Writing Home
Title: Writing Home
Author Eglantine_br
Rating G
Word Count 375
Pre-Cannon Edrington
Writing Home
'Dear Mama,'
Percy paused a moment to taste the butter yellow of the words. The words for her on the page were the same as her voice, her presence. This was not the case with everyone. But his mother was always the same-- yellow and butter.
And now, he had committed the ink to the paper, he was damn well going to write a letter. There was only the small matter of what to say.
Percy shifted in his chair. It creaked. It was a quite elderly chair. It had been discarded and reclaimed, handed down, time and again. He let a smile quirk to the surface. Maybe this chair had been put out with the rubbish at the fall of Troy. It had been stretched by the fat arses of his superiors repeatedly, before it ever descended to him. It would not make it through another war.
Another war. And that was was a dark thought. Percy was a year into his Captaincy now, and he knew the secret. He knew now that each war should be the last.
There was dirt under his nails. He had no idea how it had got there. It was-- no, it was blood. That made more sense. He had visited the hospital tent. He had to do that. If he could do nothing of value there, at least he did no harm. He could hold a cold and sweating hand. He could look into the eyes of strong man sobbing with weakness. He could taste the sickness and the fading away. It was not a thing one spoke of, except when taken by drink, and even then, only elliptically, and never to women. It was nothing to put in a letter to mother. Better to say nothing than to lie. Maybe some day another man would write her a lying letter saying he himself had died bravely.
And now he had been dreaming, with his chin in his hand for quite long enough. The heat in the tent was climbing, his shirt stuck to his back. Time to write.
'I hope this letter finds you well, as it leaves me.' Percy began.