A/N: And we've got a really short one today.
He still remembered for some reason beyond his comprehension the shadows that would fall across the face of his history instructor as the mech would almost hesitantly begin to speak of the wars that had ravaged their planet even before his own conception. Vorns would pass before he would come to understand the reason for those shadows, and even more still before he finally gained enlightenment about a simple remark his instructor had once made.
'No one ever returns from the battlefields alive.'
Oh how he'd laughed when the memory had flitted through his processor like a leaf would float across the ground driven by the fall wind behind him. But his gaiety had been short lived, falling prey to the somber understanding that had slammed into him with the subtlety of a plasma blast. Lying in the med bay as he waited for his turn to be repaired, he'd stared at the mech fluid staining his hands with a shade of blue not his own.
Sometimes he wished that he couldn't remember as well as he could. Sometimes, sometimes in the dark solace that the night provided to him he wished that he could forget the faces of those he had sent to the Matrix. That he could forget the looks of horror and resignation that would cross the faces of those designated as his victims at the moment he would step from the shadows he used to conceal himself.