Hello everyone! :D
Once again, this is something I came up with for a meme (even though I should be concentrating on my Valentine Day's fic right now...), which focuses in art - the prompters give a poem, a song, a picture or anything art-related and those filling the request have to focus on those - I particularly liked the poem used for this prompt because it was part of my studies back in high school.
This is pretty short but, oh well. :P
Disclaimer: I own nothing but what I wrote.
Ja ne,
Temari 88
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
- Dulce et Decorum Est
by Wilfred Owen -
Kakashi had had no intention of accepting the Hokage's request; he didn't want to go at the Academy, stand there in front of a class full of six year olds and feed them the same bullshit someone had fed him when he was even younger than them - it wasn't right to warp the minds of kids that way... deceiving them into thinking fighting and dying for the village, for their home, was honorable... the truth was, wars were the most decaying and dirty and despicable affairs anyone could ever think of partecipate into.
There is nothing sweet in watching as dozen of bodies (enemies or allies alike) fall lifeless on the bloody ground - or thrash on the earth with mortal injures that were not enough to kill a person on the moment - and there was nothing worse than sitting at the camp, at night after a battle, and not be able to sleep because of the gurgling sounds and the pained, pitiful moans of those slowly dying.
Now, he stood in front of those kids and he was thankful of the ANBU mask covering his face, because it hid the grimace taking up his mouth and the eyebrows drawn together in self-hate and the painful glint in his eyes as he watched the excited ones of the future weapons of the village. He was so temped to turn around and vanish but his sight stopped at one particular blond child and, for a second, a twist in his gut made the grimace more pronunced.
At last, Kakashi spoke. "War is NOT what you all might think. Do not expect a feeling of justice to move you, just the will to survive, because in a war that is the only thing you can look forward to... you will see most of your friends die before you, but you won't do a thing because you won't have time to do anything but preserve your own life. Do not expect glory at the end of a war, because even if the village will win, you will not feel victorious in any way-in war you lose a lot and no medals or false speech of honor will ever give you back what you lost. Be careful, kids: don't be so eager to go into battle. Be sure to be mentally and physically strong enough to sustain the weight of it, before, and never - never - let old poems or songs of glory in war warp your mind: nothing is worth more than your life and the lives of those you care about."
