Not To Reason Why

The girl was too quiet.

Princess Iliya paused in her ministrations, then finished wrapping the young corporal's arm. It had been a deep, messy wound, but the girl hadn't flinched at all when Iliya had removed the shrapnel and sutured the edges together as gently as she could.

"Corporal?"

The girl shivered, her thousand-yard stare slowly focusing in, until she finally raised her blue eyes to meet Iliya's searching ones.

"…Princess."

"Just Iliya is fine," she said, holding the end of the bandage in place while she ripped two lengths of surgical tape to tie it off. She wiped as much of the blood off her hands as she could with a wet rag—water was heavily rationed on the warfront, even for princesses. Still, she didn't want to constantly remind this poor girl of the battlefield by having blood all over her. "What's your name?"

The girl's breaths came faster and faster, her shoulders shaking. Iliya held onto the girl's hands, concerned at how cold they were. It wasn't just the blood loss; the young survivor was in terrible shock.

"There, there," Iliya coaxed the girl to put her head between her knees, stroking the sobbing girl's back gently. They were still too far from their supply lines for Iliya to find a replacement jacket for the poor corporal. Iliya had to cut the girl's right sleeve to pieces in order to patch her up, but half a jacket was still better than none, and after days on the march Iliya's uniform wasn't much cleaner.

"You're alive," Iliya said quietly. That could either be a comforting statement or a disappointing one—Iliya had seen sole survivors of units react both ways. "You're safe right now with the 1121st tank platoon."

"I was supposed to be watching for tanks," the girl gasped, raising her head to stare desperately at Iliya with haunted eyes.

"You did what you could," Iliya replied, taking the girl's wounded arm and settling it in a sling, which she clipped around the girl's neck. The shreds of the girl's sleeve hung limply off her shoulder, the heavy green khaki soaked two shades darker with dried blood. "Who were you looking out for?"

"The commander…I mean, for Lieutenant Anna…" the girl blinked, dazed.

"Okay…And you are?"

"Filicia." Saying her own name seemed to awaken something in the girl—Iliya was relieved to see her eyes clear as she automatically responded to the simple question. "Corporal Filicia Heidemann, from…"

"Filicia," Iliya interrupted, putting a hand on the girl's knee to distract her. The rest of that sentence would have been her tank platoon's number and outpost, and would surely have reminded the shell-shocked girl about her comrades' deaths. "I would like to ask you some questions, okay?"

"Yes…your highness…"

"Okay." Iliya kept her tone as warm and level as she could. "Tell me about how you feel right now. Are you cold?"

"Cold? I…" Filicia shivered, seeming to both realize her own state and answer the question at the same time. Grabbing the blanket beside her, Iliya tucked it around the girl's shoulders.

"Are you thirsty or hungry?"

"Maybe…" Filicia whispered, and Iliya felt her worry build. Her patient was in pieces, so much so that Iliya feared for her chances of recovery down the road.

"Here is some water," Iliya said, wrapping the girl's good hand around a warm mug. "I'm going to put this away—" she gestured at the bloodied medical equipment, "—and then I'll be back so that we can head towards the main army force. Wait right here, okay?"

She waited until Filicia responded with a nod before turning and gathering all the soaked gauze pads, thread, and stained cloths into a metal pan and carried it with her. She dumped it behind a pile of rubble, taking the chance to signal to her unit to gear up. They nodded at her, efficiently breaking camp without further instructions. Iliya smiled, the rare gesture lifting her spirits even though they were on the edge of hell. Everyone had been dejected to find out that they had arrived too late to support their massacred troops, and finding even a single survivor had fuelled them all into action once again. Her soldiers wisely kept their distance from Filicia so as to not overwhelm the girl, but Iliya loved them for their many concerned and sympathetic glances towards the young, broken soldier.

No one was without their own scars on the battlefront, but they all loved each other in spite of them. They were all Helvetian soldiers, and behind the guns they all knew the same fears.

Iliya walked back to her charge, crouching before her to bring their eyes on the same level. "Filicia? I'm going to help you up onto our tank…" She hesitated for a moment, seeing the wild panic in the girl's eyes despite her lack of overt opposition. Stupid, Iliya kicked herself. The girl had barely survived being blown off of a tank, and seeing her entire platoon die when her tank exploded! But they really didn't have a choice. Iliya had delayed as long as she could in order to rescue Filicia and patch up her injuries, but the Roman army was probably regrouping and ready to advance any minute. They had to withdraw back to the main army. "Is that okay with you? What can I do to help?"

Filicia inhaled raggedly, shifting her weight forward so that she could get up, if her knees ever stopped trembling. Her free hand dropped the empty mug to clutch Iliya's tightly. "I…I'm…I'm okay. I know that…we have to go." She tried to smile, and Iliya squeezed her hand.

"We'll just sit on top together," Iliya said assuringly, leading Filicia over to the 1121st tank. She guided the girl's steps up the tank leg, and her lieutenant carefully reached down from the top to grasp Filicia by the waist and help hoist the shaking girl onto the tank body. "Retreat," Iliya ordered, sitting down beside the open hatch and hooking her legs inside. She gently held Filicia to her chest, feeling the girl's body sporadically tremble with bad memories. "We'll join the main force through the north gate. Keep alert for any Roman advance."

With a rumble, their tank lumbered forward, each step causing the chassis to sway with a familiar rocking gait. Iliya noticed that Filicia moved instinctively with the sway as well; the girl had to have served in a tank for a decent period then, despite how young she seemed. The blonde could have been one of the conscripts—ever since the Roman advance had entered Vingt, Helvetia had instituted conscription of their young men and women, urgently needing new recruits to supplement the regular army.

A cynical soldier would have questioned if Filicia's shell-shock was fabricated to get out of military duty, but Iliya doubted that was the case here. She remembered hearing that desperate cry from underground, and dropping through a grenade hole to find the exhausted, grateful survivor standing in the dark beside a pile of burnt out matches and the body of an ancient dead soldier. The girl had been fairly coherent until Iliya had hoisted her over her shoulders on the climb out, after which Filicia had taken one look at the wreckage of buildings and shattered tanks around them and promptly shut down until her blue eyes had seemed almost grey with absence.

Something that honest and horrified could not be faked.

Filicia's platoon had been admirably heroic—from what Iliya could understand from the ruins, their tank had been the only one ahead of the rear guard to actually support the Helvetian infantry during the crossfire with the Roman side. They had paid for the heroism with their lives, all except for their youngest member.

"Do you want to talk about anything?" Iliya asked the girl in her arms, keeping her voice low so that the rest of her squad couldn't hear from within the tank.

Filicia was silent, turned on her side so that her cheek was resting on Iliya's lap, her glasses slipped down on her nose and flashing in the sunlight. Her chest rose and fell, lifting the blanket up and down as the tank plodded with metallic squeaks and groans through the noiseless ruins. She didn't speak.

Iliya didn't sigh; she didn't groan or roll her eyes. Instead, she turned her hand so that she could hold onto the girl more securely, then lifted her face, letting the orange sunset rays flood over her skin. There was no gunfire in the distance or ominous hum of marching tanks—it was almost as if the war had decided to gift the common soldiers with one day of silence in the daily thunderous hell.

A deep breath was all she needed. Low, clear notes sounded from Iliya's throat as she hummed that nameless tune that she always played whenever the skies were blue instead of black. She didn't know what it was called, but Iliya knew it by heart.

It was a beautiful song. A salute. A melody of hope.

The warm evening air echoed with her humming, the sound filling the emptiness as they walked through smoking debris and twisted iron. Black ash dusted into the air under their tank's feet, but still, the sky shone blue.

Under Iliya's protective grip Filicia slept, slow trails of tears running through the dirt on her cheeks. Even in sleep, her hand clutched at Iliya's tightly.

There were hundreds of dead lying in nameless graves behind them, but the warm weight of one girl was enough to feel just right. Iliya closed her eyes, feeling a prickling behind the lids. She had stopped crying over the tragedy of war a long time ago, but every now and again Iliya would cry, openly and unashamedly. On days like this, when the world looked like it was indeed ending, but when Iliya knew that she had saved one person, that she had made a difference in one life…on those days, she cried.

It was on days like this one, when a single good thing shone out through all the horror. When the air filled with her hopeful, mourning song and yet the sky still shone blue, Iliya knew that one day this will all have been for something right.