Chapter Text
All around them are mud, blood, and metal.
Where the heavens have opened up, water has flown as freely as tears.
It's made it difficult to navigate the dark tomb-mounds, but she moves around them freely.
Hands in her pockets, scowl on her face.
Like she belongs here.
Like she always has.
Keen and piercing eyes dance through a painting of hell;
The eyes of a bird, not a woman.
Men in torn uniforms see her eyes, and tense up -
Boys in torn uniforms wonder if their time has finally come.
The vehicle rattles; it's a covered motorised wagon.
Popular for use as transport, goods and services.
Karin always rides in back, along with the common soldiery.
She insists; even though everyone pretends to be shocked.
It's dangerous! You can't!
Wheels hit stones, and the whole wagon trembles.
The young man sitting next to her, and constantly sweating because with the way she's hunched?
He can see her body, pretty well.
Kid's barely a kid.
Her eyes flit to his, and because she always looks stern, he freezes.
Like he's not a kid. He's a rabbit.
"I'm not going to eat you, you know?"
The face that unconsciously returns to a look of stern concentration splits into a confident smile.
Fear, anger, tension - all of them melt off the faces of the men.
And, as if a tiny miracle has happened, they've returned to the usual chatter she's heard on transport.
Bawdy jokes; lots and lots of talk about sex.
Horny bastards.
She smiles, affectionately.
The smile does not reach her cloud-coloured eyes.
And her pen pauses, though the talon-tip does not hesitate.
It scratches letters, because if she stops, she won't continue.
"... and I was saying, miss, I'm really popular in Hundborge, I've got...
Roughly all the ladies love me, so, y'know..."
"No, I won't 'go out' with you."
She laughs as his shoulders fall instantly, betraying the level of popularity he had before.
His peers are howling with laughter -
It's not particularly kind, because the bonds of soldiers, and brothers, and men, and boys?
They don't really exist, and never have.
Pretending to roll eyes that they were so scared of, moments before -
She clasps a hand to the thin shoulderblade of a smaller man; a boy.
"I won't go out with you, if you die, I mean.
You've got a chance if you stay alive.
That gives me a feel-good story, and you the opportunity of a night on the town.
How about it?"
He's shorter, and thinner, and in awe of her -
From her body, to her easy manner about them.
His voice cracks as he tries to reply, and the other soldiers are still laughing -
But watching, fascinated.
What's he gonna say..?
She already knows.
She's heard this one before.
"Of... I, uh, of course!"
Her confident smile is unshakable; like an endless sky.
With her eyes shut, dark eyebrows underneath golden hair, it's like the intense woman they were all watching warily never existed.
That confidence is infectious, as she says:
"Right! It's a deal!"
Stalking into the lowest pits, hands in jacket pockets.
The roar of distant artillery; shells are probably landing pretty close.
Union always relies on saturation bombing when they panic.
Karin stares up at the sky above, and if a single glance could tear it asunder with a challenge -
Perhaps it would've been hers.
But there's no light in the deep trenches.
Compared to the meagre holes the Union throws together, Bremen at least has room to breathe.
Which also means room to feel hemmed in, like you've nicely dug your own tomb.
She's not uncomfortable rooting around in the earth, because she's here for a single reason.
"... Well, well.
Found you.
How you holding up?"
"... Miss Journalist?"
"Yep.
Got my crew behind me."
She didn't; she didn't have a crew.
The upper torso of a boy in his death throes calms down;
Eased by the promise of support that's right nearby, even as she sets up the tripod.
Once it's put together, she sits next down to him, holds his hand tightly.
He can't grip it back very well, but he still holds it in kind.
"Uhmn... I, will they let me - see you in the hospital..."
"Yep.
Even if they don't, I'm a pretty awful woman.
Have a bad habit of sneaking where I shouldn't be.
I'll carry you off when you get sick of the wallpaper and the candystripers.
Sound nice?.."
"Yeah..."
She's already losing him.
His face was - is free of facial hair.
Keen eyes, intense and unblinking, memorise the dark brown of his own.
The mole on his face, a beauty spot that rich women would kill for.
Curly blond hair, fading into brown roots.
"My crew is going to be moving people out soon.
But you're a hero; we drove the Union back."
Artillery fire should tell him that this isn't true; that the bitter grinding battle still rages.
He doesn't know, doesn't understand.
It's the same fog she's seen before, and will see again.
"I - me..?"
"You.
You'll be having your pick of beautiful ladies, so don't forget me."
"I'd - I'd, never..."
"Mmn. You would've.
Now - question?
Do you mind if I get an early interview?"
"Uh... Uh..."
He doesn't know what to say.
He's a boy; not a man.
His eyes are already clouded, already having been claimed.
The words hang in his throat; her hands remain in jacket pockets calmly, and she hasn't turned the camera on.
"S... Su, re..."
Light illuminates the trench, artificial and remote.
As if a single pillar has descended around the ruined upper body of a soldier, calling him home.
Her face has vanished behind the camera, and he searches for it, desperately;
But as her right hand removes itself from her pocket, giving him a thumbs-up, he slowly calms.
And he speaks.
The camera rolls and her fingers are shaking -
But not from fear.