Before the Morning Sets

On the sunrise that swathed rooftops with faint maroons, spilling into the alleys with hazy scatterings of sunbeams, of the year 1----, the Kerentine nation was soothed into a restful finality, at that moment their 'present' turning rigidly into a 'past', into history, into the stories of how the Rebellion of Kerentine marked a turning point in the --th century, myths of the Bastards of the River, and nationalist pride borne from the dregs of an already halted nation.

That same moment was unremarkable for the majority of the human population spread across the continent, and would grow to become something of import only with the hind-sighted reflection that was aroused by newspapers, telegraph communication, and the like. Vjesci found it dully painful as those same beams of luminous scarlet shades that stroked the cobblestone and ivy-clad bricks drifted across his forehead.
"Are ya gonna clean that blade, mista? You got a lot of guts and stuff dripping on your boots!"
Such unceremonious, crude language was the first words Vjesci heard after that monumental end to the war, which was simultaneously a small disappointment, and a vindication of what he believed the war had been all along - nasty, brutish, and crude. Of course, there was beauty to be found in it, not least because in all those things listed, a beauty exists like a pearl in that ugly clam's rot-spotted shell. The man addressing him was a cleaner sent by the Office of War to handle the complete overhaul of the blood-filled streets into something presentable, for when the victory was announced and the public could come darting in to their homes, or brand-new homes, as was the course for these things. Vjesci's long, wavy black hair drifted alongside the slight breeze, which carried the scent of pathetic battle from the streets and alleys, circulating across the labyrinths like a perpetual torture device he had once seen used on test animals. Adapt or die. It wasn't any different here but, at this point, that barely needs explaining. Society was at the point where was ubiquitous with torturous ugliness.
But was it really?
If that was really the case, then why did they continue onwards with the fighting, praising, celebrating, like nothing at all was different?
After feeling the nudges of repeated sidelong glances from the leader of the Cleaners, Vjesci dropped his blade, which clattered with a low rhythm of thuds on the soft soil, then strolled over to the man, slipping a small, knitted pouch of coins in his palm.
He really must be a reliable, experienced Cleaner, because without a moment's hesitation he caught the bag of rattling coins in midair, glanced a thank you with his eyes and nose at Vjesci, then began collecting the blade he had dropped, among other weapons scattered across the small garden.
Vjesci turned his back to the man hunched over with dutiful dexterity, pushed the half-splintered fence that demarcated the garden from the communal square nearby, and continued forward, hearing the wincing of the wood as it creaked slowly behind him.

Vjesci was a mouthful, especially for those of simpler languages. God knows that, in wartime, expediency is key, so shortening his name was too convenient to justify against. It wasn't like he particularly hated nicknames, even if it seemed a little childish, but he simply didn't really care for it that much, and the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. So, through this indifference, his name was bestowed, rather than subtly crafted like many of his co-officers. This latter comment, of his being designated officer, rather than soldier, should tell you how far war has progressed into a shroud of banality. But no matter how much that shroud envelopes the scenery outside the window, for those that aren't enclosed in that small room, it truly was a flourishing of virility that could be witnessed first-hand in that garden. It was one of those crazed fools, starving for war but never having his fill of its dangerous taste, that had given Vjesci the epithet 'Bastard of the Stars, Fedor Denisov', which was far too long for a nickname, and also included a family name that Vjesci was unfond of, to say the least.
To end the story short, Vjesci was clapped on the back by a fellow Officer of War, Karata Rivier, accompanied by the words; "It's truly unfortunate, but incredible work, Fyodor!"
Vjesci was bashful, let some words slip of how he had just done as always, that the rest of his squad were also immensely helpful and that, as always, it was the work of the army as a whole that had really won the battle. All of it was self-explanatory but, after such a violent turmoil that spanned months, where nobody had much time for anything but war, those words brought everyone some kind of peace, like being able to comment on the situation cemented their distance from it, spatially and, now, temporally.
Fyodor was arriving at the point where those generic words tired him and slashed his motivation to ribbons every time they dropped aimlessly from his cracked lips.
When another officer approached him to thank him for his work and, as was expected, to let him know that each officer was asked to carry at least twenty long-range and ten short-range weapons back to camp with him, Fyodor left him with the slightly morose phrase; "It's finally finished, so I don't want to stay here any longer. It's a tragedy that this has happened. We need to move on from it."
It was spoken in a fairly dark tone. The officer would usually have been slightly stunned or taken aback but, through some twist of the threads of fate, had just returned from prying a piece of cutlery from either a maddened townsperson or enemy soldier - he couldn't tell which - and wasn't feeling the usual elation from victory. Lady Fate had those same scarlet threads slipping listlessly through her pale fingers, waiting to latch on to somebody, anybody that wandered past. Fyodor was doing just that. Wandering aimlessly, despite having a destination, which was a strange feeling indeed.
In fact, contrary to everything in his senses, his body, his soul, advising on the logical course of action, something was pulling him away from the now faintly burning village, to the edges where the ashes that drifted silently through the air dotted the horizon and were the only indicators of war. Everything around him was peaceful, lush with firs, their stems swinging softly in the breeze that carried a hot wind from the town behind them.
Fyodor exited out onto a small slope layered with a thick, jade green grass, whose edge was swallowed up by the string of mountains to his left, while it continued onward into a small neighbouring town to his right. Ahead of him lay a streaming river. Had fate led him here to show him a river, after all? Was it telling him to put out the fires, or something?
Fyodor didn't think so, and he continued walking.
Something needs to be set right in his mind, he figured, and the sticky film of mystery that clung to his skin could possibly by washed off by the rivers of clarity.
His enemies were the Office of War's enemies, the nation's enemies. Usually, they were human, too. It's nothing unusual, even if it is tragic, and possible avoidable should enough people come together on a grand scale, but the latter didn't seem very likely.
The problem is, this war was against people considered inhuman. Not in the same way that propaganda labels foreign nations inhuman, but in a material reality that was hard to do away with. A rebellion had been formed in the bordering nation of Kerentine, something that had festered into a violent usurpation, or transformation, of its population with something vastly different. Transformed, these people were fervent believers of a horrid, hellish faith that saw human life cast aside as worth less than even a simple currency, but simultaneously holding the key to the resurrection of the Queen Mother. This antinomy, the simultaneously held faith in the worthlessness and incomparable value of a human life, drove them mad.
Before they had even started slaughtering border outposts and declaring war against all unredeemed, grisly rumours of religious practices and rituals floated across the mountains and into the sensitive ears of neighbouring nations. Nobody even knew, to this point, why they called their enemies the unredeemed, when according to their morbid faith, everybody was unredeemed until they met their Mother in the quite clasp of death.
It didn't seem like anybody cared to ask them, either.
Of course, enough demand existed back home, in the research offices and the houses of the rich and well-to-do, but on the frontline, the vicious monomaniacal soldiers were uncomprimising in their dismissal of human life - both the enemy's and their own.
Fyodor adjusted his rifle nestled in a metal chain band across his waist, digging his heel into the slopes of the brittle, jagged mountain that lowered itself slowly down to the plateau that this secret village rested on. Fyodor felt the pricks of frost touching his extremeties again, with all the blood flowing rapidly in the excitement of war having cooled to a low hum.
Soon, he reached a point where the firs were sparse enough to afford a good view of the town's rooftops, all a faded maroon tile, occasionally broken up by the pale white spires of a church or royal residence.
In Polshlak, where Fyodor was from, where the Office of War was guiding his efforts, most towns were subsumed into a larger connection of roads and pathways converging on the central district, however this town was unusual in that, for what it seemed, the structure of buildings, the murals on walls and the kinds of architecture used were foreign, or at least so old that it basically was foreign. Intricate lattices of what looked like, but was probably not, marble dotted the second floors of some large buildings that looked like inns or bars, while the houses were ununiform, giving the impression that each resident had consructed or designed their own abode to reflect their own individuality, to a resonable extent.
It was like, having built the square skeletons of the rooms and walls, the inhabitants decorated everything else with a personal glee that was similar to a woman dressing her daughters in all the fanciest clothing, ones that fitted her tastes, not the daughter's.
This resulted in some homes looking odd, with roofs too tall, wide, or leaning too far over the edge of the walls.
Fyodor strolled the streets, feeling the cobble crunch beneath his boots, wondering why that was almost the only sound he could hear in the quiet old town, besides an unharmonic twittering of different pitched birds.
Soon, Fyodor understood why.
At the gaping hole carved into the centre of town, its emaciated black limbs bursting through houses whose splintered bodies were frozen, as if time had stopped, with sharp bits of wood jutting from their torsos, its own ribcage piercing the pale cobalt skies with the dark glint of bone, lay the corpse of God.