After the War

Author's Notes: Thanks to Lowlands_Girl for betaing this fic.

After the War

A searing pain ripped through my throat, carving its way to my stomach. The taste of bile rose to my mouth—sickeningly sweet and grotesque. My eyes burned with images I had never thought I would see—images no one ever deserved to see—but I had. Deep wounds were being carved into my soul, as some of my essence seeped away. Everything I had come to know, everything I had believed washed away with the cold, cold wind. How I wished it would rain.

It was one battle that clasped it in the end. Nothing up to that point really mattered. It all came to that one moment and what happened in it. Of the two sides to choose from, I had picked a third. I stood by and let it happen, refusing to digress to the tactics of either side. One fought with a blunt and inhuman nature, viciously launching attack after attack and relentlessly striking the other down. The other was cruel and malign, surreptitiously slashing beneath a cloak, causing greater damage but less often. And I watched it happen, refusing to take sides; for I am both, and I am neither.

To say I regret my choice would be but a mere whisper of the truth. My attempts to quench the bloodthirsty on both sides only served to anger. Some would say I am lucky to be alive, but I am not one of them. I realised my mistake in that respect and fell into another as I disregarded the war entirely. If I refused to acknowledge it and went on as before, nothing would change. I was never meant to be a soldier. I don't have the heart.

But now the war is over and I walk amongst the dark and secretive trees I had once loved, knowing I had changed, and not they. A bitter moon hung half-heartedly in the sky, its gleam a dull, eerie yellow. It could not extend itself to shine on me, so I walked amongst the shadows. Echoes of the gunfire rang in my ears with cold and piercing screams. I could not escape from the horrors of the war. They would plague me for ever more. Nothing would be as before.

Casting my mind back, I realised the war had cast a shadow over my whole life, that it had begun long before battles were fought. As I grew into the place the world had assigned me—for I fell on both sides—weapons were being stockpiled without my knowledge. I had always believed myself a perceptive person, but for many years I had lived in denial of the world around me. Callous exchanges were cast away as being in the heat in the moment. I had always believed in the best of people.

The world seemed different around me: the owl's hoot was sinister; the sky was deceptive; the darkness was growing. I dismissed thoughts of casting Lumos; dark was how it ought to be. Dark was how I felt.

I pictured both sides as they once were: one a man, the other a woman. The woman fought with malice aforethought against the man's rage of the moment. At times one could have named them friends but beyond scrutiny, the darkness grew. There were times when I cowered alone as whispers were spoken louder than words. I never realised that as I sat on the fence, the fields on either side retreated, preparing the no-man's land of battle. And until I was forced to dodge the bullets being fired, I refused to accept the truth. Some things are simply not meant to be.

A storm had descended upon the forest but it had brought with it no rain. My surroundings darkened as clouds hid the moon and I lost my path, stumbling to the ground. I rose up and continued to fumble my way in a path I thought was not circular. I had spent too much time walking in circles. I longed to fall, and to cry, and to weep for all things lost; but I walked on, as I knew I must. If I sat and I wept, I would not get up. It hurt that the world would not shed a tear for me.

The war was over and people wept and rejoiced for the two sides. Both believed they had been victorious. Both had lost more than they could imagine. But I had lost the most. I had lost a mother and a father, and everything I had come to know. I had lost my family as it was ripped into two. My mother and my father still loved me and they waited for me to choose. But I could never choose. My respect for those that had brought me into the world had been demolished. I could not tell myself if I loved them still but if I did; it was a changed love. Nothing would be the same.

The stars hid from me. I could not see one in the black night sky. Clouds above me refused to budge and teased me with their voluminous quality. They carried something that it was their solemn duty to release and they would not. The world was striking me with its vengeance. I knew the follies of what I had done but I could not say I would do it differently if I had known. The air was heavy on my shoulders.

My mother had always been my confidante. We had the same sense of humour, the same tastes and a bond that bore the strains of our lives. My father was somewhat more distant and moments of closeness were more difficult to come by, but when they did come, they shone. Of the two, it was my mother who knew me better. And as I walked amongst the trees, it was her footsteps I heard behind me. I didn't turn around. I didn't slow my pace. I saw her clearly in my mind's eye.

She came to my side—the right as always—and for once matched her pace to mine. We walked a while, neither speaking to the other. Our silence spoke volumes. I finally slowed and amidst somewhat of a clearing, I stopped. Reluctantly, I turned to face her. Seeing the eyes that for so many years I had drowned my sorrows in, I longed to bare my soul to her, as I would have before. But the memory of the glint I had seen came flooding back to me and I realised that she was the cause of my sorrows. I searched her eyes for the purity I had known—perhaps, for a purity that had never been there.

She knew me better than anybody else and so she spoke softly.

"What are you going to do?" she asked. "Whom will you live with?" She searched my eyes for what I suspect was something of her.

"I don't know," I replied. "I just don't know." I realised at that moment she had found her answer. An air of finality surrounded us.

"I love you," she whispered, her voice harsh. A swell rose in my throat and I knew she meant it as she always had.

"I love you too," my heart murmured. But my lips didn't move. I longed to speak the simple words that I had used so many times, but I couldn't because I was afraid I might hear another lie.

"I need some time. I can look after myself. I will come and find you when I am ready."

"Okay," she replied. She walked quietly away.

Like so many of our conversations, few words passed our lips but emotions flowed in torrents. As with true friends, we only exchanged the briefest of sentences and conveyed so much. She knew I would move on, and I knew she longed for us to be together but neither could admit these things. And in that moment, I realised we would never be the same. I could never confide in her as I had and nor her in me.

And I fell down. And I cried. For everything was different, after the war.