Koronova

Kurri takes slow steps toward the woman sitting by the fire. He nervously grips and twists the strap of his medic bag slung over his shoulder. After putting on a jacket and strapping his small dagger to his belt, he still feels underdressed for either the weather or this encounter.

The woman in black sits facing him, oiling the gun resting in her lap--a weapon unlike any he has seen, with an intricate silver design coiling around its black barrel like a branching vine growing from the receiver--black steel set with a large black crystal surrounded by an engraving of eight arrows expanding outward. Contrasting its elegance is the word crudely carved into into its ebony stock: Reverie.

Kurri faces her from across the fire. “Hello, um, Zal said I’m on a security shift tonight.”

“Take a seat, ain’t quite our shift yet.” Without looking up at him, she points to the chair to her right. “I’m Razha Koronova, welcome to the family.” Her voice is deep and powerful, but it has a softness to it. Her eyes stay focused on her work.

He sits down in the weathered wooden chair next to her, laying his bag on the ground at his feet. “I’m Kurri, Kurri Ari--”

“No,” she says, “not anymore. You have your papers?”

“Right,” he says, pulling out the folded up documents.

She looks up from her gun and stares into the fire. “When we joined the K.R.A., we became ghosts, left everything behind, no trace of our old selves. For some it was an easy choice, a blessing. For others it was the hardest thing they ever did. I don’t know which you are, but if you want to join our collective, that’s the path you walk.”

“Right.” He opens up the papers and looks them over--his birth, his education, undergraduate degree, and his everyday identification. He reaches out near the flame and takes a deep breath.

“Second thoughts?” Razha says. “Your old life will be gone, you understand. You won’t be able to leave and go home, with no proof of who you are. You’ll be one of us until the war is over, until we’re all free.”

As he exhales, he lets the papers fall into the flame. “I knew what I was signing up for. It’s better this way, my family won’t be in danger if...I’m caught.” The fire consumes its new fuel quickly--nineteen years of life burn away to ash in seconds.

“What is your name?” Razha says.

“Kurri, Kurri Koronova.”

“Welcome, comrade. May we forever be siblings in arms.”

Koronova, a word that appeared again and again in the bloody history of the isle of Kogaku. At one time, a military rank of disposable front-line infantry, at another, a lower, untouchable social caste enforced by the colonizers, in any time a derogatory term for the poorest of the poor, the worst of the worst. Translated into any language, its meaning is “nobody.”

“I’m glad to be here,” Kurri says. “I hope I can be useful.”

“Oh, I have no doubt. Medics are indispensable,” Razha says. “So, I’m sure you must have some questions.”

“Can I see that? I've never seen a gun quite like that,” he says.

“Ah, yes,” Razha says, running her fingers over the raised runes in its steel. “It’s a rarity, an alchemical rifle. You see, this,” she runs her palm over the black stone set in the gun, “is pure discordium, very pure and undamaged, a rare thing these days.”

“I thought we were fighting to stop discordium mining,” Kurri says. He clasps the pendant hanging from his neck, a single arrow pointing up.

“Definitely,” Razha says, “I’d rather it all stay in the ground. It's a powerful, dangerous thing. It drives people mad. And that power that flows through those tubes in your city, it's driving all of society mad, surely. But, at the same time, well, I’m still an alchemist, and I know more than a few tricks this gun can do. Levels the field, just a little, what else have we got to depend on? I'll never fire this damned thing again when we've won, believe me.”

“I understand, this is war, after all. We all do things we wouldn’t normally do. Goddess forgive us...”

“Here.” She offers him the gun.

He takes it and examines it. The mechanism is unfamiliar, but he locates the hammer, on the bottom in front of the trigger, and ensures it isn’t cocked. He pulls the loading lever to open its chamber, ensuring it isn’t loaded, then raises the weapon and looks down its sights. It’s heavy, but balanced.

“I see you know how to handle one of these,” she says.

“Not one quite like this, but yeah, my grandpa taught me how to shoot when I was younger.”

“Oh good, a medic who can shoot too. So, tell me more about yourself,” she says.

“Well, let’s see, I was born in Mallikus City, I went to the University of Kogaku, then I entered medical school there, then, I guess I dropped out two weeks ago, I went on this adventure with Zal, and here I am.”

“Well that gives us something in common, fellow dropout. We never quite got to be ‘Doctor Koronova,’” she says.

He hands back her weapon.

“So, Doctor,” she says, “why are you here?”

He doubles back in surprise. “To be a medic.”

“Yeah, and I shoot people, but why are you here?” Razha says. “Why leave the capital you know so well and come all the way out here? There’s a fine medic collective there. Why leave the comfort of the city and throw yourself into the fire? A lot of us had no choice in the matter, so I want to understand your choice.”

“Oh,” Kurri says. “Well, they asked me if I wanted to join the medic collective, but, I guess I didn’t want to stay. So they asked where I wanted to go, and I said, away from here, far away from here, as far as possible, if that makes sense.”

“Perfect sense. Here I’ve given everything to take back my home, and you’ve given up everything just to lose yours.”

“It’s not my home,” he says.

“I think you’ll fit in here, Kurri.”