Work Text:
Kupalinka-Kupalinka
Dark is the night…
Dark is the night, where is your daughter?
He sat down, leaning on the trunk of the acadia tree. Yellow, red and orange leaves falling around him, forming a carpet on the grass floor.
He sat down, next to his squadmate. Her blonde hair blowing in the wind, her signature leather medical satchel slung from her right shoulder, resting beside her left hip.
He sat down, never taking off his helmet, her head resting on his shoulders as she began to doze off. Her rifle laying on the ground, unlike his, which rested beside him, the muzzle leaning on his helmet.
He sat down, a rare moment of peace enveloping him. One he knew will not last, and cannot be allowed to last in the raging fires of this war.
My daughter is in the garden
Plucking the roses
Plucking the roses
The thorns piercing her white hands.
Her eyes opened. She woke up from her rest, put on her helmet, and looked at his ever stoic face with a smile.
Her eyes opened. She checked her satchel, which was still by her side as always. Combat lifesavers never had it easy in any war, much less this one. She reached her hand towards her battle rifle laying on the ground, but decided against it. No matter her efforts, the rifle never suited her small stature.
Her eyes opened. By that, he was pleased. She had shaped up well as a soldier under his lead. Waking up in time to resume their march in five minutes is what he expected of his soldiers, even though he would rather they did not doze off in an active combat zone in the first place.
Her eyes opened, gazing at the stretch of red, yellow, and brown that they will soon be marching through. The road to Texas was still long ahead.
Plucking the flowers, plucking the flowers
Weaving wreaths
Weaving wreaths
Shedding her tears.
She smiled at him. Blood streamed out of the corner of her mouth. His face contorted, even though she was the one laying on the bed of the armored ambulance.
She smiled at him. The same smile she rushed out into that open street with. The same smile she wore at the wounded little girl laying on the street, trying to drag her back to safety as her squadmates fired blindly at the building at the street’s end.
She smiled at him. The same smile she wore the moment before the sniper’s bullet pierced her left lung, prompting him to momentarily forsake his role as company commander as he rushed over to fire at the glint still lingering on that window, as the white smoke finally began filling that damned street.
She smiled at him, her smile finally breaking as she opened her mouth and struggled to whisper out her last words to him: “I love you.”
Kupalinka-Kupalinka
Dark is the night…
Dark is the night, where is your daughter?
He sits down. The tree was the same. The leaves were the same. The scenery was relatively untouched. But she is not here to sit beside him anymore.
He sits down, recalling the song she sang to him so many times. Recalling the first time she managed to score more than 10 hits out of one magazine from her rifle. Recalling how she went from a scared yet still courageous girl who dared sneaking into the trunk of one of his platoon’s trucks just to follow them to the front, to the brave yet still gentle combat lifesaver who would bravely rush into fire to save a wounded child, disregarding the dangers surrounding them.
He sits down, the corners of his mouth curving down as he recalls it all, the thoughts and memories coursing through his mind, reaching its final, damning destination that was his realization. He had raised her as a soldier, and he watched as she died as a soldier.
He sits down, a worn leather satchel with the red cross on a white circle slung from his right shoulder. Her final gift to him. He opened the satchel, taking out a piece of paper. A song she had taught him to sing once, a song passed down from her mother. He stares at the piece of paper, then at the satchel he took it from. He began singing.
“Kupalinka… Kupalinka”