When Red Blossoms Fall, Part 1

                Old enemies, old friends, life and death, war… All that she knew. Sitting in the cherry orchard as the pink blossoms fell around her, this was all she knew. A moment’s peace… she had never known. Though she had only seen thirty-two winters, she had always been trained, and prepared for war. As soon as her childhood was behind her, she had been sent to the academy.  They say it’s what she wanted, but what child can make that decision?  Here, in this place, she knew that it was never her decision. 

                She thought of the seventeen preceding years. First, the rebellion in Gildour. She had been so young when she first tasted the carnage of war. A girl of just fifteen, but then… she had younger people with her. And then there was her wife Hilda and her brother Gene, each three years her junior, and each bearing the scars of that first battle.

No. No, their scars were from torture. Torture for daring to try to protect… to protect two young children, not more than toddlers… Hilda gave her eye, and Gene endured hours of lashes and cuts. Had Autum not come upon them at the right moment, then… Dawn shuddered to think what might have happened to them, and to the young children they hid. Melissa and Jim have since enjoyed a quiet existence in the castle. But Gene and Hilda… 

Hilda stood beside her now. Dawn turned to her and smiled. “My love,” she said haltingly. “I have never asked you what happened that day.”

Hilda’s face clouded. “No, love,” she said as cold as the grave. “And I have not offered you any explanation. I know Gene has mentioned what happened to him, but only briefly. I know you’ve heard him awaken each night, screaming. Even now, his deepest scars are in his mind…”

She paused for a long moment. Dawn thought to say something, but she caught a dark glimmer in Hilda’s eye, and thought better of it. She was prepared to let it go, and move on when Hilda was herself again, but a sudden mirth-filled laugh from her wife startled her. She looked at Hilda and saw a serene smile on her face. “Well, why the hell not?” she said quietly. “I suppose it’s time you know exactly what happened. How I lost my eye. How Autum saved us. And how I killed him.”