Previous"Suha!" Gezaru spots Suha pacing by the side of tent.
"Sir." He stands straight, looking up and to the side, as he was trained. Gezaru's face falls.
"At ease." Then he shuffles off and Suha enters the tent. He does not go to Eve at first, though Eve'e eyes cannot help but go to him. He meets hands with some of the other wounded, makes some small talk. Eve cannot understand it but she grows frustrated by this. When at last, he does come over to her, she pretends to sleep out of a bizarre anger. He sits down. She continues her pretense, her anger confusing even herself.
"I wonder what you were chatting with Gezaru about." Suha speaks to himself. "...why did he want to know your name?" Eve's heart arrests on a beat. She almost chokes and lets out a little cough. Suha muses for a while then leaves Eve to rest. You follow him. He walks over to Gezaru's tent. Others pay him no mind, for a soldier is allowed to have an audience with a superior once in a while. He asks permission to enter. Gezaru does not recognize his voice from inside the tent, but allows him to enter anyway.
"Ah Suha. Is something wrong?" Gezaru's room is littered with the same maps you saw before. You note that they have been marked with another hand.
"No. Not exactly. I wanted to ask you something. Sir."
"Certainly. Please." He points to a lone chair empty of paper. Suha drags the chair to the middle of the tent and sits down. "What do you need?"
"Who is Abel?" Color drains from Gezaru's face like blood from a gutted calf.
"W-what?"
"Abel. I saw you speaking to him. Who is he exactly?"
"He's-well-you know-he's our scout leader. You know that." Gezaru begins to sweat.
"No. No because I heard you ask him, 'what is your name'. So he's someone else. Is he from a high family or something?"
"No. Well-I don't-maybe. I don't know." Suha suddenly stands and begins pacing the room. "Look, Suha, I can't-" He holds up one large hand and Gezaru is silent. He sits back down.
"There is something strange about him. Isn't there? The way he looks. Just- the way he walks. Even the way he smells. Its different." Suha grasps his head.
"What are you saying Suha. He's a soldier. Like us." For an instant, for slice of a second, you can see a boiling anger in Suha's eyes. It bursts out when Gezaru says 'us'. Then, as quickly as it comes, it leaves.
"Why won't you tell me Gezaru? You owe me this much." Gezaru hangs his head. Then he looks back up, no longer uncertain or nervous. And in his eyes you can see the spark of his forefathers smoldering, and you know the name of Madu is not lost on him.
"I promised him. He alone can tell you. Not I." Suha, realizing he has been beaten, gets up, salutes and leaves. Gezaru goes back to his maps with renewed vigor, writing furiously on the margins.
Suha decides to wait until nightfall to confront Eve. The night comes. Suha walks to the medical tent. Eve is not there. As she had predicted, her wounds have recovered enough for her to move about and she has gone into the woods to hunt. Suha asks a medic for Eve's whereabouts and he tells him something similar. He rushes off to the barracks, puts on his boots and helmet and spear. Then runs into the woods. You move ahead to Eve, who has already captured a owl and is building a fire. When the sacrifice is over, you leave the single strand of flame-red hair amid the ashes. She finds it, and restrings her bow with it. It is nearly dawn, but Eve, finally, free of the watching eyes of the soldiers, decides to bathe in a nearby pool before returning. She undresses and slips into the cool water.
It is then, that Suha, following Eve's trail the whole night, finds her. Faint light trickles through the leaves but there is no mistaking what Suha sees. He falls to his knees.
"You're a woman!?" Eve, surprised, dives below the water. She watches horrified as Suha stands over the bank looking directly at her -beneath the water. Then modesty overcomes him and he hides his eyes. Eve resurfaces.
"Suha! What're you doing here?" The pallet of emotions is too mixed for either to speak. Suha does not come out from his place behind the trees.
"I-you-I" Surprise gives way to embarrassment and they both blush. Eve with almost her whole body. She quickly comes out of the water, dries herself as fast as she can and puts on her clothes. Then she begins to moves toward Suha, but hesitates and remains planted where she is.
"Are you decent?"
"Uh. Yes." She blushes again. Suha comes out from the trees, looking intently at the ground.
"You're a woman?" She nods. Then seeing that Suha does not look at her, she says "Yes." Suha laughs and nods.
"I should've known. In fact I think some part of me knew all along." She waits. He waits.
"What now?"
"Now?" He sighs. "Well. You know what the punishment is for your crime." He spins his spear upright and looks up at Eve. His face is locked in a grimace of grief and pain. "Death."
WDYD?
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