passerine

vi. my palms and fingers still reek of gasoline (from throwing fuel to the fire)

There would be no grand speeches this time, Tubbo knew. Instead, they formed a grim line like souls waiting at the gates of the underworld—where they would find either judgment or absolution. The only sounds were tired murmurs and quiet thuds as the surviving soldiers of the Royal Army piled what remained of their camp into carts and wagons. Both the wounded and the dead were placed gently on beds of hay, with blankets covering the worse of their injuries, a futile courtesy for an army that had seen worse just the day before. They'd found a few survivors during their search last night, but as Tubbo had feared, there were mostly corpses to carry back. Sometimes not even a whole body. Sometimes, just an arm, a leg. A single strand of hibiscus-pink hair. A wrinkled hand still clutching a bloodstained broadsword. A few volunteers would stay at the valley to continue the bleak search, but for most of the Royal Army—Tubbo included—it was time to head home.

Home. He'd only left a few weeks before, but he could barely conjure it up in his mind. It seemed to him like everything before the war was a vague, unfamiliar relic preserved behind fogged glass. As much as Tubbo pressed against it, he could only see hazy glimpses of what laid behind: a fractured memory of a quiet town, a small house at the outskirts, his family... He'd left for the war in the middle of the night, with only a hastily-scribbled letter left on his sister's bedside table to explain where he was going, what he wanted to do. I will protect this kingdom. Protect you. He wondered if she could still recognize him, when he could no longer recognize himself. Wasn't that what family was for? Weren't they supposed to know him, even if—especially if—he felt like a stranger in his own body?

Tubbo tipped his head up to the sky, letting the faint rays of dawn warm his frozen limbs. There had been a terrible storm last night, but the only traces of it today were the dewdrops clinging to grass and the mud slick beneath Tubbo's boots. He shook himself out of his reverie.

There was more work to be done.

There was always more to be done.

Slowly, Tubbo weaved around the bustling panoply of people and carts, helping where he could—tying down boxes of supplies, feeding the horses and checking their bridles, re-righting someone's arm sling. Anything that kept him moving. Anything that distracted him from the gnawing feeling in his gut. He looked over his shoulder at the valley behind them, expecting to see a green-clad soldier crawling across the rubble towards him, reanimated by vengeance, but there was nothing but open air and a flock of birds circling lazily overhead. Carrion crows or vultures—it didn't matter which. They would be feasting well today.

Instinctively, Tubbo's eyes found themselves drifting down. And that's when he saw them.

A simple horse-drawn cart, indistinguishable from its neighbors aside from the two people stood over it like mourners at a grave: a king and a general, twins in their misery. Tubbo felt an odd pang in his chest as he realized who exactly was in that cart, who exactly they were saying goodbye to. As Tubbo watched, the king leaned over the cart, as if he was going to pull himself in with his dead. But then he pulled back, his shoulders trembling and his hands deep in his pockets. Tubbo wondered if they were shaking, too. For a moment, it seemed as if the general might reach towards the king, but instead he pulled something from his own pocket and reached into the cart. When he leaned away, his hands were empty and still.

The general nodded at the king, and then they were off, disappearing down the hill and heading north—the opposite direction of home. It might have been a trick of the light, but Tubbo would swear until his deathbed that he saw one of the birds wheel away from its flock, its obsidian wings gleaming as it trailed their two-person procession. But then he blinked, and king, general and bird were gone.