He tied off the rope and stood. "Yes, Ma'am. What do you --" before he could finish he was grabbed from behind by an unknown assailant. He tried to get free but someone else grabbed his legs, and he was carried off while Yarrow followed, a smile on her face.
"Oh, Goddesses, no -- stop it! No!" Jules shouted, realising what was going on, for the troops were gathering around him now and singing as he was carried off.
"Major Jules, it is a military tradition," he heard the bellica call out in admonition. "You must participate."
"But it's chilly!" he shouted, still trying to get free. Lt. Peter, who held his torso and arms, and his friend Chris from the Medicorps who held his legs, grinned at him and laughed. Taunts of pollo, pollo! came from all sides and there was a good deal of laughter. Even Jules was laughing, though he did not look forward to what was coming.
They reached the bank of the river then and he tried to get them to let him go. "Come on, gals -- we don't really need to do this, you know, not tonight; can't we just put it off?"
Chris and Peter laughed, shook their heads, and tossed Jules into the river.
Cold water sucked him down and he kicked to get to the surface, which he broke, spluttering, to cheers from the bank. "I hate you all so much right now," he said, laughing, and immediately swallowed some water. Coughing, he began his swim to shore, grateful they'd chosen an area where the river was calm. Even if it is bloody cold.
Yarrow was standing at the bank to help him out of the water. Against his better judgement, when he grasped her hand he pulled her in too. Great whoops of laughter came from the troops when Yarrow surfaced, spluttering as he had, and began a water fight with him. When dominance had been reestablished in the bellica's favour both climbed from the water, assisted by others, and were passed towels to wrap around their rapidly de-clothed bodies.
"I s-should c-court-martial you for t-that," Yarrow muttered, shivering, but she was smiling.
Undressed, he wrapped the towel around his waist. "You f-forget that's p-part of the t-tradition," he replied, grinning at her.
She shook her head and gestured to Cpt. Garnet, who came forward with a box and presented it to the bellica.
"You didn't," Jules said, suddenly serious and feeling a bit embarrassed.
"Shut up," Yarrow said, and stood in front of him. The women had gone silent, the occasion now solemn. She opened the box and held it in front of him. "Major Jules, on this, the day of your thirty-third birthday and your twenty years in the service, the first regiment of Athering would like to present to you the following items." Here his friend Chris came forward and pulled the first item from the box. "A wreath of laurel, for your victorious twenty years in the service and hopes for another twenty to come." Chris placed the wreath -- it was basil, not laurel, Jules saw, but he was so touched, he didn't care -- on the major's head with a smile, and stepped back. Lt. Peter came forward to take the next item from the box, and Yarrow spoke again. "A jackahare's foot, for luck," she said, and Peter tied the leather thong that held the animal part around Jules' neck. It was something he could have done without, and the smile Yarrow didn't quite hide told him she felt the same way. A young priva came forward then, blushing, for the third and final item in the box. Jules didn't know her name, but he smiled at her to quell her nervousness at being chosen for a part of the ceremony. "And the Blue Shield, for your continued loyalty," Yarrow said, and the priva pulled a medal out of the box.
Jules felt his breath catch in his throat. It was real, he could see. An actual military medal, and an old one. He looked at Yarrow, asking with his eyes where she got it.
"Your brother had it," she said gently. "It was your mother's."
Tears sprang to his eyes, and he brushed them away hastily. "Thank you," he whispered, his throat tight. Yarrow only nodded.
The priva still stood, holding the medal, looking self-conscious. "Bellica," she said, another flush creeping up her neck, "where should I pin the medal?" She gestured at Jules, who was still bare-chested.
Yarrow shrugged. "His towel would do fine."
They tried to keep the mood solemn as the girl bent to pin the medal on the towel that went around Jules' waist, but her nervousness made her hands shake, and she managed to pull the towel loose. Jules caught it in front before it fell completely, but he treated the soldiers behind him to a view of his bare arse. He heard giggles from behind him, quickly shushed. The priva blushed harder and apologised profusely while Jules tried to right his towel. Yarrow's face was contorted with barely suppressed mirth, and as she tried to hold it in her body shook with it, and her own towel decided to slip loose and fall to the ground.
A whoop of laughter escaped her, and then there was no going back. The entire regiment burst out in laughter then, great peals of it that formed a deafening cacophony. Jules was laughing too as he helped the priva to her feet and clapped her on the shoulder, telling her she'd done wonderfully with all sincerity. When he got his towel finally tied on properly he was lifted up by his comrades and carried with laughing cheers to the fire, where he and Yarrow sat to warm up while the rest of the regiment stripped down and went for swims and play in the river, festivities in full swing now the ceremony was over.
"Thank you," Jules said quietly to Yarrow as they sat and watched her women frolic on the banks of the river. "I can honestly say I didn't expect this."
She smiled at him. "What can we expect for our future if we don't honour our traditions, Jules? The good ones, at least," she said with a small laugh. "I'm honoured to have been able to do this for you."
He grabbed her hand and squeezed, and they sat in companionable silence by the fire until, exhausted, both retired to their separate cots in the officers' tent.
Magea Rosa
Gray walls surrounded her on all sides, boxing her in.
She stood, swaying only slightly, a movement that brought comfort to her, lest they see her and make the pain begin again.
A skittering noise above her, like a spider becoming acquainted with her branches. She moved to flatten herself against a wall, away, far from the danger. She fell, then, for there were no walls, and landed with a crack against the stone floor. She heard a scream and looked around dumbly before realising it had been she herself, screaming in agony when a branch broke from her head. Hot sap oozed down the side of her head, coating her leaves to her face. The scream echoed around the room and hit her across the face, scaring her back into silence.
A moment of lucidity descended then, and her sense of self rushed back to fill her so she felt she flew, as once before. Gripped in the exultation of flight and the realisation of her entrapment she scrambled to the window, half-crawling, half-running, thinking -- if I can just make the window, I can drift to the ground; I can leave this tower, for yes, it is the tower I'm in, and not that other place, no that was long ago, they're all dead now they're all dead -- the window! Alas, the window, if only I can make it; I won't be trapped anymore; not trapped; trapped, trapped, trapped.
The word echoed in her skull as she flung herself against the glass and pounded her branch-like arms against it, stick-fingers curled into fist-like shapes. For an hour she pounded, trying desperately to break the glass that was dark no matter where the sun or moons lay in the sky. Sap ran from between her fingers, from the edges of her knotted, gnarled hands, and down her branches to rest on her trunk. She did not notice, and as she did not remember that she'd done this before, she did it again.
Suddenly in exhaustion she stopped, and with the lack of movement lucidity fled, and she wandered the dark corridors of her madness again. Thinking herself being held, she leaned her head to rest on the window. The sap dried her arms and head to the glass while the window told her that he'd never left her, she'd just stopped looking.
She murmured happily. Ather.
Kasandra
Jourd'Muerta, 5th Trinnia
0100 hours
It was a loud booming sound that woke the tavernkeeper from her sleep. It shook the very walls o
f the tavern, and she fell out of bed still half in dreams.
Is the very earth shaking? she thought, rising and stumbling across her room to the hidden ladder that led to the roof of the tavern. Still in the peplos she'd worn the day before, for she'd collapsed, exhausted, in her bed without bothering to change at a quarter to midnight, she slipped and fell against the ladder, banging her shin.
Cursing as she reached the roof, she gazed upon her city, trying to locate what had befallen it.
Atherton was in flames. There, at the South Gate -- there was no more gate, and the walls beside it had crumbled and been destroyed. Along the top of the wall that enclosed the city sentries ran, shouting, crossbows at the ready. She watched a man running to the West Gate, and a few moments later the alarm bell rang. The sound of fighting and the smell of burning flesh reached her ears and nose.
She covered her face with the sleeve of her peplos and hurried back into the tavern, moving quicker than a cat now. She rushed through the building and woke her patrons and employees.
Blearily Patrick, the boy she'd taken on to help her when Ghia had left, asked what the noise and fuss was about.
"We're under attack -- get the patrons to the hidden room. I'll join you soon." Patrick stared at her in shock, but before she could shake him from it one of her patrons grabbed him by the arm. She didn't know the customer's name -- he was an old tar who'd stayed at her tavern for nigh on a month now.
"Cannae ye see we're in danger, son? Heed the dama's words," the man said, and led Patrick off to get the rest of the patrons to safety.
Kasandra could have kissed him, but she had other things to think of. She changed into her more sensible breeches and jerkin with a speed that would have impressed a bellica and stamped on her boots hurriedly. She'd tie them properly later. From the hidden compartment in her wall she grabbed her crossbow and bolts and slung them over her shoulder. Into a rucksack she packed the books her family had been entrusted with for generations and a few other family heirlooms. She could hear the sounds of fighting getting closer as she ran down the stairs and down into the cellar. There was no time to bolt the door -- and it wouldn't matter anyway.
In the cellar she noticed the trap door closed, but the stone still beside it. Quickly she righted it and then moved to stand in the shadow under the stairs, her crossbow at the ready.
It was not long before she heard the sound of her door being broken down and heavy booted feet running through the tavern. They receded, going upstairs. She stood still and waited. A few minutes passed, then she heard them come back downstairs and travel over the taproom slowly, inspecting. They came behind the bar; she heard them go into the kitchen. She didn't move. They came to the cellar door and kicked it open. Dust and light flew into the room and settled. Kasandra watched booted feet come down the stairs, a quiet deliberation in the steps.
When the feet reached the bottom and stepped to the side she could see they belonged to a man -- young, as she judged such things -- in a soldier's grey and brown rags. He was tall as she, with a permanent sneer to his face as he surveyed the cellar. His eyes inspected the floor carefully, and when he didn't see the trapdoor Kasandra silently let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. He moved to the shelves then and started shoving off her jars of preserves and sundries with such carelessness she winced. The light from upstairs glinted off the two, long, curved blades he wore at his belt.
Kasandra held the crossbow at her gut, barely daring to breathe. The man finished his inspection that yielded nothing, then turned his attention to under the stairs, eyes narrowing. As he stalked menacingly towards where she hid, she saw he wore a soldier's jacket with a strange insignia on it that she couldn't place, though it was hauntingly familiar. A dagger and rose motif?
He stopped at the edge of the darkness and glared into it, and Kasandra feared he might come in. Instead he drew one of his blades and held it just to the side. Gripped in fear, she desperately wanted to close her eyes, but knew it would not make him go away. Instead she forced her orbs to stay on him as he slowly raised the blade up, through the darkness she was standing in.
The edge of the cutlass passed beside the crossbow she held, and she was sure it was only a hairsbreadth away. Up, up, up it traveled until he stopped, the point of the blade not an inch from her eye.
Kasandra moved her finger over the trigger.
The man made no change to his facial expression. I know he knows, he can hear my heart beating. I'm sure of it! -- but took a step back, drawing his blade arm back to make a quick thrust.
"Jason!" a yell came down the stairs and the man jumped, almost dropping his blade.
"What?" he roared, his hand shaking, making the light dance on the the metal of his cutlass.
"His Lordship wants to know if you're done sticking your dick in the preserve jars," the voice said with a crude laugh.
Jason snarled and sheathed his sword, glaring at the cellar that held naught to his eyes but broken glass and sticky foodstuffs pasting themselves to the stone. His eyes flickered up the stairs, hatred dancing in them. "Asshole," he muttered, then -- with one last glare at the cellar -- pounded up the wooden slats angrily, shaking dust onto the shaking tavernkeeper who hid in the shadows.
Only when the footsteps receded completely did Kasandra dare to breathe deeply again and slide her finger off the trigger of her crossbow. In another few minutes, she could will herself to move, shaking the fear from her limbs with effort. She disarmed the weapon she held and swung it back over her shoulders, then moved forward to the trapdoor.
There was a trick to getting it to swing down, which she'd not yet taught to Patrick. She moved it down now, and -- with a last, sad look at her destroyed food stores -- moved down the ladder that resided under the door. When she was sticking halfway out of the hole still, she pulled the stone close to her. A few steps more down and she could fit it back in place above her, then close and lock the trapdoor from the inside.
It was pitch dark under the cellar. Gingerly she tested the ground with her feet; when she was satisfied she'd safely navigated the ladder, she turned and moved down the passageway, hand trailing against the rough wall.
Where the passage joined the sewers there was some small amount of light, for there were torches spaced far apart. She saw Patrick and the patrons from her tavern waited there for her, families huddled together for warmth and comfort.
The man who had helped Patrick clear the tavern waited stoically beside the shivering boy, looking down the passage for her return. When she stepped into the bit of light he nodded at her respectfully.
"Glad ta see ye live, Dama."
"So am I," she said a bit shakily.
He extended a scarred arm and his hand. "Dagon. Formerly o' a Harbourtown merc ship under Cap'n Meriweather, and then Bellica Anala's Honour Guard fer a short while."
She shook his hand gratefully. "Wish you'd told me that before. I would have recruited you up there." She laughed, but it was too shrill, too manic. She stopped abruptly.
"Fer which I apologise. Can ye tell me a mite about the invaders?" His eyes held a wary compassion. Briefly Kasandra explained the soldier's dress and two blades to the sailor, who only nodded, looking grim. "It'd be as I thought, then." Before he could finish another patron cut in, voice shrill.
"As you thought? When were you going to tell us? Who's invading us?" The woman had a small child with her, her daughter, who clung to her mother's pants, looking scared.
"Mt. Voco'd be," Dagon said, his voice quiet.
This did not calm the woman, and though Kasandra felt fear settle into her stomach she worked hard to keep everyone calm, telling them they were safe now.
"Safe! Lord Exsil Vis will find us down here sooner or later," a man shouted, and panic nearly broke out.
"No," Kasandra said, and it was only when they all quieted that she realised she'd shouted. "No," she said a bit quieter. "I have a safe place to take us. Follow me."
Patrick, coming out of his shock, ass
ured them that she told the truth, and reluctantly they followed her as she took off down the sewers, navigating the road she knew so well.
She went to call in a favour with the Queen of Thieves.
Anala
0120 hours
She was not sure what woke her from her restful sleep, but all she knew was a moment she dreamt peacefully, Aro's smiling face in her mind's eye, and the next moment she was moving around her quarters, not even fully awake as she dressed for battle and ran to the barracks.
"Up, up!" she shouted to her women, all sleeping peacefully.
They awoke, confused and sleepy, but started getting dressed all the same. "There's been no alarm, Admiral," Cpt. Reid said sleepily.
"I ken something'd be wrong," was all she said. It was enough. Her battle-sense was well known, and trusted, by her women.
They were ready in seconds, but she was already running down the hall, towards where she knew the danger was, and her women struggled to follow.
Dimly she heard the alarm bell being rung to wake the other regiments and bellicas as she ran onwards, not slowing once in her headlong flight.
Towards the hospitalis.
Ghia
0125 hours
It had all happened so fast.
It was late at night -- well past midnight -- and so she had been on duty with Jera, Giselle, and Aro. The official night shift team now. They worked well together, and in time had bonded like a family -- though she'd always felt that about Giselle and Jera, now Aro was added to the mix, and it made her happy that he fit in so well. She'd been looking at her staff: Aro making the security rounds with a smile to all the patients; irascible Jera with a stubborn teenager more concerned about missing her friends than her broken arm; sweet Giselle using her good bedside manner with a dying woman whom they could only make comfortable. She reflected how, despite it all, she was very happy with the group. She truly loved them.
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