Bonus Content: How to Shed Tears

A wartime song from Calcinea, reflecting on the uses of mages and more ‘dishonourable’ combat in war.

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Lyrics
Well my bonnie lad’s a diviner, In His Majesty’s eighth grenadiers Seven years in a school, Then the army so cruel A debt paid off in fourteen more years

Oh, my bonnie lass, is a sniper His Majesty’s carabineers To parade and to tilt And to bury the guilt Beneath layers of duty and fears

And we’ve both in the business of ending of lives And terror and chaos and fear And when this war is done then we both shall retire And remember how to shed tears

Well he scrys out the hidden positions Where the enemy cower and quake Then he gives a command To root out their last stand With the knowledge of where they will break

And she awaits there with infinite patience In hiding to seek out her mark The commander breaks fast Without knowing his loss And she ends him without a remark

And there’s many who name us as cowards and black To kill when we hide in the rear But bravery’s the very thing we attack To teach you how to shed tears

But the foot can’t protect him forever For the enemy also divines An artillery strike Breach the wall far in line When the lead lines the air then he cries

And she’s caught under fire in a foxhole Around her the cannons do pound Well there’s shot in her thigh She’s been left here to die And there’s nowhere left to go to ground

Well there’s blood in our eyes as our comrades all die Screaming with horror and fear But we’ll still our minds if we want to survive To remember how to shed tears

I see a girl caught in a foxhole As I run to flee fire and earth There’s a path I can see Through the cannonballs free And I lead her with all of my breath

There’s a lad running mad through the crossfire And he’s caught in the enemy’s sights I sight my counterpart My shot tears her apart Now we’re limping for both of our lives

Slowly spotting the threats and she’s taking the shots As we struggle to get to the clear We’ll limp through the night, through the cold and the hot No time to know how to shed tears

So it’s many years come since that battle And his service is reaching its end There’s been medals and more Or a decade of gore Now there’s flowers and fields to ten

Her thigh it still aches in the winter But the time has come to hang up her gun With no warning but sound Hundreds put in the ground Now she’s no longer needing to run

Now our service is done we’ll retire on our funds To a lifetime of plenty and cheer And with long life and love and maybe we will come To remember how to shed tears