Information

Hyph
Legacy Name: Hyph

The Reborn Tigrean
Owner: Laur

Age: 13 years, 4 months, 1 week

Born: December 7th, 2010

Adopted: 13 years, 4 months, 1 week ago

Adopted: December 7th, 2010

Statistics

• Level: 524
   
• Strength: 1,739
   
• Defense: 1,075
   
• Speed: 1,301
   
• Health: 1,311
   
• HP: 1,311/1,311
   
• Intelligence: 1,083
   
• Books Read: 1062
• Food Eaten: 25
• Job: Couture Designer

"And were an epitaph to be my story I'd have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover's quarrel with the world."
- Robert Frost


Thanks for the headshot, Sami!

---

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cracked, faded picture of a young woman cradling a baby. A man stood next to her with his hand around her waist, his face bowed as if about to kiss the child's forehead. The woman's face was turned towards his, glowing with joy.

"Is this you?"

"Yeah. Well, it was me at least."

"What do you mean?"

The soldier looked at the picture and tears filled his eyes once more. His thumb traced the outline of the woman and child's face.

"That woman, that baby girl. They were my world," he said. He took a ragged breath, regaining his composure as he returned the photo to his breast pocket. "I enlisted when I was nineteen. I had just married my high school sweetheart and, right before I left, we found out we would soon be adding another to our family. I was so full of joy, but she - she had already been nervous about me leaving and the news set her on edge. The war to the east had just begun. She was a strong woman. She wasn't afraid of going through pregnancy alone; she only wished I could guarantee a safe return for myself. Nevertheless, mere days after finding out our news, I was heading east, leaving behind my angel. Fourteen months later, I had a month-long leave. It was the best month of my life, to tell the truth. That's when this picture was taken. Our little one was just about six months by then. My Lord! You should have seen her. The world should have seen her. She was the most perfect being to ever see the sunlight, with her mother's golden, wheat-colored hair and my own blue eyes. When she smiled, it felt as if all of nature held its breath lest it disturb her. I couldn't get enough of her. I was convinced that if the armies could see such light, they would be so enchanted that the entire war would stop. For 34 days, the three of us simply were.

"Thirty-four days. Just over a month. It came and it went and I knew I had to return to the lines. As hard as it had to been to leave the first time, this time was infinitely harder. I was not only leaving my beloved, but I felt I was leaving heaven itself. My wife walked me to the town center, where the militia would be re-convening for us to set out once more. Our baby girl was asleep on her back. She - my wife, that is - she held me tight with her head pressed to my chest, and I knew she was trying to hide her tears from me. She whispered to me, 'Please don't leave us.' - Just like that. Quiet enough that it might have been the breeze carrying a voice from afar. With her leaning forward, my child's head was just under my own, and I kissed her soft hair. I pulled back only enough to lift my wife's chin up to mine, to look into her deep brown eyes, and I promised her that I would return. That no matter what it meant on the lines, that I would return. I kissed her goodbye - the always-too-short, bitter-sweet kiss of parting lovers - and fell into line, preparing for departure. When I reached the town limits and looked back, her eyes were still closed from the kiss. And just like that, I left my darling girls... my darling girls..."

His head fell into his hands. The unhappy, unsaid ending to this story was thick in the air. Some time passed before the man raised his head once more, tears leaving tracks down his dirty cheeks.

"It was the last time I saw them. I was resting up at camp about two months later when rumors started circling that my hometown had been raided. I spent five days in agony, huddling together with the handful of others from my town. Finally, the lists came, confirming the rumors. My eyes ran down the list and saw their names - names that I still can't speak to this day. There are no words. Their end may as well have been my own. I finished out the three years I had promised the army, initially thinking I would extend my contract. But what started out as a pleasant feeling of revenge against those who had stolen my world quickly turned sour. I loathed too much the blood and death and murder, as I began to see it. I couldn't help thinking that those I were shooting were husbands and sons themselves, and that they had others waiting and praying for them the way she had once done for me. So, at the end of my three years, I turned in my gun and went where home had once been.

"I returned to my hometown, but realized within the week that I could bear neither the attempted comforts of our neighbors, nor the sight of our home. I stayed with a militia buddy who had also returned following his end of service the year prior - though he had returned in better shape, to his wife who had escaped the violence. It had been over a year, but every time I walked through the charred remains of our house, I imagined I could hear cries for help. I could feel the heat of the fire. Everything in me screamed that, had I been home, I could have saved them. I know I could have. Even if I had failed, at least I would have died alongside them." His voice broke as he continued, "I promised her I would come back. I promised. And I did, but too late... too late...

"The week of this torment ended with me stumbling off one night with a bottle in one hand and this picture in my pocket. I wandered from town to town for about three weeks. I don't really know how long. Or how far, for that matter. I thought I'd never settle; I no longer had a home. But one morning, I woke up with a pounding head and dew in my hair. I woke up right here, under this willow, and when I turned and saw the shimmering memorial stone there, I suddenly felt I was back in my town at her grave. This was ridiculous of course. They never had a real grave, you know. All the victims shared a mass grave on the outskirts of town. It's only marked by a cross now - that is, at the time I left. That's all that was left of them when I returned.

"It took me a moment before my head cleared enough to realize that this wasn't her grave - that I wasn't in my town at all. That this attack had in fact happened a good decade before she and I had met.

"That day, I walked to the tavern over that way and talked a bit with the barkeeper up there. He was eleven during the attack. Escaped out the window and into the forest, but he was the only one of his family. I don't know who all he lost that day. He doesn't like talking about it. But he returned about ten years after the fire and helped rebuild this place. He even made the memorial there. Anyway, I talked to him that day and he told me about this town's past and I just... I couldn't pull myself away after that. At the time, the town was about a decade ahead of where I had left in terms of healing, even if physically my town had less to rebuild. It's been five years now. I guess my town has also healed quite a bit, moved on, but part of me feels that the people here will always be ahead. I left in part because I couldn't bear to see my own town heal without them in it. I stay here because it gives me a measure of comfort to know my town - my neighbors and friends - can move on if they choose to."

"Where does that leave you?"

"It leave me right here, under this willow, replaying their deaths every day, seeing each moment how I could have saved them, hearing constantly that small whisper begging me not to leave. It leaves me here drinking to keep away the endless, nagging thoughts and gambling so I have money to drink. It leaves me in the same place of time for five excruciating years, waiting for death. I say I'm a stranger here because, indeed, I know only the barkeep and his family by name. I know precious few others by face - other drunks and gamblers mostly. The town knows me only by my questionable reputation. The barkeeper alone shows any warmth toward me. He cuts me off when he knows I've had too much to drink, he gives me drinks on credit when I'm broke, listens to me when he knows I need an ear, and he lets me sleep on one of the couches in the tavern - that is, the nights I don't stumble down to this willow. But even his wife wishes I would leave. She doesn't say it, of course, but I can feel it by the way she shuffles her children away from my sight. She thinks I'm a bad example for them. And who can blame her? Look at me: I'm a ragged mess-of-a-former-soldier who spends the majority of his time in quiet, drinking. I'd want my kids away from me too. I can't fault her for wanting me gone. She's a good mother to those kids, just as my wife would have been to ours..."

The soldier, his voice tapering off, suddenly turned with fire in his eyes. The night was still young.

"I forgot to introduce myself," the soldier said. "Hyph, at your service."

He smiled.

"Let's have a drink."

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