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Tink, tink, tink comes the hollow clanking of tin against my boot, an empty, littered can rolling further along the dirt path with each kick it receives as I walk. Frightened by the sound, mice scurry through the holes in the chain link fence at my side to flee, abandoning the salvaged remains of the scrapped foodstuff they ravaged. The scent of smoke and gunpowder stings at my nose—a smell that has become so commonplace to me that fresh air is nearly an unfamiliarity now—yet in this place it’s hardly noticeable when compared to the pungent stench of battlefields.
A few more dreaded paces and the can stops rolling, abruptly being halted when it bumps against the wall of a tent towering before me. An exasperated huff escapes my lips in response as my pace slows, for I realize that beyond the curtain concealing the doorway lies the place I despise most in this damned camp. And even worse, I’d come here willingly. Oh, how far I’ve fallen.
Shaking my head to clear away the brewing regret, I take a reluctant step forward and thrust the curtain aside, stalking into the quarters of my platoon captain.
I expected to be met with some of the man's incessant nagging as usual. Smalltalk along the lines of, 'Lars, how are you?' or pokes of mockery like, 'Who did you get into trouble with this time?'
Instead, I'm greeted with silence, broken by a scratching sound I soon recognize to be the scrawling of a pen to paper, its ink dancing vigorously across the page in a rhythm steady from the trained hand directing its chorus. After a quick look over, I confirm that not much has changed. The tent is swept clean as it always is, almost enough to distract from the drawers left ajar and crammed with documents and opened letters, useless mementos strewn about almost every available surface that I'm sure serve no real purpose besides sentiment.
And finally, squinting through low lighting, my eyes lock onto the back of an all too familiar captain, light hair a disheveled mess and hunched over his ligneous desk—far too engrossed in scribbling away at who knows what. Clearly, he hadn't expected visitors this late at night, and if he noticed me enter, he gave no acknowledgment of my presence.
It's not like I expected to be paying a visit at this hour either. For me, this place has always worked as something of a principal's office. I do something deemed problematic and he makes sure I get a proper slap on the wrist like a misbehaving child.
I recall the last time being when I knocked a soldier's tooth out with a metal tray provided at the mess hall after one particularly violent feud. I don’t remember what it was about, nor do I remember trying to aim for his pearly whites. But I do know he had it coming for him one way or another, and he learned to hold his tongue from then on—which I had considered a favorable development. My captain, on the other hand, not so much, and of course, I never got off the hook without enduring the age-old ‘we’re all fighting for the same cause’ speech I’ve heard time and time again. Needless to say, I don’t want to be here any longer than necessary.
Quietly I announce my presence with an impatient tap of the foot, which brings my captain's writing to an abrupt halt. Setting his pen aside he turns his head placidly to face me, the orange hue of lamplight reflecting in his eyes and acting to distract from the prominent dark circles under them. Yet the corners of his mouth upturn ever-so-slightly all the same, and why he would feel the need to put on a smile for even the most troublesome boy under his leadership is beyond me.
The subtle intensity of his stare always seems as though he's looking at a completely different person than the boy before him though, an old friend whom I've never met, and one that he knows every detail of inside and out. It makes my skin crawl, and I find myself unable to meet his gaze.
“Lars, it’s not often I get to see you here. Well, of your own free will, at least,” Griff laughs, mostly to himself. “To what do I owe this pleasure—”
“What are we doing with the kid?” I blurt out, the question coming before I can allow myself time to rethink it.
Resting his freshly bandaged arm against the back of his chair, Griff seems to lose himself in thought for a brief moment, idly brushing specs of glass from the desk before understanding sparks in his eyes.
“The kid. You mean the little one you pulled from the village the other day? She's staying here with us until we can locate any of her surviving family. That's the plan, anyway."
I scoff. “When I brought her to the field medic, she told me that her family was neglectful. Threw her out like trash. You’re telling me that you want to put her back in that hellhole?”
Griff shakes his head as he speaks again, “I don’t want to, but it’s a necessary step we need to take before doing anything else. Whether her claim is true or not isn't something we can decide for ourselves right now.”
“Yeah, well, what if it is true? Her parents could be dead already for all we know."
“Then we’ll see if we can find any other suitable relatives to take care of her in their stead," sensing my next question, Griff continues. "And if there are none, she'll be put in a good orphanage. For now, that’s the most I can promise."
Good orphanage. What a joke.
“You really think somebody would waste away their time and money on a faulty little girl that can't even use the two eyes she has?"
"I think…" Griff hesitates. "Some people are more selfless than you might expect. Though, I’m relieved to see you so concerned about the matter. Regardless of her parental situation, a girl like her has undoubtedly had no easy life. I'm sure you can understand."
The quake of distant artillery replays in the back of my mind, a memory dredged up from a past that seems so far away now. The scent of iron coating the air like a plague; the childish shame that wells up between pathetic sobs on the nights where shots ring too close to home; the empty words of feigned strength, consumed in the end by the weakness they were grounded upon. I wince at the cruel nostalgia, and it dissipates as quickly as it came.
Of course I understand.
"I'm not worried," I snap back, looking away to avoid my captain's prying eyes.
In the moment of discomfort, I find my attention attaching itself elsewhere, to a picture laid aside in a disorderly fashion. Its frame looks to have been recently shattered, shards of glass still peppering the ground below it. Yet the small photo within is still intact, and displayed on its face is what looks to be a younger version of my captain, a boisterous grin lifting his cheeks with his arms slung over the shoulders of soldiers I don't recognize. But with his face flushed in merry drunkenness, his seemingly brash mannerisms are so unlike the soft captain I know, that I can only wonder if it might be a family member instead. A brother, maybe?
Before I can speculate further, my captain follows my gaze and gently turns the frame on its face. A feeling of curiosity tugs at my conscience from the action, but it's snuffed out all the same.
"Don't get the wrong idea," I continue, fixing my gaze instead to a jar of candy set at the desk. "I was the one that found her, so I just want to know what you're planning. That's all."
From the corner of my eye, I see my captain give a slow nod—silently unconvinced, no doubt.
"It'll take some time for us to work it all out," he goes on, before spouting what has to be the most absurd thing I've ever heard come from his mouth. "Until then, I'd like to leave her in your care, if that is okay with you."
My jaw drops in an instant, and I raise my head to meet his eyes despite myself. If that's okay with me? He has to be joking.
"Very funny," I reply with a glower.
“Come on now, don't be like that. I think it will be good for you! Wouldn't it be nice to have a break from your usual, repetitive schedule? Besides, if you take on the task, I won't even make you handle laundry duty this week. How does that sound?” he hums as if sealing the deal.
I quickly come to conclude that this isn't some poor attempt at humor, but that he's simply lost his mind completely.
"To call babysitting a 'break' is just about the biggest stretch I've ever heard."
"Maybe so," he replies with a light chuckle, standing from his seat. "But before you say no, how about you get to know her a bit more before making your decision, okay?"
I flinch at my captain's hand laid on my shoulder, scowling up at him. That is until I feel him nestle something into my palm and, upon inclining my head, see a small, orange bead bundled inside a plastic wrapper. Candy.
He thought I was staring at the jar because I wanted one, I realize, shame washing over me from how childish a notion like that must have seemed.
"Fine," I mutter at last, sticking the candy in my pocket and turning on my heel to leave with haste.
The dampened echo of my muddied bootheels against the floor serves as a hollow announcement of my departure, an empty kind of sound that once filled me with satisfaction beyond all measure. Your nonsensical orders don’t control me, I would think in those moments as I rushed from the room to defy whatever they may have been. Now, the act just feels disappointing, and I find my steps soon faltering as my skepticism betrays me.
“Why did you ask me?” comes my question in a hushed tone, hand wavering to draw back the curtain as I clutch it between my fingers.
Despite my distance, the resolve in my captain’s voice still rings loud in my ears.
“Because I trust you.”
“And when has that ever worked out for you?”
“The both of us are still alive and well, aren’t we? If you ask me, that speaks plenty for itself.”
I don't respond, letting a bleak silence settle over the quarters. Droplets from a tear in the ceiling leak into a bucket underfoot, causing the jarring sound of water smacking against the tin to reverberate in a rhythmic pattern. Once. Twice.
"You're insane," I conclude on the third, gone without another word.
Yet the crinkle of the candy in my pocket still follows me close in my steps, like a persistent little piece of my captain desperately clinging onto me no matter how far I stray from him. So damn irritating.
My captain always stretches compliments and words of encouragement towards me to unrealistic lengths—no doubt because I scarcely have qualities he can honestly praise—but that one topped the charts for sure. All I've done right for him is kill, it's all anyone in this lousy military camp can do. So what made him get such a bright idea all of a sudden? And to take care of a child no less? Ridiculous.
Honestly, I'm not sure why I even cared about the outcome of the kid. I shouldn't have. But for whatever reason, the question of where they were dumping her off had been bugging me nonstop since I left her with the field medic that day. I figured my captain would say something about orphaning her, but to say he would find a good orphanage was a stretch. There was no doubt in my mind that she would continue to be neglected and abused for her disability, and anyone who might so much as think of ever adopting her would be scorned by the upper class for the rest of their life. She would rot away in any orphanage, and then when she aged out she would starve on the streets if she was lucky. That's how it goes in our society—how it's always gone. It doesn’t take a genius to know that much.
But there's part of me that hates the idea for a different reason. If she was taken in by an honest, loving family, what might happen if they were then ripped away from her the same as mine? On quiet nights like these, I sometimes find myself wondering if it might have been better if I never even had a family or anywhere to call home. You can't lose what you don't have to begin with, after all, and the joy that predates loss only amplifies the pain when it’s torn from your hands. Cherished memories twist into loathing, regret, fear, doubt, and an ache in your chest that never really leaves no matter how much you do to distract from it. Wouldn't it make more sense to spare her from that end?
Maybe I'm only pushing my ideals into the situation. Not everyone lost it all from the war like us military bastards—not everyone's future is written in bullets and blood.
The song of cicadas brings me back to reality, and squinting through the dark to get a grasp of my surroundings, a sense of dread tightens in my chest. I was so sure I intended on retiring to my quarters, yet while lost in thought I had subconsciously led myself down a much different route. The path before me is the very same I had walked the night I fled to violate a direct order in the prospect of fulfilling what I soon realized to be a meaningless goal. More precisely, the night that flipped everything I'd ever known on its head when I finally managed to plunge a blade through the heart of the commanding officer that had plagued my nightmares for more of my life than not. Each and every detail—the moments where I could have turned back, and the moments where I pressed onward still—remains fresh in my memory with all of the emotions that accompanied them. Is that why I always find myself here again?
With a sigh, I turn to leave and stop in my tracks not a second later. No, this is a different kind of dread now, an animalistic sort of danger instinct I'd learned to develop after having enough sniper scopes aimed at my head. The feeling of someone impossibly close.
As if on cue, I hear a sound like the distant splashing of water and my heart spurs to life, a hard-driven battle instinct taking over in an instant. The forest itself seems to close in around me, every shifting leaf from the stale wind making my grip only tighten around the hilt at my hip.
With a metallic shriek, my blade slides easily from its scabbard, bloodlust pulsing through my veins as I draw in close, flitting around the trees and heading for the nearby pond where I know must be the source of the disturbance. My footsteps are light and agile, stepping soundlessly against the moss and soil beneath them as I use my memory of the area to traverse around the trails of gravel that might give me away. Even despite the sleepless nights taking a toll on my mental state, my mind is racing.
And there I see it, moonlight reflecting on a lone figure by the pond as it rakes its hands through the water. Liquid ripples around its delicate fingers, and with a surge of equal parts relief and disappointment, I recognize it to be the small silhouette of a child. As much as I wish to be mistaken, I know that there is only one kid sojourned in this camp.
What on Earth is she doing sitting by the pond so late at night?
Carefully returning my sword into its sheath, I take a step back. Right onto the gravel path I'd easily avoided only moments before.
Crack!
The girl whips her head around at that, her gaze fixed directly on me with her glazed eyes shining eerily from the moon's reflection in the water.
"Hello?" she whispers, eyes darting away from me, and I remind myself with a shudder that there's no way she can possibly locate me through impaired vision.
There isn't, right?
If I just hold my breath, maybe she’ll think it's only an animal and I can leave without issue. As long as she doesn't know I'm here—
"I know you're here."
Dammit.
"What the hell are you doing out here?" I mutter at last, walking closer.
She looks puzzled for a moment, her voice quiet. "Well, I was thirsty, and I didn't know where everyone went."
"Thirsty? That's pond water."
She blinks, unfazed by the revelation.
"You're kidding. Let me rephrase, this happens to be a spot guys like to visit after a few too many celebratory drinks. Ever heard of the term 'breaking the seal'—"
Before I can finish, the girl reaches out to me, her hand finding my own. I recoil instinctively and tug it free, but not before an odd look of recognition crosses her face.
"Oh, Mister Brood!" the kid exclaims, a wide smile plastering across her face. "I knew it was you."
“What’s with you? Has anybody ever taught you to keep your hands to yourself? And don't call me that.”
At my voice she flinches, her previous joy seeming to vanish in an instant. I feel my shoulders drop.
“Guess not,” I murmur.
“I'm sorry. I just wanted to make sure it was you, Sir.”
“How did you figure?”
“Huh?”
“What made you realize?” I begrudgingly clarify, wondering if I really care to know the answer enough to ask a second time.
“Oh. Well, it’s your hands. They're so much smaller than everyone else's, like mine. You're a soldier? How old are you, Mister?”
“Who cares? I stopped keeping track.”
A moment of silence passes before she replies, “So, you don’t have birthday parties?”
Birthday parties. What a stupid question. And yet, it only made me wonder how many birthdays have passed without them now. I hated how such simple questions could always dredge up so many weakening memories.
“No,” I mumble through gritted teeth, looking down into the pond that almost appears abyssal in the dark. “I don’t like ‘parties’, so it’s a waste.”
“But that’s not what parties are supposed to be at all, they’re for everyone to have fun, I think. I’ve… never been to a party, that’s just what I’ve heard,” the girl whispers wistfully. “What are they like?”
Hesitantly lowering myself onto the ground beside her, I gaze up at the few stars that peek out from the tree line. For whatever reason, I find myself feeling a newfound appreciation for them when she's around.
“You’re not missing out on much, believe me. Free food is just about the only plus side there is. If you’re too quiet for everyone’s liking, then they’ll pester you until you talk to them. You're better off filling your stomach and hitting the road as soon as you can," I explain, grazing my fingers through the stalks of dead grass to my side. "Birthdays are even worse, it’s essentially a whole day dedicated to you being the center of attention. But you must get that every day now, huh?”
The kid only hums in quiet affirmation.
“Does that seriously not get on your nerves, everyone acting like you’re some sort of newly discovered animal that needs a collar around its neck?”
After the words touch my tongue, I get the reeling sense that I've begun reflecting my own experiences onto her. Me and this kid are nothing alike, and I've got no idea how people treat her around here. If I had to guess, I doubt the bastards I know would even be generous enough to offer so much as a collar.
“Animal? Um… I don’t think so. The men here are kind to me, and they give me all sorts of things I’ve never tried before.”
“Like?”
“Well, they always have sweet treats for me whenever I come around.”
“People feed dogs ‘sweet treats’ too. They’re pampering you because you seem interesting to them, like a new toy or something. There’s no kindness in that.”
The girl frowns slightly at that. “Did… they tell you that?”
“No, but that’s just how people work. No logical person just does things out of the goodness of their heart with nothing to be gained for themselves.”
“Then,” the kid speaks slowly, choosing her words with surprising care for someone her age. “What are you gaining from talking with me, Mister?”
And just like that, I feel my carefully pieced composure falter. No, not carefully pieced. It was more like I merged together mismatched parts of shredded paper, only for her to come up behind me and light them on fire, then use the great flame to roast my dwindling patience on a spit.
Stammering for an answer, I make up the first thing that comes to my mind. “Because I came to tell you that I'm putting you to work tomorrow. Just because you're a kid doesn't mean you won't know labor like the rest of us, you have to earn your keep whether you like it or not."
Hopefully, that will quiet her down—
“Oh! What kind of work?” she asks, bursting with newfound excitement.
Dammit.
“Um. Caring for the stable horses. There’s a lot of them, so you’ll be lucky if you can—”
“Horses? I’ve never met one of those before. How many are there?”
“There— a lot. There’s a lot. Hundreds,” I lie. Yet she only seems to get the fact through her head that there are a lot of horses, and not that I'm telling her she has to care for them all.
“Can I feed them?”
Tomorrow is going to be a long day…
"That's the plan," I murmur, glumly.
"What are they like, the horses?"
"What? I don't know. They're big. They eat hay, and… grass."
"Oh. Are they friendly?"
"Depends."
"On what?"
"On whether they feel like bucking up and shattering each of your ribs with the thrust of a hoof or not."
"Bucking up? Why would they do that?"
My chest heaves a repressed sigh as I shake my head. "Nevermind. You're too short for them to land a hit anyway. Just try not to get trampled instead. Not like I'd care if you did."
"They don't sound very friendly. But, you seem like you know tons about them," says the kid, her shoulder leaning against me as she groggily rubs at her eyes. "Why do you handle them if they're so strong?"
An uncomfortable silence passes.
"Did your parents ever read books to you, when you couldn't sleep or something?" I ask quietly.
"Books? Nuh uh, never."
At her response, I feel a twinge of a strange, long-since dormant emotion prick at my chest. It takes me a moment to recognize it as sympathy, gone in an instant.
"Well, my mom did. They're called picture books, for kids. And inside they have these little drawing things of the story on each page. She would…" I hesitate. I have no reason to tell this kid any of this, but something still urges me to do so. Despite myself, I continue. "My mom would read this one to me, about a spotted horse named Ivo. I told her that when I became a soldier, I would get my own horse and name it after him. Then, I would ride into battle and overtake the enemy, just Ivo and I, and make her proud. It was a stupid dream, but what else can you expect from a dumbass kid?"
"Did you get to do it, make her proud?"
The silence is deafening—suffocating in every meaning of the word.
"Mm. Me neither," she whispers after a moment, the night breeze pushing her tousled hair from her face before she hesitantly speaks again. "Can you read the story to me?"
"It's not like I have it on me," I say, but I know that's not true.
The book itself is lost, but I still remember every last page inside and out. I really did love that old story. Glancing down at the still girl, her lips puckered with disappointment, I heave a deep sigh. Then, against all better judgment, I open my mouth, letting my voice begin carrying out the sloppily recited tale of my memory.
I stammer through it at first, skipping segments and botching rhymes as I scan my surroundings to make sure nobody is listening in, but in the back of my mind I hear the familiar voice of that woman reading through the picture book almost as clearly as if I’d heard it just the day before, and I feel myself reliving each word. Can I truly still call her my mom, would that be right?
"In his pasture, Ivo grazed, for the fresh grass was like a feast. Then he heard a grumble and growl, the voice of a beast. The sound got closer, louder before it ceased. And there emerged coyotes, from the west and the east."
The kid seems to be listening tentatively, her eyes closed now as if trying to imagine the scene I describe while she clings to my sleeve at the rising tension. I wonder what would have happened if the woman I considered to be my mother was never killed. Would I be happier? Would I have a life better than the one I carry out now, even if it were a lie? My heart grows heavy at the thought.
I go on to explain that the coyotes drive Ivo from his farmer's pasture, and he finds himself lost in a world far larger than his pen could ever be. While trying to return home, he comes across wolves and traps and bandits, even a band of pirates at one point, but among his discoveries is a young woman who helps him in his journey, explaining that she had a colt like Ivo as a child until it was stolen from her. The closer I get to the end of the tale, the more melancholy clouds my mind.
"From the barge walked the wicked captain, adorned with stolen riches and jewels. And at the sight, Ivo realized that he and his friend had been fools. For his farmer had been not the humble caretaker Ivo once thought, but a pirate and a thief, Ivo's journey all for naught. There… there at—"
Before I can go on, something gets caught in my throat, and my eyes sting as my vision blurs. It's just a stupid kid's story, that's all it is. Yet when I hear it in my own voice, I feel a throbbing in my chest unlike anything else.
What am I even supposed to believe? Mom, Dad, our whole family was nothing but a fabrication. I want so badly to believe that the journal the enemy commander expended his dying breath to give me is full of lies, but no amount of wishful reasoning could ever convince me that would be possible. Yet that doesn't change the fact that my supposed parents still cared for me like their own kid, celebrating my birthday every year as though it might be my last, reading me to sleep when insomnia set in, protecting me in their arms knowing that was the only place I truly felt safe from it all. Was that a lie too, or did they love me despite it all? I wish to say that a part of me is angry at them, but all I feel is a mess of spiraling emotions that I would give anything to understand.
How long will I keep pretending like the revenge I’d sought so desperately brought me any real closure when all it really brought was more questions—more fears?
I haven't grown up at all. All these years, and I'm still nothing but a weak kid.
Weak. Weak. Weak.
And yet…
"The both of us are still alive and well, aren't we?"
Alive. I have always wondered if that word is a blessing or a curse. Truthfully, I know that I never actually intended on returning alive the night I left—I would never have taken on such a suicide mission if I did—and if he hadn't dragged me from that battlefield, I would have been just another body for the count.
Glancing down, I see the kid who now wears a peaceful expression, her shallow breaths creating puffs of white in the fall air. Frail fingers loosely clutch at my own as she lay asleep.
Though my hands are scarred to hell beneath their gloves, calloused and bruised, she warms them with her own. Though I've been nothing but harsh and cruel to her, she beams as if I hung the moon. No matter what I throw at her, she forgives it all. The naïveté of a child, something that was taken from me long ago.
I've always thought of kindness as a weakness. Isn't it ironic that without the generosity of others, I would be rotting away six feet under by now? Griff is a craven, far too soft to lead a platoon. That was what I thought. Yet he could have easily let me die the day I went against his orders. What would one soldier matter, anyway?
But he didn't. He never did. And even so, I bite at his heels like vermin, testing the lengths of his selflessness, looking for a loophole, and cursing his name all the while. If I think his actions are of weakness, how could he possibly see mine as any different?
This helpless kid. I invaded her home, butchered her people, dragged her through the mud, and did so wishing I could leave her to die and save myself the trouble. How could she sully herself with the company of military scum like me?
The ability to care for people despite the circumstances or anything they’ve done to you was never a weakness, was it? Only now that I sit basking in cold moonlight with a warmth in my fingertips from a girl unspoiled by murder do I see that it was only a strength I could never possess.
Through her sleep, I hear the kid mutter softly. Something about horses? Her rest isn't cursed by nightmares and regrets, only the innocent concerns of a kid, and in the back of my mind I find myself hoping that never changes. In the same thought process, I also find myself cursing my captain for insisting I might waver in my opinion on her with time. Dammit…
Still, I feel a strange sense of calm here, the whistling of the wind and rustling of leaves overhead lulling my mind into a new sort of tranquility. The kid stirs but does not wake as I lean back, burying myself in the leaves that sprinkle the ground and staring up at the darkened sky.
This night, I don’t stay awake trapped within the confinements of my thoughts, nor fall into hours of unconscious torment that leave me waking with night terrors. Finally accepting the hold of the gentle hand that lay still in my palm, small and untrained, I don’t so much as dream at all. But maybe that's okay.
With the last ounce of my consciousness, I find myself thinking back on the day I dragged the clueless kid from the war-torn village. The silence held between us as the dust cleared to make way for the rising sun; once raging fires dwindling to soot; blazing gunfire consumed by the greater quiet; smoke in the lungs leaving behind a bad taste, one that makes you all the more aware of the heart that continues to pound in your chest despite it all. And with that memory fresh in my mind, a well-worn phrase forms on my tongue—whether for her or myself, who could say? The words drift in the air for a moment, carried away by the wind to some distant place I’ll never know. Yet with my lungs freed from their weight, I feel just a bit lighter.
“I’m glad that you survived.”
My eyes flutter open, and like every moment I awake, I'm greeted by nothing. Over my body lay a coarse fabric, something squishy yet stiff below me. I recognize it as the beds they have in this place—much more comfortable than anywhere I've slept before—and with the distant tweeting of birds indicating that it must be morning already, I consider how someone must have brought me here.
Memories of the previous night come flooding back as I lay in stillness, and with a disheartened sigh, I also realize that I must have slept through Mister Brood's story. Ah, wait, didn't he tell me not to call him that? Well, he never told me his real name, so…
Maybe I should have him retell it after I get to meet the horses. I can ask him for his name then.
With that thought motivating me, I lean up and pull the fabric from my body, pausing when I hear a crinkle of something close. It's only then that I notice someone has tucked a strange object into my palm, a round bead wrapped in some sort of plastic. Curiously pulling the bead from the wrapper, I give it a careful sniff, but it doesn't smell like much of anything, really. Then, with a quick lick, a sort of sweetness overloads my taste buds, like a tart apple drizzled in caramel—or what I would imagine that tastes like, at least.
Feeling a smile lifting my cheeks, I think that I might like it here.