I wasn't created to fill the role in life I often found myself playing, now. I was made for something else, something more. Gone were the days that I was purposeful and necessary, like I was at home. Here, in Africa. My real home. Gone were the days that I was useful and authoritative. Gone were the days I was helpful and decisively strong. In Sacrosanct, life was softer and less riddled with danger the way I had been accustomed to â€" no... that I'd effortlessly navigated. Safety and routine caressed my days now, leaving me feeling less than satisfied with life and restless. Often my dreams revolved around the blood stained land that Isolt offered to travel to with me. Even in my dreams I felt more fulfilled than I did in my life now.

Loitering in my childhood home with a guest from a life that seems eons away from the one I grew up living, I felt a sense of gratitude blossoming towards the young woman who had traveled halfway around the world with me. Her presence here was sort of a beacon of light, and I was typically against getting hopeful that light would grace my home land. Yet here she was, ready to take on the dire necessities that the city needed. How could one person who was a member of a species I so detested be filled with such grace? There was only one individual I'd known before who had the capacity to be gracious and kind and sympathetic in the way Isolt happened to be and that I'd witnessed of her â€" Serena. Serena, who was born and died in the land we currently occupied. Only Serena had treated me with the tenderness that (alright... Serafina not included) Isolt treated me with and attempted to remedy my vices with. Surrounded by my past, it was hard not to think of the young woman I'd given my heart to for the first time. It was hard not to think of how many times I'd rested my head on the armrest of the couch where Isolt dropped her bag, high and suffocating under the duress of my life, here. My reverie was broken with the intrusion of a woman I'd just been speaking about â€" begging for our help.

Isolt was on her feet and moving faster than I could have expected of her. She wasn't used to conditions like these, was she? How I'd tried to prepare her, telling stories of my youth and what my city was like. What the township was like, the shanty towns that had risen around the slums. The poor, the young... She was gone before I could really comprehend that her medical training probably prepared her for situations like this. My feet followed her, regardless of whether my mind was working quickly enough to bound along behind her and enter the house next door. Inside, the air was heavy and filled with the whimpers of a young woman clearly in labor, but with a nasty flesh wound. Unconcerned with how a normal person might react, I sighed and lit a cigarette to keep my hands busy. Miss Isabeau didn't acknowledge the cigarette which I'd suspected, though surely Isolt would have words of admonishment. Fucking first world medicinal regulations. The young woman didn't notice, and that was enough for me to continue my cigarette, languidly leaning against the wall to stay out of the women's way and allow them to work.

The girl on the bed looked vaguely familiar to me, but I kept that to myself as she chirped strained words in my native language. Cautiously, I looked to Miss Isabeau to see if she'd let me sit with the girl by her head and talk to her â€" my feet already moving before the elder gave me the briefest of nods. "Davante, talk to her," She said, her voice assertive to let the girl and Isolt know she was confident. And I lowered my gaze to the girl, my voice softening to a mere whisper to tell her all the things the father of the baby should, to soothe her as the girl's mother would had she been there. It is only after the girl's whimpers turn into groans of pain that I hear Isolt's voice rise above, dictating I retrieve her medical bag which lay closer to the door. With an uncharacteristic reverence I stood to do as she required, bringing her the bag with her tools inside; hoping that the glimpse of the street and who occupied the cul de sac was merely a mirage and the men who probably shot her weren't actually arriving.

"I can't" The girl cried, tears mixing with the sweat staining tracks down her cheeks. She didn't want to push without comfort and encouragement so Miss Isabeau moved to allow Isolt to take the reins and she to take my position at the girl's head, brushing her hair back gently until it was time to return to Isolt's side to aid her.

Voices permeated the familiar building, familiar voices that drew my attention from the scene that truly didn't need my attention. "Isolt, can you move to a back room?" I inquired, my voice only raising the tiniest bit of concern. Alone, they might not worry about me and I might be able to handle the intrusion of the rebels who had wandered towards the house. Had they heard I was in Africa? I was home? I bit my lip, lighting another cigarette to keep quiet until I heard her reply.

Miss Isabeu, on the other hand, patiently works beside Isolt until I hear my name drawing me back to the room where my sisters had also given birth. "But â€" "I trail off, hearing the shouts getting louder from the street. "Do you really need me?" I asked, somehow finding my hands already gloved and the tube already in my hand that she's requested.

"Where is my baby!?" The girl cries from the next room, her sharp Afrikaans causing the hair to stand up on the back of my neck. Instead of returning to the front door to watch the rebels, I nod to Isolt as if to let her know I'm prepared to do what she asks.