"Claude,"
"General! General!" Jean cried his eyes stinging from the venomous smoke. His voice was lost, however, in the chaos of battle. Shrieks of men were stabbed with fear, and the taut screech of metal upon metal created a metallic cacophony. The acidic smell of hot, spilt blood oozed in the air, mixed with ash, causing Jean to suffocate.
"Capitaine!" wheezed one of the soldiers, his eyes carved out with knife wounds. Jean howled in fright at the empty sockets, his body recoiling at the sight. Stretching out his hand, the soldier made one last attempt to grasp his life. But it was futile.
His body fell, and Jean saw the sword, impaled in his back and splitting the spinal cord.
"General!" Jean quivered his voice cracking as a distant thunder sprayed sand onto his body. Jean choked, but his cough was dry and made his neck convulse as it searched for air. And through all the sweat, nausea, gunpowder and salty, slick blood was the sight of General Molyneux stumbling up a sand dune away from the battlefield.
Jean tried to call out, but his voice had run dry and only a hoarse whisper came from his throat. The sand and smoke filled his lungs, and his coughing began again. Behind him, the smouldering heat of the fire leapt towards him, his legs at its mercy. He gripped his voice one last time, and he cried, "General!"
Molyneux turned around and squinted into the fire. Jean's breath escaped him, and for a moment the General seemed to see him and recognize him. Jean waited.
Molyneux ran.
His voice gone, Jean's sobs caused his body to quake. The fire was approaching, and he could feel the billowing waves of heat. His body sweated and bled, and the roar around him only dulled as he was finally engulfed by it.
The fire ate away his flesh, biting it with thousands upon thousands of teeth of broken shards of glass. He screamed as the jagged points were thrust into his skin and slowly dragged down. His muscles stretched between his joints, and he felt his bone exposed to the smoke, ash and sand.
And then it was all gone; replaced with a sullen black.
"Claude," Maria repeated, her tone concerned.
Claude was startled into attention. He became rigid as he took in his surroundings, but recognizing the old church and its deep navy blues, he sighed.
"Marie,"
She sat beside him on the worn bench, its wood creaking under her despite her lightness. Dust floated in the moonbeams. "Why do you refuse me?"
"You are young, and I am old," he groaned, "very old."
"That doesn't matter," she protested.
"It does when you are yet twenty-two."
"You are wrong!" she hissed.
He remained silent, and she waited.
"I have known you two years," she begged, "and you know I speak the truth."
"You have known me for two years out of thirty-one. And by that amount, you barely know me."
Her eyes became slits in frustration, and she duplicated his silence. Claude looked down at his hands, one within a glove, the other bare. He laced his fingers together. Marie observed his movements: his calloused hand stoking the other, his eyes dripping under thought, and the soft shift of his weight causing him to lean over onto his knees and curve his back.
She relaxed.
"I may not know your past," she accepted, "But I am in the present, and so are you."
He did not reply.
Marie removed her hood, letting the fabric catch at her shoulders and droop down her back. Her face was soft, but her eyes were bright. The swirling hair on her head drifted around her as she pulled off her glove and gingerly rested her hand on his.
Claude stood.
"You will stay anonymous," he commanded, "until we meet again,"
Marie watched the soft ripple of blue disappear into the ocean of shadows around it.
