I sighed as I stepped out of the Keflavík airport and into the late autumn rains in the chilly night air. I smiled a little, though that faded soon as well. The scar running up from almost the middle of my jaw’s left side and moved up into a larger scar running up from my left eye, or what was left of it, made me feel self-conscious. I arranged the eye patch with a small emblem in its centre over my blind eye to fit it a little better as it had jostled just a little when I stepped out of the airport.
The emblem was from my squad in the french foreign legion, we had decided on a skull with two scratches down along its eyes. This was both in part to make fun of me and our other squadmate that survived the explosive round that failed to take our heads. Not for its lack of trying though. He had a very similar scar just on his right side instead of like my left.
“Mommy, why is that lady like a pirate?” I heard an American kid ask his mother as they passed me on their way into the airport. I faintly guffawed inwardly, causing something akin to the bodily motion of forcing out a short but strong burst of air through one’s nose.
Still recovering from my injuries I winced at the pain that motion caused. It soured my lightening mood near instantly.
“Merde.” I muttered but then changed my thinking gears over from french to my native Icelandic. Shaking my head I went on over to the bus stop at the airport going to the capital and from there on a bus heading towards the north.
I found it humorous when the burly man with a big gut that was our bus driver actually gave a low whistle when he saw me approach. I had to admit I must’ve been quite a sight. Blond almost to the point of white hair in a thick braid that lead down to just slightly above my lower back and the physique of a warrior Valkyrie. I stood almost two meters tall with a deep piercing blue eye with my black eye patch over the other. I wore civilian clothing with jeans and a thick plaid shirt to deal with the weather though I did wear my old military boots and an old world war 1 style french foreign legion greatcoat. Another of my squad's idiosyncrasies.
Hubert was the one enamoured with the legion’s history in the squad and had decided to spend part of his pay on getting all four of the originals in the squad these coats. Remembering his circular glasses that he used to read his books with and that goofy smile he tended to have when explaining something he was passionate about made me smile faintly.
It seemed the bus driver took it to mean I was smiling at him and he smiled wide right back at me. I continued the smile to be polite and put the large military duffle bag into the underside trunk of the bus and boarded with the others. I thought back on my five years of service to the legion. Most of it had been in Africa or France during training. We had been in the 2nd infantry regiment, ten of us had grown close though much like the rest of the legion we became family.
Once we were discharged we still felt we could do good and became mercenaries. The ten of us along with another twenty came along as support personnel. We moved through missions in Africa, the middle east, a bit in south Asia and even a pair of missions in South America.
The pair in South America had whittled the ten to four and the mercenary life didn’t appeal to any of us any more after that. We’d had enough and went our separate way’s. If it wasn’t for my uncle up north I’d most likely be in some french dive bar trying to crawl into a bottle like I had been for almost two weeks after we had disbanded. I’d doubt I’d ever come back here.
I’d had to spend a little bit of the small fortune I’d saved up from retirement to get a few toys of mine smuggled through customs with some of our old contacts. The laws in Iceland on gun’s and some of the equipment I had grown accustomed to were… negative towards ownership at best.
Once in the capital I remembered myself and put on the scarf in my pocket. I had forgotten it was in my pocket at the airport so I could breathe in the fresh Icelandic air that I still loved so much. Then again once off the bus I took some time to push the scarf down a little and placed the cigarillo into my mouth lighting it up with a gaslighter and watching that green gas fire light it.
With a drag, I was about to walk out of the bus stop before noting the sign and stomped off to a more wind-protected place to finish my smoke. While smoking I noted the weather turning and rain began to fall. Well, it was the wet season so it wasn’t unexpected, I just hoped that the ride would let me sit on the bus during the rain.
It didn’t take long for me to get a ticket up north and I had to wait for the bus to arrive. I saw a few young punks loitering around and I couldn’t believe I had been like that in my teens. Then again I was just crawling into my thirties and I already had a good enough retirement fund to just be left alone for the while.
Which reminded me of what my uncle had sent me in his letter. Pulling it out of the inner pocket of my coat I opened the letter and read it through again. To summarize it was his time to retire from duty at a lighthouse, something that seemed more his wife’s choice than his own, and his wish to ask me to take up the duty for him.
It was a strange tradition but my family on my father’s side had been managing this lighthouse since it’s construction. It was located in the northernmost part of the country’s head as it were. Connected with a small bridge to a large rock that jutted out of the sea and reached almost 36 meters up in the air with enough space to almost be able to put a house-sized garden alongside the house connected to the lighthouse.
I’d had a container with my stuff shipped over to Bólungarvík where my uncle lived and would be easy to get to the lighthouse from the town, it was only an hour or so away from the town after all.
I felt a rumbling in my stomach and decided to get a hot dog as it had been quite a while since I’d gotten one. I took out my wallet and paid but stopped a little as I looked at the mark etched on the black leather. The sith empires emblem. I chuckled a little when I put it away and took a bite of that savoury dog.
Lukas would be back in Ireland by now, perhaps I’d take him up on the offer to play some star wars games with him. After all his passion for something, I hadn’t even heard all that much about till I caught him reading a book for that franchise six months into my service. We ended up bonding over the universe and its fascinating myriad of characters.
He even got me into a few of the video games of the franchise, mostly the few shooters and strategy games. I wasn’t much for the fighter simulators or the RPG games, though I had caved and played the old republic RPG's over one of the breaks we got. As rare as those were.
The dork had even gotten us to play a tabletop RPG with the entire squad for the same universe during down time. I smiled at that thought, I’d have to get a good gaming rig so I could play with him again. I put it up on the mental list I had and I faintly smiled as I saw the teenagers hugging one another as a few were there to catch a bus as well.
After they left it didn’t take long for me to get the bus I needed to get on and go on my merry way, I went.
I was rather glad I had a book on hand as the whole trip took almost five hours with three different buses to take when I stepped out onto Hólmavík. The back of the head if one looked at Iceland’s map, situated in the deepest fjord in that area.
I looked around for my uncle to see if he’d taken some initiative to come and pick me up or if I’d need to rent a car. The rain had let up but so far up north, the chill made me button up my greatcoat and slink on into the bus stop/gas station to get something to eat after the journey as well as see if I couldn’t get a rental.
“Well, what happened to you?” I heard a boisterous and gruff voice ask me and I smirked as I turned around to see my uncle, though he was startled when I did. “what the hell happened to you?” He then asked in a softer tone and I could see him give me sympathetic if not pitying stare.
A stare I’d grown to rather hate. I’d lost my eye during my last day’s in the legion but had gotten over it with the help of my team to become combat effective again, though I wasn’t as good as I was with two. That had relegated me to sniper duty, breaching and close assaults. But I still remembered the support staffs first stares, sympathetic and pitying. They didn’t remain like that for long.
My jaw hardened and I answered in a colder voice than I intended. “War.” I answered in a clipped tone before shaking my head and smiling gently. “And a whole lot of beating men off with a stick after getting so good looking.” I then joked which turned his own falling face into a growing grin.
“Well if you can I’d love to hear all about it. We’ve only had to deal with fishing boat against warships and we still won that one seventy years ago.” He said with his smile, still missing one of his incisors which made it all the goofier to me.
“You’re still going on about the Cod wars? You weren’t even born until like what?… twenty years after they ended? And that wasn’t even a war it was more like a...” I poised turning my writs in a circle as if fishing for the word, which I admittedly was. “Militarized interstate disputes.” I then finished after fishing around for words in a language I hadn’t spoken much for nine years.
He simply harrumphed as he guided me to his car waiting outside. “You should still take pride in your history.” He grumbled but then he looked at me once inside the car with a soft gaze. “Still though are you ok?” He asked with genuine care.
I’d forgotten that though my dad had been a bit of bastard my uncle had always been the most decent between the three brothers. “Well, I won’t be having children… ever.” I grumbled a little before sighing heavily and loudly before looking over to him with a sad smile. “Just your average PTSD and battle scar type stuff. I think I just mostly need to be alone to sort things out. Which made me jump at the offer you gave me so readily. It’s good to know family is close by.. ya know?”
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His smile turned warm as he nodded. “That it is girl, that it is.” He said as he started the car and we spent the next three and a half hours in amicable silence. Neither of us really enjoyed talking in a car and I suspected my uncle didn’t want to push me for any answers. Bless the man.
Once we had arrived in BólungarVík I stayed with my uncle and his family for two weeks to get my strength back up after fully healing. We took trips to the lighthouse so he could familiarize myself to its function and maintenance of the lighthouse and to get everything squared away in the house at its base. I used this time to get some much-needed things with my funds and had them shipped to me from the capital if I couldn’t get it in any of the stores up north.
I smirked a little as I set up a firing range in the basement of the house. Or of one at least, with only one eye I could really only really on keeping my accuracy up with practice. Though I say firing range I really simply mean I turned the entire basement of the large house into a sort of gym to keep my fitness up and my skills as sharp as they could be.
It had been the one thing that stuck with me after the legion, keeping in shape and fighting fit. Combat effectiveness as Hubert had said. It had also saved some of the guys during our merc day’s that I kept insisting the others do the same. But now I simply did it out of habit and a good work out was an amazing way to de-stress if done right.
I even turned the two car-sized garage into a garage on one side and a workshop on the other.
The car I had shipped in, in a container I backed into the garage once fully moved in. Turning off the rumbling engine of the Suv I sighed and placed my head against the headrest closing my eyes. This lighthouse was now officially my home for the foreseeable future. I smiled, for some reason, this actually felt like coming home, a first in a long while.
Without wasting more time I set about leaving the car and began to take apart the side panel in the trunk. I just hoped no mess up had happened during shipping and I couldn’t help but chuckle, almost falling into a laughing fit when I saw what Lukas had put in front of what I was seeking. A copy of a star wars MMORPG with a note stuck to it.
“Well then let’s see you get a sith up and running to kick some lighty ass shall we?” The crude handwriting was almost like that of a five-year-old but the bottom had an email to send him contact info to play together.
I took the game case and placed it on a table behind the car. Then I looked at my four pretties, or five rather but it didn’t matter as two were a pair to me. On one side was a single SRM Arms model 1216 shotgun with two smaller over and under twin-barreled shotguns made into sawed-off variants the size of large pistols or revolvers. On the other side, I had the Walther q5 match Sf pistol and the Marlin model 1895 dark lever-action rifle.
These had become my tools of the trade during many of our mercenary jobs. Mostly the custom sawed-off shotguns as they held dragons breath rounds in the lower barrel with a slug in the top one which had given me a good option to getting through doors or scare the hell out of our opposition.
You wouldn't expect to have the door handle blown off with a slug and then a dragon breath round right as the door is kicked open. Of course, we couldn’t always use that tactic and I did realize we’d lost some of the military precision we’d had while in the legion while we were mercs.
I decided to put those away in a compartment in the basement along with the few hundred rounds that Lukas had somehow magically managed to send along with the weapons. Once that was done I made my way upstairs and turned on my new pc as I looked over the game case Lukas sent me.
We had gotten really into the lore for this particular game but I hadn’t ever really played it all that much. Then again the empire and the sith empire had been two points in the lore both I and Lukas enjoyed. The militaristic structure, uniforms and ship designs had captivated me when he had described them.
I smiled a little to myself before popping the disk into the computer and beginning the installation process. “Well Lukas, it seems you’ve made a dork out of me yet.” I chuckled as I sent him an email saying much the same but with my newly created character and on what server.
Then a sort of routine set in, not a boring one mind you but a sort of routine nonetheless. Lukas and I spent many hours playing different star wars and other franchise games together while I wasn’t working out or practising my accuracy on my impromptu firing range. Though due to the smoke and noise I had to limit myself to six or so rounds with the rifle or pistol. The shotguns I didn’t fire off during that time at all.
During the few times I got free time enough to get other stuff done I got a gun license and managed to register my rifle and I went with my uncle to hunt a few times on the highlands when winter really set in. Of course, we didn’t get much from those trips.
I think all in all we got three ducks each the first trip as winter hadn’t fully set in but other than that those trips seemed more hikes than anything worth being called a hunt.
We did enjoy shooting a few cans at a distance just to blow off some steam when we were absolutely certain no one would hear us firing the rifle that is.
“So are you sure you’re all right?” My uncle asked me after taking a shot at a can about a hundred meters away.
I raspberries and sighed at the same time. “I did tell you, it’s just that cliche veteran stuff. I’m not going to go off and blow my brains or anything.” I replied as I took the rifle and set the sights through the scope.
“I’m worried about you girl.” My uncle then said and I sighed again as I put the rifle down and locked in the safety.
“What do you want me to say? I’m damaged beyond repair help me?” I asked heat rising in my voice. “I went through some shitty times and got hurt, but that’s war. You don’t get out of it all that unscathed unless you’ve got godly luck or are stationed somewhere were combat is rare and all you’ve gotta do is garrison a place.”
“That’s not what I mean.” He breathed in, enough to make his barrel chest to expand before breathing out through the corner of his mouth. “I still remember what you told me when you arrived. I remember you had always loved children while you were a teenager… and before you left really.” He stopped then simply looking at me as if mustering the courage or the more tactful words to ask his question.
“Yeah...” I simply said as I slumped a little in my posture as we sat in the snow. “I got hit by shrapnel after this happened.” I ran a finger down the scar on my face. “It hit my stomach pretty bad, I lost a bit of my liver and about a meter of my small intestines...” I paused again, sucking in the frosty air, my voice almost cracking as the pain and memories came back.
“I also lost my ovaries but they barely saved my womb. So I guess I can still have kids… just none truly my own.” I said then looking down range at the neat row of cans lined up.
“I’m so sorry.” My uncle said as he hugged me. His large frame warm and welcoming.
“I’m more an incubator now than anything.” I chuckled bitterly, refusing the tears welling in my eyes.
We stayed like that for a long while as I silently cried in the end. I had always been annoyed at my uncle for being able to pry my walls open when he needed to but now I was thankful.
I had refused most counseling I was given after getting hurt, just taking the bare minimum and focusing on a mission than myself. It had worked as a comping mechanism but only for a while.
When we finally left the mountain I stayed at their place for the night again. Much to my nephew’s delight as he seemed to have gotten a bit of hero worship for me. A habit both me and my uncle were trying to break him out of, much to his wife’s amusement.
The following day I woke with the sensation of falling and almost flailed myself out of bed when I woke. Rubbing my eyes I went to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. “Well then Borgne, what are you going to do today?” I said to myself, slurring a little french as I had a habit of doing.
I looked down at my body, as my sleeping wear consisted of long boxers and a sports bra but those weren’t what I was looking at. No, I was looking at the scars running across my body, it was toned and muscular sure but I had several scars, some from sudden knife fights, grazes of gunfire, bullet wounds and then finally the shrapnel scars. Dotting my stomach were small hole like scars along with a few jagged ones, with the large inverted Y scar across and up my lower abdomen where the incision had been made.
I ran my fingers over it, letting the fingertips barely brush along the skin. I was lost in thoughts I could barely work through as I stared at my scars. Hubert had always called his own the price of survival but it was hard to fall into his sombre humour at times. I was so lost in some thought or another I didn’t hear the door open to the bathroom.
My nephew stood there, staring at me. His eyes widened as I turned to look at him, without my eye patch on. The fused flesh over the socket as much a horrific reminder of what being a soldier had cost me as much as the scar on my abdomen. He looked almost like he was about to run before his little ten-year-old face scrunched up and he ran into me crying. Asking if I was ok and if it hurt.
Just comforting him made me cry just a little as well, my thought’s already turning my mind emotional.
My uncle came running into the bathroom to check on his crying son only to stop in the doorway and widen his eyes. His wife also came to look and her eyes widened in horror as she put one hand over her mouth.
I didn’t speak or see them much after that, I’d left them on a good note though. More myself just staying in the lighthouse, going for food and supplies every week or so and not staying much in town. I didn’t know if it was just me being stubborn or out of some misplaced embarrassment but I didn’t want to see them and the few times my uncle had called I had almost simply brushed him off. But I never went out of my way to see them after that.
I told Lukas while we were playing online one night and he had stayed quiet for a long while before telling me of his own homecoming. It put things into perspective as he had lost his right leg below the knee. His own nephew’s had been bawling their eyes out when he came home at last.
It put things into perspective but he also knew me best of all. He’d let me stew for a little longer before chewing my ass out for it. It had always been his stoic way, though he claimed it was his Irish blood at work but the squad knew better. He was just that type of guy.