• We all sat around the fire. The fire cracked and burned, savoring the oak logs as it dissolved them in its pallet. No one spoke. Most wanted too, but some simply couldn't. One man's hopeless sigh was greeted by another's solemn shudder.
    "We lost." Drake finally said. I can't speak for anyone else, but I can assume they did as much; I didn't move. "We lost. Anton Lost. Redwall had ******** won." He had ceased talking with a smack across the face. Someone had broke before me. "Shut your mouth. As long as we breath Anton lives on." Blachter said. I smirked.
    Blachter. Too much solider, not enough human. "Give it up Blachter," I said, raising my head. I had a slight glance at Drake, whom had a red handprint on his face. "We have forty men. Forty. Most just off the bottle."
    Blachter drew his sword, pointing it at me. I remember how that sword used to stand for hope, honor, victory. Now, it was stayed with black fluid that one in housed a body. "You speak like a traitor."
    "I speak like a beaten man; as we all are."
    "We are not beaten."
    "Your right; we're decimated." I finished with a tone that let him know I was not in the mood to be ordered around. During any other time or any other place, I would have been beheaded for that. Though now, there is no longer any authority other than the man with the biggest sword.
    Blachter wanted to tell me to shut up, but he really couldn't make me to shut up. The only thought I could think of was night. Soon, when the terrors of the day enter the men's dreams at night, that's when I would run. I would pack my small bag with my simple pleasures that I've held onto over the years, and I would run. And that's what I did.
    I ran and ran and ran. I ran till my feet bled and only then did I slow to a walk. I was free. I'm sure that I would either be hunted down for abandoning the squad, or start a chain reaction. All I knew was that I was free to where my heart would lead me. And I knew very well where it would lead me.
    A leap over a log, a small weave through some trees and the path began to merge the one I've thought about for seven long years. I ran this path over and over through my head and I never thought it would be like this. It smelled the same, looked the same, the snapping twigs even sounded the same.
    Then why are the tears coming to my eyes? I should be happy about this, but I'm so stricken with a feeling of sadness, I was struggling to keep my legs moving. My muscles arched, my vision was blurry and my hands began to shake with a force not my own.
    By the time I got to the little cottage with the small pong, I had collapsed against the door. I was shrieking the yell of a broken man, cursing like a sailor and weeping like a scared, confused boy. When the door opened up and her soft, genital arms fell around my shoulders, my crying more than double.
    For the next hour I just cried. I cried more tears in my life in that hour than every other time put together. I didn't know why for so long after that, but that's another story altogether. All I know is that Mary, my love for so long, was there with me. All night, every second of every hour.
    That was the first night of the rest of our lives. A bad start, I know, but she found in her heart to over look it. She was too good for me. She even had a present for me. A boy.
    A boy with my hair, her eyes, my grin and her nose. Right around seven I would say.