War and Love

 She Fight 

A bruise she returns with a blade.

Brutal she was,

until she met him.

He apologized for the mark,

and for the first time,

her hand did not answer with blood.

That was the fracture

not the bruise,

but the restraint.

She knew it was wrong,

this silence where a cut should speak.

So she walked away,

aware she was no longer the same.

How could she be the same?

The question stalked her steps.

Still, she left him a warning:

“Let’s not meet again

else you’ll pay with blood.”

But fate is a stubborn thing.

It circled them back.

Not in battle,

but across a table.

No blood was drawn

only coins.

He paid for the meal.

It felt strange

how easily she softened,

how much she liked it.

So she named it "an ending".

Though It was not.

Coincidence upon coincidence,

they kept meeting

on the training ground,

at sword practice,

in the quiet spaces between breaths.

Once, chance.

Twice, curiosity.

Again and again

intent.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“The truth is,...” he replied,

“...I know your schedule…

so I slip myself in.”

“Don’t do it again,” she replied,

and turned away.

“Do you have to be so hardened?”

he called after her retreating shadow.

Of course not, she answered within,

...but he weakens me.

At every turn she saw him,

she looked away.

He watched her still.

Until the day he fell

not on the battlefield,

but somewhere quieter,

where wounds bleed inward.

Mind and flesh, both broken.

She was torn.

She had to be strong,

yet something in her was breaking.

"What was the point of this?"

she asked the emptiness

as they wheeled him into the operating room.

Her comrades stood beside her

silent, solid

their hands on her shoulder

could not ease the pain.

“It was a success,” they said.

“We hope he recovers.”

Hope

a fragile thing

in hands that only ever trusted steel.

Either way,

she knew she would carry him

Either as a man,

Or as the ghost

that taught her

she could bleed

without a wound.

© Ebube