100 Challenge 13. Misfortune

Just a quick thing written around the first line, I quite like it. 

Man and friend desert the war having been posted into it by someone of higher authority, Man begins to have doubts, Friend does too, but won't admit it. All lovely.

100 themes, Misfortune number 13, variation 2

13. Misfortune

"If fortune favours the brave does that mean misfortune favours the cowards?" He swung his arm wide and the pebble flew from his hand, plopping into the lake with a bounce of water. He palmed the other stones in his hand. He'd hand picked these particular rocks, picked them for their smoothness, their shape. These pebbles had been minding their own business, getting on with their pebble ways when He'd come along, ripped them from their home, marched them faraway and began throwing them into the murky waters. 

"What did you say?" His friend asked. The man looked at the pebbles again and picked another, a small flat one with brown colouring. He began to roll it in his fingers. 

"Do you think this stone has a wife?" He held it up to his friend, "a family?"

"It's a rock, are you feeling okay?" The man made some agreeing mumble. "We're not cowards you know, for leaving." The man looked into his friend's eyes but his friend looked away, shame crept into his face. The man swung his arm again and the brown pebble skimmed the water once before plopping like all the others. The man imagined the pebble drowning; begging and pleading with it's pebble God. He picked another smooth one, lighter in colour this time.

"What about this one? Do you think this stone, if given a chance, would jump from my hand, desert its pebble brothers like a coward and roll to freedom to be with its family?" His friend didn't reply he just fiddled with the straps on his clothing, checking something to avoid eye contact. The man swung hard again and watched the pebble soar and fall. One left, a grey stone, round and flat with speckles. "But then what is it to desert a wife and family? Is that not cowardly?" He rolled the rock a few more times. "Does misfortune favour us for deserting our brothers or for deserting our families when they needed us most?" The man threw the final rock, wanting it to skim the water many times, graceful and defiant to the end but it plopped into the water a few feet away, ungraceful and heavy sounding.