Wechseln Woods, Capricorn 

Werner pulled out his pocket watch and flipped it open. It was hard to read in the setting sunlight dispersed by the brambles rising around them, but he could still make out the hands.

They’d been walking for exactly eight hours, thirty-two minutes, and twenty-two seconds since they’d set off from their first rest stop at exactly six in the morning. At this point, they were ahead of schedule.

Odd. It felt as if they’d been walking for longer than that.

Snapping his watch closed and tucking it into his breast pocket, Werner observed the skyline. It would be best if they continued on at a steady pace from here. If they kept the pace, they would reach the nearest populated town within four hours.

“Stop it, Stein!”

Werner turned his head.

Landser Klaus Kleine was sandwiched in-between Derik Stein and Wilhelm Fischer. They were pressing against Kleine from both sides. Stein wore a sneer and Fischer a grimace. Beside Fischer stood a frowning Emilia Bergmann.

“Enough, Fischer!” Bergmann snapped, pulling on the man’s shoulder. “Leave him alone already!”

Otto Vogt observed the confrontation from behind with a nervous expression. He toyed with his hands as his gaze flicked from the ground to his comrades.

Werner nodded at Gilbert who was walking beside him. The man let out a sigh before falling back toward the other group. Brandt, who was walking just a step behind him, fell back as well.

“Fischer, Stein, knock it off,” Gilbert snapped, pulling the two men off the bespectacled, shorter soldier. “My legs are already sore from walking all day. Don’t make my ears sore too.”

“Er, sorry, sir,” Fischer apologized.

Stein merely rubbed his neck and shrugged the strap of his conducting rifle up his shoulders. Kleine bowed his head, readjusted his glasses, and fell back in step next to Vogt.

Gilbert laughed dryly: “Aren’t you guys tired of going through the same routine every time you’re around each other?” He glanced at Kleine and Fischer who were looking away with embarrassment. He shook his head before nodding at Brandt. “Speaking of routine, do you have any more of your bootleg stories for us?”

Brandt comically rubbed his chin in thought. “Well, I do have one that I’ve been waiting for the right moment to tell. Heard it while I was in the Twin Cities a while back.” He peaked at Werner. “But…”

“You’ll waste your energy. We still have four hours until we reach our next resting point,” Werner said, turning away and looking forward. He could feel his unit’s displeasure at this information, but he continued nonetheless: “We need to tread carefully and be attentive. We don’t know if there are any Aquarians nearby. It’s not worth the risk.”

Gilbert jogged up to Werner’s side and matched his pace. “Come on, Werner, Aquarians out this far? Almost all of them got caught up at the Zeigenberg Ridge.”

“You just said it yourself. Almost. That’s not an absolute.” Werner continued at a steady pace. “Nothing should be left to chance, Leutnant Wolff.”

“With all due respect, Oberleutnant Waltz,” Gilbert pressed, “I think they could use a bit of a morale boost. I mean, we’ve been walking for hours and we’re due to walk for several more.” He leaned in close and muttered, “And it’s not like there’s a spa at the end of this happy camp journey. I know that even someone like you isn’t fond of Ophiuchus getting involved.”

Werner glanced at the man. “Gilbert, morale has nothing to do with this.”

Gilbert quirked a brow as if challenging the idea.

Werner looked away and addressed those behind him: “Landser Brandt, you said you heard your story when you were in the Twin Cities, correct? Then it must be your story about the Golden Beast. I’m sure everyone has heard it by now. There is no point in telling it again.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Brandt start in surprise. The man quickened his pace and fell into step beside him.

“Oberleutnant, how did you know about the Golden Beast story?” he asked.

“As I’ve said,” Werner replied quietly, “I overheard you telling it before.”

Brandt frowned. “But I’ve never told it before, sir.” He exchanged a look with Gilbert across from him. “Right?”

Gilbert half-nodded, half-shrugged.

“Guess you must be a mind reader then, sir,” Brandt chuckled.

“I am not a mind-reader, Brandt,” Werner replied, “but if you and Leutnant Wolff can’t remember the story that you told, maybe it wasn’t a story worth telling.”

Gilbert rolled his eyes and fell back. Eventually, Brandt did too.

They walked on in silence.

The only sounds were the wind whistling its way through the trees and the crunch of sticks and fallen leaves beneath their boots. The grayness of the darkening sky draped a dreary atmosphere over their route, and Werner could see why Gilbert had mentioned ‘morale.’ However, comfort was not a priority here.

Suddenly, a faint sound that did not seem to belong to nature reached his ears.

Werner held up his hand, signaling his men to stop. Most conformed instantly while others stumbled in surprise. Werner glanced at them before straining his ears and carefully examining the woods around them and the path ahead. A fog had rolled in from the east, threading everything in a haze. The faint sound seemed to bounce off the fog, resounding around them.

Music, Werner realized as he inclined his head and unstrapped his conductor from his back. He exchanged a look with Gilbert, who was frowning. Before Werner could interpret that frown, the distant sound grew in volume and the echo seemed to concentrate in a single area: there, just behind a jail of thin black trees to his left.

Werner lowered his conductor in both awe and confusion. He didn’t understand how he or any of his men could’ve missed something like this.

Right before him blossomed a large, white, glowing tree that seemed to stand at least ten stories tall. Its trunk was thick, its branches reaching far across the skyline. At its roots glowed a pool of light.

A vitae stream…? Impossible. There was no such thing documented in this area.

In front of this impossibility knelt a woman with dark hair, dark skin, and a dark green dress. Her head was resting on the lap of an older woman sitting in a wheelchair. Beside them was a record player that twirled out a melancholic tune sung in garbled words by a somber singer.

Werner stepped forward and attempted to make out the features of the older woman but stopped when he realized that her back was to him. The kneeling woman, however, lifted her head and locked eyes with him. A thin, almost coy, smile crept up her face.

“It’s funny,” she said, “how close you can be to someone, yet so far away. You’d think that things like painful memories would bring people closer together in solidarity, but they can pull people apart too.”

Werner brought a hand to his ear. Rather than her voice echoing from the distance, it sounded as if her voice was resounding in his head.

“W… rn…r…?”

The woman slowly broke eye contact with him and turned her eyes back toward the tree.

“You know,” she began, “they say that memories—”

“Werner!”

A hand clapped on his shoulder. He startled and turned. It was Gilbert. The man searched his face with concern and confusion. Odd behavior, seeing that there was an anomaly before them. Werner returned his attention to the tree and the women but only found the black matchstick trees caging an empty clearing.

There was a sharp prick at his temple and a ringing at his ears. The black brambles swam around him as did the faces of his soldiers.

“Wern—”

“It was just an animal,” Werner said, shouldering his conductor. “Let’s keep moving.” Without waiting to see if protest followed, he continued down the path.

He was grateful for the chilled breeze that came with dusk. It cooled the sweat still trickling down the back of his neck. Once again, a dissonant silence reigned. Rubber crunching against gravel, wind whistling through leaves, bated breaths.

They were watching him, Werner knew. His unit. He could feel their gazes glued to his back, and he felt his palms itch in response. What they were thinking, however, he did not know. What he did know was that as soon as he completed this assignment, he would check himself in with a medical Conductor immediately. He had irresponsibly left something to chance.

A barren hill came into view. The slope of it was gradual and dotted with boulders and fallen logs. It was slick with mud.

Werner held up his hand, signaling his men to stop again. This time Gilbert came to his side and glanced around the area.

“Up there.” Werner nodded at the hill that rolled up ahead of them. Very faintly on the hill-line glowed the light from a cluster of buildings.

“Houses,” Gilbert murmured. “That can’t be right. There’s nothing about this on the maps.”

Werner almost let out a sigh of relief. What he was seeing this time was indeed real. Pushing the feeling aside, he motioned for Gilbert and Fischer.

“Scout the area,” he ordered. “Who, what, why.”

Both saluted before making their way up the hill. They returned exactly forty-five minutes and thirty-two seconds later. Their legs were soaked through and caked with dirt.

“It’s an Aquarian base. Mostly injured men,” Gilbert informed Werner upon their return. “The town’s been abandoned since the end of the war. They took advantage. There was no red cross noting it as a field hospital.” He held out a crumpled piece of paper. “Propaganda posters.”

Werner digested this information. Lawfully, medical camps and hospitals that displayed the red cross were under the protection of international humanitarian law which prohibited them from being attacked. A rule both written and unwritten during the war. Where that rule fell during this time of tumultuous pseudo-peace when there was no red cross present… well, it was obvious. It would be best if they went around it and reported its presence instead. It would save his men energy and reduce casualties. The uphill trek would be tumultuous.

But then Major Ersatz’s orders came to mind. ‘Eliminate any Aquarian pockets on their side of the border. ’ These orders too were sensible, logical. Even if these Aquarians were injured, if they recovered and remained on this side of the border, they would surely become a threat. No red cross, no protection. No remaining Aquarians, no threat. The propaganda posters were also concerning.

“How many?”

“Maybe around fifteen-ish,” Fischer said. “There were about five who looked like they could maybe put up a fight, sir.”

“Maybe?” Werner frowned.

“I-It was hard to tell, sir. But I’m pretty sure it’s around there,” Fischer returned.

Werner mulled over this before they set out.

They crept upon the small settlement with the fog as their cover. They approached the town from all directions. Werner had the long-range Projectors position themselves in vantage points that allowed them to scope out the five uninjured Aquarians. Werner himself found a slab of rock overgrown with thrush above a small cabin. At the farthest left window of the building sat a man outlined in a yellow light. His head was buried in his hands. One of the uninjured Aquarians. According to Fischer’s report, within the building there were two additional Aquarians: injured. Werner could deal with them swiftly.

A three-note whistle indicated they were all in position.

Werner peered through the scope and aimed his conductor at his target’s temple. He pulled the trigger. The silencer on his conductor deafened the blast of indigo light to a windy whistle. Glass shattered. The bolt met its target. A spurt of red followed by a thud.

Werner moved his scope to one of the upper floor windows where a man who had been curled up on a metal bed shot up to a sit. An easier target. Werner aimed and pulled the trigger. The bolt whistled, cracked through the window, and shot through the man’s head like a pin needle. The corpse hit the floor with a thud, and the sound was followed by a shout of alarm from within.

Panicked shadows streaked across the windows. Werner easily followed them along their path with the scope. One strayed too close to the glass pane. An aim and a muscle twitch ended the shadows in a blur of indigo.

Then there was silence. Faintly in the darkness, Werner could make out the faint glows of fired conducting bolts from his subordinates.

Werner waited there, peering into the building, peering around in the darkness before he lowered his scope. Pressing his fingers to his lips, he let out another whistle which was met by a chorus of similar whistles.

After twenty-two seconds more of careful observation, he made his way down to the building. He creaked the door open with his conductor and peered inside. Red seeped across the wooden floorboards. A body rested by the window at the very corner of the room.

Werner knelt down beside the corpse to check the pulse. He decided to check the ID tag after he cleared the rest of the building.

After making his way through the first floor, he carefully, quietly climbed the stairs. As he reached the final step and entered the hall there, he saw a shadow flicker out of the corner of his eye. He raised his hands just as a shout ripped through the air and a body launched itself at him from the darkness. He was slammed against the wall by the shadowy figure and felt them attempt to wrestle his conductor away. A quick kick to the chest sent the person flying backward into the dark.

“Don’t move,” Werner snapped, pointing his conductor into the pitch-black.

From the opposite end of the hall, silver light spilled in from the windows. Moonlight unveiled from the clouds. It slowly cascaded down, inching closer and closer, until it reached the area where Werner’s assailant was hidden. The shadows pulled away from the area and revealed his assailant’s freckled face as well as the face of the man his assailant was hovering over protectively. The man was injured. The bandages wrapped around his head and torso were stained red. His breathing was labored. He would not last long.

The freckled man abruptly raised his hands in the air. “Please. We surrender.” Spoken in Common. He gestured slowly, cautiously to the man behind him. “He needs help. Please.”

It was pitiable, pathetic, unsightly. But orders were absolute.

Werner raised his conductor, aimed it at the man.

 What are you doing…?