The Russian revolutionaries of the PPF leave quickly and neatly, boots striking earth in a practiced rhythm, retreating in lines that look almost ceremonial. Their backs recede into smoke and uneven light, swallowed by trees and low fog, leaving behind only the echo of their movement and the aborted pursuit of the 204th and 205th companies. Shouts die halfway out of mouths. Rifles lower. The field exhales.
Comtois raises his hand and signals his comrades to stop. The gesture is sharp, decisive, and the motion cuts through the lingering momentum like a blade. The 204th company slows, then turns, reforming instinctively, drifting back toward Aldo as if pulled by gravity rather than command.
They surround him like bees around a queen bee: too close, overlapping, loud with questions and nervous laughter. Someone claps Aldo on the shoulder too hard. Another leans in, speaking too fast. Comtois watches the scene with a tight frown. The excitement irritates him, not because it is wrong, but because it is premature. They have not been separated for more than half a day, yet the reunion carries the frantic relief of survivors who expected worse.
Comtois waits until the noise ebbs a little. The team he sent earlier filters back in, faces streaked with dirt, eyes alert but no longer burning. He counts them without moving his lips. All present. He glances past them, scanning the gaps between bodies.
"Where's Tyrone Lawson ?" Comtois asks as he approaches the team, his voice steady but low.
One of the men shrugs, rolling his shoulder as if trying to shake off tension. "He's wrestling with Irina. But now, probably captured by the Polar Proletariat Front." The words land awkwardly, half joke, half concern.
Comtois nods once. "I'll send another team to follow closely so we don't lose track of him…" He turns away already, issuing short, clipped instructions as he goes.
"Aw…" someone mutters behind him, disappointment thick in the sound.
Comtois doesn't slow. "Not you. Other buoys will do it!" He brushes it aside without looking back, as if refusing to let sentimentality grow roots.
Meanwhile, Aldo steps back from the circle, leaning against a broken crate. The noise around him fades into a dull wash. He reaches into his coat, fingers moving automatically, checking pockets in a habitual sequence. Paper. Chalk. Empty space.
He freezes.
His hand dives back in, faster this time. Nothing.
[The Locationary Orb...]
Aldo's breath catches, sharp and shallow. He looks down at his hands as if the object might suddenly appear there. The memory clicks into place with uncomfortable clarity: Irina, the hurried exchange, his own decision to leave it with her. A flash of panic flares, bright and irrational.
Then he exhales.
[If Irina has it… then the battalion the Lieutenant sent knows exactly where the PPF is.]
The thought steadies him. Not relief but something more restrained. Acceptance. He closes his eyes briefly, letting the chaos drain out through his boots into the dirt.
Around him, men talk in low voices, recounting fragments of the fight, hands tracing invisible trajectories in the air. Someone laughs too loudly and then stops. A rifle clatters as it's set down. The sound seems amplified in the sudden quiet.
Aldo straightens. He smooths the front of his coat, the motion deliberate, grounding. Whatever happens to Tyrone, whatever Irina chooses to do, those threads are already moving beyond his reach.
Putting aside his worries, Aldo focuses on something more important.
He looks up, scanning the line, the faces: tired, alive, waiting. The calm settles in, fragile as thin glass, and Aldo knows without saying it that this silence is temporary.
Comtois's 205th Company departs first, quick and disciplined, boots crunching snow into a thin gray paste as they descend toward the village. Their figures shorten with distance, banners lowered, voices kept to a minimum. The mountain exhales behind them, wind threading through pine needles, erasing the sharp edges of the fight that has already been accepted as finished.
Most of the 204th Company follows soon after, Aldo among them, moving with the quiet obedience of men who know when a day has taken enough. The village waits below with its dim hearth smoke and uneven roofs. Rest is not comfort, only pause.
But not everyone goes back.
Six slave-soldiers—privates and corporals of the 204th—peel away without a word, their turn so subtle it almost looks accidental. They head toward a corner of the mountain where the snow lies thinner and the rock breaks through like old bone. Three of them carry Bojing's corpse, wrapped and stiff, weight shared evenly so no one bears him alone. Two others carry tools. One carries nothing but a chisel and a small hammer, tucked close to his chest.
They stop where the trees open slightly, where the slope dips just enough to shield them from the main path. The wind is gentler here. No commands are spoken. The two with shovels begin digging, metal biting into frozen earth with dull, stubborn sounds. Each strike echoes too loudly, as if the mountain itself is listening.
The three who carry Bojing lower him carefully. His body settles with a soft, final sound against the ground. Snow dusts his sleeve. Someone brushes it away with bare fingers, then hesitates, hand hovering, unsure if touching again would be too much.
The hole is finished slowly. Breath fogs the air. When it is deep enough, they lift Bojing together and place him inside. No one looks at his face for long. Earth follows, shovel by shovel, until the shape beneath disappears, until the ground looks almost ordinary again.
Then they turn to the stone.
The one who carries the chisel kneels, selecting a flat rock. He works methodically, carving with care that borders on tenderness. Mandarin characters take shape under his hands. He frowns as he works, concentration creasing his brow, as if correcting the stone itself when it resists.
They dig a smaller hole and bury part of the tombstone, anchoring it so it will not tip or vanish under snowmelt. The name is visible. Bojing. Simple.
When they are done, they stand in formation without being told. Snow is brushed from sleeves and knees. Their breaths slow. No one speaks. The silence presses in, heavy but not hostile, a stillness that feels earned.
They pick wild flowers—thin, pale things surviving against the season—and place them at the base of the stone. The colors look too alive.
"Born on Earth, then died in a strange world… fate truly has a way of dealing with things…" one of them says. His voice is low, distant, as if spoken from far away.
Another answers after a pause. "Could this be karma from a past life that we must pay for…?"
The stone carver named Bojing, writing in Mandarin, frowns. He straightens slightly, chisel still in hand, eyes dark. "Fate is the path. We follow the path. But we can also choose not to follow the path !" The words come out firm, almost sharp, as if meant to cut through something invisible.
He exhales, the tension leaving his shoulders all at once. "I really miss home, I miss Senbei…" His gaze lifts to the sky still bright, yet dark in its own way, the light thin and cold.
He finishes quietly, almost to himself. "At times like this, don't grieve. Be brave and move forward. Ahead lies a dark night, but our eyes, our hearts must be bright…" He pats his own shoulder once, an awkward, private gesture, then steps back and leaves.
Footsteps follow. One by one, they turn away, boots crunching snow. Soon only the wind remains, threading through branches, the absolute silence of nature reclaiming the space. The awareness of their situation never fades for these people; it does not need reminding. It walks with them, breathes with them.
They leave together, steps heavy, backs slightly bent, carrying more than they arrived with.
In the village, at the house of the village chief's younger brother, Aldo lies stretched out on his bed. The room is dim, lit by pale daylight filtering through a small window. He does not move for a long time. His gaze drifts from the forest beyond the glass to a folded notice placed on the table beside him.
The paper states that his team will be reinforced with another slave-soldier.
Aldo understands without reading further.
He sits up slowly and sets the paper down, rubbing his forehead with two fingers. The gesture is automatic, practiced. He turns the notice over. The back is blank. He uses it to plan his next rebel hunt, spreading it flat, aligning it carefully. He lifts the pen.
It feels heavier than it should.
The pen hovers, then stops. Ink does not touch paper.
Aldo lowers his hand and leans back. The room is quiet except for distant village sounds—wood shifting, a muffled voice, a dog barking once and then stopping. He calls for two slave-soldiers and has them sit with paper and ink. He tells them to record everything that has happened.
They write steadily, heads down, scratching sounds filling the room. Eight sheets of paper accumulate. When they finish, Aldo dismisses them with a nod.
Alone again, he gathers the papers and begins to read.
The words are plain.
Dates.
Movements.
Names.
Actions.
Losses.
The more he reads, the slower his breathing becomes. His eyes trace lines again and again. The details align into something heavier than reports.
…
Aldo sets the papers down, palms resting flat atop them. The forest outside remains unchanged. The quiet holds. And within that stillness, understanding settles—not sharply, but like snow, layer by layer, carried forward by those who remain.
The fire burns low but steady, a ring of orange breathing against the dark. Night settles thick around the village, pressing in from the treeline, but the hearthlight pushes back just enough to make a pocket of warmth. Two companies and the villagers sit together in uneven circles, bowls in hand, shoulders close. Smoke drifts upward and dissolves into the black sky. Laughter travels farther than it should, carried by the cold air.
Dinner unfolds without ceremony. Voices overlap, stories traded like coins…Earth stories colliding with this place's harsher rhythms. Pine tea replaces wine; steam rises from the cups, sharp and clean, carrying the resinous scent of unspoiled forests. It warms the throat without blurring the mind. Barley porridge fills wooden bowls, thick and honest. Minced meat is passed around in shared platters.
It is wolf meat.
No one announces it. The villagers eat as they always do, tearing bread, scooping porridge, laughing loudly. Arms drape over shoulders, hands clap backs. The familiarity is disarming, almost intimate, as if the day's violence has been folded away for the night.
Onaga Kei sits slightly apart, posture neat even on the rough ground. He sips the porridge carefully. The taste is wild—iron and fat, a dense, animal heat that surprises him. He has lived on rice, fish, vegetables; this is truly alien. He swallows, blinks once, and forces himself to take another mouthful.
The villagers say nothing about it. They keep eating, voices rising and falling, jokes punctuated by laughter that comes easy. They lean into one another with affection that seems unguarded.
[Is this culture, or genuine comfort?]
Onaga glances from face to face. He cannot tell where habit ends and choice begins.
He gently tugs at the sleeve of an old man beside him. The fabric is thick, worn soft by years. The villager turns, eyes bright, beard catching firelight.
"Go-nenpai-san, do you have any fish dishes here?"
The old man throws his head back and laughs, a booming sound that makes nearby heads turn. "YES!!! There are plenty of fish here, lots of them, big ones, it's just a pity that the people of Furaberg don't prefer fish, they prefer meat and herbs." He pushes himself up with surprising speed and jogs toward his house.
Onaga watches, puzzled, as the man disappears inside and reemerges hauling a large chunk of ice. Embedded within it is a salmon, pink and silver, frozen mid-curve as if caught while leaping. The ice scrapes against the stone as the old man sets it down. He grips a pickaxe—the kind used for breaking ice—and strikes with practiced blows. Chips scatter. With a final crack, the fish comes free.
...