Those Left Behind: A Child-Raising Quest

"I guess one loner just met another, eh?"

It never stopped. This frantic movement of seconds that turn into minutes and hours, and the way those hours become days as shapes that form your everyday all meshed together into a chaotic cacophony of faces, sounds and words devoid of even a semblance of meaning.

The people around you – good, honest people swarmed with their daily worries and tiny moments of happiness – couldn't understand, and perhaps that's only for the better. Some said that the ones that returned from the war didn't come home complete; they left behind something important, and this something could never be replaced.

This "important thing" – the power to smile again – was what made you different from those normal people and their everyday lives. You had come back, but you weren't whole anymore, and that was eating you from the inside.

In a small inn at the outskirts of Caeldoria, the capital city of the Endels Empire, a lonely man laid on his back, staring at the ceiling, his thoughts in complete disarray. His and your name was Isol, and that was the only name you had. The only things your parents gave you other than your life.

You felt a wave of drowsiness overcome your senses, so you closed your eyes shut, hoping to find an escape from your own musings inside your dreams. Unfortunately, what awaited you there was something scarier than any nightmare imaginable – your past.

[] They had called you a hero, even though you were only a coward. Elves cremated all bodies they could find on the battlefield, no matter from which side they came from. To honor their gods and to give everyone a fair chance in the afterlife. So, when you hid among the bodies of your comrades, you had a perfect opportunity to silently open the gates of their fortress in the middle of the night and let your own forces in. They said it was smart, but the truth was, you just didn't want to die.

[] You were another grunt, a tiny cogwheel inside the giant war-machine of the Empire, or that's what you told yourself to drive away the guilt. Enamored with promises of adventure and opportunities, you enlisted into the army. You made friends, made some important promises, but broke the most important one. You promised your squad that you all would have a drink together once the war ends.

[] They would always call you a coward, and they'd be right every time. When push came to shove, you broke. It wasn't what you were promised. Not even remotely. You escaped, chased by the guards, and you'd have made it, if something – or someone – didn't stop you. An elven girl, barely a woman, was there, a look of fear in her eyes. The things those guards would've done to her… They caught you, chained you and put the brand of a traitor on your neck. It used to hurt, but now it was barely an itch.

It never disappeared. The smell of rotting flesh, the sight of people falling dead around you, the feeling of a bayonet piercing flesh and bullets passing through someone's body. Every time you closed your eyes, the part of you that was left there tugged you back.

"Rise and shine!" Anne, the inn-keeper, announced her presence with a loud cheer and a kick that effortlessly opened the door to your room, holding a bowl of stew in one hand. "Oh, so you weren't sleeping at all!"

She placed the bowl on a small table near your bed. "Here," she said happily, "today's special, rabbit stew. Dig in, dig in!"

This was your routine. Three times a day she would bring you a warm meal. For our special customers, she told you one day, but you knew the reason she did that. Everyone else ate at the first floor, in the mess hall, but not you. No one could stomach looking at you, after all. You were a walking reminder of the past everyone wanted to left behind, buried in the ground.

Yours was a generation that had a chance to witness a true elf. And with them, the age of legends and fairy tales came to an end. The heroes had no more dragons to slay, and no spirits were seen for ages. The magic, whenever it came from, was gone: humans killed it to reclaim the world.

At first, the ones that came back were celebrated as heroes, but soon the people turned on them, on you. You were not like the people that had been left behind, you were murderers, and so you became pariahs. People taunted you, people hated you; slowly, but steadily, they turned against you. They wanted you to suffer for your crimes, to destroy your desire to live. Perhaps, one day they would even kill you.

"Anne!" you called the woman before she would leave. "Why?"

Her brows furrowed in confusion. "Why what?" she asked. "If you don't like rabbit, there's some geese left…"

"Why are you doing this?" you explained. "Why don't you hate me? Why don't you scorn me like the others?" Perhaps, she did. Perhaps, her kindness was a mask to hide her disgust. Perhaps, you only wanted to believe there existed a single person that cared about you. "Why are you kind to me?! I don't understand!"

To this, she had nothing to say. Instead, Anne looked at her feet, thinking of an answer. "You know, I'm old enough that I got to witness the first Great War. I was this small," she gestured at something around her waist, "when my father was conscripted. Just a small girl from the countryside, waiting for her daddy to return with souvenirs and trinkets and stories from distant lands."

She smiled, but for the first time, you noticed how strained it really seemed. "Pretty silly, right? War… it's a very scary thing, right?" You only nodded, unsure of what to say. "People don't come back from war. Not really. They are not the same. My father… he had such kind eyes. Full of energy and joy."

"He didn't come back, either. Not all of him. And his eyes never were the same after that. They looked so tired and lost. Like he didn't know what to do and where to go. It was like daddy want to the war and some stranger came back, wearing his skin."

"What does this have to do with me?" you asked.

"You have the same eyes as him," Anne explained. "I couldn't help him back then, but I can help you now. The only way I can."

"I…" you had nothing to say. It was the first time you were touched with kindness that came from a complete stranger, and more than anything, it felt blinding. "I am not your father."

"I know." You closed your eyes, returning to the darkness. To the familiar feeling of choking on air. But the sound of your door closing, this gentle sound, drowned out all the screams. Just that alone was enough.

By the time you started eating, the stew was already cold, but for some reason, it tasted much better than before. For the first time, you felt a taste of food.

To Be Added

Isol didn't sleep anymore. Not in the same way other people did. His dreams were always the same. Each and every night since he came back home Isol saw a giant, endless field of sickly grass that stretched out as far as his eyes could see. And if he looked up, there would no starts in the night sky, only the swirling darkness and the somber moon above his head.

There, in that place, he was never alone. People he knew, people he used to call friends, waited for him. They always smiled at first, laughed and cheered like they did so many times in the past. But it all felt wrong to Isol. He knew there was no way for such a thing to ever happen in his life the same way he knew men without jaws or heads could laugh and talk.

"Aren't you happy?" asked Bors, his former captain, and hugged Isol with his only remaining arm. "No more scornful looks and hushed whispers. You are among friends here. It's going to be just like the old times."

No, Isol noted to himself, it won't be. For one, Bors barely looked like a human being at this point, with half of his body missing. He stepped on a mine, Isol recalled, and ordered his troops to proceed without him. No one ever saw him die; they just heard the explosion, and it was over. No more Bors.

"Just like the old times," repeated Ysma. "Remember our talks near the campfire? Well, you weren't much of a talker, so I did most of it. Still, good times. Simpler ones, too. It was us against them. Good guys on one side, bad guys – on another."

There weren't that many things different about Ysma. Just a small arrow still stuck in his throat and nothing more. It was a peaceful death, Isol remembered, he didn't suffer long. One arrow, and no more Ysma.

"We are all your friends, Isol," said Ysma. Just as he said that Isol noticed a few men standing near him. He knew their names, and they did his, and everything was well once again. Some of them missed arms or legs, but that didn't make any difference to Isol. "And we will never leave you alone, buddy."

Isol opened his eyes, feeling the softness of the mattress under his body and hearing the bed creak every time he moved. He always asked Anne for a harder mattress, but she never listened.

He couldn't summon any strength to stand up and do anything, so he simply laid there, staring at his ceiling, waiting for something to happen. Things always happened, whether he wanted them to happen or not, and he just needed to wait and keep an ear to the ground.

Someone knocked at his door so lightly the man could barely hear it. The wooden door slowly opened, revealing his visitor, a boy that looked no older than ten. The boy's hair were dark brown like an oaken bark, slightly darker than his mother's.

"Ansel," said Isol. "Does Anne need something from me?"

There was no other reason for the boy to enter his room, Isol concluded. The boy didn't like him one bit, and he made this fact known plenty of times already. Their relationship weren't exactly hostile: the two of them simply preferred to ignore each other.

"You have a guest," Ansel muttered. "Mom told me to get upstairs and tell you that."

"I see." Isol got up on his feet and reached for his sword. He couldn't sleep without a weapon nearby anymore. It was a habit he developed a few years ago and a habit he wasn't proud of. Just as he was strapping the scabbard to his belt, he felt someone's intent stare.

It was Ansel, transfixed, his eyes glued to Isol's sword.

"Something else you need?" the man asked.

"I… I want to ask you something. But later," the boy said and hastily left.

Isol shrugged and followed him downstairs. His visitor was waiting.

The Blooming Dandelion was Anne's pride and joy. She opened the inn right after the war ended, using the money she and her husband were saving. Her husband, she told Isol, was a soldier, too, but he wanted to retire. It was his dream to start an inn, but Anne was the one that made it come true.

Sadly, the business wasn't exactly booming around these parts. Anne made enough money to keep herself and her son fed, and that alone made her happy. At least, Anne always looked happy.

"Oh, here he is," a boisterous voice announced Isol's presence. Its owner was sitting at a table with a half-empty mug of beer with one hand. The man's name Ando, and he was Isol's self-proclaimed best friend. To Isol, though, Ando was like an itch that wouldn't leave him alone – something he simply learned to live with.

"You look horrible today," noted Ando. He didn't like minding his own words, so he simply didn't do that at all. Everything Ando said Ando meant. Some people liked that about him, while some people didn't. "Not that you look better at any other day. You get enough sleep? Sleep is important, you know."

"What's the matter, Ando?" Isol cut the man short.

"Straight as an arrow, aren't you?" the man smiled. "I like that 'bout you. Really helps. If only more people were like you these days. Now, nothing is the same anymore, you know. Neither the people nor the world itself. It's like all the wonder went far away and I just missed the note."

"Ando," said Isol with more firmness in his voice.

"Right, right," Ando chuckled. "I talked to the leader of a mercenary group, and they need someone who knows his way around the sword. Someone experienced who wouldn't froze at the sight of blood. Men like you and me. Hardened and experienced."

"Are you offering me a job?"

"In a way. The thing is, they're preparing to raid at a bandit camp, and I told the man I won't go unless you do the same."

"You have a lot of faith in me," said Isol. "Any reason?"

"I saw you fight. That's more than enough of a reason for me to want you on my side. Besides, weren't you searching for a job? Think about it: you'll do some fine coin here." Ando's eyes shone with glee, and that made Isol think of the dragons from those old legends people used to tell. He imagined a giant lizard, sitting on a pile of gold, the same look in the creature's eyes. "So," the man nudged, "you in?"

As a decorated war veteran and a hero, Isol received a pension. It wasn't much – barely enough to survive – and even that modest sum got smaller with every passing month. Isol wasn't desperate yet, but given some time, he would be. Not to mention he had to pay his rent soon.

He slowly inhaled through his nose, closed his eyes and silently counted to ten. "Yes," he said, feeling something hard form within his chest. "Yes, I am in."

They shook hands and left the inn.

The work itself was relatively simple. The scouts would locate the bandit camp after which the main force would surround the whole place. "Five silver coins for a head," the mercenary leader said grimly, "just the head. No other parts needed."
Isol did just that. It all came naturally to him. The blood and the screams reminded him of that place, of that time that he left behind. He wanted to lock all these feeling, this anger behind a giant door and throw away the key, but he couldn't. So, he opened that door and let everything out.

"Well, guess that's it for now," said Ando. His calm voice made Isol snap out of his trance.

He looked at his bloodied sword, at a corpse that laid at his feet. He felt tired, immensely so. Like the weight of the entire world was now on his shoulders. And he wanted to go home and close his eyes and return to that place again.

Isol slowly inhaled through his nose, smelling the blood in the air, closed his eyes, hearing the screams come from somewhere in the distance, and silently started counting to ten, remembering what happened a few hours ago. "Enough," he said weakly.

"Yup," said Ando. "Don't get too comfortable, though. There might be a few strays left."

He pulled an arrow out of his quiver and tensed up. "Stay here and take care of the bodies," said Ando. "We can't carry 'em back to the camp as is, so you need to chop off their heads. Don't worry: I'll watch your back."

Isol did as he was told. Then and now, he always did exactly what he was told. Perhaps, that's what made him such a good soldier. A sword in his hand, he grabbed the first body and took a good look at the human whose life he so swiftly ended.

It was a mindless task, but Isol couldn't quite shake of a single thought that echoed inside his skull. He looked at the dead man and saw himself there. The only difference between him and those bandits was that he was lucky enough to find a place for himself. Just that alone made all the difference.

In essence, they all were the same. They were people that weren't quite real anymore, and that made them less than people. They learned how to kill and forgot everything else. Forgot what a gentle touch felt like, what the words "kindness" and "love" really meant. They became weapons, and weapons that weren't needed were thrown away. It was simple as that.

Isol was a weapon, and unlike the dead bandit he was holding, someone still needed him. To kill weapons that were not needed. This is somewhat clever, he admitted to himself, one way or another, there would be less weapons left in this world.

He sighed and tried to think about something else. Little things like the taste of Anne's stew or the warmth of his bed. Just about anything other than focusing on what he did at the moment.

When Isol was about to finish with the first corpse, his ears caught something strange. Someone was crying, and he could hear them. First he looked around, searching for Ando, but his partner was nowhere in sight, so he moved on his own, following the voice.

He wasn't sure why, but he felt a strong need to find the source of this wailing. It was like someone was calling for him. Following the sound, he found an old, half-crumbled wooden hut. One hand clutching his sword, Isol slowly threaded his way into the hut.

There, he found a woman lying on the ground, a puddle of crimson blood already formed under her body. She laid face-down, her face hidden behind locks of golden hair that looked almost silver in the moonlight. Isol knew who she was.

In a rotting shed, far away from her ancestral lands, he found a dead elf woman. One of the last of her kind. Was she the one crying? he wondered, looking at her body. Or was it someone else? Her friends, perhaps. He didn't know and seeing such a horrible scene only made him feel worse. It made him recall times better left behind.

Then, he heard it again. It was a shrill sound, thoroughly stained with desperation and panic, and it came from the elf woman. Or rather, from behind her.

Gently, Isol turned her around and found the person responsible. In the woman's arms was a red-faced baby. A tuft of blonde hair on their head and a face scrunched in displeasure. The child was screaming their lungs out, desperately calling for attention, for rescue.

Isol wanted them to stop, but he had no idea how. He took of one glove and awkwardly touched the baby's cheek with his finger. Their skin was smooth and warm and incredibly soft. Not sure what to do after this, he just kept staring until he felt something small firmly grab his finger.

The child's golden eyes reflected his own. Isol half-heartedly tried to wriggle himself free, but the child refused to let go. Strangely, though, they finally stopped crying.

"Let go," gently said Isol. "Please."

But the child didn't.

And then, she laughed, and that was the most beautiful sound Isol ever heard in his life. Perhaps, this was the moment when he made his decision.

Slowly, he tried to pry the baby out of her mother's hands, but the woman's cold hands refused to bulge. As he applied more and more force, he suddenly heard a crunch. One after another, Isol had to break the dead mother's finger, so he could hold the child in his arms.

Please, he prayed in his thoughts, please, let her go. I beg you.

Finally, the child was free, already safely cradled in his arms. Looking at her sleeping face, Isol felt the weight on his shoulders slowly fade. "You are," Isol said between gentle sobs as tears went down his face, "so light. And small. And…"

He had no idea why his tears refused to stop, but he fell on his knees, overwhelmed with emotions. "… You smell of sun," Isol smiled at the child in his arms, feeling hopeful for the first time in what seemed like an eternity.

When he managed to regain a semblance of composure, he heard someone call his name. "Isol!" a voice said. "Hey, Isol! Where the hell did you go, man? That's not funny!" That was Ando, searching for him.

"Here," called Isol, urging him to get closer.

"Oh, so you were here, buddy," Ando said as his shoulders slumped down. "If that was some kind of a joke, it wasn't very…" The man instantly stopped the moment he saw the tiny bundle in his friend's arms. "This is…" He searched for a proper word, but Isol said it first.

"An elf child," he said. "I found here out there, in a shed. Her mother," his brows creaked slightly. "She is dead. A stab wound in her stomach. A deep one, too."

"An elf," Ando frowned. "What did she do here of all places?" he asked no one in particular. "So, what are you going to do with the baby?"

"I…" Isol wavered. "I think I'm going to take her with me. She is…" He looked at the girl's sleeping face and felt a smile form on his lips. "She is my daughter." The word felt fresh on his lips. It tasted bittersweet for some reason, but Isol liked the way it sounded. "My precious daughter."

"Well," said Ando. "Does this daughter of yours have a name?"

[] Write-in.

"I see," the man shrugged. "Looks like you're serious about this. Not sure how this is going to work out, but…" Looking Isol in the eyes, Ando smiled brazenly. "I'm sure you'll make it work somehow."

"Thank you," said Isol. His face, however, quickly tightened up. Eyes glued to the crumbling hut in the distance, he spoke: "There's something I need to ask of you, too. Can you gather some firewood for me?"

"For what?" croaked the man. "Our camp isn't that far away, you know? Plenty of fire out there, if you ask me."

"Not for me," explained Isol. "For her," he pointed with his chin at the hut. "Elves burn their dead, right? We should do the same for her. It's the right thing to do, don't you agree?"

"What, you want to arrange her a funeral pyre? For a woman you don't even know?" Ando asked. "No way, man! We'll be sitting ducks out there! You understand that, right?! Look, how about we just bury her in the ground? That works, too."

"For humans," Isol pointed out. "Not elves. We should respect their traditions. Just this once."

"About damn time you suddenly developed a conscience," mumbled Ando. "Look, I think it's a bad idea. The fire will attract the stray bandits like moths. Think about your kid. Do you think you will be able to fight them while carrying her in your arms?"

That argument made Isol waver.

"Look," said Ando. "Sometimes we make choice we are not proud of. You know this better than anyone else. Guys like us? We survive. We don't think about things like pride and honor. We do what we must, when we must. Your misguided desire to honor a woman you know nothing about, who would've probably hated your human guts for nearly exterminating her entire race, can get both of us killed. If it was up to me, I'd have left that dame there. I'm sure wild animals would appreciate the gesture."

[] Ignore. Tell him to prepare the funeral pyre.

[] Compromise. You will bury that woman according to your customs.

[] Listen. There's no helping that woman anymore. It's time to think about the living.