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“Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you’re not really losing it. You’re just passing it on to someone else”
— Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven
There is one awful, painful, almost absolute truth about being a soldier: some of his comrades would fight like soldiers just to die like children.
Jiyan, like everyone else, had to accept it, be prepared to see his comrades leaving the vanguard’s base and go on patrol —a small group with no major backup, just them, a few guns, what learned in the military academy and their experience.
In his mind, they all remain younger than him, full of dreams, walking to the horizon. That is how he saw them last time, that is how they shall remain. Wearing a clean uniform, and facing their fears, ready to engage in combat and accepting that, maybe, that would be their last time going on patrol. Sometimes, living another day was a luxury.
And…There were times that thinking about it was scary.
To realize how they accepted that dying was something that could happen to them, to anyone regardless of their rank, and that they had to be ready. How, in order to protect what they loved, to keep their city safe and keep those eldritch creatures away people living there, they had no other option that take the arms because in order to have peace, a war had to be fought and won.
In fact, peace was a reward, something given after a victory, it was not something that people naturally had. That is how it had been since the first humans appeared in Solaris-3, and probably would remain that way as long as they kept existing.
But, when facing death, what did they feel?
Were they able to look the enemy directly into the eyes and keep fighting or the sudden realization of a certain death scared them so much it broke their will to fight?
Did they regret joining the army, giving up the life they actually had the right to live, a peaceful existence away from the battlefield and all the sorrows and dangers this way of life had to offer?
At the Military Academy they learned how to fight. Theory was one thing, but the practice was something else.
“It is part of a cycle”, Yhan told him once, after a few bottles of liquor.
The spirit had a colour that was midway between orange and yellow, its aroma was pungent, almost aggressive, and it had a strong flavor that left a burning sensation in the trachea. Drinking it felt like drinking hot water and being able to enjoying it —or tolerating it— was definitely an acquired taste. It was also one of the —if not the most— strongest alcoholic beverage and its popularity made it a staple item at any bar in Huanglong owned by somebody that wanted to keep patrons returning and spending their hard-earned money in torturing their kidneys.
("This is the variety we have in Jinzhou", a soldier told Jiyan once. It was a long time ago. It happened a few weeks before being appointed as general by the sentinel of Jinzhou. "The one you can find in Taiyuan Vale is a delicate spirit with floral notes, and I heard that the one produced in Hongzhen is supposed to have an off-white colour and taste like a delicate mixture of dried fruits and anise. In addition to that, it is said that before being obliterated, Qichi Village produced a light brownish-gray liquid that taste like a mixture of honeysuckle")
The first bottle was usually to start a conversation and warm up the mood.
The following one was when some — usually the youngest — started to make fools of themselves, saying or doing things that they might have forgotten the next morning but ended up becoming in-jokes, to their dismay. Some kids learned the hard way what happened when they allowed the alcohol to posses their head and command their actions. The most tamed were kept around, but those who started to act like animals got removed and sent either to their home, a room rented by the army or to their own beds at the barracks —depending if they were in the city or the Midnight Ranger’s base— so the rest could be able to keep having fun and forget about the problems for a while.
During the third —the most dangerous, according a lot of people— was when, usually, people that convinced themself that they developed a tolerance to the alcohol got humbled. Also, the moment were veterans started to cry.
Jiyan and Yhan were almost done with the fourth, and both of them could start feeling the effects. That was the amount of alcohol both needed to scratch the surface of a conversation involving something personal. But anything beyond that, it never happened. There were always things unsaid, and not even the strongest liquor in Huanglong was enough to make people confess things beyond what the other expected to hear. Experience made it difficult to talk about problems because at some point, people were supposed to know how to shup up and keep silly feelings under control.
“… A cycle”, Yhan said, as if that, for a second, he forgot about the General’s presence.
He is stumbling upon his words...
And the next thing Jiyan remembers —or it was an illusion created by the alcohol? — is witnessing the moment Yhan’s blueish gray eyes became hazy, covered by a thin veil of rage and sadness.
It was a sight to behold. His coat was hanging behind the chair, one arm on the top rail, with the magnific façade of Jinzhou’s City Hall behind him. Even during a few seconds of weakness, he looked imposing, serene, with his masculine frame.
For a moment, it seemed that Yhan was looking his reflection on the surface of the distilled liquid.
“A cycle that…”, added, before drinking what was left of alcohol on his glass. Next, he poured more on the General’s glass before filling his. “Those kids joined voluntarily…”
There was no sadness on his voice, just the calm of a man that after so many years training them, learnt how to build a wall between him and the fact that his job was … teaching them. To do his job and not think about the future.
However, it seemed that there were cracks, and between them a few memories slipped, occasionally, momentarily blurring the line between his personal life and his military life. Jiyan noticed that the bottle was almost empty and wondered if the owner would pass them another one or would chase them out.
“I... think you are right”
Even if it seemed bitter and unfair, it was that. A cycle, and it was easier to follow Yhan’s logic: the child becomes a soldier, the soldier dies, and the childhood is back. They all paid a price, and so did their parents. And Jiyan, as the general, had to honor their sacrifice. He had to accept that they were gone.
However, it was not because they were dead that he had to give up or pretend that things would get better and his comrades would stop dying in those wastelands forsaken by the gods.
Their sacrifice was a fact, their life and death were a prove that they existed and it was Jiyan’s duty as general of the Midnight Rangers to move forwards, keep fighting and not wasting what others gave up believing in something that went beyond them.
Any kind information — from relevant to irrelevant and in-between — always came in pieces and it was up to them to place them together to see the whole picture of a situation, or at least to have an idea of what happened when things were unclear. Sometimes it happened in a matter of hours or days, other times it was a slower process, but most of the times things were done and they ended up having enough information to provide an explanation.
Jiyan closed with his fingers the eyes of the patroller, yesterday full of life, today laying in the bed. A lot of them were young, but one thing they never realized was how young they were. Death enhanced the lack of experience, added an additional layer of tragedy to the end of a life that was taken so early it forced parents to bury their children when it the opposite was supposed to happen.
Some of these children never lived enough to learn that lesson. It was bitter sweet. Maybe they were the lucky ones.
“From what we had been able to gather at this moment, it seams like that a Tacet Field suddenly formed around them, general.”, informed Ganquan, standing next to him. “It blocked communication with us, so there was no way for us to know they needed back-up”
“What about his own communication device?”
Ganquan took a look at his noted.
“Damaged during combat, apparently.”, answered, holding a page from its corner, lifting it because that precise information was at the following page. “According to the medic at battalion aid station, before dying, the soldier told her that their unit leader ordered him to flee from the Tacet Field and find a way back to the base”
Jiyan mustered a soft understood.
Thanks to that decision, they were able to prepare for the assault. Since it was Tacet Field recently formed, they all expected a reduced number of attackers.
However, the group of Tacet Discords that appeared was bigger than what they were expecting and even the medics had to engage in combat, shrinking the chances of the soldier’s survival.
A small group of people had to die in order to make sure a bigger group made it another day
An upseting feeling of utter disgust followed that thought. For a few seconds, Jiyan doubted that his own mind was able to create that thought on its own. He wished that that dehumanising thought was not something that came from him but rather that it was a memory, words said by another person.
Why should people mourn a few deaths when the amount of people alive was bigger, was something in the line of thinking of people like the former general, Geshu Lin. He had no qualms in looking people directly into the eyes and order them to fight, fight, fight until their last breath, accept that death was next to them and put an end to their existence if they were not strong enough.
There was a cold, disdainfully way of telling them that if they wanted to be safe and sheltered from the dangers, they should have thought it twice before leaving Jinzhou and coming to the front, a place were good times were not promised.
Maybe its something he did say. I just happened to remember it...
He said that to himself, trying to cast away that idea and not take responsibility about its creation. But it was not. He was lying to himself. It was a thought of his own creation, and part of the crude reality of the battlefield. Not everyone ended up being saved, some of them just ended up killed.
In an almost mechanical way, he pressed a button located at the caregiver’s siderail control panel to have a holographic display of the soldier’s record. Name, age, rank, anything that could give him an idea of who he was besides a member of the Midnight Rangers.
“…”
Ganquan looked at the general. He suddenly looked lost, anguished. Something in his mind was troubling him and there was to help him. Ganquan felt that nothing he said would bring solace to the general.
It occurred to Ganquan that maybe the General wanted to be alone. Now that all the information available was transmitted to him, the presence of an underling was not required and that he was expecting a report the next day or the one the day after tomorrow.
“If the general does not require my presence anymore, I will take my leave”, announced. He was a few steps away from the corridor outside of infirmary when he heard Jiyan’s voice.
“Notify his family about his passing and tell them he will be back tomorrow”
“As you order, general”, answered Ganquan before leaving the General alone, next to the bed were his former comrade was laying dead.
Being able to live another day was something to be grateful for. Showing himself vulnerable in front somebody and being accepted in the most respectful and genuine way, was something to treasure.
It was a nice, heartwarming relief followed by a fear born in his heart and straightened by his own experiences. He knew it was wrong, sabotaging his own chances of happiness, but it was something he did unconsciously. Sometimes it felt like looking for the shadows in a place full of light, and elevating the darkest corner to the most important part of the whole picture. Good things were destined to exist for brief time, but if something good happened to him, then there was something wrong. It was supposed to happen to somebody else.
“…If one day I perish in battle and cannot return home… Could you please plant one of these flowers for me?”
The battlefield shaped some people in an incredibly bitter, curious, cynical and twisted way. Jiyan was not sure what name he was supposed to give to the damage he had gotten after so many years, but he was glad that he had been able to become a functional adult. He can live, he can fight and win battles; he is master of his actions and decisions. That was enough, the rest was just petty details.
Or...
Maybe he was afraid of finding somebody and being happy. Maybe he was so used to see bad things happening to others that the idea of having somebody precious, close to him, that belonged to him at some extent, burned his soul and left him with a fear not even he felt ready to face.
Somebody to protect, cherish, and love.
A person able to help him reconnect with the world the life at the Rearguard’s Base stained with shades of red and made him dislike cold air that —at times— seemed to carry across the land the screams and cries of his dead comrades, fallen in places that not even the General could reach.
The life that got him used to that eroded landscape drenched in blood of countless soldiers, dressed with the colours of an eternal, cold Autum that not even a brief period of sunlight could disguise with the deceitful shroud of an unwelcoming beauty because even the sun seemed lifeless at the Desorock Highland.
The mere idea that a person like that could exist, appear in front of him, uninvited, and decided on their own to remain by his side, was terrifying. There were wall he built for protecting himself. He was not ready to tear them down.
Somebody helping him to reflect on the loses and gains, and make him accept that everything —the sleepless nights, the memories that were silent during the day but decided to hunt him when he was alone in his bedroom — was worth, that regardless of the painful experiences, there was still hope for him.
A stubborn person telling him that even if sometimes he brushed off that thought, he actually was worthy of a peaceful, mundane life, and that, for his own good, he had to come to terms with the fact that there were things he was not responsible for at all and that looking for solace was always an option.
He was human, and for most humans it was impossible to control everything. And all of that was terrifying. Accepting that by allowing somebody to be part of his life also meant welcoming good and bad things. It was possible for his weakness and strengths to coexist.
Bad and good times did not last forever, there was also a period of transition, and it was important to know how to adapt and navigate through them.
Gaining something that he could loose at any moment... it did not make sense. Life should not give people things that could get easily broken or taken away. It was ridiculous to give somebody something precious and expect them to just let them go and keep living. It was easier to push them away or keep the distance.
But this person in particular was precisely that. The one that decided to stay next to him and give him hope.
“I will not let you die”
It was a promise, and a surprising one. For the first time in many years, somebody was telling him he, as individual, did not have the right to die.
I won’t complain about it…
And, at that moment, Jiyan convinced himself that those warm golden eyes —full of understanding and compassion, but not the one that felt insulting or full of content. It was a genuine gesture— were something that was worth remember.
Who knows. Maybe, in the future, at a moment when everything might seem lost, the memory of Rover telling him that he would not let him die, would drag him from despair and make him fight.
Just to come back to him and feeling the warmth of his eyes. It was humbling, in the nicest way. An unadulterated sense of belonging and acceptance.
“Thank you, Rover”
Jiyan never felt that Rover was looking down at him after learning the truth
(The General was haunted by the voices of his dead comrades. He still remembers them; they are dead but not forgotten. They are not numbers on a file, they were not any kind of people; they were his comrades that died protecting their homeland. Those men and women had hopes and dreams, and they allowed them to be shattered into pieces because there was something bigger than a peaceful life for themselves.)
It was a tender, bittersweet moment. Something hidden was revealed; the mask fell off and the other person was able to see through a carefully crafted façade.
There was nothing to pretend, nothing to hide. And that brought him a peace he never thought he would be able to feel in this life. There was nothing to be ashamed of, not respect lost.