My eyes open as the ringing in my ears subsides. What just happened? Why the hell am I covered in dirt? These thoughts and more raced through my head as a bug eyed, helmeted head appears in my vision, and hands grasp and grope on my body. I’m pulled out of the dirt, and the sounds of the trenches once more fill my ears. The crying, the gunfire, distant and close explosions, groans and moans; that’s where I was. The trenches. These God forsaken trenches that should have been left in Europe over a century ago where a whole generation of young men spurred on by their leaders killed each other from the death of one nobleman. This isn’t even earth, we aren’t even supposed to be here. This whole war isn’t supposed to have happened. The sight of bloodied and broken men and women with holes in them, shattered and missing limbs, and those untouched physically but with obvious mental scars. If God, or any Gods do look upon us, we are truly abandoned. No loving deity would subject any mortal to such horrors.

    “...y…ey!.....Hey! Anon! Anon are you ok? Feel anything wrong?!”

    The man standing over me...no, not man. Man implies he’s human. The elf standing over me, a gas mask over his face almost at all times muffling his voice as he talks to me. This war is his. His kingdom was under attack by the High Elves. It’s ironic, really. When we all came here, us humans, us.../k/ommandos, we all figured the races native to these lands were a homogeny, all one people. In hindsight, that was a really stupid idea. Of course they weren’t. They were people, real people. This wasn’t some tabletop game, not a video game. They had their own ideals, politics and everything else. No different from earth. 

    I nod my head, a century old M16 Stahlhelm resting upon it. I open my mouth to speak, but my mouth is so dry. He pats me on the shoulders, and hefts me onto my ass. Sitting down instead of lying on my back helps a lot, I’m able to breathe better, wipe the foul mixture of grime and mud and blood and viscera from my face. I should have invested in a gas mask myself...well I did have one, tucked into a canister on my back. My own equipment is an eclectic mixture of German and Russian from nearly every era from the past 100 years. My uniform; a Gorka-E, brown and dark oranges of it’s camouflage pattern doing well to obscure me against the similarly colored wasteland of a battlefield.

    My boots are caked in mud, and most of my gear is now discolored from a similar mixture of substances as covered my face not just a few minutes ago. Artillery, a mortar strike. That’s what happened. We got hit, our section of trench. I wouldn’t doubt that the High Elves had enchanted their shells to enhance their explosive effect. Bastards. They always pulled this shit. You hope the shell is normal, you hope it’s not chemical, you hope and hope and hope and then it isn’t you, your name isn’t on that shell, and you go back to waiting or shooting. Goggles comes back, yeah, that’s what we called him. He wore one of those older masks with the bulging eye lenses. Regardless, Goggles came back, leaning my Avtomat against the trench wall next to me.

    No, it’s not an AK. Those aren’t all that common around here. Same with AR patterns and all that. Around here, the weapons we use are older, mostly looking like they came out of the early 1900’s up and until the interwar 1930’s. The High Elves use rifles chambered in calibers like 8mm, some in .303 British even; meanwhile we have mostly rifles in 7.62 and the like. All domestically made for the enlisted. My weapon, however, is a Federov. It’s good in the trenches; fully automatic, solid stopping power from the 6.5mm rounds and the carved foregrip helps to control the recoil. 

    I look back over to where Goggles had gone, others were joining him in digging out the section where the shell had landed. I could already see maimed bodies of the living, dying and dead, soldiers who I’d been talking to not five minutes ago. It was hard to really get to know anyone out here when the crushing reality that their deaths may come at any moment. Depressing was the least you could say about the attitude. Still, we tended to manage. Goggles was pulling a legless elf out from the soft, unsettled dirt when he glanced over the edge of the trench, and dropped the man while he drew a saber. The screaming is joined by more...fuck, a Charge.

    My auto-rifle met the palms of my hand, the smooth wood grip near the trigger seemingly unmarred by pit or blemish. I knew my rifle was already racked, but I pulled the bolt back just a bit to make sure. The silvery tip of an Arisaka round meets my gaze, and I rise to my feet, shaking slightly as the barrel aligns with the striking colors of a High Elf’s uniform. It almost seemed mocking how garish and bright they were, and soon the angry, screaming elf’s face contorted in horror as a chunk of his torso was blown out of his back. A spray of blood and bits of rib, of pieces of organ flies out from his body as one of my rounds tumbles through him. By the time the light of life leaves his eyes, he’s on the ground; his comrades hopping over his body.

    The steady 400 RPM firerate of my Avtomat bucks into the space between my arm and side, there wasn’t any time to shoulder my rifle and these people were just sprinting into the fire. The spray claims most of them as they run into the field of fire my gun provides, and just when I count round number 25, the last in the magazine, a High Elven woman catches a blade to her throat as she leaps into the trench towards me. The rest of their number are ripped quite literally to pieces as an emplaced MG42 blares angrily at them. I can see one of them torn in half by the force and volume of fire, and she tries to crawl away from the lip of our trench; organs trailing behind her in full view of me. Sickness catches in my stomach, and as I hear Goggles, or some other man put her down, I retch, spilling the fetid contents of my stomach into the mud.

    The MG still blazes it’s spiteful chorus as I realize that no, the assault isn’t over. Tossing the emptied magazine into a dump pouch on my hip, I slip a fresh magazine from a generic holding pouch on my rigging, and rock it gently into the rifle. The bolt is pulled back, and the mechanism chambers a round. A deep breath, five waited seconds, then I peer over the line: rifle raised. I see the next wave, and already comrades are picking off targets with their rifles. I see no reason to not join them, and I slowly let my breath out as I toggle the rifle to Semi-Automatic and squeeze off shots. One elf dies...a shot goes wide and my target goes to ground. Smart. I fire again, catch an officer of all things in the kidney; probably at least. She’s holding her lower torso pretty tightly, screaming orders still. A few more shots go out, and they’re now in range for accurate automatic fire. 

    Those beautiful fuckers on the MG finally reload the thing, or the barrel cools or whatever kept them, and they pour more leaded death from the gun. Those charging, colorful natives go to ground or get chewed up. Whichever ones are left by this point choose the better side of valor and begin to run away. We don’t fire at their backs. We know what’s going to happen to them. Sure enough, not even three minutes later fire erupts from their own lines. Their running forms drop. For those who ran, I feel a pang of genuine pity for them. Like order god damn 227, poor conscripts drunk on propaganda about their superiority and divine providence or some other bullshit. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never seen any of it.

    We wait several minutes, then a counter barrage on our end begins. Our artillery begins to hit their trenches, be that trench mortars, rearline guns or even the one or two MLRS tanks we have. The distant explosions guarantee some respite as no High Elf artillery would dare fire for fear that they’d be hit by our barrage. I step down from the edge of the trench, and this time it’s coming down from the adrenaline high and the nerves which make me vomit. Covering the nasty fluid with mud and dirt, I turn around to see the rest of the trench. It’s floor was covered in brass, spent shell casings all. A few bodies lined the sides, fresh. Not from the bombardment that nearly claimed my life, but from the fighting that had just ended. Fortunately there were more corpses clad in bright High Elven Purples and Whites than in our muted, camouflaged colors. A few of our number were wiping off blades, and Goggles had just cleaned his saber of the lifeblood of an elf infantryman who made his way into our line off from the side.


    Walking over to him, I sit down on a bench carved out of the earth and covered in wood to make it slightly more comfortable. I felt exhausted, and Goggles commented as such, saying something about the bags under my eyes. 

    “...seriously, you need to get some rest. Why the hell do you even take up night watch anyway? There’s more than enough of us willing to do it, and we can see better in the dark anyways.”

    I shook my head, some loose bits of dirt from under my helmet shaken out from the movement. I end up removing it entirely, and run my thumb over the Stirnpanzer plate affixed to the front of it. 

    “Because...I can actually get some thinking done when I don’t have to worry about keeping my head down. We know their snipers aren’t very good after dark, even if you all can see better.”

    It was a half-truth. My biggest reason for taking watch shifts so often was, in all actuality, just to keep myself from dreaming. As one might imagine, this place has given me enough emotional trauma to last a lifetime, and the less time I spend experiencing that the better. Allegedly there are some magics that can get rid of it, or at least lessen it, but I’ve yet to see anything of the sort. My elven companion sheathes his blade, and takes a seat next to me, placing a hand on my shoulder. We sat there for quite some time as a runner went past us, obviously bound for the rear lines to bring up forces to replace those wounded and fallen. If we were lucky, we’d be sent back there too for some very well needed R&R, but I didn’t anticipate that happening.

    Several more minutes go by, and I notice something from over the trench wall. Slight movement. Ever so slight movement. Hefting the Avtomat in my hands, it’s weight feeling much heavier than earlier; fucking adrenaline high, I step up, only the top of my head breaking over the top. An elf. It was a survivor. She was ever so slowly moving her way across the width of No man’s land. A smirk grew across my face as an idea strode into my head. Pulling my cell phone out, I start playing a song. A very, very fitting song for the time being.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YvAYIJSSZY


Hearing the music, the High Elf crawling on her chest perks up, and the slow dawning realization hits her hard. I can see her eyes close and tears well up as she slowly turns her head to look towards me. She thinks she’ll be met with the barrel of a gun, but what she’s met with is mud darkened and short cut hair, pale skin and an earth made electronic device. Not her hated enemies, but a mercenary. A human. For a brief moment, it looks like relief washes over her face, but then it’s replaced with, likely, what she’s been told we do to prisoners. At least the dark skinned elves we fight alongside would just have her executed at most. Us, however...well let’s just say not all that propaganda she’d been fed is untrue.

The question now, in my mind, was what I was going to do with her. Now, I could just shoot her; after all, what are the Geneva conventions to a world where the concept of the war crime hasn’t been thought up, but there was something else that slinked into my mind. An idea most back home would think foul and horrible, but to one of her kind? A high elf? Here that’d not only be ignored, but hell some of those in the trench might encourage it. I recalled some elven concept, there was a word for this, but...Love Slave. That was it. I call over a few guys quietly, and a few of the dark skinned elves approach, rifles at the ready. Pointing the girl out, who at that point had frozen in place, they understood what I was getting at.

Hopping over the trench wall, I try and keep low to the ground as I move towards the prone High Elf. I can see her uniform stained with Mud, blood and God knows how many other liquids, she’s just staying there, completely still. Her eyes are wide and she’s tearing up. Probably thinks I’m going to kill her. She may want me to later on. Still haven’t decided if I really wanna go the whole “Love Slave” route. Regardless, by the time I make it to her, she’s muttering something in her own language. I couldn’t tell you what any of it meant, I only speak conversational Dark Elf. Yeah, the language has a name, but calling it the Dark Elf language is easier.

Picking her up under the shoulders, she doesn’t even try to resist. Not that she likely could, these conscripts aren’t known for their physical aptitude after all. I drag her back over the wall, and bridal carry her down into the trench itself. I get a lot of looks, and almost unnervingly none of them were negative in any way. Lots of smirking, some thumbs up, mostly solemn staring at the elf. It’s then that a runner comes up to me, looks at my Name patches, and hands me a letter before running off. Alright then. Placing the newly acquired PoW onto the ground, she still looks catatonic, I open the now dirt stained envelope and look at the letter. It’s in english thank God. Looks like I just got that R&R I wanted.

Now I’m happy, very happy. I have a rather cute looking High Elf to struggle snuggle, time off the front, and I can just relax. As I pick her back up, a smile plasters itself on my face and I begin to make my way to the rear lines, which is a hassle carrying a girl over my shoulders. Her bust is pressing against my back, it’s been far too long since I’ve felt anything of the sort, and it’s taking a lot out of me not to just try and take her now. I don’t, my self control has been tempered since I crossed the portal and never ended up getting laid. Until now? Maybe? The doubts begin to creep into my mind. If I do end up doing it, how would I feel afterwards? Post nut clarity and all that bullshit. Sure busting inside tight elf snatch was apparently the greatest thing since the M2HB, but what if she got pregnant? What if she got traumatized? Ok, that latter one was absolutely going to happen, but how the hell would I deal with that?


Not thinking this through was a mistake, and at this point I think the peer pressure is going to make me do something I’m going to regret. So, a new plan formulates in my head. I’ll keep her, sure, buuuut; now here’s the kicker, I woo her with my rugged, human charms and-

I feel her move. For the first time since I actually picked her up, I feel her move. Then, I hear her speak.

    “...you going to kill me?”

    I pause, and look over my shoulder at her. Her mud streaked hair is, now that I see it better, a light blonde. Rather attractive looking, a lot like the rest of her. I clear my throat before speaking up in response.

“No, no that wasn’t the plan. I-“

“Don’t make me go back.”

Now that interruption gave me pause. This was certainly a first. Most captured High Elves would go on and on about how we’d be ground under their boots and the like. There was a twinge of pity hearing the desperation in her voice, one I thought I’d never feel for one of their kind. 

“...that...wasn’t the plan, but now I’m definitely not going to. What I am going to d-“

“I don’t care what you do to me Human, use me, kill me, just don’t send me back. I...I can’t take it anymore. I can’t…”

She breaks down into sobbing, right around when I make my way back to the mid-lines. Things were a lot better fortified back here, as artillery rarely targeted this area. The idea the Helves being that they’d get to it when they took our front lines. It was actually rather nice seeing packed dirt and solid wood walls, and an actual floor too! God above, you could actually keep your footing here!

I look up from the marvel of the hard floor coming up beneath my feet to see an officer passing by. A Dark Elf by the skin tone, and the uniform. A dark, muddy brown, meant to help camouflage him from sniper fire. I snap the best salute to him that I can, which he returns before eyeing the still crying elf over my shoulder.

“Is she a...how do you put it again? “Battlefield pickup?” Is that right?”

“Yes sir, that’s the proper term, but I think the term your people use is...Er, Love...Slave?”

The officer pauses, before a hearty chuckle burgeons its way out of him. He pats me on the shoulder, and nods.

“Just remember that there are still rules to such things. I’m quite aware of your actions near the front, Mercenary Anon, it’d be a shame to have to court martial you.”

His expression turns grim, before slowly morphing back to a neutral expression.

“I’ll be off now. Good luck to you, Anon.”

“And you as well sir.”

After a parting salute, we pass, going opposite directions. That one was an alright CO. I’d seen my fair share over my time here, the Good ones, the bad ones, and the borderline suicidal gloryhounds. The latter were always the worst, and they lived the shortest lives. Even a bad, bumbling officer was smart enough to keep those under his command from being wasted out in no man’s land.

Eventually, I get my...our asses down to a tunnel barracks. Built underground seeing as at any point the enemy could just pull their arty up for a single, suicidal salvo; it was remarkably empty in the room. The elf gets placed on a cot, and she sits up. She’s staring at me with big green eyes. Like emeralds they looked. Her hair was blonde, and streaked with mud. Her skin was an almost untouched pale; all in all she was gorgeous just from looking at her face. A face putting on the most nervous and worried expression I’d ever seen.

“You...said you wouldn’t send me back...r-right?”

I nod, and she seems to take this in a way I didn’t think I was implying, because now she’s stripping…

About an hour later, we’re both lying comfortably in the cot. My stuff is all neatly lying against the cot-frame, and I slowly drag my shirt under the blanket to slip on. It got way to fucking cold down here when you weren’t in full gear or...preoccupied with things. The elf was sleeping fairly soundly, and not wanting to disturb her I move slowly when putting the shirt on.

Of course, she wakes up anyway. Stretching her arms out, and inadvertantly putting her considerable bosom on display before noticing the chilly air and quickly covering herself with the blanket. She looks at me, blushing, and quietly speaks up.

“T-thank you for being gentle…”

    The look on my face must have been something, because she looked very confused at me. Time to explain...oh boy…

“Well...I mean you were offering...I didn’t intend to do anything like that...but…”

    I think a part of her died a little inside after I said that. Her eyes went wide, and her pupils shrank down to pinpricks. She then, probably out of shame, looked down and away from me. This is probably the most pity I've ever felt for a High Elf before. Granted, most I’ve ever seen out of them is a nigh suicidal devotion to killing every last one of us.