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Either way, I kept to my own plan, slumping to the ground and playing dead. Seconds later, my soulmate also collapsed, laying next to me. And then seconds after that, another body fell on top of ours, obscuring us and spreading blood onto our armor. That had been part of my plan - I would’ve grabbed a body and covered us with it, but this worked just as well.
Next to me, I could hear him whimper and feel him start to squirm under the heavy, still warm body. Reaching out, through the mud and viscera, I took his hand and squeezed it tight.
There, we waited. Now that we were here, we were stuck, waiting for an opportunity. The battle kept raging on around us, hopefully no one had noticed our quick treaty. I closed my eyes, even if that wouldn’t make it end sooner. I could say it was because I was trying to pretend being dead better, if that would be believable.

In the shouts around me, I recognized some of the voices of my comrades. I hoped they made it out, only because they deserved to, not because I knew them particularly well. Perhaps my soulmate was having similar thoughts - or maybe he was too petrified by the fear of death.

A thump sounded next to my head, and my soulmate gasped again, tightly squeezing my hand back. There were shouts all around us, but they seemed to be moving, shifting to a more distant locale. I heard snippets, some plan to push the opposition back. Which side was pushing which, I had no clue. The thumping of boots on gravel and mud became muffled, then inaudible.
For several heart-pounding moments, we remained still, just to stay on the safe side. Eventually, I moved the now-cold limb away from my face, peeking out to see if everyone was gone. With my quick glance, it seemed like everyone was gone.

Letting go of his hand, with a grunt I pushed the body away, rolling it over onto the ground. Blue shawl. What a shame.

“Come on, come on, we have to move while we have the chance.” I started to roll up into a kneel, and offered him my hand.

In response, he hissed and sat up to prod his shin. “I got stomped on.” The first words he’d said to me. He had a rather thick accent, a hallmark of the country he served, lilting tones. For a moment, I had second thoughts about this whole thing.
“That’s alright, lean on me if you need it. We’re going to go out to the woods, over by the inlet, to get out of sight. Come on, then.” By now, I was standing, and he took my hand and pressed his shoulder to mine.

The clean and orderly station I’d been living the past few years of my life in was now littered with carnage. I’d walked this ground only yesterday, and it had been as pristine as dirt could be. Blue and yellow alike sprawled across the earth, an equal measure of tragedy on both sides. I turned my eyes away from the sight, to focus on the green forest ahead.
There were so many bootprints around the scene that hopefully ours would be obscured. Shuffling and staggering, we made it to the edge of the base, behind a barracks, then into the sparse thicket. Usually this was used for some form of training, but no one would be out here at a time like this.

Something felt off, but any second lingering on it would be a second wasted instead of making our escape.

Steering this three-legged race, I made a beeline for a stump and plopped my soulmate down on it. We were both breathing hard, mainly from the frenzy of what had just happened. Collapsing on the ground next to the trunk, I started to take off my shawl.
“Come on, you too. If you’re going to sit you may as well be useful - take off all your colors. Keep the armor, it will be useful, but those colors are too easily seen.”
He blinked owlishly, then nodded, starting to rip off the banners and taking off the short tabard.

I got to work on my own, removing any shred of blue or identifiable markers. The crest, unfortunately, had been hammered into the metal, so there was no getting rid of that, not with my bare hands. It should be good enough - from afar, I’d just look like some mercenary or unemployed knight.

“Hey, could you help w’ this?” Looking up, he was gesturing to the space between some plates where yellow fabric seemed attached. “I can’t seem to rip it out by m'self.”

With some struggling, we managed to tear the yellow out - it had been sewed into the chainmail itself, and left a few frayed strands behind. It was gone enough, good enough, we were running on borrowed time already.

“What about your leg?” I shifted to kneel in front of the leg that had been bothering him. “Bruised or broken?”
He shook it, thinking for a moment. “Probably just bruised. I think the greave’s bent slightly, it’s too tight and poking me. Just take it off, then I’ll be able to keep up.”
In short order, I reached around his shin to un-snap his greaves, sharp latches clicking and clanking loudly in the echo of the thicket. Looking up, I handed him the piece of armor for him to hang on to. I made to stand up properly and get a move on. That is, until I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Wait. Shouldn’t we at least know each other’s names?”

“We can talk about that while we’re on the move. Come on, we don’t know when this will all be over, and we need to be far, far away when that happens.” I shrugged off his hand and kept moving.
I suppose I felt a bit bad for him. For the both of us. I only barely had an idea of what I was doing, moving from moment to moment. In truth, I had no idea when we’d be slowed down enough to have a real talk about all this.

Behind me, I heard him get up and keep pace with me. “My name’s Rafe, or least, that’s what they call me,” he said. “What’s yours?”

“My name is - shit, get down.” I pulled him by his arm behind some brush, pushing us to the ground. A glance out of the corner of my eye had done it, something moving. Better safe than sorry.

Scanning the surroundings, I focused on what I had thought I’d seen. No less than 50 paces away stalked an archer, bow held readied. She was stalking through the trees, searching with a squinting glare. A blue sash draped from her waist, and I realized I recognized her. Oh, what was her name?
Whether I could remember her name or not, it’d be difficult if she found us here. Quietly as I could, I pointed in her direction, directing poor confused Rafe’s gaze to the encroaching figure. His eyes widened and he shrunk back, then slowly moved to carefully take off his gauntlet.

“What are you doing?” I hissed in a whisper, but he just put a finger to his lips. He reached out to the bush in front of us and slowly pulled over a branch - I tensed up, certain it would be noisy, but he moved so carefully there was barely a creak. It made sense - he’d taken off his gauntlet to cut down on clanking, and his brown hand would be far less visible than one of shiny metal. He moved a few more, as many as he could before the archer got too close, and when he was done we were fairly shrouded in leaves.

Despite all that, my heart was in my throat waiting for her to walk by. Two idiots laying in the leaves wearing shiny full plate, trying to avoid a forest-trained archer. Ridiculous. But she seemed to walk right past our hiding place.
She approached the stump we’d stopped out only minutes ago, coming to a halt and looking it over it. She leaned down to pick something up, the blue and yellow fabrics we’d left behind there. She glared at her fistful of color and made a disgusted noise in her throat. With one last glance around, she moved on through the thicket, away from our hiding place.

When her footsteps could no longer be heard, I stuck out my head enough to keep an eye on her. When her blue sash could no longer be seen, I helped Rafe out of the brush.

“We’ve gotta beat feet, fast.” Rafe said, looking a bit shaken and putting his gauntlet back on. “The inlet - are there any boats nearby, or is it small enough to swim across?”
I shook my head, “We could swim, but this time of year it might be too cold and we would die of the chill. I was actually going to take us there to search for any boats, I am not sure if there are any but we have to try.”

“Let’s go, then.” Rafe pushed past some branches and gestured for me to go ahead. Sensible, I did have more knowledge of the area than he.
The walk down to the bank of the inlet wasn’t too far, and very far away on the other bank I could see little pinpricks of people moving around. If anyone from that side looked over, it stood to reason that they would also be able to see little pinpricks of us. Better get moving.

Walking down the bank, the turns we took eventually obscured us in brush again, and a few yards down the way I could spy a couple little boats. “There.”

Boats like these were often used by the soldiers, or occasionally a lost townsperson who had rowed a little too far. Little dinghies for going out on the water, for fishing when rations were low, for rowing out to the deep water for deep water drills. Though there was no dock, just a bank for shoring up on, so many of these little boats had gotten lost. Which was yet another added benefit - spending monotonous free time making another little boat was kind of fun.

The first boat we came upon was obviously damaged, ripped holes in the bottom, and hardly any space. That wouldn’t do.
The second one was upside-down and half underwater, it would be a pain to overturn and clear out. Seeing another boat, we moved on to that one instead.
This one was nice. Too nice, it made me suspicious. The wood was lovingly oiled, the paddles were folded neatly, and there was a shiny little bell on the bow. I couldn’t see any identifying features, like a name on the side or any personal effects, but still - Rafe was already climbing in, damn it.

“I’m not too sure about this one, wait.”

He turned and looked at me as if I had two heads. “Are you kidding me? This is a perfect boat, and you don’t want to take it?”

“What if it belongs to someone? Someone who will want it back? This is too convenient, let’s just go back and dig up that other one.”

“We’ve already wasted enough time on this! Eventually, one or both of our sides are going to realize we’re missing, and I care more about that than I care about stealing a really nice boat. If they have a problem with it, they can take it up with the men with swords several yards that way. Hop in.”

Sighing, I knew he was right, though that didn’t untwist my guts about it. Climbing in, I made my way to the bow and cut the rope tied to the little shiny bell, placing it on the floor of the boat.

“You’re not gonna toss it out?”

“No.” I grabbed one of the paddles, getting ready to push off. “If, maybe one day, the owner of this boat finds us and it, I want all its pieces to stay together. So we can give it back properly.”

Rafe boggled at me. “Your morals are, just, fascinating.”

He grabbed the other paddle, and we pushed off from the shore in tandem. For a while, we paddled, until we were far enough into the currents to trust them to take us. Smeared in blood and mud and adrenaline, we both took a rest. I sat back on the floor of the boat, bench at my back.

“Oh my god. Did we both just defect from the military? Is this happening?”

Rafe sat forward, hands clasped. “Yeah. It’s happening. We probably need to talk a few things out, now.”