I went hunting through my old hard drives looking for a certain picture, and while doing so I came across another picture, wholly unexpected.
It was a picture of her and me together. Her and me together in a golden light, smiling.
I do not remember this as a bright time, you understand. I remember anguish and anger. I remember unhappiness. I remember darkness. You remember that time too, I bet: when the Ant People and the Water Nomads banded together to attack the purification plant. The picture is from the days just before their assault.
Also, we kind of fought a lot.
In the picture, bathed in a golden light, her and me in uniform (we knew of them massing, you remember) and we are with our arms around each other and the smiles on our faces are broad and pure.
It is hard to remember now that we were so fully in love.
The assault came as we knew it would and though we defeated them (as we knew we would), the casualties were not light and each of us survived uninjured but neither she nor I nor we survived unscathed. The Ant People returned underground, and the Water Nomads fled, routed, and our platoon split. Some sealed the tunnels as best we could, some gave chase, some stayed to tend to the damage. I went out, way out. She stayed behind. I came back, but from where I'd gone there was no coming back.