[ WP ] Two wounded soldiers from opposing sides of the war find themselves in the care of the same nurse and snowed-in until spring .

Gel could hear nothing but the sound of falling snow. He listened carefully, unsure if he were alive or dying or dead already. But the snow was far and he was warm. His fingers moved easily and there was another sound - fire. And another - a soft humming. 
 
 His eyes blinked open. He was in a small hut, clay, of the kind the locals used to make their homes and their work pens. Orange light danced across the ceiling, casting strange, crooked shadows. 
 
 Gel could not sit up. At first he thought he might be paralyzed. He remembered those final moments only vaguely. His rifle had jammed and so he'd faced the Khessian warrior with only his shock-club. He'd landed a blow, but so had the Khessian, and they'd fallen. Gel remembered the falling, but not the landing. 
 
 He must have been paralyzed in the fall. But still, his head turned, and his fingers and toes wiggled. He simply could n't sit up. In trying again, he felt a great pressure against his chest. 
 
 `` No,'' said a voice, at once feminine and haltingly guttural. `` Tied. Lay.'' 
 
 Gel twisted his head to see. It was a clan woman. A local. Yellow skin and blue, narrow eyes. She regarded Gel without much sympathy. 
 
 `` Stay,'' she grunted, turning back to the fire. 
 
 `` Where am I?'' said Gel, feeling at once anxious and angry at being restrained. `` Why am I tied here? Am I badly hurt?'' 
 
 The clan woman shook her head without turning around. `` Dangerous,'' was all she offered as an explanation. 
 
 Gel struggled viciously against his restraints. `` Tell me!'' he howled. 
 
 `` Quiet!'' came a voice that was not the woman. Gel swung his head up and down, only to realize the source was beyond his feet, beyond his sight. `` Let the woman work.'' 
 
 `` Who's that?'' said Gel. `` Who're you?'' 
 
 There was laughter. Gel did n't like the tenor of the man's voice. There was a familiar hollowness there, as if Gel had heard the voice before. `` Not your friend,'' said the voice. 
 
 `` The Khessian?'' said Gel, thrashing worse than ever. 
 
 `` One in the same,'' said the man. `` Still your bones. I'm as bound as you.'' 
 
 `` And why should I believe that, lacking the sight to see it?'' demanded Gel. 
 
 `` Then twist and thrash,'' said the Khessian. `` Just do it quietly. Our host deserves that much respect.'' 
 
 Gel remained tense, waiting for the next moment to fall. But there was nothing. The clan woman worked a pot that rested over the fire. The hut was filled with the sound of snow falling and her wooden spoon thwumping wetly. 
 
 `` Half dead,'' she said after a time, pulling clay bowls down from a high shelf. `` Both. Fell. Fixed now. No fighting. No.'' 
 
 `` We're at *war* with these filthy creatures,'' said Gel. `` *No fighting* is not a thing I can abide by when they've killed half our settlers.'' 
 
 `` Settlers or invaders?'' said the Khessian. `` You've no idea how many of ours died *before* the actual war began, do you?'' 
 
 `` This planet is our *birthright*,'' spat Gel. 
 
 `` Then you should n't have taken so long to get here,'' said Khessian. `` A lot changes in a few thousand years.'' 
 
 Gel drew breath for another outburst, but felt something scalding hot come to a rest just to the side of his face. The clan woman had a brown, oblong spoon. `` Open,'' she commanded. 
 
 `` I can feed myself,'' said Gel. 
 
 `` No.'' 
 
 `` I am not an infant,'' hissed Gel. `` I am a Lieutenant in the 4th Imperial Assault Squadron. Untie my hands immediately.'' 
 
 But the clan woman simply clucked her tongue and took the stew away. Gel listened as the Khessian ate the portion greedily. `` You've chosen poorly,'' said the Khessian. `` This is delicious.'' 
 
 `` I suppose being bound and treated as a babe suits you just fine,'' snapped Gel, banging his head angrily upon the stiff cot. 
 
 `` We are an adaptable people,'' said the Khessian. `` I thought that much was obvious from the way we've adapted to this world, rather than demanding *it* adapt to our antiquated physiology.'' 
 
 `` Humans are far from antiquated,'' said Gel. `` *You* are evolution run in reverse. *You* are the dissolution of our natural godliness.'' 
 
 `` And yet still we are human.'' 
 
 `` Never.'' 
 
 Then the clan woman was back at Gel's side. `` Eat,'' she said. And this time he did. 
 
 When Gel next awoke, he found that his bands had been removed. Instead he was now chained by the ankle. The Khessian was different than he had appeared in battle, stripped as he was of his silvery warskins, the various dyes washed from his face. More human. But still, the differences were obvious. The larger eyes. The wider mouth. The strange marbled skin. Doctors who had studied Khessian samples found that the blood had mutated, creating a variable body temperature that allowed the creatures to survive the wild climate swings of Persimmon. To Gel it was just further proof of the distance between humans and Khessians. 
 
 `` An agreement,'' said the Khessian after they had finished breakfast. `` We may one day kill each other, but not here. Not in this home. The winter is here and we will not leave this place for another month yet. Here we will be at peace, and perhaps, in time, she will decide to unshackle us.'' 
 
 `` You would strangle me in my sleep,'' said Gel. `` I would never close my eyes to you were you unchained.'' 
 
 `` Then this will be a very long month for you,'' said the Khessian. `` But do you agree to the truce? For the sake of our caretaker, who gives of her stores despite the ruin our war has made of her people.'' 
 
 Gel took a slow, steady breath. `` For her kindness, I will be civil. But my mind will not be changed.'' 
 
 `` I do n't ask for that. Only that you stay your hand inside this house.'' 
 
 Gel nodded. `` And I will.'' 
 
 And he did. Throughout the terrible winter, they remained in the small hut, eating the clan woman's food and passing the time in quiet contemplation. Gel never asked the Khessian his name and never thought to give out his own, but they learned each others name through exchanges with the clan woman. The Khessian was Vella Durn. He fought for his family and nothing else. 
 
 `` There is so much world here,'' said Vella once. `` I can not understand why we fight over this small patch of it.'' 
 
 `` The rest is useless,'' said Gel. `` Barren. It would take centuries to bring it to fruit. *This* is the land of promise. You were meant to prepare the way, not stand in the way.'' 
 
 `` And Earth is truly gone?'' 
 
 `` It is no home for humans.'' 
 
 `` All have left?'' 
 
 Gel's throat tightened. `` No. No, very few left. There were perhaps... perhaps ten billion who were left behind.'' 
 
 `` You left them behind on a dying Earth?'' 
 
 `` There was no way to save them,'' said Gel. `` We were meant to leave much earlier. We were meant to prepare ourselves over the centuries. But, things changed. They became muddled. Goals changed. Leaders changed. Ideals fell apart. When we finally left there was no more time to spare. No more resources. We made a mess of the whole thing. And that is why, Khessian, we *must* have our birthright. We can not bear to have our hopes usurped this way.'' 
 
 Vella nodded at this, but the conversation died and both men fell to silence. 
 
 Finally, the winter broke. The clan woman removed their armor from a locked chest and pushed open the door. `` Go,'' she said, before turning back to the fire. 
 
 The Khessian bowed to her, then gathered his possessions and set out into the melting white world. Gel followed shortly after. Together they trudged up the hill to the site of their battle. There was nothing there - no blood, no bodies, nothing but thawing snow. 
 
 `` I wonder who won?'' said Vella, looking out over the still white. 
 
 Gel swung the shock-club horizontally, with a force that tore muscle from bone along the side of his ribs. Vella fell softly to the snow, neck broken, skull reshaped like a broken clay bowl. 
 
 Panting, Gel tossed the shock-club aside. His feet slipped into the snow as he began to walk. In one depression, his foot snagged on something that was undoubtedly a body, but Gel kept his eyes ahead and trudged forward. The days were longer in the spring, but who could say how long it would take him to find base camp? 
 
 As he walked, Gel could hear nothing but the sound of falling snow as distant trees bowed their branches and loosed their hold on winter. It sounded almost like mortar fire and he smiled to hear it.
