Re: Blood and Iron

Chapter 756: The Measure of a Lifetime

Bruno sat within his office, gazing at the picture framed and mounted on his desk.

His hands, weathered by age, grasped the edge as he lifted the frame closer. The silvered photograph caught his reflection in its glass, an old man staring back at the ghost of a youth long gone.

He had grown old… old enough that he was starting to resemble the age he had died at in his past life. Perhaps he was even a bit older, despite aging better this time around.

Gone was the clean-shaven face of a young soldier marching off to war. Now a finely trimmed grey beard framed his jaw, matching the full head of silver hair that still crowned him.

The wrinkles on his brow were fewer than one might expect for a sixty-year-old man, yet they were carved deep where decades of burden had found their home.

His appearance today contrasted sharply with the image in the photograph. He was young, so young he was still wearing the old Prussian-blue Waffenrock instead of the later feldgrau uniform the Reich and its soldiers would adopt.

The tunic gleamed in the lamplight, pressed and perfect, the brass buttons polished to a mirror’s shine.

Beside him, Heidi stood radiant and shy, her hand resting gently against his chest. She had not yet gained the confidence that would later come to define her, and clung to him as though the camera might steal her away.

It was an image taken on their wedding day, a fresh cadet’s tunic, clean, finely pressed, and utterly devoid of the medals and honors that now pinned Bruno’s chest.

He smiled faintly as he gazed upon it, reflecting on all that he had lived through since that long-ago day, on the years, the wars, the second chance fate had granted him.

But most important of all, he sat there thinking about the family he had built. One which he now fought desperately to protect.

He set the photograph down gently. The glass clock on the wall ticked softly, each second slicing the silence.

Pale winter light slanted through the tall windows, painting thin bars of gold across the floor.

He leaned back in his chair, exhaling, as if knowing by sheer instinct that the hand of the clock was just about to strike the next hour.

For a long while he simply sat there, listening to the faint hum of the house around him, the quiet creak of settling timber, the distant footsteps of servants, the wind brushing softly against the glass.

His office smelled faintly of oil, paper, and the tobacco he no longer allowed himself to smoke.

It was a silence that should have felt peaceful, yet it didn’t. The ticking clock behind him seemed to count down rather than up, each second not a promise of more time, but a reminder that there was less of it left.

And when it did, a knock resounded on the door, not once, not twice, but thrice. A familiar voice followed, warm and teasing.

“I’ve prepared your lunch for the afternoon. Would you like some company, or are you too busy with the war to entertain an old maid like me?”

Bruno rose and opened the door to find his wife standing in the frame. She had aged as gracefully as he had, perhaps even more so.

In one hand, she carried a tray of food; in the other, a liter stein of Bruno’s favorite beer. Heidi didn’t need an invitation. The look on Bruno’s face was invitation enough.

She slipped past him with the ease of decades shared, placing the tray upon his old, familiar desk before taking her seat opposite him.

Once Bruno sat down, he took a bite from the appetizer dish, savoring the quiet moment before speaking.

“The Kaiser has seen fit to allow me to conduct my duties from home,” he said, the tone a mixture of relief and fatigue.

“At least until an emergency requires my presence in Berlin. But such a thing would be rare. Our communications grid is so robust, my direct presence would only be required if something had gone horrifically wrong.”

Heidi didn’t answer. She didn’t want to speak of the war. Too many of their grandchildren were already fighting on the front lines, and too many of their siblings’ grandchildren were doing the same.

Bruno, however, couldn’t help himself.

“I hope all the money I spent to help you establish the Order of Saint Notburga has gone to good use…”

Heidi’s lips curled into a playful sneer as she leaned forward across the desk, showing off the ribbon and badge pinned beneath her bust.

“Why do you ask? Are you afraid that your endless source of funds has gone to waste? Or perhaps you fear we’ve turned into a mere social club. That all we do is drink wine and gossip while you men engage in your own philanthropy?”

Before he could reply, she deftly snatched the beer stein he had just set down and took a sip, leaning back with an almost goading look.

“No need to worry, my love,” she continued. “The Dames have been called to order. From the moment this war began, we’ve worked tirelessly to ensure the people of Tyrol, and all of Germany, are well looked after, despite the madness the world insists upon embracing.”

Bruno sighed in quiet relief, until Heidi’s next words cut through the calm like a dagger wrapped in silk.

“I’d wager my girls have been doing a far better job than those young Knights of Saint Michael. Didn’t you create that order of yours for a similar purpose? How has that been going?”

Bruno reclaimed his beer from her hand and drank deeply before wiping the foam from his lip.

“It’s been going wonderfully,” he replied. “Daily operations are handled by our son Josef. I’m more focused on the war itself. If it’s competition you want, why don’t you make a friendly wager with the boy?”

Heidi could only pout, somehow managing to look adorable even as a fifty-eight-year-old woman.

Any witty retort she might have had seemed to die on her tongue, and that alone made Bruno raise an eyebrow.

“What’s this? No one-liner today?”

Heidi sighed and shook her head, admitting, perhaps for the first time, defeat in their little war of words.

“I suppose I really am getting old…”

Bruno broke into laughter, and her glare only fueled it further. When he finally caught his breath, he jabbed himself with his own joke.

“Welcome to the club… We are now of the generation that sends their sons and grandsons off to fight wars that we start among ourselves. Sometimes I wonder if it would’ve been better to have let the next generation take the reins a few years earlier.”

Heidi could tell he was only half joking. She couldn’t imagine a world where Bruno wasn’t at the helm of the Reich’s Armed Forces, even if it meant serving another Kaiser.

Yet there was sincerity in his voice. A quiet recognition that perhaps it was his generation’s pride that had kept the fires burning.

“You did everything you could to stop the war, Bruno,” she said softly. “The French were simply too proud to accept that their role as a Great Power had come to an end, and they made it the world’s problem. You knew the moment the last war ended that another was inevitable. And because of that foresight, we were ready when it came.”

Bruno nodded silently, taking another long drink. He turned his gaze toward the window.

Beyond the glass stretched the city he had helped expand and rebuild in the Alps, a technological marvel of the new era, perfectly blended with the beauty of the old.

Airships drifted above, escorted by camouflaged fighters that shimmered like ghosts against the clouds.

Reminding him that even here in the relative peace of the Alps, they were but one misstep away from fighting the war outside their own home.

“I suppose it’s true, then… what they say,” he murmured.

Heidi glanced up from her plate, curious. “And what is that?”

“War,” Bruno said, turning back to her with a weary half-smile. “War never changes.”

For once, Heidi’s playful aura faded. Her eyes softened, and when she finally spoke, her voice carried the weight of prayer.

“That it doesn’t…”

The room fell quiet again, save for the soft clinking of dishes and the faint whisper of the winter wind outside.

Bruno’s gaze drifted once more to the photograph on his desk. The young man in the Prussian-blue uniform seemed impossibly distant now, like someone else’s dream captured in silver and glass.

He reached out and adjusted the frame ever so slightly, straightening it as though the act could somehow set right the crooked years between then and now.

Outside, another airship’s shadow crossed the window, and for a heartbeat, he could almost see his reflection standing beside that younger self, two soldiers from different centuries, bound by the same endless war.

The war for civilization’s soul.