Her hands were cold, yet her face burned from her fevers, the iron shackles around her ankles and wrists stained marks that seemed unerasebale. She decided to whimper out a tune from her childhood memories, was it for the moon’s amusement or hers? Now, that was a rhetorical question, for another to doubt, for she hadn’t time to spare in the wake of such an eerie night. Her lips mustered out words that had weaved themselves into the entrails of her mind, her palms against one another, was she in prayer?

The moon hadn’t its other half, yet it seemed happier than her, she fastened her sight as the words had begun to trip up against the buckling nerves in her throat. “Are you hungry?” It was barking chaste, that caused her to tremble. “You-!” The French soldier’s hand gripped at her thinly arm, it was dark. “Are you hungry?!” He barked louder, and shoved a piece of bread into her chest. Tiredly, she plucked at the bread in her lap, and trembled whilst trying to feed herself. The soldier tried to light up the lantern in his hand. He shoved the alight lantern between his face and hers, the moment her eyes laid on his features, and the moment his rested on hers.

Their chests heaved with a warmth that challenged the wintering air, their bodies started to heave away at the heat from the glowing lantern, their pupils dilated and the mouths became parched. The blackening sky had caved in, and the earth had loomed upwards, for the scent of each had strengthened in so petty time. Swarms of others had become swarms of others, and the stars that perched became temples to idolise.

Her sight gathered at his lips, as if a mirage of an oasis was confined beyond them, if she did not imbibe from this body of water, she feared he’d meet his end sooner. Her palm held the side of his hardened face, the warmth of his skin replicated the warmth of a dwelling, she yearned to hide within for eternity. “Are you cold?” The soldier muttered, his harsh panting harmonised with her desperate ones, “No…” She confessed, his sheeny viridescent pupils reflected the ambers of the lantern in his clutch.

“Not anymore…” She professed, fastening her eyes to bury herself into the dwelling of his chest. His flushed scent unrolled into her chest, there was the wish to mother him, and the wish to be spoiled by him, there was the wish to bequeath him with her everything. The gateways of his eyes, bejewelled in emeralds, beyond that viridescence, birthed the city of God. A mirage that could quench her thirst for eternity, to set foot into that land, what would she have to grant?