A Brief Respite

After the Battle

The group of soldiers began their march back to base camp. In the morning the battalion had been fresh and clean, resonating with controlled anxiety, a clear objective in their minds. Now the company had changed, the group was noticeably smaller, their previous anticipation dulled by a thick layer of dirt and blood. Their armor was dented, and people held their extremities in various degrees of discomfort.

You watched as prince Dimitri, soon to be king Dimitri, you mused, led the teams in a victory chant before trotting off with the knights of Seiros, Rodrigue, and the newly acquired prisoner Rufus. In a way, you almost felt bad for him, knowing what was about to transpire.

"Not like he didn't bring it on himself." You reasoned. But that didn't sit well either.

Despite the obvious losses, those who had made it out were relatively unharmed and able to walk on their own. With the lack of severe injuries to attend to, you held back and began surveying the rooms which had seen the largest conflict. Your hope being that you might find some poor souls still clinging to life and heal them or give them something for the pain. You wondered if anyone besides Claude knew that you carried a vial of morphine in your medicine bag.

The ground was spattered with bodies, some of which still had swords and arrows piercing them; eerily, the only audible sound was the metal taps of your feet as you maneuvered around the fallen. Despite just having been in the midst of battle, currently your only fear was the sensation of accidently stepping on them.

"What a waste." You thought, "And who's gonna have to clean them up?"

Your eyes darted across faces and figures, looking with a great deal of attention for anyone you knew or anyone still alive.

"I can guarantee it won't be any of us." You scoffed.

The first time you wandered around a dead battlefield you had struggled to direct your focus towards the bodies, instead filling the silence with fervently chanted prayers. You felt a compulsion to muster a prayer for every single one, waves of guilt crashed into you each time you tried to extricate yourself from the scene and you were inevitably pulled back into the sea of bodies. Eventually the sun had set and You found yourself getting cold, you knew you'd better get going back to camp, as you was unsure if any of your companions had seen that you had made it out unharmed. Reluctantly you stood up, your knees cracking beneath your. It wasn't until then that you noticed the length of time that had passed, the sky above now a dusky fog.

"Are you injured?" A confident voice broke through the silence.

You was startled despite immediately recognizing the voice as Felix's. You let out a frightened gasp before replying.

"N-no I'm fine." Your breath caught at the sight of him, a cloud of blood covered his exposed hand, "Oh let me see that." You rushed to his side and hesitantly took his wrist in your hand. Felix elicited an annoyed sigh but freely gave his hand to you.

"Oof, Nasty." You remarked, "Did you try and catch a sword?"

"Dimitri got in the way of one. My own sword arm was... engaged at the moment. What else should I have done?"

You snickered, your eyes darting sideways as if to say "Fair enough."

The cut, a neat incision into the palm, was half an inch deep and crusted over with brown blood. Carefully, you pulled up his sleeve and examined the damage. Nothing too serious, but it was deep enough to be painful. After removing any obvious signs of contamination, battle wounds were particularly likely to have dirt, hair, or plant matter within or around them, You dug through your pockets and pulled out a vial of saline.