Summer was fading when the call came. Spartan forces were mounting a campaign deeper into Athenian territory, with Leonidas' 13th Phalanx at the vanguard. He broke the news sorrowfully to Elysia one gray evening, dreading the shadow it would cast over her joyful spirit.

But though her smile dimmed, Elysia clasped his hands between her own. Go with care, my dearest one. And return to me safely, as the gods willing. We have overcome this long already; a few weeks more mean little in the face of what we have found. Let your heart sustain you through the darkness ahead.

Leonidas could only kiss her hands and vow to come back to her side, before joining his men on the long march east. The raids brought victory after victory for Sparta as they drove deep into the Athenian heartlands. But as the days passed, Leonidas found himself haunted by the human cost often left unseen by grand strategies and political edicts.

Families torn screaming from burning homes, desperate skirmishes in shadowed olive groves, wailing women left widowed and children orphaned—all became his burden to bear. Each new dawn brought only more devastation, though the officers praised their success. At night around the campfire, Leonidas began silently composing letters to Elysia detailing the cruelties he witnessed, finding solace in picturing her calm blue eyes reading his words by lamplight, far from the carnage.

After three grim weeks, the Phalanx paused briefly near a small village nestled in a valley. As Leonidas inspected the freshly looted fields, a cry rose from within the ruins—an elderly woman had been found hiding in a cellar, nearly mad with grief. As gently as he could, Leonidas tended to her wounds and coaxed her tale free: she was Helena, widow of the village headman, whose family and livelihood the Spartans had destroyed that very morn.  

Days ago, Helena wept, my Dion still walked the earth with his sons and daughters around our hearth. Now they are fled or fallen, and I remain as you see me—alone with nothing but the ghosts your coming has wrought. A chill seized Leonidas' heart at her broken words, thick with the sorrows no army left in its wake. That night as his commanders planned their next advance, Leonidas spoke quietly. This widow Helena has lost all to our warfare. Let her be—she poses no threat, and her small home may offer needed shelter through winter's cold.

To his relief, his counsel was heeded. And so it was that through Leonidas' small act of mercy, another soul was spared further degradation in war's grim dance—a memory that would sustain him through even darker days to come.