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[color=Silver][sub]December 30th - Frontline Trench[/sub][/color]

[sub]Conversing with: [@TGM] & [@CFProxy][/sub]

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[color=Silver]	There was something ever-so soothing about the native tongue of another. Her words had often flowed like the rivers once untouched by war, but it held that mental preparation seen in those that had tasted its wrath before. She was an experienced soldier, no doubt. And as a Corporal of four years, he could have only imagined the true grit she'd pieced together to speak of such blissful indulgences. [i]Behave normally[/i], she uttered, as if he could have sensed any sort of normalcy. At the least, it brought upon the great question to his focus. What was his normalcy? Had it been the innocence of a child long passed, but to which way could he act similarly when all that came before the war, all that was normal to begin with, had been reduced to ashes and dust. Olivia was dead. His parents were dead. His comfort-sense of normality, of neutrality, in which he'd sit there and know that at least he had [i]those basic needs[/i] in life covered, was a mere memory. And it wasn't that he didn't want to do what she suggested, for it was the most sound advice she could've given to a stranger she most likely didn't care for. Well, not in a way he understood at least. The intimacy of war had bludgeoned his comprehension of all that surrounded him, and so he - at first - nodded to her advice.

	Truth be told, he was uncertain when she stepped closer to him. The words she said were true to all optimists, or those who still had the heart to soldier on - as soldiers did - but that soldiery was all but deafening for his faint hearing. It encompassed that entire cloak that he warmed himself up in. She then, still close to him, drew a comb and made best for her appearance. Before, she had stood out to him amongst the soldiers simply for the fact that she at least had an eye for natural prettiness, but the moment she tidied herself up, it sent an odd signal to himself. He saw great confidence in that she, a soldier of great experience, had smoothened her hair moments before she was to crawl back in the mud. Maybe that's what a good leader was. He looked in on himself, internally, and remembered just how disgustingly horrendous he must've looked, with all but the daily shower he was allowed in Trebin and the scraggly facial hair that the officers had given up on suppressing. And in his group, he looked around and felt ever the more different, even as a Darcsen, for that sheer factor of being the inconsequential leader.

	Her final words were bittersweet to him. She said something so dearly and kind that he hadn't believed it came from actual understanding or reason, but as a method to refocus his mind back on the prize - if not to grant him that tiniest bit of confidence. And it had worked, somewhat, and he loved hearing such a thing. It was undeserved, at least in his mind, but he still relished in the beauty of its curled tongues, the soft velvety feel to each pronunciation and the brilliant temper that came with it. But it had to be artificial, he reminded himself in bitter gloom, for that was how the world treated the faint and forgotten.[/color]

[color=03DAED][b]"Well - I...I definitely see you've mastered it.[/b][/color] [color=Silver]Initially, he staggered on his words just a tiny bit, but it was enough to notice he needed a correction. He hadn't moved away from her, nor the smile she made or the glisten of her eyes, but he had drifted back into the mindset of that soldier people wanted him to be, not the man he was supposed to become.[/color] [color=03DAED][b]"If I become normal now, I won't have any normalcy to strive toward. I - well, I thank you, though, for what you've said."[/b][/color]

[color=Silver]	But as he finished, he was granted the sight of the angel of the frontline - the well-recognised queen of ice and hearts; Senja had joined his side for the first time in what felt like forever. She brought a hand forward, and clasped it with another, as she unleashed a heavenly smile unparalleled by all of her God's other servants. Jean hadn't seen much of her since her arrival back at Amone. She had been an addition to all of the regiment, and the company, but especially to those like Franz. She was the beacon that sat on the peninsular, guiding ships and rafts to the ports they were destined to sail to. She had a beam fixated on her brow that had played with the hearts of a thousand sailors, all for the sake of rest and recovery. She was the rehabilitation to the soldiers of the night, those that were the rats in the mud and those that were the knights on the prairie pastures. In essence, she was their heaven.

	So much time had been dedicated to Franz, the lost soul who needed love, that Jean's central position in the platoon had once again faded, for the betterment of the company, of course. His centre-line figure simply drew attention from the superiors onto soldiers who were already burdened by the weights of survival and sanity. And when Franz had secured the love of his life, so he had thought (and heard in the inn) then Senja had worked wonders. Not to fix the poor fellow, but to place him where he could do it himself. And truly Jean had been jealous of Franz. The man was one of the few he could have truly related toward. He was down, brow-beaten and had a hard time accepting the flowers that many planted for him, but he was that little extra step closer to heaven, whilst Jean still fought in the fields of hell. But that was just him pitying himself, and that was entirely the problem many had suspected of the man in the first place.

	Those like Senja were to be yearned for. They were the craving of any cursed man, of any silenced soul that had felt nothing but the grimacing reality of war press against their throats. And he couldn't have been happier, right then and there, to have seen her approach him, and to have held out her hands in prayer. What she said was hard to believe.[/color]

[color=03DAED][b]"The...beloved?"[/b][/color] [color=Silver]His mind stumbled at who she could've meant. Those who dearly love are family, and Jean needn't have reminded himself of where they were. It could have also been the lovers that held on to his hearts, of which none he knew existed. And finally, it could've been the dear friends, but in truth he couldn't have felt more distant to this fellow soldiers as he had ever been before. She meant it, it seemed, and that placed him in a somewhat uncomfortable spot of confusion.[/color] [color=03DAED][b]"I'd...love a blessing, please. If you can settle it in before we-...well, do our job, as we should."[/b][/color]

[color=Silver]	Many had bigged up Senja to be something of an angel. And it could've been cruel to have placed her on a pedestal. A thousand more hearts would ache if she were hurt, let alone murdered in cold blood by the Imperials she resisted through duty. A million eyes would weep for her desecration. And Jean, in that moment, felt that maybe she could've been all of that. What saddened him the most was the fact that after all these times, and in all those days of yearning something so pitiful as affection, he received it moments before he went out to die again, instead of where the soldiers scattered to enjoy their brief freedoms.[/color]