Karelian Forests, Soviet Union - Winter 1939
The trees rose like dark colossi in the midst of the pristine snow, almost mocking the destruction that surrounded them. The bodies of the fallen were mere shadows against the immense white, marks of incessant violence. Loona advanced with her platoon, each step sinking into the frozen ground, her soldiers looking in all directions with caution. She wore the worn Soviet uniform, her shoulders heavy under the weight of her weapons and the relentless cold that penetrated to the bones.
The silence seemed eternal, a disturbing blanket, until the cawing of a crow broke the stillness. She stopped walking and raised a hand, her men stopping immediately. It was a familiar sign among them: the Crow was near. That Yugoslav sniper, famous for attacking silently until the field was covered with corpses, was a shadow that appeared and disappeared in the forest. She knew his nickname, his deadly fighting style, and the legend that crows accompanied him as an omen.
Loona's heart was pounding, though her face remained stone. Fear was in her men's eyes, but she, Commander White Fang, would not allow anyone to see it in her. In a firm voice, she spoke in Russian:
"Не бойтесь. Он всего лишь человек. "(Do not be afraid. He is only a man.)
Her words barely calmed them, but they were enough to maintain order. However, it was not long before a shot rang out in the air. A soldier fell, and the snow around him turned red. The sight of blood against the icy white was both disturbing and fascinating, a constant reminder of how fleeting life was in this place.
"There! It's there!" one of the soldiers muttered, pointing towards a shadow moving through the trees.
She saw him then. He was a lone figure, dressed in a once-dark coat, now covered in stains and scratches. Despite the distance, she could see his eyes, which seemed to shine with a mix of determination and a hint of madness. His face was covered by a mask of mockery, a smile that stabbed like a knife.
Without thinking, Loona raised her rifle and took aim. The snow crunched beneath her feet as she moved forward with determination, approaching the man who had become her nemesis. There was no room for fear in her mind, only the image of that mocking face. But the Raven was faster than he seemed; He moved like a spectre, disappearing and appearing between the trees, until finally she was face to face with him.
Their eyes met. He said nothing, just smiled with that quiet malice. "Prljavstvo rata. To je sve što imamo, zar ne?" (The dirt of war. That's all we have, isn't it?) he murmured, his voice low and mocking.
"Ты животное!" (You're an animal!) Loona lunged at him, and they both fell into the snow, locked in a fierce struggle. He dominated her for a second, his weight crushing her against the frozen ground, and then she felt the cold of the snow on her back, the pain in her muscles, the fury in her chest. It was a battle both physical and psychological, a war encapsulated in those seconds.
Finally, she managed to break free and raised the knife, reaching for his neck. But he forcefully pushed her hand away, looking at her with that same defiant smile, as if not even the sharpness of the blade could erase his insolence. In a moment of distraction, he managed to wound her arm, leaving a scar that would later be a permanent reminder of that encounter.
"Не думай, что я тебя забуду. (Don't think I'll forget you), she whispered, her eyes burning with a mixture of hatred and fascination.
Russian Consulate, Berlin - 1967
Years later, the noise of the consulate in Berlin surrounded her, but Loona felt she could still hear the deathly silence of Karelia. Diplomats and officials chatted quietly, immersed in a superficial peace that seemed as false to her as the glow of crystal chandeliers. She had left the battlefields behind, but some scars were impossible to forget, especially those with a face.
And then, she saw him. Between the suits of the diplomats and the tense gazes of the attendants, a solitary figure stood out, like a wolf among sheep. Blitz, the Raven. His presence was rougher, more hardened, as if life itself had chiseled every wrinkle and scar. But his gaze… that spark of mockery was still there, and when their eyes met, it was as if all the time between them disappeared.
She approached him, her steps sure, although her mind was a whirlwind of memories and resentment. The scar on her arm seemed to burn at the sight of him. When she was close enough, she pulled out the Tokarev pistol she kept in her bag. She didn't say a word, just raised the gun and pointed it straight at his forehead, not hesitating, even though her insides were in conflict.
He looked at her without surprise, a satisfied smile on his lips. "Go on, White Fang. Come on, show me what you got."
Loona pressed her lips together, her mind fighting the urge to shoot. She had waited so many years for this moment, to get revenge on him, but for some reason, her finger wouldn't obey.
"Почему… почему я не могу?" (Why… why can't I?) she muttered under her breath, frustration in her tone.
Blitz, without looking away, took the barrel of the gun in his hand and placed it more firmly in the center of her forehead. "Because we are the same, Loona. We face the same darkness. Only you can understand that."
She felt the tears threaten to betray her. Years of hatred and war had not been enough to erase what was between them. The scar on her arm throbbed, reminding her that even if her enemy was just a shot away, something inside her prevented her from doing so.
Finally, she lowered the gun, her body shaking, every fiber in her being fighting against that decision. "Мы обречены на это, да?" (We are doomed to this, aren't we?) she murmured, putting the gun away with shaking hands.
Blitz nodded, his gaze softer but still filled with that indomitable fire. "Да." This is our war. (Yes. It is our war.)
The distance between them was no longer physical, but an invisible barrier of memories and scars that neither of them could erase. Blitz bowed his head in a gesture of respect, and she, without another word, turned away, silently walking away. She knew that, although their war had long since ended, the real battle had never been on the fields of Karelia.
Loona walked slowly, feeling the weight of each step, as if each one brought her closer to a precipice she did not want to look at. Despite the distance, the echo of Blitz's footsteps resonated in her ears, until it faded away among diplomatic murmurs and the muffled sound of clinking glasses.
Her hand still trembled slightly, and as she touched his scar she felt a familiar burning sensation. She remembered how he had inflicted it on her, how that confrontation had been engraved not only on her skin, but in her memory. It was a battle that had defined the hatred she believed eternal, but now that hatred felt incomplete, like a failed attempt at protection against a truth that disarmed her.
Hours later, in the solitude of her room at the consulate, Loona sat on the floor, with the lights off and a single candle illuminating the space. She took a small metal box out of her coat. Opening it, her fingers caressed the bullet he had fired that winter. She had kept it all these years, like it was a talisman that would keep her hatred alive, but tonight the bullet felt different, heavy.
In that silence, she heard a sound in the hallway. She looked up and her eyes found Blitz, who was leaning against the door frame. He didn't say anything, just looked at her with that indefinable expression, neither smile nor mockery, just… expectation. His presence filled the room with a thick tension, but this time it wasn't the tension of hatred.
"You know you could have done it, White Fang. You could have pulled the trigger tonight, and it would have all been over," he said, his voice low and almost whispering.
She looked into his eyes, and her answer came out as a painful whisper. "No, I can't. I don't know anything." (No, he couldn't. I don't know why.)
Blitz took a step toward her, slow, measuring each movement. He knelt in front of her, his eyes as dark as the crows that had haunted her nightmares, and reached out for the bullet she held. His fingers barely brushed hers, and a current of electricity seemed to run through her.
"Maybe it's because we survived the same thing. The ghosts of that war don't go away. Maybe we're two sides of the same curse," Blitz murmured, his words intertwining with the sound of the candle sputtering.
She felt a lump in her throat. Part of her wanted to reject him, to tell him they could never be the same. But deep down, she knew that wasn't true. In the worst moments of the war, when every shot and every corpse filled her with emptiness, it had been him, her nemesis, the only thing that made her feel alive. Hatred of him had been her only way to escape her own despair. And now that they stood before each other, in that bitter stillness, she knew he had felt the same.
"You were my curse, my salvation, and my downfall," Loona whispered, tears welling in her eyes.
Blitz smiled, a smile without the mockery that had plagued her for years. He reached up and caressed her cheek, his touch cold and rough, but she didn't pull away. It was a strange peace, a truce between two warriors who had lost so much that they had nothing left to offer.
"So let me be something more, even if it's just for tonight, he murmured, slowly approaching, his words so low they could barely be heard".
Loona closed her eyes, and in that instant, the war, the scar, the hatred... everything was left behind. For the first time, the silence was just that, a rest.
That night in Berlin, the two fallen warriors, bound by scars they carried not only on their bodies but in their souls, found a strange refuge in each other's proximity. The stillness of the room became almost sacred, an unexpected relief from the weight of their stories and the burden of their memories. For a moment, they were not Commander White Fang or the dreaded Crow; they were just two people who had survived the same brutality and who had somehow left indelible marks on each other.
Blitz caressed Loona's face, his fingers tracing the line of her scar, that wound he himself had left on her so many years ago. Feeling his touch, she couldn't help but tense, an instinctive reaction, as if she were still in the midst of combat. Yet he kept his hand steady, his eyes locked on hers.
"It's funny, isn't it?" Blitz said, his voice soft but laden with bitter irony. "This scar belongs to you as much as it belongs to me. A reminder of the war we both won and lost at the same time."
Loona tried to speak, but the words stuck in her throat. For years, that scar had been her anchor, the mark of her hatred, the promise that she would one day take revenge on him. But now, under his gaze, the scar seemed like something else, a kind of dark, deep bond that, instead of separating them, united them in a way she could neither understand nor reject.
"Мы оба чудовища, созданные войной." (We are both monsters created by war), she murmured, her tone somber and resigned.
Blitz nodded, his smile turning melancholy. —Yes, but that war ended up teaching us that, no matter how hard we try, we cannot escape who we are. Neither can you forget who I am, nor can I forget who you are.
With a sigh, he dropped her hand and lay down next to her on the floor, both of them looking up at the ceiling of the room, at that dim candlelight that flickered as if it could go out at any moment. The silence was comfortable and, at the same time, disturbing, as if they were two strangers sharing a forbidden secret.
After a while, Loona took the bullet she had kept all those years and handed it to Blitz. He looked at it in her hands, his expression changing from surprise to understanding, and then to something deeper, a kind of sadness that seemed to have been buried deep inside her.
"Take it with you. It is your burden now, as you were to me all this time, she told him, with a trembling voice that betrayed a vulnerability he did not expect to see".
Blitz pocketed the bullet, not like someone carrying a gun, but like someone holding a keepsake, a symbol of a history they both shared that had, despite everything, survived the war. He leaned toward her, and for the first time, there was neither mockery nor defiance in his eyes. Instead, there was solemn respect, a silent gratitude that needed no words.
"And you, White Fang…" he whispered. "Are you going to let me go with this peace? Or will this just be another showdown in our never-ending war?"
She smiled at him, a tired smile, but genuine, filled with the acceptance that, although she would always be his enemy on some level, there was something about him that she could not quite hate. "Эта война закончилась для нас, но, возможно, начнется другая. (That war is over for us, but perhaps another one will begin.)"
She leaned toward him, and their lips met in a silent, deep kiss, a pact without words. In that instant, there was neither hatred nor resentment between them, only the essence of two souls who had found each other in the darkest moment and, somehow, had survived together.
The intensity of the kiss stripped them of their defenses, as if in that silent act they could leave behind the memories of bullets, screams, and the smell of gunpowder. Loona closed her eyes, feeling the pressure of Blitz's lips on hers, a mixture of pain and comfort. It was as if that kiss took with it the wounds of their past, as if for an instant they could find themselves in a space without war, without hate, without the promise of revenge that had once defined them.
When they separated, they both seemed vulnerable, almost defenseless, in that intimacy they would never have imagined sharing. Loona looked at him, her gray eyes reflecting a deep weariness, as if the invisible scars of her soul were showing in the light of the flickering candle.
"I never imagined this moment would come," she murmured, more to herself than to him. "After all, you and I...were enemies destined to destroy each other."
Blitz smiled, his expression softening in a way he rarely allowed. "Maybe we still are, in some ways. Maybe that will never change. But right now, here, with you… there is no place for that hatred. And I never thought I would feel that way about you, White Fang."
Loona let out a short, bitter, but honest laugh. "What now? We can't change who we were… or what we did. That war tore us apart and rebuilt us in its image."
Blitz held her hand, feeling the coldness of her fingers, as if that same war still pulsed through her skin. "Maybe we can't change what we were," he whispered, his voice barely a whisper in the stillness of the room, "but we can decide what we are now."
Loona blinked, taking in his words. She had never imagined that someone like him, someone so marked by violence, could have such… human vision. It was as if Blitz had left a part of his own past in that kiss, a part of his being that allowed him to let his guard down and show himself vulnerable. Maybe it was the peace they had both been searching for without knowing it.
Without saying anything else, they stood up, both feeling the pressure of the weight of their stories, but also something lighter, an unspoken bond that united them, not as enemies, but as two survivors of a war they could never forget. Blitz, standing in front of her, took her face in his hands with unexpected gentleness.
"If this is the end of our war, then I promise to carry this bullet as a reminder of what we share… and what we left behind," he said, taking the bullet out of his pocket and looking at it with respect. "Maybe this is the last trace of our enmity, and the beginning of something… different."
Loona nodded, not looking away. At that moment, they were not soldiers, they were not legends or feared warriors from opposing sides. They were just two souls, scarred by the past, searching for a new direction amidst uncertainty.
"Then take her with you, Raven. Let her remind you of who I am… and what we will never be again".
They both fell silent, and for the first time since they met, that silence was enough.
Cadiz - 1997
Blitz's dovecote was hidden in the far corner of the property, a small, ancient building with weathered stone walls and sturdy wood, steeped in a history known only to him and his winged companions. Inside, the scent of dry wood and old plumage enveloped the space, a comforting and familiar mix that reminded Blitz of days gone by. The soft afternoon light filtered through the small windows, illuminating the perches and nests where his crows rested, those faithful comrades from dark times.
The crows, with their dark eyes and shiny black plumage, perched near him, watching him with an almost human understanding. Some cawed softly, as if they were conversing in a secret language only he understood. Blitz, with a calm he reserved only for this sacred space, petted one of the oldest crows, one of the birds that had been with him from the beginning, since those days of war.
"Well, boy," Blitz murmured as he gently stroked the raven's feathers, "you're still here, huh? As if no time had passed… as if the old days had never ended."
The raven tilted its head, watching him with its dark eyes, and Blitz felt a pang of nostalgia as he remembered the battles, the sounds of gunfire, and the cawing of its crows over the snowfields. Every time he saw these birds, he felt like he was carrying something from those days with him, a reminder of who he was and the ghosts that accompanied him.
Just then, the soft sound of approaching footsteps broke the stillness of the dovecote. Blitz raised his head and saw Loona standing in the doorway, her grey eyes watching him with a mix of curiosity and tenderness. The evening light filtered in from behind her, highlighting her sharp features and the hardness that still resided in her eyes, though now dimmed by the quiet life they had built together.
"I thought I'd find you here," she said in Russian, a soft smile on her lips. "Скучаешь по старым временам? ?" (Do you miss the old days?)
Blitz chuckled, scratching the back of his neck as he let the raven jump off his arm and settle on his shoulder. "Maybe a little," he admitted. "Though, now that I think about it, I never imagined back in those days that I'd end up in a place like this… and with you."
Loona inched further into the dovecote, her fingers brushing one of the wooden nests, her gaze fixed on the ravens. "These ravens…" she murmured, "are just like you. Resilient, faithful, dark. Even in war they were always by your side."
Blitz shrugged, looking fondly at his winged companions. "They always knew when to appear and when to disappear. I guess they reminded me of myself."
Loona looked at him, her eyes softening as she regarded him with a mix of admiration and respect. "You're still that man, Blitz. The Raven… but you're also something else now. You're the man who gave me this peace."
She moved closer to him, and one of the ravens landed between them, watching them intently, as if it were a witness to their silent conversation. Loona raised a hand to pet the bird, her fingers gently touching the black feathers.
"I never thought I'd learn to appreciate these creatures… but here I am," she whispered, in a tone so low it seemed like a fleeting thought escaping her lips. "Every time I see them, they remind me that the past wasn't in vain. That there's something from that past that's still worth it."
Blitz watched her, his eyes filled with tenderness as he reached out a hand to hers. Between the two of them, the raven cawed softly, as if it understood the connection they shared, the bond forged in fire and blood, that had survived even the worst of circumstances.
"And you, Loona, are the reason why it is worth leaving the past where it belongs," Blitz murmured, taking her hand.
She intertwined her fingers with his, her gaze holding his. "Давай, у нас есть семья.(Blitz. Come on… our daughters await us.)"
They both left the dovecote together, leaving behind the crows, who cawed softly, watching the couple like the silent guardians of their shared history.
As Blitz and Loona crossed the threshold of the dovecote, the soft light of dusk enveloped the scene, welcoming them into the peaceful world they had built together. In the garden, their daughters played, their innocent, carefree laughter filling the air. The twins ran among the wildflowers, their voices sweet and joyful, oblivious to the story of sacrifice and redemption their parents silently shared.
Blitz and Loona stood on the porch, looking at their daughters with a mix of love and pride. They both knew that in every step, in every smile of their girls, lay the reward of everything they had lived, of everything they had overcome. Loona leaned on Blitz's shoulder, and he put an arm around her waist, pulling her even closer. For a moment, they allowed themselves the luxury of enjoying that silence, of the peace they had only known together.
One of the twins looked up and saw them, and her eyes sparkled as she recognized her parents standing there together, sharing a moment that seemed eternal. The little girl ran towards them, followed by her sister, and in a matter of seconds, Blitz and Loona found themselves surrounded by the love of their daughters.
"Dad, Mom, are you talking about war stories again?" one of the girls asked curiously, looking at her parents with the same eyes as Loona, filled with an insatiable curiosity.
Blitz laughed, shaking her head. "No, honey. We're talking about peace. Something even more valuable than any victory."
The other girl took Loona's hand, looking at her with a radiant smile. "And the crows? Are they here for that?"
Loona crouched down to her daughter's height, stroking her hair tenderly. "Yes, dear. They remind us of what we were… and teach us to be strong, to take care of what we have."
Blitz looked at Loona and then at his daughters, feeling his heart fill with gratitude and love. He leaned down, taking one of the girls into his arms, as Loona did the same with the other. Together, the four of them entered the house, leaving behind the sunset that illuminated the landscape in golden hues.
Once inside, the warmth of the home enveloped them. Blitz lit the fireplace, and the soft crackling of the fire filled the space. The twins snuggled on the couch, covering themselves with a blanket, while Blitz and Loona watched them, sitting side by side, their hands intertwined.
"Our past, Loona…" Blitz murmured, looking at the fire dancing in the hearth. "It's just that. A memory that today allows us to appreciate this… this peace."
Loona nodded, her eyes fixed on the fire, as if she could see in it the shadows of their shared history. "Da, Blitz… here we are. Here we are."
At that moment, a soft squawk was heard from the window, and looking up, they saw one of the crows watching them from the sill. The bird cocked its head, as if approving of the home they had created, and then took flight into the darkness.
Blitz and Loona looked at each other, and without the need for words, they understood the message. They, too, had found their freedom. The peace that had been out of reach for so long now belonged to them, as the sun faded over the horizon, illuminating the flags of Yugoslavia and the USSR that fluttered from the mast.
Finally, together, in that warm, loving home, they closed a chapter forever.