It doesn’t end with the line, because it got away from me and I couldn’t make it work. It was heavily inspired by it though so I’m posting it under the prompt anyway.

Anyway, this isn’t my best work, but better to post something than nothing! Here it is

———

Nancy grinned sharply as she looked at the crowd in front of her.

They were joking and messing around with their neighbors. Once upon a time, Nancy would have seen that as their weakness - they didn’t take things seriously enough, she thought - but now she looked at them, with the dirt on their faces, the armor on their bodies, and the weapons in their hands, and she knew they were ready to fight.

Their numbers may be much smaller, but each and every one of them was worth at least a hundred of their enemy, no matter how light-hearted and playful they seemed now. Nancy couldn’t be more proud; she’d trained them well.

Only because of her superior senses did she hear the nearly the sound of crunching leaves in the distance so early.

She shouted a command, and the crowd in front of her was silent and standing in neat, orderly rows within mere seconds, awaiting her next orders.

A few moments, and everyone else could hear it - and everyone else could feel it - the approach of the enemy.

Nancy looked at the faces of her army. The faces ranged from smiling, excited ones to pale, frightened ones, but they all had one thing in common: a look of steely determination.

She knew all of her soldiers would fight to the death for their village; for their legacy; for their cause.

——————

And fight to the death they did.

Each fighter on her side was worth a hundred of the enemy, but that didn’t mean much when they only numbered around three hundred, and they were faced with many tens of thousands.

They’d known from the start it would be a losing battle. Nancy sighed as her soldiers began to fall one by one; they were each surrounded by the bodies of their enemies, but each one that fell was replaced by another. There was no ground to be made when faced with that overwhelming sea.

And soon she was the only one standing. She looked at her allies, who lay bleeding, dead, and dying on the ground, and at the enemy, who were exploring their newly conquered lands.

Nancy sighed, wishing, as she always did in the aftermath, that she could have had any other job. But she was the angel sent to train - but never to fight amongst - the Lost Causes for their Battles That Couldn’t be Won.

She gave them the glory they wanted in death, but glory wouldn’t raise the dead.

She looked at the bodies littering the battlefield, and she shook her head with a small, self-deprecating smile at the thought of her own foolishness - because for a moment, despite herself, she’d dared to hope.

She sighed, turned her back, and left the shadows of yet another war behind.