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The young Captain Anhelm sat in his room in the Houses of Healing, his left arm bandaged and completely out of use, but his right arm still functional. In it he held a pen, and a blank sheet of paper was in front of him. He touched the pen to the paper, but did not write anything. Not yet.
How could everything have gone as wrong as it did? His village was in flames. His career was ended. The healers were not sure whether or not he would ever be fit for service again. Gingerly he touched his abdomen, which was also wrapped in a bandage, and bit back the pain. He was lucky to have survived, said the healers. He wasn't so sure.
Lucky to survive when so many of his men had not. Lucky to hear the endless reports of their losses. Lucky to be stuck in this healing room day after day, waiting for his wounds to knit and his pain to recede, and suffering while neither happened.
His family had been supportive, but he could tell that his father was devestated. He was a disappointment: a failure. His first mission. And it should have been so simple. If only he had listened to Astalder, and retreated when it was prudent. But he had to be the hero, the pioneer, the captain going down with his ship. Well, he had gone down. And now he was at the bottom.
Are you happy now? His father had not asked him that question, but it had been implied. Was he happy? Was he satisfied? Was he proud of what he had done? No, no, and no. He had ruined his life. He had ended others.
And thus the story of the ill-fated Poros settlement ended.
And Captain Anhelm sat at his desk in the Houses of Healing, and wept.
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