Returning to No Applause, Only More of the Same

Chapter 17, The Warm Embrace of the Soil

In the mild distance, the sound of seagulls squawking could be heard. There had been no birds on his battlefield, not even the odd oversized vulture or lizardbird. Only the silence of death. Here, he heard much more. the seas roaring and humming with dignified class, crying out to the widowed brides of sailors, singing to the sleepless children, whispering in the ears of soldiers who never made it home. Gerald was one such soldier. The lone survivor of a horrific one-sided battle that nobody had enjoyed fighting.

Gerald looked out over the sea. You can sit down if youd like, he said, glancing back at where Kreig stood, large and lumbering and lonesome. Its okay.

Kreig sat down next to him, at an arms distance. Neither prying nor distant, just close enough to hear Gerald speak his mind and soul.

...I didnt ever really have time to be a kid. The other guys in my platoon always talked about how they missed home and longed for their childish days of little care and great love. I hated being a soldier too, but I couldnt miss home. There was nothing for me to miss about it. I was born, I grew up, and that was it. On the battlefield, I was just another soldier. Back home, I was just another kid to raise the younger siblings. And here, I guess Im just another prisoner.

Theres nothing for you to care about, War. I Back then, I wish you would have taken my life. It was my duty. Not to arrive in this world, not to become some prisoner when my mother and father made me into a soldier, they knew I wouldnt return. So, you see I cant return. Even now, whatever alliances I make, its just an etitude to my spiritual death. Say, if you were to kill me now, would anybody know? Could you make me disappear?

At this, Gerald turned fully to face Kreig. There was a certain reluctance in his face and a kind of exhausted tension that Kreig understood all too well. ...Yes. That was his answer. A reluctant affirmation.

He had all kinds of skills, several of which could make his enemy simply disappear.

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...But he didnt want to. No matter what Gerald told him, no matter what he asked for in this regard, he wouldnt do it. Not because he couldnt, not because he hadnt killed before, not because he feared losing his chance to meet his family and live a normal life

There was something else.

After all, in those young eyes of Gerald, those eyes that begged for death, he saw himself.

Hed been older, but hed been in the same situation. A reluctant soldier forced to kill. When the other four of the Five Bodies were killed in battle and executed, he begged for death as well. He told the Empires torturers and guards a hundred times a day that he just wanted to join his brothers in the warm soil, and never once did they humour his wishes. The same happened when his party was killed by the Empire. Hed turned himself in the hopes that they would kill him, but they couldnt. Without any reliable method to end his life, they forced him into a cell beneath the Empire, again not heeding his wishes for death.

And here he was, denying the request of a boy in his very same situation.

Youll do it, wont you? Although I cant truly see you as the man who took out my platoon, I can understand your place here. Youve done this before. You can do this again, cant you? Gerald said, turning fully towards Kreig. The frailest smile possible tiptoed over his lips shyly.

Kreig did not respond. He could not respond. He wanted to break off eye-contact, but he couldnt. He wanted to say something, but he couldnt. Something soothing. Something that made the boy feel alright. Feel better. A few words. The words that would have made Kreig feel alright back then when he needed them. But there were no such words. His mouth felt dry. Dry and empty and callous. No words could save this boy.

Only action.

What had Kreig needed all those years ago, when he longed only for the embrace of dark death?

Dont look at me like that. If youd like, I can just turn away. Not that I want to see myself di-,

He hugged him. Although Kreigs arms were big, although they had strangled and crushed and beat so many into their untimely ends, now, in this moment, they merely held Gerald. Eclipsed him in their mere size. Kreig, too, was large. He was a bear, large and imposing, his full body pulling around Gerald, bringing him into a hug that covered the boy entirely. Geralds thin arms froze in a second, moved spasmodically and then relaxed. Kreig kept Gerald close, and Gerald was kept close. They did not move.

But when Kreig held him long enough, when time had moved to a standstill and the waves no longer lapped at the stony shores, Kreig could feel the boy crying, little white long-held tears soaking into Kreigs overall, tiny unwitting hiccups and warm shivers that transferred from Gerald to Kreig like heat and static.

It wasnt one-sided. As Gerald cried, releasing his boyish sadness and the sorrows of too-few too-many years, Kreig listened. He did not cry, as his eyes had dried long since, but as he held Gerald, Gerald held him.

In little clutches, in small movements, as the boy buried his face in Kreigs chest, so too did Kreig bury his head in the boys back.

They remained there until they released each other, shared a look that said too much, and went their own ways.

When Kreig returned to his cell, he ate neither lunch nor dinner. He slept an hour slumbering softly, and then, when he woke back up, he took to painting like never before. He began by drawing a thin sketch. Two people in an embrace. It was nothing if not what had transpired mere hours ago. In that time, in that situation, he knew he had seen Gerald for who he was, who he had been.

A young boy who had no business being swept up in all of this. That was who he painted. Alongside an adult man, who had no business being alive either.

Together, they formed a defiant coexistence, together, they outlooked the sea.

That was what he painted.

Most of his oil painting didnt take more than three hours, but for this one, he went at it for the entire day and the entire night, getting the details right, putting emotion in the faces and in the skies. A true testament to the ever-changing nature of man. As he put the last strokes to the painting, the painting that had left his mind as blank as the canvas, he leaned back. Put his pencil in a water-filled cup. And then, used the skill that let him instantly dry oil.

Sand Emperor's Touch (X)

It wasnt a visible skill. To any onlookers (observers), it just seemed as if he touched the painting, but he knew it was more than that.

It was complete, for one. Complete and beautiful and he felt absolutely no shame when he, at 5 in the morning, wandered over to the hatch and placed the painting within. Please give it to Gerald. No answer. Not that he had ever gotten an answer before when he asked them to do any-,

-Will do.

The sound startled Kreig, but he didnt show it.

In two hours, he would meet Gerald again. Until then, since he couldnt know how Gerald would react, he spent his hours pacing his cell. Back and forth. Glancing around at the walls, plastered head to toe in paintings of varying degrees of skill.