Her hair whips about her face; her hands are sticky with Aelfric-knows-what when she moves to pull the matted, tangled strands out of her eyes. These are the truths Ophilia realizes, out here on the battlefield.
Her shoes, her legs, the hem of her skirt- all are caked with dirt and rust-red, and she tries hard not to think about where the color came from. Her hands shake and tremble no matter how much she fists them, and her forehead is sweaty, and she's too hot underneath the scarf and cloak she wears, even if the outside world is cold and grey and cloudy, and her fingers are numb from it.
The cry of the opposing army rings in her ears; terror grips her body and chains down the scream that claws at her throat and threatens to tear itself out of her chest. She wants to go home. But no, home is just to the left, maybe a block away at the most, and it's gone, yes? Burning down from the inside; she witnessed it with her own eyes.
She doesn't want to go home. She wants things to be the way they were before.
Peaceful.
She should run, she thinks. She should get away from the burning buildings, away from the men who slash and shout and burn. But her feet remain firmly planted and her face remains frozen in a horrified expression. As if she is still dreaming, and cannot bring herself to wake up.
Wake up, Ophilia.
She has to wake up.
To the left of her, her house is the blue one, with the wooden roof and the white door, the inside lit with a soft orange glow. Distantly, Ophilia hears quiet sounds, like the snap of the cotton fabric of one of her dresses when her mother shakes it out after taking it down from the clothesline, or like the scuttling noise the field mice make racing over the floorboards of her home when she can sometimes hear them when she is unable to sleep at dusk. There is a crackling noise, like the times when she would run over the gravel, in the few places where the snow does not reach, or like when her mother would crumble crackers over a pan and listen to the sizzle.
She recognizes both as the barely-audible melodies of fire.
Mama just planted wildflowers in the flowerpot by the window, she thinks. They were going to see them bloom in the springtime after winter had finally blown past their little village. Snowdrops, that's what she had called them. The first signs of spring. For her sixth birthday.
There doesn't seem to be any chance of that now.
She wonders if they survived the blaze just inside the house, but Ophilia doubts it. One of the village boys tried to make a campfire to prove that he could, and he sparked a fire in her neighbor's flowering shrubs, and soon the plant so prettily dotted with pink was ablaze with orange.
And only a few minutes later the entire shub was black and grey with ash.
She doubts her mother's snowdrops survived more than thirty seconds in that fire.
Where is her mother, anyway? Ophilia finally brings herself turn around, looking for a familiar apron, or perhaps the steady steps of her father, but neither are here. Of course, her father was last seen marching with one of the pitchforks they used to turn the soil- the large one. The small one they let Ophilia use so she could feel some semblance of being helpful is probably still in the shed, crushed under the collapsed roof. Didn't her mother, though, ask her to come with? She tries to remember, but can recall nothing. Only remembers standing here, and nothing before. The idea puzzles her- should she not be able to remember more than just these moments? Should she not have more of a life than what she lives in now? She puts a hand to her forehead, entranced, trying to recall what she should be doing.
And then a scream (one of the little girls she plays with in the summertime, what could have made her cry like that?) and Ophilia forgets everything.
She should run.
Her footsteps make a slight crunch when finally, finally she moves forward. Takes a single step and leaves her home behind.
And then another.
And then finally, finally, she breaks into a run, adrenaline pumping her forward and little lungs gasping for breath.
She has to get away- there is nothing left for her here, and she has to find her mother so that her mother can tell her it's all going to be okay and it's not real-
Wake up, Ophilia.
She has to wake up.
"Do you often have these?"
Ophilia jolts awake, inhaling sharply. There is Primrose, hands on her shoulder, eyes concerned.
She breathes, and already the dream slips tidbit by tidbit away from her.
"Not as many times as you do, Primrose," she admits once she's stopped shaking. "I had them many times as a child." She sits up slowly and carefully, crossing her legs, and claws absentmindedly at her arms. "I had thought they had stopped by the time I turned ten. I suppose the Kindling, this journey- it has a way of bringing it all back."
She has a family again, now. Has had one for close to a decade and a half. And yet, she could lose that, before she ever has a chance to tell them how much they mean.
She sees a flicker on Primrose's face- guilt? Anger? Sadness? Pain? and immediately feels a stab of guilt. Of course, Primrose has never had the luxury of any sort of break from nightmares. How often has Ophilia shaken her until she stops crying out in pain, for someone to run?
"I'm sorry for waking you up," she says softly. I'm sorry for everything.
Primrose opens her mouth to speak, stops, and finally settles on "Oh, dear Ophilia. Don't worry about it. I was already awake, after all."
"Then thank you," Ophilia says, "for choosing to help."
"What did you dream of?" she asks instead, evading the thanks.
Ophilia's expression goes blank.
Fifteen years ago. War. Blood. Memories I'd hoped to bury.
"Primrose," she murmurs instead, staring blankly at her own hands, "that is a story for another time."