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"There's a fire in my brain, and I'm burning up
Oh my, oh my"
Grey plumes of smoke rise from the smouldering crater below, coiling up and around the ruins of an army smothering their pride like a burnt out cigarette bud.
"Keep running for the sink, but the well is dry
Oh my, oh my"
A boy, barely old enough to walk home alone, crashes onto bandaged knees with a loud wail of pain as he watches the only home he's known be torn apart in front of him. He wants to leave—to be anywhere other than here— he wants things to go back to how they were, with friends and warm laughter. Freshly baked pastries in the mornings and hearty meat dinners at night. He wants desperately to go back—please take him back-
"Every word I say is kindling
But the smoke clears when you're around"
A hand reaches out to grip his shoulder, it's a grounding; comforting, touch. He turns to his commander— his brother— tears streaked ocean blue meets worn, hazel brown and he can feel himself again; back in the present.
"Won't you stay with me, my darling
When my walls start burning down, down, down"
The boy leaps into his brother's arms; he latches onto the other and retches out in pitiful cries. And it is at this moment that the older knows they've lost, the walls of his nation crumble in time with the ragged breathing of his second in command.
"This house says my name like an elegy
Oh my, oh my"
The boy stands bow drawn back, an arrow knocked ready to shoot. Adjacent to him a man, clad in green stands in a similar manner only much calmer, bordering on arrogant as they both take a step back. The commander's voice rang out like roaring church bells. His counting reached the climax and before the boy could even aim. He saw the shaft of the arrow jutting out of his chest.
"Echoing where my ghosts all used to be
Oh my, oh my"
White hot pain claws its way through his system, gouging its claws into his skin and tearing wide gashes through his aching throat, suffocating him. He staggered, hunched over and retching warm crimson onto the cold wooden path. Distantly, he hears his friend's call his name beckoning him back. But the drowsiness tugging on his bones is far stronger, he can feel it; gently tugging him down, urging him to rest and he's compelled to follow; but not without one final glance up. There he meets the eyes of his assailant, bottle green eyes glare at him from behind bloodstained porcelain. Then his eyes fall shut and he drifts off.
"There's still cobwebs in the corners
And the backyard's full of bones"
The boy steps out onto a field of dying grass, the once bright green charred by fire, only to grow back and shrivel in the autumn chill. A shorter boy with chestnut hair follows soon after halling a pail of planks and nails along with him. They move together through recovering land and half rebuilt walls, to a makeshift podium of where an election will be held. The pair laugh and joke together, their hopes high for the first time in a long time. Hope for the present and hope for the future in spite of the past.
"Won't you stay with me, my darling
When this house don't feel like home?"
The boy is alone, pressed into a corner of his hillside home he feels as if something is wrong, not presently but somewhere in the back of his mind a horrible premonition eats away at him. Tomorrow is the big day, election day, there is no way they can lose, the vote is entirely in their favour! Yet still, he has this terrible feeling that his home is to be ripped from him again. And he's not sure if he could handle that-
"Oh ashes, ashes, dust to dust
The devil's after both of us"
The boy is running again. He's running fast and running hard, running until the blood starts thumping in his ears and the pain from messy gashes lining his arms is nothing but a dull throbbing in the background,serving only to time him as his feet dig hard into the ground. He turns around, checking for his brother, and he barely has time to register he's there before an arrow head is protruding through his back and the commander is staring wide eyed at him.
The boy doesn't look back again.
"Ooh, lay my curses out to rest
Make a mercy out of me"
The boy sits with his back to the wall of a damp revine, knees tucked in close under his chin. He's hunched over waiting outside of a hollowed out room for his brother to finish changing. He can't quite wrap his head around everything that has just happened; he's lost his home, once again, to a man who thought he knew better, and what's more, his best friend betrayed him for the man. He had lost everything in just two hours and his brother can't even bring himself to care enough. Please allow someone to pity him; he's not sure if he can take muchore of this.
"This tired old machine is a-rumbling
Oh my, oh my"
The boy watches the weathered warrior sharpen swords and polish bows, he helps repair armour and ration the food the farms produce on overtime, straining to turn out enough for the war effort. His friend creeps down from above carrying bundles of intel, a true aly and one of the only not half mad. Bodies shuffle about in the ravine, a combined effort for liberation; for revolution!
"Singing songs to the secrets behind my eye
Oh my, oh my"
The boy gazes on from his perch on the hillside just above his ex-country, its citizens shackled beneath the repression of a tyrant. His commander sits beside him, crazed red eyes and scarred hands drag along the worn chords of his guitar, strumming out a peaceful melody for the boy to hum along with. He knows it's not long till the reckoning and he can tell it won't end well but he chooses to enjoy this moment with his brother all the same.
"All my aching bones are trembling
And I may yet fall apart"
The boy surges forward into the fray his friends and ally's stand side by side. They fight together for their homes, for their people, for their pride, for L'manburg. Though his limbs start to ache from overuse, he continues to slash at the enemy and push his way forward carving out a path to lead them all to victory.
"Won’t you stay with me, my darling
When the war starts in my heart?"
The boy is frozen in the centre of a decimated field, screams of pain from ally and enemy alike; echo in his ears but he can’t bring himself to process them as his mind is focused on the scene before him. His father kneels over his brothers body, a sword pierced clean through his stomach, from here he can see exactly how the blood seeps through fibres of his clothes staining his dusty yellow sweater a muddy maroon. Don't leave me- please don't leave me all alone, but his pleading is drowned out by a death harolding screech.
"When the war starts in my heart"
The boy stares out over the crater seeing the dark creature enveloped in withering smoke rise high over the battlefield, its summoner remains below carving a bloody trench through the lines of his enemies. His limbs are full of lead and his head is buzzing with bees, the boy can't grasp what's happening. It seems like Deja Vu in a sense, and he half expects a firm, comforting grip to fall upon his shoulder —of course it doesn't, it never will again— He knows where that hand lays empty attached to the cold and forgotten body of his brother.
"Oh ashes, ashes, dust to dust
The devil's after both of us"
The boy pulls his friend in close as if hoping to shield him from the barrage of dynamite showering over their nation. In the distance steel strikes sunken bark bringing curtains of glowing red flames around the tree. High above, the green eyed leader cackles; a loud and triumphant noise, drowned out only by the howling of wolves below.
"Ooh, lay my curses out to rest
Make a mercy out of me"
The boy realizes now that it's time to move on, there is nothing left for him here. His country is in ruins and his friends are nothing if not distant, a horrible sense of loneliness traps his throat in a vice grip. Pulling him back, to the comfort of home, of friends, of a family.
And it takes just about all he has to turn away.
"Oh ashes, ashes, dust to dust
Tell me I am good enough"
A boy— a different one— one with Brunette curls and flowing scares that scale up his arms and across his face. He sits alone, a suit jacket draped over his shoulders to keep somewhat warm. His gaze presses out onto the overgrown state of a hollowed country. He wonders if he was a good leader, probably not. He decides gripping his ukulele and strumming out a bitter-sweet chord.
"Ooh, lay my curses out to rest
Make a mercy out of"