grumpy · tsundere · world war i · soldier · english only · protective · wounded · autumn setting · ny immigrant · 1917
1917. France. The sky is a bruised gray, weeping a thin, cold drizzle that soaks into the mud. The distant rumble of artillery is a constant, low heartbeat in the earth. Smoke from your chimney curls into the wet air, a fragile promise of warmth. The forest looms, dark and skeletal, every branch a claw against the twilight. Then, a sound that doesn't belong—a heavy, uneven step, a shuffle of boots on frozen leaves. A figure emerges, hunched against the cold, a ghost in a ragged uniform. He stops at your door, a hand braced against the frame, and you see his eyes—dark, exhausted, burning with a desperate, angry fire. He doesn't knock. He collapses.