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theprofburg · 2 years

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When people think of famous last stands, many would think of the 300 Spartans and their allies during the Battle of Thermopylae against the Persian Empire, or The Texans defense at the Alamo against the Mexican army, but one people tend to overlook is when 21 Indian Soldiers took on 10,000 Afghan Rebels in the battle of Saragarhi in 1897. In 1878,The United Kingdom would invade Afghanistan for a second time after they faced a humiliating defeat in the country in 1842. This was an attempt to expand the empire but also to create a buffer zone with it's rival, Russia, who was also aiming for control of Central Asia. Using the help of Indian Colonial troops, the British would conquer the nation in 1880. However the British like many empires before and after it, taking over the country was easy, keeping control was the hard part. Throughout the years, Afghan rebels would target British Personnel and to the British these rebels would become a problem for them. The British would set up their position near a small town called Saragarhi, where it would be called Fort Lockhart. The 36th Sikh Regiment of the British Indian Army was sent to guard the Fort. At first the regiment was originally made up of 912 but several companies were called to help British forces elsewhere thus decreasing the numbers at the fort until only a handful of soldiers guarded the fort. Throughout later August and early September of 1897, Afghan rebels would constantly attack the fort with the Indian Soldiers pushing them back. Until finally on September 12 1897, 10,000 Afghan rebels would band together. With the only 21 Soldiers left at the Fort, the Indian Soldiers were outgunned and outnumbered 100 to 1. At first the Indian Soldiers tried to call for Reinforcement, but the British Commander, Colonel Haugton, told them he couldn't help them. That being said under the leadership of Halvidar (Indian equivalent to Sergeant) Ishar Singh, inspired his men to fight to the bitter end! When the Afghan rebels attacked, the Indians fought hard. At first two soldiers of the company died. At first the leader of the rebels tried to convince the soldiers to surrender but the soldiers refused. The Afghan rebel made two attempts to breach the walls of the Fort, but they failed. The Third time they were more successful. It is here where the Sikhs would face the rebels in one of the most intense moments of hand to hand combat. However, all but one died. One soldier remained by the name of Gurmukh Singh, contacted the British saying he killed 20 Afghans, and that they would have to burn the fort down to kill him. In his last words he yells the Sikh Battle cry "One will be blessed eternally, who says that God is the ultimate truth!" The rebels successful, decided to move on to their next target. But British reinforcements finally came and pushed back the rebels. The Battle of Saragarhi, I believe is one of the most under looked last stands in history. With 21 soldiers of a nation that was conquered by an empire that only saw them as inferior. They fought to the last man, and their heroics should be remembered.

#india #indian history #afghan #afghan history #sikh #british empire #military #military history #war history #history #sikh warrior #history art #traditional art #sikh soldier #21 sikhs #the battle of saragarhi

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zackburgsart · 4 years

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#india #indans #sikhs #sikh regiment #soldiers #soldier #war #battle of saragarhi #afghanistan #history #military history #military art #art #sikh soldier #anglo afghanistan war

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sassycassie-s-writing · 5 years

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Rescue

By: SassyShoulderAngel319

Fandom/Character(s): Final Fantasy XV/Ignis Scientia

Rating: PG-11 (mild peril)

Original Idea: I saw a starter post on Pinterest with the first line on it.

Notes: (Masterlist)(By Character)(About Me) Fun fact this was the second FFXV one-shot I wrote after The Original Story. There will be a part 2!

^^^^^

“Get away from her before I break every bone in your body,” Ignis snarled.

I gasped as the magitek soldier holding my arm behind my back tightened its grip—and Ardyn just chuckled.

“That would be a feat,” Ardyn said, ignoring the ice sublimating off Ignis’ blades. He sounded amused. He’d never been scared of us. Not even Noctis. “The strategist of the royal family, against an immortal. A noble young man, attempting to rescue Miss Constellatio here.”

“Her name is Princess Lucis Caelum!” Ignis snapped. I grunted as the grip on my arm forced my shoulder back again.

“Iggy, stop!” I pleaded as tears slid from the corners of my eyes. One slid over the bridge of my nose and fell onto the pavement.

“Is that her name?” Ardyn taunted. I struggled to loosen the magitek’s hold on me. “Surely she’s not actually of royal blood.”

“King Regis took her in and adopted her. She is a Lucis Caelum. He bestowed the name on her.” Ignis’ grip on his blades tightened, knuckles turning white. “Now. Get—away—from her!” His jaw clenched and his knees bent. I squirmed and squeaked in pain as my arm was yanked back again. Ignis heard me. His sharp eyes glanced at me.

“Ignis, stop! Leave me here!” I pleaded again. “Go! You have to keep our brother safe!” Noctis was a brother to both of us. I hoped he’d be enough to get Ignis to see sense.

“Unhand her!” Ignis shouted.

“Iggy, go!”

“I'm not leaving you here to him!” Ignis snapped at me.

Ardyn chuckled again. “How noble,” he mused. “The two of you arguing over who it would be better to save.” He tsked. “If only you had the time…” He grinned maliciously. I heard the shink of a blade being drawn. It was a short, swift noise—a dagger probably.

The magitek soldier’s hand disappeared from my arm. Someone’s hand—Ardyn’s probably—clutched a fistful of my hair and pulled up. I shrieked. A cold blade pressed to my throat. I whimpered, scared but determined. “I-Iggy?” I stammered.

“It’s alright, princess,” he said.

“No. I-Iggy… you need to leave me here. Go to Noctis. Please.”

“Princess, I swore an oath to the king I would protect his children. That includes you, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“You were like ten!” I tried to arch my back and get my neck away from Ardyn’s dagger. To no avail.

“Oh. Enough of this,” Ardyn complained smoothly. “Let’s just be done with all this Lucis royalty business once and for all. Even the adopted ones.”

The dagger dug in a little deeper to my skin, but didn’t break it. I yelped.

“No!” Ignis shouted.

I heard a whoosh—and pain lanced through my neck. Ardyn tumbled away from me, one of Ignis’ ice blades sticking out of his chest. I fell onto my elbows, coughing and clutching at my neck. The clapping of hard-heeled shoes echoed on the pavement. Dark trousers knelt next to me, familiar gloves taking my hand and forearm to help me stand.

“Are you alright?” Ignis demanded. “Let me see.” He pinched my chin and tilted my head up, baring my throat. I hissed as the edges of the cut strained. Ignis sighed. “Just a flesh wound. You’ll be alright. Nothing major. Come. We’ll get you something to heal it when we’re safe. For now, here.” He withdrew something from the pocket of his jacket and pressed it into my hand. I couldn’t help but chuckle as he yanked his blade from Ardyn’s chest and grabbed my other hand.

“Of course you have bandages in your pocket,” I remarked playfully.

“Only a fool wouldn’t on a journey like this, princess,” he said.

“Would you stop calling me that?” I asked, stumbling after him as he dragged me along. “I'm not really Lucis’ princess. I'm just an orphan King Regis took pity on.”

“To be fair, nothing is known about your mother. You may not be an orphan,” Ignis said. “That being said: literally you are the only person who insists you’re not the Lucian princess. Even Noct would say that you are his sister. And that is that.” He let go of my hand long enough for me to manage to wrap the bandages around my bleeding neck—trapping my hair in it because I didn’t have time to get it out of the way and it fell to my hips so I didn’t have a choice—before grabbing it again.

I don’t know how long we ran—only that I was exhausted, panting, and still in pain by the time Ignis deemed us far enough from Ardyn that he could put a potion on my neck to heal the slice safely without Chancellor Izunia finding us. My neck was throbbing as Ignis tilted my head back again and unwound the bandages. The bottom few wraps were soaked through with red. Ick.

“What happened, Estelle?” he asked quietly, brushing my hair away from my wound. A few strands had been caught in the blood and peeled unpleasantly since it had dried a bit.

“You know Ardyn,” I grumbled. “Just turned up outta nowhere—with a fleet of MTs and attacked me.”

“Did you hold your own for a while, though?” Ignis asked, spreading the potion on my wound. “There. Should not even scar…”

“‘S long as I could,” I said. “Overwhelmed, outnumbered, outgunned. Scared. Caught off guard. Didn’t last more than two minutes before I got pinned.”

“That’s still significant,” Ignis said. “Two minutes in any fight is impressive.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re under the impression that I somehow outrank you—which I don’t, by the way. You’re a Crownsguard. I'm the daughter of a Crownsguard. We’re of the same rank.”

Ignis rolled his eyes and took my hand, wadding up the used bandages and shoving them in his pocket to burn later with the clean portions keeping the blood from staining his pocket. “Oh, princess,” he sighed. “You’ll be the death of me.” And off we were running again. I wasn’t expecting the sudden yank and stumbled a bit after him.

“Iggy, bear in mind you’re a lot taller than me and my legs are shorter!” I cried out, trying to keep pace. He slowed a bit so we were alongside each other, rather than him ahead of me.

Another long stretch of running. I was good at running in short bursts—a quick, agile sprinter—but I had no idea where we were and we just… kept… going.

“Ignis! Estelle!” a familiar voice cried out. Ignis stumbled to a stop, pulling me to a halt as well.

We turned in sync with each other. Too many years of being around each other, I guess.

Noctis, Prompto, and Gladiolus were running toward us. Ignis let go of my hand and pushed his glasses up. “Noct!” he exclaimed. Noctis smiled at him but ran right to me, grabbing my shoulders and peering at my face.

“Are you alright?” Noctis demanded.

“Fine,” I said.

“You’re bleed—no wait. You were bleeding,” he said.

“Thank Iggy for always having a potion or two on hand,” I remarked.

Noctis’ hand rested on Ignis’ shoulder. “Thank you for looking after her,” he said.

Ignis ducked his head. “Of course, Your Highness,” he said. “Keeping an eye on your sister is an honor.” He glanced at me. “Even if she sees it differently.” There was a hard edge to his tone, like he was exasperated with me. Ignis was always exasperated with me, though, so I couldn’t claim to be surprised. Or unused to that tone. He was usually exasperated at me for different reasons than he was with Noct when we were growing up.

“C’mon, guys. Let’s get out of here!” Prompto said. “This place is freaking me out.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Noctis muttered. His eyes flicked between me, Ignis, and Gladio. “‘S go.” He jerked his head and started to jog off. Gladio followed, Prompto close behind.

“Ugh. More running?” I complained.

Ignis’ fingers slid between mine again. “Come along,” he said. “It won’t be so bad this time. The Regalia is close by.”

“Oh good,” I muttered. We started to run. “That’s not the last we’ve seen of Ardyn.”

“I agree.”

The run was, in fact, shorter than the other two bouts Ignis and I had completed. Before I knew it Gladio was ignoring the doors to the backseat of the Regalia and picking me up by my waist to drop me unceremoniously onto the middle seat before jumping over the door himself and landing beside me. The other three opened the doors like normal people and we were off.

I rested my head on Noctis’ shoulder. “I'm gonna take a nap,” I said.

Noctis chuckled. “Go for it. I probably will too,” he said.

“Ig, wake me when it’s my turn to drive,” I added.

“We’ll see, princess,” Ignis said. I scoffed. “If you’re still feeling poorly, I might actually hand the wheel to Prompto if I grow fatigued.”

I snorted. “No you won’t,” I said, snuggling against my brother’s shoulder.

“We’ll see,” Ignis repeated.

Noctis snickered.

And that was the last I remembered.

^^^^^

“She’s out,” Noctis observed, feeling the weight of his sister’s head on his shoulder increase. “So what happened, Iggy?”

Ignis clenched his hands on the wheel. The leather creaked with the force and his knuckles turned white through the holes in his gloves. His jaw tightened. With a sigh, he explained what happened—also relaying what Estelle had told him about Ardyn’s arrival before he got there.

“Wow,” Prompto said. “You really threatened to break every bone in his body?”

Ignis shrugged. “He had Estelle,” he said as though that explained everything.

Which, since the others knew him so well, it actually did. Ignis and Estelle had a remarkably close bond and Ignis was loyal—he would go to the ends of the world for the people he cared about. Estelle was no exception, even if she constantly refused her rank as the princess to Ignis’ frustration.

“That took guts, dude,” Prompto remarked.

Ignis blinked. “Thank you,” he said.

“She gonna be okay?” Noctis asked.

“I assure you, she will be quite alright,” Ignis replied.

Noctis went quiet for a long time. Gladio had picked up his book and was reading in silence, ignoring everything else. At first, Ignis and Prompto thought Noctis had drifted off to sleep too. Then he looked up, meeting Ignis’ gaze in the rearview mirror.

“How… how scared were you when you saw her on the ground?” he asked softly. There was a gentle quiver in his voice.

“Terrified,” Ignis answered honestly. “And, to be frank, it drove everything else from my mind. She begged me to come find you and to leave her to her fate, but I could not. I sought only to protect her from harm.” Gladiolus grunted in what sounded like approval. Ignis didn’t acknowledge it. “I saw red and, in that moment, I believe I could have broken every bone in Chancellor Izunia’s body.”

Prompto gave Noctis a knowing smirk. Noctis bounced his eyebrows in understanding, a small grin tugging on his mouth.

“Thank you, Ignis, for keeping her safe,” Noctis said.

“Of course, Your Highness,” Ignis repeated from before. “I always will.”

#Rescue #Ignis Scientia #Ignis Scientia Imagine #Ignis Scientia FanFiction #Ignis #Ignis Imagine #Ignis FanFiction #Final Fantasty XV #Final Fantasy XV Imagine #Final Fantasy XV FanFiction #Final Fantasy 15 #Final Fantasy 15 Imagine #Final Fantasty 15 FanFiction #FFXV #FFXV Imagine #FFXV FanFiction #FF15 #FF15 Imagine #FF15 FanFiction

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