Note: Lyrics from Billy Boyd/The Hobbit.
The Last Goodbye
I saw the light fade from the sky
On the wind I heard a sigh
As the snowflakes covered
My fallen brothers
I will say this last goodbye
There were bodies in the snow.
Aramis stood there watching them in silence.
If it were not for the splashes of red he could almost believe they were sleeping. But a closer look revealed their chests no longer rose and fell with life's breath. The blood painting their skin and clothes had ceased to run in the cold. It just stained them and spattered the powdered ground about their bodies. Each drop seemed so delicate, as if placed deliberately by a paintbrush.
He watched like the detached observer, the artist… the author of this piece. Perhaps it was just the shock setting him apart. Aramis could feel everything in the air waiting to crash down. The grief and the guilt… He should have been there… If he had joined them on watch… He could have done something more… But it all remained suspended while he took in the scene before him.
A light covering of snow touched their fallen bodies. Frost wove about their hair and tipped their eyelashes, paling their already greying faces. They were nothing but masks now... only a mockery of the smiling, laughing faces Aramis knew. His brothers were no longer here, with their souls departed these were just… bodies.
They were bodies in the snow. Left behind to rot.
While Aramis watched them a raven's call broke the silence.
He couldn't look away, but in the corner of his eye he saw dark wings spread and a shadow descend. It danced about the edge of the morbid scene, hesitating, wary of the one still living. Aramis had failed to protect them in life, he would stand guardian to them in death.
But he couldn't move, he couldn't speak. He was frozen… just watching. Aramis had seen so much devastation in his life, but nothing compared to this. He knew this scene would haunt him at night, and so he took in every detail. It had to be perfect if this was how he would see them, again and again, over and over… The way they lay so close, brothers to the end, one with an arm thrown over the other, and another with fingers reaching out as if trying to find the comfort of touch one last time.
Although Aramis didn't know how many nights he would have to relive this moment. How could he go on? There didn't seem to be a way out of this cold, heartless forest. This wasn't something he could imagine walking away from, this wasn't something he could live with...
Aramis' head was pounding. Had he been hurt again? He couldn't feel the warm trickle of blood down the side of his face… but he couldn't really feel anything at all. And then there was a hand on his shoulder. A warm touch amidst the ice. Treville.
"Come on. Come away lad… we'll look after them."
Aramis began to melt and feel his limbs free up. He put a hand to his head, drawing it away to find his fingers clean. It wasn't like before.
There were bodies in the snow.
Before there were twenty.
And now, just three.