Echo of the Leaves

"Press it down firmly with both hands, that’s right... now take a piece and roll it out, let's make a little sausage."

He followed the instructions awkwardly but earnestly.

A question hung in the air.

"Alright, you can taste a bit, but don't overdo it, or you'll get a stomachache."

"They're ready, now let's pour them out... wait a moment, it's hot... but don't eat them like this! Put this inside."

A soft rustling sound.

He lifted the fork above his head, torn between protest and hunger. "I'm not convinced by green things."

"Eat, it's good."

Light streamed through the window on the wings of a cool breeze. His eyes lit up. It tasted of mint and sage.

The sticky cold in his bones reignited his senses, and he slowly opened his eyes. Green. Green everywhere. He had never been fond of that color, and there, in the midst of that jungle, he had reluctantly discovered its endless shades. The dark green of the tree leaves and bushes. The murky green of the mud. The faintly perceptible green of proximity mines. That one was perhaps the most important, for obvious reasons, and it could make all the difference.

As he wiped his face in a small puddle of water, he thought back to his dream. The scent fixed in his memory. There, on the border, far from home, his memories had begun to fade, just like the flavors. They had blended into a gray, colorless pool, made of hastily swallowed cold meals and tasteless canned food, as if the color of that damp land they patrolled every day had become an integral part of him, gradually diluting everything.

When he had arrived, he brought with him few things, one of which was the pouch his grandmother had given him.

As a young woman, she had been a sort of guide, a healer, and an alchemist. She knew how to restore strength and heal any ailment through her concoctions and decoctions, but especially through her delicious dishes. She used to say that a man is not only cured in the body but that to restore balance, one must also heal the soul. The illness of the soul was the most deadly. Growing up, he had started to doubt the truth of some of her teachings (not particularly scientific ones) and realized that her profession had more to do with cooking than with magic. When she left to join her ancestors, she gave him that pouch.

He always wore it around his neck, and it contained her special ingredient, a blend of herbs skillfully created over long years of work. Despite having revealed its composition to him, its contents remained a mystery: the flavor it added to dishes was never the same. According to her quirky teachings, it gave what was needed, what the soul of the eater needed to feel to heal.

"It must depend on the interaction with the ingredients," he thought.

He clung to that pouch desperately. On rainy days, in the nights when wild howls and the cries of the wounded filled the air like birdsong in spring, in the feverish sweats of buzzing diseases. In every moment when the thread tying him to his old life stretched to its limits, fraying and threatening to snap, condemning him to oblivion, he clutched the pouch and smelled its scent. The tension eased, and with every bite, the thread rebuilt itself, becoming stronger, a weave of flavors and memories that held back that green hell that slowly and inexorably sought to swallow him alive.

For this reason, he had taken to leaving the camp in his free time, to gather the leaves and flowers he had spotted during his watch along the line of contact. He kept that pouch alive, leaf by leaf, petal by petal. He easily found most of the recipe’s ingredients; certainly, there was no shortage of plant varieties in that place, except for one. It was a small plant that grew in bushes on the hills of his homeland without much fuss. It had wide, flat leaves, serrated on the edges, with a velvety feel and a bright green color. A mysterious crossbreed of two plants that had long since disappeared, belonging to a world that once was. It was his grandmother’s favorite, and it always seemed to elude him.

But that evening would be different. During his patrol along a deep part of the forest, a familiar scent had arrived with the afternoon wind. He was sure of it, there, in that hidden spot beneath a canopy of branches and leaves beyond the line, a treasure awaited him.

He moved quickly, with brisk steps and steady breath. The sun was slowly setting beyond the horizon as the jungle awoke to the scents of the night.

He had distanced himself far from the village, sneaking away from the watchful eyes of the older warriors. It was unwise to move through the jungle alone at night; it was unwise to do so during wartime. But the trail guided him like a path carved through roots and leaves, clear, sharp. The color of the wind. The pouch containing spices and memories beat against him with every step, an unusual emotion seizing his heart. The same that blossoms in anticipation of a long-desired meeting. For the first time in a long time, his soul sparkled freely, living in the present.

He had cast off the burden of having to hide, of waking up in the cold and enduring hunger. The burden of no longer knowing where his home was, crushed by that green he once loved but now suffocated him. The burden of that dark, sharp stone that struck him in the pit of his stomach. The stone the elders called "the illness of the soul."

He stopped. Something wasn’t right; the harmony he had felt earlier had abruptly ended. A clear and cruel awareness struck him, triggering the armor of his soul as swiftly as a serpent’s bite, encasing the bright crystal within a layer of cold metal. Sharp and lethal as the fangs of a ferocious beast.

He wasn’t alone.

The enemy was there.

He was close. He could already see the bright green of the plant through the bluish haze that filtered through the tree canopies to the underbrush. The ground was damp and slippery; more than once, he had to cling to roots and plants as he descended along the steep, improvised path that cut across the hillside. It wasn’t the safest route, but it was saving him precious time, and time was crucial if he wanted to return to camp without trouble. Time was crucial if he didn’t want to run into anyone. It was enemy territory, and the likelihood of encountering someone was real. Usually, he limited himself to gathering things that grew on their side or at least didn’t require more than a few minutes to reach. He was taking a big risk, and he knew it. The presence of the Portable Piercer in its holster and the Mono Blade on his side only reminded him of it.

Standard issue, nothing particularly elaborate, but they did their job. Pierce and cut. He fervently hoped he wouldn’t have to use them.

He had arrived. A few hundred meters away, the bright herb bush waited peacefully at the center of the clearing of ferns and colorful trees. He had made it.

He must be quick.

There might be others nearby; he wasn’t far from the border. He couldn’t take any chances; he had to catch him by surprise and finish him off before he could make the slightest noise or raise the alarm. No Flaming Arrows. Silence would be his rifle, and his blades the bullets that would strike him down. The question of why he was there alone continued to bounce around in his head. He tried to rein in the thought, to silence it. He had to be present in a single moment. One single movement, no room for hesitation. After all, he was there alone too, far from his people without any apparent reason. The green shadows enveloped him. It was close.

The bright green of the plant captivated him, making time slow with every step. His senses seemed to sharpen, the colors of the forest emerging from the blue of the night for what they were. The light green of the ground, the dark green of the foliage, and the faintly reflected green of a war optical camouflage.

He saw it. He controlled the moment of shock and leaped toward it with feral speed.

He was drawing a Portable Piercer from its holster.

He hurled his blade in a swift arc of shimmering blue light.

As the Piercer was violently knocked from his grasp by the impact of a throwing Mono Blade, his opponent was already upon him. He had the quickness to retreat, thus avoiding a lethal arc of cold steel that would have slashed his throat. The survival instinct began to course through his veins; he had already drawn his blade, and the war drum of his heart beat fiercely in his head.

He began to move slowly, studying the right moment to strike; his heart was steady, and his soul was as sharp as his sword. He would win.

If he didn’t recover the Piercer, he would die; his opponent was physically superior, fatigue was setting in, and his knife wouldn’t hold up to more than a few blows.

With every step, with every glance, he closed in on the range of his blade.

With every step, with every glance, he drew closer to the Piercer on the ground.

His muscles tensed.

The drum of his heart stopped.

A deadly whirlwind of powerful slashes hurled at him; he wouldn’t last long, he felt the pain in his eyes. His feeble steel shattered.

With each blow, his arm grew weaker, but he got close enough to attempt to retrieve the Piercer on the ground; he failed. The Mono Blade shattered, and in a desperate act, he threw himself with all his weight against his opponent.

Too close to strike with the blade, he hadn’t expected this reaction, and he grabbed him in a hold.

He clung to his opponent, bringing him to the ground.

They rolled together in a fierce hand-to-hand struggle, He is trying to draw the Dart.

He couldn’t hold him back; with one last effort, he rolled toward the Piercer.

He broke free from the hold.

He pointed the weapon at his opponent; the pouch, dislodged during the struggle, moved with the rhythm of his breath on his chest. The shot in the chamber, energy charging.

The wind rose in the clearing.

Silence. The two figures stared at each other, motionless as trees in the clearing, their arms outstretched toward each other. Hypnotized by something invisible to the eye and senses. Silence. Their branches lowered. Silence. Their weapons fell silent. In silence, they bent toward the plant. In silence, they filled their pouches, and in silence, after a long gaze, they turned away. The sounds of the forest flooded the clearing again; neither of them looked back. They re-entered the green as if waking from a dream. Drunk and doubtful, with each other’s pouches etched into their retinas.

In their minds, in different languages and sounds, a sweet affirmation faded into the light of a window.

The sunlight gently kissed the camp with its rays. He entered the tent used as a kitchen and, without a word, began slicing the potatoes. He was covered in mud and bore evident signs of a struggle, but his demeanor was so calm and solemn that no one, except the cook, dared to say anything.

He cut the dough into small pieces, marked them with a fork, and placed them separately before lowering them into boiling water.

He placed a pinch of spices from the pouch around his neck into each person’s dish.

The light filtered through the tree canopies on the wings of a cool breeze.

His eyes lit up.

It tasted of mint and sage.