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You are learning to use your hands kindly again. The wars have been left in the swirling dust of the past. The future shines promises onto your face, warm like the rising sun. You have begun to learn what it is like to be hopeful again, despite all that you have lost.
Your friend with the firework scars helps. He understands the most out of anyone, and he, too, mourns the loss of the country withered by gunpowder and destruction. It is easier, when you are with him, to forget for a little bit; you have him and he has you. But sometimes when you look into his warm eyes, you remember standing in a room deep underground, full of slots prepared for the attachments of people around the server. You remember begging him not to go, and feeling ice freeze across your heart as you saw acceptance in those eyes. You remember seeing your hands, bloodied and bruised from the fight beforehand, as you hugged him for what you believed to be the last time. They were shaking, or maybe it was both you and your friend.
But then you blink, and his warm gaze is back, the only shadow of such horrors appearing in the kind lines around his eyes and the way his eyebrows pinch together in concern. He knows it is hard to look at your hands and not see death, so he gives you that smile that is gentle as snow and waits until the images recede. You sit and listen to the discs and watch the sunset turn the sky into watercolor.
You slowly remember what it is to hold something other than a sword in your hands when the king with the glowing eyes and traitorous past but redeeming present extends the offer of nail painting to you and your friend. At first, you think it is silly and a waste of time, but you can see the way your friend really wants to go and he deserves the world so you join him at the castle with the rainbow flag. The king shows you as he paints his nails black, and he looks really cool, so you ask to go next. Your friend suggests green to you so you agree, and then your friend gets his painted red. It makes your heart happy, but you don’t tell him that. You’re a big man.
It’s because you’re a big man that you visit your abuser in prison and laugh in his face. You tell him you won and he lost and he’ll never have anything on you again. He just sits there and accepts it. You leave feeling worse than ever. It did not feel the way you thought it would.
When you go to your friend’s new little home in the snow, you offer to go chop wood for him. It is only when you are taking the first swing at the trunk of a spruce tree that you think you’re swinging at the masked man again on a mountain, and the handle slips from your hands. It hits another tree with a clang, and you walk back to the cabins by the sea and have to tell your friend you couldn’t do it. He tells you not to worry about it and that it is fine. When you get back to your house, you fall into and climb out of a panic attack. Since you had so many during the exile, it is not such a big deal. It’s nothing to worry about, so you don’t tell anyone.
One day you ask the inventor who built the prison keeping a nightmare away from you to help you build a hotel. You think it would be nice for everyone to come together, especially since so many people lost a place to stay, a home, when your country was razed to rubble. You also just want something to do. He happily agrees, giving you tasks to do like a silly video game character that makes you remember what it is like to be a kid again. It’s a stupid little thing, just sending messages through his communicator while he plays the gibberish speech on his device, but you know he is doing it for you and it makes something warm spread like honey across your chest. You like that, and you like the tasks he gives you because you get to be useful. As the sun dips below the horizon, you look down at your hands and realize that you are building something instead of destroying. You walk to your cozy dirt hut and you are definitely not crying, you just got something stuck in your eye, that’s all.
The nice woman with the pink hair from your old country has reopened a bakery not too far from the hotel. You and your friend and the inventor visit, and she grins at you as the bell on the door chimes. You spend the rest of the day covered in baking powder and dough, laughing with your friends. You are happy, but not as happy as you should be. It is a strange sight to see your hands rolling out dough for pastries instead of rolling up med kits for battles. You don’t tell anyone else about the thought; they are having fun, and no one wants to hear about your problems anyway.
The captain with the curly hair like a sheep checks in on you. She finds you after you saw an old creeper pit and it reminded you too much of the hole the masked man would throw your armor and then dynamite into. It reminded you of having nothing and being nothing, and you crumbled on the path and she found you with hollow eyes and brought you to her new office. It didn’t take much persuasion for you to sign up.
You tell her about why you keep white bandages wrapped along your forearms and why you have a hard time looking at your hands. You tell her about how hard it is for you to cut carrots with a knife because the thoughts that made you tower up into the sky during exile come back and try to convince you to let the knife slip to your wrist. You tell her about how you can’t help but flinch when someone gets too close or moves too quickly. You tell her about the blood you see pooling in your palm and flowing between your fingers every time you walk past the ruins of your country. You tell her about all those times you fell asleep and woke up sinking in the ocean, gasping in water as the air got farther away and considering not swimming up at all sometimes. You tell her about the regular panic attacks, and she tells her that those should not be regular.
You are shaking with sobs when you tell her you miss being a kid and you miss your dead brother. She holds you and she understands. You are grateful it is not pity. She gives you a journal and a pen and tells you to write.
You are surprised when you look down at your hands and see ink spreading across a blank page instead of crimson dripping across pale skin. Sometimes you write about how you feel, sometimes you write to the masked man whose green cloak and smiling face won't get out of your head. You know these letters will never get to his hands, so it is easier to empty yourself on the pages.
Sometimes you write about the pull of the lava and wondering when it’s your time to die. Sometimes you write about the pillar. Sometimes you write about begging for your friend’s life to be spared and yours to be taken. Sometimes you write about the terror you feel when lightning strikes during a storm, or the way you can’t get out of bed some days a lot of days. You carry the book around everywhere. Eventually, you let the captain read a few pages after you failed to show up for several appointments because you couldn’t make yourself get up. You apologized too much to her and she said it was okay and you apologized too much to the inventor for missing tasks and stalling construction and he said it was okay, everyone needs off days.
You can’t stand the way your hands look when you argue with your friend after something he says triggers you. You can’t even remember what is was, but you lashed out and then so did he. Some side comment or snarky remark about being selfish. You shout at him and he shouts louder, and then you hold up that stupid compass you’ve been hanging onto despite being together again and tell him he can have it because you never want to see him or know where he is ever again. You hear his retort die in his throat as his eyes glue to the compass in your hand and fill with tears. He didn’t know you still had it. You hate the way your hand shakes as you hold it out to him, already regretting what you said. Your gazes meet, and the both of you crumble, launching together into a hug and letting apologies tumble off wobbling lips.
You stay in his cabin for the rest of the week after that.
You stare at your hands as they hang a welcoming lantern outside of your house, and decide you really like the green nail polish. Sitting in the enchanting silence, you breathe in a world that is becoming peaceful again. An orange moth flutters about the beaming light coming from the lantern. You smile at it and call it Clementine, watching as it lands on your fingers. Looking down at it, you do not see your hands stained with black smoke, only the beautiful wings as they flap over skin littered with old scratches. The night air whispers past, ruffling your hair. It is a little longer than it used to be. When you go inside, you tie a tiny braid into it, amazed at how hands that once laced arrows with poison are able to do such a gentle action. It reminds you of your brother.
It becomes easier to return the worried smile of the inventor building the hotel. It becomes easier to visit your friend in the snowy little village he is building, the vicious words and actions of the past that were hastily bandaged together in the dire fight against the masked man finally mending properly. It becomes easier to understand your warrior brother with the pink hair and your father, and you start to forgive them. It becomes easier to think about your brother with the beautiful words and revolutionary heart, and you start to truly consider the possibility of bringing him back. It becomes easier to sleep through the night without waking up screaming.
After a while, you are able to cut carrots for dinner again. Your hands shake a little, but you get through it. You find yourself knitting flower crowns more often than you knit up bloody rips in your clothing. The retired flag of your once great country finds its way into your home, hung above the mantle of the fireplace. When your friend visits, he smiles at it, his eyes blurry. You two spend the day fishing, and not once do you think about all those times you woke up drowning. The captain tells you that you are getting better. For the first time, you believe her.
It is still hard to take off your armor at the end of the day. You still take longer to amass materials; you are still scared they will be taken away and lost to an explosion. You still keep your forearms and wrists wrapped up with bandages even though you aren't injured. Sometimes you spend entire days sitting on the bench, often with your friend, listening to two beaten-up music discs again and again, reminding yourself it’s over. You do not pretend not to notice the way your friend flinches at loud noises and can’t stand small spaces. You notice the way he overcompensates to protect himself and you by making weapons of mass destruction. Even though the two of you don’t live in the same area, he doesn’t like being apart for long. Just because the pain has lessened it does not mean it has disappeared.
But now you put nail polish on your fingers instead of bandaids. You throw snowballs instead of bombs. The red on your clothes is paint, not blood. The lines on your hands aren't scratches, just marks from your pen. Your fingers don't shake when you wave hello. The scars you were afraid of making never appear on your wrists. You hug your friends before you head off to sleep, not just yourself.
It is okay. You are trying to use your hands kindly again. It is difficult, but you still try.