I want to say that I found Nayyina, but the truth was, she found me. She found me amongst the shitheads who had attempted to ransack her village that was said to be rolling in cash and just choosing to live modestly.

Imagine our surprise when we started laying waste and found... nothing.

Nothing we could sell.

Nothing we SHOULD sell.

When the villagers had been gathered together, questioned, and some even beaten, Nayyina kept especially calm for a woman who looked so potentially frail. She just looked at us all with pity, like there was something she could see we couldn't.

Even when she took the butt of a gun to her face, she didn't glare or curse at us. She just looked so... disappointed. It was worse than being shot somehow. None of us liked it. Still, there was something about her I couldn't place... so when one of the other mercs took his gun and aimed it at her, I punched him right on the jaw. "Lay off."

"Bitch's looking at me you ass!"

"Only bitch here is you, I said to fucking lay off!" I looked at her. "What's your name?"

"Nayyina," she said, voice quiet but welcoming.

"Nayyina, then. Where are the goods?"

"We have none."

The villagers glanced at each other and spoke another language, which none of us mercs understood. I pointed at Nayyina. "Translate. Now."

"The only good we have is me," she said in response. "They are discussing whether they should offer me in return for being left alone."

"What are they, animals? Throwing one of their own to keep the peace?... yeah, I'll bite it. What's so special about you?"

She nodded her chin in my direction. "Your leg."

"... what about my leg?"

"It's broken, is it not?"

I felt uncomfortable being called out like that, and I wasn't sure how she did it in the first place. Nobody knew that my leg had once been broken, or else the mercs wouldn't rely on me as much. "... what of it?"

"Come here, and I'll heal you."

"Yeah right, what are you going to do, lay on hands and speak tongues and God will heal it?"

"I didn't say God would heal it, I said I would heal it. I don't speak tongues aside from this disgusting language. Now come here, and I'll care for you."

The other mercs egged me on. "Go on, then."

"Let's see if she can heal you, eh?"

"You aren't scared of some woman, are you?"

"Shut up, shut up," I mumbled as I approached her. "Magic isn't real, everyone knows that. This is a waste. Your hands are too small and your arms too weak to rebreak my leg. If you hurt me, Nayyina, I will hit you."

She placed her hands on my shin, and a bright, white light began to glow from her hands. I could feel years of pain alleviating, and I could see the other mercs staring on in awe. Before they had a chance to react, my guns were out, and I was shooting at each of them. Nayyina recoiled from the gunshots, but her work was done - my leg was healed.

"Thank you for your healing. How about we get out of here and take everything by storm, eh? Just the two of us."

Nayyina looked from me to her fellow villagers.

"Or I could make an example-"

"I'll go."

"That's what I like to hear, Nayyina. Call me Reto." I put my pistols in their holsters and offered her my gloved hand. "Let's show the world what we're made of."