06
farewell
Adonis was leaving for war, and Aphrodite couldn't stop him.
'I have to, Meri.'
There was such a distance between them, taking up all the room in his kitchen. Adonis' eyes were on the bowl of figs she had just dropped. Hers were on him.
'You don't,' She could feel herself going cold. Panic was seeping in.
'Yes, I do. Everyone else is. Christ, Martin from next door left just yesterday-'
'That doesn't mean you have to!'
Aphrodite tried to calm herself. She reached for the fear that was pulling itself out between her teeth, tried to shove it back down. But this felt all too familiar; another lover, lost to war.
'It isn't what you think,' she started. 'Conflict is not kind, you will die-'
'Meri,' Adonis closed the space between them. He seized her hands, as if he could hold her there. 'I can't be the only one who stays behind. I've put it off long enough.'
Avoided it, because he met her. That Uranian love had kept him here. But now he had to leave, for that violence and blood and death.
'Please,' she tried so softly. His hands went to the sides of her face, and she looked at him. Those eyes were no longer bright, so absent of the life within them. As if this war, and all it was forcing him to leave behind, had dimmed them.
'It's the right thing to do, Meri.' He was trying not to cry. 'There is courage in this.'
She curled herself into him. It was selfish, so selfish, that in his last moments of freedom Adonis was holding her together. But she couldn't bring herself to stop. Her body was about to break.
'When do you leave?'
'I enlisted a while ago. They deploy me in two days.'
She started to cry.
'Hey,' he tried to smooth out her hair, to comfort her, but his voice broke. 'It's alright. I'll make it back to you.'
They stood together, time lost as they embraced in his kitchen. Just once, she would've liked for him to speak her real name.
| | |
Ares is awake in his bunk. He does not sleep anymore. His own mind betrays him; memories of dead friends, whinnying horses, mud. So much mud and blood and filth. The darkness in his chest infects his lungs like a virus. He can't use the thrill and scream of war to ignore it anymore.
A change in the wind alerts him. He stirs, slides on his boots and picks up his rifle. Everyone else is asleep, and he tries not to wake them as he crawls out of the dug out.
The night watch greet him. 'Shifts not over for another couple of hours.'
'Just need some air.'
They don't question it, and watch him crawl out of the trench towards the woodland - on the safe side of the allies.
The trees provide cover here. Ares follows the shift in the wind, that pull of gravity that has him practically lifted off his feet. He's deep in the woodland now. At first, only night met him. But then he saw a glow in the distance, and suddenly that shift isn't just the wind anymore.
