One week.
It has been exactly one week since I received that letter which changed my life forever. I still think I’m not quite sure of what happened or how I can still be flying after that news. I mean, I’ve mostly stopped crying and I try to put a smile on my face for my friends and family, but… I still hurt.
You know what I’m saying?
It’s that kind of hurt you feel deep in your chest when something so emotionally traumatic happens, you just collapse. You curl into a fetal position, start sobbing. Although my crying has mostly stopped, I still find it difficult to walk and fly with a smile. My team mates Soarin and Fleetfoot try their best to help me, but as much as I appreciated them, it didn’t help.
The thing that strikes me the most is how quiet that day was. My typical routine goes like this:
Every morning I do 30 wing-ups and then I do some flying air sprints to the academy. Afterwards I just yell and school a bunch of new flyers for the next couple of hours. Some days I do get to take some time off to fly with Soarin and Fleet Foot. But on that day, well…I got the worst news of my life.
Dear Ms. Spitfire,
I am here to offer you my most sincere apologies. On March the 15th of 2014, your brother, Legionnaire Lieutenant Mustang was killed in action while assisting a med evac.
The Romancian Foreign Legion offers you and your family our absolute condolences. Mustang was an excellent army medic who cared greatly for his fellow soldiers and his duty. He will be missed by his platoon.
If it can offer you any solace, your brother died saving a fellow soldiers life, and for that, he has been posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre, one of our highest military medals in the Romancian military and we will deliver his body back to his native soil for a decent burial.
We wish you love and comfort and our support. Your brother will be missed by not only you, but his platoon as well.
Sincerely,
General Anatonlius Baudin
Romancian Foreign Legion 36th Paratroopers.
I will never forget that message. My initial reaction was complete denial.
I remember spending countless hours lying on my bed, staring at that photo of me and Mustang taken back when we were fillies. I wanted to deny it, wanted to pretend it was all a horrible nightmare.
But it wasn’t. No matter how many times I cried or begged for it to not be true there was no denying it; my brother, my kin, my friend was dead and there was nothing I could do to say or change that.