Seline wandered the battlefield, unfeeling.
There were hundreds of bodies. Possibly thousands. She had grown tired of counting them weeks ago. She just floated by them idly, looking at some of their faces. Friends, classmates. Foes.
Seline had been born following. Her mother and father were pilgrims, fleeing one of Yusir's countless wars. She was born on her feet, ready to run, hide. She could cock a gun and shoot before she could speak. It felt like she would be following that caravan forever, but when she was 6 the war ended. The road was no longer her home. Her home was a small cabin, built by her parents. Her home was a hearth, her home was warm, fluffy bread, finally able to grow.
When Seline was twelve, she fell in love. At least, that was what she called it. She hardly knew him, she just knew that everyone liked him, so she did too. Her mother called her beautiful, and he said so too. They were wed at 18. He was dead a year later.
Another war. Somehow, she wasn't surprised. She was used to it. It was in her blood. Joining the army was not a choice, but if it was, she would have chosen it, because what else could she do?
Now, Seline stood, surrounded by her slaughtered colleagues. It had been a massacre. Bombs. Bombs had been outlawed decades ago, but in war Man lost all reason. Seline knew the angels would come for her soon, or perhaps the demons, and so she went in search of the one she was searching for.
The barracks Seline had been assigned to were small, cramped. They smelled of sweat and desperation. Women shared beds, some slept on the floor. Seline had still being wearing her mourning garb when she'd been assigned to it. Everyone had ignored her.
Everyone but the Commander.
She was the reason they were fighting the war. She cried for liberation from the Walin. When the king did not listen to her, she killed him. She wore a cloak drenched in the blood of her enemies, and a smile that made you forget that fact. She had given Seline a smile, a gentle one, had told her she was sorry for her loss. This is what the Walin do to us. she had said. They murder our husbands and wives and our children. They work them to the bone. Seline had thanked her. Had never mentioned that she had killed her husband.
She had joined the Commander, gone marching into battle. She had sung the songs. We fight for air, we fight to breathe. We fight for us. We fight for us. She stopped singing when the Walin took her. She did not sing the three years she sat rotting in a cell. She still didn't sing, two years after being rescued.
Seline found her. Buried under the other bodies, her face turned up at the sky. She found the one who she'd been fighting for.
The little girl, much too young to be a soldier. She had no family fit to fight, and every family had to provide a minimum of one soldier. So the little girl stood with all of the grown men and women, wielding a musket her own size. And it had broken Seline. A girl, like her. She would learn to run. She would learn to hide and kill and numb herself to the world. She would learn to march and march until she became so used to it that she'd march herself into the black maw of death.
Seline had never felt much. She didn't cry when she got married, or when her parents died. She didn't smile much, unless she was obligated to. But staring at the little girl, she realized she would go to the ends of the earth for her. She would protect her.
"Was it worth it?' she whispered in the battlefield, kneeling next to her. Azim they called her. She tried to brush her blood-soaked fringe from her face, but her hand went right through her.
"I wonder what I'd have done if I hadn't followed you." she said. Followed her into battle this morning, even though only the infantry were meant to go. Stolen a gun and knife and killed an officer in an attempt to find Azim and escape with her. But the Walin arrived first. "I wonder if I could have saved myself"
Seline knew the answer. No. Because without Azim, she'd have no self to save.
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