10 years earlier...
"Psst, Sasha, are you awake?"
Sasha groans, but does not open her eyes. She knows who's voice is calling out to her. "I am, now."
Sasha hears the creaks and shuffles of a military cot being shuffled towards her. There's a soft "oof" and a weight pressing down beside her. Sasha opens her eyes to find Ioh Graylock's golden eyes gleaming happily back at her, despite the ungodly hour.
The girl giggles and scoots closer, whispering terribly and barely managing to not poke Sasha in the eye with her horns. "I heard a rumor: is it true?"
"Is what true?" Sasha grumbles, but still throws an arm over Ioh's side to bring her closer: the flimsy blanket and thin coat do nothing to provide her warmth. She feels Ioh shift even closer, her breath hot against Sasha's face as the medic-in-training starts to whisper rapidly. "Okay, so I heard from Z, who heard from Cal--or maybe it was Cal who told Z, who told me that you KISSED Priya behind the kitchens?! Is it true, did you really kiss her?"
Sasha laughs softly at Ioh's scandalous tone. Priya Everhart is a pretty girl that has flirted with Sasha a handful of moments during shared down time. Sasha had always been polite, but never actually flirted back until recently, a certain brunette's face always flickering in the back of her mind preventing her from doing so.
Her hesitations fell away, however, when she saw said brunette making out with Thane Zadeck behind the barracks earlier that day.
Hot off a jealous streak and fresh stinging heartache, Sasha found Priya working KP duty that same day and brought her A Game. Sasha had with Priya in front of the whole mess hall. Hard. Priya, naturally, had flirted back. An hour later, the two were furiously making out behind the kitchens. They were about as subtle as two 18 year olds with no inhibitions could be. It really shouldn't be a surprise that word had spread as quickly as it did. This was the military: there was no such thing as privacy here.
Still, Sasha is surprised that Priya is the one bragging about it to everyone. Or at least, that's according to the rumors she's heard from.
Sasha shrugs. She peaks out from underneath her eyelashes to see Ioh's eager expression, waiting for her response. "Well, I mean, you know I don't like to kiss and tell."
Ioh gasps dramatically, clutching her non-existent pearls at Sasha's confirmation. "Why didn't you tell me?!" She whispers furiously, mock outrage thick in her voice in the way sleep should be instead.
Sasha chuckles, "Well, I may not be a knight, but I like to think I have some ounce of chivalry within me. I don't kiss and tell." She cracks open an eye and sticks out her tongue: "Not even to my best friends." Ioh drops her jaw in mock outrage before the two start giggling again at their shared sillyness when--
"Will you two please keep it down?"
Sasha doesn't need dark vision to know that Noa Montoya is sitting up right in her shitty little cot and glaring at the both of them right now. But Noa does have dark vision. Which is why Sasha doesn't turn around and flips the wannabe drill Sargent the bird over her shoulder. Ioh has to clasp a hand over her mouth to stop herself from really laughing and waking up the whole barracks.
Noa, the brave soldier that she is (or at least WILL be) ignores Sasha's rude gesture and continues on: "Some of us are trying to sleep. We have to up again in a few hours for training!"
Ioh snorts and Sasha brings her hand to the back of Ioh's bonnet so that she can bury her face into Sasha's shoulder to help conceal her laughter. Any louder and then they'll really risk waking the entire barracks with their nonsense.
"Of course, Noa." Sasha's careful to keep her tone light and lofty in a way she just knows Noa despises. "So why don't you do us all a favor and set a shining example for us by going back to bed yourself?"
She expects that will be the end of it. That Noa will huff, roll over her in these jokes the GRAN calls "beds," and will try to willpower herself to sleep. But she doesn't. Instead Noa huffs, "fine," and drags her cot closer to Sasha's. Sasha can't see anything, but she can feel Noa fluff her pillow as she settles back down into her cot, back facing them and doesn't say a word to either Sasha or Ioh again.
Well. That won't do.
Sasha grabs the back of Noa's sleep shirt and yanks the half-elf towards her. To her credit, Noa's yelp is tiny and doesn't seem to wake anyone else in the barracks except for them. Sasha rolls Noa over to be in her cot along with Ioh and makes her serious friend face her. Sasha's arms are on either side of her friends and she pulls them closer, effectively squishing herself and making the warm Sasha Sandwich she desperately needs right now. Ioh stifles her giggles into Sasha's shoulder and it's all Sasha can do to not snort as well. The three lay there, in silence for a beat, then two, then--
"You guys suck."
Ioh and Sasha burst into snickers at Noa's indignation, shaking the shared cot and certainly in danger of waking someone else by now. Noa playfully wacks Sasha and Ioh in retaliation. "But really," Noa starts, "we really should--"
"Oh Sasha!" Ioh's excitement steamrolls directly over Noa's would-be lecture, "I heard another rumor!"
Sasha can't help but smile. She can feel Noa's annoyance radiating off her, alongside the warmth that Sasha gladly takes underneath their collective covers. She turns her head to Ioh and laughs, "You little chismosa! Alright, one last rumor and then we go to sleep."
The compromise appeases Noa: Sasha feels her settle into Sasha's side. Ioh props herself up on her forearms to actually look at Sasha as she shares this presumably juicy piece of gossip. (Dark vision should be considered cheating when you're the only human in the friend group.)
"I heard a rumor that your sister was hand picked for a secret mission. Is that true?"
Sasha's smile slides off her face the moment "sister" leaves Ioh's mouth. The joy in her heart dampens with each syllable slipping of Ioh's tongue. Her sister. Her sister.
Sasha hasn't thought about her two older sisters in a long, long time.
The military may not be anyone's idea of "freedom," but to Sasha it is. Here, the light of Pelor doesn't matter: the name "Lucero" holds no sway like it does in Tizoc. Here, only your acts and feats of bravery matter, not how much the gods have blessed you or how holy you are supposed to be. Family status is still a thing-- the Chavez family and their long line of military history is proof of that-- but being part of the Grand Royal Army of Nastrea to Sasha means that she is finally free of the suffocating name that is "Lucero."
Being a Lucero means being a hypocrite, anyways.
Noa sits up to look at Sasha, sensing the drop in her mood. Sasha can feel Ioh continuing to stare at her, waiting for an answer. (Again, dark vision is totally cheating.)
"Ioh, do me a favor." Sasha's voice is soft and thick with vulnerability she wishes wasn't there when talking about her family. "Never talk about my sisters or my family again."
Ioh's voice is as gentle as an altar bell at church, "Of course." Sasha knows her promise to be true.
The two settle back down into the crooks of Sasha's shoulders: she towers over both of them, over most of her peers. The barracks manager had to give her an extra large cot normally reserved for the boys just so she can fit. And she does. But Ioh and Noa love to take up whatever room is left over on her cot as a result. This sleeping position, the Sasha Sandwich, is one that actually happens more often than not. The gossip and scolding are just an excuse to get here. Sasha can't say she minds: she hates being alone. She's spent way too long being alone, anyways. It feels good. Like she's making up for lost time.
Ioh and Noa continue to bicker over the merits of gossip and if you can call people ugly or not. Sasha guffaws at the last comment Ioh makes. "Oh you can definitely call my sisters ugly! They are anyways."
Sasha doesn't actually know if that is true or not. She hasn't seen them in three years. They haven't tried to contact her. But that doesn't matter, Sasha thinks, bitterness settling in the back of her tongue. I don't need them anyways. I've outgrown those jerks.
Besides, Sasha shares, if her two older sisters were suddenly cursed for their personalities start to reflect appearance, then it is absolutely true.
"See!" Ioh squeaks triumphantly. She reaches an arm over Sasha and playfully wakes Noa on the arm. Another reason to be grateful for the military: they train their soldiers to sleep like the dead whenever, and wherever. It's the only reason the three of them haven't woken anyone else by now.
Sasha laughs at Noa's sharp whisper scolding. "Well, she can say it about my sister's, at least. They suck."
The three continue to indulge in whispers, giggles and antics for the rest of the night before a deeps sleep finally takes them: somehow too late, given how long they were at it... but in the back of Sasha's mind, she can't help but feel like they were taken too soon, as well.
I may outgrow my family, she thinks, sinking into that familiar darkness, but I'll never outgrow my friends.












