We'll step into the valley unafraid
As we call out to dry bones, "Come alive! Come alive!"
We call out to dead hearts, "Come alive! Come alive!"
Up out of the ashes, let us see an army rise
As we call out to dry bones, "Come alive!"
Snežana was more than ready for something to happen.
The past four years felt more like four decades; it was getting alarmingly difficult to remember what it was like to
not have anyone actively trying to kill her. What was it like to live without a death sentence hanging over her head. Even what a breeze felt like on her neck: she couldn't leave her throat exposed when anyone might see her, anymore, because humans and even some nations would have all kinds of awkward questions about the ugly red scar that she was hiding.
Her throat was covered, but her head was held high as she walked through the streets of a certain Romanian city. Cluj was reasonably convenient for her to get to: it was famously equidistant from Bucharest, Beograd, and Budapest, so Serbs normally came here to meet both Romanians and Hungarians... and, as in her case right now,
others from surrounding nations as well.
She was looking for change, and if it were to come in the form of allies for the rebellion she wanted, then so much the better.
Feliks, or Poland, was in Snežana's mind a member of her extended family, and a longtime friend as well. Long ago, when they were both much younger, they had traded visits and entertainments, two empires distant enough from each other to share friendship... but that was a
very long time ago. She knew, unfortunately well, that he was in much the same bind as she was now, that the two of them were suffering from similar tortures. At a time like this, they would make natural allies, both of them having reason for tremendous grudges against the same third party and neither of them having much left to lose by fighting, when their very lives would be forfeit if they
didn't...
Snežana only hoped that her old friend would agree with her sentiments on this subject. He had agreed to meet with her, at any rate, which was promising; the Serbian woman was desperate to fight, and if she died fighting then so be it--after all, as offered to her by that German, her choices were
death or
death, just under slightly different circumstances--but she wanted to ensure that she had every possible chance to survive. And that meant making alliances, pooling resources as far as was practical, sometimes coordinating their actions for maximum effect. Acts of resistance and sabotage were good, but they could be amplified; if the
right trains or bridges were sabotaged at the right times...
But that was thinking ahead. For the moment, Snežana's goal was to ensure that she had people behind her, friends who could support her so that she wouldn't be fighting all by herself. She was very strong in quite a few different ways, but one candle is so much easier to extinguish than twenty... and if you had twenty candles that can sometimes relight each other...
Yes, Snežana was ready for something to happen, and she was here to
make it happen.
The proud smile on her face betrayed nothing of her purpose to those who didn't already know, though. Having arrived at the corner where she and Feliks had arranged to meet, she looked around for his face, wondering if he was already there or still on his way. Ah, she would know soon enough, wouldn't she?
{Decorative lyrics and thread title from "Come Alive (Dry Bones)" by Lauren Daigle}
