When they were little, Flora was immortal. Flora was the one who they saw as some solid, reliable sheet wall of ice, and while all those who were kind to them had the same pedestal effect, perhaps they projected the worst upon Flora. She was strong, she was tough, she was, she was.
Is, though, ‘is’ told a different story. ‘Is’ told of an axe too close to unguarded flank, swiftly blocked by a body too cold and too thin, and hair too blue passes their peripheral. Breath leaves their lungs, and they don’t think, they simply take a blade, lunge forward. No regard is given to who it could’ve been, what family they had, the two children they had a home who were desperate for the money that being a soldier brought, all Kotaru could see was a life for a life, a cut too deep for one just as wide.
Corpses crumple on the ground, and what was once a roaring in their ears dulled to a whisper of wind. The quiet is worse; abandoning the blade, Kotaru is too quick to turn now, practically falling over themselves to hold Flora’s hand. Simplicities hit them first: Flora is cold, the ground around her is wet, there is a gash on her stomach, and the wet is blood. But Flora still is.
Shivery voice does little to help, and their hands twine around Flora’s like it was the only way to keep her alive. Disbelief has them shaking, and they cannot stand the placidness in Flora’s eyes. Come back, they want to say, come back to the real world and stay with me, i need you.
But Flora is pallid, pallor of the arctic, the sheet-paleness of death, so unnatural and so horrifying. As if it could fix anything, as if it was an apology written in blood red lips, Kotaru kisses her hand, still so tightly gripped in their own. Someone was going to die, this was war, after all. But, a selfish child, spoilt sweet, cannot help but think, why not someone else.
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