" I will be waiting for you on the other side of the frozen pines. " E. Roe x Oc

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐳𝐞𝐧 𝐏𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬

2125 words

Edit: Clarity, grammar, detail and chapter song. 

Edit #2: Details, extras, consistency.

───※ ·❆· ※───

It felt odd, getting in a jeep with Renee. We never thought of going to the frontline, never even dreamed of it. Of course, I had my questions about what it was like, but I never thought I would take the steps to go there. The woods were frozen, nothing moved, and no noises were made. There was no one else in sight, just the endless frozen pines.

"couldn't we have sent Charlotte and Jane?" Renee broke my solitude.

A small breeze, finally some movement in the trees—pine needles rattling and a pinecone falling. I snapped my head in the direction but wrote it off as I saw the large seed rolling into the road.

"Charlotte is far too old for their liking. And Jane—" I stopped, biting my lip. "Bless her heart."

"Mh." Renee shook her head and grabbed the railing as the jeep went over a large bump. The jeep cried out in a terrifying way each time that a minor inconvenience was passed. I did my best to lull myself, telling myself that the men rode these into battle, and only under the worst conditions would it take damage. We sat in silence for a prolonged moment, shivering as though our wool coats weren't enough to guard our skin from frost's relentless bite. I toyed with my fingers below the crate.

They won't like you.

I don't think it mattered that I was American; my silence alone was sure to scare them off. I hated how I acted. I wished all the time I was kinder, perhaps just helpful, yet it just never came to me. I said goodbye to who I was a long time ago—when the war began and I left my home. My brother, my mother, and my father were alone in Tennessee. Owyn was very able to take care of my parents, but not as well as I could. They were getting old after all and needed special care that he just knew nothing of. I looked up to the sky; it was getting to be a dim blue color, threatening daylight loss very soon. The moonlight was our only guide left. The pines slowly dropped old snow onto my face, which was already far past numb—under different conditions, it would have been beautiful, unlike anything I had ever seen at home. In my hometown, I could never see the stars this vividly, even on the darkest nights. Tonight it felt that the entire galaxy was on display just for my observation.

"I do hope we aren't out here too far into the night," Renee broke the silence.

"They'll get us back in time, don't worry," I hushed.

Renee blew into her hands in an effort to warm them. As we lost daylight, the already horrible cold only worsened.

I otherwise allowed myself to drift into thought. I wonder what all these trees knew, because they don't die and they don't grow. I imagined being a child living in Bastogne, playing with my cousins or friends in the snowy countryside. Pretending to be at battle with snowballs or building forts in the trees, something that was all too familiar from my childhood. What I remember the most was hollering my cousin's name—Charles. We would run off on the trails behind his house and play for hours on end. We would pretend we had run from home and had to survive—or that some ghosts back from the dead were plaguing the world, and we were the last alive. Our grandfather later helped us build a grand treehouse, high in the canopy of a maple tree. We would come home to his house with bruises all over, cuts, and scratches. My aunt would have a mouthful for us, but we didn't care. We would go right back out there after dinner with blankets and pillows and spend the night below the stars. Was this the very same sky that was present when we did such things? Would I ever see the same sky I lived under at 12? And it feels like I've been away for an era but nothing has changed at all - It feels like I never left my home - that it was just an extremely cold winter, and I was out on some nature reserve.