Peace

Michael removed the helmet from his head as the silence dragged on over the field. Somehow, miraculously, he had made it through the battle. The field around him was covered with scattered corpses, leaking blood, and discarded weaponry, and yet he was still alive. He had no reason to be - he was nothing special. He had not been a skilled fighter, he had not been blessed with horse and armor by his family name, he had barely even had any training. He hadn't rushed into the battle - the battle had rushed into him. Bodies had clashed all around him, and it was a dead man's blade that he had picked up to defend himself with.

Most of the battle itself was now a blur in his mind. A blur of steel and blood and flesh flying in every direction. He had no idea how many men he had actually fought, if he had fought any. He remembered swinging his blade, and feeling the vibrations shaking it as it struck against something, but he wasn't sure if it had actually been a person that he had ever managed to hit, much less whether or not it was ever a killing blow. There was blood all over him, but if it was his own or from any strike he had made, he really had no way of knowing.

The quiet of the post-battle was oddly calming, and while he felt his knees quivering below him, he didn't feel as though he would fall. He was simply there. The wind was beginning to pick up, and while it did nothing to remove the stench of iron from his nose, it was cool and refreshing on his skin. He wasn't sure how long he had just been standing there. He was fairly certain that if he tried to move anywhere he would collapse, and he wasn't sure that that was something he would ever get back up again from.

It was the butterfly that finally caught his attention. A single, beautiful butterfly that floated down in front of him to land on the helmet he had discarded. It was almost as if it were looking up at him, watching him, telling him that he was still alive and that it was time for him to move on.

Somehow, Michael had been in the right place at the right time to be the witness for the first step towards peace. A brutal, hateful, death wrought peace, but a peace all the same. It was ugly. It smelled terrible. He was fairly sure he was about to vomit.

But it was calm.