Jean believed there were things in this world that didn’t deserve to be loved: things that were broken, ugly, or served no purpose in the world but acted as a waste of space. They were abominations of the planet to her. But of all the monstrosities of the world, the one thing she hated most was the ‘scarred’. Such flawless objects were squandered because they were ripped off that perfection that gave them the worth to exist. Of all withered flowers and shattered vases, she hated herself the most. 

Her eyes fell to her ground. Her chest screamed desperately for air. She pressed her forehead to the earth and bled more prayers to the soil than any of the cathedral’s walls had ever heard. The sun hung low behind her, shedding silhouettes onto the battleground that wreaked out demons and executed every last breathing person on the field to a fate more gruesome than death. 

Jean was the last person with a beating heart. She clutched the leather of her sword’s hilt, letting out a shriek that tore the silence of the twilight sky. Her sweat and tears clawed profoundly on her golden skin, striking the surface of the soil like a breath against the wind. The metal on her knees was covered in dents and scratches, and although her body was just barely upright, her legs had surrendered into the embrace of the ground. 

She was supposed to be strong.

She was supposed to protect her people.

“God, I’ve never won a single time in my life. Please just let me win this once. Just this once. I promise I won’t ask for anything more ever again. Please.”

Her cobalt indigo eyes overflowed with tears of utter guilt and regret. All the corpses around her had homes and children waiting for them at home. What was she going to tell them if she lived? That their mothers and fathers had become graveyard decorations? She would be doomed if she didn’t die today. Everything that was left of her was thumped within her flesh and bones. Her organs felt like a mechanical engine. Her shaking heart was about to collapse. Prayer after prayer, she begged whatever higher power would answer her cries. But the beast that stood before her was a human more noble than herself.

The strong figure approached her slowly, leaving her footsteps in the mud. Her hair was ashy and brown, dropping down just a little lower than where her collarbones were under the layers of her armor. She had quite the tall build, towering even over men. Her skin was like warm porcelain and her eyes were stained bloodshot red and emerald. She didn’t have a name – people only called her Victory.

Victory stood over Jean, looking down at the almost-pathetic knight. She pitied her. No child should have had the best parts of their lives reaped for war. Not like hers was. Victory pulled her heavy sword from the ground and placed the shining tip under the girl’s chin. Jean looked up at the godly figure that stood before her monstrously human physique and wept away her bloody nose. She felt like a human. So vulnerable, so fragile.

The longer that Victory looked at Jean, the longer that she could feel her eyes soften. It wasn’t every day that she got the rare sight of a warrior falling to their knees. And she looked so young. 

Victory examined all the scars on the girl’s face, on her exposed wounded body, her muscular arms covered in cuts… and she could almost feel them on herself. She looked as though her heart had been ripped out and now thumped on the wrong side of her chest – she was almost more of a doll than an actual girl. 

With the last of her strength, Jean coughed out the last of the blood in her throat. Her voice weaved through the cracks of the wind, weakly reaching out to a volume just barely heard. 

“And does Victory have a name?” She asked hoarsely, her losing beating sentiments lingering in her enemy’s ears.

Victory inhaled the dusty air of the battlefield and closed her eyes. There’s nothing to lose when your secrets are with a corpse.

“People call me Lisa. It means ‘oath from God’, just like how victory is an oath from God.” 

She moved the locks of blonde hair that covered Jean’s left eye, letting out a loud breath of air. 

“What a beautiful scar you have,” she whispered 

“It’s almost like love leaking its ink onto paper. Like the moon collided against the sun to form an imperfect eclipse.”

Lisa knelt down, taking a closer look at her nemesis. She took her gloved fingers and swept away the hair that covered the bloody line across her face but didn’t remove it from her face completely. 

“What a shame. Were you loved enough?” she asked.

Jean shrugged her shoulders. All the words that left her throat died on her lips.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Lisa said weakly, “I’ll love you from now on.”

 “If I had loved you yesterday, we wouldn’t be here, but what wrong time exists?”