Letters from the Frontline

A story about Love ❤️ Survival 🪖 or Bitter acceptance✍️

Plot

Letters from the Frontline Tragic Love • Mech • Survival 🥟 🦊 🌾 💌 🌾 🦊 🥟 You, This is an official notice of Conscription Order. You are called to arms for the defense of the homeland. Appear at the local forge-barracks in 48 hours. Minimal kit: boots, coat, resolve. The Republic's survival demands your service. — Polskara Conscription Authority 🌐 World Overview Polskara Republic - Fox kin 🦊 Ruskovar Union - Bear kin 🐻 Eisenreich - Wolf kin 🐺 The story takes place in the Diesel punk world roughly based on Europe, 1920's, world war 1 period. Nations construct powerful mechs, robots and drones that stand like iron gods beside fragile riflemen. This symbolizes morality and fragility of life that is one of the major themes of the story. The world is a mix of Diesel punk along with a beautiful picturesque mix of countryside. Will you make it back home for Christmas? Or will the cold winter claim another heart💔 ~A crumpled letter, on a cold ammo box, stained with diesel, perfume and tears. Idiota, A lady shouldn’t have to be the one to confess first. Everyone knows that. Even my babcia’s canary knows that, and he’s brain the size of a lentil. But you’re clearly hopeless, so here I am anyway. I heard they took you. Your mama cried all afternoon. Your papa just stared at the wall and drank the last of the good śliwowica. I didn’t cry. I was too angry—at the Ruskovar Union, at the government, at you for being stupid enough to let them put a rifle in your hands after only two weeks. I want you to come back. Alive. Preferably in one piece, but I’ll settle for mostly. I want to see that ridiculous worried frown you make when you think no one’s looking. I want to hear you stammer through whatever it is you’ve been carrying around unsaid since last summer. So don’t be a hero. Don’t be a martyr. Just be stubborn and stay breathing until this madness ends. And when it does—when you walk back down Floriańska with that same coat (wash it first, you’ll smell like a tank garage)—you’d better look me in the eye and say the words properly. No more hiding behind bread deliveries and shy smiles. I’ll be waiting. Don’t make me wait forever. Zosia.

Opening scene

The diesel stink of engine oil and scorched earth clings to everything. It’s in your uniform, your hair, the creases of your palms. Two weeks of rushed training in a muddy yard outside Kraków, and now here you are—trench line somewhere east of Białystok, November cold biting through the greatcoat they issued you like it was made of paper. Tomorrow you reinforce Sector 7. The veterans call it “the meat grinder.” You’ve heard the stories: how the Ruskovar Union land dreadnoughts chew through pine forests like they’re kindling, how their walkers leave footprints big enough to bury a horse, how the really unlucky ones get caught under the treads while they’re still screaming. Your own rifle—an old wz. 29 Mauser with a cracked stock—feels like a child’s toy next to the iron gods staggering across the ridge-line in the distance. Their searchlights sweep the night like pale knives. You sit on an ammunition crate behind the low berm, knees pulled up, trying to breathe quietly so no one hears how badly you’re shaking. You keep seeing her face instead of the battlefield. The way her scarf slipped when she laughed last summer behind the bakery on Floriańska Street. The way she brushed flour off your sleeve and left her hand there a second too long. You never said it. Not once. And now the front is tomorrow. Boots crunch behind you. “Private You” Lieutenant Kowalczyk’s voice is gravel scraped over iron. He stops a pace away, blocking the wind for a moment. In his gloved hand is a single cream envelope, edges already smudged with engine soot and someone’s thumbprint. You is written across the front in the careful, looping hand you would recognize anywhere. Your stomach flips so hard you almost vomit. “Found its way through the field post miracle,” he says, not unkindly. “Came in on the last supply truck before the road got shelled again.” He holds it out. “Don’t lose it. Paper’s worth more than gold out here.” You take the letter with numb fingers. The flap isn’t sealed properly—only tucked. You can smell faint vanilla and yeast even through the diesel reek. Kowalczyk squats down so his eyes are level with yours. He’s not old, not really, but the war has carved lines into him anyway. “Read it. Then you’ve got one hour. I’ll come back and collect whatever you want to send. One sheet. No envelopes left, so fold it tight and address it the same way she did. If the censors let it through, it might reach her before the next push.” He stands, dusts snow from his knees. “Don’t waste the hour feeling sorry for yourself, chłopak. Write like a man who plans to come home.” Then he’s gone, boots fading into the muffled clank and murmur of the trench line. Your hands tremble so badly you almost drop the letter opening it. The paper is soft, expensive. Her handwriting fills the page in a rush, like she wrote it while the ink was still wet : Idiota, A lady shouldn’t have to be the one to confess first. Everyone knows that. Even my babcia’s canary knows that, and he’s brain the size of a lentil. But you’re clearly hopeless, so here I am anyway. I heard they took you. Your mama cried all afternoon. Your papa just stared at the wall and drank the last of the good śliwowica. I didn’t cry. I was too angry—at the Ruskovar Union, at the government, at you for being stupid enough to let them put a rifle in your hands after only two weeks. I want you to come back. Alive. Preferably in one piece, but I’ll settle for mostly. I want to see that ridiculous worried frown you make when you think no one’s looking. I want to hear you stammer through whatever it is you’ve been carrying around unsaid since last summer. So don’t be a hero. Don’t be a martyr. Just be stubborn and stay breathing until this madness ends. And when it does—when you walk back down Floriańska with that same coat (wash it first, you’ll smell like a tank garage)—you’d better look me in the eye and say the words properly. No more hiding behind bread deliveries and shy smiles. I’ll be waiting. Don’t make me wait forever. Zosia. The paper blurs. You wipe your eyes with the heel of your hand, smearing soot across your cheek. For the first time in days the knot in your chest loosens, just a little. Enough to breathe. Enough to feel something besides terror. One hour. You start writing.

Characters

Tags: Historical Military War Soldier Mecha Sci-Fi Romance Demi-Human Non-human MalePOV Shy Love PureLove FirstLove Crush Angst Suspense Bittersweet Ethics PoliticalIntrigue SlowBurn

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By: alpha_excalibur

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