This was written by someone who is very close to us in regards to the Rahkas Wars. I have reprinted it here exactly as it was written originally. I thought it poignant.
Rain.
I can always hear your heart beating when it rains.
Pale, cold; everlasting wetness that soaks the very bones that hold up your frail countenance.
A miracle that you still stand strong; terror and exhaustion collide into a weary daze, blood-stricken and tearstained (but only on the inside - I know you never want me to see you cry). It amazes me that in the midst of this agony, knee-deep in mud and slamming into the ground, avoiding stray pieces of shrapnel, metal flying into your field jacket, piercing and grave, you come to me with hope in your eyes, holding me gently against scarred and burned flesh, drying the tears from my eyes and asking me if I'm all right.
In dreams I can feel the steady pounding of feet on wet ground; the malice, laced with pain and false security. It seems as if these nights will never end - a malignancy on the grand landscape of life, feeding like the most pestilent parasite imaginable; a dark, unnerving terror in the night, a fear that aches in your soul, making you shudder and beg the heavens that you're a child again, in the midst of a nightmare, and you'll wake up soon.
We'll wake up soon.
To gunfire and the scent of the dying - you've never stopped to imagine me elbows-deep in blood and gore, piecing back together what they've torn apart, sending them back to you for another round of torment as best as I am able. You never ask me what I do in those few hours that darkness overwhelms me, and the dreams shift me into a place where all I can do is pray that I'm strong enough to keep up with the demands on my body, my mind, my soul. It doesn't occur to you that yes, I do not fight with a weapon - but I fight with sheer force of will and blind skill, a thousand muttered prayers in curses in any language that sounds the most satisfying at the time.
It's not real for me, you'll say. I'm so very far away and I've never seen the horror. I have no idea what it's like to cower in the trenches, miserable and afraid, wondering if the next sound will be a shell dropped or the scream of a dying comrade.
You have no idea.
Though I may not be there to see the causes of such wounds, my mind plays the forensic examiner for me - forced to examine all angles, penetrate the depths of the agony that lies before me. The easy part is tending to the flesh - the hard part is sending them back out into the rain on their deathbed.
Perhaps one day you'll ask me. Maybe one day you'll see that I, too, can be a warrior. But I'm not, and I never will be --
I'm simply a girl, wrapped in blood and bandages, gazing into the darkness in front of me as I brace myself for the next wave of terror, unsure of who will come to me next - afraid it will be you.
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