Tin Soldier

My vision was stained with thick waves of blood and hellish fire as I walked, alone, in the midst of utter destruction. The world was as I remembered it; inflamed with the wrath of death, and bathed in oceans of crimson.

Wrapped lightly around my skin was my armour made of tin. A poor excuse for defence, but all that I had managed to scrape together. Daisy’s body was pressed gently against the dull metal; my arms wrapped lightly around her, possessively clutching the charred body to my own.

The wave of battle had begun again since the last that I had seen. It was how the Sea had always been, and I doubted it would ever change. Fresh blood glimmered luminously at my feet in pools; framing the nameless bodies that iced the earth.

The sky rumbled with a threatening thunder, rattling the ground in a steady beat, but she did not frighten me. In a world of ravaged war and hunger, I survived. I was a soldier of the Scarlet Sea. I was good at it, and this was my home.

My blade slid smoothly from the chest of a leprechaun, watching the light of its red eyes dwindle to a lifeless darkness before swinging my new sword across the neck of a troll. Its head rolled down the mountain of indistinguishable limbs and into the mass of moving bodies below. My muscles were already tensing for the next attack.

Before I could take another swing, a single sound stopped me. A note floated on the air, as if calling to me, but it was not as I remembered. The smooth honey had hardened, cold and distant despite the familiarity, and I could hear the grief entwined delicately in the sound.

My heart fluttered in my chest, like butterflies trapped behind the bars of a cage. I knew who it was. There was no one but my Scarlett that could play the strings of my heart so intimately, so I wasted no time in searching for the lonely nymph.

She melted from the flames; appearing in a dark and terrible intensity as if she, herself, were the cold night. Enveloped in shadows, the sight of her ignited the fleeting memory of my dream; my crimson Scarlett reaching out for my unreciprocated love, and yet as I watched her now, I could only love her more.

Scarlett stood within chaos like a warrior princess, as beautiful as I had ever seen her. Her hair, matted and dirty, shone a deep gold though it was dipped in red. A wide gash painted her side, oozing with flesh and crusted blood that matched a scar across her forehead.

“Scarlett,” I whispered.

My voice had barely dented the air, but at the single word, Scarlett turned her head. Her movement was smooth, even with the wounds that decorated her skin, and for a moment I wondered if she felt pain at all. But as my eyes caught hers, I knew. Pain brimmed the depths of her eyes, grief saddening them with darkness. I knew then that she felt pain, though not physically.

“Flynn.”

The moment was perfect. The moment that I had been waiting for. As I stood atop a mountain of bodies, Scarlett peered up at me with wide, uncertain eyes. Disbelief laced her brows, unable to fully comprehend that I stood here. That I was alive.

She had missed me. And I had missed her.

It could have ended there. I had found my one, and Scarlett had found me. But there was one problem. And it wasn’t the war itself. It was what lived in the war.

Scarlett faced the demon of the Scarlett Sea; a monster of legend that had rumoured the ranks of soldiers for over a century. The creature was large; reaching to a height taller than a giant of Aerostle, and with power that could challenge a God.

Red scales lined the beast’s skin, stretching down the length of its tail as it whipped the earth with a thundering crack. Wings beat furiously upon its back; forging hurricanes that spread across the Scarlet Sea in less than a second, and I could see the forked tongue that snaked from between rows of gnashing teeth.

The dragon hissed feverishly as Scarlett raised her sword against it. I didn’t know how she had come across the creature, or how the fire-breathing demon had surfaced, but the mere sight of Scarlett filled me with dread.

She could not face this creature, and with a single whip of its tail, she was hurtling towards me.

Scarlett lay in a crumpled heap at my feet, Daisy now forgotten as I knelt desperately beside my nymph’s body. Sounding oddly familiar, I gave her a weak smile, pulling the girl onto my lap and wincing as she shuddered at the pain shivering through her body.

“Do you wish to live?” I asked the girl. “You need only ask.”

I could see right through her. I could see the feeble smile that stretched slowly across her face. And I could see the slightly reluctant nod as she looked up at me with her wide green eyes. My lips curled at the corners as I gazed at her beautiful, blood soaked face.

“Yes,” she whispered, her cold fingers reaching for my cheek. “If only to spend one more day with you.”

I had fallen.

I had finally found my Scarlett again, and this time I would not lose her. So as I helped the Melia to stand, there was only one thing we could do.

Entwining my fingers into Scarlett’s pale hands, I turned, ready to face the dragon together.