Fight the Clouds
by ALC Punk!

Mail, glittering, shiny... Fields of it, miles of it, waves of it foaming over the crests of hill after hill. And meeting them, another army, just as glittering--but this one with a dark purpose hanging over it.

With courtly bows and nods to heads of state, they meet to dance. The choreography beautiful in its swanliness as sword after sword thrusts and is met. Parts and delves. Dives and blocks.

No blood flows, no cries of pain, just silent, implacable movement as finely tuned as grass is green.

It was how people saw war, now. All shiny and bloodless. People happily killing each other with no one screaming for mercy or dying in agony as their entrails scatter to the ground. Crowds of men in shiny sparkling armour that never tarnished, and always clinked musically. Orchestrated fights that left the Good Guys always the winner.

Hollywood.

Happy endings.

She knew different. They all did, all of those who had lived through that time. Men died horribly, women were usually raped and degraded into the dirt. And those few who ran things... The less mentioned of them, the better.

Of course, a war like theirs had been fought slightly differently from the humans. Oh, they had their legions and armies, their shiny mail and brightly waving flags. But they hadn't lasted for long.

In the end, even the mail was gone, nothing but tatters and shreds, torn off because hand-to-hand was easier than swords.

You perservered on, not because you knew you were right, but because you had to survive. So many of them had done horrible things. Nightmarish things that had changed them forever.

Laughing comrades had become somber and withdrawn. Mellidane had gone from smiling and flirtatious harlotry to a silent and pale nun. If nun could be the word you would call her. The war had changed them all. Some said for the better. Others... Others didn't speak anymore of it, hiding from their memories in drink or hard work.

Applying themseleves to forgetting.

She had once tried to forget. Losing herself in laughter and high-spirits. Joining with others to play pranks on everyone and cause as much happy chaos as they could.

Even now, she forgets some of the times. Some of the pain.

Dear mother, if you could have seen us those last days... The beginning of a letter, never finished. ...we were so sad and full of pain. Mud covered so many of us, coating injuries and getting under our clothes...

She'll never write it, though.

They won, of course. Those brilliant, happy Muses, full of righteousness and pride. They beat the Bad Guy, got rid of the Evil Regime. And in so doing damned themselves to something they would never be allowed to speak of again.

Even among themselves, they didn't talk about it. They couldn't, really. It hurt too much.

So much lost, so little gained.

'Dear mother, we won.'

It hadn't even seemed to matter to her mother. That brilliant butterfly, flitting around Paris, only distantly caring that her daughter had been involved in a war. Her social circle expansive and valiant to prove they were her match in every deed and dare.

Maybe that had been the reason, in the end. Don't trust, don't touch, don't believe.

But she couldn't have that. Her natural ebullience damned her to hide everything under masks. Light and carefree was her attitude.

A way of life, so she came to believe it. Happiness in slavery, as a poet once said. Her lips twitched into a grimace. Relying on human originality to describe her own mental state. How very unoriginal.

Heroes.

How did that song go?

We could be heroes, forever and ever. We could be heroes for one moment. For one day.

She reached up and wrapped a strand of red hair around her finger, contemplating the TV screen in front of her. So simple, so easy, so clean. They knew nothing.

If she could have, she might have laughed. But for some reason the only emotion wrapping her was melancholy. Pain, sadness. The other Muses in the Lounge were boredly watching the same screen, probably those who were too young to remember didn't actually care. But those who did...

Remembered pain echoed in so many eyes.

Anniversaries always sucked.

Frustration tugged at her and she stood, stalking toward the screen. Ignoring the others in the room, she reached out, her palm flatly spread on the glass, almost touching one of the soldiers and dappling her fingers a glowy red from the underside.

Impatience filled her even further as another bloodless death occurred. Who had chosen this film, she didn't know. But it was irritating, and would end. Now.

The sword was a gift given to all graduates of the Muse Collegium. It flashed brilliantly in the light as she swung it downwards. A shocked gasp echoed behind her as it cleaved into the big-screen TV, shattering the screen into a thousand tiny pieces of silver-backed glass as the blade continued downwards and destroyed the electronics inside; short-circuiting the tiny control board and ruining the Cable connector.

With a wrench she pulled her sword from the wreckage and spun, slicing the VCR neatly in half. Sparks flew, of course, but she ignored them. It wasn't as if the contraption was running on real electricity, after all.

A final swipe, and the tape containing the movie was sliced into ribbons.

"Lyss?"

The question caught her attention as she sheathed the sword. She glanced over her shoulder at the Captain. "Don't ask."

"Nah. I was going to thank you." Grinning mischievously, the Muse held out a hand. "Buy you a drink, O Slayer of Bad Movies?"

Lyssie snorted as she took the hand, "Shut up."

"Never."

"Fine. I'll remind you of a certain incident three hundred years ago, that--"

The Captain held up her hand, "I'll be silent. As long as you buy the second round."

"Yes, ma'am."

The other Muses in the Lounge were finally awake from their stupefied daze. Several of those old enough to remember were looking less sad. The younger ones just looked amazed, of course. A few gave her odd looks, and one or two gave her grateful ones.

A flash of light, and the two redheads were gone, off to drink themselves merry. Or at least painless.

-=-

Dear Mother,

We never talked about those last days. I couldn't, and you never seemed to care. It wasn't right, in the end, was it?

You trying to not know. Me, ignoring it. I had to, though. There was... the pain and anguish was so great and intense.

We lost so many.

I watch the others now, knowing what we went through. And we survive, we put it from us and become whole again. Until those dark times of the soul. Those nights when everything has gone wrong that can, and nothing will save the day.

We don't have that sort of battle anymore, but we remember.

Mom, I... I need to see you, in person. We need to talk. I need to talk.

All of this seems so unreal, in a way.

I ramble, though.

I love you.

Please come home.

Lyss.

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