seymoure

28.

Colonel Stonedragon was not easy with dealing with emotions. It just was not part of what he did. Now he was on his knees holding a child who had lost his father. The man was near tears himself, feeling the tears as though they came from his own eyes.

He had tried to explain the unique situation of the death of an Immorti, and found himself mortified that he had let the words “unique situation” come from his mouth aimed at the face of
this devastated young man.

The fact that Benjy McCauley would be reincarnated almost immediately with all his memories buried until that time, later in life, he would remember who he is and everything he had ever done, wasn’t a lot of comfort to the boy who had lost the one father he had ever had.

The thought that sometime, when he was in his 20’s, Mickey might be approached by a child who introduced himself as the boy’s father, helped only the slightest. It was the fact that his life was now without the parent he depended on, the parent he loved.

It didn’t help that his mother was still missing.

Stonedragon wanted to get on the radio and find out if any progress had been made in the finding of Maria McCauley, but he knew that it was more important, right now, that he stay with the child now.

He remembered when his own father died, and the hole that left in the world.

Perhaps it was the terrible battle, or mayhap it was the tragic loss of life. Whatever the reason, Stonedragon found himself sobbing also.

The boy and the man shared their tears in the middle of the battlefield.