the poppies blow;

[notachickenhawk]

Sender: Anonymous
To: Everyone
Subject: War

I know this is a difficult subject for some so please move along if it is for you. But for those of you who have been in wars or battles (formal or not) - how do you deal with it after?

At least from my perspective it's not over yet, but... I don't have to fight here. I don't have to be afraid for the lives of myself or those around me. But the blood is still on my hands. The battles I fought still took their toll. Nothing seems to help. I've heard 'time will help' but that doesn't do anything for me now, when I need help.

I don't normally ask for help, but I'm at a loss here.

Comments

Sender: Zelda

[multidisciplinary]

[ Normally, Zelda would have plenty of advice to share with someone. This is a subject she knows a lot about, having lived through not one, but two wars. But Zelda is tired and heartsick, so she will just share the one thing that drove her forward for the past four years. ]

Rebuild.

[notachickenhawk]

[Honestly he's also tired and heartsick. He's in mourning, even though the person he's mourning is here in Reverein with him. It's an odd feeling, and he's not sure what to do with it.]

How? Where?

[multidisciplinary]

[ Mourning is never easy. Zelda has done it almost as many times as she has fingers and still it never gets easier. ]

If not at home, then here.

War destroys. If we are to embrace the peace so many sacrificed themselves for, then we must move forward. Rebuild. If we remain mired in what we have lost to war, then their deaths were in vain.

[notachickenhawk]

I don't know what I can do here. I can patrol for monsters but that's just more killing. And while I'm built for killing, that's just more destruction.

War's destroyed who I was pretty much entirely on multiple levels. I don't know how to live without fighting anymore.

[multidisciplinary]

[ No, patrolling and killing monsters is not what she has in mind. Protecting people from danger is good, but it is not what Anonymous needs. ]

Did you ever dream of the day the war would end?

[notachickenhawk]

[Did he? ... He's not sure if he can remember.]

At the beginning, maybe. But as it dragged on, I think I stopped dreaming of it and just started trying to focus on surviving until the next day.

It's only been maybe two and a half years, but it feels like forever.

[multidisciplinary]

Each day of war somehow feels like it will never end. And yet, sometimes you don't want that day to end because the next one could be far worse.

[ She has definitely felt that way during the Imprisoning War, both wishing each miserable day would hurry up and end while simultaneously dreading what horrible things could happen the next. Either way-- ]

Do you remember what you used to dream about?

[notachickenhawk]

Yeah. I've seen bad and I've seen worse. I don't want to see what's worse than worse.

... I remember that I would hope that all of my friends could be safe and happy in their homes. And that I could be... free. I don't know, I was never really included in those dreams.

[multidisciplinary]

Your own dreams did not include yourself? Or was the choice to exclude yourself a conscious one?

[ This kind of feels important and might explain why Anon feels so directionless without war to dictate their life. ]

[notachickenhawk]

... They all had normal lives they could go back to. It was too late for me to have a normal life to go back to.

That opportunity was already lost to me.

[multidisciplinary]

[ She's curious what they mean by that, why the opportunity for a normal life is lost to them, but given their choice to adopt the veil of anonymity, Zelda doubts they will want to elaborate. ]

Then you are in need of building a new life for yourself.

[notachickenhawk]

I thought I had someone I could spend my life being around. And I can... here. But now I found out she's dead at home.

... Which is a problem.

1/2

[multidisciplinary]

[ Ah.

That... hits Zelda very hard. If she didn't know better, she could've guessed she was talking to Link. In the Hyrule he has returned to, 'Zelda' is dead, her entire being stripped away and reformed into one of the great dragons that now roams the sky. ]

I see.

[ She actually has to set the notebook down and step away for a bit because the urge to cry is suddenly unbearable. ]

2/2

[multidisciplinary]

[ Some thirty minutes or so later, Zelda returns, finally knowing what she wants to say. ]

Build your new life not just for yourself, but for her. She would wish for you to live.

[ She's projecting. Zelda doesn't know the woman Anonymous is talking about and she has no idea if their relationship is romantic or something else. But Zelda would tell --has told-- Link to go on living, no matter what. It is her deepest wish for the man she loves with all her heart. ]

[notachickenhawk]

[He assumes that's it and he wouldn't blame the other person for dropping the conversation. It's a little bit of time before he responds to the response, having gone off to get something to eat.]

[It's somewhat of a surprise to see a response at all, but he'll do his best to try to reply. ... Though what she writes is hard to come up with a response to.]

Sorry about the delay.

I don't know, though. I don't know how to exist in a world without her. There's some other people who care about me but it's different. The idea of going back to a place where I'm going to lose her feels painful and empty.

And I can barely live for one person. How can I live for two, when the whole of her is so much more than the whole of me?

[multidisciplinary]

[ It's uncanny how much Anon's words sound like things Link has said, has felt. "Painful and empty" are among the emotions that would pervade his dreams of home, and even now, remembering how that felt makes her heart ache. ]

It will be difficult; I will not lie to you and claim otherwise. Each day will be a struggle simply to get out of bed, and there will be days where you will not even be able to manage that much. But as long as you continue to draw breath, as long as you are willing to keep living-- to learn to live, after so long spent simply surviving-- then you will be fulfilling her wish.

[ As Zelda ruminates on Anon's words, she realizes something that she hadn't before: a fixation on the future and this woman's eventual death, when it seems like they are currently both alive together here in Songerein. Didn't the princess have that exact same problem when she first returned? Wasn't it Link who told her to stop focusing on the future and just enjoy the time the two of them had together? Even though he's gone now, Zelda wouldn't have done anything differently. In fact, if she hadn't lived for the present with Link, she would be regretting it now in his absence. ]

If she is here with you now, then allow me to share one piece of advice I once lived by: set aside your thoughts of the future and focus on the time you have with her now. Allow yourselves this respite from the battles in your past and the parting in your future. Simply be.

[notachickenhawk]

I don't know. It's all I can think about right now. I want to be there for her. I want her to be able to live. I'm not

[He stops writing for a few moments. It's difficult to admit this sort of thing - being anonymous helps, but he still has what little scraps of pride that remain.]

I wish it had been me instead of her.

I want to be around her but I'm afraid that I'm going to

[Another pause. What is he afraid of? A lot of things. ... A whole lot of things. Though there may be some context missing here that's important.]

Not to like... out myself, but we're both on the young side of teenager. Which is a difficult age already, but we've been fighting for years, like I said.

So at a time where you're supposed to figure out who you are and what you want to be we've just been trying to survive day by day, week by week, month by month. Trying to hold out in desperate hope of backup that honestly might never show up. We've had to deal with so much. Death, torture, horrific wounds that we've healed but had to go through anyway... our presents have been constant cycles of pain and paranoia where the enemy is everywhere and all we can rely on is ourselves.

The only present I know how to escape into is instinctive and violent. I've become who I've had to become and what I've had to become... but it doesn't serve me well here.

[multidisciplinary]

[ Given both the large population of dreamwalkers in Reverein and the fact that Zelda has never met Tobias before, Anonymous sharing their age doesn't give away as much as they might fear. Instead, their youth simply pulls harder at Zelda's sympathetic heart. The misery of her's and Link's adolescences pale in comparison to what Anon describes, but she can empathize with the stress and misery of growing up burdened with the duty to fight something so much larger than yourself at an age when you hardly know yourself at all.

Simply offering advice doesn't seem to be working too well, even though it's what Anon asked for in the first place. Time for a different approach, then; the one she was using before was working fairly well. ]

How long have you been living here? You needn't be specific if you don't want to: 'a couple of weeks,' 'a few months,' 'almost a year,' anything like that will suffice.

[notachickenhawk]

A few months. We showed up at the same time, thankfully. I don't know what we would have done if we were alone.

[multidisciplinary]

And how have you fared since then? What are your days like?

[notachickenhawk]

[It's not a bad question. Honestly a lot of the days are blurred to him. He thought that was just because it was a dream realm but maybe there's something else going on.]

I wake up early. I hunt for breakfast. I go around town and just people watch. Sometimes I go find books to read. I explore a little. I make sure she's okay. I hunt down food throughout the day and tend to try to sleep when it gets dark. I usually patrol in the late afternoon - make sure the area in the forest near the town is free from monsters or anything that looks like it would hurt people. I scare them off, usually. Sometimes worse.

I don't really have anyone I hang out with other than her. I know I should try to make friends but that's always been hard...

[multidisciplinary]

[ That's a promising answer. It doesn't surprise her that Anon patrols for monsters outside of town, but reading that they do things other than eat, sleep, and fight intrigues Zelda. ]

What sort of books do you read? Why do you choose to people watch?

[notachickenhawk]

I used to read fantasy and science fiction a lot. I guess... fantasy books more than science fiction now, and nothing with wars.

Though I like reading about animals from other worlds, too.

As for people watching... I'm not good at interacting with people. I stare too hard or I get really shy for no reason, it feels like there's no in between.

[multidisciplinary]

I've not read much fiction myself. I have always gravitated towards the sciences: archeology, engineering, botany, zoology. I liked to amuse myself with my mother's technical manuals when I was a child because I found the diagrams so interesting.

[ She chuckles softly when she reads, "I'm not good at interacting with people." Gods, Anonymous reminds her so strongly of Link. Little wonder the approach she is taking with them is so much like the one she took with her knight when she first endeavored to bridge the divide between them. ]

I will admit, I do not spend much time watching people. What sort of things do you notice when you watch them?

[notachickenhawk]

I was always an arts kid. Mostly drawing. I read enough to keep my grades up, but the idea of going through science books... not my idea of a good time. But art isn't for everyone, either.

How they walk. How they talk to other people. The way they look around for threats or not. ... Our enemy was everywhere. They infiltrated everything from the government and police to schools and families. So we had to get good at keeping an eye on people to see if they were friend or foe. I haven't really gotten out of the habit.