassandra had killed her master simply for that, then she was dangerous and had no place in the army. “So, you killed him because you lost.” She said, but the former apprentice just shook her head slowly.
“No, I killed him because that was the only way to win.”
Gaia smiled, and Cassandra’s ears lowered back down as she realized what she’d just said, but she was too stubborn to take it back. The general stood up straight and walked back behind her desk, sitting down with a small thud. “That settles it.” She said simply, stacking her papers back up and setting them to the side. “Cassandra, because of your actions, I’ve got no choice but to act in a disciplinary manner as the head of the warmblood army.”
Cassandra stayed silent, scowling at the floor. Gaia just continued.
“I’m giving you a choice. Since this ...incident can be accepted as nothing short of treason, usually, the punishment would be execution.” The smaller warmblood’s eyes widen, and her head whipped upwards in protest, but the general stopped her, holding up her hand. “But, as an alternative to losing your head, you will be enrolled in my assassins’ special training, and strive to become one of my personal tools.”
Was that a smile, that grazed the child’s lips? It only lasted for a moment, so there was no way to be sure.. “I would be honored to serve as an assassin under you, general.” Cassandra nodded confidently, her tail swishing once or twice. The general smirked.
“I’m glad we could meet a compromise.” There was a pause, before Gaia eventually shrugged and picked up a quill, dipping it in a bowl of ink and beginning to write on the parchment in front of her. “And if it’s any consolation, I’m sure he deserved every second of it as well.”
