Burgundy Rose, Chapter 1

                "I trust you've brought me news." Questioned the woman who stood in an arched window, watching the flight path of planes in the distance. The last rays of daylight trickled in, illuminating the carved stone walls around her.
                A stout man with grey-tinged hair walked cautiously forward, like a fly caught in a spider’s web.
                "Your excellency, our patrols on the borders have reported three more altercations with the enemy." He stated nervously.
                "And let me guess who is responsible for this..." The woman replied as she tilted her head sideways and glanced again out the window.
                "The Roses, ma'am. And the others who fly with them..." The man replied. His hands absentmindedly toyed with the bottom of his waistcoat as he continued. "Our pilots try to keep up with them, but they're too fast. They've changed the way the engines run, we don't know what they've done to them, we just can't keep up..." He trailed off again, waiting for the woman to respond.
                "They're getting closer to our border." She finally spoke softly, more to herself than to the man. The woman walked over to a wooden table and grabbed a pitcher of water. Her hand held it above a goblet as she poured carefully, not spilling a drop.
                "Our pilots are awaiting your decision ma'am," the aged man stated delicately. "They are ready to fly at a moment’s notice. What are your orders?"
                The woman clasped her slender fingers around the goblet and took a drink. She stared thoughtfully at the sunlight dancing upon the wall, then turned to face the man.
                "The Roses have been a thorn in our side for far too long." She replied at last. She took a drink again, and her face suddenly grew sullen and dark. "Kill them." She stated without a glimmer of remorse. "Kill every one of them. But most of all...kill Burgundy Rose. She's the one responsible for all this..."
                The woman looked out the window again as the man nodded to her, and left the room with her orders.


Three years earlier...

                The little girl stood on the edge of the roof, wondering if she should jump. Two stories below her was the front lawn, carpeted by neatly mowed grass. Her mom would come back outside soon, and if she caught Alis on the roof again, she'd come unglued just like last time. Alis stretched her arms out to her sides and felt the wind ruffle the bedsheet she had tied to each of her small wrists. The breeze caused her brown hair to dance around her neck, as if it were swaying to some unheard music. The little girl closed her eyes, leaned forward, and felt the weightlessness of the air surround her.
                "I'm flying!" She thought to herself as she smiled and stretched her fingertips as wide as she could. Alis felt entirely free, the way an eagle must feel when it catches an unseen updraft and is carried for miles. The girl thought she could feel the updraft as the breeze flowed past her fingers. But within that same instant, the girl snapped open her eyes as she rotated upside down and started to scream.
                Alis didn't feel any pain as her body landed on the lawn, but she heard a muffled crack. The little girl felt hot blood running down her face, and watched as the blood stained her bed sheet, still tied to her wrist. "Alis!" Came a scream that sounded vaguely familiar, as the girl watched a blurry figure get larger and larger...

                "Alis!" Came the yell again. The girl jumped and looked around her, startled from her old memory. "Uh, hello? Where'd you go just then?" A girl with dark brown hair inquired.
                "I...I was just thinking about when I was younger, when I fell off the roof." The girl identified as Alis answered. The second girl turned to make eye contact with Alis, and smiled crookedly.
                "You mean when you jumped off the roof?" She asked knowingly, raising one eyebrow.
                "Come on Evangie, it was an accident." Replied Alis as she started walking. The second girl followed closely behind her.
                "You told me you wanted to fly, I remember." She replied. "There was nothing accidental about it. You said you wanted to fly, just like your brother...." The girl's rambling was cut short by Alis, who had stopped in the middle of the room, and was now looking up.
                "Is that what I think it is?" Asked Evangie. Above them rose a ceiling made of glass that stretched high into the sky before coming together in a sharp point. Under the needle-like roof hung a jet, with wings as dark and sooty as a winter raven.
                "It is..." Replied Alis as she walked forward, still transfixed on the jet. Her gaze was interrupted by the drawling voice of a middle aged woman with black hair, addressing a group of young men and women.
                "So you see, when Blue Oak flew the Ragnarok on his final mission, he changed the course of history for all of us." She said as she gestured to the jet. The girls could make out the name of the plane "Ragnarok" carefully painted on the fuselage of the jet, with the image of a raven in flight behind it. The girls continued to listen to the woman. "Blue Oak was essentially responsible for the turn of the war, and for bringing peace and stability to our people. As such, we have officially retired his name forever. There will never be another "Blue", out of respect for our greatest patriot." The woman answered questions with a proud look on her face, though she had a no nonsense demeanor about her. "Any questions before we move on?" She asked the group of cadets. "You, with the short hair." The woman pointed to a girl who held her arm in the air excitedly.
                "Ma'am, do we ever get to...pick our new names?" The girl with the short hair asked apprehensively. A few cadets around her chuckled at the question.
                "Come now everyone," the woman said in a scolding manner to those laughing. "Everyone has questions when they come to the academy. Some Youth Camps do a good job of filling you young people in regarding your future..." She looked at the young girl who had asked the question. "...and some not so much. Either way, to answer you my child, no, you do not get to choose your new name. At the end of the eight months that you'll be here at the academy, those of you who move forward will partake in the Naming Ceremony. You'll all be assigned a color which will serve as your new name. Then for the ladies you'll get a flower, and the young men will be assigned a tree, and that, my young cadets, is how you'll receive your new name, and your place in society. Now...any more questions?" The girl who asked the question looked down at her feet, and no one else dared ask a question, in fear that it might be something they were already supposed to know. "In that case, it's time to meet some of your Instructors. This way please!"
                The group of young men and women filed out of the glass corridor and into an open air hanger. Evangie and Alis watched as more and more groups of young cadets just like themselves filed in from each direction.
                "Keep coming, keep coming." Invited a red haired woman as she beckoned everyone into the middle of the hanger. She stood atop a small stage, and waved her arms to the young people around her. Her curly red hair flowed around her face like fire, and made her stand out amongst the crowd. "There's a lot of you, so you'll have to squeeze in nice and close!" She shouted as she smiled and laughed, talking to a few cadets that were closest to her. Other men and women wearing the uniforms of academy instructors joined her on the small stage, and they joked and laughed with each other as they watched their new recruits anxiously gather around them.
                "Ooooh, too bad we don't get to choose who we get..." Said Evie as she bit her lower lip and peered at the male instructors.
                "Evie!" Scolded Alis as she smiled and elbowed her friend. "You have to at least try and be serious."
                "This is me, being serious." Evie replied as she made a funny face at her friend. Alis just laughed back at her, and watched people walk past them. All the cadets had now gathered in the hanger, and the red haired woman motioned to the instructors to be quiet.
                "Hello again." She began with a bright smile and a nod of her head. The crowd murmured a hello back to her as she continued. "My name is Vermilion Azalea, and you'll be seeing a lot of me over the next six months. Um...Vermilion is a mouthful, so you can just call me Milly if you see me in the mess hall." The crowd chuckled as she flashed another big and sincere smile. She began walking back and forth across the stage as she continued.        
                "Some of you might take to the skies, while others of you might stay firmly planted on the earth. Either way, we owe a large part of our freedom and independence to the brave men and women who have flown the skies before us, and kept us safe from tyranny and oppression. Some of you might have met our brave pilots before, and maybe some of you have even lost a friend or family member in battle." Evie looked at her friend Alis, who averted her eyes from watching Milly, and looked down at the floor. After a brief pause, Milly continued.
                "It is in their honor that we start every tour for our new recruits here at Saren Station. You have all turned 18 this year, which means you are ready to take your place in society. Now some of what is to come might be easy, and some of it might be difficult, but never fear, you don't have to do it alone! Behind me I'd like to introduce you to the best instructors in our program." The crowd applauded as Milly briefly introduced the twenty instructors.
                "Now then..." She continued as she clasped her hands together. "Don't worry if you can't remember all their names yet, you'll only have to remember your own instructor, whom you'll get to meet in the morning. Until then, enjoy the rest of the tour, get checked into your new room, and get some rest tonight. You're going to have a busy road ahead of you!" The short woman gestured into the air with her hands and smiled again. She gave some general directions of where the tour would head next, as the crowd broke up and the girls walked around the hanger to explore.
                "I wonder if she's always so happy." Joked Evangie.
                "Maybe she really, really likes her job." Alis replied with a grin.
                "Hey, is that Sanno from my old town?" Evangie asked as she squinted her eyes and peered at a group on the other side of the hanger.
                "Who?" Asked Alis, but Evangie had already started walking away.
                "I have to go say hi, I haven't seen him since I was like 8! I'll be right back Alis!" Alis's energetic friend ducked her head and wove her small body between groups of people until she was out of sight. Alis just smiled and looked around at the hanger, waiting for her friend to come back. Most people were headed into a set of doors entering another building, so Alis slowly made her way in that direction.
                Now that she had time to look closely at the architecture, Alis couldn't help but be impressed by how large and grandiose the building was. Alis didn't particularly care for what the building looked like, but more how it was made. She had always been inventive and inquisitive, and these tall marble columns grabbed her attention. How did they carve them? How did they move them? She quietly wondered to herself.
                "Impressive, isn't it?" Inquired a voice behind her. Alis jumped at the sound of the stranger’s voice, and turned to see one of the instructors addressing her. She quickly threw her arm up into a salute. The man stood still like the stone pillars, staring at her. Without his acknowledgement of her salute, she could not drop her arm back to her side.
                "Well," he started slowly, "is it?" Realizing he was expecting her to answer his initial question, Alis stumbled on her reply.
                "Yes, yes, it's amazing...Sir." The man continued to peer at her carefully. He was older than Alis, probably by ten years she thought. His hair was brown and thinning, and he probably hadn't shaved in a few days. The stubble on his chin made him look even more intimidating, like he was part man, part beast.
                Finally he raised his own arm, and formed it into a salute. Alis dropped her hand to her side, and glanced at all the recruits filing into the building. She saw Evangie walk through the door, talking and laughing with a young man.
                "What makes it amazing?" The man asked her, again startling her with the way her stared into her eyes. She looked at the pillars, and tried to remember why she found them so interesting in the first place.
                "I just...wondered how they were made." She watched as the last of the recruits left the hanger, oblivious to her awkward interaction. "I should catch up to them, sir." She stated as she began turning to catch up to her classmates. The behavior of this man made her feel uncomfortable and nervous, and she wanted nothing more than to be free of his piercing eyes. She dropped her gaze to the ground and began walking quickly.
                "Alis Trent." Alis stopped in mid stride and looked back at the instructor, who had addressed her by her given name. He continued to stare at her, his hands behind his back, with a slight smile curling up the corners of his mouth.
                "Yes, that's me." Alis responded in a small voice.
                "Your brother..." The man began as he now looked around the hanger as if he was still admiring the beauty of the architecture. "...any word on him yet?" Alis felt just a tinge of comfort in hearing the mention of her brother. "He must have read my file, that's how he knows I have a brother." She thought to herself.
                "No, sir. I'm afraid we haven't had any news." She replied and looked down at her feet before glancing up again. The instructor continued looking at the ceiling, and then brought his eyes down to meet hers.
                "Well perhaps soon then." He said in a voice that was half whisper and half hiss, as he flashed a smile across his face that looked more like a grimace. Alis felt her uneasiness return, and she took a step backwards, and then turned to walk back to her group. As she pushed the door open to enter the hanger, she glanced over her shoulder to see the instructor still standing in the same place, hands behind him, watching her leave.
                "There you are...” Whispered Evangie when Alis found her in the crowded room. "You probably don't want them seeing you walk in late like that!" Her friend whispered as the group listened to the instructors, who had already begun lecturing in depth of the expectations the new recruits would have. Alis tried to listen attentively, but she couldn't help turning her head to look back outside in the direction of the instructor. His peculiar behavior had caught her off guard, and now she wondered how he had been able to identify her specifically, out of all the new recruits there. She tried again to be interested in what Milly the energetic tour guide had to offer, but movement outside the window caught her attention.
                It was him. Again.
                Walking slowly, gazing through the window at her, hands still behind his back, and the corners of his mouth still forming a faint, but not friendly, smile. He walked past the glass windows, finally disappearing around the corner of the building.

...read chapter 2 here: Burgundy Rose, Chapter 2
      
                A round of applause and enthusiastic cheering grabbed Alis and pulled her attention back into the room. A tall and slender woman who wore the dress of a high official was addressing the crowd with her hand held high in a fist above her as she spoke. Alis watched the entire scene as if she were watching it from afar, still perplexed by her bizarre interaction. The woman continued...
                "We shall not be afraid...We shall not be held back by tyrants....And we shall not be imprisoned in our own homes by the rebels who seek to disrupt our peaceful existence!" Her last words were shouted with a shrill exuberance which prompted the crowd of young recruits to beat the air with their own fists. Their cries echoed her own excitement, and Alis watched as the room erupted into a sea of