[Lauchenoiria]

“DOWN IT!” yelled the crowd as Nelichē stood in the middle of a circle with a red plastic cup full of some kind of alcoholic beverage. “WOOO!” they cheered when she successfully finished the cup, throwing her hands up and taking an exaggerated bow. She glanced around the crowd until her eyes met the guy she’d been playing with all evening, and pointed at him. They exchanged places, grinning, while the host poured him a drink. As the crowd got riled up to cheer him on, Nelichē slipped away to the pool out back.

“Once upon a time, I used to do this every weekend,” she remarked to the other guy she’d been playing with, whom she’d left by the pool. “When I worked for Coatōn Corporation in Huitzitaca. I’d get together with my co-workers and we’d drink until we couldn’t remember the position of the security cameras back at the office.”

“Shit, Huitzitaca? Were you there when the war broke out!?” her conversation partner was startled at her revelation.

“Nah, I was in Kerlile,” she shrugged, grabbing her drink back off him and taking a sip.

“Kerlile?” he responded. “How is that better? Do you just go around touring the most dangerous places on the planet or something?”

“Something like that,” she said, leaning against the steps to the pool. “Where were you when the war broke out, anyway?”

“Here,” he said. “We’ve always lived here. I’ve never been to Xiomera proper, and I never intend to.”

“‘Proper’?” Nelichē quirked her eyebrow at him. “You mean to say you consider other places part of Xiomera?”

“No! No, just that, like, before the war, y’know…” he was flustered.

“Relax! I’m just teasing you! You’re Necatli, it would be really weird if you supported the Empire.”

“You’re Xiomeran though, ethnically I mean. What do you think of Calhualyana?”

“I think she’s an amoral, power-hungry dictator who would murder me if she could, but first she would have her pet demon torture me until I was begging to become her slave,” Nelichē said bitterly and honestly.

“O-kaaay,” the guy, whose name Nelichē had forgotten, said, as he tried to edge away from her. She reached out and grabbed him, pulling him closer.

“Tell me, male, have you ever been with a Kerlian?”

“You’re insane, let me go,” he said, pulling away. She let him, sulking disappointedly as he rushed away from her, back indoors. On the way, he passed the other guy she’d left in the drinking circle, and she smiled, gesturing him over.

“Hey Nelichē,” he said, handing her a drink. “Didn’t wanna stay to watch my epic beer drinking?”

“Oh, I just felt a little hot,” she lied, giggling and pretending to stumble. He reached out to steady her, which is what she wanted. “But then that man came over,” she pointed at the figure who’d re-entered the house, “and kept accusing me of being a Kerlian spy?”

“A Kerlian spy? Guess some people can’t handle a drink, huh?” he grinned and she laughed.

“I just told him about my study-abroad semester in Kerlile and he just lost it! He’s probably going to start spreading lies around,” she fake-sulked.

“Don’t worry, nobody will believe him,” he reassured her.

“Yeah, you’re right, nobody will believe him,” she nodded, giving him a peck on the cheek to hide her amused, triumphant eyes. “Why would anyone believe something so far-fetched?”

“Exactly!” he nodded. “Hey… I was wondering, this party is getting boring, wanna head back to mine?”

“Sure!” she giggled.

They made their way along the streets, Nelichē continuing to pretend to be drunker than she actually was. They made small talk; the lies and truth coming from the ex-Aurora as easily as each other. But when they passed a poster displaying a picture of the royal family, he stopped to spit at it. Nelichē stopped, turning him towards her.

“Why did you do that?” she asked, dropping her act.

“Bunch of Xiomeran scum, pretending to be all benevolent. People think Yauhmi was some saviour when she was a dictator before and the wife of one before that. If they want to free us from Xiomera, why do we have to be ruled by Xiomerans?”

“I’m Xiomeran,” she said sharply.

“Yeah but you’re not…”

“Not what?”

“Like, one of the evil ones who tortures people and stuff!”

“Oh, I think you’ll be surprised,” she smiled sinisterly. Then, without further ado she grabbed him and twisted his arm behind his back in a way she’d been taught in Aurora training. He gasped in pain, his breathing suddenly shallow and his fear evident. “Nobody insults Yauhmi and gets away without punishment. You see, male, I am a Kerlian spy. But as you said earlier, if you tell anybody, they won’t believe you.”

She twisted his arm further, causing him to scream out in pain and fall to his knees. She shoved him to the ground and bent over him, pressing her knee onto a part of his chest that made him let out a wail. Then, she slammed his head on the pavement, enough to knock him unconscious but not enough to kill him. And she walked off, giving a middle finger to the clearly broken CCTV camera that was supposed to cover this area.

Nelichē stomped down the street away from the man, annoyed that she hadn’t managed to have her fun that evening. Males, they’re all the same in every country. Either cowards or entitled brats. She doesn’t need them, she doesn’t need anyone. Or anywhere. Kerlile, Huenya, neither felt like home. Nothing felt like home to her any more, not since that stupid traitor Riley had gotten Lily killed, Samantha captured, and ruined Yauhmi’s political career. Stupid traitor Riley. She’s the one who ought to be punished.

Yes, Nelichē decided. It was about time. She made her way to where she knew Riley’s new place of residence was. There was a police station nearby, but no matter. Nelichē was an Aurora, local police trying to arrest her would be like minnows trying to arrest a shark. So she picked up the biggest rock she could find on the ground and lobbed it into the window of Riley Nelson’s apartment.

CRASH. That would have woken the other Aurora.

“RILEY NELSON!” Nelichē called up from the street. “RILEY ‘TRAITOR’ NELSON. Treason to one country wasn’t enough for you, was it? You had to betray SEVERAL. I bet you wish you took that stupid job in Eiria now, huh? Now that you know everything you touch turns to shit. Come out here and face me, Riley! Face the end! You deserve to die for your treason! FIGHT ME, COWARD! You were my best friend before you BETRAYED EVERYONE. It is my duty to execute you! For the Matriarchy, for Huenya, for Yauhmi, for me. For ME!”

Riley did not come to the broken window. Everyone else in the neighbourhood did, though, peeking out at the drunk Aurora (it hadn’t been as fake as she thought) from behind curtains in fear. Several of them had spouses fetching weapons, just in case. The police spilled out from the police station, but none of them could get near Nelichē. One tried, and she flipped him over her head. Another tried to use his taser and she dodged effortlessly.

After one began to draw a gun, Nelichē let out one last scream at the top of her lungs, and jumped up onto a parked van, hissing at the broken window, and then ran off into the night. The police would search. They would not find her.

Behind the broken window, in her apartment, Riley Nelson was curled up, her arms around her knees, sobbing to herself.