Ludwig could not believe his eyes.
There, right in his cold, sticky hands, a crisp sheet of paper, an otherwise insignificant piece of litter. "VOLKSSTRUM (home guard)" was printed in barely crackled letters (like the printers had boiled their ink before laying it down) and the document was wafer thin; waxy. The draft. The German Military draft. His and Gilbert's names were screaming up at him, bolded and itching and they sent a strange sort of banging tang through his chest. Incredible warnings rifled down his brain.
Ludwig felt for Germany. He did most of the time, no matter how much; he always had the country on his mind. Its people were in shams after the Great War, new leadership was… risky, and the country was poor and forgotten. Ludwig was very, very devoted to Germany, and loved his country dearly (no matter how much it bothered him to do so).
Still, he could not help feeling like he and Gilbert had just received their personal invitation to hell.
"Gilbert…" he croaked uncertainly, his brother clutching his shoulder, his eyes hard.
"Ludwig…you have to go. You can't enlist and die like Dad or anything, right?" he laughed uncertainly, "I'll go for the both of us, I'm awesome enough. You can go to London. Take the train…" and thus Gilbert continued on, filling the strange melancholic silence with meaningless sentences.
Ludwig, for one of the first times in his life, felt very unsure. This was his brother, of course, he should go with him, but Gilbert was strong. Gilbert had fought in the Great War before this one. Gilbert could survive, and Ludwig couldn't. Could he live with himself if he let Gilbert go for both of them?
…Could Gilbert live with himself if Ludwig enlisted at all?
It was times like these when Ludwig felt the least for Germany.
*A week or so later*
The steam-train gleamed coal black in coffee thin sunlight. The air smelled like rust and the ground was dusty—was this it? Would this be their final goodbye? Ludwig clenched his fists in his old brown overcoat he looked through the crowd. He couldn't say goodbye to Gilbert! It was like kneeling by his deathbed. What if he was deployed to fight on the front lines? What would he do then?
The worst feeling of all was that he might never even know.
Would he stay in London forever, after years finally accepting that he would never again see his brother?
Ludwig shoved the offending thoughts from his mind as he turned to face Gilbert, memorizing his face, his pale face. He tried to remember the way he petted his little canary. The way he brought Ludwig up as his own. And he tried not to think of what he'd look like when he was dead.
No words. Ludwig had no words but "Bruder…". He could not say goodbye, not to the only person he had ever really known. All he could do was hug him (his usual strength strangely lost) and hope, hope so dearly it hurt him, that he would see him once more.
Gilbert could do even less, his easy façade slightly rumpled, his face a laughing bag over a scared little boy's head.
And thus, with a last glimpse of alabaster, aching eyes, he forced himself to turn and ignore the curious stinging in his eyes. He was on his way away from home—probably for forever. Now he had to turn his head. Simple commands, simple commands, don't do too much because too much is nothing at all. The ground was grey like a summer morning, the grass whispered out of the ground. Pale yellow stalks as willowy and blonde as Ludwig's hair. The train windows were as wide open as his heart felt hollow. This was a bleeding fork in the road, a sort of amputation, if you will. Whether he liked it or not, Ludwig would have to live. Somewhere, somehow, without a reason or a word to spare, there was a chance that they would both survive this war.