Summary

Gloria never knew her parents; she was much too young when they died. When she thinks of her family, she thinks of Aelia. Aelia, her 16 year old sister, who was left to raise her on her own. Gloria had only recently learned to dress herself half-well when her sister received the news of their mother's passing. Even now, in her adulthood, she remembers how Aelia sat by the fire and turned the letter over and over in her hands, as if she might find a happier message waiting for her when she read it the next time.

Life wasn't terribly easy, for the two sisters. Garlemald was a brutally cold place, and in their small home on its outskirts, the two lacked the funds that might afford them some of its niceties. It wasn't unusual for Aelia to eat little, so that her sister could eat more, though Gloria would often try to insist otherwise; Gloria would insist that, because she was sickly, Aelia needed it more, while Aelia would insist that, because she was younger, Gloria needed it more. Still, for all their struggles, they had one another. Gloria was young, quiet, and withdrawn, while Aelia was young, gregarious, and determined. Aelia smiled, even on the bad days, and Gloria would look at her and know that they would be alright.

And they certainly had bad days. Theirs was a life shaped by war; it was impossible not to be shaped by it, if you lived in Garlemald. Soldiers walked the streets, and while some were nice, many were not. Soldiers who were sometimes drunk, and always angry, looking for an easy outlet to take their own misery out upon. Aelia would teach Gloria how to avoid them, how to appease them if they cornered you, how to run and hide, how to get away. Aelia was particularly fearful of two who would often patrol near their home, having had a particularly bad encounter with them in the past. Gloria knew, and she hated them. She was always good at remembering faces, and she would remember theirs for many years.

The years passed them by; years of Aelia working very hard to try to meet their basic needs. Gloria grew, aware that their neighbors helped them more than the Empire ever had. She often wondered what it was like for the Emperor and his royal family. She wondered if they ever had to sacrifice in the ways that Aelia had for her. She always knew, of course, that the answer was no, and that they were sitting pretty in their palace with not a care in the world. By the time it was her turn to be 16, she was already incredibly bitter.

Aelia, now in her 20s, watched as her younger sister grew into a willful young woman with a mind for engineering, something that she found incredibly exciting. Though they had little to their names, Aelia did everything she possibly could to further Gloria's interest in magitek, whether it was bringing home books for her to study, or parts for her to work with. Aelia went so far as to find Gloria a tutor, who she would do various chores for, in exchange for her sister's education. For a while, things seemed hopeful, and Gloria promised her sister that she was going to do everything in her power to give them a more comfortable life. Aelia, like she always did, smiled.

Gloria couldn't had known. After all, Aelia was just as clever as she was, just as fierce, just as good at hiding her pain. Unable to find help for her declining health, Aelia had hidden it the best that she could, until she couldn't hide it anymore. It soon became the case that Gloria was caring for Aelia - Aelia joked that it was like their roles had been reversed - while juggling her studies, the chores that paid for them, and various odd jobs for what ever money she could scrape together. Her neighbors, in their kindness, helped as much as they could, taking turns with chores and bringing over meals. By the time they were able to find any decent medical help - a young Miqo'te healer named M'haja who had found herself within the ranks of the military, and had as much of a dislike for them as Gloria and her peers did - it was determined that what ever was ailing Aelia wasn't something that she could heal away. Aelia insisted that she would be fine, and that everyone was fussing over her too much. M'haja promised that she would do her best to make her as comfortable as possible.

M'haja became a normal part of their lives, stopping by daily to check on Aelia. The two made fast friends, Gloria found, and she was grateful that someone was keeping her company while she herself couldn't be there. Aelia was also grateful, but also couldn't stand being doted upon so much, something that Gloria found both funny and very typical of her sister - Aelia had always been stubborn as a mule. Periodically, Gloria wondered if the two were, perhaps, a bit more than friends, but decided not to push the matter.

It was on one bitingly cold night that Gloria hurried home with dinner in tow, only to find Aelia dead, and M'haja gravely injured. Her neighbors, some of which were injured themselves, and all of which were frantic and sobbing, explained that two of M'haja's peers had arrived and made a scene over her dipping out of her duties to spend time with Aelia, and a fight had broken out between the three that turned violent. Aelia intervened, and that was that - the two had tucked their tails between their legs and ran before they could get in trouble for what they'd done. Gloria was horrified; ultimately, the Empire couldn't even let her sister die peacefully. Gloria knew who the two soldiers were before her neighbors even got around to telling her.

Horror turned to sorrow, and sorrow turned to anger, and anger turned to rage. When they buried her sister outside of the city, she could only see red. She couldn't even cry. Gloria was furious, and her fury only grew when the crime was pinned on M'haja. The two soldiers outranked her, and almost due to that alone, they got away with it. Gloria helped M'haja flee the city, and returned to her home, where she sat and dwelled upon how terribly the systems in place had failed them, start to finish. She sat by the fire and turned her sister's favorite ribbon over and over in her hand. That night, she left her home, and never set foot in it again.

Gloria entered the military as not much more than an extra body, and threw aside her personhood. She would deny herself simple things like food or sleep, throwing herself fully into growing stronger and clawing her way up, up, and further up still. She was meticulous - she never did a single thing without a plan behind it. It wasn't a coincidence that she was taken in by the very legion those two soldiers served in. It wasn't a coincidence when she outranked them, and it wasn't a coincidence when they went missing.

Their slow, miserable deaths weren't enough; after all, those two had only been a part of what had made her sister's life and death what they were. No, the problem was bigger, and it was all around, and Gloria was exactly where she wanted to be. There was no better way to kill something than to tear it apart from the inside, and Gloria had come to believe that anything could be killed... even an Empire. She was only one person, but it only took one small thing to kill. Maybe she was only one small thing, but much like Aelia, she was a very, very stubborn one. She was so stubborn, in fact, that she climbed higher in rank than even she had expected, finding herself the overseer of a castrum full of soldiers. Rage and spite had carried her incredibly far, and they became her greatest weapons.

Aelia never left her mind. Gloria thought of her always, even though she struggled to remember parts of her face, or how her voice sounded. She could no longer remember how the food she'd cook tasted, or what her laugh sounded like, but she thought of her every day, desperate not to let more of her slip from her grasp. Of course, Aelia would had never wanted for her to be who she is now - miserable, lonely, and drowning in her own anger - but unfortunately, for all of her intelligence, this is the one thing that Gloria will never be able to understand.

Gloria "serves" the Empire, but moves forward only with her own motives in mind. She uses her power for what good she can; though they wouldn't dare speak a word of it, civilians who are harmed by soldiers under her rank can come to her, and those soldiers will usually go conveniently missing. She carefully plans her every move, appearing all the part of loyal solider on the outside, while planning all the while to climb and climb and climb until she inevitably falls. She's fine with that, of course; all that matters is that she drags those above her down with her.