Brenna's early morning routine includes a practice session on the university's organ.  She's haunted by her combat experience and finds her soul soothed by music.

   With the flick of a switch, an electric air compressor purred quietly as Brenna quickly set up her principal chorus, pulling out stops to suit a meditative composition she’d long favored.  With her fingers gently resting on the cool keys, Brenna began to play.  As her touch coaxed tone and rhythm from the great organ, Brenna’s mind drifted into a private place where the resonant interaction of melody and harmony soothed the many stresses of her soul.

    Several weeks of chronic sleep deprivation weakened Brenna’s mental acuity.  Her normal sleeping pattern of five to six hours per night could be reduced to as little as two or three for a while, but Brenna couldn’t recall a single night in the last month where she had slept soundly for more than two consecutive hours.  Mistakes riddled her practice, and though she normally chided herself ruthlessly for any errors in her performance, on this morning Brenna felt too tired and too distracted to notice many of them.  She played on, her mind wrestling with lingering turmoil.  Her memory, alive and vivid, washed conflicts new and old onto the shore of her consciousness, spreading the flotsam of each one into an ill-defined ache that persisted beneath the pleasant veneer she projected to hide her weakening self-image.

    As the months of separation from her family dragged on, Brenna drifted into a forlorn state of mind.  Now, with Garrick so deeply involved in officer’s training, a desperate loneliness that haunted Brenna’s waking hours so pervaded her thinking, not even Mariel’s patient and pleasant company could alleviate the impact of its influence.  A lot of prayer and the predawn practice sessions Mariel had arranged on her behalf strengthened Brenna’s ability to function without breaking down entirely.

    Disturbing scenes from battlefield experiences spilled into her dreams, a dreadful monster lurking in the darkness.  Having awakened from a vivid nightmare a few hours before dawn, sweating and trembling in fear, Brenna had been unable to fall asleep again.

      Mariel, startled from her slumber, suspected that combat trauma lay at the root of Brenna’s night terror.  She turned on an electric light and sat on Brenna’s bed, an increasingly familiar expression of worry etched upon her face.  Lieutenant Hougen didn’t know what to say that might be helpful, but filled with pity, she felt that if Brenna could express the distressing memories that stalked her sleep, the very act of bringing them into the light would help banish them forever.

    Although fully qualified with a rifle and capable of being sent to the front lines, Mariel Hougen’s linguistic knowledge kept her far beyond the reach of battle.  “You’ve been dreaming about the war again,” Mariel stated.  “Tell me.  What was it like?”

    Brenna wiped the sweat from her face and willed her trembling fingers into control.  She drew her lips into a tight line and held her breath for a long time.  The Lithian girl gave Mariel a hard glare and spoke in a very quiet voice.  “Industrial butchery,” she breathed, closing her bright eyes.  “When I dream, I feel like I’m still there . . . I remember . . .”

    Brenna stopped, her thoughts incomplete as a shiver raced through her body.  Fighting back flooding tears she continued, a melancholy sorrow cracking in her voice.  “They pounded us with their big guns.  Hour after hour bursting shells fell like summer rain, shattering the trees, hammering the hillsides, thundering through the forest.  We cowered in our holes, powerless.  All I could do was pray for it to stop.

    “Incoming artillery screamed overhead, our foxholes overflowed with sulfur and smoke, the stench of burning flesh, of bowels and bladders loosened, the reek of blood and vomit.  I could feel concussions rattling through my bones as they fired their rounds nearer and nearer our positions.  The ground shook endlessly.  Dust and dirt lingered in the air.    But worse, I could hear men screaming.  I could hear men cursing.  I could hear men weeping.”  She paused again, then looked back at Mariel.  “I still hear them.  I pray for their voices to go away, but I still hear them.”

    Brenna returned her stare to the wall.  “And when the shelling finally stopped they would come.  Wave after wave they would come.  Like a flood rising up to the neck, sweeping over the frozen landscape they would come.  Riflemen tore their front lines apart.  The rocket artillery ripped great, ragged holes in their formations, but they just kept coming.  I could see their faces, blistered and burned by the cold.  Their swollen feet dragged through the snow, but they kept coming. The killing went on and on.”

    “Garrick told me you were very brave,” Mariel replied, trying to offer encouragement.  “The silver lions on your collar have to be earned, Brenna, and I can understand why Garrick told me that the men always wanted you nearby when the fighting began.”

    Rather than acknowledging the compliment, Brenna shook her head.  “I was not brave.  I’ve never been so terrified,” she admitted.  “I’ve never wanted to run away more than I did in those days.”

    “But you didn’t run,” Mariel reminded her.  “Nobody would have blamed you for leaving.  Though it wasn’t your fight, you faced danger with resolute firmness in the company of men fighting for their freedom.  That’s the essence of valor.”

    Brenna swallowed hard.  “I told no one how I felt, not even Garrick.  The men in our platoon, guys who called me Little Sister and always treated me with respect, watched carefully, waiting to see what I would do.  Had they seen fear in me, it would have made them more afraid.  So I couldn’t run.  I couldn’t leave them, and I know in my heart that none of them would have left me either.”  As she recalled their faces, Brenna bit her lower lip and contemplated the truth of this statement in a private way.  “Any one of them would have risked his life for me.  So I stayed in my hole and listened to their screaming, praying for all of it to end.”

    Brenna paused for a long time, thinking, then shrugged and let out a sigh.  “Besides, I couldn’t go anywhere.  The Azgaril looted my home, killed my people, burned our temples to the ground.  They took everything but my family away from me.”  Her voice hardened as she turned back toward Mariel.  “Allfather punished them for their brutality, using the winter and your men to stop them.”  Then pausing, Brenna shook her head.  “And too often I could do nothing but watch them suffer.  I held them as they bled and died.”

    “Garrick told me you saved many who would never have survived without your help.”

    “Allfather works through me,” Brenna admitted, lifting her head to look at the ceiling and shutting her eyes, invoking God’s name as if in prayer.  Then she opened them and looked back at Mariel.  “But there were many wounds beyond my skill.  A severed artery bleeds like a river.  How can I stop that?  What could I do about a lost limb or a shattered skull?  Sometimes my tears were the last things they saw.  I cried because I couldn’t help.  I cried until I simply couldn’t cry anymore.”  Brenna sniffed and dried her eyes.

    Mariel put her arm around her friend’s shoulder and squeezed her in solidarity.  “You did the best you could.  Your god will honor you for that.”

    “You don’t understand,” Brenna replied, sniffing.  “My faith isn’t about me.  I’m just tired of binding broken bodies.  I’m sick of blood.  I never want to go through another war again.”

    Lieutenant Hougan stood and walked over to the window, glancing into the darkness beyond.  “What about Garrick?” she inquired.  “He never talks about his own experience.”

    “The army turned him into a killer,” Brenna replied, coldly.

    At this, Mariel turned around, the red hair hanging in disheveled curls around her face catching lamp light in a peculiarly pretty way.  “Why would you expect anything different?  That’s what soldiers do!”

    “I know, but I didn’t expect him to become so good at it, so ruthless, so automatic.”  Brenna’s voice fell as she wiped her eyes again.  “Mariel, he was completely sweet and gentle when I first met him!”

    The Tamarian woman pursed her lips, considering her words carefully.  “He’s a warrior, just as you are.”  The accusation, though gently delivered, stung.  “I spoke to Major Gretschel,” Mariel continued.  “He told me you cut a giant’s throat with a knife.  He doesn’t think highly of foreigners and scoffs at your religion, but he said that you and Garrick saved a lot of people on the train that night.  Now, I also know that his attitude toward women falls short of a gentlemanly ideal, but he praised your combat skill and believes that had you two not been there, he and his unit would have been easily overpowered and everyone onboard that train slaughtered.  It’s not like the two of you are killers without a conscience.”

    “We did what we had to do,” the Lithian girl retorted.  Then, seeing that Mariel was not backing down, Brenna breathed deeply and emptied her lungs in a slow, deliberate manner.  “I love what is beautiful, what is pure.  I long for joy and comfort.  I dream of peace.”  Absent-mindedly, she pulled on a lock of hair and began running her fingers along its length.  “But I will always be a warlord’s daughter, and sometimes duty calls from over my shoulder.  Whenever that happens, I feel compelled to string my bow and stand for what is right.”

    Mariel nodded.  “You’re a woman of faith.  In this world, even those who are faithful walk in the dust with the rest of us.  You’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with my people to resist evil.  For this reason I respect you.  I don’t condemn you,” she concluded.

    “Thanks, Mariel,” Brenna replied.  “I don’t condemn Garrick either.”

    “You love him?” Mariel inquired.

    “Yes,” Brenna responded.  “He is the missing piece of my heart.”

Unexpected Visitors