Prologue; To whom it may concern
A blessed, beautiful relief.
Yes, to let time pause, consume you entirely as you lay there in a clumsy vertigo, with nothing left. But then you get up, or at least you try, you slip a little because the ground beneath you gives way from the weight of all the conviction upon your shoulders. But still you try.
You get up, away from the scene, and push them over into the ground so that you can walk, and breathe. They look familiar, each of them do, but now they are only mannequins, irritable and still. Push them aside as you would with their judgments, layer by layer. What's left in the middle is nothing, because they couldn't possibly know everything about you. They probably don't. Those who hardly speak to you have a sliver of a glimpse, but what does that amount to? Breathe, breathe. You need to breathe.
Look at the mayhem of mud, grass and blood behind you, and smile. Smile at the absurdity of it all, the crumpled bodies, the almost upright. And you walk away with such a stride, generously taking in the air as if having broken through the glass surface of the ocean. What a feeling.
Walk away from all that was worth, throw your sword, hilt, shield and all behind. In the corner of your eye, time has stopped elsewhere too, and in that realization you gather strength and courage, or whatever thats left, as you both walk away into the shadows of the evening. Resting, breathing, living to fight side by side at the first hues of daylight, all over again.