"God, can you believe this weather?" Always attempting to lighten the heavy air, Tao smiles crookedly and fixes his helmet. It always tilts into his eyes. The sweat from the sweltering Gobi sun doesn't help his case. "I swear I'm going to slip right out of my uniform with the amount I'm sweating--" He laughs and adjusts his clanking gear.

"Good to know how slippery you are," Nikola answers, the youngest of the group snorting into his hand. His twin, Mischa, rolls her eyes and slaps the back of his head. This only causes the boy to laugh harder. 

The de facto leader of their small squadron pauses a few steps ahead and turns. The sun is setting; the dust from the shifting earth cakes all of their matching boots and pant hems. Haru swipes his hand through his shaggy hair. "I'm so glad that you're slippery, Tao," his voice is void of a joke, but his eyes sparkle with light-hearted mirth. His dark gaze slips over Nikola and Tao, pausing on Mischa, and then to behind the group at the last two approaching members. "Terbish, Iseul!" Haru calls, garnering the attention of the straggling soldiers. "Keeping up alright?"

The stragglers in question look up, their heads formerly bowed together with residual smiles across their lips. "Just fine, Roo," Terbish answers. "Don't you worry about us."

Haru addresses them with a short nod, briefly studying the five members of their group. It's been weeks since they've had a proper bed, a proper bath, a proper sponge to scrub the blood from their skin and clothes. "It's getting late," he notes aloud. "Set up for the night?"

Nobody objects.

-

Four of the six are asleep atop of thin bedrolls, using their heavy uniform jackets for blankets. The temperature bobs above and below freezing, the night windless and the sky clear. Sitting side-by-side beside the smoldering fire are the last two soldiers keeping watch.

The smaller rests her head on the shoulder of the taller, their hands are loosely entwined on their shared lap. 

With a chipped thumbnail, Iseul scratches away at the blood stained into her pale middle finger. It doesn't flake away. It just leaves her skin red and irritated. 

Every few breaths, Iseul will shudder and pull the collar of her jacket closer to her chin. Terbish will shift to allow the other woman to fidget, then lay her head right back onto Iseul's shoulder.

Iseul's hand tightens around Terbish's. Terbish's dark eyes lower to look at their linked fingers. The vessels within Iseul's wrists are still gray--still fighting away the poison injected to the inside of her elbow. 

The vessels used to be blacker than night--darker than the suffocating blanket that sits above them. They'll be black again. They'll be black with poisoned blood when they next face death--when they next face the barrel of an enemy's gun. The veins will be ebony and the arteries will be pitch and Iseul will be inhuman.

Her hands will have more stains.

"You think they love each other?" Iseul whispers eventually, just barely over the crack and fizzle of the fire. Her voice, like a hook, reaches through the fog forming in Terbish's ear and pulls her consciousness through to reality.

"Who?" Terbish answers, unsure if she's still entirely lost in thought or not. The other woman points her chin, the line of her jaw sliding pleasantly atop of Terbish's scalp. "Oh." Not even five meters away, the leader and the medic, curled up beside each other, share Haru's large jacket. Like Terbish should be, the two of them are sleeping soundly as a soldier can. There's still tension in their shoulders, still slits between their barely-asleep eyes, still a curled hand unconsciously holding a pistol.

"I think Haru needs to grow a pair and kiss her already," Iseul finishes, a snicker hidden in the quiet tone of her voice. She turns her head and places a soft kiss on the part of Terbish's hair. It probably tastes like sweat and dirt. "Everyone already knows."

Everyone already knows. Terbish swallows the emptiness forming in her throat and nods. "Yeah."

"I think they'd make a good couple," Iseul continues through a yawn. "Both quiet. The supportive types."

"Yeah." Terbish can feel her own yawn forming. "Maybe when we all go home, we'll be invited to the wedding."

Iseul laughs softly, reining in her usual boisterous cackle out of courtesy to their sleeping comrades. "Bridesmaid or flower girl?"

"The officiant."

That evokes a barking laugh from Iseul's lips. It's a sudden sound that explodes the silent atmosphere. It causes an infectious grin to break upon Terbish's own lips, one that she hides in the shoulder of Iseul's shirt. Somewhere to their right, somebody rouses. Terbish couldn't care, not when Iseul's laughing at her stupid, unfunny joke.

"Jesus Christ--" Somebody whispers as they stand, blanket coat falling from their shoulders to the sandy floor. "Oh my god, just go to bed already." Tao's round face emerges from the shadows, illuminated by the orange glow of the fire. His eye bags are heavy; his sclera is bloodshot; his hands are twitching. "I'll take watch."

--

The next few days are nothing but travelling. At some point, Haru manages to haggle a small van from a local with nothing but a few days' rations in return. The path to Almaty is not a pleasant one, especially to take on foot. Tao is in the front behind the wheel with Nikola in the passenger seat with a map larger than him spread across the dashboard. Mischa inspects a minor flesh wound slicing across Haru's palm (everyone knows it's just her excuse to hold it) while the leader looks pointedly out the window at the rolling dunes. 

Terbish and Iseul curl together in the back bench, half of it occupied by their supplies. Iseul's head lolls with every bump in the unpaved road; her mouth hangs open with sleep. 

Sleep ebbs into the corner of her vision, unconsciousness calling from deep within Terbish's chest--but the van slams to a halt. Terbish yelps as she's thrown from Iseul's lap. Before she can open her mouth to ask what the hell happened, Haru is already out of the van, a long rifle in hand. Nikola and Tao are right behind him. Mischa swears under her breath and slings her medical kit over her shoulder.

"Time to go, eh?" Iseul says, her voice groggy with sleep. Terbish looks to her, locking eyes. The irises are clear. They won't be for long. Finding her own rifle, Terbish nods, following the others out of the van and into danger. She doesn't want to watch as Iseul will plunge a thick needle into her artery. Terbish doesn't want to watch the woman she loves turn into a biological machine.

--

It's the night after. Everyone is alive, breathing and sharing shakey looks over another campfire. Tao's jaw is bandaged--heavily. Terbish was unlucky enough to be right next to him as his jaw was nearly blown clean off with a well placed bullet. His last quip was ill-placed. I eat bullets for breakfast! He had jested. Cringing at the thought, Terbish pulls her coat tighter around her shoulder. 

Mischa is tending to Tao's gruesome wound. The night shrouds the worst of it. Haru speaks quietly with Nikola about their next move. Iseul is deep into the trunk of the van, rifling around for her spare syringes. She used her last supply during the battle, and they're only halfway to Almaty. 

The pin in the breast pocket of Terbish's jacket burns her. It's the entire reason for this damned mission. The reason why six kids not even thirty yet are supposed to cross through Mongolia and halfway into Kazakhstan. A delivery not trusted over air or package. A delivery somehow trusted with the ragtag group pieced together in their mutual camp of thousands. Nikola and Mischa, the sunrise and sunset twins, were the only two knowing each other prior. They both managed to work their way across three-hundred miles of Russia, alone, through active warzones. Haru hailed from Japan, where his background as a strategic prodigy made him the clear choice for the leader of the small squadron. Tao, a survivalist from Western China, claimed he could handle any climate thrown at them. So far, that's been true.

Iseul, long before she was a part of the squadron, was considered the most deadly woman in Korea. From a young age, she and her parents had consented to steroid experimentation and constant training--both physical and mental. What better use for a well-oiled machine than in active war? The enemies she's killed can't be counted. 

The last of the group, Terbish, is nothing more than a middle-class girl from Mongolia. She never intended to fight in the war, but the draft said otherwise. She's not physically inclined, incredibly resourceful, or a charismatic leader--she's just smart. She knows how to read books and people; she knows how to quickly figure out puzzles and workarounds. 

She's just... Terbish. Terbish Ganbaatar. 

"Good evening," a familiar voice chimes as a figure joins Terbish beside the fire. Iseul's smiling face leans into Terbish's peripheral vision. "I see that you're brooding."

"My favorite hobby," Terbish answers, taking her usual position of leaning her head on Iseul's shoulder.

Iseul laughs. A choppy sound. Mischa momentarily pauses her bandaging to send the duo a warm look before going back to her work.

"Y'know, Terbish--" Iseul says, her voice considerably softer. "Everyone I've met has been scared shitless of me." Her hand finds Terbish's, their fingers naturally lacing together. "Everyone except for you."

At that, Terbish has to laugh herself. "No, Iseul. I'm terrified of you." She moves from the shoulder, pointing her nose barely a centimeter from the other woman's. Her next words are hardly a breath. "I just like to face my fears."

Looking into Iseul's gray-stained eyes and held by her dark-veined arms, Terbish tilts up and captures Iseul's lips with her own.

The war, the mission, the team around them melts. None of the blood or steroids or dirt or dust can touch them. The sun is gone, but the moon is there. The moon is only there for them--only a spotlight for their small seconds of bliss. 

It's all terrifying really, every damn aspect of it, but that doesn't mean it's a lightless journey.