pinkrangerv

I am fifteen again and the world is cold and clear, like icy water.

I am twenty-one and I am rinsing off the filth of battle.

The shower is freezing. It’s always cold. Dad stopped caring about things like that years ago. It’s worse in the winter; desert winters are always cold.

I keep turning the shower down. Cold. Cold water. I want cold water. I’m shaking and my toes are blue. It feels right in my head, but my body is screaming that it’s too cold.

The water is pink from blood. My head hurts. It’s split open. I said no. I always say no. I won’t kill for Dad. I always say no. I’m so stupid.

The water is pink and brown. I shudder and close my eyes. I’m so cold.

Aidan is outside. We don’t do anything alone at home anymore. We barely do anything alone anyway. Closer than twins, closer than lovers, closer than soulmates--that’s what Amal told us we’d be.

I can hear the minds of the others in our room, tired and content, curling up like cats. Aidan isn’t with them; he’s cleaning up last, alone, behind a mental screen saying I want privacy, please.

It’s safe with him near.

It’s safe with--

I slip on some blood and fall. My head cracks open on the edge of the shower’s screen.

Death croons to me, soft and sweet and home.

Five minutes later I gasp, shooting upright.

Fuck the shower is cold!

* * *

My name is Nadia. I am a Knight of Earth.

Back in the middle ages, a bunch of aliens crash-landed on Earth. They weren’t actually intending to make contact; they were just really religious and the rest of the galaxy told them basically to go find an uninhabited planet and stop bugging everyone else.

Earth’s magics had an entirely different idea.

Suddenly the elite warriors of almost every culture had a handful of people who were really good with magic. Like, accidentally-casting-spells, my-armor-is-glowing, I-suddenly-can-conjure-fireballs good. And they used their magic in entirely predictable ways, to reinforce their armor and make their weapons more deadly and generally be invincible. And they won, mostly--a few of the ‘religious’ folk suddenly decided they could get along perfectly well with the humans, and their descendants are still around to this day--and the various warriors found they had more in common with each other than with anyone else on the planet. So they founded a group that’s still around.

They’re like superheroes. Kids grow up watching them on TV, fighting threats too dangerous or bizarre to be handled by anyone else. They’re also very, very important to the continued survival of Earth.

The galaxy is divided into two main governments, the Dark Court and the Empire of Light. They’re locked into a cold war, each side trying to convert the most planets to their empire. Earth is the last inhabited planet anyone knows of. Naturally, both sides staged covert operations to ‘encourage’ Earth to join them.

The Knights stopped them. The Knights keep them at bay.