Oktobar 1943

Srbija

It was another of those days. Where the air was thick with the scent of death, smoky grey fog settling across the landscape, ugly flakes of snow nothing like the clear sparkling white Tatjana remembered. She grimaced, covering her mouth and nose with a hand, trying not to cough. But she felt a scarf being wrapped around her gently before she could fully stamp down the urge.

"Cover your mouth with this, Tatja. You can't breathe this air." Tatjana turned, slightly annoyed, to find Vuk standing stoically behind her, chocolate-brown eyes dull in the dim light.

She scoffed. "What about you? Just because I am a woman does not mean -"

"I didn't give it to you because of that. You were going to cough, so you need it more than I do." Tatjana thought she saw a flicker of a smile on Vuk's face, before it was gone. "Most would kill for a scarf. You shouldn't complain."

"Fine." Tatjana conceded with a roll of her eyes, turning back to the scene in front of her. Yet another burning village. How many more people had to die for this foresaken war to end...? She felt the mood, which could be considered light as air in these times, dissipate as Vuk's gaze fell on the same things she'd just noticed.

"Will it ever end?" she asked softly, fiddling with the fore-end of her gun.

A pause. "I don't know. It has to, right? Even the Great War ended."

Tatjana nodded. That was the logical answer, right? But here she was sitting right in the midst of it all, staring all of this evil in the face, it was easier to believe that this nightmare would never end. The Great War, in all of its glory, was just a faraway tale her grandfather told her about when she was just a young girl. This war, though, was as real as the smog in the skies.

"Hey." Tatjana jumped, jerked out of her thoughts, to feel Vuk's hand on her shoulder. She looked into his eyes briefly, which were clouded over with something she couldn't quite place, something bordering on doubt. But then he smiled, and the look was gone. "It's all for Jugoslavija, right? Smrt fašizmu, sloboda narodu ."

"Right." Tatjana agreed firmly, setting her jaw. "That's right."

"Then come on. We're moving soon, there's another village we need to get to before sundown."

Tatjana nodded, standing up from the rock she had been sitting on and following Vuk back through the brush, not looking back to the burning village she'd already forgotten the name of.

Hello, and thank you for reading this (admittedly very short) oneshot! I normally write much longer ones, and I was going to add more to the story, but decided not to since I didn't like anything I wrote after this. Either way, thanks. Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

Additional Notes: This oneshot is set during WWII. As you can probably tell, both Serbia and Macedonia are partisans in this fic. That means they were fighting for a communist Jugoslavija, against the facists. You'll notice the phrase "Smrt fašizmu, sloboda narodu " being used. This translates to "Death to facism, freedom to the people". I also used some more Slavic spellings here - Oktobar aka October, Srbija aka Serbia, Jugoslavija aka Yugoslavia, etc. This is to give a more geniune feel to the story (plus, I just hate using the English spellings, heh).

Tatjana = Macedonia

Vuk = Serbia