January, Year 744
General Kolbe glared down at the report on the city-state of Drastnost, which, according to the paper, was disappointingly strong. Well-armed and well positioned, it looked as though the station he was planning to attack next would not crack easily.
The door to his study creaked open, and the General's daughter, Ivonna, entered, bearing tea and cookies. The scent of the treats, now rare due to a low cut in sugar, wafted across the room and made the General smile.
"My, Ivo, those treats seem almost as sweet as you," said the General, smiling as the girl sat across from him and put the tray of delicacies on his desk.
"Oh, Daddy, wait until you try one. Reise made them, and they're delectable. I can't believe we could afford the sugar to make them! It was so expensive today."
"Oh, but there's nothing better than what the General gets, love." General cracked one over his tea and dipped one of the halves into the beverage.
"Well, I hope you're doing your job to make up for it. What are you doing, anyway?" She stood and peered over the desk.
"This is an attack on Drastnost, the city you've been learning about in school."
"The one with all the rebels?"
"Yes. If we move our forces in here –" he drew a fine line across a map of the city-state, from the east "– we should be able to direct their cannon fire, which would allow us to lead several elite teams–" he drew several quick, short lines into the city "– into the city and burn their blasted wooden walls. We would then proceed North and cut off supply lines, letting King Aberforth do what he wants from there."
"I saw a picture of those walls, Daddy, they're very pretty. Do you have to burn them?"
"If I can, I'll save you a beam and bring it back," said the General, laughing at his daughter's sympathy to the enemy. There was no sympathy! What was she talking about? "It's been those Walls that have been the hardest thing to crack in this war. If it weren't for them, the North would have fallen long ago." He bit into the cookie, imagining it as the enemy's walls, and smiling.
"Daddy?"
"Hm?" said the General, cookie crumbs in the corner of his mouth.
"Why do people fight?"
"Well, it's because – um – sometimes people have thoughts or opinions that can't be resolved with – with quiet discussion."
"Like you and mom?"
The General pressed his lips together and glanced down at a photograph on his desk, one of the first taken in the South. In it stood the General, young with patriotism and hope for a victory in war, his uniform pressed neatly, all the buttons neatly aligned and shiny, his scarlet cape untorn and fresh. Next to him stood his stunning wife, Sara, her fine red hair braided beautifully across her head, her scarlet velvet dress smooth and formfitting. And in front of the couple was the beautiful Ivonna, her hair curled into ringlets and a smile on her face that dragged the viewer's attention to her immediately, just as it did in real life.
He looked up at his daughter, who had grown up to look exactly like her mother, from the slight wave in her hair to the shape of her face. She frowned and looked down. "Sorry," she said. "It's sensitive, I guess."
The General sighed. "Your mother was very…rambunctious. She didn't have the…patience…to wait for me to return from war. So she ran off with that young soldier."
"Have you heard from her since?"
"Sweetheart, I don't want to hear from that cheating bitch ever again!" he said, tightening his grip on his cookie so it exploded into crumbs.
The pair looked at the General's hand.
"Sorry," said the General. "I hate to waste a good cookie."
Ivonna got up from her chair and sat down on her father's lap, snuggling up into his neck. "I'm tired," she said.
"Well, you've got a big day coming up, don't you?" said the General, scooping up his daughter and walking her out of his study. His military grade boots sank into the plush carpet, one of the only ones outside of the king's palace. "Private school and all that."
"Mmm," said Ivonna.
"I wish I had gone to a private school like you did," said the General, opening the door to his daughter's room, which was lit only by the moon. "Then I could have been safe during every attack."
"I don't like it. Everyone there is mean."
"Oh, do you really think that?" asked the General, smoothing down his daughter's hair.
"Yeah."
"I'm sure you'll make friends soon," he said, smoothing her daughter's hair down.
The pair gazed out the window, watching the distant flashes of orange light from cannon fire. Ivonna rubbed her eyes, then buried her face in her pillow.
"Just forget about them, sweetheart," said the General, stroking his daughter's hair. "Forget about the war, if only for a moment."
"I want them to stop. Forever."
"If there was a way to do it, I'd love to hear it."
"Maybe we could all be friends," said Ivonna, looking up at her father. "Maybe the North and the South could be friends and be one side! Then we wouldn't have cannon fire!"
The General laughed bitterly.
Ivonna yawned and rolled over, snuggling up next to a porcelain doll wearing a soft silk dress. "You'd like that, Mary, wouldn't you? Maybe there's a girl in the North, with a doll like you, we could be friends…"
"Humanity will never be on the same side," he whispered, so his daughter couldn't hear. "No matter how hard we try, there's no way."
"We're a species of fighters," he said, watching men blast cannons desperately, so separate from the intimate scene in Ivonna's bedroom.