You look at her, sitting there, her hair in a loose ponytail with wisps and strands falling around her face. It suits her a lot better than her old warrior's braid. Her shirt hangs around her, loose. She's wearing sweat pants. Her socks are covered in sheep dancing through the stars. She's pretty, with a gentle look about her, a soft touch. She smiles at something, only she knows what. Only her eyes tell you who she is, what she was. Their blank wash, the speck of hard steel contrasted with a speck of relaxed ease show you. She's a retired soldier, someone who's finished her battles and now sits back and watches the others fight their own. She's quiet and calm, easy-going and approachable. She's happy in her retirement. Given the choice, she wouldn't go back. She knows it's better on this side of the bridge, with the battles won and nothing left but memories and old comrades. The fact that their battlefield selves have passed away, leaving ones like herself, doesn't seem to bother her; she never liked their coldness anyway. You hope, though. You hope. You have something you want her to do and you hope and pray that somewhere, within that soulless gaze that has yet to catch up with her new life, she still has the old longing for battle, for excitement and rush and the alluring cooling of the heart. You hope that somehow that will compensate for what you're about to do to her when you walk over and ask her to become a soldier once more.