Everything was over and we had lost.

I gazed down at the crescent moon, its blurred outline surrounded by the black waters. I starred as a light breeze caused the silver shape to fade and disturbed the waters surface.
Slowly peeling off my blood soaked armour, I left the breast plate until last. As I held the cold metal in my hands, I looked intently at my beaten reflection. My midnight hair clung to my face steeped with sweat and blood; both wet and dried; mine and others. There was a light gash across my right cheek which crimson liquid still seeped from.
Markings across the top of my head and around my jaw outlined the shape where my helmet had sat across my face. My gaze shifted across the reflective surface and settled on a pair of vacant eyes that returned my stare. A smile crossed my lips. But it contained no warmth or humour, just sadness and regret matched only by my frozen blue eyes.
I dropped the breast plate, which clanged as it fell on the rest of my armour.
Standing there with the lake expanding before me - the ebbing tide falling just short of my feet - I inhaled the moist air, rejoicing in the light wind free of the scent of blood and hostility.
I leisurely spread my arms to both sides of my body, wishing, wanting to suspend myself here forever. I drunk the air deeper and deeper into my body to preserve my passion for this place, protecting it from everything I had run from.
Free from the constraints of the armour, my clothes blew against my body with the wind, along with my blood sodden locks.
I stepped forward, my right foot now in the lakes tide. The water was soft against my skin. Welcoming.
With my armour left dead in the dirt, I should have felt vulnerable and


unprotected, but with every breeze that pushed against my body, my soul screamed with freedom, no longer under the weight of bloodied battles. I walked forward, my feet sinking deeper with each step. The water climbed up my body. Past my knees, my hips, my waist. Cleansing my body in the rush. As I continued, the water rose above my shoulders and head, and my feet no longer touched the waters bottom. I was suspended deep below the lakes surface, and as my hair separated and flowed with the current, I closed my eyes and released my last breath.
I opened my eyes and saw that I was not floating in the water, but in darkness. There was nothing, not surface or shore, just emptiness. I was finally content and closed my eyes for the last time.