Disclaimer: the usual. I do not own Star Trek Voyager or any of its characters. Nor do I make any money. I just enjoy writting.
Battlefield
The place was a brown and muddy waste, no trees, plants or flowers of any kind grew in the desolate field. Craters, pitted the landscape, some were deep, some wide and shallow spread out to the dark horizon. A horizon where clouds, black and raw with energy gathered over it. Above the sky was a clear summer blue, but cold, trying to keep the darkness at bay. No sound could be heard, unlike earlier when the missiles had hissed and whistled overhead creating more craters and forcing the combatants to take shelter in the deep water filled trenches that littered and snaked their way across and around the field. A field that had once held such promise of the summer flowers to come, but they'd never had a chance now that the missiles rained down on it.
Weapons that caused so much pain and misery and that were being used in ever-increasing amounts. Weapons that could shear flesh leaving it burnt and bleeding. Missiles that drove deep, causing lasting pain without any scarring. These were the ones that took the longest to heal, if they healed at all. Sometimes across this muddy waste birds sang in the soft summer air, giving a sense of peace and hope, yet these moments were getting fewer by the day and hour, leaving the combatants tired and in despair. Once a young girl-child had appeared sitting curled in on herself all alone in the muddy waste, ragged and crying and yet when he got close in order to help and comfort her, she'd turned knife in hand the wicked flashing blade barely missing his jugular vein. Forced to defend himself against a full grown and angry woman, he'd shrunk into a small helpless and frightened boy-child, so that she trudged away from him, without a backward glance, leaving his ragged form sitting in the cold wet mud sobbing his heart out.
Slowly he breathed deep pushing the unpleasant memory aside. He sat at the edge of the wasteland his eyes sad as he scanned the further horizon for some sign of a dawn, but there had been none from that direction for some time now.
"Why was it?" he quietly asked, "That they were only hurting each other," his voice no more that a whispering soft breeze, feeling his tears being washed by the rasping tongue of his spirit animal guide.
//It has been said, that those we love the most are those who always drive us to complete distraction and hurt us more deeply. And you do love her// her soft gentle voice whispered in his mind.
"Does she love me?" he asked, looking again at the black cloud filled horizon.
//That is only a question she can answer//
"But she hasn't; not really answered," feeling the deep hurt that her missiles had caused him.
Missiles – words said that should not have even been uttered at all; words that were left unspoken and yet were hinted at in face and body language; if read right. Words that were never uttered and some that were said in the heat of anger, yet not truly meant. He was growing tired of these constant battles, it was a war he knew he was not going to win, however much he tried to battle against her stand. Protocols and loneliness verses love, comfort and desire. Closing his eyes he shut out the scarred battlefield, a field that had once been so full of the promise of summer flowers, sunshine and gentle downpours; a field that had changed gradually to the pitted landscape that lay before him; a change that had started on their return to Voyager after New Earth. All that was left of that summer promise was a small wax candle that he'd tried to keep alight and was now slowly dying, because his heart no longer wanted to fight her words.
//Dawn is breaking in the right direction// she told him, her soft muzzle resting on his shoulder. Thus he turned to the east and saw the new young sun poking its watery nose over the horizon, colouring the sky a soft primrose and lighting up the golden yellow stalks of wheat that stood at the field's scarred edge; he smiled feeling excited and nervous, but pleased.
Breathing deep he returned to his quarters, sitting cross-legged on the floor, his medicine bundle spread open before him and his decision made. Carefully he folded the hide and put it to one side. Getting to his feet, he left to find his new dawn, having left the old one at the battlefield. On the floor near one of his chairs lay an item that had once been in his medicine bundle, but now was forgotten and discarded; a gift from its owner, a length of red-auburn hair.