While Alberto was sinking into a peaceful nap under the shadows of the lush tree in his garden, golden rays of sun were sneaking like silk threads through the dense emerald foliage, caressing his face with warm touches, casting dancing shadows on his features that had always been characterized by hardness and rigidity—features tempered by years in the fields of battle. But now, in this hidden shade, they seemed in a rare state of relaxation, as if he were taking off the warrior mask he wears before the world.
He woke up slowly, as if his soul were refusing to leave the peaceful world of dreams. As he opened his eyelids, he found his two children, Arius and Elius, had sneaked up beside him like two small kittens looking for warmth and safety, settling into his arms as if they were an inseparable part of his being, filling a void in his soul that had been exhausted by the wars of the past and their unhealed scars. He breathed deeply and closed his eyes for a moment, inhaling the scent of his children, which resembled a mixture of dew-kissed grass and the innate serenity that only children know. At that moment, he felt that the outside world with its noise and destruction had completely faded away.
He carried "Arius" with extreme care, as if he were holding something fragile, a precious jewel that might vanish with a rough touch or an uncalculated movement. He approached "Hylis," his wife, who was waiting for him at the balcony door, bathed in the faint sunlight, her eyes carrying an unparalleled reassurance. He handed him to her with a silent look, but a deep look that carried more gratitude and affection than his tongue could frame in words; it was a look that spoke tales of years of mutual loyalty and sincerity rare in their time. He then returned with deliberate steps, returned to carry "Elius," and climbed the ancient marble staircase to their room. He placed his child in his cozy bed with extremely gentle movements, as if he were placing a piece of light into its own velvet box, covering his small body and planting a tender kiss on his forehead, contemplating his calm features in his sleep, before backing away slowly so as not to wake him, while swallowing a vague lump of sadness that had begun to form in his depths.
When Alberto returned to the lounge, Hylis was standing there, leaning against a marble pillar, the dim light of an oil lamp illuminating the contours of her face which radiated calm. She looked at him deeply, as if diving into his eyes, reading what lay behind the mask he always wore, for the heart of a warrior cannot be hidden from one who has loved him sincerely. She asked him in a low voice, carrying a tone of unjustified anxiety, an anxiety creeping from the depths of the heart into the tone of voice: "I see an unusual calm in your features, Alberto, a calm that resembles the calm that precedes collapses... What is the secret of this sudden stillness?"
He sufficed with a slight smile and answered with brief words, his voice tone deep and reassuring, as if he were trying to reassure himself before her: "Nothing, Hylis... nothing worth worrying about, but my mood today is good, and perhaps it is the moments of stillness that precede the storms, my dear, or perhaps it is just a burning desire to enjoy being with you in this house, far from the hubbub of leaders and the battlefields." He didn't need to say more, for her tender smile that formed on her lips was enough to translate everything that words had failed to convey, as if there were a secret language between them not understood by anyone except those who have lived their lives together, exchanging souls before bodies.
But peace in the world of "Celestine" was not a written destiny, but a fragile exception, a piece of glass on the edge of an abyss. At the dawn of the next day, an urgent royal letter, sealed with deep red wax bearing the kingdom's emblem, broke into his oasis of calm, to throw him once again into the furnace of politics and war that had never ended in its essence, and to announce the beginning of the end of everything.
In the Throne Room: The Omen of Annihilation
Inside the Great Hall, which was redolent with the scent of history, ancient dust, and the gunpowder that never leaves the clothes of warriors, the King stood like a towering mountain, surrounded by the elite of the commanders who had been summoned from every corner of the planet. The atmosphere was charged with unprecedented tension, a tension that makes you feel that the air itself had become heavy as if it were molecules of metal. The King's roar echoed throughout the hall designed to amplify sound, striking hearts with awe and terror: "We have lost our alliances; those parasites who call themselves the 'Malaria' have begun to devour our influence and resources in the neighboring galaxies. We, the people of Celestine, are the people of fighting and pure blood; we will not allow filthy creatures that feed on looting and destruction to break our pride or desecrate our borders!"
The King's deputy, a man with features as sharp as a blade and as cold as ice, stepped forward and began to explain the technical predicament they were facing across a holographic map glowing with a faint blue light in the center of the hall. "Sir, there is a 40% defensive gap, and it directly threatens the stability of our planet." Then he dropped the bomb that shook the pillars of the hall and silenced breaths: "We have prepared the gear, and after three years of secret planning, we will launch a comprehensive campaign to occupy their galaxy and destroy their bases... but, we will be away from our homes for another three years."
A funeral silence prevailed in the hall, a silence heavier than mountains. Three years of alienation in the trenches of darkness, of fierce wars against unknown creatures that know no mercy, and three years away from the warmth of the family, from the laughter of children, and the faces of wives which are the last refuge for every warrior. "And we may never return," the deputy concluded his sentence like a treacherous stab in the hearts of those present, causing despair to seep into their souls.
The King announced his strict decision to stay to protect the planet, ordering the commanders to spend the next three years with their families before the eternal departure. This royal mercy carried within it the bitterness of an early farewell; for every child's laugh they would hear in these years would be a heavy debt that would be paid on the far, lonely battlefields, where there is no room for love, and no room for warmth.
The Warriors' Tavern: Cups of Bitter Farewell
In the old tavern at the outskirts of the city, where memories of past wars accumulate in every corner, and amidst clouds of blue tobacco smoke and the hubbub of clashing glasses trying to hide the trembling in the hands, Alberto sat with his old comrades-in-arms. Their faces, accustomed to the scars of battles, looked pale under the dim light of the lamps. One of them said, emptying his glass at once, as if washing his worry in the bitter liquid: "Three years? This is not a mission, this is a clear-cut suicide expedition. We are going to hell with our own feet."
Alberto sighed, resting his head back on the cold wooden wall, and looked at the ceiling as if seeing behind it distant stars, stars he might not see again: "The problem is not in the fighting, my friends... but in what we will leave behind. My children, my house, Hylis... those small things that give war meaning are themselves what break our hearts before we depart. How can one fight knowing that a piece of him remains at home, waiting for a return that may not come?" One of them mocked Alberto's sudden softness, considering it a weakness unworthy of a warrior, but Alberto did not care. He understood the truth of the Malaria that the young do not understand; they do not attack with swords alone, but they corrupt covenants and sow the seeds of doubt and sedition in the hearts of allies. They raised their glasses with a muffled, unified cry: "To war!" But their eyes were looking for a hidden answer to the question that exhausts their souls: Who among us will return to tell this story to the next generation?
The Magic of the Two Years: The First Steps
The following two years passed like a fleeting dream, in which the house turned into a sanctuary of love and serenity, a refuge against the outside world. Hylis would watch Alberto on those evenings, as he turned two-year-old Arius into a human "airplane," flying him around the room, and the little one's laughter rose, which she never thought would inhabit the chest of her strict warrior husband, whom she was accustomed to seeing amidst blood and iron.
"You are special, Arius," Alberto would whisper into the infant's ear, his eyes shining with proud paternal glint, "as if you were a gift from something bigger and higher." Suddenly, the miracle happened that Alberto would not forget all his life; the little one looked at his father's exhausted face, and in a stuttering tone, but as clear as thunder on a summer day: "A-papa." Time stopped, and Alberto felt his heart melt under the weight of this word, as if it were a divine miracle that had pierced all the hard fortresses of his heart.
And in a golden moment of autumn, when the leaves of the trees were falling as if they were flakes of gold, Arius stood tottering in the middle of the room. Elius was clapping with great enthusiasm, and Alberto was extending his hand like a human protection wall, while Hylis stood in the opposite corner calling to him in an encouraging voice, a voice overflowing with hope: "Come to Mama... Arius." And with stumbling steps like a little penguin, Arius ran toward her. They were not just a child's steps, but the first distances of destiny that he would traverse in this world. "Arius is walking!" Hylis screamed with childlike joy, while Alberto sufficed by looking at him with suppressed pride, realizing that this small journey inside the room would end one day at soaring peaks that no one had trodden before.
Helen: The Last Breath of Peace
Life did not suffice with giving them these moments, for Hylis announced a new pregnancy at the height of the increasing war clouds. And on a quiet winter day, when snow was covering the windows of the house with a thin white layer, "Helen" was born. Hylis chose the name in memory of her late mother, to be the hidden link between the ancient past and the mysterious future. Alberto carried his delicate daughter in his large arms that were accustomed to carrying weapons, and he felt that all the planet's worries, and all the threats of the Malaria, had completely vanished in front of the sparkle of her small eyes. Helen was the "anchor" that tied him to the earth, and the promise he made to himself that he would return from the hell of that distant galaxy no matter the cost.
The family gathered in the large salon: the solid Alberto, the affectionate Hylis with her smile that does not wither, the brave Elius who began to imitate his father in his movements, the mysterious Arius with his questioning eyes, and little Helen sleeping in peace. A scene overflowing with love and warmth, a scene that represented the whole world to Alberto. But, behind their large glass window, the hands of the clock in the city tower were ticking slowly, approaching bit by bit the date of the ominous departure... the date when warriors turn into ghosts fighting in a distant galaxy, leaving behind parts of their souls hanging in wait for a return that no one guarantees.
Alberto was standing now in front of the window, watching the sunset that was painting the horizon with the color of the blood of promises, contemplating the reflection of his face and his family's faces on the glass, wondering bitterly: Is this the last time I will feel Hylis's touch on my shoulder? And will Arius, Elius, and Helen remember the features of my face when I return? Or will I be just another story the grandfather tells the grandchildren about a warrior who went and did not return?
He closed his eyes tightly, gathering all the strength of will he possessed, and decided in the depths of himself: "I will return, not for glory, nor for the King, but for these little ones who are my light in the darkness of this galaxy." His words in his depths were a sacred covenant, a covenant he would fight for until the last drop of his blood.