Discord | Website | Twitch
The straight and narrow.
Septiem 8th, 1125 Dom. Midnight.
They said I might as well have been comatose laying by the bedside of the medical tent, having plopped down from the stretcher and on the floor with the arm sling tight around my neck and arm. Kal came in and stayed longest, peeling apples and trying to wedge them in between my lips. Obrick knelt down on me around evening, coming in a rush through the flap doors. He yelled a lot, pointed his finger some. Hugged me once, then left. The Silverfang’s didn’t know me well enough to do anything but peek their eyes through small slits in the medical carriage, and when I caught them looking they scampered off.
By the time Vicentius had come to take a look, I was gone. Sometime around dusk, I drifted into the neighboring forest which to me was surprisingly untouched by war. Giant trees shaded and brooded with leafscant arms. I came to a hill top overlooking a thin waterfall and found some roots to nest myself, the bloom of honeysuckle bright and yellow around me. Their scent carried fast by gusts of wind that blew the scent of fresh water towards me.
“I’ve been looking for ya’.” It came from behind. I didn’t turn.
“What for?”
“You left Vicentius, he wanted to talk.”
“We can always talk later.” I said.
“You know, I told him you ran off to fight another wolf.” Sylas came into full view, walking slowly to my front. “He didn’t think it was a funny joke.”
“You’ve never told a funny joke.” I threw a rock at the decline.
“I wanted to give you something.” He knelt and reached to his back.
“Why weren’t you there?” My face twitched. “Why’d you let it happen?”
He turned, eyes narrowed.
“Why wasn’t I where?”
“Why’d you leave us for so long?” I asked. “Why weren’t you there to help Justinian.”
“I don’t even know that kid.” He said. “And to be frank, neither than you.”
“He’s hurt.” I threw rocks faster into the water. They sunk. “He’s dying.”
“He’s dead.” Sylas stood. “Don’t get mad at me for that. I had my mission.”
“Yeah. You had your squad too.”
“Virgil, was I the one who wanted to form a squad? The one who wanted our own little company?” I asked. “All I’ve done was accept what was demanded of me by a very needy student. How could you blame me for his death?”
My head lowered.
“Wasn’t it by your hand that the fourteenth exists? By your hand that you went down underground and got yourself into this mess? Was it not?”
“You could have helped.” Spittle ran down my lips. “You could have been there at least.”
“But I wasn’t. Was I?” He said. “There’s no one here at fault but you and everyone else will-”
“You could have been there!”
“And everyone else has protected you from the truth! But here it is, you’re the reason Justinian is dead.”
“He’s not dead.” I rose, leg almost bending. My head light from the blood rush. “He’s not dead at all.”
“He’s dead Virgil. And you killed him.”
I ran for him. He turned and put his foot in the way and I fell to the floor, face flat against a bulge of root. Scraping along, feeling the ache in my shoulder grow and grow. Sylas turned me over and I looked with the blood running down my nose.
“He’s dead, Virgil.” Sylas said.
“You don’t-” I looked him straight in the face. To hope, to wish for something to shift, something alluding to another answer or another way or another hope. “He could-”
“He’s dead.” Sylas said. I went cold inside.
“I never wanted this.”
“No one ever does.”
“I could have saved him.”
“You couldn’t have.”
“It’s not fair.”
“It never is.”
I turned upright, hair disheveled and flopped over my eyes. Face bleeding, mouth open with a string of saliva blending where my silent crying had ran down my cheeks.
“This happens all the time. It just does in war. And there’s nothing we can do about it but roll over for the next day.” He said.
“I didn’t even know him. Is that strange that it pains me the most?” I asked. “He hung around me so much this last week but I didn’t know a damn thing about him. I still don’t. It’s like - It’s like I know his memory is going to leave, it’s like I have to hold on to it for as long as I can. And I wish I didn’t. I wish I never met him. Seeing him is like feeding poison into me. Am I fucked up? Is this wrong?”
“It’s how it always is. Regret is painful enough, it’s at it’s most pronounced when it’s still alive and waiting. Festering. Growing.” He said. “And the time you wish for worse things is yet to come, but it will. Then you’ll forget, and that will be it’s own suffering too.”
“It never stops. Does it?”
“How could it?” Sylas turned towards the water fall, palm against a tree. “We’re human. What else do you think there is to this?”
We didn’t share a word afterward. Sylas threw what was in his pocket, which was a tied and wrapped obsidian knife. I didn’t have the energy to pick it up, I just let it sit interred in the stucco bark of the tree roots, sat upright as we watched and listened to the forest. A history here, a countless number of graves as well. What old and dried blood must have fed these large trees. What years of violence transpired here - long before man, in an age where heavens broke and fought. Where atoms parceled galaxies and where star dust had collapsed defeated, settled here for me to feel and suffer it’s own death once again.
The moon came up high. A giant wink in the sky.
I rubbed my nose with my sleeve.
“They’re waiting for me, aren’t they?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry for hitting you.”
“You never hit a thing.” He smiled. “One day you will. Long after this, with more tragedies yet.”
“Is this how it was for you too?”
“It’s how it is for every soldier.” He swallowed and rubbed the dirt with his boot. “I’m very proud of you Virgil. As stupid as you are.”
I sniffled. “Thanks.”
“Go on. Get on and do your duty then, Crow.”
I nodded and lifted the knife and went my way back into the dark forest, where the straight road had been forgotten.
