“If force fails to solve a problem, then you are clearly not using enough of it.” - Saying of Gozum tribe.

Plains at the border between Gestis and Kolitschei

Northern former Posuin region

Western Alcidea

4th Day of the 4th Week of the 10th Month, Year 20 FP.

Yuri of the Gozum Tribe was not a native to Alcidea, or at least, his kind wasn’t.

Like other therians, they originated from the southern continent of Ur-Teros, and those who were in the northern continent were mostly tribes who had been driven away from there after they were defeated during wars in the past. Yuri’s family had moved to Alcidea when he was young on their own volition, though.

His parents were skilled masons, and they happened to hear of opportunities in Knallzog from a traveling merchant friend of theirs. Even today his parents still lived in Meergant, at the south of Knallzog, owners of a prosperous business that they ran with the help of his three younger siblings. It reminded him that he had not visited them for a while… Maybe after this mission was over.

Yuri himself – the name, like the rest his family uses, was a simplified one they assumed for use with others outside their tribe, as their real names were sing-song trumpeting noises others find impossible to pronounce properly – had always been a more adventurous boy. One that often got into brawls and fights, where his massive frame proved to be a huge benefit.

So when he eventually left his family to join a small mercenary band run by fellow therians, nobody was surprised. They saw such an eventuality as a long time coming, and if anything, breathed a sigh of relief. Having to regularly bail him out of custody from the frequent brawls and street fights got old after a while, he guessed.

Amongst the mercenaries, he learned many lessons. First and foremost amongst those was that just because he possessed size and strength does not mean he was strong.

It was a son of the band’s matriarch, a bear therian around his own age by the name of Niko, that taught him the lesson. Niko himself was large, but Yuri towered over him by nearly two heads and was bulkier to boot, with greater strength and his trunk that served effectively as a fifth limb. Even with all those advantages, the smaller Niko would trounce him with relative ease, at least until Yuri learned his lesson and stopped relying entirely on his bulk and brute force.

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There was a lot more to fighting than just overpowering the other person, he discovered.

Just as there were more aspects about himself that Yuri learned in the years that followed that he never truly thought about before. His rivalry with Niko, the matriarch’s son, blossomed into friendship, then even closer and more intimate from there. He had never considered pursuing that sort of relationship before, but he was very open to the idea, and found himself more than happy with it.

Yuri’s tribe was one of the more conservative ones which put emphasis on children – partly because of their rather low and still dwindling numbers – and even when he was young his parents had tried to make him “get along” with the daughters of their fellows that were around his age. He never found much about them that interested him, however, whereas with Niko… he simply wanted to be with him, forever if he could.

After a few years the two were officially a couple – with the matriarch’s blessings, to boot – and over the years they adopted children, mostly those of their fellow mercenaries who fell in battle, and raised them as their own. Their growing family faced the ups and downs together with the band, even as it shifted its allegiance from the Vanguard Legion to the Free Lances, and carried on.

By the present date some of the children they adopted had grown old enough to fight alongside them, either in the matriarch’s platoon – which consisted mostly of the original band and their descendants – or in other platoons of the company. Yuri himself led the charge against the enemy at the very front, with Niko by his left and his sister-in-law Varilya to his right.

He held both of his arms ahead of him, with a massive metal shield taller than himself and nearly as wide strapped to each arm, forming a perfect wall of metal together with the somewhat smaller shields Niko and Varilya wielded to his sides. Normally, it would have been considered folly to go into battle with shields strapped to both arms, as it made using weapons impossible, but Yuri was not as constrained as those who only had four limbs to use.

While he had learned to fight in more effective manners and styles over the time that had passed, when he was at the front, leading the platoon’s shieldbearers as they charged and pushed into the enemy formation, all he had to do was one simple thing: Push. He relied on his massive bulk and weight as he simply pushed the enemy soldiers aside, at times trampling fallen ones beneath his feet. He didn’t even need to put strength to finish those off, as his massive weight alone ensured that the enemy soldiers he stepped on could not be more dead, regardless of whether they still had their armor or not.

Only once the momentum of the charge started to die out, as they slowed and were bogged down by the mass of soldiers they faced, did Yuri exchange looks with Niko and Varilya. Receiving approvals from both of them, he bellowed at the top of his voice, a trumpeting, deafening roar that made the enemy soldiers closest to him flinch from the sheer volume, and finally shifted his arms from their defensive posture.

With his trunk, he swung a hefty mace that crushed through the defenses of several enemy soldiers at the same time, their shields and armor proven useless against the sheer force of Yuri’s blow. Yuri also kept one of his shields at a defensive position to cover Niko to his left, while his other hand punched down, using the reinforced rim of his massive shield as if it was a brass knuckle, crushing another couple of enemy soldiers in his way.