I’m awake at sunrise, same as always.
Awake, but not UP, of course. I’m too smart for that, even with my brain still cool from the night. The best of sleep is when you’ve just finished it and are deliciously, completely at rest and unable to think or move, just feel how sweet it is and how warm and soft the world remains and breathe in the gentle snores of Driver next to me, curled against my head.
So to maximize that time I don’t move an inch and I keep my eyes shut and I don’t change my breathing and I stay in that beautiful place for all of six minutes before That Fucker comes around to my pen and starts loudly asking Driver if I’m awake yet lazy beast come on there’s aa battle to be won abluh bluh bluh bwuh.
Longer than usual. Oh what a fine rest it was.
So away with my rest, up with my body (at the gentle prods of Driver at least, rather than the hasty and careless hands of That Fucker), down with breakfast (cold and lumpy: someone doesn’t want me too content before the fight), and on with the armour.
The armour takes six of them to put on. Too many buckles in my opinion. I stand there and watch as the sun goes up and pretend I’m a tree and don’t have to care about any of this and none of it’s my business and today I will live a good dull tree life and NOT have maniacs try to stab, arrow, cut, etc. my face, belly, or legs.
Of course, I’ve seen what these folks do to trees. Can’t win for losing, frankly.
Tara, tarantatatratatraaaaa. Alarm, shouting, waving of arms. That Fucker is here early and is hopping mad.
Surprise attack! The sneaky enemy have decided they’d rather fight early over here than on time over there like civilized people. How deceitful. How diabolical. At least I had time for my lumpy breakfast.
Up my side stomps That Fucker, feet even heavier than usual on the ladder (all that weight on their mind, I suspect). Then the two bows. Then the two pikes.
Then Driver, who is wrapped up in a little ball of armour that’s much less fancy than That Fucker’s but is unconstrained by a need for maneuverability. Like a baby bird balled up in iron feathers.
I want to tickle them very badly. But ah, there’s no time. The battle has already turned up, and it’s burning down the tents next to us.
To war! shouts That Fucker.
For That Place We Live In! shout the others. Death! Bloodshed! Defeat (for them, not us please please please). And so on.
I don’t get to shout until Driver pokes me behind the ear just so, which happens pretty fast so I guess Driver is as sick of hearing from the others as I am.
I don’t shout. I ROAR.
So I do that for a good thirty seconds that feel like three years as I start walking and accelerate and run and then I’m in the battle.
***
These are the things I saw.
A tent.
A tent on fire.
A person setting a tent on fire.
Two people screaming.
One person running.
Three people standing to fight.
Three people flying away through the air.
Six people fighting four other people while two other people shout at them.
A little bird crouched down low in the grass pretending it isn’t here.
Someone who’d been swarmed and stabbed in the belly while they were eating breakfast, before their armour was put on.
Sixteen people braced for a charge.
Eight people throwing away their weapons and trying to run.
A person screaming – maybe in anger – and waving a very small knife.
The kitchen and its awful breakfast and twenty people fighting over and around and in it.
Trampled grass stained red and bile.
More people.
A big bright beautiful day turning from golden to blue in the sky.
Driver.
***
Those are the things I saw in the order I stepped on them.
***
Driver must have slipped free when the armour around the side of my head took a nasty cut, blowing out some crucial strapwork. All that weight on them for their own protection dragged them down and off and under my legs where it was no protection at all.
They could have dug in, of course. They had the prod, and the prod had a big spike on the back. A real nasty one, just in case I got Ideas. But Driver never used it. And so off Driver went.
That Fucker is shouting more than usual. Probably mad that I’m standing still instead of charging. But I can’t charge and look after Driver at the same time, so tough shit.
I think Driver’s alive. It’s really hard to tell, they’re so tiny. I need to get all these stupid armour off them.
Ow. There’s a pinprick at the back of my skull. That Fucker is trying to goad me. Ow. Ow. OW.
Okay, that was a pike. That Fucker isn’t trying to goad me, they’re trying to have me skewered.
But I’ve lost some crucial strapwork recently, so I shrug and all the armour and the bows and the pikes and That Fucker slide off and land in a heap and I walk away and don’t even bother trying to step on it.
I pick up Driver and put them back in their spot as I walk. Nobody tries to stop me. I guess they’re busy killing and dying and all of those other things.
***
It’s not long until it’s quiet again. Real quiet. Not sure I’ve been in a place like this since my youth, before I got picked up and hauled off to meet Driver and everyone else. No little voices. No fields. No orchards. No roads or buildings. No people.
Driver doesn’t count. They’re good for that.
I pick fruit as I walk and offer it. Some of it is taken, some isn’t. We go until the sun starts to drop and I stand and I watch as it turns red over a little river with cool water that tastes like ice against my teeth.
We’ll stay here for the night. And maybe tomorrow Driver will be okay, and maybe tomorrow Driver will have taken that soft sleep that never stops.
It will be alright. The best part of sleep is being not quite awake; but second best is getting there, and it’s a close second.