Disclaimer: I do not own APH or any of the characters.
This story is based off of the poem "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae (who was a Canadian). He fought in WW1 and died in 1918 of pneumonia.
Unfortunately, this story is NOT about Canada...
It's about France. Even though the Canadians did show bravery and the poem was written by a Canadian, Canada is nowhere close to Ypres (which is in Flanders, Belgium), and it would make sense that France would visit.
This story also supports my theory that countries all serve in their major battles.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
France stood in the quiet of the cemetery. In a tree on the edge, a single lark trilled. All was silent.
The blood red poppies in the meadow bent slightly in the breeze. The noonday sun cast harsh shadows on the gravestones in the shapes of crosses. So many white crosses… they stretched as far as the eye could see.
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
A lone lark flew by overhead. It landed on a single cross, and France headed closer.
He knelt down in front of the familiar gravestone.
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
It was hard to believe that only a short century ago, the guns had been exploding the trenches during the Battle of Ypres.
He winced. In his mind, at least, the memory was still clear. Or maybe it was the pain of the scar that caused him to remember.
It still throbbed, at times. A long, jagged cut that ran from his left collarbone to his right rib, slowly fading over the years, but never truly disappearing. We are the Dead.
He had been sliced open by a piece of flying shrapnel flung up by one of those exploding grenades. He felt his internal organs spill out of the wound in a heap. He collapsed on his back.
He had lain for days in No Man's Land, moaning, as the sun rose and set and rose again, and his lips grew parched with thirst (which was funny, because his intestines weren't in him anymore).
Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved,
He could see, if he imagined hard enough, those green eyes. They were pools of endless green, refreshing after days of nothing but the endless blue sky and the planes and the bombs.
and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
He had cursed his immortality, for he could never truly die. Not until his nation and his people perished.
He had long since lost track of time (everything was a jumbled muddle in his head), but as the explosions died down and the gunshots ceased, he began to hope.
Soon, in just a few hours, he would be back in a tent, somewhere where the sun would not glare at him, somewhere where the only things he would feel were blackness and the prick of a needle.
But upon the discovery of his body, the crew that picked him up had pronounced him dead. He cursed them and their carelessness (mentally, of course). Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
He was falling down, into the deep midnight of death that had no end. And he was glad that England was present at his funeral.
Before they buried him, they allowed England to have a few private moments with him. Seeing how he was a special guest of sorts and all that.
"France?"
"Mon cher, I leave to you the duty of winning. When I wake up, I want to see that you've been victorious."
He nods, emerald eyes understanding, before turning on his heel and leaving.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
The first clod of dirt was thrown in. He heard it hit the lid of the coffin with a dull thump.
Finally, he could rest…
And he lay at peace while more graves were dug around him, until the entire hillside was covered with white crosses and red poppies.
Reviews will be welcome, and if I do get enough positive ones, I may write a sequel for this.