In the Meadows of Sorrow

**"In the Meadows of Sorrow"**is the twenty-first episode of *War* and the 70th episode overall.

The episode was published on May 16, 2021.

In the episode, four tales of war and strife embody the despair of a nation.

## Appendix

Episode Title Card**A:** Map of the War, 725**B:** Bovish Royal Family, 725**C:** Vulpine Royal Family, 725**D:** Checkerhall, Boso Bovo, Bovo**E:** Gorod, West Gallix**F:** Death Fields**G:** Verdant Cliffs, Vulpus
## The Episode

*—Diary of Lana Loudoun—*

*March 21, 725*

*Sergeant O had an announcement this morning, one that we all feared was coming. The parrots have reached the first series of camps in the east: V, W, X, Y, and Z Camps. They have already been evacuated west, and we will be receiving an influx of pigs in the coming days as more and more camps liquidate their residents. This is all temporary, of course. Sergeant O told us to expect Porcinian surrender by summer’s end. Once the Summer Sun has achieved victory over us, we will learn what fate lies in store for each of us. O Camp is not our home, not permanently. Moving us all south may have temporarily prevented our indoctrination, subjugation, and enslavement, but that is all it did: delay the inevitable.*

*Nicholas and I are to be expecting two guests in our cabin: adult siblings from W Camp. Nicholas is making up the pullout couch for them, and I have written them welcome cards. I don’t know why. This isn’t a hotel, but I suppose I want them to feel at home here. I think I just want to remind them that there is kindness in this world. Not even the foxes can eliminate that.*

—Boso Bovo, Bovo—

—Kingdom of the Cows—

-April 21, 725-

Lance Corporal Baldur Vorwärts was only a four-year-old fox when the war began. As a kid, he was just another Cartonian. His allegiance to Vulpus came second to his devotion to the Harmony Crown. But that all changed when the glorious Vixen Queen launched her righteous war for conquest and dominance. He could still remember her declaration of war on New Year’s Day in 708, even though the memory itself was fuzzy. His parents were excited. Mallardia didn’t stand a chance!

The war lasted longer than anyone would have thought, sure. But in the end, the result would be the same. Victory to Vulpus!

As soon as Baldur turned sixteen, he enlisted in the army. He and his friends were shipped off to Simeone. In the first decade of the war, fighting was primarily conducted from trenches. However, as the Summer Sun made significant progress into Granite Bloc territory, trenches became merely a station for soldiers to recharge before heading back out to the battlefields. Baldur could not remember how many monkeys he killed, but the thought of their blood on his hands enthralled him.

Victory to Vulpus! Rise for the Empire!

He was so fortunate to have been born a fox. To be birthed into the greatest Kingdom on the planet was a gift he would never squander. Within him swelled a deep pride for his people, his race, his Queen, and his country. And he wanted everyone to know it. Vulpus had more than tripled in size since the war began. Phantine was just annexed last month, as was the area controlled in Simeone.

After serving in the trenches of Simeone as a private, Baldur was promoted to Lance Corporal. Two of his friends also earned this distinction, and together they were transferred to Bovo. They were working in tandem with Cervidium. The deer were expecting an imminent collapse of the country, which would engender the invasion of Canis. The foxes were the ones leading this invasion, and the idea was that once Baldur’s units were finished helping the deer take down the cows, they could progress further north into Canis.

As a clocktower chimed twice on the twenty-first of April, Baldur and his two fellow Lance Corporal friends—Gustav and Oliver—were standing on the burned and damaged street leading to Checkerhall. Over the past six nights, the deer and foxes had besieged the Bovish capital of Boso Bovo with fire, bombs, gunfire. A storm of death and destruction.

An hour ago, a white flag had raised from Checkerhall, and the torrent stopped. An armored car passed through the streets, right past Baldur, and Stag Barrow Elkton himself entered Checkerhall. He was rumored to be meeting with King Clarence II to negotiate terms of surrender.

“Taking forever,” Oliver groaned, kicking rubble on the sidewalk. A dead cow was lying a few feet away from them, her eyes wide open. A few pebbles hit her. To amuse himself, Baldur took aim and spat at her face, but missed her eyeballs.

“This was war,” Gustav said, gesturing to the crumbling buildings, “now they have to conduct politics.”

“Politics are boring,” Oliver said with a yawn. “Killing is so much easier.”

He examined his gun, which had run out of ammo. Earlier, he complained about it until Gustav told him to shut up.

“When the cow king surrenders,” Baldur commented, “we will go north.”

“You think?” Gustav replied with sass. “Finally, we’ll get into Canis. Their trenches won’t hold up.”

“I dunno,” Oliver shrugged, “they’ve had eighteen years to really fortify them.”

Baldur rounded on him, sneering in his direction.

“No one is a match for the Vulpus Empire.”

Gustav beat a fist over his chest to agree with Baldur’s point.

“I can’t wait to see Highland Castle fall,” Gustav said passionately. “And Bentley Connelly dragged out onto the front steps. He and his whole family. We should hang them from the highest tower so they’re decapitated on the way down. That’d be awesome!”

“I’ll kill Bentley Connelly myself!” Baldur exclaimed. He could envision it in his head. The weak dog king begging for mercy as Baldur wrung his throat. The Vixen Queen would declare him a national hero and honor him with a parade through Vista. That would be the highlight of his life, if he was given the chance. He would have to distinguish himself during the invasion if he wanted the opportunity to accompany the main Vulpine army into West Terrier. Everyone wanted that chance. Baldur was willing to push even Oliver and Gustav under the bus if it meant he got to go.

Their leader, Corporal Axmann, passed them on the street as commotion began to arise in the direction of Checkerhall.

“Lance Corporals,” he addressed, “you’re relieved from your posts here if you’d like to hear the Stag’s speech. The cows have surrendered.”

“Victory to Vulpus!” Baldur shouted.

“Thank you, sir!” Oliver saluted.

The three rushed down the charred street toward Checkerhall. The palace was black and white to mirror the most common colors of cows, but thanks to the bombings even the white parts were coated in soot, ash, and burn marks. Throngs of soldiers crowded the plaza in front of the palace. Baldur scrambled up a collapsed column of a nearby building and leaned against it so he could see the second-floor balcony of Checkerhall. The black-and-white striped flag of Bovo was lowering. The soldiers cheered as the green Cervidian banner went up in its place. Baldur didn’t cheer since it wasn’t Vulpine.

The doors of the balcony opened and the King Clarence II exited with the Stag. Clarance was accompanied by his wife, Queen Stratacella. Baldur didn’t think Clarence had been King for very long. Maybe just a couple of years? His father got assassinated by cows angry at his reign. The Vixen Queen would never be assassinated by her own citizens. She was too beloved.

“Bovo has surrendered!” Stag Barrow yelled into the plaza. He didn’t have a microphone, so Baldur could barely hear him. “The Bovish crown is no more!”

Clarence Truett was sullen, ashamed. He should be.

“Kill them!” Gustav yelled. Similar shouts echoed around the square. Clarence and Stratacella looked rightfully terrified, a look Baldur was familiar with. So many monkeys and cows had that expression of fear when Baldur ended their lives.

“No Bovo! No Bovo!” the crowd chanted. Stag Barrow reentered the palace with Clarence and Stratacella, leaving the masses disappointed.

Thankfully, they didn’t have long to wait. Barrow was merely getting out of the way. That night, both Clarence and Stratacella were hung from that very balcony, ending the monarchy in Bovo.

—Gorod, State of West Gallix—

—Union of Cervidian Centralized States—

-May 21, 725-

In an apartment high-rise in the industrial city of Gorod, a chicken family was having dinner. They sat around the dinner table as they did every night. The family patriarch was a steel laborer named Lyev Vremyado. He was born and raised in Gorod, and despite Cervidium’s best efforts he remained a loyal Galligasque chicken. Gallix may be as dead as King Poultrus III and the Petukinau royal family, but the spirit of the nation lived on within him.

These sentiments were alive in Lyev’s wife as well. Olga Vremyado was another city girl, raised in the bustling capital of Kurinoye Selo before the deer took that as well. Olga and Lyev met by chance, when Olga visited Gorod on a work trip. Lyev was a steel worker, and Olga was employed by the agency that inspected the steel mills. Olga moved to Gorod, they married, and had two children.

Their son Lennon was born in 702, six years before the war. Alix followed in 704. All seemed well for the Vremyados. Lyev and Olga were both happily employed, happily married, and happily endowed with two wonderful children. Then, Victoria Vixen was assassinated in Vista, Vulpus, and the world turned on its head.

At first, Gallix was neutral. Lyev remembered that initial relief. Work had continued as usual, the children still went to school, and the skies over Gallix were calm and blue. Until everything went dark.

Gallix was dragged into the war, trapped between the enormous powers of Cervidium and Vulpus. The little country was seen as a prize to be won, and the Vixen Queen and Stag plotted to snatch it. Lyev and Olga had watched on live television as their beloved King Poultrus was murdered. His head was detached from his body. Queen Henna was killed too, and Princess Henrietta. Poultrus’s brother had escaped with his family, but they too were murdered.

Life came to a standstill in the disputed territory. Lyev felt trapped. He had nowhere to run, nowhere he could go. They could only wait and see what became of Gorod. Gallix was ultimately split down the middle. The Vremyados ended up in the Cervidian division, and became citizens of Cervidium. Though calling what they had as citizenship was a stretch. They were more like a subclass of citizen, with restricted rights and abilities. They were forbidden from leaving Gorod, even for leisure. They had to send weekly reports to a designated deer who would review both their income and their expenses to ensure taxes were being properly paid. There was no chicken-run government, and the deer controlled every aspect of daily life. They were a colony, slaves to the Stag and his will.

Chickens were, at first, conscripted en masse. So many died in the trenches that the deer were forced to ease up on the draft notices or else the entire chicken population would face extinction and there’d be no one to run the industries in West Gallix. Lyev’s job was maintained as it was deemed “essential” by the new Cervidian authority. Olga lost hers, but managed to find employment in the Galligasque Compliance Office as a secretary.

Lyev was too old to be drafted, and Olga successfully appealed to her deer supervisor at the Office for a draft waiver. They never lost their apartment, and so Lyev and Olga, more fortunate than most, raised their children in the new West Gallix. Lennon and Alix went to a deer-run school and learned deer-selected curriculum. The native chicken language of Galligasque was outlawed, and the government bugged apartments ensured compliance. Olga often saw the reports at work of Galligasque speakers violating the law. It broke Lyev’s heart to see his children raised without this crucial piece of their culture.

But the hardest stage of Lyev’s life—at a time when he thought it couldn’t get worse—started when Lennon received his draft notice in 720, the day of his eighteenth birthday. Lennon, already brainwashed by the Cervidians, eagerly tore open the envelope as his parents watched on, forlorn. It had been a cold winter day, and Lyev remembered shivering in spite of it.

Lennon was deployed to Leprolia, and became a killer. The sweet boy they had raised, the one who was going to blossom in a bountiful world of peace and love, was warped by Cervidian propaganda and forever altered for the worse by his military service.

Then, in the spring of that same year, Lyev and Olga received a call that Alix was arrested for defection. She had tried to leave Gorod and inadvertently came too close to the Cervidian border. Chickens were not allowed to exit Gorod, much less the former borders of Gallix. Interrogation quickly revealed that Alix was trying to meet a boy but got lost on the outskirts. The boy lived in Derevnya, a small village north of Gorod. They met online.

Though Alix’s mistake was harmless enough, the deer insisted she was improperly raised and educated. Her actions did not align with Cervidian excellence. She was sent to a Recalcitrance Rectification program somewhere in Cervidium. During the entire period of her arrest, interrogation, and sentencing, she was not permitted to see her parents. Alix returned the next year, visibly changed. She was thinner, weaker, and spoke very rarely. She graduated from school the following summer, and Lyev found her a job at this steel plant. She still worked there, and seemed to actually enjoy it. The position was solitary, which fit Alix’s personality. She enjoyed being by herself. There was even a boyfriend now, someone inside Gorod.

Lennon returned from war in January, after Leprolia was annexed and the Kingdom of Cervidium was reorganized into the Union of Cervidian Centralized States. To Lyev, there did not seem to be a difference. Purportedly, the Stag made the decision to prevent uprisings and rebellions in West Gallix, Felexa, and Leprolia. But Lyev had never seen any form of uprising or rebellion in West Gallix. The chickens were a placid, peaceful race of people. That was why they did not stand a chance in this war. Lyev believed that if they continued to comply and bide their time, eventually the tide would turn and Gallix would be liberated. Unfortunately, information about the war was severely censored, and so the exact nature of the Granite Bloc was unknown to them. Lennon bragged on and on for months about the Summer Sun’s many victories and how it was only a matter of time before they finally won, but he could not speak to the status of the nations outside of the UCCS. Bovo was among them now, but Lyev would never see a cow. Chickens were entombed in dead Gallix, with only their deer captors for company.

Before Lennon went off to war, he was already a problem. The apartment was always bugged, but Lyev and Olga could generate enough noise to converse in Galligasque between them, and bemoan the state of their country. As Lennon got older, they had to be more cautious. He was a radical zealot for his Cervidian overlords, and there was naught his parents could do to reverse his stances. During the years when he was gone, that home freedom was restored. Even Alix would talk with them, and she was beginning to pick up on a few sentences and phrases in Galligasque.

Now that Lennon was home, they had to be much more careful. Lennon was on a military furlough until June, when he was expected to return to the northern front and fight in the invasion of Canis. His deployment was scheduled for the first of June, and so the family had only ten days left with him. These past five months had felt like a dramatic play more than a family reunion. Lyev and Olga did up their patriotism for Lennon, and even redecorated the apartment to portray nationalist pride. Alix surprised Lyev by even changing her wardrobe to be more…Cervidian.

This gritty and sullen history of Gallix and the Vremyado family weighed on Lyev. He had been a true patriot of Gallix back when it was still alive, but he was forced to watch as his home collapsed around him, and his family changed too. He was so lucky that Olga and Alix had not been indoctrinated. If he was alone in his thoughts and opinions, he’d surely be lost.

It was this feeling of gratitude going through Lyev’s head when Lennon spoke, the first time words were exchanged during this dinner.

“The pumpkin is tasty, Mama.”

“Thank you,” Olga replied, carving her own roasted pumpkin with a knife. She flashed him a smile. “I know it’s one of your favorites.”

“Indeed.”

Alix cleared her throat.

“I hear the Summer Sun is getting closer to breaking into Canis.”

Lyev nodded. The agreed-upon goal between the three of them was to bring up the war at least once per day so Lennon could deliver his opinions on whatever he wanted, and would not suspect them of being disloyal. The war was obviously the only thing in the news cycle, even if it was restricted, and the chickens were expected to have a discourse about it.

“I saw that in the newspaper too,” Olga commented. “It’s about time.”

“Absolutely,” Lennon gushed. “I just hope I’m not too late to see the breach.”

“I hope we’re first to get through,” Alix deftly added. “The parrots and foxes have been trying for months, but wouldn’t it be grand if the UCCS was the first to raise its flag over West Highland?”

Olga almost choked on her drink. Lennon’s eyes narrowed.

“West *Terrier*. Seriously, Alix, don’t you know your geography?”

Alix blanched. She quickly covered her tracks.

“Sorry, brother. Excitement made my tongue twist. I meant Highland Castle in West Terrier, of course.”

Lennon seemed pleased. He resumed eating his pumpkin and porridge.

“Ever see a dog?” Lyev asked his son, dreading the answer. It honestly felt as if a stranger was sitting across from him. A stranger disguised as little Len.

“Oh yeah,” Lennon responded, his mouth full of porridge. “The rabbits had a ton of them fighting alongside them in Leprolia. I killed one myself.”

Olga’s mouth twitched. Lyev leaned forward with feigned enthusiasm.

“You don’t say! Tell us more.”

He regretted his words, but Lennon immediately launched into a story.

“Alright, alright. So picture it, okay? It’s a field in Leprolia, flat but speckled with trees. We’ve got one here, and here…”

He moved objects around the table to demonstrate. Alix and Olga were on either side of him, watching out of the corner of their eyes. Lyev moved his own glass out of the way so he could see properly and pretend to care.

“I come down this way, and clock him. The dog, I mean. He was shooting at my brethren. I shot at him, but missed. Came close enough to startle him, and he locked his eyes on me. I charged. He takes aim at me, but I’m too fast. I jump him!”

Lennon knocked over the salt shaker, which was cast as the dog in this sad play. Lennon used the pepper shaker as himself, the alleged hero.

“We’re rolling around like this. Meanwhile, the war is raging around us. No one’s watching, no one cares. No one sees us. This is between me and him. Man on man. Granite Bloc versus Summer Sun.”

Lyev felt his stomach turn over. He already knew who won this squabble.

“At first, it really feels as if I’m winning. I’ve got him pinned underneath me. I just need to shoot him. I reach for my gun, but his arm gets loose and he disarms me. He thinks he’s clever, he’s slick, right? But no! I have my knife!”

Lennon seized his pumpkin knife and held it against the salt shaker’s lid.

“I have my blade against his throat, and of course the coward is begging for mercy. You know, like a freaking loser. It’s really pathetic, honestly, these Granite Bloc soldiers crumbling so easily. Such cowardice. I press on his neck, and the little bastard kicks me in the nuts.”

Alix snorted but passed it off as choking on her food. Lennon didn’t even notice, but Lyev felt Olga kick Alix under the table.

“So I get real ticked off,” Lennon continued, “and I stab him. Like this!”

Lennon reeled his arm all the way back, and stabbed downward at the table. But the thud Lyev expected to hear was instead actualized as a scream. Alix shrieked in agony as Lennon accidentally stabbed the back of her hand, laying flat on the table. Lennon shot back in his chair, a look of shock on his face. Olga was on her feet too, hurrying to help Alix. Lyev reached over and plucked the knife from the back of her hand. Alix immediately clutched it to her chest and wrapped her sleeve around it.

“Let me see it!” Olga begged, trying to inspect the wound. Lennon was still silent, appalled at his actions. Alix shook her head adamantly.

“It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“I’m so sorry,” Lennon muttered. “I—“

“It’s okay!” Alix insisted. “You all eat. I’ll go wrap it.”

Olga was on the brink of tears. Lyev could see the edges of her eyes welling.

“Alix…”

She pried the arm away from Alix’s chest, and the sleeve unraveled to reveal…nothing. There was no wound. No blood. No cut. Nothing.

Alix covered it again, but everyone had seen it. The room went completely still. Lyev didn’t understand it. He had removed the knife from her hand himself. He had seen the blade had perforated her skin and bone. She couldn’t just wrap it and call it a day. This would have required hospitalization, surgery, stitches!

But she was healed. How was that possible?

Lennon’s expression had changed. He was not horrified and apologetic anymore. His face was drawn in serious curiosity.

“What happened to the wound, Alix?” he asked. His sister stared at him.

“It was just a cut,” she mumbled. “I wiped off the blood. It’s…”

Lennon seized her wing, causing her to cry out. Olga gasped as Lennon inspected the place where a literal hole should have been. Lyev’s eyes had not deceived him; Alix was scarless.

“That’s impossible,” he scowled. “How did you do it?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Alix wailed, her voice desperate. Lyev was breathing heavily. What had happened to his daughter?

“Oh…” Lennon exhaled, taking a step back. “Oh, I know what you are.”

Olga stared in horror at Lyev. He swallowed hard.

“Lennon…”

“She’s a BioFreak! Who did you fuck? How did you get that way? Tell me his name!”

Lyev’s body went numb. A BioFreak. The supposed biological abominations that resulted from interspecies sex. Those were just stories, weren’t they? How could Alix have become one?

*The Recalcitrance Rectification program*. The year she was gone. She came back different. Something had happened to her, and she never told them.

“I didn’t—“ Alix began to protest, but Lennon grabbed her. He slapped her across the face.

*“*You *slut!* Who was it! TELL ME!”

Alix shook her head, weeping. Olga pulled on Lennon’s grip, but he held strong. Lyev pleaded with his son to relent, but he was a hardened criminal of war now. There was no compassion left within him.

“Was it a deer?”

“It’s not like that!” Alix shouted. Lyev cast a glance upward. The neighbors would be hearing them. The police patrol would be called. They’d all go to jail.

“A BioFreak. You’re a fucking BioFreak. Whore!”

“LENNON!” Olga screamed. She wrenched his arm off Alix, and toppled over her outstretched chair. Lyev cried out for her.

“It’s nothing bad,” Alix gasped. “I can heal myself. Stop bleeding, that sort of a thing. It doesn’t bother anyone…”

“Fucking slut,” Lennon sneered. Then, he grabbed the same knife he used to accidentally stab her, and slit her arm. Alix shrieked, and Olga went ballistic. She began hitting her son, tears soaking her cheeks. Lyev found himself holding a knife himself, brandishing it in front of Lennon. Alix’s arm quickly returned to normal.

Lennon stabbed Alix again. And again. And again. Lyev felt paralyzed as Lennon savagely attacked his sister. Olga was at her side as she collapsed to the ground, but her wounds healed in seconds. Alix scrambled away from Lennon, but he grabbed her ankles and lifted her off the ground. With alarming strength, he slammed her onto the table. It broke under the force, and Alix was soon on the floor again.

“Call the police!” Lennon shouted at his parents, but neither listened. Lyev could now see that if Lennon was not stopped, he would kill Alix.

Olga ran into the kitchen, but did not return with the phone. She came back with a skillet and smacked Lennon over the head with it. He reeled, but regained his footing and swung a punch at Olga, connecting with her face. She fell, and Lyev jumped at Lennon. He dodged his father, and Lyev hit the wall. Lennon stumbled into the hall and returned with his sword.

*His sword*.

There was a gun somewhere in this apartment. Lennon’s gun. Where was it?

“ALIX! Who! Fucked! You!”

The question burned a fire in Lyev’s heart. This was his daughter, his precious little girl. She may be an adult now, she may even be a BioFreak, but she was his pure child. No one spoke to her that way.

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP!”

Lennon angled his head at Lyev.

“What did you just say?”

A shoe hit Lennon’s chest. Olga threw her other one too. Then she ripped a picture frame off the wall and tossed it. She was using anything she could find. Alix was now against the balcony door on the other side of the broken dining room table, fully healed and ready to go. He may have the sword, but he was outmatched three to one.

*Len is dead*, Lyev told himself. *This is not your son. This man will kill you and your family*.

“I see how it is,” Lennon muttered, eyeing each of them. “None of you are true Cervidians.”

Lyev had an idea. He kept his eyes on Lennon as he spoke in native Galligasque.

“On three we go. Are you ready?”

“*Da*,” Olga rasped.

“*Da*!” Alix yelped.

“*Odin!*” Lyev shouted. “*Dva! Tri!*”

They rushed Lennon. He was momentarily caught off guard, but his sword connected with Alix’s shoulder. She didn’t even cry out. Olga kicked him in the groin, just as the dead dog in Leprolia had. Lyev seized Lennon’s head and drove it backward into the wall, breaking apart the plaster. The struggle lasted far longer than Lyev hoped, but Alix successfully wrestled the sword out of his wings.

“For your information,” she spat, “I didn’t *sleep* with anybody to become a BioFreak. The deer you love so much did this to me. They made me, and I have to live with this forever.”

“Liar!” Lennon shouted and kicked his mother in the face. Olga flew backward and hit the hall closet door with such force that it cracked. She crawled away as Lyev and Alix continued to beat Lennon.

“OW!” Alix screamed. Lennon had bit her. She let go of the sword, and Lennon snatched it. He head-butted Lyev, which was agonizing. Lyev was temporarily blinded as colors flashed before him. He bumped against a doorknob and spun around. He grabbed his head and his vision came back. Alix was holding out both wings to Lennon, whose sword was pointed at her. Lennon pierced her stomach with the blade, and blood gushed out of her abdomen. Lyev took a step forward but rolled his ankle on a fragment of the closet door and fell down again. His senses were blurred, and Olga was not in sight. Where had she gone?

Alix’s shirt was still bloody, but she didn’t seem in pain. She must have healed herself again.

“You don’t deserve to live,” Lennon said with such clear hatred that Lyev felt a pang of sadness for the boy he had lost.

“Neither do you,” Alix fired back. Lennon lifted his sword, and brought it down. Alix dodged the swing, but slipped against the broken dining table. Lennon saw his opportunity, and took it. He didn’t go for the stomach again, which he knew could be healed. He went for the head.

The neck.

Lyev screamed in anguish as Lennon decapitated Alix. Blood gushed from her neck and turned black, as she was unable to recover from this wound. Her powers could not reattach her head. Lennon triumphantly bellowed as Alix’s limp body slid along the broken dining table and came to a rest in the debris. Lyev’s knees buckled and he hit the ground.

“Alix!” he cried, but his voice was hoarse. Lennon turned to him. Blood poured from his forehead and stained his clothes. One of his shoes was missing. Lyev stared him up and down.

“You’re not my son,” he gasped. “You’re a demon.”

Lennon clucked his tongue. His sword dangled from his hand. Lyev saw black blood dripping from the blade. There was no coming back from this. Lennon would report his parents to the Galligasque Compliance Office, and they’d be arrested. Lennon would be believed, of course, as a hero of war. The black blood of Alix’s corpse would prove that she was a BioFreak, further exonerating him. Olga and Lyev would die separately in horrible Cervidian prisons, and perhaps become BioFreaks themselves.

“*The deer…did this to me*,” Alix had said. What did they do to his child?

“Get up,” Lennon ordered.

Lyev remained where he sat, leaning against the broken closet door. He shook his head. Lennon scowled and lifted his sword.

*Bang*.

Blood burst from his side, and he dropped the weapon. Another gunshot rang out, this time connecting with his face. Blood blasted from his body, and he fell dead. Olga emerged from Lennon’s bedroom, aiming his gun where he lay. Seeing he moved no more, she let it fall to the ground and rushed over to Lyev.

“Alix…” she sniffled. “Is she…?”

“She is…oh, Olga!”

“I killed him!” she howled, her face pressed against Lyev’s shoulder. They sat together in complete silence, the corpses of their two children lying inches away. In the distance, Lyev could hear sirens.

“Police,” he remarked. “They’re coming for us.”

Olga gazed at the corpses.

“We can’t hide this,” she noted, wiping away her tears. “They’ll execute us.”

“No, we can’t.”

Lyev lifted himself to his feet and went into the kitchen. He poured two glasses of water and gave one to Olga in the hall. He dabbed his shirt into the water and cleaned the blood off her face.

“I love you so much, Olga Vremyado.”

She kissed his cheek.

“And I love you, Lyev Vremyado.”

The sirens bleated outside the apartment complex. Lyev walked over to the window, trying to ignore his decapitated daughter. He counted eight police cars. Officers were racing into the building nineteen stories below. He glanced at the balcony.

Olga came up behind him.

“I don’t want to go to prison,” she whispered. “I don’t want to be without you. Not now. Not after Alix.”

Her voice cracked on Alix’s name. Lyev opened the balcony door and stepped onto the veranda. Olga followed.

“I don’t want to go to prison either,” he agreed. “I hate this place. I hate what’s become of Gallix.”

“I hate what they did to our children,” Olga murmured. “They’ve taken everything from us.”

Lyev gripped her wings.

“I don’t want them to take us too.”

Olga nodded. Lyev could see understanding in her eyes. They were on the same page, as they always were.

A knock came at the door.

“Police! Open the door!”

Lyev slid the balcony door closed. He tightened his grip on Olga’s wing. Using their free hands, they grabbed the balcony railing. Stepping on the end table, they ascended to the ledge together.

“POLICE!”

A smash was heard against the apartment door. They were trying to break it down. Lyev ignored everything except Olga, the love of his life. He gazed into her beautiful brown eyes.

“I love you,” he said one last time.

“I love you,” she replied calmly.

They leaned forward together, and fell.

—Southern Simeone—

—Occupied Vulpus—

-June 21, 725-

The trenches were shells of what they once were, but the scars of the snaking lines remained. Professor Gufran Bloem surveyed the former battlefield from atop one of the destroyed trench watchtowers. It was once operated by the monkeys of the Granite Bloc before they were driven into their own territory. The fighting was now continuing far north of here.

Professor Bloem was a botanist by trade, and a Willonian mouse by birth, sent here by her fox overlords to examine the battlefields for habitability. Her counterparts were conducting similar inspections in Phantine and the area of Capricon once occupied by Canis. This was not an honorable assignment, it was a treacherous one. It could be a death sentence, which was why the foxes sent a team of mice.

Willonians, Mallardians, Capricovians…none of them mattered. The foxes wanted living space to expand their race, and the bombed out wastelands of war were not suitable.

The team, consisting of Professor Bloem and four Willonian soldiers, were waving metal detectors over the charred earth, hunting for unexploded ordnance—bombs. These former sites of battle were known throughout the Vulpus Empire as Death Fields. Just walking across them could trip one of the long-buried land mines and set off a chain reaction.

Professor Bloem set down her metal detector and scooped some soil into a vial. She gave it a shake and nestled it in a portable centrifuge. She let the machine spin and analyze the sample. It wouldn’t be fully accurate, but it was a start to understand what kind of place they were in.

As they waited, Professor Bloem gazed across the field. There were no trees, though there had been some. She could see the stumps, probably cut down to facilitate trench warfare. A few branches were jutting from the ground, devoid of verdancy. There were patches of grass, but nothing green. No sign of wildlife, not even insects.

And the entire plane was deathly quiet. On their journey here, they had passed many bodies, mostly skeletons by now. Monkeys, mice, foxes…

What was the total cost of the war? Could it really be worth this?

The centrifuge dinged, and Professor Bloem stooped to analyze her sample.

“Toxic,” she reported. “Lead, mercury, chlorine, arsenic…Cartonian remains. This is uninhabitable.”

One of the primary aspects of habitability was the ability to grow food, or have access to fresh water. It took only three samples to determine that this Death Field was just that—the embodiment of death. Nothing could grow here, nothing could live here. Not now, not in the near future, perhaps not ever. Not to mention the amount of unexploded bombs buried under the surface. Removing and decommissioning those explosives would take years. Realistically, it’d take centuries. They were all over Cartonia!

Professor Bloem shivered in the wind, overlooking the mass cemetery of Cartonian innocence. Here, in the name of hatred, countless men and women lost their lives, doomed their planet, cursed their homeland, and were perpetually entombed in the meadows of sorrow.

—Verdant Cliffs, Vulpus—

-July 21, 725-

Much had happened in the last week. It all began when fox soldiers in western Phantine successfully broke through the Canisian trench line, and so for the first time in eighteen years, Canis was invaded by a hostile power. The breach was a massive boost to Vulpine and Summer Sun morale. Parrots and deer in the north and south both intensified their efforts to overpower their trench opponents.

Lieutenant General Matthew Palmer was in Phantine overseeing the annexation when the celebrations broke out in the camp. Shortly thereafter, he received a phone call from central command in Vista, recalling him to the capital to aid in strategizing the advance, as General Palmer. At just 33 years of age, he was now a General—one of the highest-ranking members of the Vulpine military.

On Matthew’s way back into Vulpus, he swung around the western coast to visit his parents. They were nearing their sixties, and Dad was thinking of retiring. Life in Verdant Cliffs, they said, went on as usual for the most part. War had escaped them, at least the destruction of it all. Matthew had seen too much, and would never forget any of it.

The Palmers were, however, not free from struggle and torment. The days preceding the war had impacted them greatly, more than anyone knew. They could never talk about it, not without the truth resurfacing.

“General,” Sunny Palmer gasped when she saw his uniform, standing on the darkened porch of his childhood home. She was wearing her pajamas, her paw frozen on the doorknob. Tom Palmer came up behind her and grimaced.

“Take it off.”

Matthew went to his old bedroom and stripped, changing into comfortable summer PJs. The second bedroom door, once occupied by his sister during Matthew’s youth, was still closed. He paused outside it. His parents were downstairs tinkering in the kitchen. Matthew turned the door handle and entered.

Stepping over the threshold was like crossing into a different era. He was transported back twenty years, before the war, before he went to Vista. His only sibling had lived here. Innocent, young, beautiful, charismatic, loving, peaceful, trusting. Not a day went by without a thought for her, and of what would have been.

Her possession were untouched, yet pristine and shiny. No dust gathered on her dresser, containing the few clothes she left behind…

Emotions tightened in his throat, and he doubled back from the room. He thundered down the stairs and joined his parents. They were taking a tray of cinnamon rolls out of the oven.

“That’s a lot,” Matthew remarked. “Are we expecting company?”

“No, I’m just lazy,” Mom replied simply. “Make a lot now, bake less later.”

“We all know they’ll be gone by midnight,” Dad chuckled.

Matthew gazed at his mother and father, giggling with each other and so fully in love. Their affection had never wavered, even when the family faced its darkest hour. Matthew turned toward the living room. On the wall, framed in hand-cut wood, was one of his favorite family pictures.

Mom, on the tree stump outside the house. Dad, leaning over the porch. Matthew in the kiddie pool, splashing his older sister. When Matthew stepped up to the picture, he could see the carvings on the tree stump. That summer, they had all scratched their names in the wood. The etchings were still there.

*Tom.*

*Sunny.*

*Matthew.*

*Victoria.*

The eight letters of his murdered sister’s name sprung from the picture like a knife to pierce Matthew’s heart. Her body lay cold in the Vixen family mausoleum in Vista, in an unmarked marble coffin. She’d remain there forever.

Matthew was sixteen when Veronica and Vina Vixen, his biological cousins, shot themselves in a duel. The Vixen Queen, bereft of an heir, sought out the next in line to the throne: her long-lost sister, Vora. She instead found her daughter, Victoria Vixen.

Before Sunny Palmer had changed her name in the summer of 687, fleeing into the countryside with her husband and newborn daughter, she had been Vora Vixen. She was a daughter of Queen Vixen VI, and a renowned member of the Vixen royal family. But she hated it. All of it. The politics, the scheming, the plotting, and her radical sister—then known as Crown Princess Valda Vixen.

When Victoria Vixen was born on the first of May, Vora and Brock fled to Verdant Cliffs. They bought a plot with cash and built their dream home. A few years later, Matthew was born to the rebranded Palmer family. Brock and Vora faked death certificates, fabricating a house fire that killed them. Only Victoria kept her name, just under the new Palmer surname.

Victoria and Matthew were aware of their heritage during their upbringing, and of their true family. Though Matthew thought it strange that he was a royal, he understood why his parents kept their children hidden. Their world was shattered when Vora Vixen was tracked down after Veronica and Vina’s deaths. The foxes believed in Vora’s ersatz death, but nonetheless managed to discover Victoria. They came to the house in Verdant Cliffs, where by circumstance Victoria was home alone. She told them she was an orphan after the house fire, and lived in Verdant Cliffs alone.

Before Mom and Dad had returned from one of Matthew’s school sports competitions, the Rook of Vulpus had already announced Victoria Vixen as the next heir to the throne. Mom and Dad were powerless to stop the fates from twisting their threads. Mom wanted to reveal herself as Vora Vixen and go in her place, but Victoria left in a letter an assurance that secretly the Vixen Queen was actively trying to produce another daughter. Victoria knew the assignment of Crown Princess could likely be temporary, and she selflessly volunteered to go and preserve her mother’s exile. Victoria managed to convince Mom to remain silent, for fear of punishment if Vora Vixen was revealed as alive and complicit in a coverup to shield herself.

To ensure Victoria’s protection, Mom and Dad hired Victoria’s friends as a cook and maid to accompany Victoria, and sent Matthew as her page. No one knew that Victoria had a brother, much less that it was Matthew. He was sixteen and Victoria was nineteen when they went together to Vista and took residence in the grim Rook of Vulpus.

No one anticipated Victoria would fall in love with Crown Prince Bentley Connelly and that this love, pure yet unorthodox, would dismantle the peaceful Kingdoms of Cartonia and pitch them into hell. Matthew met Bentley and instantly saw that he was enamored with his sister. And Victoria felt the same. They faced a hell-storm of negative press when the relationship broke in the media.

Then…the assassination.

“Do you want a cinnamon bun?”

Matthew jolted, lost in his thoughts.

“What’s wrong?” Mom asked, staring at him with concern. “Is it a war flashback? I’ve read that soldiers get those. Shell-shock, is what I think they call it.”

“No,” Matthew shook his head. “I was thinking about Victoria.”

Mom and Dad went quiet.

“Oh,” Dad muttered after a few seconds. “We think about her a lot too.”

“All the time,” Mom added. “Everyday.”

“You’ve kept her bedroom the same,” Matthew stated. “It’s like she never left.”

Mom nodded and weakly shrugged her shoulders.

“It makes me feel like she’s still here.”

There was a palpable absence without Victoria in this house. Matthew couldn’t understand how his parents could stay here all these years. This house, that had been the quintessential escape from a tumultuous world, suddenly became a cage of memories for a girl long since gone.

“Something went wrong with you two,” Dad sighed. “Sorry, not like…I don’t mean wrong with *you*. I mean…you were both supposed to grow up here. Live here. Have lives here. Stay in the serene countryside and be happy. We never wanted you to go to Vista. To the Vixen Queen.”

But Victoria became Crown Princess, and was murdered for loving a dog.

Matthew was her page, and then the Vixen Queen’s. He was drafted, and was now a General. He had become the embodiment of all that he despised. Over his military service, he did make subtle decisions that undermined the Summer Sun, but not enough to stop them. Victory for the Summer Sun was months away.

“Why don’t we sit down?” Mom suggested, carrying the tray of cinnamon rolls into the living room. They went untouched.

“We shouldn’t have let her go,” Matthew blurted. “We should have stopped her. Victoria could have volunteered Valencia Vixen as a better fit.”

“Doesn’t work like that,” Mom sighed. “The constitution is firm. If you’re alive and you are female, you must take the throne. Victoria going in my place spared me that fate.”

“Violetta Vixen,” Matthew said to kill the point. Victoria going to the capital was moot once Violetta was born to the Vixen Queen, making her death even more superfluous.

“No one talks about her anymore,” Matthew added. “This war is not about her anymore. She’s not the martyr that dug a thousand trenches. She’s the dumb bimbo fox who caused her own assassination.”

Dad scowled.

“Don’t talk about her like that.”

“That’s what everyone is saying!” Matthew bellowed. “That’s what *all* foxes say nowadays! Her legacy is tarnished. They think she and Bentley are BioFreaks too.”

Mom rolled her eyes.

“Preposterous.”

“Calm down, son,” Tom cautioned. “We don’t yell in this house. We’re not soldiers.”

*I am*, Matthew thought miserably. He shouldn’t even go to Vista. He should let himself be dishonorably discharged and just work with Dad in the village. It would pay hardly anything, but he would be with his only true family. As far as he was concerned, his Aunt Valda and her tribe of murderers and villains were not relations.

“Sorry,” Matthew muttered. “I feel like I’ve let Victoria down. I haven’t been able to stop this war. I thought I did a good thing by calling off the siege of the Castle in the Marshes a few years back, but that only delayed their defeat. Now Phantine is a colony, and their Babar is dead. Nothing anyone can do will help us now. Our people have gone so far past the point of no return…we’ll be monsters forever. How can we live with ourselves? Outside of this village, there are no good foxes left. No one trusts us, and no one ever will again.”

Dad lifted his eyebrows and brought them back down. He glanced at Mom.

“You should show him the letter you got.”

“What letter?” Matthew asked immediately. His heart turned over. “From Vista? Is it for me?”

Mom wordlessly went to the kitchen table and fetched an open envelope. She passed it to him. He did not recognize the return address, as it came from Cervidium.

“Who…?”

“Read it.”

Matthew pulled the paper out from within and read,

*V,*

*I hope you and the family are well. Still so sad about Icky. I miss you greatly. Hope to see you sometime again, if peace is restored.*

*I might need your help. Send word if you’re alive. Something is coming.*

*Until then,*

*J*

Matthew gestured blankly at the paper.

“What is this? When did it come? Who’s Icky? Who’s J?”

“It came a month ago, “Mom said with a chuckle. “Icky is Victoria. When she was a baby, she couldn’t say her whole name. She would babble ‘Icky.’”

“And J?” Matthew pressed.

“J is Jacquetta Lazoy.”

Matthew stared.

“The Madonna of Felexa?”

“That’s the one,” Dad replied, smiling. “Sunny and Jacquie go way back. She helped us escape the hospital in Vista with Victoria.”

Matthew was completely floored.

“She was *there*?”

“Yes,” Mom said nonchalantly. “Jacquie is Victoria’s godmother. I haven’t heard from her since Felexa was betrayed and invaded. She must have managed to get this note into the UCCS so it could get sent to us.”

Matthew’s parents had never hid the truth of his royal heritage from him, but they never fully divulged everything either. Much of his family’s past was omitted from their narrative. He did not know Jacquetta Lazoy had ever been a major figure in Mom’s life.

“So Jacquetta was at the hospital?” Matthew repeated, trying to picture the circumstances of Victoria’s birth.

“Mmhm,” Dad mumbled as he stuffed a cinnamon bun in his mouth.

“It was on the day of an international gathering,” Mom explained. “All the main dignitaries were there for May Day. My mother, the sixth Vixen Queen, told me as I went into labor that if the child was born male, that the doctor was going to have to suffocate it. She only wanted female grandchildren. I was appalled. I had already been afraid of my mother, and the brewing evil in my sister, Valda. I told Brock I wanted to get out, but we were scared of where to go.”

She paused to take a sip of water before continuing. “I went into labor publicly. It came early. I was young, only eighteen. The pregnancy was an accident, but Brock stood by me.”

She stopped herself. “*Tom*. You’re called *Tom*.”

Dad snorted.

“Fox’s out of the bag, dear.”

“Anyway,” Mom went on, “Jacquetta rushed to my side and accompanied me to the hospital. A few others were there too. I’ll never forget them. Queen Henna Petukinau of Gallix, Queen Catherine of Simeone. And Queen Libby of Canis.”

Matthew stared.

“*Bentley’s mom*?”

“Yes, but she wasn’t there long. I think she just saw me into the delivery room. Jacquetta, Henna, Libby, and Catherine all heard my mother tell the doctor to kill the baby if it was a boy and I begged them for help. They all agreed, except Libby. She decided later she didn’t want to get involved; she left and rejoined her husband at the May Day celebrations. Your father and I will always be indebted to Jacquetta, Henna, and Catherine for getting us out of Vista.”

Mom frowned. “Only Jacquie is alive now…you would not believe how excited I was to get this letter!”

Matthew glanced at it again.

“She didn’t say much.”

“She had to be careful,” Mom justified. “What if we’ve moved? What if I’m dead? She couldn’t let this letter reach the Vixen Queen. I wrote a reply.”

“And…?”

Mom reached into her back pocket and triumphantly revealed another letter.

“Success!” she said coyly. “It came yesterday.”

Matthew reached for it, but Mom pulled her arm away.

“You told us years ago that your mission is to bring down Vulpus and the Summer Sun, however that may occur, in whatever way possible. I need to hear you say that you are still fighting for that.”

“Of course I am!” Matthew proclaimed. “The Vixen Queen must pay for what she’s done, and peace must be restored.”

Mom cocked her head.

“Alright. Let’s do a trade, then. I’ll let you read this letter, if you tell me what you buried in the cemetery.”

Matthew’s mouth fell open. Dad guffawed at his expression. Mom sassily sipped her beverage.

“Oh, did you think we didn’t see you sneak out all those years ago?”

“Honestly, son,” Dad sighed, “we’re your parents. We see everything.”

Matthew was stunned. He had stolen the Harmony Crown so long ago, buried it a lifetime back, that he almost forgot about it entirely. He had taken it from the clutches of the Vixen Queen as soon as he heard that she intended to destroy it. The Harmony Crown, in physical form and in political significance, was the symbol of peace on the continent. It needed to be preserved.

He had no plan for it, and no one else knew about it. As far as anyone knew, the Vixen Queen *did* destroy the Harmony Crown.

“Well?” Mom pressed. “What’s in that box? A body?”

Matthew shook his head.

“Money?” Dad guessed.

“No. I’ll show you.”

He returned a half-hour later, his boots covered in dirt. He kicked them off on the porch and fumbled with the weight of the box. Once it was on the table, he let his mother take off the lid.

When she saw the dusty, glittering gems of a crown she once might have had the chance to wear, she gasped. Dad’s voice caught and he pressed his palm against his mouth.

“That’s not what I expected,” Mom whispered. “I thought it might be something of Victoria’s…”

“How did you get this?” Dad asked quietly, as if scared of the answer. Neither moved to touch it, standing away from the box as if it were radioactive.

“I just took it,” Matthew said. “It was in the hall, and unguarded. I put it in my room, and brought it on the train here.”

Dad shook his head in disbelief.

“As easy as that…”

Matthew put his paws on his hips in his mother’s direction.

“The letter?”

Vora Vixen silently handed him the second correspondence from Jacquetta Lazoy. She knelt to caress the crown.

“You should rebury it,” she muttered. “When the foxes finally crumble, this will serve as a message of hope and the capacity to rebuild.”

Matthew nodded. Curiosity nudged his focus toward the letter, and he unfolded it.

*V,*

*I am so happy to hear you are safe and well. Love to your husband and son. Read this carefully.*

*A plan is in motion to escape Cartonia into the Expanse. I cannot tell you how. But know that this will do nothing to stop or prevent the fall of the Granite Bloc. That, I’m afraid, is inevitable. This will merely spare a certain number and their descendants from misery under Vulpus and Cervidium. I know your son is a high-ranking member of the Vulpine army. If you trust him, which I assume you do, please place him as close as you can to the Vixen Queen. If any word of our escape reaches her, we are all dead. He must stave the Vulpine army off.*

*We head south in autumn. You are the last friend I have in Vulpus, and I need your help. We are going to be traveling within enemy territory at great risk to ourselves. If we are successful, then perhaps we will return one day and use the turmoil of our journey as fuel to dismantle the Summer Sun.*

*Do not reply. I shan’t write further.*

*Love,*

*J*

Matthew looked up when he was done. Mom was staring at him.

“You have to go back to Vista.”

## Production

### Continuity and Story Arcs

Bovo was conquered and the monarchy was overthrown. With Clarence II’s execution, he was the last monarch of Bovo.

Matthew Palmer was revealed as the brother of Victoria Vixen, and his parents as Vora Vixen and Brock West. Matthew remained unknown to the Vixen Queen and the Vulpine Royal Family, and Vora was still believed to be dead.

Matthew unburied the Harmony Crown, still hidden in his hometown village.

Matthew was alerted to the escape from Cartonia, and was ordered by his mother to return to Vista, Vulpus, to ensure the escape attempt succeeded.

### References

This episode captures the blended influences of World War I and World War II on the canonical War. The soldier's fervor in the Boso Bovo scene are indicative of Hitler Youth indoctrination from WWII. The West Gallix scene evokes the Soviet-era reeducation programs, high rises, and secret police. The Death Fields are a reference to the Red Zone of France's trenches after World War I.

## Trivia

* The title of this episode refers to the desolate wastelands across Cartonia, results of the harsh warfare.
	+ The line was quoted by Professor Gufran Bloem during her inspection of the Death Fields: "Here, in the name of hatred, countless men and women lost their lives, doomed their planet, cursed their homeland, and were perpetually entombed **in the meadows of sorrow**."
	+ The title is similar to its counterpart, "In the Trenches of Despair," which followed the same writing format.
* Each of the five scenes of the episode, including the diary entry, begin on the 21st day of five successive months. This is to align with the 21st episode.
	+ Similar dating was used in “In the Trenches of Despair;” all those scenes occurred on the sixth day of the month to correspond with the 6th episode.
* Baldur Vorwärts is named after Baldur von Schirach, first head of the Hitler Youth. Vorwärts means “forward” in German and is a reference to “Vorwärts Vorwärts,” the anthem of the Hitler Youth.
* The city of Gorod, West Gallix, translates to “city” in Russian.
* The Vremyado surname (время до, vremya do) means “time before” in Russian. The Vremyados represent a time before Gallix's conquest, while their son Lennon Vremyado represents the changing tides.
	+ Lyev Vremyado is named after Leo (Lyev) Tolstoy.
	+ Olga Vremyado is named after Olga Romanov, Grand Duchess of Russia.
	+ Alix Vremyado is named after Empress Alexandra, the final Tsarina of Russia.
	+ Lennon Vremyado is named after Vladimir Lenin, the first leader of the Soviet Union, after which the UCCS is based.
* When the Vremyados counted in Galligasque, they were actually counting Russian.
* Professor Bloem's surname means “flower” in Dutch.
* The Death Fields are inspired by the Red Zone (Zone Rouge) after World War I. The trench warfare that plagued the country during World War I left vast parcels of uninhabitable land. To this day, plant life is unsupported by the corrupted soil, and in some areas it is predicted that life will never be able to prosper again.
* The unexploded ordnance that is rife through the Death Fields is based on the unexploded ordnance from World War I. Land mines and bombs are still buried around former battlegrounds in Europe and are not safe for human travel.
* Matthew's reveal as the brother of Victoria Vixen was conceived as the character was written in "Winter of Discontent."
	+ Throughout the season, Matthew makes frequent remarks about a deceased sister, but never mentions her by name.