Kristof left the therapist’s office at a reasoned pace. He didn’t want it to look like he was running away from his session. And, for himself, he didn’t want to feel like he was running away from his past, on Beatrix. He tried putting his mind to work. A dozen different repair requests had come his way whilst he was wasting time sat around talking about his feelings. He pressed his thumb and finger into his eyes and groaned. Despite having so much to get through, the work had failed to keep him distracted.

The Boadicea wasn’t empty, exactly. It was neat. The guts, the heart of the ship, were just tidied and hidden behind expensive wall panelling. It wasn’t so different from Beatrix under the surface. Sure, the ships always start out standardised. The longer they are out in space, the more upgrades, engineering innovations, and jury-rigged solutions, the closer the two concepts converge. These recent repairs would contribute to that.

The intrusive memories of filthy moss-walled high-rises persisted. Kristof fought them off, directing his attention toward Hearn. The colony ship’s destination planet was so rich in anthocyanins that the clay-like soil was a deep orange, not brown. Hearn grew trees with bark that was striated in pinks and reds so that forests of deep magenta covered the planet.

Kristof felt inventive as an engineer, but he was not broadly creative. He had a hard time picturing Hearn. So, once again, he was back home on Beatrix. By the time he had retired to his new bunk, secreted away in a workroom, surrounded by the exposed inner workings of the ship’s engines, wrapped up in the low rhythmic rumble, and occasional ghostly clanks from the cooling pipes; Kristof found himself transported back to Beatrix.

Michael’s Gate, the largest of the three grimy domes, covered his sector. Here the high-rises reached out their tallest. Stitched atop were rickety shacks whose ramshackle additions were made mostly from rusted, reused metal and salvaged ship parts. They leaned into each other, joined in a patchwork of accidental culture. Scaffolding and walkways, called ‘runs’ by the locals, weaved around the outer edges, intertwining with the ducts. Spewing from the metal pipes was a dirty fog surrounding the tops, obscuring the view into space.

Closer to the ground, the founders had built the original colony buildings with moss-concrete, designed to provide cheap insulation and low oxygen production, augmenting the colony’s supply. The deep greens gave off a musky scent that always put off newcomers, but smelled of home to the colonists.

Kristof sat in his bunk, thinking of how they had ripped him from his job and home. Objectively, he knew they were right to do it. No ten-year-old, or anyone really, should work in the conditions that Beatrix factories provided. Yet he still resented the men and women who, for a political stunt, took him away from his work, his home, and his captors.

His supervisors were not kind people, but they had the power. When the suits had taken that power away from them, Kristof had felt aimless. He was afraid, and in denial of that fear. He denied it, playing it off as foolishness, even to himself. Yet here he was, just as Doctor Zaharani had predicted: isolated, alone, and mimicking the conditions of his old home.

“Tch, I hate doctors,” he said to the bulkhead.

Distract me with the bounty of books' words you impart

Fluently flowing, creative imaginative idioms of word art

Silencing all but ravishing reflections found in beauty of prose,

Tailoring the lavish library stored and secreted in my soul,

Reaching far and wide, to the depths of its charitable corners

Abridging the blurred lines therein of each story’s border.

Catalyst sublime - vault of vivid, vivacious imagination,

Tantalize my spirit’s growth with grandiose fascination

With idealistic books which taunt the mind's emancipation

And the palatial conveyance of opulence found in word recitations.

Stay close always to charm my existence with your incantations -

Never once floundering to a fault with halt or cessation.

Cynthia Calder, 09.29.24

This is an extract from a series of short stories which I hope to blend into a full-length novel (or at least a novella).

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She couldn’t remember how she got there.

So, I am sitting in a bubble where everything’s blurry around me, I don’t have any idea why or how, and there’s a plate of butter chicken and rice in front of me, thought Sally and then pinched herself to ensure she was awake. It made her wince and that was scary. She looked around at the blurred phenomenon again. There were muted conversations coming from all directions, in English, mostly.

Sally rubbed her eyes, blinked a few times and then peered around again. Was she in a-?

OMG! I am at an intersection. An actual, stable intersection!

The edges of the sphere were blurred, as if she were sitting inside a glass marble with a frosted surface.

So, this is how an intersection feels. I wish I could tell dad!

***

“Dad,” Sally called out to the man hunched over his desk with a lamp partially illuminating his head while the rest of the spread, and the spill, illuminating his disorderly paperwork, “Did you work through the night again?”

“Huh?” her father looked up at her and then flopped back down.

Sally walked behind him and ruffled his almost grey, curly hair. “It’s 8:44 a. m.” she announced.

“What?” exclaimed her father and stood up. “I must be in the lab by 9:30… at least!”

“Good luck with that.” Sally teased him even as he rushed to the bathroom.

***

Sally sat awestruck in the intersection, admiring the spectacle, almost tempted to peep through the hazy boundary.

Would it still be stable if I stepped back and reentered?

She stood up and walked a few calculated steps behind. She was back in a cavernous hall teeming with food stalls, familiar noises, and people. One of those people landed a few metres away, his jet-pack, hissing lightly, no bigger than a rucksack. As the man gave her a quick smile, Sally looked at the ceiling which displayed a perfectly augmented day with a few white fluffy clouds and an occasional bird flying by. She then took a deep breath and stepped back into the intersection that was, thankfully, still in front of her, though barely visible.

The other world in the intersection didn’t appear to be hostile, and that was a relief. With so many accidents during the beta phase, there was a chance one could be killed instantly; by a toxic environment, or untamed inhabitants, or simply because the intersection snapped shut without notice.

It brought back memories of her dad, and his disappearance.

***

The transporter dropped them off at the lab, save a few minutes of walking. Sally struggled to keep up with her dad who strode ahead with an old-fashioned leather bag in tow.

After the biometric scanners were satisfied, a seemingly impenetrable wall disappeared and they paced to the meeting room where an eager group of scientists were busy chattering. On seeing Dr. Kross approaching, they began an applause worthy of the highest Scientific honour. Sally beamed at the standing ovation given to her father.

“Please be seated… friends.” Dr Kross grinned, “All of you deserve the applause too, perhaps more than I do. Let’s not forget the power of a team. We are so much more together than just the sum of all!”

“So, when do we test it?” exclaimed someone from the back of the room.

Once the laughter had simmered down, Dr. Kross said: “We have confirmed the theory so far which, which is brilliant in itself. I double and triple checked it last night. However, the task of ensuring we can actually see an intersection, or feel one, or even enter one ourselves begins now.”

“So, it’s just an engineering problem now, isn't it?” someone quipped and the room filled with laughter again.

That was mine years ago. A lot had happened since: the first intersection was manifested. It lasted less than a second which was enough to win her father the Science Maestro award which he had dedicated to his team. Meanwhile, Sally completed her doctorate and now headed the lab that her father built. The nine years also included the time when her father disappeared into another Universe, through an intersection that closed sooner than predicted.

Sally hoped he was still alive in that parallel Universe and her mission was to perfect the predictability, stability, and destination of the intersections, if at all possible.

I'm coming for you dad. Hang on, stay safe, and stay alive!

The smell of rain fills the upper levels of my tower, another attempt by nature to drag me away from my work and back into the bittersweet waste of time that are my memories, no doubt. The storm has been ongoing for the past three days, providing a welcome distraction at times and an unwelcome one at others. Right now, it is the latter.

The rows and rows of glowing concentric runes that float in front of me, casting pale light against the walls of my study, are constantly collapsing in on themselves as I try in what is probably yet another vain attempt to shepherd the arcane energy into a stable and usable state.

Stable perfection once more eludes me as, once again, the ghosts of the past threaten to upset my otherwise unclouded mind and ruin my volatile work. I sigh, and allow the construct to fade entirely, removing my glasses and attempting to rub the lingering vestiges of the sleep that tries to claim me even now as I do so. I haven’t slept since the storm began. I try not to, sleep that is. They always find me there, and I don’t have the energy anymore to entertain the nightmares they bring. Even if I deserve them.

I set the glasses beside me on a table and walk over to the nearest window. The world without them leaves my vision in an endless cascade of flickering motion as I watch the rain fall upon my home and the overcast community below. Though to be fair, it’s always overcast. I can’t see anything on the streets from here. Whether or not that’s because of my purposeful lack of depth perception, or simply because they are cowering from the storm, I have no idea.

I close my eyes and listen to the rainfall. If it truly insists on taking me back, than I decide to relent. Otherwise, I’ll be useless anyway.

“Elias?” I hear her say. “Are you sure about this?”

I almost retreat immediately. Of all of the memories, it would be this one. It’s always this one. I choke back a sob, as I remember the lies that I told her.

“Of course, Ellie. I would never do anything to put us in danger. Any of us. Especially the child.”

“I…I know. I just can’t but be a little nervous. I mean, this is new territory. For all of us.” She says as she rests her arms on her pregnant belly.

I give her a smile and let out a small, gentle laugh. “That’s what we do best, isn’t it love? Blaze a trail. Trust me.”

I feel the stinging tears pouring down my face, even through the fog of the past. You stupid fucking fool. She never should have gone anywhere near you, much less trusted you.

I try to pull myself free of it all, but now that I’ve started, it’s like trying to pull myself free of rushing rapids by sheer force of will. Pointless. Besides, I still deserve this.

I see myself step past her, igniting the various forms of esoteric arcana as I do, and give life to the thing that destroyed everything that I loved. That, gods fucking help me, I still love. I see the rift begin. My smile is still there but begins to waver ever so slightly as I see fluctuations in it that shouldn’t be happening. The problem is, she sees them too. And I see the fear on her face when I turn around.

“It’s okay. Don’t worry. I have it under control.” I tell her. More pointless lies to fill the final moments of our existence together. You arrogant prick.

I spew out endless placations and false promises, as I attempt to right the situation. But everything I do seems to upset the rift even more. And then it happens. The rift widens and the sound of innumerable screams assaults my ears, and I stagger to the ground, as untold nightmares crawl forth from an unending abyss of darkness and malice. Then I feel sharp claws rake across the side of head, and everything becomes black as a winter’s night. By the time I come to, and have the cognizance to examine my surroundings, I start to realize the truth. The rift is closed, but everything is wrong. Feels wrong.

I throw myself to my feet. “ELLIE!?” I scream her name, over and over. But she doesn’t answer. It doesn’t take long to find her. She didn’t even have a chance to make it very far. I collapse on the ground, trying to hold back the urge to vomit. There’s hardly anything left that I recognize. Except the locket I gave her the day after we were married.

Some part of me, even through the wailing and self-hatred, recognizes the absence of our unborn child. They took it out of her. It takes everything I have not to picture what they could’ve done with it.

I open my eyes, unable to hold on anymore through the sobs that wrack my body.

“Do you ever think that maybe there’s a reason that we are confined to one world? Maybe we shouldn’t play in the sandbox of the gods. Especially without an invitation.” Her words still carry through to me, through the barriers I put up to block it all out. I should have listened then.

Something catches my eye on the streets below, even through the rain and my imperfect vision. I see one of them venturing forth from its hive beneath the city. I grind my teeth and clench my fists so hard that my nails dig into my palms, and I actually hear the sounds of dripping blood pattering against the wooden floor, a singular note added to the symphony of endless rain assaulting what is left of the world I knew.

I watch it, but only for a moment, as it quickly retreats back into the nearest building. For some reason they don’t like the rain, and I can only keep it going when I’m awake. I may have condemned the world to death and destruction, but this is still my city. The weather system I devised included. I turn away from the window and stride with purpose back to the desk. I place my glasses back where they belong, and I begin again.

Someday, somehow, I will find a way to fix the world that I’ve broken. Even if it costs me my life. After all, that’s the only thing that I have left. And I will gladly give it up.

It was almost as though the curse inducing stream of sod which trickled down on the boy’s head was a sign from God, christening him in humiliating despair immediately following the fading echoes of his father’s unearthly throat rattles. He believed he’d been a pretty good nurse up until the rattle, but he hadn’t known what to do for that once it started, and how could one so young know there was nothing he could do?

Brunner Tschudi hated this sod house with all of his being; he hated the mildewy smell of it, and the moist air of it, and the sifting dirt and dust of it, and along with all of that he hated his father for bringing him to it, and now here he was, stranded alone in it. Though his father’s death had been inevitable, it was still difficult to fathom that he was actually alone. The simple acts of caring for the dying man had afforded Brunner some sense of security, even if the feeling had proven a lie. Unable to withstand the face’s pallid gaze any longer the boy stumbled towards the veiled sunlight at it’s entrance, but outside was as dreary as inside the dark sod house, what with grass in every direction, colorless grasses restlessly churning under unrelenting winds. Desperate for someone the boy climbed to the top of the earthen cabin which housed his father’s now lifeless body. From up there he circled, scanning the seemingly endless prairies in the hopes of a savior, any savior, but his disappointed eyes saw nothing but low, gray skies for as far as they could see, a sky with clouds caught up in frantic, Easterly races. East, where Brunner’s family and friends were. Oh, if only this hut was tall enough that he could step onto one of those clouds and fly away with them! Though his body had somewhat adjusted to the prairie’s biting cold, still a shiver crept up inside Brunner’s too-light jacket. Scanning his eyes ever closer in towards the cabin, and at the corral in particular, he saw his father’s horse standing three-legged, it’s back turned to the harsh wind. Ol’ McClellan was no cloud, but he could be ridden away from here, couldn’t he? But where to ride was the question? And in which direction? East, of course? There was a bit of food put by, but not much. Brunner had his father’s rifle and had been taught to use it, but their steady need to hunt had pushed what game there was far away from the isolated, sod-house cabin. With nothing here but death, Brunner knew he must leave. If only he had someplace to go?

It was a lot of situation to handle for a boy just turned twelve. He had been excited initially, when talk began around the supper table of coming to Wyoming. Of course Brunner had heard of the “cowboys” out west. Who hadn’t? And if his family went west, perhaps he could become a cowboy himself? The excitement of it filled his dreams for a great while even before Father packed up their belongings for the journey, and the excitement had continued on the trip, but like his many other dreams he never saw a cowboy once they got out here, until he had to figure that cowboys were tall tales too, just like the other stories he was told from childhood.

Brunner climbed down off of the sod-house in discouragement. Having cried plenty in the past months, he did not cry now. Instead, he stood outside the door and gazed into the dark cabin without entering. Even if he was strong enough to drag his father out, he would then have to dig a grave. Having helped to cut the sod for the house Brunner knew how difficult that would be, and without his Father’s strength to lead? So he didn’t do that. Instead, the youngster went inside and collected what was useable and edible; an extra shirt of his own and another one of Father’s, a box of ammunition for the rifle, a hunting knife, a section of rope, a frying pan and coffee pot (though there was no more coffee), some smoked antelope, two cans of beans, and lastly a framed picture of his father and mother, taken back east, before they’d left home. The boy packed it all carefully into a tow sack which he set on the dirt floor before returning one last time for a final bedside look at the suddenly grayed, barely recognizable face of his father. The face he saw was not the face he remembered, nor was it the one he wanted to remember, so Brunner turned from it, aghast. He picked up his sack then and did not look back. Outside he stooped to fasten the buffalo-hide door to its pegs. The dirt cabin his father had been so proud of building would do for his crypt, a crypt which nature would soon enough melt down around his body into a proper grave.

Brunner paused at the wagon, though. Here was a decision to make. It was far easier for him to harness ’Ol McClellan to the wagon than it was for him to throw a saddle on the big horse, but the wagon was much slower, and was limited in where it could go. As much as he hated to Brunner would have to leave it behind, but the trade-off to that was to only make camp in places that had something Brunner could climb on top of in order to throw the heavy saddle up on McClellan’s back, a stump or some such thing, and those opportunities were not always so easy to find out on the prairie, though that was not really true either, Brunner knew. The prairies only looked level, when in fact there were gullies, depressions, and sometimes even entirely hidden canyons where a whole army of Cheyenne or Arapaho could lie in waiting.

Regardless, there was a perfect stump here in the corral for Brunner’s purpose. Using it, he soon had McClellan successfully saddled and bridled, the big horse proving patient through the boy’s struggles, as always. Once satisfied with the riggings, and with no place to put the rifle, the boy took it to hand as he climbed into the saddle. A simple touch of the heel led horse and boy out through the corral gate and onto the open prairie, the boy feeling a guilty twinge at leaving the gate open behind them, the twinge enough to show that his father had raised him right. The horse, for his part in this tragedy, felt absolutely nothing at all, and passed wind to prove it.

Four days later not much had changed as horse and boy continued their crooked ramblings. Non-raining rainclouds still raced across leaden skies, and dingy grasses still rustled quietly below them. The difference was that Brunner was hungry now, hungry and scared rather than hungry and sad. The beans and antelope were gone. He had the rifle, but he saw no game. The only signs of life he observed drifted high above him, black specks sprinkled on the gray sky circling, watching, and waiting. Where he stopped was not a particularly good spot for camping, but Brunner knew little of such things. There was a rocky copse, and that was good enough for him. It was the sort of place he needed, one where he could climb up to unsaddle or saddle Ol’ McClellan as occasion demanded, so he did so, unsaddling the weary horse before sitting himself down upon the same rock he’d just used for a ladder, finding it a satisfactory place to contemplate what to do next. With nothing here to break the wind he soon found himself shivering, nor was there water here for himself or for the horse. In fact, there was nothing here at all to attract a man, other than a ready supply of campfire fuel. Brunner wished he wasn’t here. He looked again to the sky, to its racing clouds, but his wishes brought him nothing, so he commenced to collecting the nearby fuel, taking care to reach for the dried buffalo patties, only.

Once collected the fuel pile was entirely too large for a boy alone out on the flat prairie, but it‘s blaze comforted him in the night. And having used neither reflectors nor windbreaks, the fire made by the pile was available to be seen or otherwise detected for quite a ways out on the wide-open flatlands. So naturally it was.

Brunner was awakened in the night with a start, and with a stomp. She looked quite lovely to him in the dying firelight, and the first thought she inspired from the hungry boy was quite naturally to find the rifle and shoot her, but he was not man enough yet to do it. She was too young and pretty for that anyways, and he was too lonely, so he named her instead, an unoriginal name for a cow… Betsy.

She was not really a cow though, Betsy wasn’t. Not yet. She was more obviously a calf, and a young one at that, which explained her curiousness at walking so brazenly right up to his campfire. But cow or not, she was someone besides Ol’ McClellan for him to talk to, so Brunner welcomed her into camp, finding some rope in his sack to picket her next to the horse with before falling back asleep.

When next he woke it was to the same gray clouds in the same gray sky, but that was not all. There was the neighing of a horse, one too far away to be McClellan, as McClellan was picketed in close, so Brunner sat up for a look-see. Fifty feet from camp sat a rider on a pony looking inward towards the camp the same as Brunner looked out, rider and pony producing the classic silhouette of a western hero stark against a rising sun. A cowboy! A real one. The first such that Brunner had ever seen!

A bit ashamed of his poor situation, Brunner did not immediately call out, but waited, studying the cowboy even as he was being studied. The rider’s pony was small, much smaller than Ol’ McClellan, and the cowboy himself appeared barely older than Brunner was, though his lazy self-assurance presented a more worldly attitude. The rider sported the classic, wide-brimmed “cowboy” hat along with a calico shirt whose bright colors made Brunner deliciously envious of its high style. Below the shirt canvas jeans were tucked smartly into sharp-toed, lace up cattle boots which were in turn stuffed into large, wooden stirrups, but what mostly caught Brunner’s attention was the empty, over-sized holster on the young man’s belt and the handgun which filled up his outstretched hand, a hand which happened to be pointed directly at Brunner.

”Whacha doin’ with that there critter?” The cowboy called out. “It’s our’n.”

Brunner stood up to answer. On a whim, he raised his hands, showing the rider that he was unarmed. “I ain’t doin’ nothin’ with her. She just wandered in.”

Seeing that his “rustler” was just a boy alone, the cowboy holstered his pistol. “Looks a mite suspicious, you havin’ her tied up and all.” The cowboy let loose a black stream of tobacco after that.

Brunner only shrugged. “I figgered she was somebody’s, but I didn’t know whose?”

The cowboy clucked his little pony on into Brunner’s camp without an invite, quickly assessing the pitifulness of it as he came. “What are y‘all doin’ out here all alone like this? You wanted somewhere’s?”

”I reckon not.”

”Not even a bedroll, huh? I think y’all had best come along with me. Wilber’ll have questions for you. He likes to know about ever‘ thang.”

”Wilber?”

”Wilber Kate, foreman of the Five Star.” The cowboy did not have to add “you big dummy” to the end of his sentence, as it was implied by his uppity tone. “Now saddle up, Soddy. I ain’t got all day.”

Brunner did as he was told, packing his gear into his sack, and then guiding McClellan up to the big rock he would use to get him saddled. “Can I bring my rifle?”

”I reckon, but don’t point it my way.”

Once aboard Brunner kicked McClellan forward. “Say? How’d you know I was a Soddy?”

”Hell! You must be. This whole camp smells like dirt, and it’s ground into you, too.”

Looking down at himself, Brunner did not argue. He reckoned it was so.

”You hungry?”

Brunner’s stomach growled at the question. “Uh huh.”

”There’s coffee and beans at chuck. I’ll see you get some.” The cowboy freed the calf of her rope and used it to slap her back the way they had come. Without a signal the pony began herding “Betsy” in the correct direction, forcing McClellan into a trot to keep up.

”How far is it?” Brunner asked.

”Couple miles.”

”Sheesh. How’d you ever find us?”

”Saw the calf’s tracks leading this way firstly, then I smelled your fire.”

They rode in silence for awhile. Brunner saw the dust first, off in the cold distance, then the bobbing shadow of a great herd beneath it. Excited, he rode closer to the cowboy, and stretched himself taller in the saddle to see. “Say? Did you really smell sod-dirt back there in my camp?”

”Yep.”

”How’d you do that?”

”Grew up a Soddy myself. I know the smell, Pardner.” With that the cowboy kicked spurs to his pony, leaving young Brunner hard pressed to keep up.

The head seedsman allowed my mother to return, though she came back with me, an uncharted sperm sown by a distant seedsman from a faraway field.

When I broke through the soil in my new patch, standing taller and leaner than the sprouts that had come before me, I heard the townsfolk whisper, "It's not for lack of sun; he's of bad seed."

But now I know the truth: those murmurs were the rustling of weeds.

The opening chapter of a novel I'm writing. I felt it fit the prompt; I've spent a lot of time here in the last few weeks!

___________________________________________________________________

The smell of leather wafted around the dim room as Lucchieus pushed open the heavy door. The watery light of the autumn morning filtered in the doorway, illuminating the speckles of dust that danced around the air. Long strips of leather hung from the walls and sat in stacks on the benches lining the room. Different-sized lasts were thrown in haphazard piles and shoved under the tabletops. The only mildly organized items were the tools on the table nearest the door in the long stone room. Though the sun had not fully risen, Master Guire was hunched over a workbench, muttering something under his breath.

Lucchieus stood in the doorway, watching the master at work. His weathered hands gripped the last with dexterity as he stretched the soft brown leather over the top. He fitted his mouth in a line, focused on the task at hand. He reached over the rough table that had given Lucchieus many a splinter and grabbed a hammer. It was a new one that Lucchieus had fetched from the blacksmith earlier this month.

He’d begged his father to let him become a blacksmith. The blacksmiths worked by the roaring fire of the forge and hammered out swords and shields. Lucchieus could see himself, muscles bulging beneath the heavy apron, his arms bringing the large hammer down again and again against the piece of metal with a resounding clang. The sparks would fly around him, but his hands would be calloused and immune to the heat.

Instead, he watched Master Guire scratch his chin through his scraggly white beard and sigh heavily. He set the shoe down, now secured over the last. “Lucchieus! There you are my boy.” He smiled, half of his teeth missing.

“Good morning, Master,” Lucchieus answered, shutting the door behind him and plunging the room back into its dim state. The sun would illuminate the room soon, but until then, he resigned himself to working in the dullness. He’d made the mistake of asking master Guire to light a lamp one morning, but the master said it was a waste of precious resources. He made Lucchieus clean the workroom and the storefront that day instead of making shoes.

“Finish cutting the leather you started yesterday.” Master Guire said. He handed him a curved knife. “This needs to be sharpened before you do.”

Lucchieus took the knife from his master and walked down the length of the room to the whetting stone, his footsteps echoing around the stone room. It was not a shabby place to work; there were worse places where his father could have apprenticed him. His cousin was an apprentice at a butcher shop. Lucchieus wasn’t sure he had the stomach for that sort of thing. Besides, his father and older brother had a worse line of work.

Lucchieus remembered the day they received the order from the king. They’d been drafted to fight in The Great Nimiriam Wars. His brother, Rema, had been only fifteen. He’d be nineteen now if he were still alive. There had been no word since they’d left.

The Nimiriam were a constant threat in Lucchieus’ kingdom. They’d been part of daily conversations since he was a boy. Those that survived the first war would speak of them in hushed whispers as if they were afraid to summon them.

They were a race of warriors whose height reached seven or eight feet. One of the greatest war heroes in their town told Lucchieus that they looked like giant humans made of rocks. They had grayish skin with armor like that of an alligator. Their little black piggish eyes were full of hatred, peering over the giant tusks protruding from their mouths. Their huge hands ended in stubby black nails.

“They speak a language of cruelty and feast on the fear of the enemy.” He said to Lucchieus. “Monsters. All of them.”

The day the white horses that belonged to the king’s messengers had come stampeding down the road was the first time the war seemed real to Lucchieus. The shoed hooves clanged against the cobblestone, sounding like thunder. The herald shouted over the din, his face red with effort. The King ordered all men above the age of fourteen to report to the town square.

Lucchieus tried to go with his father, but his mother wrapped her arms around his waist. “I’m already losing two men; I won’t lose you too.” She whispered, her arms shaking. Lucchieus stopped struggling against her.

Rema, ashen faced, looked toward their father. His brown hair, the same color as Lucchieus’, fell over his forehead. Were it not for the height difference, they could have been mistaken as twins. “Is this the last time we’ll be home?”

Their father looked out the window as if seeing far past the ensuing chaos outside. The rising sun cast a glow on his father’s face, making him look years younger. He’d fought in the first war. Was he afraid to go back? “We’ll get our orders and likely march this evening. We’ll have time to say goodbye, don’t worry, my boy.”

The two pulled on their coats. Lucchieus’ mother crossed the room in two strides. “Don’t stray one step from your father.” She whispered to Rema, her face buried in his locks of hair. “Stay together and come home to me together.”

She squeezed Rema tightly, bowing her head over her son’s.

“We’ll be back to say goodbye, Lenore.” Their father said, gently removing his wife’s arms from around their son. “It’s time for us to go now, though.”

A spark from the knife hit Lucchieus in the arm. The greenish blade shimmered as sunlight streamed through the window. He liked this knife. It was an heirloom of Master Guire’s family. If he was to be believed, it was an elven blade. But the elves were rarely seen. And they rarely spoke to humans, even when they were seen.

The handle was wrapped tightly with leather that still looked new. The silver knob at the top was polished so that Lucchieus could see his reflection. The first time the master let him use the knife was about a year ago.

“I planned to give this to my son one day,” Master Guire had said, letting the blade rest easily in his hand. “Now, I will not get the chance.”

He let Lucchieus use it after that whenever he was cutting leather.

I looked around trying to figure out where I was. The place was familiar but yet strange.

I was standing in a circle like structure, if you could even call it a structure. There where walls that seemed to just go up continually. The floor was made of grass and looked more like a field then a floor, wildflowers spread throughout the uneven blends.

I looked around some more to find a small low to floor table. It was clearly set up for tea, with a blue teapot and mismatched teacups. I looked around some more and found a piano. The black and white keys calling my name. I ran my fingers along the keys. The distant memory of taking a lesson played in my mind. Next to the piano stood a violin and bow. I picked it up and gently started playing. The sweet melody echoed against the walls. I carefully set it back down.

I looked some more only to find a desk with a pen and paper. I picked up the paper and read what was written on it. "The vines of a crying child. Chapter 1, That night." I shoved the paper in my pocket, saving it for later.

I looked around at the seemling empty space. That's when I noticed the hallways. Long hallways leading to nothingness. I started walking down one. Doors covered either side, each one a different color and decoration. I stopped at one that was light pink. It had little hearts all over it and string lights hanging above it. I opened the door only to find the precious memory of falling in love for the first time behind it. That's when I realized the doors held my memories. Each one the color of the emotion and the decorations the importance.

I decided to go back to the circle area and try a new hallway. I felt myself being drawn into one the seemed dark and evil. I walked down it, the bright and colorful doors slowly fading into darker ones. Till there was no longer light or color, everything was pitch black. I kept walking even though it was dark. Finally I saw a light, I followed it as it got brighter. When I reached what seemed to be the end I found myself back at the circle, back where I started.

I find myself, in the darkest and deepest of the night, pulled into halls. Of the origin, only I can guess. They spiral, boundless into the dark and flickering lights. Faint musings and gushes of wind tickle my ears, urging me to choose a path, a door to go down. I find myself stuck. More halls divide into something new as the wind slams against my back. I remain a statue. Whoosh, slam! A door to my right urges me to make a decision, rumbling and progressing as the halls come to life. The walls shift, morphing into newer caverns, newer doors to open. Down. Down. Down at my feet the floor shifts. I lock my gaze there. I sit, knees tucked up against myself. My eyes twitch as I clamp them shut, my ears numb as I fold them over. Thump. Thump. Thump, and I take a shaky breath and open my eyes. Everything has settled, leaving in place a white room, the same white room in which I found myself stuck a while ago. My eye bags pull down my face, forcing my eyes open. Yet, I stay seated, somehow finding those halls that haunt me in the night and the room of the day one and the same. There will never be an escape. I am forever stuck, glued, and cemented to the ground of the same floor that has comforted me many years before.

“They were killing my friends.”—Audie Murphy

Charles said, “If we stay here, we’re going to be killed or captured. Taking the machine gun nest might solve some problems, but I don’t know what will happen. And I can’t order anybody to do it or ask for volunteers, so I’m going to take the machine gun nest by myself.”

“We did already try as a group,” Corporal Winters said, but the other seven’s reactions ranged from skeptical to witnessing insanity to fear. “He’s made the decision.”

“Corporal, you’ll be the leader.”

“Shall we come after you?”

“If it works, but only volunteers. Corporal Winters, handle the volunteers. Whoever stays here surrenders. If it works, I’ll try to come back for you.”

“We will be here. You can sneak up on the machine gun alone, but nobody fights in every direction alone.”

He and Charles prepared.

The 3rd Section and a few stragglers across the 2nd Compagnie threw smoke grenades. Charles, Corporal Winters, and a few others crossed the street.

Corporal Winters and the others retreated, hoping the enemy had not counted them.

In the building, Private Roux activated the mechanical and silent spider. He directed it upstairs and gave Charles directions to the unstable attic stairs.

The others retreated.

Charles went up the stairs, rifle slung over his shoulder. Before he opened a door, he said, “Surrender,” waited a few seconds, and opened it slowly. The British forces typically did not attack surrendering soldiers; he assumed the Scottish guerillas viewed surrender the same way.

Wood clattered upstairs. Footsteps approached and Charles kicked his rifle into a corner and stuck his bayonet in the back of his belt. He knelt on both knees with his hands in the air.

“I'm surrendering!” he called, and kept repeating it.

The two Scottish guerillas peeked through the door and decided one should take him prisoner and the other check for other French soldiers. The guerilla who remained with Charles let his rifle swing loosely.

“Put your hands behind your back,” the guerilla said.

Charles drew his bayonet and stabbed the guerilla through his body armor. The guerilla thumped onto the floor, calling for the other one. Covering his mouth, Charles sat on him. He switched to deflecting the strikes and winced as his bayonet hit his sternum.

The other soldier ran into the room, rifle raised, and Charles charged with the bayonet in his hand. His shot missed. Charles stabbed him three times in the left ribs. Panting and trying to ignore the blood, he grabbed his rifle and ran upstairs.

The spider followed.

There was a massive hole in the floor, which was why Charles brought the spider. He held a length of paracord in front of the sensor. Roux scuttled the spider up the walls to an exposed ceiling beam. He made the spider extend its legs and wrap around an exposed ceiling beam, like a grappling hook.

Skinny Charles tied the rope around him and distrusted the beam. He swung over the gap, and, to his surprise, the beam held. The floor wobbled, and he only untied the rope when it went taut.

The British guerillas removed the ladder from the trap door, but, again, the spider functioned as a grappling hook and Charles climbed the paracord.

Whatever had damaged the house also damaged the hidden panel in the attic. Charles opened it and looked through, into a narrow passageway lined with boxes of munitions and ammunition.

Charles untied the paracord and rolled it up neatly. He gave the spider the signal to return to Roux, who obeyed.

Six-and-a-half feet tall, Charles crouched, head scraping the ceiling’s peak, and walked slowly and evenly. He removed everything rattly and shiny, but still made too much noise. Or did he sound like somebody sneaking? He could explain that—he became separated from his unit and had absolutely no idea who anybody was or if he was inside British or French lines or in no-man’s land, and so moved cautiously.

Passing open boxes, Charles pocketed grenades and dangled them from his ballistic vest’s cover. He made a mental note of various types locations. He continued down the row of buildings.

A hidden attic door opened. Charles stepped closer to the far wall and set his rifle down. The older-middle-aged Scottish female Scottish guerilla headed for the destroyed house.

Charles had to stop her but had never killed a woman before, at least, that he definitively knew to be female. Asymmetrical warfare was the most obvious reason to enter the attic. Also, the French forces warned Edinburgh that anybody in the city limits would be considered hostile, and the British forces believed it.

Hearing Charles’ footsteps, she turned. Charles twisted the much smaller guerilla and clamped a hand over her mouth. The helmet dented the fiberglass overhead, and they knocked against the walls. He dreaded killing a woman; threatening her at bayonet point felt wrong.

“Stop struggling and I won’t kill you,” he whispered. “Shut up and I won’t kill you.”

She resisted, and the bayonet cut her. He choked her into unconsciousness multiple times and stunned her, which allowed him to gag her with one sleeve from the British jacket and tie her up with paracord.

During the struggle, another guerilla called for her. Charles stunned the gagged woman and stooped next to the door. He hesitated, but he thought asymmetrical warfare was the most obvious reason to enter the attic. Also, the French forces warned Edinburgh that anybody in the city limits would be considered hostile, and the British forces believed it.

As the guerilla entered, Charles muffled him and stabbed him twice times through the left ribs, shutting his eyes and turning aside. His bayonet slid off a rib. The male guerilla collapsed in the doorway, taking Charles with him. The woman was thrashing against the floor. Subduing her distracted Charles from the warm, sticky blood soaking through his glove.

Expecting another guerilla, or maybe more, to check on the other two, Charles moved as quickly as he could backward. He bumped into the far wall and found the door.

Gun raised to clear the room, a Scottish guerilla stepped over the male guerilla. Charles shot him, then the other guerilla, who also fired at him. He gasped as a bullet tore through the side of his ballistic vest.

Charles ducked through the doorway into the real attic and shut the door. The bullets barely missed his arm. He stacked full but easily liftable cardboard boxes in front of the door to slow them down. He stepped clear just before the guerillas fired through it. He breathed heavily for a few seconds, turning the light machine gun’s switch from safe to automatic fire.

The guerilla shot with a rifle; Charles sprayed the door and passageway with light machine gun fire, dodging behind boxes, a rolled-up rug, and a rocking horse. Charles found the trap door downstairs, noticing people speaking and moving in the room below it.

He worried about bouncing a grenade off the closet walls and detonating the ammunition. But the mortar shells were a house-length away, he was pretty sure a blast wave could not ignite grenades’ fuses, and if grenade blasts cooked off rounds, he would have found out by now. Still, he was considering setting off an explosion below an ammo dump. Blowing up a row of buildings full of guerillas was acceptably gruesome in certain circumstances. However, the secondary explosions spread shrapnel and debris for up to a mile, risking not only his own section and the stragglers but also the hard-pressed remains of other French units.

A ladder clattered against the trapdoor. He ran to the trapdoor and threw a grenade into the room. He turned away and protected his head. His ears rang. The floors and walls vibrated and splinters and fragments blew into the bedroom. To his relief, the walls and ceiling protected the ammunition dump.

He sneezed from the dust and swept the room with his rifle. There was an additional entrance to the flat from the outside. He locked it and barricaded it with an armchair; guerillas could not crawl through the frames that once contained glass.

Charles tossed a grenade into each room; there was no good reason for a civilian non-combatant to be in the building. Also, when the French declared a city hostile, the British evacuated it. But he worried about civilian casualties. Charles killed a guerilla shooting from the lavatory. He swept the tiny bathroom with his rifle because he thought a grenade blast would knock the door off the hinges and spray him with ceramic fragments.

The building consisted of a flat over, judging from the smell, a thriving fish and chip shop.

Feet trampled overhead and Scottish guerillas pounded against the boxes.

Charles clattered down the stairs and grabbed the banister to halt abruptly at the half-landing. He leaned around, fired, and leaned back. The Scottish guerillas returned fire. Charles suppressed their fire with machine gun bursts and drove them into the kitchen, killing one and wounding one. He let another guerilla drag him away, wishing they spoke different languages, but he would have understood the meaning.

Overhead, Scottish guerillas creaked creaking wood and rattled debris. Charles rammed the door, locked from the other side. He almost dodged the guerilla’s rifle fire—a bullet passed through the door and embedded in his chest plate, and he involuntarily bent over, breathless.

He pressed against the wall, trying to straighten and breathe, and shot at an angle through the door. Relying on the walls to protect him, he drew his pistol and clustered shots near the deadlock and doorknob.

In the direction from which Charles snuck, rifle fire began—Corporal Winters.

A bullet pinged off Charles’ helmet. Switching to his light machine gun, he turned and fired at the guerillas on the stairs.

Charles swung the door open, just enough to toss a grenade over the counter between the kitchen and seating area. He slammed the door, which drifted open. Pressing his back against the wall and turning his face away, he fired randomly up the stairs. The blast knocked the door off its hinges and onto Charles, and he jumped against the wall from surprise. The door provided decent cover from the smaller debris, but a piece of shrapnel sliced into it. He wondered vaguely if he blew himself up.

The explosion also scared the Scottish guerillas stacked on the staircase.

Seconds after the blast, Charles shoved the door off him and then pushed it upright and leaned against it to fire upstairs. He stood too close to the doorway to detonate a grenade and he worried about it rolling down the stairs, but he expected the guerillas to fire from another room.

He obstructed the staircase with the door. Crouching, he alternated at the guerillas on the stairs and sweeping the kitchen. Charles expected an attack from one of the other rooms or the manned fighting positions outside.

The display case and faux wood counter lay in ruins, the cash register smashed. His grenade had blasted most of the glass outward and dispersed the fixtures’ glass and plastic. The chairs and tables had scooted and toppled.

A guerilla and Charles exchanged fire from a room off the kitchen. Glancing at the windows, he moved closer and aimed bursts first at torso level and second at floor level. He read the label, office. From behind, A bullet punched through his shoulder body armor, but not his skin. Groaning, and turning around to fire at the guerillas on the stairs again, he noticed the firing inside the office ceased. He darted to the wall between the office and the janitorial closet and shot the janitorial closet the same way as the office. He reloaded and repeated the process in the restroom.

Meanwhile, the guerillas won their wrestling match with the door. A female guerilla urged them to attack, saying, “It’s just one bloke!” He heard something about crossfire, but whether the guerillas worried about causing friendly fire or the combatants in the outside positions caused it, Charles heard nothing clear.

Charles felt like soldiers or guerillas outside stared at him, but he did not see helmets. He could have missed them. He knelt to change to a fresh magazine, though the old had enough rounds for another burst, and double-check his rifle’s full magazine.

The back door opened, Charles snapped the magazine in place, aimed, and shot the British soldier through the nose. He searched for the window behind the machine gun nest distracted him from the stain. Corporal Winters and he theorized, but he doubted he could fix choosing the wrong position this time.

Something metallic landed on the floor. Without actively considering whether the enemy threw the grenade or he dropped one, and while performing improvisations on fuck, Charles picked up the grenade. He threw it through the broken window as hard as he could.

Charles skidded into the far end of the room, covering his head and thinking he now, definitely, was being blown up. Glass and plastic tore and scraped his uniform and skin. It cracked under his knee protection and dug through his fingerless gloves.

Fortunately, his grenade blast had broken most of the glass. The guerilla’s grenade knocked out the rest, towards the inside, sending large shards over his head. Plastic frames and screens from the display cases flapped and skittered. Bits of window frame crashed against the wall. He flinched as the debris tumbled onto him, eventually running out of muscles and trying to squeeze his internal organs.

For several seconds after the blast faded, Charles continued trying to curl into a ball and scrunch his neck into his chest. Despite the ringing in his ears, he should have heard his heart pound.

“Bloody hell,” Charles muttered. He wondered when the outside gunfire close to the fish and chip shop began.

He began unfolding and thinking about injuries.

The grenade had detonated outside, probably sparking the gunfire aimed elsewhere, which slowed and stopped.

Completely missing and forgetting to count his rounds, Charles shot at the first British soldier through the emergency exit.

Charles crouched, moving from window to window, verifying the machine gun’s position.

Guerillas were thumping on the staircase and overhead, but Charles fired the light machine gun at British soldiers aiming around the emergency exit. He wondered why the guerillas did not throw another grenade, and if the thumping indicated the guerillas evacuated the ammunition dump from a structurally unsound building or if he would fight thirty to forty alone. If so, at least they would come through the doorway a few at a time.

Charles paused firing to roll a grenade out the door, but the pause gave a British soldier the opportunity to aim carefully. A bullet penetrated his ballistic vest, winding him again. He shut his eyes against the grenade’s debris, though his goggles protected him. Before he could take a breath, another bullet lodged in his chest. Both bullets burned. He fumbled his machine gun, shooting in the wrong direction. Due to a flinch, a bullet skimmed his cheek. He fired erratically, constantly.

He opened his eyes and swapped the empty machine gun for his rifle and shot the scrambling soldier through the knee. He fell, but Charles aimed at him and the other soldier who pulled him.

Charles still thought everybody observed him. He pulled the pin from a grenade, and firing again, counted to five, and tossed a grenade into the chosen British fighting position, deliberately remembering to throw the grenade and not the gun. To his left and right, the guerillas opened fire, but ducking from the blast meant he dodged the bullets.

Returning fire with his rifle, Charles clambered onto the booth. He dropped through the window, cutting himself on broken glass. Other British soldiers or guerillas were yelling about crossfire. His ears rang longer than the other grenade blasts.

He landed simultaneously with a British soldier, with whom he grappled. The British soldier choked Charles, but he drew his pistol and shot randomly behind him. The British soldier disarmed dizzy Charles. Drawing his bayonet, Charles tackled the enemy.

French guns fired. He had absolutely no idea if his commotion prompted friendly units to fight, but regardless of the reason, the French forces might preoccupy some of the enemy.

A second soldier struck his kidneys, then head with a rifle butt. Charles tried to go limp, except for his hands around the bloody bayonet. The second soldier yanked Charles off the soldier. Charles stabbed anything he saw, typically missing.

Two more soldiers piled into the foxhole, but Charles’ vision cleared enough to pick up his pistol and aim. The third soldier tried to disarm the gun.

A .50 caliber machine gun fired, and to Charles’ relief, it was not the one outside the fish and chips shop. That one was the closest to the 3rd Section.

Gripping the gun tighter, Charles stabbed the third soldier’s arm and shoulder. The soldier raised his arm, allowing Charles to slash his armpit. Charles broke out of the third soldier’s hold, but the fourth soldier grabbed his bayonet arm. Charles kicked the third soldier in the groin. Trying to wrench his bayonet arm free of the fourth soldier. He fired at the fourth soldier’s head.

Blood spurted across Charles’ goggles and he thought something blinded him, but his eye did not hurt. His knees weakened. Wobbling, he steadied himself on the sandbags. A bullet whizzed over his head and he flattened.

“I saw him fall,” a soldier said.

Charles remembered he wore goggles. As he rolled over and pulled the goggles down, intending to blink carefully, a soldier shot him. Two burning spots appeared on his abdomen and back, closer to his side than his spine. Eyes squeezed shut from pain, he bit through his lip in a failed attempt to stifle a groan. Gingerly, Charles blinked. It’s just the bloody goggles, he thought.

Some of the other units’ gunfire stopped.

Trying to otherwise lie still, he tightened his fingers around his bayonet and pistol and tried to remember how many rounds remained in his rifle. If he counted correctly, he had two grenades left.

“White knuckles,” a soldier said.

Charles had taken the machine gun nest and could have surrendered as wounded (legitimately surrendered, not trick the enemy), but any soldier could replace the machine gunners, leaving his section and the stragglers in the same predicament they were in when he left them.

“Oi, are you wounded?” a soldier asked. He was probably a medic.

What else do you bloody well expect? Charles thought.

A British soldier was saying essentially the same thing and another was suggesting taking him prisoner as Charles pushed himself up on his hands and knees.

The British soldiers took cover and began firing. Shooting one-handed, Charles slumped against the back of the foxhole. He sheathed his bayonet and grabbed his machine gun to suppress the fire. It clicked, and the .50 caliber machine gun’s barrel was too long to turn on the adjacent fighting positions.

Charles darted a look over the side of the fighting position and fired at the British soldier crawling out of it, away from him. A bullet from the other side struck his back. He counted the pistol’s rounds properly and switched to his rifle.

The third British soldier lunged at him, but Charles killed him. He pushed the body aside.

Charles lay almost even with the sandbags and reloaded the light machine gun. Blood smeared it, but lying on dead bodies bothered him more. Don’t pass out, he thought. If the enemy is dead, they aren’t a problem anymore.

Thinking, Charles read the smoke grenade’s label aloud and threw it into the street. He told Corporal Winters that red smoke meant he took the machine gun nest. He needed to be extremely sure he threw a smoke grenade, rather than a fragmentation grenade.

He had insufficient cover for fragmentation grenades, which would have neutralized the firing positions closest to the .50 caliber machine gun’s barrel. Then he could have held off the British soldiers with the machine gun.

And if Charles moved the bodies, he would have enough cover. Or he could cover himself with a body When a soldier jumped on a grenade, his body blocked or slowed most of the shrapnel, and it probably worked the same way at a distance, but he was not sure he could lie under a body, let alone in time to take cover and intend it to be blown up.

A grenade exploded and glass flew from a building down the street, as Charles decided to eliminate closer targets when they approached him.

He wriggled around to the .50 caliber machine gun, lay prone, and scrunched his legs. The recoil jerked his arms and jarred his entire body.

Other, muffled gunfire began again, and he wondered how far away it was.

Charles fired short bursts, aiming badly, but more-or-less at the British fighting positions. Sand poured from the British sandbags and bricks crumbled. Charles broke windows and hoped civilians were not inside. Noticing he fired back and forth in a straight line, he randomized his targets.

The British returned fire with their rifles and Charles heard a different .50 caliber machine gun in the distance. He dreaded being within firing range. Any second, he expected it, a grenade, mortar round, or some other way to neutralize a machine gun nest. Sticky blood flowed from his bullet wounds, but Charles could not stop firing for first aid.

His ears rang constantly. With sweaty hands, Charles fumbled the reloading. Unfamiliar with the British design, he understood the French .50 caliber machine gun enough to inspect it. He relied on guns sharing the same, obvious, basic principles. He glanced around, knowing he was most vulnerable then. He doubted he would win a hand-to-hand fight or aim accurately.

He was thirsty, but he lost the water reservoir’s straw. Charles did not have time to take off his reservoir and drink from it because British soldiers crawled into the closer firing posts. If he fired the machine gun, they would probably stop.

Charles turned the machine gun to its closest possible targets, and a bullet thudded into his back. He rolled over, groping for a grenade; he and the machine gun could not fire behind him unless he left the foxhole. Dozens of British soldiers would open fire if he moved to the concrete.

Assuming the fish and chip’s shop brickwork shielded him from the blast, Charles threw a grenade. He returned to the machine gun. There was few debris to spread, but pieces of ceiling crashed to the floor.

Charles periodically checked the fish and chips shop and closest fighting positions. But he never fired at the medic or soldiers retrieving casualties, though they targeted him. He aimed unreliably to the right and left of the machine gun. A British soldier shot his buttocks and a ricochet passed through his boot and bumped against his foot, stinging it.

The soldiers from the direction he came seemed to fight him and a French unit he could not see. Charles suspected it was Corporal Winters and the 3rd Section. He could not decide whether to attack them more or if it would be friendly fire. Maybe the other French units needed machine gun support more, but he could not locate them.

Lying on his stomach hurt his whole abdomen. Charles’ arms and shoulders ached and burned, and sweat ran into his eyes and stung his bitten lip. Bells grew louder in his ears.

He struggled with the machine gun’s recoil, so aimed further up the street, in front of the 3rdPlatoon’s route.

Another grenade detonated in the row of shops. The French gunfire was advancing steadily towards his position.

Carefully identifying the helmets as the enemy’s, Charles fired the rifle and light machine gun’s last rounds behind him. Then he severed a rifle strap from a dead British soldier and shot the rifle.

He occasionally looked at the British forces behind the 3rd Platoon’s route. British soldiers threw smoke grenades from the fish and chip shop’s side to the opposite side. With more effort than he usually required, he threw the last grenade diagonally from his position. He swiveled the machine gun quickly and shot several bursts, but always kept the barrel pointed at the far side’s buildings.

Charles’ erratic bursts of automatic fire became more erratic and he squeezed the trigger more weakly. Gripping the gun tired his hands.

The British soldiers reached the position adjoining his, and the British gunfire died down suspiciously quickly.

Charles fired the British rifle until it clicked. As he struggled to find another one, a British soldier’s bullet ploughed across his back’s body armor. With a sudden burst of energy, Charles tugged the hot barrel. The British soldier had screwed a bayonet to the barrel, and could still fire the rifle, which missed Charles. The British soldier broke free. Holding a bayonet detached from his rifle, another British soldier jumped on Charles, knocking him onto his back.

Pinned down, Charles held off the British soldier’s bayonet. He knew exactly how to break free, but was too weak to push against the knife one-handed and break the hold with his other arm. When he tried, the knife sliced his neck near the collarbone. The other soldier yelled something and fired. Charles flinched, but the bullet did not strike him.

He thought he heard Corporal Winters’ voice, which was odd. A French rifle was firing quite close to Charles, prompting the British soldier to look behind him. Charles clenched the soldier’s arm to the soldier’s body, but the soldier broke his grasp.

The British soldier fell on Charles, which confused him, but he snatched the bayonet.

As Charles plunged the bayonet into the soldier’s neck, Corporal Winters yelled, “Lieutenant!” The blood poured smoothly, but he expected a spurt or a gush. Again, Charles stabbed the soldier.

Charles heaved the soldier’s body off him, hearing Roux shout, and looked for the other soldier who attacked him. Attacking the other soldier, Charles noticed that an exit wound covered much of that soldier’s face. Charles considered it friendly fire, and he kept his head low.

Very muffled and in French, Corporal Winters yelled, “Lieutenant! Don’t fire at the fish and chips shop!”

“What?” Charles yelled, while Corporal Winters yelled, “We’re coming from the fish and chips shop! Don’t fire at us!”

Corporal Winters and Charles repeated themselves until Charles thought of trying French. “Qoui? Quoi?”

“Don’t fire at the fish and chips shop!”

“I won’t!” he said in French.

“Keep your head down! We’re coming!”

Charles returned to the machine gun and noticed somebody run towards him from behind. Clumsily, Charles drew his bayonet and lunged.

Saying, “It’s me, sir, Corporal Winters. Relax, relax, relax,” Corporal Winters disarmed him with an ease that would be embarrassing if Charles felt less panicked. He blocked Charles’ punch.

“Bloody hell, sorry, I didn’t know it was you. What are you doing here?” Charles groaned, attempting to roll over and reach the machine gun.

Corporal Winters grabbed the gun first. “I’m on the machine gun. Relax. Let go.” He pried one of Charles’ hands free.

“Take cover in the fish and chips shop. You’re too exposed here,” Charles said, while Corporal Winters yelled for Côté to drag him into the shop.

“Well, sir, with all due respect, shouldn’t one have thought of that before one cluttered up one’s position with corpses?”

“Fine, I’ll make room for you.” Pushing the bodies with no effect, Charles realized Corporal Winters ordered a soldier into fire, and Charles yelled, “Côté! Hold your position!” He had told Corporal Winters to command the men as he saw fit, but Charles knew how vulnerable a soldier was when he assisted a casualty. Their medic had died, and the British might shoot any infantry soldier.

Côté picked Charles up in the fireman’s carry.

Finally, the 3rd Section had a fully operating radio.

Over the radio, Colonel Noel heard the pain in Lieutenant Morgan’s voice.

“Madame, apologies for not holding our position, and for fighting in a different area than we were ordered to maneuver in,” Charles said.

“Don’t apologize, lieutenant. You gave us a chance to regroup and keep fighting,” Colonel Noel said, half-laughing.

“We’re still fighting.”

Charles evacuated last on the medical helicopter to reach the fish and chips shop.

In the field hospital, the friendly triage nurse overruled him. “Oh, you think you can fight me? I’m not even holding you down.”

Charles grumbled.

“We’re taking care of your men. Nobody will attack them here.”

Charles had abdominal surgery and after a day or so, he took short walks again and complained when nobody would tell him about his section’s condition.

Every day, as soon as he could walk to them, Charles visited his wounded men, and sometimes multiple times if they sustained severe wounds or required further surgery. Charles panicked when somebody else was in Jean Baudu’s intensive care cot. The nurse explained that he had been evacuated.

So during the doctor’s evening rounds, Charles said, “I’ll stop nagging you about the mass evacuation route.” The doctor could not have done anything to secure the route, but Charles thought he might have had an inkling of when to expect evacuation.

A nurse let Charles print paperwork from her computer. Charles asked an orderly if the blank paperwork arrived and it had. He filled out forms to award medals and promotions, writing the fill-ins on scrap paper first. He had never particularly thought about which muscles writing required, but, apparently, they included his sutured, scabbed, and bruised ones.

Still, he was able to return to light duty in four or five weeks, and the doctor expected him to fully recover in an additional four to eight weeks.

Charles’ eardrums healed, but continued infantry service would surely result in tinnitus, probably permanently.

During the Battle of Edinburgh, 4% of the 4th Bataillon were captured, 17% died, and another 35% were wounded. Of the 35% percent, 11% of them never returned to the military and 8% were transferred to the replacements pool due to lengthy recovery times. Their sister units had similar casualty rates, so the brigade rested and trained in a camp in Scotland well back from the fighting.

Charles read the letter’s opening lines, then checked the address, once from memory and once compared digit-by-digit with his paperwork. It matched his military address. He read it.

He went to Colonel Noel in the relatively stable Scottish town council house serving as a command center.

Charles handed the letter to Colonel Noel, “I think they addressed it to the wrong Charles Morgan.”

“You read it through?” she asked.

“Yes, madame.”

“Wouldn’t you know better than anybody how consistent the letter is to your action?”

“But I wasn’t trying to be heroic or whatever. And breaking the choke point just sort of happened.”

“You deserve it.”

“Could it be a unit citation instead?”

“It’s already been awarded. And you lead soldiers from units outside your chain of command.”

“What about the other soldiers?”

“Many of their medals and promotions came through.”

He decided to stop arguing. Privately, Charles wondered how the French Army had supply line issues during a well-planned invasion of Scotland, but could transport him to and from Paris on short notice.

Charles felt slightly better after speaking with other Croix de Guerre recipients.

The morning after the ceremony in Paris, our lieutenant began a journey to Scotland. He rode public transportation and caught rides on military transport, finally arriving on the same day he was scheduled to return. I’m not speculating whether he went away without leave or if it counted as his semi-relaxation time. But if there were consequences, wouldn’t the military police have detained him by now? (An excerpt from Sergeant Aeneas Winters' Letter to Miss Persephone Winters.)

Ironically, our lieutenant’s avoiding attention re the medal brought more. (I’m excluding the colonel having words with him.) A war reporter was assigned to us. Not only can the lieutenant not get rid of the war reporter, he must protect him. He hides, or he redirects the war reporter’s attention to us. The lieutenant is becoming the dedicated, loyal soldier who would never abandon his troops. It seems an awful lot of trouble for a punishment, but perhaps the colonel supported a bothersome consequence. (An excerpt from Sergeant Aeneas Winters' Letter to Miss Persephone Winters.)

After a long commercial fishing expedition, Bartholomew Morgan watched television and drank a beer. He dropped the bottle. It could be another Charles Morgan. Bartholomew had no idea what his son sounded like or how he behaved, but Lieutenant Charles Morgan was the right age and resembled Susan, but with Bartholomew’s nose.

From age nine, Charles lived in the government-run mandatory child-raising program, the Asylum. He and Bartholomew had no contact with each other since he entered it. The system interfered with reconnecting parents and children, but he was not sure if it was intentional or coincidental, and knew better than to ask. Further, his and Charles’ family history complicated matters.

And Bartholomew knew the family relations probably heard the news and recognized him, and maybe so would other people who knew him before the Asylum.

Reverend Mother called the novice Alice Morgan to her office, which intimidated Alice. She pressed her hands on her knees in the chair in front of Reverend Mother’s desk.

“If I’m not mistaken, you send a letter to your brother each month?” Reverend Mother asked.

“Yes, but he doesn’t respond,” Alice said. “Should I stop?”

“Oh, no. Perhaps your brother enjoys them but feels he can’t answer proper. Can you remind me of his name?”

“Charles and he’s a lieutenant.” She pronounced it the French way. “Is he all right?”

“I wouldn’t worry about him more than you already do. Is he about eighteen-years-old?”

“Yeah. His birthday is September 29th.”

“And remind me which division?”

Alice instantly translated it into English. “The 43rd Infantry, Land Army. It’s French.”

“I’m horrid with French. Write it down, please, so I can compare.” She handed Alice a sticky note and a pencil.

Alice wrote it. “Did something happen to it?” She thought, Did they do something wrong?

“No need to fret. So the Charles Morgan I read about was probably him. For fighting in the Battle of Aberdeen in November, he’s won the Croix de Guerre.”

“Posthumously?” Alice asked.

“No. He’s alive, as of a few days ago. He had barely any wounds, and he’s recovered from them. Physical, anyhow; it may be too soon for the others. Would you like to hear how it happened?”

“Of course, I haven’t heard anything from him.”

Afterward, Alice said, “I’m not surprised he could’ve fought hard, but I didn’t know he could do things like that.”

“I know almost nothing about the military, but few men can.”

“Can I have an opinion in a nunnery?”

“It’s risky, but you can trust me. Go on,” Reverend Mother said.

“The Bible contradicts some stuff about the French government, so should I be happy he survived?”

“I’d be concerned if he died and you felt glad.”

Anna and Charles fell asleep, snuggled together. Gunfire woke him. He bolted upright, grabbing at a pillow, where he expected to find a gun, and shoved Anna off him. Charles was about to lunge at her, but he noticed a front-lines dispatch about the French invasion of Ireland.

Scared, Anna said things along the lines of, “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Sorry,” Charles said, staring at the television.

“Did you push me?” Anna asked, rubbing her head.

Charles got his coat. “I’ll leave. Bloody hell, I beat you up.”

“It doesn’t hurt now.”

“What else do you call it?”

“Call what?”

“You got hurt.”

“You weren’t assaulting me.”

“I’m not going to sleep with you.”

“We just won’t fall asleep in front of the telly anymore.” Anna switched it off.

“We can have sex if you want, but you probably don’t want to anymore, and you don’t want to date me.”

“I’m not breaking up with you over this. I’m okay. Nothing else needs to change. Come here.”

“Then I’m not going to fall asleep with you. See you.”

When Persephone wondered if the veteran she met knew her brother, she looked through her photos and correspondence with Aeneas. Any trace of the veteran disappeared in the digital collection, but she identified him through Aeneas’ printed photos and handwritten letters.

Charles secretly wrote down everything he could remember about the action, especially Sergeant Winters. He earned the Honor Medal for Courage and Devotion, bronze grade, and for the rest of Charles’ life, he believed Sergeant Winters deserved it. When he died, none of his belongings were sent to Persephone, and Charles doubted she had it.

But presenting it to Persephone was risky, both regarding the law and her reaction. So he said, “I wrote down the Battle of Edinburgh stuff for you. I’ve forgotten a lot and I can’t check the facts but it’s probably accurate. Do what you want with it.”

“I will,” Persephone said.

Charles and Persephone requested revolutionary aid from Mr. Tambling-Goggin in Italy. He was an old revolutionary who spent the past several decades opposing the French totalitarian regime, and a cousin of the last British king, James III.

Since Charles and Persephone thought Mr. Tambling-Goggin needed to hear everything about his service in the French Army, they immediately told him. He listened attentively, often disapproving but in a reasonable, polite way. And when Charles reached the end of the Croix de Guerre action, he said, “I was fighting on the French side and I helped them win the battle, but I wasn’t thinking about the consequences. I was just paying attention to the combat.”

“I’ve fought in combat,” Mr. Tambling-Goggin said. “I’ve spoken with many of those who have on both sides. They think of each other and their fate, but not of politics.”

Mr. Tambling-Goggin thought Charles, deep down, understood some things were always right and always wrong.

“You fought courageously,” Mr. Tambling-Goggin said, who rarely used a Latinate word. “Or was it bravely? Asking if were you scared might seem silly, but?”

“Loads,” Charles said. “The whole time.”

“So you were courageous, as few men around the world could be.”

“I told you so,” Persephone said.

“No, her brother saved me. I was about to die.”

“And you attacked him, Horatius.” But she sounded amused.

“It was friendly grappling and shouldn’t have happened.”

“A berserker, as well?” Mr. Tambling-Goggin asked.

“What?” Charles asked.

“From your blond hair, you have a bit of Viking blood. May I ask if Vikings have been speaking to you?”

“You can ask. No.”

“You did a very awful deed, in the archaic sense.”

“Impressive,” Persephone whispered.

“Anybody could’ve done it,” Charles said.

After the Welsh Revolution, Bartholomew Morgan asked Charles, “Did they give you a Croix de Guerre?” he asked.

“Why are you asking?” Charles asked.

“I heard about a Charles Morgan taking on a choke-point. It would’ve scared his dad.”

“Why would you care?”

“You’re still my son. How the hell did you survive?”

“Maybe the officers said, ‘It’s just one bloke,’ and didn’t authorize a strike.”

“Your mum would’ve—”

“Don’t talk about her.” Charles began striding to the door.

“—hated you joining the French Army—”

Charles slammed the door, but Bartholomew shouted, “—she would’ve been proud of how you can fight if you’re pressed.”

George and his friends Bertie and Eamon lolled around, looking for something to do. It was raining outside, but warm enough to play. They intended to play war but objected to the rain, and Charles said that the rain was good for their imagination. Mrs. Jenkins let them be slightly bored and read to Shafaat (who had wandered over), Evangeline, Eamon’s oldest younger sister Maureen, and Zahira, Shafaat’s younger sister.

Bertie reluctantly rummaged through the junk box himself, but Eamon pointed at something and told Bertie to pick it up. Bertie handed it to him. Interrupting the argument about who should ask permission to play with it, George called, “Charles, can we play with this junk box thing?”

In his and Anna’s bedroom, Charles was maintaining his uniform and gun and did not look up. “Is it sharp, flammable, a weapon, breakable, classified, chemical, consumable, or naked?”

“No,” George said. The last prohibition confused him because he visited museums and looked through Aunt Persephone’s art and archaeology books.

“Okay.” Charles answered the secure, red phone reserved for the king.

Meanwhile, George found a box, unusual compared to everything else in the junk box.

Anna shut the bedroom door behind herself and gently reminded the children to play quietly until the King hung up. She weaned Donna at the dining table.

The boys debated what to do with the thing in the box. George said they needed to wait for Charles to hang up and decided the call would last a while. The other three boys crowded behind him while he went to Anna. Ella, the housekeeper and Mrs. Jenkins’ reinforcement, was setting the table.

“Is this real?” George asked.

“Where did you find it?” she asked.

“In the junk box. We won’t play with it if it’s real.”

The others agreed, quite seriously and unanimously.

Anna weighed the bronze medal in her hand and felt the ribbon. “Yeah, it’s real.” Donna grabbed for it, but Anna said, “It isn’t for you to hold. I think it’s Charles’ medal, so you’re right, you shouldn’t play with it.”

“He doesn’t wear it,” George said.

“But Wales doesn’t have medals. Except for the Revolutionary Medal, like me Dad’s got,” Eamon said.

“He wears that one,” George said.

“The French Army has medals,” Bertie said but looked uncertain. “Wasn’t he in it?”

Shafaat came over to see.

“It’s French, the Croix de Guerre. The King doesn’t like talking about his time in the French Army, so if you ask him about it, he might be grumpy.”

“Why?” Shafaat asked.

“Sometimes memories of being a soldier makes them feel sad or scared. It’s too hard for them to talk about. So they get upset when people ask them.”

“But medals are for good guys, and Charles was a bad guy,” George said.

Bertie nudged him.

“He says so,” George said, defensively.

“What did you find?” Mrs. Jenkins asked.

“A medal, but they’re going to put it back in the box and in the junk box. It must be where Charles wants it.”

“Want to make cardboard medals?” Mrs. Jenkins said. “You can make them up. And you can make them up for all kinds of things if you don’t want a military medal.”

Everybody thought it was a good idea for after lunch, but the other boys continued to look at the closed box.

“Maybe if we left it out, he would tell us about it?” George asked, carefully setting it in the junk box. “Or would he be mad?”

Slowly, Anna said, “He left the Land Army because he couldn’t make himself kill people his superior officers wanted him to kill. I’m not going to tell you more about that. You’re too young. The decision might have affected other people, not just the ones he couldn’t kill. He feels people might be in danger if he talks about his service.”

“Why?” Shafaat asked.

“They’re fascist bad guys,” George said.

“The French government punishes people who don’t obey them. I won’t tell you how. Charles doesn’t want people to be punished because of him. Before the Revolution, he wasn’t allowed to talk about his service and he wasn’t called a veteran. Did you put it back?”

“Yeah,” George said.

“Play something else.”

Mrs. Jenkins distracted the girls, but the boys whispered amongst themselves. George went over to Anna and he and Bertie assembled them.

“You’re curious, aren’t you?” Anna asked. “I’ll ask. If he says he won’t talk about it, don’t ask again.”

They promised.

“I met him before the Revolution, but he didn’t mention it. And he might tell you he will tell you later. If he does, don’t ask him when.”

“So we won’t nag him?” George asked.

“Partly. When he got the medal, he fought for a country. His Revolutionary Medal means he fought against the country he defended. It’s a difficult emotion. Revolutionaries have trouble explaining to themselves, let alone other people.”

“We’re wondering some things,” George said. “Bertie, go on.”

“You said you’d do it,” Bertie whispered.

“It was your idea!”

The other three boys insisted.

“The Asylum raised him to be a bad guy, but he’s a good guy now. So he was confused about what to do.”

“Maybe,” Anna said.

“Or he was pretending.”

“I don’t know when he changed his mind,” Anna said.

“Or he was just following orders.”

“The army doesn’t order soldiers to do the kinds of things that earn a Croix de Guerre.” Anna wished she could categorically say, No, he didn’t do anything unethical. “I don’t think the French would’ve awarded it to somebody doing the worst stuff. People would have found out about the bad things and the government tries to hide them.”

George said, “Charles says dictatorships give out loads of pointless medals that don’t mean anything. They think it makes them look better than they are, but it doesn’t work.”

“The Croix de Guerre is a very important military medal.”

Ella said, “Ma'am, I don’t want to butt in, sometimes His Majesty lets me say what my parents told me, but he’s always been here.”

“All right,” Anna said.

“They said nobody is completely bad. Even really bad guys do something good, even if it’s once and it’s a little thing.”

Evangeline squealed about the medal, running to the junk box.

“What about it, Evie?” Charles asked.

“I found your Croix de Guerre in the junk box,” George said.

A little strained, Charles said, “I got it for action in the Battle of Edinburgh. The award says I did a lot of stuff that qualified me for the Croix de Guerre. I did it, but not everything counted. If they were going to mention teamwork, the Croix de Guerre should’ve been a unit citation.”

“I said I would ask if you would tell them about it,” Anna said.

“Anna and I have a date in twenty-four minutes, but I’ll tell you a bit about it.”

“You don’t need to cancel?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Anybody can listen.”

The boys and Charles went into the bedroom, but everybody else had something else to do. Ella hovered in the doorway and Charles waved her inside.

Charles continued ironing. “I’m telling you about it because you need to know what happens in war and you’re old enough to pay attention. You won’t understand it because you haven’t served, and you probably think everything is right and wrong. There are grey areas. Something can be right in one situation and wrong in another situation. I think killing is a grey area, and loads of people disagree with me. Listen to your parents. Pay more attention to their opinion than mine.”

“But you’re my whatever,” George said.

“Then pay attention to Mr. Tambling-Goggin. Ella, you’re old enough to figure it out by yourself.”

Ella laughed.

Then in his command voice and posture, Charles emphasized that if any of them killed anybody outside service in the military, police, the government, and so forth, they would be in huge trouble. He would not lessen the consequences, however much people asked him to. He said that self-defense and the defense of others might result in slightly less trouble, but they must turn themselves in to the police. He reverted to his normal attitude, but the boys remained rather terrified. Ella looked dutifully solemn, but Charles knew he and she had the same opinion, and he had not aimed the intimidation at her.

“During the action that I got the Croix de Guerre for. I’ve done it for the Welsh side, but nothing that deserves a medal like the Croix de Guerre. I’ve done it for the Welsh side, but nothing that deserves a medal like the Croix de Guerre. If the New Welsh Army had one, it's against regulations for an officer to award a medal to himself, so I wouldn’t have one anyway. There are no superior officers who can award it to me. I think I was on the wrong side, but at the time, I thought I was killing bad guys and that I was the good guy. I was fighting to make a bad country bigger. I shouldn’t have been. Understanding me all right?”

Ella nodded. Bertie raised his hand; the other boys looked slightly perplexed but did not ask questions.

“Yes?”

“Dad says we ought to forgive you. Sometimes we shouldn’t utterly blame you.”

“The authorities didn’t let me know I was wrong. Maybe I knew when I was your age, but I got brainwashed.”

Charles tried to explain that he needed to order soldiers into battle but was also responsible for their lives. Though the enemy wounded or killed them, unpredictably, Charles placed the soldiers in danger, and it weighed on him, whether the soldiers volunteered or were drafted. Ordering soldiers into battle felt awful. Charles said, “So I’d be happy if I didn’t have to send anybody into combat again.”

He explained that he did not want to send his soldiers into a situation where they would die. Charles thought he led them into a bad position and could not extricate them.

“Loads of them ended up dead because of me anyway,” he said. “They died in the Land Army or because of the revolution.”

“Sir, I have an opinion,” Ella said.

“Okay.”

“When you were commissioned in the French Army, you didn’t know you would overthrow the government. And it’s like being in a civil war.”

“But I knew the French government executes suspicious persons. I thought about it a lot. If you lot ever need to overthrow me, you need to think about whether or not you can fight people you know on my side. And saying things like that is why you need to listen to your parents, not to me. Bloody h—”

“H-E-double-hockey-sticks,” Ella said, and Charles chuckled.

Though he omitted the gory descriptions, he said he killed and wounded thirty to fifty of the enemy. He and his unit held off between three hundred and four hundred enemy for approximately five hours when another French division relieved them. “I felt like I was dying,” Charles said.

Then Charles pointed out the different elements on the Croix de Guerre. “The silver star means that Général Brochard mentioned me in an official report.”

Before they left, he looked into their eyes in his command posture and said with his command voice, “Don’t talk to Lady Winters about Aeneas Winters unless she mentions him.”

“Yes, sir,” they said.

Generally showing few emotions, Charles seemed more subdued than normal.

“You didn’t need to talk about it,” Anna said. “I was going to ask you in private, but Evie got there first.”

“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“It’s not like you to put it in a junk box.”

“I dumped stuff in boxes when I moved and didn’t see it, so I figured somebody broke into my storage space and confiscated it.”

“Do your scars come from it?” Anna asked.

“Most of the ones you saw when we met,” Charles said. “Thanks for not asking about them and my service and stuff.”

Anna stroked his beard. “When we met, I thought knowing you well would take a long time.”

For years, the French government ignored the good parts of Charles’ military records and used his experience in their anti-revolutionary propaganda.

Sporadically over the years, word had spread about the Croix de Guerre, but Charles remained silent except to a few people. He allowed them to speak, but mostly they refused. Eventually, though, the French government could not ignore it anymore. They revoked his medal and asked him to send it back.

“So I figured out the postage and spent it on candy for the kids,” Charles said in a press conference.

People speculated he intended to harmlessly irritate the French government.

When the boys were a little older, Charles told them about the Croix de Guerre in more detail. Charles drew a map and defined terms. He explained the 43rd Division’s purpose and how the French forces and British forces’ decisions led to a hard battle.

“A good combat officer has to send his men to dangerous battles where they might be killed, but he doesn’t send them out into blatantly stupid battles where everybody is going to die, like the Charge of the Light Brigade. Sometimes a good combat officer ends up in a battle when everybody is going to die, and it’s not always a blatantly stupid battle, like the Chosin Reservoir. I don’t know if I’m a good officer or not, but I’ve been in hard battles. I don’t think they were blatantly stupid, and the Battle of Edinburgh wasn’t. We fought it for the wrong reasons, but we did it well. So did the British Forces.”

Charles asked a time-traveling historian, Benjamin Connor, to collect the information about his service in the Battle of Edinburgh—not to show off, but on principle, because the French government suppressed it and deleted the files. Naturally, Benjamin Connor agreed, considering Charles a rare historical relic.

The Welsh government might have hacked French files and found the data, but it was politically risky and Charles considered it a waste of government resources. However, the Welsh government and the Time Travel Institute worked together.

Benjamin used various time travel techniques to collect the lost data before the French government destroyed it. To deter political problems, he worked quietly. He and the Welsh government and he waited years to announce it.

And Charles also let Benjamin analyze it and even provided a new personal account.

Still, Charles rarely spoke about the Croix de Guerre or acknowledged he earned one.

An elderly British veteran wrote Charles a letter, explaining that they fought each other during the Battle of Edinburgh. He said they were soldiers doing their jobs, but because of that, he continued to consider Charles an enemy. But he said that Charles scared him during the battle.

Charles responded that the British forces terrified him and the wounds and death they inflicted bothered him.

(Note: It's an independent story from a world I've been working on for years; I like playing with the world when I'm sick or tired. I've written down other stories, but they haven't turned out well. I was sick, so decided to write down this one, which I haven't done before. The writing is very rough, but I think it's more-or-less what happened in the right order.)