SRT: A season unending

There never was a start

Most of the time, when people ask when it all started, they will point fingers at the public assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

Truth is, that Atronach had it coming from the very start. In fact, the whole world had it coming from the very start.

To point fingers at the Mlada Bosna is as just as pointing to a herbalist and calling her a blasphemous witch of Krysomis. Sure, you have a scapegoat now, but that's not really what started it all. After all, Mlada Bosna would have never been able to shoot Franz Ferdinand had they not been supplied weapons by Oiche's Black Hand. They would not have had a reason to shoot him, if not for the oppression of the Yugoslavians by the Archduke, who thought himself very justified in his actions simply because some 'goddess of air' told him so. And the assassination would not have been successful, if not for the lucky hands of fate that led the Archduke's convoy right into the arms of Gravilo Princip, who had been sat defeated in a coffee shop once he had realised his comrades were brainless idiots who didn't know how to throw a grenade.

In reality, I'm fairly certain who started this war. It was not the Mlada Bosna, no. It were the gods, who made mistake after mistake in their enormous game of chess that they were playing with us foolish mortals. Talk like this would ordinarily get me executed nowadays - socially that is - but I've found it's best to state the world as I've seen it. You ask for my opinion and I shall give it, be it to your liking or not is your own problem. Now, where it all started for me, that's a whole different question.

To be technical, it all started when my mother birthed me in 1898 in a city called Koningsnberg. Today, it is called Kalingrad. They never bothered to accurately record what date it really was that I was born. They were too busy working the metal components of the local factory to much care for the bureaucratic records of birth certificates. I would look it up myself, but that certificate was burnt a long time ago due to the crime it held at the time. I'm sure you'll understand what I mean by that when you look at me. Grey skin, red eyes, pointy ears. It's a wonder they let me go out and die for them rather than be executed for on the spot. But alas, that's a different subject for a later time.

I'm fairly certain I was born in the summer. Not that I can base that on memory, but rather on the fact a person like me is more likely to die during the winter than the summer at a young age. The elements did not grant me such an easy way out of my future however, so I can only assume that this was the case.

When I was finally old enough to work in the factories, the world was flaring up in excitement. Our southern neighbours of Berlin had our proud Reich increase massively in economic power and resourcefulness. In fact, the first day I started to work in the factories at the frisk age of eight, was the same day the Anglo-german naval arms race started with the christening of the HMS Dreadnought. At the time I cared little for the news of this great ship being launched from harbour. My young brain was too pre-occupied with the cleaning of the still-operating machine I would be crawling under. It was not the subject of the HMS Dreadnought being christened that filled my eyes. It was my brother, aged nine, accidentally sticking his finger near the wrong part of that very same machine and being swallowed whole by it. Within a matter of seconds, every bone in his body had been pulverised by the mechanical monster. I was assigned the next day to clean up the mess it had left behind. In light of that, the HMS Dreadnought really didn't make all that much of an impact.

Yet how wrong I was. For it was that ship that ushered in one of the many reasons that would somehow manage to bring my life to a lower point than I thought would be possible. One of many factors, but one still indeed.

I was fourteen when that naval arms race finally ended. I was fifteen when a whole new arms race started. I was sixteen when it hit a critical mass.

In 1913, the southern neighbours of Berlin once more took to deciding that we should be increasing our military power. This time, their arms race was one of men. Infantry among who I would later find myself as well. But for now, that infantry was only to our south in Berlin and the Ottoman reaches, and to our east in Russia, and to our west in France and England. Beset at all sides by armies that reached into the millions. Except for the north. That just held the wilds, which were considerably worse. At least a soldier would just shoot you and be done with it. A direwolf didn't share that same swift mercy.

At age sixteen, the prospect of compulsory service was coming closer. To be very honest, it was something I was looking forward to. The posters and parades often showed how noble of a deed it was to be part of the army. I could imagine myself like the posters showed the infantry. Proudly standing atop a tower along Warsaw's walls. Mauser in one hand and a flag in the other. With five tri-planes flying over in the distance. Much to my initial content, that compulsory service came two years earlier than I thought it would.

That was in 1914, when the good Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife both received a bullet from mister Princip and his humanic companions who so proudly called themselves the Mlada Bosna.

How foolishly the young can rush to their death, with a smile on their face, and a pride in their soul.