See Author's Note

|| Song of the Chapter: Do I Wanna Know? by Arctic Monkeys ||

London, England.

1914

she thought he was a ghost, at first.

maybe that was wishful thinking on her part, to picture him dead. maybe that would have given her some kind of closure. maybe that would have been better for all of them.

she rose from her seat in the sitting room, once bright. their house was dusty and dying, winter had closed in some years before and refused to dawn into the fresh renewal of spring. the walls were already bursting at the seams with haunted faces and dying dreams, what was one more ghost?

then he moved towards her, opening the door wider. he still had a key, she hadn't had the time or had bothered to have the locks changed. she had thought he wouldn't dare show his face. she had thought that he didn't care.

"Where were you?"

Not showing his face for three of the hardest years their family had ever stumbled through. Not having to live through the cold, the pain, the upheaval, and the adjustment.

"I had to work,"

work. work for himself, not for his family. work for his own gain, not for the safety and security of his sisters. she had scraped together a life and a living for her sisters and her mother.

though the room was stifling in the August heat, a shiver slid down her back. the open windows let an only slightly cooler breeze flutter the curtains and sent her nightgown whispering around her ankles. she straightened, squaring her shoulders. she may have been in her bed clothes and her hair down from its usual high knot, a far cry from the sour-faced, grown-up-too-soon nineteen-year-old that their street had come to avoid.

"I'm sorry if we held you back," She snapped. We. She knew how much work two younger sisters were.

he didn't deny it. he didn't dare deny it. she knew it was true and he did too. an understanding hung taught between them, a spider's web of bruised loyalty and battered ties.

"What are you doing here?" she didn't mean to sound so angry. or maybe she had? letting out the primal anger and fear that had enveloped her in the months since he had walked through that door for the last time. she had said goodbye before but hadn't been offered the chance.

"German forces are still in Belgium,"

"I know," she had been following the papers, maybe a little obsessively. seeing their home country invade another, watching the tensions rise and the loyalties among their fellow immigrants fall. the whole street was on edge.

"This means war,"

"so?"

"what do you mean, 'so'?"

"What does it have to do with me?"

"Britain is going to war with Germany,"

"Like I give a shit,"

His eyes darkened, her words sending a slash of surprise across his face. She grew up in his eyes in a matter of seconds. She hadn't been young for many years. She had been aged. She was not young, she was growing older by the day, til one day she would crumble into dust but who would take care of her family then?

"This is our chance-" He said.

"To what?" she crossed her arms. "turn against our family that still lives in Leipzig? our neighbors? our friends?"

"We aren't German anymore," he squared his shoulder, much like she had. they could bristle and growl but who would throw the first blow?

"you might not be," she said. "but I won't forget."

her feet pointed towards the stairs, preparing to run up the stairs and curl into the nest of arms and braids in her shared room. to breathe in the familiar scent of her sisters that she had given up so much for and had held together. Britain had been her temporary home, Germany was always her childhood home, and her future had remained blissfully untouched by expectation or dream. she felt more of a loyalty to her childhood, the golden years before her father had died and her mother had withdrawn deep inside.

before she could run from him, as he had, - wouldn't that have been sweet revenge?- he called her back.

he had shut the door and stood as if he owned the house. which he did.

"Miri," he murmured. the nickname from Leipzig that had died on the boat from Europe, buried at sea in the English channel. It had never been uttered in London air.

"No," she snapped, raising a hand. "Don't 'Miri' me. What do you want?"

"I need you to help me,"

"help you?"

after he had left them, veritable orphans. after he had left them, as she had dreamed of doing - Was she angry that her brother had left or had she wished she had left first? - and he wanted her help?

she had held this family together, listened to Amie beg for her brother, Sadie cry for their father, and silenced her own fear and uncertainty. she had watched it be torn apart once, twice. they wouldn't survive a third.

"what do you want?" she asked.

Author's Note:

I've gotten a second wind of inspiration for Casus Belli (I took several months off to adjust to college life) and I have the rest of Part One complete and I'm working on Part Two now. Casus Belli will only be in two parts, from Normandy(D-Day and everything that entails) to Market Garden and the aftermath. There is a second book planned that will cover the rest of the series which we will hear more about soon I PROMISE.

While I'm at college and things are kinda crazy, I can't promise that the uploads will be consistent but I do want to upload all of Part One by December. So some updates are coming y'all's way! VERY VERY SOON!

Thank you guys for being so patient with me and everything that's going on. *Under the Banner will still be on a brief hiatus while me and Julianne work through the last of the chapters* BUT CASUS BELLI WILL BE UPDATED.

Thank y'all so much for hanging in there with these infrequent updates! I really appreciate y'all!

For more news and updates, follow me on Tumblr: adamantiumdragonfly