#yozak

-"Geika, have you sent a letter to your Secret Santa yet?"

The night before marching into the battlefield, all the comrades sit in a dark, dimly lit bar, in scattered groups. It is quite late into the night but the tension in the air is electrifying. There was a low hum of casual chatter before, but now as the day approaches, silence is all that is left. The horses neigh and grunt outside, beating their hooves on the cold hard earth.

Konrart and Yozak weresitting at a corner table, their faces lit by a lantern.  A few other tables had lanterns and candles lit, some of the men staring distantly in the flickering light, resigned to the reality of their situation while some others looked quite resolute. The others just took comfort in the damp darkness. There were a few coins that Konrart had placed on the table to pay for the drinks earlier in the evening - but not even the most destitute barkeep would accept money from soldiers about to walk to their deaths in a few hours. So the coins sit their, untouched, dust dancing over them oblivious to the plight of too many.

Konrart reached out to one of the coins unmindfully and spins it on the wooden table. It rotates on its axis rapidly, like a top, at first. His brown eyes remained fixed on the coin although his mind was far, far away. Gravity and friction got the better of the coin, slowing it down until it pirouettes along its circumference, like an euler’s disk and finally, with a soft rapid staccato, it thuds to a stop. Silence reigns again.

Yozak, who had been staring out into the blue night shifts in his position and fetches out something from the cloth belt around his waist. It’s a harmonica. It was battered and old, marked with a thousand scratches, dented in a couple of spots. Before leaving the city, he had seen someone dragging a small sack from the medical camps into the tent of another officer. He emptied the conents of the sack on the table - hundreds of engagement rings, photographs and letters tumbled out, littering the charts and maps. He heard the officer in charge ask the man to save the rings because they were metal and burn the rest. Yozak fancied his harmonica would end up in such a pile.

He puts it to his lips and blows, a solitary midnote hangs in the air. It’s not a high cheerful tone, neither a grave low one. A melancholy tune of acceptance perhaps. 

“One last time, Commander..?” His brilliantly blue eyes glimmer in the warm light of the lantern. Konrart does not look up at him, but hums softly under his breath. Like singing a long forgotten song from a very distant childhood. It was a song he knew well, a song all his comrades knew. His notes waver a little as he continues to sing and his throat chokes up. There is an uncomfortable prickling in his eyes. Although he is not too loud, his voice reverberates among the muzzled men. Just as his voice breaks a little, for this took more strength than an entire army could muster, someone picks it up from the other end of the room, from the shadows and gradually all others joined in. The song talks about the great land, the mazoku and their comrades, about kindness and justice and the need to protect what their forefathers held together for them. All of them.

The notes go high in the end, as do most patriotic songs in the end - to hail glory to the land. Not all could reach the note and gradually the volume trailed off - except for one. The Lion of Luttenberg holds on to that last note, as if it almost pained him to let go. But the song is over. He closed his eyes and darkness inundates him. There’s just a chill in his heart, like an ice-chip lodged deep inside - and that is all that remains. A chill of fear and pain. But in an instant it gets lighter- even though his eyes are closed his corneas sense light.

The first pale rays of sunlight from across the eastern mountain have seeped in through the window and hit his eyes. The sky looks looks a pale, steely grey but is changing rapidly into a salmony pink, the birds are chirping and fluttering awake. The last day had indeed begun.

But even so, Lord Weller smiled. He smiled because this would protect all he loved best of this land and its people. It would protect what he treasured most of himself - his honour. What more could one want or, indeed, need.

Yozak’s gaze had not left his commander’s face. But that smile told him all he needed to know. Ke knows now who he must protect. He looks down at the harmonica in his hand and chuckles quietly.

Tagged by : @antarestyl

1. Cho Hakkai from Saiyuki

2. Josak from Kyo Kara Maoh!

3. Papyrus from Undertale

4. Piccolo from Dragon Ball Z

5. Suga from The Forest of Drizzling Rain

6. Hiei from Yu Yu Hakusho

7. Luigi from Super Mario Brothers

8. Sirius Black from Harry Potter

9. Lin Koujo from Ghost Hunt

10. Noboru Yoshikawa from Onizuka

my index finger hurts

yet

hate this

j/yozak looks o f f

lines are blelele