The wind carried the scent of rust and dried earth as the convoy rolled past the skeletal remains of what had once been a thriving border town. Sun-bleached signage flapped against broken walls, and twisted metal frames creaked in the breeze like mournful ghosts. The road curved past a dried-up riverbed where wild vines crept over ancient vehicles, their husks buried in dust.
Here, the war had ended long ago—but it had never truly left.
Aera stood beside the lead vehicle, her boots crunching on shattered glass. The group had stopped for a few hours to rest, and she wandered through the ruins, her eyes scanning old murals on crumbling walls. One depicted a family—father, mother, two children—painted in faded blues and greens. Above them, a banner read:
"United in Hope."
A bitter smile tugged at her lips.
Elian joined her, carrying a flask of recycled water. "Hard to believe people used to live here."
"They still do," she said softly. "Just… not here."
Further behind them, Ren and two other young soldiers were scavenging through a derelict shop for salvageable gear. One of them let out a triumphant whoop and held up an ancient, dust-caked guitar with half its strings missing.
"Think we can fix this?"
Aera called out, "Only if you promise not to play anything terrible."
Ren grinned. "Can't promise that, Commander."
The evening passed in a quiet hush of small comforts. Someone lit a small fire pit using debris and scavenged fuel, and they sat around it while the sun dipped beneath the scarred horizon. Despite their exhaustion, the soldiers shared quiet stories—of homes long lost, families separated, dreams still carried.
One woman, Cally from Vanguard, revealed she used to be a midwife before the war took her village. Another, Lex from Echo, spoke about his dog, Miro, who once saved him from a buried landmine—only to die from a falling drone days later.
Aera listened to them all.
She didn't interrupt, didn't redirect the conversation. She just listened. Not as a commander, not as a strategist—but as someone who bore the same grief in different shapes.
Then came laughter.
Elian, normally reserved, had been coaxed into playing the half-broken guitar. The sounds it made were scratchy and unrefined, but the rhythm was there. Someone clapped along. Someone else started singing—a folk tune from the northern ranges, soft and laced with memory.
Aera closed her eyes for a moment and let herself feel.
In the dark between stars and firelight, they were no longer soldiers.
They were just people.
Later that night, in the solitude of her tent, Aera pulled out a worn notebook. She flipped past maps and tactical sketches until she found a blank page. There, she wrote down the names of the soldiers who had spoken tonight—along with their stories.
Not for strategy.
Not for posterity.
Just to remember.
Meanwhile, far to the east…
In the command halls of Bastion, Kael Riven stood before a digital map that pulsed with slow, deliberate precision. His HUD flickered inside the lenses of his glasses—processing troop formations, migration patterns, resource shortages, and over two hundred live variables.
The room was silent, save for the soft hum of data.
Kael blinked.
The HUD highlighted Aera's projected location, drawing probability lines and heatmaps. He watched, calculating silently, then paused. His gaze drifted from the analytics toward a nearby security feed—one showing a child drawing on a wall in one of the Bastion's outer districts. A crude sun with smiling stick figures.
He stared at it for a long time.
Then turned back to the screen.
Back with Aera…
The next day, they passed a marker stone at the edge of the Dead Belt. It had once marked the border of a nation long consumed by Dezune flames. The name was too weathered to read.
Elian asked, "Do you ever think peace is possible in a world this broken?"
Aera didn't answer right away.
But then she looked back at the convoy, where Ren was teaching someone how to restring the broken guitar, where a soldier carefully braided Cally's hair, where Lex passed around a dented thermos like it was treasure.
And she smiled.
"I think peace starts small."