2.
Fog of war
Fog, subtropical forest, hill, romantic bucolism
Henri took a sip of coffee, then shivered at the stab of pain in the chest. Antoine laughed for a second, but then shivered aswell, presumably for the same reason. They found this particular farm, the last in the road to Saxi Bourdon before the hills opened up. Their little scouting detachment found this farm under siege by some Lotharingian soldiers, resisting their own countrymen. As it seems, they didn’t like the idea of burning their own tiny crops and running to the city.
“Oh, that was funny? I’ll kill you myself once I’m able to walk properly”
“Marie will hit you if she sees you trying to get up, fool.”
Antoine was a stubby guy, with an unshaven face and bright blue eyes. His torn uniform and the bloody marks where the bayonets kissed him just made him look even less civilized. A staunch ally in the battlefield and a pleasant company overall.
“The battle in Bourdon should be happening right now.” He said bleakly. They could hear the rain outside and the cold winds flowing through the open window. Here in the south the climate was colder than in Amazónie, but the humidity was almost the same. Looking outside they could see the jungle closing in the dirt road, leading to the main road. This was a relatively small property, but still quite big. Enough to appear on a map, the cartographer judged.
The road is a bit too wide.
Henri gathered his dignity and straightened up painfully in his bed. His bright blonde hair grew since he left his town, but now he had access to a razor. He could at least shave his beard and pretend he was not a barbarian. His glasses miraculously made it through the various violent encounters intact, so his brown eyes didn’t stupidly try to focus things from a distance. “All we know is that General Florent has reached the highlands. Everything else is speculation.”
“specu-you, pompous bastard.”
“yea, you come and get me uneducated pig.”
“when I stand up I’ll force my dumb rifle up your filthy-“
“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” The woman appeared through the door, frowning. A tall woman with light brown hair and green eyes in her twenties. A beautiful light brown hair that smelled of flowers. Everything here in this bucolic place seemed to smell like flowers, even the horse dung. This big wooden house kept their guest room in the second floor so they had quite a view of the misty property and the wind brought all kinds of tropical smells. Right now it smelled like earthy rain.
The walls weren’t really white anymore because of the climate and it was clear that, to keep the rooms that tidy and clean from bugs, it demanded hard work. Every now and then the amazonian saw a spider leaving some crack in the walls and going on its merry way outside where there was food. And yet there was some magic. Everything appeared to make this woman even more attractive, her rugged clothes, the way she moved to grab water from the well, it all gave her this exotic feel that made Henri burn inside.
“I’m sorry ma’am.” Antoine flushed. He wasn’t shy with women but sometimes that happened. “that fool was trying to drink his coffee but his ribs won’t let him.”
She had some difficulty in translating his heavily accented Amazonian dialect. Lotharingian descended from Burgundian walloon-bourguignon french, while Amazonian came from Parisian French with a touch of Breton here and there. Communication was relatively easy, but sometimes things got confusing. The stubby man made it all worse as he was from Equinoxea, deep into the jungle. What he called Amazonian French Henri called Tupi with some vaguely latin-resembling words. To be fair that’s what a metropolitan French called his own dialect once.
“hm, then sit straight, I’ll have Pauline or Adrienne stay close to help you with that.”
Pauline was a young slave girl, 11 or 12 years old, Adrienne her mother, about his age with bright dark brown eyes. This family was relatively poor, but they had their household slaves. Such practices were common in Amazonie and Lotharingia alike. The more Henri knew about the dufleuve (how some amazonians called lotharians, sometimes they were "sud"), the more he realized how they were the same people.
“I like Pauline. She’s such an adorable little girl.” Henri really wanted some subject to talk to that beautiful woman, Marie. He could die right now if the only thing he could remember was that delicious flower smell. Back in Europe his colleagues called him a fool for women. Maybe they were right.
“Are you trying to mock my accent, mister?” that took him a while to understand “because I really do not appreciate that.”
“No, really, I’m sorry. I just pick up on those things really quickly.”
“Oh yes”, Antoine was quick, “when I knew this fellow I thought he was a metropolitan traitor fresh off the boat. Turns out he could very well be a traitor, but his accent is just foolishness.” He then started what would be loud laughter, but recoiled from pain. The woman’s stare, however, made it clear that she didn’t really trust what they said. “I swear on my beloved snake ridden land back in Equinoxea.”
She kept staring at them for a moment, then shrugged, “you northerners are weird.” She concluded. “You need help with that rib, I assume.”
Henri skipped a beat. “Yes!” Perhaps a little too abruptly, “yes, it hurts a lot when I move.”
Exotic araucaria, fog, sunset, you get the picture.
****
