When Will the War End? (Interlude)

Beams of sunshine echoed through the last wooden board that they had up, leaving traces and spots of light inside their modest home. Tomorrow was the day of no more wooden boards. In fact, most of their house was filled by a handyman's accessory set.

He finally earned enough money by selling groceries for the rebuilding of their house. He personally believed that goat milk was the main financial ingredient and the winning card for his success at being a day to day merchant — it was something that wasn't available that much.

She had waited for this for so long. After all, he promised her years back that he would try and earn all the money he possibly could, just to build a safer and more comfortable environment for her.

Ever since a little girl throwing pebbles by the lake, her one and only dream was to build a home with her husband, the love of her life, and to happily spend the rest of their lives in it. They would both have average jobs, however as long as they are happy is all that matters.

As she grew older and switched numbers of villages and districts, she began realizing the poor employment rate. She came to terms with herself and decided that it is okay if only one of them finds a job, while the other one takes care of the home. In the end, it would be fine if she was the one who would go to work, even if it meant traveling somewhere far away.

As she grew even older, she began feeling the undying need to take care of someone very special to her. She realized that she wanted to be a mother. She didn't have someone to look up to on that behalf, as her mother wasn't with her for that long, but her decision was definite.

By the time that she moved to Einstudht district with her father and uncle, her dreams and goals in life had fully formed.

By the time that she moved to Einstudht district, she had met a handsome young lad. Truth be told, she fell for him the first second she saw him. The same could be said for Orchard.

With a couple of years passed, they rent a house they found relatively close to the heart of Einstudht. It looked more like an abandoned shed, but they were more than glad to call it their home. This was the part in her life where she finally moved on from living with her father.

Slowly but steadily, Orchard's occupation as a merchant started paying off, literally.

As time passed, they settled in their once new home. They both start decorating it, where the main art director was Cara herself. As a highly religious soul, she would caress the interior of their house with icons in tribute to God, but not to the false one who ruled their land, yet to the one she believed slept on soft, dense clouds.

After seeing the spark in Orchard's eyes several times, she began thinking of painting. Her only reason she showed interest in art can be quoted: "I could see the beauty in him. No ordinary type of beauty — it was prettier than beauty itself. Maybe it was art of some sort."

Painting landscapes wasn't paying the rent, but Orchard's occupation was. Retrace that, he became a full pledged merchant. An impressive number of Einstudht district residents kept talking on about how he was one of the most reliable merchants in the whole district and how his stand shined like it was made out of pure gold.

With the money he had earned, they finally managed to pay off the rent.

Oh, what a wonderful night that was. They drank wine and danced under the big moon. This was the night Orchard made a promise.

"Now that this shed is truly ours, let's make a warm home out of it."

"It's already home with you, dear."

"I will make it even a better home for the both of us, without these wooden boards and cracks in the walls, I promise."

Cara held tight to this promise.

Time passed and the Lord kept changing the way the world spun. His laws were upgraded and this caused Orchard's job as a merchant to give less effect. In other words, he was barely earning any money.

This encouraged Cara to travel to the outskirts of the district and the fields near it. Her job was to collect fruit and crops that would model on her husband's stand. She had to travel far away every day. This was a harder period for the both of them.

Hardworking days later, she finds out that her father died. He was a man of great age that died a peaceful death, which was tragically rare to find in the lands of the Lord. This sole fact made Cara's heart filled with joy, but needless to say, she mourned his death alongside Orchard and her uncle.

Wars between districts were immensely active, it was only in their favor that Einstudht had no major controversy or no act done upon the Lord that would trigger an attack by the military until all this time.

But no luck lasts forever.

After the sighting of the first out of seven, the Shrike, near Einstudht district, the Lord triggers an attack and sends Stoth's military to raid the entirety of the district. This is where both Orchard and Cara's uncle get recruited.

Einstudht and Stoth emerge into war. Luckily, it was a short rivalry, but everyone knew that war never truly ends, only fragments of it. Where one battle ends, another one starts somewhere far away. This was the main philosophy of all the lands.

Cara's philosophy was a little different. Oh, how she was worried. She couldn't sleep not one night; not even take a blink.

"You promised to rebuild our home. You promised. You promised."

You promised.

After a month of sleepless nights that conveyed worry, doubt, tears, hunger and prayer, the war comes to an end. Soldiers and officers return to their homes.

She never hugged anyone tighter than she did Orchard that deciding day. With only a couple of scars, Orchard returned alive and well.

He was choking in her hands. They both kept holding each other close and bursting out in endless tears. To Cara, they were tears of joy. To Orchard, they were mixed.

That day, Cara found out that her last remaining family member had died in war.

Orchard was all she had left.

Due to the rivalry and damage Einstudht district had faced, Orchard had to delay his job as a merchant for a while. This also meant that rebuilding their home and filling in the gaps was also delayed until further notice.

But they denied to make things seem dark. They made love and decided it was time to raise a child of their own, even if their home wasn't in the perfect position for a newborn.

However, all of it seemed to be a stroll of bad luck that had followed them throughout the months.

After a couple of failed attempts, it seemed that unfortunately not all Cara's dreams could be fulfilled. It was said that she might never become a mother.

With this sullen sentence in mind, Orchard came closer to the promise he had made now about a few years ago. He knew it was the only thing his beloved wife Cara could now count on and hope for. He said to himself that he is going to work as much as he could as soon as things calm down in the district.

And so he did. After years of tiring work as a merchant and Cara's travels to the blossomy fields, he finally manages to collect the money to rebuild the whole house.

Tomorrow was the day of no more wooden boards. In fact, most of their house was filled by a handyman's accessory set.

Cara wasn't this happy since the day she married Orchard. They barely sleep through the gloomy night and wake up early in the morning to continue the works.

In the end, Orchard managed to fulfill his promise. All of the walls were sealed up, furniture was stable and everything resembled a real home. Although, Cara wanted to do one last thing.

You see, her ambition as a painter never disappeared, it just fell victim to lack of time and possibility. This is where she realized that she must use her talent in some way and what better way to use it than to portray it right at the entrance of their lovable home.

During the next few days, Cara would stay longer at the blossomy fields. She would sit for hours and observe the nature around her.

Her ideal was seeing beauty in all kinds of forms and shapes, through different emotions and perspectives — only by this way she could truly connect with the landscape surrounding her and be able to carry it home with her. She believed she lived in a culture of beauty. Painting all of its mesmerizing attributes all over the now nourished wall was a wonderful finale to the rebuilding of their home.

A couple of weeks went on like this and sometimes when Orchard wasn't on duty at his stand, he would visit Cara and sit with her on the pillow-like grass. Together they would embrace the captivating beauty of the windy fields. They absolutely loved it there.

They were peaceful.

Cara's longer expeditions slowly came to a conclusion. These were the last days she would embrace the landscape before she would start painting it.

It was no different day than any other. Her errand was simple as usual. She had to pick at least ten good oranges from the orange trees, grab a couple of apples and visit the farmer at the end of the district for some milk and eggs. She would usually exchange more than half of what Orchard would earn, however this day they were short of golden coins.

Before all of this, she would sit down at the usual spot and stare at the sunny fields of paradise for an hour or so.

But this day was horribly cloudy. It looked like rain would pour down like a waterfall, so she didn't sit for long. Just when she was about to head off, she heard the shrieking and rumbling of a carriage.

It was a military carriage.

It seemed to transport dozens of what seemed like prisoners held captive by four officers. The officers were from the Einstudht military for sure, thus she was convinced that they would just pass her.

But they stopped.

She was standing on her own two feet in sheer confusion. When they asked her where she came from, she replied "from Einstudht", which only led to an eerie command.

"Hop in."

"W-Why? What is the meaning of this?"

She refused to join the prisoners as she was clearly suspicious.

The speaking officer pointed his finger at one of the others. As soon as he did so, the same one jumped down from the carriage that seemed like it went through thousands of wars and aggressively grabbed Cara by the wrist of her left hand. He kept squeezing it.

Cara began refusing even more. She smacked the officer in fear as she quickly realized what was going on. The other officers stared in silence as this one started reaching out for his shotgun.

The fields turned dark.

Tiny bits of cold, early spring rain started falling from the grey sky.

As audible as the wind was, the opposing sound came in louder. The sound of the wind was always in harmony with silence as it would transition to it from time to time, but now that harmony was broken by one single blast of a shotgun. Right after it, the silence returned boldly once more, but now the wind was no more. Moments after, the rumbling of the carriage continued and quietly faded into the gloomy distance.

Orchard had just started wrapping up. In fact, he was speaking to his last customer for the day. While ironical, this was the peasant that Orchard liked the least; his talkative nature was too much to handle sometimes.

This time he kept on ranting about how the military might be even more corrupt than the Lord himself. Supposedly, they might start raiding the districts very soon. Orchard heard him through one ear and spilled it out from the other.

Later that evening when he had returned home, Cara was nowhere to be seen. He decided to wait a couple of hours; after all, she might've decided to stay longer.

But then enormous black clouds started hovering over Einstudht district, where Orchard noticed that they came straight from the fields Cara went to. Hard rain started pouring down to the dirty concrete of the streets.

Orchard could never imagine how Cara felt during that one month when he was at war, even after all her depicting and describing. That day, he caught a pure glimpse of Cara's doubt and despair. He finally knew how she had felt.

Unfortunately, he didn't live through the joy that she had felt when she first saw him return from the war-zone. When he had rushed to the empty fields that once held a sunny landscape within them and when he emptied out all the energy from his tiring legs, he began to see a hollow-like figure resting lifelessly in the wet grass. His head ran circles and prayed that that wasn't who he thought it was.

Prayers didn't work this time. The figure was indeed his wife, pierced through the stomach by a ruthless shotgun. She had lost a dangerous amount of blood.

The rain didn't seem to stop. Neither did his tears rolling down the slippery cheeks of sorrow and grief. He saw in her eyes that there was no help and she knew it perfectly well too.

He stared at her beautiful face covered by the tears of God, but God did it hurt that much. Seeing such a face dealing with such pain kept stabbing him in the heart over and over again. And every day after that horrible one he would recall the pain he had seen and she had felt and it would keep on haunting him until it completely tore him apart.

With blood coming out of her dry mouth, she spoke a couple of trembling words. These were the last two sentences she would ever proclaim and he would ever hear from her again.

"W-When… Will the war… E-End?"

He didn't know what to say. He began biting his tongue, thinking it was over, but another one barely crawled out of her open mouth. And so, her mouth would stay open, even after the end of the sentence. She said,

"I love you."

After hearing these three words, he stared at her numb, lifeless expression for a couple of seconds. He pressured his jaws and started screaming.

Orchard cried more than the sky could that day.