Fragile (Slow Updates)

Chapter 20: A Matter of Perspective

News of Sous-lieutenant Vogel's revised Juustagram account was making waves across base. It had gone from an inactive account of his Commander days to showing off the life of a Legionnaire.

There were photos of him just living his life as happily as can be. He enjoyed alcohol while off base or post mission, smoking with both members of the French Legion, members of the French military and foreign military members. Joint training missions with the JGSDF during Brunet-Takamori exercise, Mission Lynx the French NATO Mission In Estonia, Steadfast Defender, and joint training exercise in the prairies of Canada, winter exercises as well as standard drills in Norway, Sweden and Finland. He appeared in NATO, Armée de Terre and Légion étrangère media photos and videos.

Then you had things of more serious nature from actual combat operations that seemed to have been recorded by a GoPro mounted to his helmet or someone else's. To photos of him in a surreal like manor while in the middle of a war.

Rear Admiral Williams leaned back in her chair, staring at the photographs one by one. They weren't staged, at least not in the traditional sense. They were glimpses into a world that felt both alien and uncomfortably human.

The Sous-lieutenant was photographed smoking a cigarette and holding an energy drink in hand with a tired look of someone being awake for more than 48 hours, gear weighing him down, FAMAS slung across his body and signature blue UN helmet with the caption 'We'll stay here till it's over - Operation Copperhead."

Another photo titled "Nap time" captured him napping in a field, a rare moment of stillness in a life built on chaos. His helmet and ballistic glasses were set aside, leaving his face exposed to the light. For once, there was no mask, no hardened stare. Just closed eyes, soft breaths and the faintest trace of exhaustion etched into his features. The tall grass swayed gently around him, brushing against his uniform, whispering with the wind like the earth itself was standing guard over him.

He looked at peace, but it was the kind of peace born from complete exhaustion, the fragile calm of a man who'd spent everything he had to keep going. The rifle beside him, still within reach, was a reminder that rest was temporary. Even in sleep, his fingers lingered close to the weapon, as if his body refused to forget where it was.

To an outsider, the photo might have looked almost poetic, a soldier finding serenity amidst the ruins of war. But to those who knew him, or thought they did, it said something else entirely. This wasn't peace. It was surrender, however brief. The look of a man who had stopped running, not because the world had grown kind, but because there was simply nowhere left to run.

For Sous-lieutenant Vogel, that moment in the field was more than fatigue; it was the quiet between battles, the fleeting illusion that maybe, just maybe, he could still feel human. A man who had seen too much, done too much, and yet found a strange comfort in the stillness of the wheat and the whisper of the wind.

To Williams, it was the most human he'd ever looked.

A third attached photo titled "Respite" captured him standing in a field of flowers, rifle slung across his torso. The weapon's black metal and plastic contrasted sharply against the soft palette of yellows, purples, and whites that surrounded him. His uniform was worn, stained by mud and char. A jarring presence in a place that seemed untouched by war. The wind moved through the blossoms as if the world itself refused to acknowledge the man standing among them.

There was something almost poetic about it, a soldier out of place in a world that had no business being beautiful. He didn't smile for the camera, didn't pose. He just stood there, eyes distant, lost in a moment that didn't belong to him. For someone whose life revolved around survival, orders and the unending rhythm of gunfire, the flowers must have felt unreal.