Revenge of the Luna Queen

Chapter 30

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War is never pretty. It is never righteous or glorious. War is dirty. It is terrifying. Bloody. Loud and horrific. There is no good side. No winner or loser. There is only the side that lost less, the side that managed to kill more of the other. There are no clean hands in a battle. No innocent pure hearted heroes.

When you die you are no different than the enemy beside you. You bleed the same. Cry the same. Die the same. Meaning, intention, cause, logic, none of it matters here. Here all that matters is death. It, the only truth. The rest of it matters before. And perhaps it matters after. But at the clash of battle, at the first bash of side against side, with the first death, the first drop of blood, it all shrinks away and none of it matters. Why loses all meaning. There is no more 'right' or 'wrong', 'good' or 'evil' there is only life and death, and the struggle to hold onto who you were before it all started.

This was no different. They were fighting for the good. It did not mean they were good. Did not mean their actions were good. In the bitter winter air, under the low full moon, there was little that distinguished them from their enemies. Here they were all the same. The only difference was whose team you were on. Tomorrow it would matter. In the light of day good and bad, right and wrong, would exist once more. But at that moment, in the here and now, they were all the dark. There was no light.

They say history is written by the victor.

War is written in blood.

They didn't have to wait long before it started.

Aislinn felt it. Felt the first shockwaves reverberate through the world. The pain of the earth itself, as once more life was ripped and destroyed because of the tragic worship of all that is greed and corruption, power and wealth.

She was cold now, the frozen ice that had descended outside her window having penetrated her bones. It was an echoing distant feeling though, the ice that filled her barely registering in her mind. Her body no longer connected to her consciousness. There wasn't much time left, her grip on this world was slipping rapidly from her fingers.

Staring out the window she watched as the glistening snow fell. Watched the sky darken. Time had little meaning anymore, no longer seeming concrete or real to her. Minutes felt like days, and hours passed by in mere seconds. She watched the world, her world, their world.

Night settled around them.

"Do you feel that?" She suddenly asked Ciera, the first words that had been spoken between them in hours.

"Yes." Ciera whispered, tears trailing down her face.

"Do you hear that?" She asked even softer. The smallest flame of life sparking in the emptiness of her eyes as she stared out into the night.

"What is it?" Ciera said, leaning closer to the window trying to catch whatever it was that was humming just beyond her senses. It was like a low thrum, a brush of sensation along her spin that she couldn't quite grab, a muffled cry she couldn't quite make out.

Aislinn gasped, her body shuddering violently. Her hands flew to the glass. Her fingers splaying out, wintery skin pressed against the ice-cold glass as she steadied herself. Her head dropping as she took a deep inhale. Her lungs expanding out and out, breathing for the first time.

Slowly she lifted her head, her hands staying pressed to the glass, to the picture of the world just beyond, to the realm she could almost nearly touch.

Ciera watched her in terror. Anticipating her collapse at any moment. Expecting to watch the last wisps of life be syphoned from her friend. She had felt it all day. Felt as Aislinn had slowly slipped from this world, her presence, her substance dissolving until she was nothing but an indistinct shadow of her former self.