Amaya looked up from her desk. Lieutenant Gren stood in the doorway in full armour, a small wooden box held in his hands. His face looked grim. Amaya put down her pen and pushed away the papers that she had been reading through, nodding at him to enter.

She hoped fervently that the news he brought was not of another attack. Ever since the Sunfire elves had commandeered the fort that stood at the other end of the breach, Amaya's life had become exponentially more difficult. In the weeks since the death of King Harrow Amaya had barely slept, weighed down by grief for her brother-in-law and worry for her still-lost nephews.

General Amaya did not need another burden on her shoulders today.

Lieutenant Gren approached her, crossing the hard floor and placing the box gently on the solid desk before retreating again to a respectful distance. Gren and Amaya were firm friends, perhaps her closest friend truth be told, but Lieutenant Gren and General Amaya were commanding officer and obedient soldier. She issued orders and he obeyed.

In fact, Amaya had almost ordered Gren to stay behind to lead the search for her captured nephews. She had been plagued by suspicions of the circumstances of Viren's rise to power and driven by a motherly concern for Ezran and Callum, but it would have been foolish to leave behind her best interpreter. The breach was an active hostile zone despite there being no actual declaration of war, and her ability to communicate properly with her troops was of paramount importance.

Whilst virtually of her officers were proficient in sign-language, it could be a slow and inefficient means of speaking. It was far faster with Gren there. Right now, with the Sunfire elves but a stone's throw away, Amaya could not afford to be without him.

His hands now free, Gren signed, 'General Amaya. This was found outside the main door.'

Amaya raised an eyebrow. This was unusual. All deliveries were scheduled far in advance – Amaya ruled this fort with an iron-fist and she knew exactly what would arrive and when and primals forgive anyone who deviated from that schedule. She knew for a fact that the next delivery due was a food shipment in two days. What then, she wondered, was this?

Gren shifted uncomfortably, fidgeting from foot to foot. She gestured at him to spit it out.

'There was a note.'

He produced it from his sleeve and set it on top of the box. Amaya leaned forward to read it. It was heavy, expensive paper. The ink was dark purple, not a colour often seen in writing ink. The script was elegant and flowing and the words were in the language of Katolis.

For the hard-eyed woman.

What is this? A prank of some sort, perhaps? It was not unheard of for the soldiers to do such things. No doubt the box contained something with an unpleasant smell. Amaya looked at Gren with the aforementioned hard eyes.

'Why did you bring this to me?" she signed at him. 'Clearly this is not intended for me.'

A man other than Lieutenant Gren might have quailed in fear, kept his gaze straight ahead and made a diplomatic comment with a swift retreat. Gren's mouth opened and his shoulders shook. Amaya let the corners of her mouth curl up in a smile, responding to what was presumably Gren laughing. She could not, of course, hear it. She wondered what it sounded like, if it echoed around the room and brought life to this still and sombre fortress.

Gren laughed because Amaya was anything but soft. He laughed because he did not fear her in the way the other soldiers did. It was not true fear, of course. Amaya was not a cruel woman. She treated those under her command with respect and a sense of justice that had made her unit a popular one, despite the distance between the lonely outpost and the rest of human civilisation.

No, she was not cruel. But General Amaya was a hard woman, forged into iron through years upon bloody years of service to Katolis. Her swords were sharp and her shield bore scratch over scratch. She had stood against elves and dragons and magma titans, shield planted before her and a snarl of defiance upon her lips. She had the scars to prove her legends.

The soldiers looked at her with awe and trepidation, the way one watches a raging storm: respectful, cautious, and ever aware of the havoc it might wreak.

Ever since the Sunfire elves had taken the fortress on the Xadian side of the border tensions had run been running high. It was refreshing to have a second to laugh, to steal a moment of joy in the company of an old and close friend. Then the moment was over. Amaya sat up straight and the mantle of duty fell about her shoulders and she became General Amaya again.

'Where did this come from?' She asked, her hand movements sharp and succinct.

'It was left outside the main gate. The soldiers on watch saw nothing. I brought it to you immediately.' Gren paused. He knew Amaya would not like what he had to tell her. He did it anyway. 'I suspect that an elf left it.'

The sign for 'elf' was two hand brought up on either side of the head, two extended fingers hooked into horns extending backwards. It also meant monster.

Amaya froze. This was unexpected. In her experience elves left knives in your back and burnt your supplies. They did not leave boxes at the gates of a fortress with a strange note.

'Investigate. Increase the watch if you deem it necessary.' Amaya scraped a hand through her hair, rubbing at the scalp. 'What is inside?'

'Food. A bread of some kind. I showed it to one of the cooks, Aleki, and he was unfamiliar with it.'

'Elven?'

'Possibly. We know that their food is different to ours. It does appear superficially elven. But I suppose that it could be a ruse.'

'Poisoned?'

That was the only reason that Amaya could think of for the elves to leave such a thing for her to find. A half-hearted attempt to poison her. Whilst the fortress would not fall without General Amaya commanding it, her loss would be a heavy blow to the morale of the troops and to Katolis at large.

'Uncertain.'

'Thank you, Lieutenant.'

Gren bowed his head and departed swiftly, leaving Amaya alone with her thoughts. She tugged on a pair of cheap gloves that she kept in the desk and gingerly picked up the offending box. Opening the lid she saw that it did indeed contain a kind of flat bread favoured by the elves, wrapped in a red linen cloth.

That confirmed her budding suspicions. Red cloth was expensive; the art of dying wool bright red was laborious and time-consuming and thus the colour was relatively rare. Except in one place. The Sunfire elves wore red and gold, a tribute to the element that they prized above all others. It struck her as a bitter dichotomy that a people who drew their power from the sun, something that represented life, could cause so much chaos and death.

Amaya stared at the box and thought of a dark-skinned elf woman, resplendent in crimson and gold, a blade of fire in her hand. She remembered being afraid and angry, standing in defiance with a shorn off sword hilt in her hand. Amaya had run when the elves attacked the fortress on the Xadian side of the breach. She had jumped onto her horse and fled with the remainder of her men, those who were not dead at the hands of those monsters.

The Sunfire General was skilled with a blade and with tactics; she represented yet another problem for Amaya to deal with. It was possible that this was her work, a way to unnerve Amaya. But the elves, much as Amaya disliked them, were not stupid. They were certain to know that delivering such an item would only serve to tighten the security at the outpost.

It would be far more tactically sound to simply attack when the sun was at its zenith and their powers were at their strongest. No, she thought, this does not seem like the plot of an invading force. She could not puzzle it out.

Amaya thumped a gauntleted fist into the heavy wood of the table in frustration. She allowed herself a brief moment: her eyes closed and her forehead gently touched the table. A breath. In. Out.

Standing, Amaya pulled on her cloak, wrapping herself in its comforting weight. The armour of war was all she knew these days and it was both heavy and familiar. She tossed the box onto the hearth fire – one of the few comforts of being a high-ranking officer that she actually took advantage of – and watched it burn. The card she tucked into a drawer.

It would do good for the men to see her, she thought. And the defences ought to be checked. It was worrying that someone, elf or otherwise, had managed to leave this box without being noticed. It would, however, be the last time that happened.

My attempt at a lighthearted Amaya/Janai (the Sunfire elf woman with a gold crown type headgear) fic. Anything in just italics is thoughts, anything in italics with quotation marks is signed talk, and normal is just speech.

Thanks for any comments! I read them all :) x