//------------------------------// // 2. Röslein // Story: Parallels: Conflict of Interest // by Flammenwerfer //------------------------------// “Hauptmann?” “Hauptmann Werner, bitte?” “Captain!” Paul jumped in his seat on the demolished wall, flinching harshly as his muddled thoughts were, unfortunately, brought back to reality. He blinked some of his residual daydreaming fatigue away and had a glance around him, finding two of his trusted Lieutenants in front of him: Joachim and Ernst. Both were dressed as he was, fully equipped in their uniforms, helmets, and small-arms at the ready. Each of their platoons stood ready, awaiting their next orders. The day was as it had been the last few weeks: cold; miserably so, with dense fog that did not allow vision past twenty feet in any direction. His shaky breath was as visible as it was frigid. “It’s time, sir,” the blue-eyed, blonde-haired Joachim informed, offering his hand to Paul. He took it without hesitation and got to his feet. Paul then adjusted his stahlhelm and held his rifle at the low-ready. “Right…” he began, gathering his troops around him. “Orders straight from von Rundstedt. We’re to clear this section of the town and pave a way for the panzers to roll through. We can leave none of the Bolsheviks alive nor free. “We know our squad objectives. Let’s push through quickly and all meet up on the other side for the final thrust and drive the Soviets out. We’ll all get out of this yet; for the Fatherland!” Paul concluded with one final addendum. And as his troops dispersed to prepare for their imminent rush, Paul had this sinking feeling that he had seen this before; an extremely strong case of deja vu standing exactly where he was, rifle in hand. He had felt one or two of these feelings (which caused him to blink harshly to convince himself it wasn’t a daydream) were premonitions of sorts. Perhaps he’d get lucky, and he’d get taken in one of these battles. But that's when Paul realized that something wasn't right. There were no more footfalls from his soldiers boots crushing the gravel and sleet beneath them. In fact, he was the only one that had been walking. Paul stood straight when he felt an enormous presence right behind him. The hair on his neck bristled. Yet as he turned around, he found no gigantic, Soviet menace upon him. All his troops had not dispersed as he remembered ordering them. In fact, they were surrounding him on all sides save for his direct field of vision. Their faces though… as his eyes widened and pupils shrank with each passing second; as his skin crawled and winter had him constantly shivering, those zombie-like, war-torn, dead faces of his comrades did well to depress his icy temperature more than anything else. Not metaphorically ‘dead’ either. These were not the faces of men who had fought for too long and suffered too much… These men were standing dead. Killed. Shot, burned, and dismembered. Unrecognizable. Paul’s feet beckoned him forward unwillingly between these two groups of living dead, and at their center stood someone else. He resisted with all of his might, but his body assumed full control. He marched painfully slowly towards this new entity, and he shut his eyes in any attempt to focus out of this stupor. His mouth refused to scream either; Paul fought with every bit of strength he could muster in his tired body to restore control to his mind but to no avail. And all that control died a merciless death when his eyes focused on the little one in front of him. A wide sapphire-eyed filly with a crimson mane, who trembled violently on her hooves and sunk to the ground in any attempt to make herself smaller. Tears streamed down her face and she wailed in the most profound fear that Paul had heard even through this war. His own eyes widened at the sight, and he shook his head as if to deny the reality in front of him. Still, his body refused to respond any more than that… ...even when his hands leveled the rifle in his grasp. His pleas with himself did not vocalize. His thoughts did not manifest, nor register his burning question of ‘why?’ All he did was feel compelled to shoulder that rifle, and train the sights on the filly’s head. No… no no no no! Said filly continued to bawl incessantly as she watched his actions. Paul’s finger entered the trigger well. With no time to even contemplate his next strategy, he pulled the trigger. *CRACK!* Paul’s eyes shot open at an instant and he launched himself out of bed, crying out agonizingly and grasping at anything that could provide him a hand-hold. Instinct took over and he grasped the ledge of the window, the remnants of what once was a pained cry ebbing away and being replaced with deep hyperventilation. Paul’s pupils remained wide and his entire body felt clammy, cold, and inconsolable. His heart pounded the inside of his sternum and threatened to explode out of his ribcage, and his palms shivered each and every time he took a much needed breath of fresh night air. Nevertheless, his body still felt the rush of adrenaline’s touch, and he remained on high alert. Realizing that reality had reclaimed him from his nightmares—admittedly the worst one he had had in a very long time—Paul took another deep breath and regained control of his bearings. He stared blankly out the window and let himself be bathed in the cool air from Luna’s night, letting the light of her moon’s final descent over the horizon wake him up. Lord knew he would not be going back to sleep. As concerned of a father as he always was, Paul shakily glanced over his shoulder and found Seerose sleeping as peacefully as ever. If anything, she only turned over and faced away from the window. It was times like these that Paul felt it was a blessing that his little filly slept like a petrified log. But even knowing she was safe did not disperse the remnants of the nightmare, fresh on his mind. And through the receding, abyssal fear for the life of his daughter, it was replaced with another emotion. Fury. Paul balled up his right fist white and planted it firmly on the windowsill. He trained his furious focus on the gorgeous Equestrian skyscape above, as he knew past those twinkling stars was the one who was responsible for everything he was going through. He produced a pained grunt through his deep, shaky breaths. And then, came the futile cursings. “Is this my goddamn punishment?!” he whispered in his native tongue to any divine power that would listen. “You could not just put me out of my misery?!” “You could not just have let me die in Stalingrad like I should have?!” Paul took a few deep breaths, letting his head droop. The two lone tears that spilled over from his eyes mingled with the drying sweat. He shook his head. “No merciful god would let me remain in this hell… am I in hell? Reliving these memories every day in paradise?” His eyes clenched shut as he bared all his insecurities, his vulnerabilities to nopony. His knuckles remained balled white and the tears continued to fall on the windowsill with silent plops, a rarity for him. “Please… if there is a merciful god, just let me d—.” “P-Papa?” Paul raised his head upon hearing the timid call of his little filly. Turning away from the window, he found the pristine white Seerose perched on the edge of her bed, regarding him with utmost concern. Her mane was a mess and matted to one side, but those bright sapphire eyes beckoned a response. “Oh! Seerose, meine Liebe, please, go back to sleep. It’s not good for a little one such as you to be awake at this hour,” Paul coaxed, moving to tuck her back into bed whilst tactically wiping his face and eyes of any evidence. But she didn’t budge, and her expression never changed once. “Dad… was it the dream again?” That blunt assertion from his ten year-old daughter forced a hard blink out of him. He had never once told her, or had her privy to one of his post-nightmare episodes… or any of his trauma-induced episodes at all. “Röslein, what are you talking about?” Paul questioned, attempting to gauge just how much she knew or understood. He knelt before her to be as close to eye-level as possible, and the little filly spoke with more solemness than Paul had ever heard… especially for a nine year-old going on ten. “I can hear you at night sometimes, Papa. When you groan and grunt. You’re having bad dreams, yes? “But… are you okay?” Paul looked down and away for a brief moment, considering precisely how he would go about this conversation at this hour… because it did not look like either of them were getting further sleep this evening. And he then met his daughter’s gaze once more. With extra care and trepiditon in his voice, Paul answered. “I’m fine, my dear. You should have told me if I was waking you up, I would’ve quieted down. I’m sorry,” he apologized. Seerose then hit him with a sentence that he would never have expected from her, with all the seriousness expected from an almost ten year-old filly: “Don’t lie to me, Papa.” Paul stiffened visibly, flinching as if struck. Even worse was when the mighty German who always knew what to say in the worst of situations could not find a grip on coherence. “D-Darling, what are you—” “I heard you talking with Princess Celestia. "Go to Alemaneia.” Now, Paul understood. Perhaps his little one was not as heavy a sleeper as he would have liked to believe. He thought after all this time, he could sulk on his lonesome and bury some of his worse memories by stripping his weapon and having the occasional bit of cognac, along with a cigarette. Even worse to admit, perhaps for him as a new father, was that Seerose was growing up; becoming more aware of her surroundings and the world. But now Paul had to face the music, and essentially admit to the most prized light of his life that he was going to leave and tell her last minute. After all they had been through together as a small, albeit broken family unit… this is how he was going to leave abruptly, even if it was temporary? In hindsight, it was probably a terrible decision. But thankfully, one he did not have to immediately address by way of his daughter interjecting once more. “You have to save the world, right?” Through Seerose’s ever sharpening awareness, her innocence still shined through in the most endearing ways. Paul couldn’t help the loving smile as it chiseled its way across his angular face in the remnant moonlight. He cupped her cheek in his right hand, and she had little qualm with leaning into the gesture. “Perhaps only a part of it. I’m not going to let us go through what I went through… let you go through what I had to. Never again, my dear,” Paul proclaimed softly, sitting next to Seerose on the bed. And despite everything, she still managed to beam a smile up at her adoptive father. She added whimsically: “My friends always get jealous when I tell them my dad is a hero…” While that was a deep compliment as she meant it, Paul still felt a mixture of guilt and anguish rise up from the depths of his core, finding residence in his chest as he turned away. At that point, he could not look at her… that title had no meaning to him after all he had done in Poland and Russia. His reply was as genuine as it was rueful. “If you knew what I had been through, what I have seen and what I have done… perhaps you would not be so quick to use such labels with me,” he said. But, to her credit, Seerose’s expression varied little after those words of his. She only nuzzled herself into his side, and leaned further into his warm body… just enough where she could mask her tears just a little bit. “You pulled me out of an orphanage, Papa… you’re a hero to me. “You’ll always be my hero.” That was it. That did it for him completely. Paul swept up his little girl and held her close to his chest, burying his face in her mane as his chest swelled with emotions he had always so longed to express. He was a caring father, that much even he was ready to admit… but as the product of his life and his upbringing, emotional expression was not his strongest suit. Paul did not care anymore about that. Seerose hugged and cuddled him in return, and Paul placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. “I don’t know when you got so smart and so caring… but you definitely did not get it from me. I love you, my little rose.” “I love you too, Papa… so much. Please be careful,” she sniffled out. Paul scratched behind her ear for a few moments to calm her down after all these emotions were shared… emotions that were the very essence of one of the strongest father-daughter bonds in world history, at this point. There, they held each other for what seemed like hours, knowing well that Paul would have to depart in the morning and face whatever dangers he needed in order to ensure peace for Equestria and the world. And most importantly, for Seerose. Paul’s thoughts began stirring once more, and he debated for a split second if it maybe was time… time for her to know who her father truly was in his ‘past life,’ as it were. But he dismissed that idea outright. No… it was not the time. Not just yet. “I will, I promise. When you get older, I promise you I’ll tell you everything,” he whispered. “I know, Papa.”