And just like that, seeing this young man's eyes, really seeing them again, for they had been downcast for most of the night, brought it all racing back. He remembered that first time he saw eyes just like those. That dirty little immigrant girl in her burlap dress, scared and confused about this new home she and her family had been forced to move to. It tightened Franky's chest and his throat, and it stunned the barman for a moment as Florian then punched right through it all with an even more piercing question.
Franky took a long, silent moment, seeing that Florian needed more water, had been reaching for it. He was operating without thinking now, the role of the bartender as his mind wrestled his heart and he forced the undropped tears back into his eyes where they belonged. He grabbed a flagon, and dipped it into the ice chest, setting it before the man. "Suck on the ice. Drink too much water and I'll have to clean your vomit after the floor." It was a gruff, no nonsense reply.
But soon, he slipped back into the Franky that people knew. The man beyond the bartender. He pulled up a stool, sitting across from Florian, "Death is not something I truly learned to understand until fairly recently. It's not an understanding I wish upon anyone."
It was time to tell some stories, for that's what Franky did. "Before I began this bar, I was a soldier. For me entire life, from the age of five, my life was dedicated to the military service of the Imperium. And it is different there. Here, the soldiers have no outward enemy, they have no real threats at their borders. The soldiers are bored, they are ignorant, and they go unused, and they seek out enemies within to sate that training. But in the Imperium, we hunted everywhere. Neighbors were not friends or allies, they were simply holding land and people that would become ours. And we took. I killed my first man when I was young like you, and that's when I thought I knew death. I figured it was just an end to everything, good or bad. It ended suffering, it ended goodness, it ended mistakes.
And I was wrong."
He paused, looking over at Florian, a desperate attempt to see those eyes that reminded him of her. "There's no finality in death, there's no peace in it. There's nothing good about it, no matter the circumstances. I..." Franky looked around even though he knew it was just the two of them, "I loved a woman, still do. Her name is Beatrix, and she was beautiful. She was always too skinny because she never ate enough, sometimes by choice, others not. If she could give her meal to someone more in need, she would. She was a Lysanrin, like yourself." 'You have her eyes' went unspoken, "She didn't ask for her lot in life, and she did not accept it. She fought for what she believed to be the right thing, and eventually she killed for it. And still, she was the beautiful, loving woman I had known since I was a child."
A deep sigh and a long drink from his flagon, "But death is a corruption. It does not end things, it only grows them. Soldiers are ruined because of the death they inflict, and the living are ruined by the family members and friends taken from them. Death turns memories into cancers, it turns heroes into monsters, it turns the righteous into the wrong."
He looked up and found Florian's eyes once more, "Death is the cruelest thing that can be inflicted on those who witness it. It never matters the reason for it. It doesn't matter if people go to be with their gods or in some heaven or reenter the life cycle. None of that matters. Death is a monster that will consume the living who survive."
Franky's face got stern now, not because Florian needed to hear what he had to say, but because he himself did, "The only thing in this world that can fight back against death and the corruption it spreads is love. Nothing else will work. This booze I peddle fixes nothing. Tears fix nothing. Vengeance fixes nothing. If death is eating at your heart, Florian, then you need to find someone you love, something you love, and love them even harder. The pain will never go away, but you can make your heart bigger so you can handle it better."
Franky drained the rest of his drink, "You're a good kid Florian, I know that much." 'You've got her eyes, after all.' "I've sold you poison all night. And I will do so again. So you've asked me about death, so I ask you question in return. What are your thoughts on love?"