The young man blinked rapidly, “I knew I forgot something,” he ‘thought’.
His eyes darted around as he tried to think. “The commander should have already talked to your captain, so the rest of your squad mates should be waiting for you back where we were.” He walked off, half nodding to himself, pleased at his quick thinking.
Poor kid. He’s more tired than I thought.
The young man was so tired that he didn’t realise that he had actually said the first sentence out loud. And he wasn’t even close to being quiet about it. It had also taken him far longer than it should have for him to come up with that idea.
But Lucien pretended as if nothing had happened and followed behind him. It’s not like he had never been tired before. He just hoped that the quicker he got through this, the sooner the young man would be able to sleep off that sluggishness.
The two returned to the previous building, where the young man asked for Lucien to take a seat while he scurried off back to the commander.
A few minutes passed by idly before the young man returned. “Follow me.”
~
Several minutes earlier, after the commanders had sent Lucien off.
“Do you think he’ll be useful?” asked Commander Vernon.
“His Lordship made the request for a reason. All we can do is cooperate,” said Commander Roth.
“Indeed.” Thinking for a moment, she stepped out of the room and pulled aside a nearby messenger who was waiting patiently for something to do. “Send a message to Captain Vernon, I want to see her. Tell her to bring her squad here as well.”
She returned to the command room, her mind filtering through all of the new information to sort out what would be the most useful for them at this moment.
“Are you sure that putting him under your sister is the wisest idea? She hasn’t experienced the kinds of things that he has. I don’t know if she will be able to handle it.” asked Commander Roth.
Having both shared a carriage ride with Lucien, and heard his story, he knew the kind of emotions that were dwelling beneath the surface. Lucien was a very different kind of person to the young and inexperienced people that Captain Vernon had worked with before.
“This is a test for her. She’s only worked with fresh recruits and her fellow graduates until this point. I want to see how she handles things. I’ll keep an eye on her to make sure nothing goes wrong.”
Having explained herself, she waited for her younger sister to arrive.
The sound of measured and orderly footsteps came about a dozen minutes later as a group of people walked down the hallway, led by the messenger from earlier.
The messenger guided the majority of them to a nearby rest room while the captain continued off to the command room.
She stepped into the room and saluted, waiting patiently for her commander’s order.
Captain Vernon looked similar to her older sister, albeit with a few distinct differences. Her body was slimmer, but still toned. She was also a few centimetres shorter.
Her hair went below her shoulders and was a dark shade of brown as opposed to her sister’s light brown hair.
Her face was slimmer, her eyes a bit rounder, and were a honeyed brown unlike her sister’s blue.
“I’m adding a soldier to your squad. He knows the area, and his Lordship believes he will be a necessary addition to the army,” Commander Vernon said.
“Yes sister.” she made no comment about it, following her commander’s orders as she returned to join the rest of her squad, which was comprised primarily of military graduates from her year.
The room was fairly spacious, containing a rectangular table that could sit a dozen people comfortably, a few separate chairs, and a fireplace with a cooking pot.
It was a place primarily used by the logistics crew whenever they needed a break. The person who had led them here had left, and the space was left to be used by her squad.
Her squad was made up of six people, including herself. Two were women, and four were men. All of them were around the same age, with there being, at most, only a couple of years difference between the oldest and the youngest.
There was a man with short, ruffled blond hair that stood at 163cm tall. He was wearing the padded cloth armour they had just used for training, and had a parrying dagger strapped to his waist.
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Sitting next to him was a man with the bronzed skin of a farmer. He had a simple face with thick eyebrows and a bald, shiny head. He stood at 190cm tall, and was very large. With an even mix of fat and muscle, that made him look like a mountain. He wasn’t carrying a weapon with him.
Across from them was a woman with cropped black hair and green eyes. She stood at 168cm tall. She had thin, almost invisible lips. And a high nose bridge with an old scar running horizontally across it and a bit of her right cheek. She had a short sword on her waist and an unstrung bow sitting on her lap.
Next to her was a man with short brown hair and light blue, almost grey, eyes. He was 171cm tall, and had a lot less muscle than the rest of them. But he still wasn’t skinny by any means. Just like the tall guy, he didn’t have any kind of weapon with him, albeit for a different reason.
He was currently playing a game of dice with the blond haired man, with small stacks of copper coins sitting in front of both as they played.
The final person was standing at the pot, stewing a mixture of meat and vegetables. He was the second tallest in the group, standing at 182cm tall. He had short black hair in the form of a buzz cut, and a well trimmed beard and moustache. His sword was still attached to his hip, sitting in a fancy black scabbard with complicated markings etched into it.
Normally, their meals would be sorted by the army’s line cooks, but he had managed to get their portion of food for the day from a friend of his while they were on their way here, since he wanted to cook.
The stew was primarily just broth, with only a few pieces of meat and vegetables for each of them, along with some bread. This was a standard main meal for the day in this army.
The one difference was that he had also added in some spices that he had got from the market a few days ago to give their meals a bit of extra kick.
“What’s going on Captain?” Asked the man with short, ruffled blond hair, his eyes never leaving the dice.
“We’ve got a new guy joining us. Commander’s orders,” she answered.
Everyone stopped what they were doing for a moment to turn and look at her. The guy at the pot went back to cooking, the woman continued maintaining her bow, and the brown-haired guy went back to their game, hoping to use this as a chance to make his opponent slip up and lose.
“But we’ve only got a few days until we’re out there. That’s barely enough time to get to know them, let alone to train with them. How am I supposed to leave my back to someone I don’t know?” the blond guy complained.
“The commander mentioned his Lordship, meaning there’s nothing we can do about it. Spend this time getting to know him, and try building up that trust. I’ll be doing the same.”
Everyone went back to what they were doing, which was mostly watching the brown-haired man take all the money the blond guy had over their game of dice.
By the time the stew was done cooking, there was a knock at the door.
“That should be him. Get the door.” She tapped the shoulder of the now depressed blond man, who sullenly and reluctantly left his chair to go do as she said.
He got to the door, where he could hear people talking.
“Here we are, I’ll leave you to it.”
“Get some rest kid.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I might just do that.” Which was followed by the sound of footsteps heading away from them.
Adjusting his emotions so as to not appear too distraught in front of the new guy, he waited patiently for him to knock.
Knock knock knock.
Everyone shifted in their seats slightly to get a better look at the door. Even the man cooking turned slightly so that he could see what was happening.
The door opened as everyone looked at Lucien, and he looked at them.
“I was told to report to Captain Vernon?” He looked around before locking eyes with the correct person. Both because of the five-pointed star on her shoulder, and because of the striking similarity between her and the commander.
“You’ve come to the right place, take a seat.”
Having spent the past couple of months with Lynn, Lucien didn’t feel that uncomfortable regarding the age difference between him and the rest of them. He felt like he would at least be able to hold a conversation with them without it becoming awkward.
That wasn’t the case for the rest of them however. Most of the older people they would interact with were either older relatives or instructors at the academy. This made them all tense up a little, which only became worse when they noticed his missing arm.
Lucien took their reactions in stride, not letting any of it stop him from taking a seat down next to the tall, farmer-like, young man.
He chose to sit here as opposed to at the other end of the table from the captain because he believed that it would ease the tension just a little bit, and that it would help close the distance while they talked.
I need to sit down and have a chat with each of them. See if i can befriend them. Lucien had the same thoughts that the blond man had expressed earlier. He didn’t want to trust his back to someone that he didn’t know.
Captain Vernon knew that one day she would be leading people who weren’t her age, but she didn’t realise it would be so soon after leaving the academy. But she didn’t let that get to her. She took a moment to adjust herself, wanting to set a standard for how the rest of their time together would play out.
Just because he was older than her, that didn’t mean she would treat him any differently to everyone else.
“As you are probably already aware, we don’t have much time until we set off. Just a few days at most,” said Captain Vernon. “That means I’m going to have to work you to the bone to make sure you’re ready for what’s to come.”
“Of course.” Lucien nodded.
“And that goes for the rest of you as well. There’ll be no slacking off, not until we’re a cohesive unit. Got it?”
She eyed the rest of them one by one, most of which nodded, while the blond man looked away and the brown-haired man started awkwardly shifting his winnings away and into his coin purse.
Ignoring the last two, she turned her attention back to Lucien. “You came at just the right time. Why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself then we’ll eat.”
“Alright. Well, where should I start? I’m 48 years old, I lost my arm recently, as you can see. I’ve been a guard in my village for most my life, and I’ve come from the south, where the bandit attacks have been taking place.” Lucien went on to tell them a bit about himself, forgoing the grim details about what happened in Locham.
He didn’t mention anything specific, just saying that his village was attacked and he came here to spread the word.
He knew that he would eventually tell them what happened. But not now. Not when they’ve just met.