Work Text:
It is the same every night. The sky over the Berezina river, bracing for a boarding-party—Roland is numb to her own terror. When she shoots the Guardsman, it is right between the eyes; his blood sprays across her face, hot and coppery.
Roland is bolt upright, suddenly; the frigid skies of Russia have become her cramped quarters.
“Are you quite alright?” A voice inquires. She turns; there, beside her, is the woman Roland escorted home. Her black hair curls soft and loose over Roland’s sheets; Roland is sure she has never had to kill a man.
Roland finds it humiliating when this happens; it sets her apart from anyone else her age, writes the things she has done clear across her face. She never quite knows what to say.
Well, that’s not quite right. She knows what she wants to say—I’ve been an aviator since the day I was born and will be ‘til the day I die. I served my country proudly, during the war. But I look at people like you, who never had to—and I hate you for it.
Christ. Roland is only twenty years old—she feels so much older.
“Yes,” she responds instead. “I will be—thank you.”