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Fighting for Strangers

What makes you go abroad... fighting for strangers... when you could be safe at home... free from all dangers?

Johnny went on through the woods, dragging himself along with his one good arm. He couldn't really feel his legs anymore, which was probably a blessing. Until recently, they'd felt nothing but pain.

As he crawled, those words from his mother kept echoing through his head, and he had finally come to understand what a fool he'd been. A complete and utter young fool. Young and dumb... full of adrenaline and wanting a nice, crisp uniform and some medals to impress the girls back home with.

What makes you go abroad... fighting for strangers... when you could be safe at home... free from all dangers?

Stupid. If he survived, which seemed less and less likely with each passing moment, he'd probably only have a pair of wooden legs and an empty sleeve to horrify them with. He consoled himself, thinking that he could at least be grateful that he'd not gotten blasted in the face, or hit in his body. Maybe he could live after all.

Damn that recruiting sergeant and his sweet lies. He hadn't come along on this fool's errand. He was probably back at some gentleman's club, laughing and drinking brandy... or worse, out roaming the countryside again, filling the heads of more young fools to go out and get slaughtered in the name of King and Country. Dulce et decorum est. The words nearly made him spit in disgust.

What makes you go abroad... fighting for strangers... when you could be safe at home... free from all dangers?

He almost laughed as he crawled up against a tree, laying his back against it. Looking back out over his red trail in the otherwise pristine white snow, he couldn't help but laugh a little. If his side won, at least they'd have an easy time finding him. If they cared. And if the other side had won, then... well, they'd also have an easy time finding him, in which case they'd likely be quick and efficient about what they did.

He couldn't bring himself to look down at his body. Probably fair to say what was left of it. Still, thinking of it all, he couldn't help but start laughing. At least there was no rasping to it. No gurgling. It was stupid, though. He was probably going to die here against this tree. The best he had to hope for was life as a crippled former soldier. And yet, he couldn't stop laughing. He was pretty sure that he'd gone mad. That had to be it.

What makes you go abroad... fighting for strangers... when you could be safe at home... free from all dangers?

Damnit all. What was the point in any of it right now? He was going to die here, alone in these frozen woods. No one would bother to come looking for him. He was a dumb recruit. Dumb was definitely the word for it. He was even starting to hallucinate. It wouldn't be long at least. He'd been thinking about the girls back home, that had to be why he was seeing a woman standing over him there. Or maybe he really was facing down a deer, and his brain was processing that along with the girls he'd been thinking of. That had to be it. Still, he wasn't sure about why she was dressed the way she was. Anyway, that didn't really matter much. He'd definitely cracked. How else could you explain a deer woman dressed like some fairy out of a storybook standing right there over him, looking down at him curiously?

"You were in the fight," she said, her voice sweet and... the only word he could think of for it was actually musical. Damn. She was talking to him. Not long now. She pursed her lips and looked over his battered body for a moment before she crouched down over him. "You can understand me... though I can understand not wanting to talk," she said, tilting her head to one side for just a moment before she reached out and placed her fingers on his chest.

From her touch spread warmth, radiating throughout his body. Even along his arms - both arms - and his legs. They had to have been nearly gone, but he could feel them as though they were whole... and they felt great. He was dying. That had to be it. This was his brain latching onto a peaceful last moment before he slipped away.

Only he didn't. And the woman didn't go away. She knelt there over him, watching him intently as he took a deep breath and finally brought himself to look down at himself. His clothes were tattered and bloody, but beneath them, he could see that his limbs were intact. He took a long minute to process that before he looked up at her, his eyebrows furrowed as his mouth worked.

"How?" he croaked out, shuddering and lifting the arm that should be gone. It moved like normal. It felt like normal. He looked up at her now, half worried. "What... what's happening? Am I dead... and this is my afterlife?"

She smiled broadly at that, laughing and shaking her head. "Mmm... no, you're not dead. You would have been if I hadn't found you," she said, reaching up to brush the hair away from his face, her touch feeling like a ray of gentle spring sunshine. It didn't entirely convince him that he wasn't dead.

"But... who are you?" He couldn't stop himself, leaning just a little into her touch, closing his eyes.

She smiled softly, stroking his head sweetly. "I am Honeysuckle," she said gently, looking down at him with her vibrant green eyes.

"Honeysuckle... what kind of a name is that? It sounds like the name of a fairy," he said incredulously. When she smiled brighter and giggled like bells in the distance, his heart dropped, his eyes going wide. "You aren't... I'm... dead after all... aren't I? Dreaming that I'm sitting here with a fairy... while my body is shutting down..." he muttered incredulously as he slumped back against the tree.

"Mmm... nope. I'm really here... you're really alive..." she cooed to him, leaning in to kiss his forehead. That really calmed him, halting his building panic attack in its tracks. "And yes... I really am a fairy," she said, looking into his eyes, her hand cupping his cheek, caressing it softly.

It sent a shiver down his spine and he let out a soft sound. "But... faeries aren't... real," he said, looking up into her eyes, trying to pull from her just a little as he shook his head. He had to get back. He might have been cannon fodder, but he couldn't just desert. That would make him a hunted man for the rest of his life. "Thank you... but I have to go back... I can't just stay here..." he said starting to push himself to his feet.

She moved for him and smiled, rising to her feet with him and wiggling her fingers at him, making his arm and legs look wounded. "There... that should keep them from wondering too much about the state of your clothes," she said with a playful glint in her eyes.

He looked down at himself and touched at the apparent wounds, feeling no pain from them. He looked at her and gave her a little half-smile. "Thank you... and thank you for... saving my life. I promise that I'll find some way to repay you if I can find you again."

She smiled... perhaps a little too broadly at that, but he didn't notice. "Oh, you'll be able to find me when you are ready," she said sweetly, "now go... get back before they see that you are missing, soldier boy."

He gave her a little smile before he left again, following his trail, which was vanishing even as he walked. He made it back to the battlefield, seeing the place he'd been wounded deserted and the enemy in the process of being routed off in the distance. He found his place and lay in it, his blood staining the snow around him.

He had a while to wait, and as he convinced himself that his fairy encounter had just been a fevered dream, his wounds started hurting again. By the time his army's cleanup crew came through, he was moaning in pain... easy enough to find.

They told him that he was damn lucky to still be alive as they loaded him onto a stretcher. There'd been a lot of chain shot and grapeshot in this area of the field. There were a lot of men who'd at best survived without their legs, and a lot more who hadn't. From the looks of his wounds, he'd just been hit by musket fire, but the balls had passed through flesh rather than hitting bone. He'd need time to recover, but barring gangrene, he'd keep the limbs.

After that, things were a bit of a blur. He'd not needed surgery, but the cleaning of the wounds was an experience he was glad that he'd not retained. The recovery period had bored the living daylights out of him, but he bore it with as much dignity as he could manage. He was fit enough to serve out the rest of his tour, and in the remainder of his battles, he really seemed to have the devil's luck. Either that or the fey's luck.

Either way, he got to return to his home village in the end, but everything that had mattered to him just... didn't matter anymore. He just couldn't make it matter anymore. The girls that he'd hoped to impress all seemed so... hollow now. Not that they were idiots or weren't good people, but after all that he'd been through, he just couldn't feel the excitement that he had before for them. He was rather glad that he'd not had a special girl before going off to war. He was more than a little relieved that he didn't have anyone that he was breaking promises to.

At that, as much as he'd convinced himself that the fairy girl was only a delusion, he couldn't help but feel that the world was just... somehow slightly flat after everything. Colors weren't quite as bright any longer. It was like he'd learned what true color was and now he had to go back to the muted shades he'd always thought were real colors. It really wasn't helped by the way he kept seeing bursts of real color. A person here or there that were properly vivid, clusters of trees, or a random building. Even more troubling was that those things stayed bright and vivid every time that he saw them, and he found himself being drawn to them, spending time with them. They were like little islands of reality in an ocean of the mundane.

In time, he even started to notice that the people who were real to him now were... off in certain ways. Tufts of hair... no fur in odd places, ears that weren't quite the right shape. Even people that he'd known for all of his life, he was starting to realize weren't the people that he'd thought they were. They seemed to realize after a little while that he was seeing them for what they were now, and they only got stranger... but at the same time, they treated him like he was part of some secret club.

He made it about... five or six months before he started thinking about Honeysuckle again. Dreaming about her, remembering the feel of her touch, the sound of her voice. Her piercing green eyes especially. Even his new friends picked up on the way he'd get distracted about her, and they seemed to be rather amused by it.

He lasted about a month after that before he couldn't help but start taking walks in the woods, long ambling walks where he was (without realizing it) looking for places that felt real for him. The more he looked, the more he found them. He even started meeting other real people, many of them more animal than human, but on the whole, they were friendly. Bordering even on helpful.

He even managed to start finding villages of these people, and then towns, and even a city. All of such curious design and construction. Often no longer obeying the natural laws that he'd understood for his entire life. In time, he even came to find what appeared to be an estate of sorts, and he made his way inside past the guards and attendants. Sitting at the head of the hall was... Honeysuckle. She smiled warmly at him, rising from her seat and walking down slowly to him, reaching out and holding his cheek.

"There's my soldier boy. See, I told you that you'd be able to find me when you were ready." She leaned in and kissed him softly, and this time, he leaned into the kiss... leaned into her. She smelled of wildflowers, sweet and intoxicating.

When she broke the kiss, he stayed there against her, looking down into her eyes as he breathed deeply and brought his hand up to stroke along her head. "Yes, you did, my Honeysuckle. You... knew that I wouldn't fit back in that life, didn't you?" He didn't seem upset at that. If anything he was returning her knowing grin, his own eyes glinting green as he looked into hers.

She laughed and stroked along his chest, smiling and wiggling her tail as she looked up at him. "Yes, I did. War has always been nasty on your kind... and it has only gotten worse. Even those that live in body... are often killed in spirit. But here, you'll get to live in body and spirit, free from everything humans play at."

He sighed and shook his head, unable to help but smile from ear to ear at her. "I would like that very much, my Lady," he said softly, his hands resting on her hips as he felt just so calm and relaxed there with her. This was where he belonged now, where his heart ached to be.

"Then kneel, my soldier boy," she said, and he knelt in front of her, like a knight for his lady. She ran her hand along his head and breathed, tracing the nubs that were forming under his hair even as they quickly grew. He cried out softly, closing his eyes... the sensation odd, but not painful. She smiled and brought her hands down from his antlers to stroke his cheeks as his face grew outward into a muzzle, broad and strong. Below, his chest was swelling, his muscles growing fuller as he could not help but arch his back and let out a deep sound.

There were the sounds of ripping coming from his clothes as they were torn and reshaped to suit his changing form. His legs were even beginning to shift, firming and toning so wonderfully while his feet reshaped themselves, his shoes bursting apart as his toes formed into hooves. When he was done, he was panting hard, gripping her hips tightly as the last surges of fey energy rushed through him. Honeysuckle smiled sweetly and traced her fingers along his proud antlers, smiling down at him as she said, "And rise... my Stag... my Lord."

Johnny looked up at her, into her emerald eyes with his own piercing green gaze.