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Post by Ladorak on Nov 17, 2010 20:40:03 GMT -5
Gravina's horse clopped along beside them, kicking some stones aside as it moved up the path with them, and Saumarez felt the atmosphere get quiet again. It was too quiet...broken only by the occasional murmurings coming from behind him down the line. Steep's soldiers were restless it seemed, or maybe just conversing with friends or comrades before the battle...sure. Why not? His crew would do the same thing as they waited to close distance with an enemy ship.
Much to his surprise, the weasel felt her reaching over to his arm, her paw traveling down its length until she found his paw, and she wove her claws and toes (as they weren't really fingers) in between his own, and she began to squeeze. He offered no resistance, and found his own paw squeezing hers back.
Now what was this? Princess Steep feeling pre-battle jitters? Was she nervous about something? Did she just want to feel him? Feel him before she might die? Before he might die? Whatever it was, he felt her pads meet his, and her grip remained, even after she shook her head.
He didn't let go...walking paw in paw with her. He didn't care if her soldiers saw or not. They were engaged after all...and it made him feel so separate and distinguished from them. How many actually found her attractive in her unit? He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, her mouth opening to ask Gravina how much longer it would be. She was...rather easy on the eyes...now that he thought about it. His ears picked up Gravina's response.
"Not too long..." the zorilla Admiral replied. "You can see Fort Faron...up there..." he pointed with a claw in the darkness, to the walls of a stone fortress that rested on the military crest of the ridge. "I shall...meet you up there Captain." the Admiral told her tersely, and spurred his horse on, galloping off up the trail.
"That was brief. Have you...ever done any night fighting before Captain?" Saumarez asked her, murmuring the words a bit as they walked. His paw was still ion hers, comfortable and easy with her now. It was like...he was taking her out on a date or something...and they were strolling to the top of this mountain together without several hundred soldiers at their backs...they were just going for a picnic... not to kill Rosferians.
It was all so surreal to him. "The Rosferians...they've got to be tired..." he commented suddenly. "They climbed a mountain...and made an attack...otherwise I think we'd see them on this side of the slopes. But so far nothing...they must have had to stop. Convenient for us..." he muttered.
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Post by spender on Nov 20, 2010 8:48:22 GMT -5
"Convenient," Steep grumbled. "That's what it is. Making us climb up without any real sleep... I'm sure they rested well before starting off. Ought to just let them breach the peak and tumble down the other side." She stared off the side of the path, noting the bushes and trees. "A good line of pikes set up... No one offered me a horse."
She snapped her neck around to stare at Gravina's backside as it bobbed up and down into the darkness. An eerie wind seemed to sweep down the mountain towards them, blowing the thrown-up dust into her eyes. She blinked, clearing it away.
What had he asked her...?
"I have fought," she said, lapsing again into Ferlusanian, "in the dark. I have fought in the day, and dawn and dusk, and dusk until dawn. I have fought in the winter, and fought in the summer, and I have watched my fellows herald spring in the way of soldiers, urging the growth of flowers onwards with what we give back to the earth. I have fought on fields as green as the soldiers on them, and I have fought in ditches of mud so deep you could drown the enemy before you saw them through the rain. I have fought with swords, with pistol, with rifle, with bayonet, with my bare paws and teeth. I have fought until there was nobeast left to fight; I have fought until I had to be taken down by my own, unable to recognise friend from foe.
"And there were times when I did not fight, when fighting could not be accomplished. There were times I stayed low, or stayed behind, behind the lines or behind rocks and trees, staying up with the wounded. I've seen sunsets with friends and sunrises alone. There were times when I cradled striplings, whispering to them in the dark, hoping I sounded like home to them, hoping I was their mother; there were times my paws were the only things holding them together, and there were times when I tired and let go before the surgeons could arrive, and those times were my fault. There were times when the striplings were not my own side. There were times when the striplings who were not my own side were not striplings, but beasts who could have been my father... and there was a time he could have been you."
She looked again at Saumarez, and then quickly looked away when his eyes turned to lock onto hers.
They were nearly there. It was time to fight once more. Like a sponge of life, absorbing the deaths of the past, Steep began to fill up, eyes brightening, stance straightening, muscles tensing, tooth lengthening, whiskers splaying—magnetic whiskers, drawn to the iron of the Rosferian's blades.
In the stillness of the night, Steep zheeped.
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Post by Ladorak on Nov 21, 2010 0:28:40 GMT -5
There was something about what she described that stirred in him. It was her straight forwardness yes...but there was more. She was...far greater than he had ever imagined. He inhaled, listening to the clopping of the hooves as Gravina traveled on ahead of them. It was strange...but Saumarez thought that she was so different from how he first imagined her.
She was real...had sympathy...she cared for others on the field of battle, yet was strong enough to carry her own, and didn't need protection or reassurance. She was as much a jack as he was, yet still had those jill qualities about her that made her seem...real to him. She could care. She could show sympathy. Whether or not she had meant it at the time was another thing...but she still showed it.
"Priscilla." He said, almost a statement than an address. "I have to say...and I hope you don't take offense to this...but you possess a far bigger heart than I initially thought of you possessing. I didn't know...half of those things." He said, beginning to wonder if this wasn't just a sudden flash of adoration. Was he...could he really be falling in love with her rather than just pretending to be falling in love? What was love anyway? Affection? Interest that blossomed into a deep caring and devotion? What were those five rules he had been told? Show bravery for your loved one, sacrifice something irreplaceable for them, suffer for them, kill for them, die for them. Was that it?
That was what some "guru" at least had told him once. They were very deep...and very zealous, but at the same time...Saumarez knew they were all signs of a deep, providential, and treasured relationship. He wasn't anywhere near that point with her, but there was definitely something different here in how he regarded her now. Respect? Reverence? Infatuation? Something else?
"And let me say right now...before you say anything in response. Your qualities are qualities of an extraordinary, genteel, and well...if I may be so bold...peerless mate. I admire those qualities Priscilla...and by peerless mate I don't just mean our particular situation...though I find it all...extremely appealing...please forgive me." he said, a bit bashfully at the end there. "I don't normally come out and say such things in public but you've suitably impressed me enough that I felt rather compelled to let you know." he said, giving her paw a slight squeeze. His Ferlusanian wasn't perfect, his accent was labored, but his words were correct at least, if not a bit odd sounding as he just didn't possess the accent of her land.
He gave her a smile, and turned his head back to the road ahead. Ferlusanian soldiers were assembling at the fort up on the bluff. The valley they were to take was straight off the main road. Wouldn't be long now. They passed by Gravina on the way up, and he looked down at the two.
"Do a weapons check Captain, make sure everyone is loaded, and get your troops in line. We charge on my command. Oh yes...and fix bayonets...we expect paw to paw combat." the Admiral ordered, thinking about adding in something like "congratulations on your engagement", but it wasn't the time. It would just seem too out of place right now. Perhaps after the battle...
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Post by spender on Nov 27, 2010 8:07:18 GMT -5
"Oh," Steep said, a good while after Saumarez had finished speaking. She wasn't at all sure what she was supposed to say to that, or if she was to reply at all.
His paw, still clasping hers, tightening... She glanced into his eyes for a brief moment, and pulled her paw out and away—to take hold of her pistol, of course, to load it properly, as she had been ordered to.
"Yes, sir," she said, turning from Gravina to her troops.
The coldness she suddenly felt without Saumarez's touch echoed through her heart and up her throat and into her brain and found freedom in her expression. Cool, distant, and yet fiercely concentrated on her new project, opening her gun, loading the powder and shot...
"Devonshire, Maxwell," she barked, calling her closest Lieutenants to her. "Give the order, load weapons, fix bayonets. Prepare for close-quarters fighting. Everyone's eyes adjusting? I don't want any accidents. Mistake one of our own for a Rosferian, somebeast else is going to see that and think you're Rosferian..."
She let her voice drift off. Was that how a Captain was supposed to give orders? That sounded more like advice from one soldier to another. Things they all should know by now, like 'don't salute when we're under cover' and 'bring a spare pair of socks.' Steep shook her head a little, concentrating on her pistol. It wasn't... working.
The weasel jill began to growl, fiddling with her weapon. Her paws were shaking, the powder spilling, or the wad not going in right, or any other number of problems. At last she held it out to Saumarez.
"Can you... I can't see it..."
It wasn't just the pistol. Deep down, she knew she was having problems with it. So often, she had begun to load it, only to purposefully make a mistake, something to cause it not to fire, or to make her need to start the process over again. There was still an instinct for survival in her. A promise made that she couldn't give up on. Even so, it should not be coming into play as a mental block—not now, with everything else going on.
War was stronger than some whimpering jill's sick fantasy, and she knew the procedure by heart. She knew she could do it in the dark, deaf and gagging on garlic if it came to it. Loss of sense was easy to deal with, so long as she had touch. It was when touch failed her... when her whole body became a screaming mess of nerves and bright, hot wires running electricity inside her bones, that she lost it. Now was such time.
The pain in her head flared, greater now than it had been all of the previous day, or the day before (but not as bad as three days ago...) Steep grit her teeth, but didn't cry out, not this time. She could control what others saw. It was all she could control, and she would not lose it, even as her paw shook.
"It's cold, isn't it," she said, laughing a little. She crammed her paws in her pockets, and felt the cigar case she kept there. She scrinched her eyes shut for a moment. Fates, for a good smoke... another glass of Odde Tinge... But not now, not before a battle, not when she needed her night vision and her wits...
She took her paw out of her pocket so fast, one might have wondered if it was full of angry fire ants. In the dark, she could only hope he didn't see her shove her paw in her mouth and bite it until it bled. Sinking her incisors between the joints just above her palm pad, her eyes rolled in what, for a normal jill, might be considered pleasure. For Steep, it was bliss—the brain had a limited amount of nerves to choose to focus on. By temporarily diverting the pain signals coming from her forehead with the ones in her paw, she was able to float freely, her skull filled with a moment's helium and the tiniest memory of gardenia...
Then it was gone, and she wiped her paw on her jacket, and did her best not to whimper in front of her soldiers.
"Saumarez..." She turned again, facing him fully, eyes focused on the pistol he was loading for her. "I'm sorry. What I said on the Conception... I didn't mean it. I was... someone else at the time."
And I may just be her again, now...
"All weaponsss loaded, Captain," Maxwell declared. The monitor lizard saluted, and Devonshire stepped up beside him, doing the same. The pine marten's normally lazy and contemptuous expression was full of fear and excitement. "Aye, Captain, we're all ready."
Steep nodded. She took Saumarez's paw again.
For a few seconds, she could have sworn it was better than biting it.
"Ready to see who else I can be?" she said, grinning.
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Post by Ladorak on Nov 27, 2010 16:05:12 GMT -5
"Erm...sure...of course." Saumarez said, caught by surprise at the pistol shoved into his face. At least it wasn't loaded...accidents could happen. "I just need to um...get a cartridge and ball." the jack stated haltingly, reaching tentatively down to Steep's waist so he could dig into her ammunition pouch that she kept at her side. His right paw did this while his left paw held the pistol.
He fumbled around in her pouch, pulling out first the paper cartridge and then the musket ball, holding the lead ball precariously between two claws while his thumb claw hooked through the cartridge. "There we go." He pulled his paw back, getting into the task of loading the pistol. He cocked the hammer back to the halfway point, feeling the safety click into place. With the safety engaged, the gun wouldn't be able to accidentally discharge unless the hammer was cocked all the way back.
He bit his teeth into the cartridge, tearing it open and dumping a good amount of the black powder into the muzzle, spitting the top portion of the cartridge out of his mouth and off to the side. Well good seasons...he felt like a regular infantry commander doing this. He kept some powder in the cartridge however, for later on.
"Indeed...it is." He said, giving Steep a small chuckle to her unusual laugh at it being so cold out. She seemed really nervous about something. This couldn't be because of the battle could it? She was a seasoned veteran from what he had heard of her record. What was causing this agitation?
He dropped the ball down the muzzle as well, taking the ramrod out from below the barrel of the pistol and giving the ball a good push as he shoved the ramrod down the muzzle as well, ramming the ball as far back as it could go. As he was pulling the ramrod out of the gun with a smooth swish, he could see Steep stick her paw into her mouth and bite down. He choked up upon seeing this, nearly gagging in the dark, but it was like...she couldn't see him. Or at least that she wasn't looking at him straight on. Was she...did she not have good night vision? Wait...she had said that right?
He wrinkled his brow, sliding the ramrod back into its slot under the pistol's barrel as he watched the blood flow down her paw in tiny rivulets in the dark. Saumarez, being a weasel, had rather excellent night vision, but at the same time most species outside of the mustelid family did not, and thus, night fighting was still a rarity in armies. Too much darkness, too much confusion, and too much chance of accidentally firing into your own side, as Steep had already pointed out.
He felt his throat close as he watched her. He didn't say anything though...simply because she seemed to be...happy about this? And she wasn't looking at him...so maybe she thought he couldn't see her all that well? He quickly shifted his eyes down to the gun to resume the loading process, noting his mate's own eyes were on the gun.
There was only one thing left to do...and that was to pour the excess powder he had saved into the gun pan, snapping the frizzen closed over it to prevent it from spilling out. That was it. He let the small empty bag float down to the ground, like an ember from a dying fire flitting in the wind before it would lose its last gasp of air and burn out. That was it right? All the steps?
He paused for a minute as she addressed him. She was somebody else? When she had tried to commit suicide? Was all this...the biting of her paw and the failure to see well enough in the dark...was that all from her pain?
"It's alright Priscilla. I'm sure you had your reasons at the time." he clasped her paw in his, giving it a nice, reassuring squeeze. He wasn't going to question her motives for wanting to take her own life...there was no need. "I won't hold it against you." he stated, nodding and flipping the pistol around in his paw, spinning the gun on its axis, which centered around the trigger guard and his claw, stopping it so that its butt pointed out at her. With her paw in his own, and his other paw holding her gun, the Welkinite Captain offered her a smile in the dark.
"She's all loaded Captain Steep." Saumarez said smartly. "I left the safety still engaged, so you won't have to worry about it accidentally going off." He had not moved the hammer all the way back, keeping it halfway cocked, ensuring that the safety was still in operation. "Right..." he was briefly interrupted by Gravina, riding on his horse down into the ravine.
"All troops...ADVANCE!" the zorilla shouted, several explosions erupting overhead as the guns in Fort Faron began a counter fire on the captured Fort Croix Faron, their shells whizzing over the gathered soldiers and hurtling toward the Rosferian troops gathered on the summit.
"That's our cue...and you specifically. Let's see who else you can be." he ran his thumb's claw in a soft pattern over her pawpads, barely touching them, adding just enough pressure that she'd probably feel it in a slightly ticklish manner. "I won't tell you to be safe...because I know you'll be just fine. We'll see each other after this is done." It wasn't a hopeful sentence. It was a declaration, a forthright assertion of what was going to come to pass.
He locked eyes with her in the dark. He now held her paw far more loosely, as he was certain she would be pulling away soon to get into the business of pushing her troops forward. "Lead the way Captain."
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Post by spender on Nov 30, 2010 8:42:26 GMT -5
It wasn't every morning a princess got to lead her knight into battle. This morning in particular could only count in the most broadest of terms, for he was not her knight, not in country nor in marriage, not yet; and Priscilla Steep was not a princess, not right now.
Her paw didn't quite want to let go of his...
Gripping her pistol in her bloodied paw, she awkwardly shuffled it around and back into its holster at her side. Not half as awkward—in fact, strangely graceful—she unsheathed her sabre, twirling the blade around her knuckles until the slicing edge faced forward and the tip pointed to the sky.
"Forward!" she bellowed, leading the way, footpaws pounding the earth—and poor Saumarez forced to keep stride, her claws digging into his pads.
By light of stars and cannon-fire, she saw them, the Rosferians... a muddled mess of uniforms and fluffed tails. Meat for the butcher's hooks! One fine squirrel sausage to go—a rump of ferret roast, if you please—and two pounds of your finest fox chops. Her blade tore into them, pushing them back. Heat swept her face and eyes, dripped down her chin as she tugged her sabre free of one soldier's innards.
Then she drew back. Her troops surrounded her and Saumarez, fanning out, rifles at the ready. Devonshire stood on her other side, chest heaving, cursing about the new tear in his jacket. Steep admonished him soundly in rapidfire Ferlusanian, and he grinned manically, nodding and turning to those under his command.
The orders were simple, as were the drills she had been teaching them. Five beasts to a row, first row—fire! Step back, reload; second row—fire! Step back, reload; third row—fire! Step back, prepare bayonets; fourth row—fire! Step back, prepare bayonets—and so on, until the first row had their chance again. The second row was not quite finished before the Rosferians were on them; only two of the five managed a second shot, and then they were dueling, beast to beast, claw to claw, tooth to tooth, and Steep in the midst of it.
Somewhere in it all, she had lost Saumarez's paw.
She had to keep fighting the urge to look for it on the ground. She knew it was still attached to his arm... and his arm to his body... and his body to everything that belonged to it. But some habits are hard to break.
If, in all the chaos, Saumarez had been able to hear Steep, and able to parse her frantic language, he might have blushed to know the words she was spouting at the Rosferians. Surely nothing he was not used to as a sailor, but from the mouth of a princess, they were quite another story. One that told, in detail, exactly where Steep was going to be sticking her sword next, and what the resulting reaction would be.
Even worse than her threats was her uncanny ability to follow through with them. Maxwell, catching sight of his Captain, immediately turned aside, swallowing whatever rose in his throat. He grinned worrisomely, and did his best to emulate her ferocity. Although he wasn't sure he really wanted to go about gnawing on the back of anyone's necks...
Spitting blood, Steep began to lag, falling back until there was a safety cushion of Ferlusan soldiers between her and the Rosferians. She reached a free claw into her mouth and dragged out a chunk of fur, and with that no longer bothering her, drew her pistol and began to look for targets.
Targets not just below her ear, that is.
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Post by Ladorak on Nov 30, 2010 12:36:14 GMT -5
Lieutenant Colonel Claude Victor was a fiery furred vulpine on a mission. Already things were not looking good as he was about to be hit on three sides. The bombastic fox wasn't keen on this, and he could swear just as hard as Steep it seemed, for the curses uttering from his mouth were colored and various, and he ground his teeth as the Allied columns converged onto his triangular formation.
Saumarez was pulled along, surprised that Steep hadn't let him go. He drew his own blade, the swish of the metal exiting the scabbard sounding quite good to his ears as he advanced with his fiancée, her paw in his own. They were running down into the valley, the land rising up on either side to swallow them and hide them from view. It must have seemed almost comical...a jack and a jill running toward the front lines paw in paw at the head of nearly a hundred troops, but regardless, it was what was occurring.
Saumarez had sensibly changed out of his dark blue Captain's uniform into a bright red Colonel's uniform of the Royal Marines, as his Captain's rank in the Navy, made him equivalent to a Colonel in the Marines, and he was supplied with a uniform for ceremonial as well as practical purposes. In night combat he was prone to be mistaken for Rosferian with his dark blue overcoat, but the bright red overcoat he now wore would easily signal him as Welkinite, and thus an ally.
They crested the ridge out of the valley in front of the captured Fort Croix Faron, and the night air erupted in front of them with sparks and bright flashes as Victor's troops fired off their first volley. But don't stop! One must never stop in the face of an enemy. Saumarez could feel the bullets whizzing by him, striking flesh behind him as some of Steep's soldiers went down, but miraculously, he and his fiancée were untouched.
One of the ones not so lucky was Admiral Gravina. A shot tore into the fleshy part of his thigh and he was toppled off his horse and into the dirt, needing to be carried to the rear as a casualty. Ferlusanian Brigadier General Izquierdo assumed command of the troops in the zorilla Admiral's stead. The striped polecat was fortunate, because the bullet had not shattered bone, and thus amputation would not be necessary.
The Rosferians didn't have time to fire off a second volley before Steep, Saumarez, and the rest of the Ferlusanian troops were upon them, and they soon found themselves attacked on their right and left as well by Colonel Mulgrave and Captain Elphinstone.
Saumarez parried a bayonet blow to his legs, knocking the rifle to his left and thrust up and into the breast of the Rosferian soldier with this sword paw, burying the sword in before quickly withdrawing it and hacking away to make sure the hapless soldier would go down. He had let go of Steep's paw, or she had let go of his, whichever had happened first, and they were fighting separately now.
He could hear her...somewhere off to his left...and the mustelid tried to look for her in the darkness. He clubbed a Rosferian soldier on the back of the head with the haft of his blade, and stepped over his prone body, trying to locate his fiancée. He knew she needed no protecting...he merely wanted to fight by her side.
Stumbling into some of Steep's troops, they parted to make way for him as they recognized the red uniform in the dark. Racing over to her, he could see her looking for someone to shoot at. It seemed the Rosferians had incredibly poor morale, as they were breaking and running for the rear already, only a few making a stand against the Allied onslaught. Lieutenant Colonel Victor was however, not done yet.
The fiery fox from the Vosges Mountains was currently charging towards Steep, hoping to cut her down and rally his troops. Saumarez could see the high ranking vulpine even in the dark, and quickened his step, wondering if perhaps Steep's previous night vision problems would render her incapable of seeing Victor's approach, as the fox was coming in on her right side. The canine cut down a Ferlusanian soldier that stood in his way, and Saumarez barreled forward, raising his arm and crying out to get Victor's attention. He raised his sword to ward off Victor's blow with his own blade, but misjudged and ended up taking the saber slash in his arm, crying out as his fur was sliced through down to the bone.
But he had successfully transposed himself between his fiancée and the attacking fox, and despite the stinging flaring up in his arm, the least weasel quickly fought back, bringing his own sword up and clanging it against Victor's blade, forcing him back away from Steep (who must surely have gotten her shot off by now) and towards his own lines.
The two dueled briefly, but the fox was slightly more nimble than the out of practice Saumarez, and ended up slashing into his left side, cutting just below the chest. Saumarez had managed to jump back in time, thereby avoiding serious injury, but felt the pain flare up in pulsing lights before his eyes. He swiftly punched the fox in the face with the basket-hilt, causing Victor to reel backward, a paw up to his face where Saumarez had struck. He could quickly see that soon he would be surrounded by unfriendly troops. A Ferlusanian soldier took aim for him in the dark, fired, and missed, and the fox took this as his cue to scurry back to his own lines, which were retreating anyway. He would be back in several weeks...too much of a fighter to be permanently defeated here.
Panting, the least weasel wobbled over to Steep, shoving his sword into the ground for support, but ended up falling on his rump anyway, his wounded arm going to the injury in his side, and his wounded arm in turn being held by his good paw. He sat on the ground, breathing heavily and no longer in danger as the Rosferians were fleeing for the most part.
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Post by spender on Dec 1, 2010 7:03:38 GMT -5
Steep was aware of Saumarez nearby, aware of his condition, but still she gazed into the darkness, eyes narrowed down the barrel of her pistol. She'd never gotten a shot off—by the time she'd found a good target, she'd been distracted by Saumarez and the fox, and had aimed at them, but had never found a clean shot. By the time she could have, she couldn't bring herself to it—to shoot a beast in the back, even if they had wounded one of her own like that...
That's what she told herself. That her morals had a tighter hold over her than anything else, that there wasn't any other reason for not pulling the trigger. She'd cocked the hammer back long ago, and there was just a whisker's breadth of air between her claw and the trigger. It might as well have been an entire fort.
She broke her gaze briefly, glancing down at Saumarez, taking him all in in one look. She growled, aimed back down her gun, and searched until she found what might have been a fox-shaped blur in the distance. Back, front, what did it matter? An enemy was an enemy, and any chance was a good one to take...
She fired. Something fell, but not what she was aiming for. The wind, the distance, her bad eyesight in the dark—Lieutenant Colonel Victor had gotten away.
Steep holstered her pistol. She walked the few paces towards Saumarez, tugged his sword out of the ground, and carefully slid it alongside her saber, hooking the hilt so it wouldn't loosen by accident and cut her belt off (or worse, her footpaw.) With that squared away, she knelt and inspected the male weasel's wounds. There were other soldiers lying around, gasping and crying and begging for help. Someone else would take care of them. Saumarez was her responsibility.
Silently, she slid one arm behind his neck, the other behind his knees. Then she stood up, grunting a little with the effort. She couldn't leave him here; she would carry him back to the fort... or one of the forts, anyway.
She marched slowly, ignoring the stares of her soldiers. Devonshire, nursing his paw, let his mouth drop open entirely. She ignored him, continuing on to the place where Gravina was being treated with the rest of the collected wounded.
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Post by Ladorak on Dec 2, 2010 13:22:37 GMT -5
Saumarez felt her cradling the back of his head. She was looping her other arm under his knees, and the weasel was at first aghast at this. Was she really going to...oh....she was. She lifted him up off the ground after she had placed his sword at her side. He was surprised she could lift him, though she was apparently well built.
The captured fort, Croix Faron, had been retaken, and reinforcements were being moved in. Aid stations were being set up in there, and as it was close, Steep was probably heading for that destination. But no...she was heading for Fort Faron instead it seemed, where Gravina had been taken. Well that suited him...it would probably be quieter back there anyway.
"Priscilla...you don't have to...I could probably make it on my own..." he initially started, but decided not to protest her act of kindness. He instead relaxed from his tensed position, and just stayed limp. "But thank you." he said, looking up at her to smile. "I will do the same for you if I'm ever in such a position. You have my word on that." he told her softly, enjoying the solitude that was settling over the battlefield now.
"They didn't stand very long...but irregardless...this siege isn't over yet. Still much ahead of us, whatever it may be." he commented, inhaling the acrid smell of gunpowder all around them. It would linger in the area for a bit before the winds dispersed it. Greater battles than this one could leave gunpowder smells for as long as hundreds of years later, or so some of the stories went.
A thought occurred to him now as he kept his good paw over his bleeding side, the stinging sensation persisting underneath his pads. He was fairly certain no internals had been hit...it just felt more like that burning that came with skin cuts. His arm well...that was a bit different. He was fairly certain all layers of skin had been stripped away there.
"Priscilla...would you perhaps like to share a drink with me as they're patching me up? A sort of congratulatory gesture on our first combat together. I would most certainly like to unwind before getting a proper sleep." he said, noting the sun's first rays beginning to creep across the horizon. Well....sleep for a few good hours at least.
He wasn't going to suggest anything further beyond that. He was still trying to acclimate himself to this relationship after all...but somehow she was slowly winning him over, either intentionally or unintentionally. Either way he wanted to get to know her better, and perhaps fight alongside her again on the battlefield like this if opportunity permitted. "What do you say to that?" he asked, giving a smaller smile than last time as he rested in her arms. They should probably be close to Fort Faron by now. He needed to get some bandages on his arm first and foremost...as he suspected he was bleeding worse there than from the cut in his side.
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Post by spender on Dec 4, 2010 8:25:56 GMT -5
"I'd say you need to shut up," Steep snapped. "You could start coughing up blood any time."
She glanced down at him briefly, trying to see how deep his cuts were. It was hard in this lighting, with him covered up in uniform and his own paws. She had to keep her eyes on the ground, so she wouldn't stumble.
She softened a little, realising what she had just said sounded more than a little rude.
"I mean... sorry... I would like that." She bit her lip, trying not to strain herself. He was heavy, and she was losing strength. "We'll see. I can't coddle you all morning. I need to review the battle... make sure my soldiers are well, and my officers... report to whoever I'm supposed to report to..."
The closer they got to the fort, the slower her pace was. At last she stopped, letting go of his legs slowly, letting him slide down until he was standing up again. She cringed as his footpaws hit the ground; a shudder had gone up her back, a surge of sympathy as she remembered, once, having to put down a soldier who had his footpaw removed, how the stub had scraped the dirt. She didn't feel it, and yet... she could just imagine.
And now imagination failed her, because she couldn't imagine anything hurting more than herself. Still, that feeling didn't leave. Empathy... something familiar about that word...
"If you can walk from here," she suggested, trailing off for a moment. "I'll find you before long. I'll be there... if you want me there..." Some males found it insulting, or embarrassing, she knew, to have to have someone nearby while they were being patched up. Saumarez would be getting more than a few stitches, she was certain. He might want the procedure to be private, and the drinking after... Or possibly before.
"And as well, I need to be officially relieved before I can drink..."
The Odde Tinge was just about out of her system; she would never admit it, but she had been a little scared that it had been affecting her judgment and abilities during the battle. If she had not drunk, if she had remained perfectly sober all last night, might she had been able to get that shot off, and spared Saumarez these wounds? The question haunted her.
Steep sighed, turning aside to gaze back at the battlefield. Here was a beast who wanted to know all there was to know about her, and yet... Here was a beast who, for once, didn't know. To him, she was possibly as pure as she could make herself out to be. Couldn't she just let her past mistakes be? Or did he need to know of them, for this... marriage thing to work? She knew she could never admit her promise to Pylaris, or their time together. But everything since then, her drinking, her anger, her frustrations, and her performance in the military; the mistakes and lives she had cost her country for her own faults...
Did she have to share her ghosts, or could one beast in the world be happy to know her? And if he was that one, then how could he know her and be happy, if he really didn't know...?
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