[ AW ] Calling your bluff

She stood at the gates to the barracks, turquoise eyes fixed on it like it was going to offer her a piece of wisdom. Her mother would have an absolute conniption if she knew she was here. Her father would likely sigh in disappointment before doing his best to sweetly talk her out of it. Dad had never been one for violence, he was too soft, too kind, he avoided confrontation like one avoided the plague. Mom, on the other hand, she had been a soldier in the army, she had seen war and when Miri got older, she would recognize that her mother enjoyed. Or used to at least. Now the Tiamat woman stood in the path of the younger Tiamat. A declaration that she would not join the army still rung in her ears, along with her vehement denial.

Miread Tiamat was born and bred for the army. Being a soldier spoke to her soul. The untamed Tiamat blood that rushed in her veins demanded it. No one would stand in her way, not even parents.

But still that little voice in the back of her head chided her, whispered that she should take pause, that she should consider her mothers words. Her young mind thought she knew what it meant to be a soldier. She had already seen death, she had felt its vicious claws when he took her grandmother and uncle. The death of those she didn't know, didn't love, those wouldn't hurt so bad.

Earthen coat warmed in the summer sun, it beat down upon her back as she continued to stand there. But slowly, one step at a time, she would inch her way closer - called by the distant sounds of soldiers training. Her future was just beyond those gates. But what if her mother was right? What if Xandria Tiamat knew what she was talking? Stubbornly, the girl teeth her teeth, determination glittered in her eyes. She would not bow to this challenge.

manip + code: clae

Every so often, perhaps once every few days, Falltore would venture down tot eh fighting pits. He was never invited, and surely was not one to participate… but still, he could not help but come and see for himself what was being taught to cadets and recruits. That… and he often wondered if any might prove useful, more useful than whatever career they hoped to have, that is. More often than not, he need only glance for a second, for if he stared any longer, the cusses he kept in his own mind about how useless their exercises were, or the ineptitude of their supervising lieutenant, might actually come out. His disdain for others, particularly those below him on the ranking ladder, was a wild beast, and could only be controlled with firmness. One might shudder to think of the monster his feelings were for those that ranked above him, specifically those he blamed for the current state of affairs. He would rather not utter their names, but they surely knew who they were.

On this particular day, the fighting was less than entertaining. It wasn’t the sloppiness of it, the whopping two recruits that this particular lieutenant was supervising clearly showing their lack of experience. It was the fact that it was all far too predictable, scripted, proper. He was never one for conventional means and practices, following the rules and whatnot. He was more so interested in preparing those for the reality of the life that lay ahead of them, no matter how terrible it may be. Honesty was a difficult policy to maintain, when one has grown accustomed to being praised for every single success. The truth is… wolves are seldom remembered for their thousands of good deeds, if there is but one deed that outweighs it. The latter, and not the former, is what they are remembered for.

After a while, Falltore had grown bored of his idling, seeing nothing worth staying for. Heading away from his point of observation, he headed towards the main gate, though by convenience only. His quarters were in that direction, where he might be expected to attend any number of strategy meetings, budgetary meetings, inactive report meetings. The joys of bureaucracy. That is what sated those that threw this war away these days, content to count the number of sick or the projected rations for the coming months or which parts of the outpost needed repairs. Anything but to what end the army ought to serve its role. And nothing, at least as far as he had been made of aware, of any particular importance. He would have prayed for some variety to his day, were he to believe it would be answered. Oddly enough, it was, against his better judgment, by the gruff voice of a wolf he had interacted with many times before. In her typical manner, no less.

“Oi!” Grimetthe snarled from her post, her withered gray frame eyeballing on surely some sort of disturbance past the main gate, “no beggin’ and no loiterin’! Scram, ya whelp!” Falltore had interacted with Grimetthe on more than one occasion, and she was hardly a wolf he enjoyed the company of. She, in turn, did not like him, but she did her job, watching the gate. Though in Falltore’s estimation, he had his suspicions that on account of her age, she had encrusted on her own post, and every other soldier in Yorkshire was too afraid to see for themselves whether this were true or not. Still, whenever Grimetthe raised her strained voice at a passerby to the main gate, it was almost always a show. And Falltore was prepared to watch this one. Deciding to get closer to the action, close enough to see through the palisade and catch a part of the whelp at the gates, part of him was eager to see what would come next.

Her indecision is interrupted by another, a wolf that calls out from her place on the wall, hollering like an old bird. The voice is strained, a gruff sound that one has to concentrate on to understand. It takes a moment for the young Tiamat to find her, but when she does, turquoise gems don't leave the old wolf. Even with the distance between them, she looks old and frail, like she might have been around back when the barracks were built.

Mireads eyes narrow and she resists the urge to curl her upper lip. Defiance was already etched into the hard line of her shoulders and the rigid column of her spine. The Tiamats bent to no one. "I'm doing neither." She would correct, her voice steady despite her buried nerves. While the young wolf might be wavering on her place in this world, she does not cower before it.

"I'm here to join."

Stubborn to a fault, she wouldn't be chased from the gates she had always dreamed of walking through. When she was younger, she had always envisioned her mother walking beside her. But that was before. Now she stood here without her parents support, with the knowledge that her parents didn't want this life for her, that her mother her forbade her from doing this very thing.

manip + code: clae

The stern, fierce reply was more than enough to get Falltore’s attention, who had now become quite focused on the determined youngster at the gates. How interesting, he thought to himself, there were so very few wolves of this one’s age that spoke in such a confident, arrogant matter. Urchins, as far as Falltore had surmised, did not speak in such a way. No… the smoothness in which the wolf’s syllables rolled off their tongue was indeed quite refined. The demanding, precise nature of their words, moreover, indicated to him that this wolf was used to getting her way. It had all the markings of a rather privileged upbringing, and there were very few clans and lineages where these two worlds intersected. Now, that scarred soldier was beyond interested in learning more about this potential recruit. Slowly, he made his way to the gatehouse, deciding to make his presence known at once.

“Oh, ya is, is it?” Came the hag’s bitter reply, “and I happen ta be first-cousins with King Adamh himself n’ chose ta be ‘ere! Now why don’t ya fuck off?!” A low, rumbling rasp, a sound resembling a growl, bubbled from the gatekeeper. But by that moment, a new voice made its presence known. “That will be all, Grimmetthe,” Falltore interjected, “Please, give us your leave. I will handle this.” “Who are you ta-“ “I said,” he said, his tone more forceful now, “that will be all.” With a sullen growl, the aged, hunchbacked gatekeeper left her post, leaving the young wolf, and the scarred, disfigured soldier, all alone, at a gate between worlds. With his sunken orbs, the Colonel scanned the small wolf over, attempting to find more information to his hypothesis, some sort of way to get more insight into this stranger, and why she wanted to join. After all, there was always something more to it.

“Despite what you may have heard,” Falltore began, “the Imperial Army does not merely allow anybody to join. Just because you possess a sharp tongue, pup, does not make you nearly worthy. Quite the opposite, in fact.” Although he spoke sternly, arrogantly, part of him secretly enjoyed the game that this may become. Oh how he enjoyed to understand what the other wolf was thinking, to get at their motives, their beliefs. And she did not even know his name, though perhaps his presence and stature might have suggested to have been someone of importance. Not that there were very many wolves of importance anyhow. “I do apologize for the reception,” the Colonel went on, “our gatekeeper is quite old, you see, and her eyesight is not as sharp as it once was. Any wolf with eyes could be able to see that you are not nearly starving… yet here you are. So, stranger… why don’t you tell me who you are?”