Disclaimer: Do not own the film, do not claim to.
Author's Note: This is essentially centred on Asael, but its not really important to know that. It being Remembrance Day in the UK, I wanted to write something to say, for the people that suffered, that we remember; I realise this film isn't set during the right war but having watched it recently, I had an idea and I wanted to write it.
Your sacrifice is not forgotten.
In Love, We Find Life
Love is leaving your parents' corpses unburied, to have a chance at preserving the safety of those who live.
Love is waking up crying, drowning in tears of grief and crawling to the brother that you think won't rebuff you, only to find him – for the first time in at least a week – sleeping soundly, looking so unthinkably peaceful that you can't bring yourself to wake him.
Love is the brother that you would have expected to shout at you, to be unsettled by your sorrow, carefully watching your fruitless endeavour: watching you curl in on yourself, soul all but rent from your body and crawling over just to wrap you in himself, his smell, the innate refuge of his arms.
It is putting all else aside – pride and rage and hate – to tell you,
"I know, I know, its ok. Its all right to mourn. Keeps us human. Reminds us what we're fighting for."; to lie, to promise, "It will get better." when all you know is death, hunger and cold ground.
Love is giving your share of food to your younger brother, even though you know he is technically a ' liability'. It is laying a threadbare blanket - that cannot hope to keep out the bitter chill of night - over narrow shoulders because you know it is a comfort, more than anything else.
Love is finding something beautiful between bleak trees – a sprinkle of gold dust on barren land, a braid of silver-blonde hair atop a shy smile. It is allowing yourself to get attached to something you know you could imminently lose: expecting of a woman everything that you would never before have expected of a man and learning to reconcile that with the desire to protect and provide for.
Love is discovering that 'providing' constitutes letting the others – exhausted, desperate, starving – beat you, just so that they won't beat anyone else. Believing that God hasn't forsaken you, that He will show mercy, even as you lie in ice-tipped snow, blossoming bruises bleeding into the hard earth.
To love is not to kill for revenge; it is not an eye for an eye. It is to take only what you need and defend yourself only when attacked. It is differentiating between blood-thirsty loathing and the right to react when threatened, even when your body is burning with disbelieving hatred, when a gun is in your hand and their pliant flesh is easy to rend – satisfyingly so.
To live in love is a struggle, a task that you take upon yourself day by day because to lose your humanity is the only way to really lose this war they wage upon you.
Love is waking in the night a year later and still crying for your dead parents because, yes, it keeps you human but more than that, you never want to forget. You want to remember their faces, their voices, their kind smiles, everything; the warm fire, soft bed, your favourite chair – so that you can create it all again, one day, rebuild the home you lost.
Love is never giving up that hope; even when your body is battered and your spirit is broken.
Love is choosing to continue fighting – when you have everything you could want - because the war rages on and you are needed. It is knowing that if you die tomorrow, there will still be someone left to mourn while you face St. Peter at the pearly gates, unafraid, and say,
"I loved, I fought, I died and I am proud of my sacrifice."