"Everybody's youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness." – F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Diamond as Big as the Ritz


Salzburg looked so small from up on the mountain.

It was strange to see it looking so small, so insignificant in the vast green landscape. Liesl's entire life had been there. Almost every important thing that had happened to her had happened in that city, and at the time they'd all seemed so hugely momentous. But as she looked down on her home for a final time…well, she felt rather small, too.

She felt like a different Liesl von Trapp than the one who'd resided in the grand villa down in Salzburg; the one who had believed in love at first glance and twirled girlishly in gazebos. The one who had thought herself so perfectly mature, so ready to leap into this life that she'd imagined as refined, adult, glittering.

But the world no longer seemed so wonderful and civilized after all. People didn't either. The line between the princes and the villains had been blurred like ink on wet paper, and even shy boys with peppermint kisses could hold guns in trembling hands.

She'd been so eager to grow up, her imagination constructing a future reminiscent of idealistic, romantic fairy tales. Womanhood had seemed like an alluring place of mystery and adventure. To have that kind of innocence again… Liesl bit her lip. She felt like such a fool, and she didn't know whether to laugh or cry at herself.

She had wanted to be in love so much that she naïvely dropped her heart into the hands of the first boy who ever returned her childish affections. What exquisitely stupid little clichés they were. Songs in gazebos and callow, vague conversations had been inflated by her mind into the seeds of True Love, and now Liesl wondered if she ever knew Rolfe as a person or anything beyond an idea… She didn't understand him, didn't understand how he could believe in the Nazis so completely, how anyone could be capable of that kind of betrayal. And yet, for reasons she couldn't explain, he hadn't been able to bring himself to pull the trigger.

Should I hate Rolfe for what he's done? In a way, she did. She hated that he'd almost been willing to kill, to force her to relive the crushing grief she had felt when her mother's body succumbed to illness five years ago. But the stubborn blossoms of affection she felt for him were still rooted in her heart, albeit shaken by the events of last night. God, he'd hurt her so much. Her heart was mangled, and much as she didn't want to she missed him, missed the neat angles of his face and the boyish earnestness of his voice and the way he had made her feel like the shimmering dust of stars was drifting between every atom of her skin.

But how could he do what he did? And who is he, really?

Even after hours in her bed spent thinking about him, reconstructing every shadow on his face and every fleck of blue in his eyes, she didn't understand Rolfe at all.

All Liesl really knew was that she'd greatly underestimated just how close someone seemingly innocent could bring themselves to taking human life, just how dark and merciless the world could be.

Humans, it seemed, were no less blind than the washed-out fish swimming aimlessly in the deepest parts of the sea. Dumb enough to go mad over one another and tie rushed knots with someone else's destiny. Dumb enough to believe in the immense importance of their own lifetime.

She felt very small, indeed.

"Liesl?" Mother's voice cut into her thoughts.

She realized she'd been slowing down and struggled to force her feet faster over the rocky ground.

Mother wordlessly grasped her hand and squeezed it. Even her former governess didn't seem to know what to say, but the simple gesture was comforting anyway.

Liesl looked at her family. Friederich, Louisa, Kurt, Brigitta, Marta, and little Gretl, with her arms clinging to Father's shoulders. All these people who were a part of her, who she couldn't imagine life without. The past five years had been a grief-filled, dismal period in her family, but even after everything that had happened here they were. Loving, tight-knit, and determined to never rip themselves apart again. At least I have them. She thought. They'll never abandon me, no matter what.

It was March 1938. In the autumn of 1939, the world would be devoured by the red maw of war. Europe, Africa, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Australia, America, the Pacific, Asia – all would be swallowed. Cities of intricate history would disintegrate into atoms of dust and rubble, futures would burn in the flames of hatred, supposedly civil people would relinquish themselves readily to savagery, corpses would scatter across the continents by the millions. Humans would turn into numbers needled onto flesh and then into ashes hemming the bricks of a chimney, boys would turn into monsters, and souls too saturated with spider venom would rot.

But for now, nobody knew of that. For now, the crisp wind of the mountains, the breathtaking beauty of the earth, and the promise of her family gave Liesl the faintest spark of hope. There were many things she didn't understand. Sadness was still heavy in her chest, and Rolfe still lingered confusingly in her heart. But maybe it would be alright. She had her brothers and her sisters; she had her parents. She watched as Father glanced back at his wife with a weary but loving gaze. Their romance hasn't been a fairy tale, she thought. But that doesn't make it any less beautiful.

The world may not be the same as her past naïve vision. But it wasn't devoid of joy, either.

And maybe – just maybe – the sun would come up, after all.


A/N: This is the final chapter of Liesl's part of the story... Next chapter will be the very last one, although unfortunately it'll probably take ages to write it and get it posted. It'll be a difficult one for sure.

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