The first murder Lillian had ever been a part of, was at the hands of her grandmother. The man was bed ridden, a farming accident had mangled his leg and gangrene had set it. Her village had run out of pain medication, and there was no way to save him at that point. She watched her grandmother paint a black star on the mans forehead before putting a pillow over his face. He struggled, he was weak but so was her grandmother, so she help, she took the other side of the pillow and pushed down, until the man stopped struggling.
Her grandmother wiped away the paint before informing the family of his passing. Lillian asked later what the star was for.
"It's a pray for guidance from our god." She said.
"Rell?"
"Rell is your mothers god, your fathers god, god of your brothers and sisters. But not my god, or yours."
Lillian did not know at that time how dangerous those word were. "Then who is our god?"
Her grandmother told her the name, but it meant nothing to her.
Lillian often thought back to this memory in times of discomfort, it had a soothing effect on her mind, clearing it.
Lillian knew that she was in an awful position. She knew it when she sang the song, she knew it more when she was dug out of the rubble and saw the drones. The hundreds of drones, all gathered around and more still coming.
The local knights had arrived to try and take back control of the drones, some of them were eyeing her greedily. Lillian had already let go of control over the drones, calling them was already to much, but controlling them without the help of a warlord would raise questions she did not know the answers too. She was in enough trouble as it was.
Her family and herself had been invited to stay in the manor of the closest knight. She could tell that he was already trying to make a claim over her. She saw him arguing with the other knights of Apash, getting them to leave.
She found herself in the back of a hay wagon, pulled by a couple of her families oxen. Surrounding the wagon were a number of infantry drones, massive, silent, and ominous with their rectangular box heads.
Lillian lay back down to watch the clouds and considered her options. The real problem with not really feeling anything, was that it made it very hard to make decisions.
It's hard to know what to do, when you do not really want anything. Every choice she has ever made has been aimed at either minimising pain, or to follow in the footsteps of her grandmother. Even that choice was something she did because it was something she had always done.
But that path was gone now, and even if she did not know what she wanted. She could always fall back on survival.
She could try to run, but she knew that she would not make it very fair. She would not be able to hide from the drones and she had no where to go. And while she had spent her entire life in a small village in the wilds, even if she did manage to escape - she did not believe that she could survive a winter in the forest by herself.
She could try to fight, sing the songs and take control of the drones. But outside of her grandmother teaching her how to hide it, she did not know anything about her curse. She barely knew anything about the drones or the Warlords, other than she seemed to be able to vaguely sense them.
The last and most distasteful option she had, was to fall back onto her looks. Lillian was beautiful and she knew it, her mother always tried to dress her up, fix her hair. But until now she kept her hair ugly and hanging in front of her face. She had always found her looks to be more of an annoyance than anything useful, often attracting the type of attention she did not want.
But there were rumors about what happened to common folk that showed signs of the curse. None of them good. So maybe this was it, try and become a consort or wife of a knight powerful enough to keep her safe. The idea made her skin crawl but what else could she do.
One of the infantry escorting her wagon angled its box head towards her, and then Lillian felt something, a message being sent. She had never been this close to the machines before, but there was a certain cold comfort to them. With her minds eye she followed the message. It didn't go far, and shortly after a Warlord came up to the back of her wagon.
It was humanoid in shape, and looked to be bulky and well armored. It dwarfed her wagon and blocked out the sun. There was a hissing sound followed by a clunk and the hatch on the machine opened exposing the Knight within. The Warlord kept pace with the wagon as the knight addressed her.
"You there girl. Tell me how you called all the drones too you? Both ours and the enemies?"
"Sire" My mother spoke up from the front of the wagon. "She was gravely wounded I don't know if..."
"Quiet serf." The Knight snapped back, bringing his attention back to me.
I weakly respond. "Sire, I'm afraid I do not know." She wasn't lying, even thinking back she could not recall what song she sang. Lillian did not even know how she opened her chained minds eye. It all happened because of her secret self, the side of her that has feelings, the side of her that made decisions that she normally never would.
The knight stared her down, but she felt his Warlord do... something. Which made him seem to change tact.
"Okay, girl. I believe you. You and your family will be staying with my family for a while. Your families farm was destroyed in the attack. So in my great charity I will be taking you in until your farm is back on its feet."
With that the hatch to his Warlord closed, it slowly stomped away from the wagon. Lillian took stock. The knight addressed her, not her father? He was hosting her whole family, which thinking about it was strange in itself. The easiest thing to do would be to wipe out the whole village and just take her captive. Something was wrong here, either there were too many people watching, and appearances had to be kept up. Or maybe they were afraid.
Lillian lay in the wagon and watched the clouds. Her father couldn't look at her and her mother sobbed quietly.
She should of let her brother die.