Nienna [Tankiverse Fanfic]

[Hippin_in_Hawaii 639]

Nienna

Fanfic in the Tankiverse by Hippin_in_Hawaii

 
Nienna was in a wheelchair for Nancy’s funeral. Nester wheeled her into position; she was on heavy medication, so didn’t actually remember the words she had spoken. But she and Nester had written them together days earlier, during the brief intervals while the effects of the narcotics waned and the pain waxed, so she was fairly confident they had been appropriate.
 
She was still in a wheelchair when she and Nester received their commendations. The captain had left the honor of awarding them to Fred; she pretty much remembered the ceremony.
 
But she was by the gods standing when they had her decommissioning ceremony. She wore a training leg that didn’t really fit, and the pain it caused her stump was considerable, but she stood at attention on that stage beside Nester, letting Captain Morrison thank her for her service, letting Fred and her teammates hug her, without flinching once.
 
From there, the hard part started.
 
Losing a limb, learning to live with a prosthetic, teaching herself to walk and run and climb stairs again, those were challenges she understood and could face. Learning to dance again could take months, even years, and she was not daunted by the prospect.
 
But learning to live as a civilian again…
 
In a way, it was absurd. She’d been a civilian for nearly two decades before enlisting. She’d been a soldier for only a few years before being discharged. But during those few years, she had felt part of something in a way that she’d never felt before. Serving the Federated States, actually using her skills to enforce Leadership’s mandates, offering her life to protect those of her countrymen… these were motivations she’d never aspired to, but found suited her quite well. Nienna felt she’d been made to serve. And now, what was she? Just another burden to the taxpayers.
 
So maybe it wasn’t being a civilian that left her feeling so empty, but being uninvolved. Not making a difference. It was Nester who ultimately saved her. He observed that the battles fought within the country determined those that the country fought. And so, Nienna entered politics.
 
She opted not to conceal her loss. That she had been wounded in service was a point of ferocious pride to her; she wanted those who saw her to know what she had done, so her prosthetic was chosen for shock value as much as functionality. It would have looked right at home attached to a killer robot, like those in the Schwarzenegger franchise. Nienna began wearing skirts, never longer than required by decorum, to all business and public functions. She trained in shorts, running laps around People’s Plaza and the Capitol, her titanium limb flashing in the sun. And at her side ran Nester.
 
Her ascension through the conservative party was rapid. She had everything that the incumbents lacked: she was a war hero (although there technically was no war); she was youthful; she was compassionate; she was attractive; and she was honest. Being female didn’t hurt, but she didn’t have the corner on that market. She was also clever and articulate, but those qualities were common enough amongst the career politicians.
 
In a world still celebrating overdue firsts, she was the darling of the media. First amputee Legislator. First veteran to author a successful cross-party bill (health care reform). First female majority party leader. First living war hero to have an elementary school named in her honor (Go, Tankers!). So many firsts that were so late in coming.
 
And quietly, alongside her, stood Nester. Nienna wondered at times whether Nester had actually been as scarred by the battle as the doctors believed. He certainly seemed whole and hale. Had he, she wondered, allowed himself to be discharged so that he could continue serving her? Or was he broken in ways that just didn’t show? She’d never ask, of course. “Nester, did you lie about your injuries to get discharged and stay with me?” Which answer would he give? Which did she want to hear?
 
While Nienna’s role in the Legislature grew, the power of the Legislature itself waned, ceded an act at a time to the ambitious Leadership. The might of the Federated States’ military swelled; the ranks of her disenfranchised also swelled; and the national borders so recently regained during the Liberation were made to seem increasingly insufficient.
 
Not so many years later, she found herself increasingly at odds both with the Leadership and with her own party. Although she still represented the voice of the people, more and more she was ostracized, until she became the lone voice of dissent in a sea of pro-war propaganda. But the Leadership loved her; the fact that there was such a prominent voice of dissent in the Legislature merely proved that they were listening to all input; the fact that she had been rendered ineffectual meant they could keep trotting her out as a sign of all that was right with the system. Thus is was that while other minor party officials often disappeared after issuing anti-Leadership remarks, Nienna stood inviolate.
 
And quietly, alongside her, stood Nester.
 
Although the media still loved her, there was a subtle change in her portrayal over the years. Gone were the headlines about her opposition to the Leadership and its new direction; instead, she was featured for her goodwill tours, her work with the young, her devotion to community. Nienna Muñoz remained a hero to the people, but the people were kept quietly ignorant of what Nienna truly stood for. Her speeches, both in session and in public, continued to be both informed and impassioned, but were now portrayed in the media as the well-intentioned-but-misguided notions of someone who should be revered, but simply was failing to adapt to the changing times.
 
Not so many years later, under the powers granted the Leadership by the Emergency Patriotism Act (an act which Nienna had fought vociferously against), the Legislature was suspended and its members furloughed. Many of the more vocal proponents of the Leadership were offered cabinet positions or other lucrative jobs; Nienna was not. Severed from any meaningful role, dependent now solely on her military disability for income, Nienna quietly shut the doors of her suburban home and let the war begin without her.
 
And quietly, alongside her, stood Nester.
 
Years passed. Although she tried to keep herself isolated, the creeping tendrils of propaganda/news inevitably reached her. Lacking the financial resources to be a complete recluse, Nienna still ran laps around People’s Park and the Capitol in the mornings; she still went to the market. So doing, she continually brushed against well-wishers and former constituents, all of whom were eager to gossip about whatever fragment of propaganda had last brushed their ears, or frantic for a sympathetic ear into which they could complain about the rising cost of bread or the scarcity of razor blades. Televisions and radios played in public places, subjecting her to Leadership-approved snippets and soundbytes. She was aware of the Federated States’ ongoing invasion of its neighbors; she was aware of Leadership’s claims that the war was going well. Nester did keep her appraised of the fortunes and happenings of their friends and former teammates; it was through such filtered knowledge that she followed Fred and Georgie’s respective rises to power. The filtering did nothing to lessen the blow when word of Chip’s death reached her and Nester.
 
Then, one day, there came a knock at her door. Nester, who understood he was to turn away all visitors at all costs, came into her study with a young man in tow.
 
“Ma’am,” began the young man, “please forgive the intrusion. My name is Kevin, and I know someone who needs your help.”

 

Mahalo (thank you) for reading; I hope you enjoyed! This story is part of a series. Information on the series, and links to the other stories, can be found here.

[tweezers 1,034]

Approved.

 

-Changed the font to Trebuchet MS.

 

Fabulous. If I may say so though, I'd have expected Nester to have a bit more significance, especially since he's mentioned so much. 

 

You're going to kill him. I just know it. 

[Hippin_in_Hawaii 639]

Approved.

 

-Changed the font to Trebuchet MS.

 

Fabulous. If I may say so though, I'd have expected Nester to have a bit more significance, especially since he's mentioned so much. 

 

You're going to kill him. I just know it. 

Yeah, I'm not 100% pleased with how Nester is incorporated. He needs to be there enough to establish that he's significant, but not to take away from Nienna's story. And Nienna's story needed to cover a lot of ground. We'll need to visit both characters again before this is all over...