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The war had ended and with the warmth of summer and lush greenery returned men old and young alike ; fractured and put back together, some more than others, but they all returned damaged, no longer the same men they were before. With them was brought joy and misery, relief and grief alike, intertwined like threads of a basket, forming together an unspoken conclusion to the horrors the sons, their families and friends had endured on the front.
Along with them, there was also a girl : a brittle thing, famished yet still the farthest thing from little, by each arm carrying several children - none of them her own or of her own family, kindred only through a shared foreign tongue from overseas, wounds and of course the dark shade heavily hanging over their gaze, like a mourner’s veil. Though the girl could not have been even seventeen yet, that darkness had dimmed down most of her youthfulness - most who saw her guessed her to be twenty, if not older. Many of course disregarded the matter, focusing rather on her looks : standing at six feet tall with chestnut hair tied in two long braids and eyes like coals, she was considered a sight unusual yet rather pleasant to the eye for more than a few. For that reason, most who first saw her assumed she was a soon to be bride of one of the returning soldiers - only to be surprised to hear from the young men themselves that it was quite the opposite.
“She doesn’t care for any of us,” they said. “Only thing she cares for is finding shelter for the poor babes she brought along, neglecting herself in the process. Anything she ever asked of us went straight to them, while she starved with only one dress on her back.”
In other words, they brought back a martyr - with almost a dozen mouths to feed attached to her, none of which knew the local tongue - some couldn’t even read or write just yet, that’s how little they had all been, much to the horror and pity of the townsfolk. Like hatchlings, all they knew was to cry and eat then sleep. A poor thing to be, amidst crowds already marching through life with crosses of their own, with either no will or strength to carry several more - yet the girl took them all upon herself without as much as uttering a word of regret, even though she had no resources to properly care for them, being merely a slightly older child herself.
Thus, everyone was very happy when the martyr fell on her knees, pleading for opportunities to work, even if only for small amounts of food and shelter for the little ones. Such a good child, they had thought, so who would they be to deny her work? Many extended their helpful hand towards the girl, as long as she’d lend her own two hands as well.
So, it was to no one’s surprise that eventually, the girl had found herself at the church’s doors as well, hands joined together in a plea for labor, and labor she was kindly granted. The priest of that time, a man past his age, had given her a broom, a rag, a bucket and directions to the well belonging to the church.
“My back is nowhere near as healthy as it used to be and everything had gathered so much dust over the years,” he had lamented, his voice as frail as his bones. “God will certainly reward you greatly for restoring his house, and so shall I.”
The girl, though she understood only half his words, had accepted the task regardless. Day after day, she'd arrive at the church come morning and leave only in the late afternoon, skin on her knuckles and knees cracking open with blood, her only dress heavy with the scent of dust and soap water both - leaving behind a church in condition more pristine than it had ever been. Though after weeks of labor she turned out to be quite strong, eating very little had rendered her with very little energy, and what a tragedy it would have been if the martyr had collapsed before doing even half the work, so she had been assigned a helping hand.
A young priest, that is. Not much older than her, thus only a helper to the actual priest, learning in the process. He too, had been given a broom and rags. The task was a holy one, so who was he to decline? Even if he happened not to be a man of God, his faith lied first and foremost in the virtue of kindness - so he would have happily accepted regardless. Not only that, he'd have to be a liar to say that he wasn't fascinated by the strange girl as well. He did his best to stay away from gossip, for it only brought discord into otherwise tight-knit communities, and even then various stories regarding the girl reached his ears : such as her strength, unusual for a girl her age, or her complete lack of interest in socializing with anyone, limiting her conversations only to those who provided her with labor and naturally, the children under her care. There were many more stories, most of which the young priest could not recall - a detail he wasn't concerned about in the slightest. Why care for rumors, now that he'd get to see the mysterious girl in person?
Thus the two of them both ended up at the same destination - on their knees, before the main altar, scrubbing at the floors tirelessly, hour after hour, with seemingly no end in sight in silence - much to the young priest’s dismay as all his attempts at starting a conversation fell upon deaf ears, as the girl would only glance at him before returning to cleaning the stone tiles.
Or, better said, almost silence.
“Mm,” the girl had hummed in between scrubs, almost startling the Priest. Her voice was low and airy, further supplying the impression that she was a young woman and not a girl barely of age. “I wonder what it's going to be. The reward.”
Her accent was sharp, understanding of the language still nowhere near fluent despite her best attempts, so the young priest laughed quietly under his nose, whilst squeezing filthy water out into a bucket before returning to scrubbing himself.
“Maybe a bit of money from donations. Food too. Old Mattia is bringing fish today,” the priest had answered, keeping his words short and simple for the girl to understand. “Would that be enough?”
To that, the girl nodded, only to sigh, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. Only then had she noticed that bandages on her palm had loosened significantly. Without skipping a beat, she immediately put down the rag and began adjusting them, obscuring the wound from the priest’s curious eyes. He heard about that too : when she first met their soldiers on their way home, the bandages wrapping her hands were bloodied and she had a hard time even holding onto a fork - yet at the same time refused to let anyone see the wounds, treating them on her own in secret. What terrible hurt could she have been hiding beneath, if it hadn’t healed for so long? Now, with one's hands always kept busy, healing of any wound would be slow, but surely not this much? No cut should heal that slowly, that much he knew, even if his knowledge of medicine was limited.
“Food, yes. But money…” she quietly lamented, her words accentuated by the sound of water dripping and sloshing around the stone floor. “Gina needs a new dress, her only one is torn and Iulia, she needs a doctor to look at her eyes, and Joshua, his poor legs…”
Right after uttering those woes, she had sniffled and returned to work, without doubt invigorated by the threat of the girls walking around ragged and blind, squeezing out what little energy she already had. The young priest’s heart had shattered at the sight, his mouth hanging open as he struggled to find words. Oh, why hadn’t he offered to take the duty upon himself alone? How could anyone keep making the poor girl work herself till blood came off her hands, while aware of how much she was willing to give for the children?
As he later would learn during his life, it was precisely because of it, that they had happily accepted her selflessness into their homes.
Still, surely there must have been something that the girl could have done to earn more, no?
“...Say,” the priest asked, after regaining his voice, “Old Dante had said you brought…A sword with you from your home. An antique. Why not sell it? It might go for good coin.”
She stopped scrubbing as soon as she had gotten back to it, instead turning her face to look upon the young priest - revealing to him a scowl of disbelief and distaste alike.
“...I’d rather sell my only clothes. No one can have it.”
The moment she had spoken, he regretted even asking such a question. From sounding as airy as a tired song bird, the girl’s voice turned scalding cold, burning away at the man in sheer, utter disgust at that question - all while glaring at him as though he was the most putrid scrap to have ever fallen off of God’s plate onto the Earth’s surface.
“Ah-My bad, I’m really sorry, but-" Despite shame coloring his face white, he didn’t regret it enough to shut his mouth, ironically enough. Curiosity killed the cat, and yet there he was, following it's footsteps. “Why, exactly…?”
There was silence from the girl, heavier than a hundred anvils, hanging in the air. Should she have gotten up and stormed, the priest would not have been surprised in the slightest, yet there she stayed on her knees, as if he wasn’t sticking his nose into her past, uninvited and unwanted.
What truly was surprising however, was him actually receiving an answer - now spoken in complete peace as the girl's face relaxed back into her exhausted yet simultaneously tranquil expression of someone who was simply too tired to feel and thus resigned themselves to peace.
“I am a mother and sister now,” she stated, gazing upwards at the fresco covered ceiling. “One day, I will have to be a father too. The sword will be needed then.”
“...What do you mean?” the young priest asked, dumbfounded. “...Do you think there's going to be a third war? Is that it?”
“No. Not war.” she shook her head. “...Just…A conclusion.”
With that, the girl said not a word more to the young priest, instead turning to cleaning once more, leaving him dumbfounded and more curious than ever before all at once.