|
|
|
      The best way to fight off a chill was pure distraction. You bring what you must on a campaign, nothing more. They could've done well with some extra blankets, but that would just weigh down the horses and take up precious time and energy. And so, Aramis and his bunkmates chatted it up to pass the time and keep their minds off of the cold. Izzlude's the first to talk about family, and the rest of the men fall in line. That's one thing they all have in common, no matter their backgrounds: a family at home.
      "I've got three boys," Izzlude begins, picking at his teeth with the edge of his thumbnail. "Terrence, Mitchell and Derrek. Nine, thirteen and fifteen. They all take after their mother, bless their souls."
      "I've got a daughter," says Quentinn. "Just turned seven last month. Already bringing home good grades from school."
      "Two," Aramis says. "A boy and a girl. Twins." He decides to omit the part about having both children with different people. These men were faithful Desuits, and believed strongly in the family unit. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage. They followed that rhyme as if their souls depended on it. Well... according to the Desuits, it did. Every man had a wife and children. No kids born out of wedlock, no girlfriends, and Goddess help him if he let it slip he was shaking up with a man. He'd be dead before sunup.
      "Azrael and Adrianna," he continues. "Just learned to walk, the both of them. And my wife, Honnete, of course."
      Each man takes his turn rattling off the most memorable points in their lives, a string of events that made them laugh or smile, or awaken to fatherhood and family life. And, playing the part of the good Desuit, Aramis continues this trend. He fabricates stories of events that never took place, of places he'd ever visited with the woman he'd never married and the children, both naturally borne of her. He threads together tiny lies, white and shining, into pretty veils over their eyes. He blinds them to the truth with carefully placed details, making sure to insert names and places familiar to all men just to give his stories more credibility.
      It works. He's much better at this than he previously thought.
"My wife and I discussed having a third child before I got called back." A lie.
"We've got enough space in the home for another little one, and we're financially stable." Another lie.
"She's the only woman in the world who'd ever made me feel this way." The truth.
      The men fall into telling dirty jokes, as men will eventually do. It's a condition of their nature. They laugh a little too shamelessly, a little too loud for the comfort of the superior officers and are told to keep it down more than once. That ought to warrant a write-up.
      There's a quiet hissing outside. Aramis brushes it off as perhaps the wind, or a snake winding around outside. The hiss builds into a faint whistle, and he sits up, attentive. The other men quiet down as well, listening, looking upwards towards the peaked roof of the tent.
      Thwip, thwip, thwip. Quentinn rolls onto his back, frantically clawing at the arrow in his throat. Blood bubbles up, frothing, and he gargles vague pleas for help. He's drowning. Izzlude is the first to run out, and the second to be stricken down by the hail of arrows. Aramis isn't ashamed to use Quentinn's not-quite-dead body to shield himself from the rest of the arrows. The first wave ends, but he knows more are coming. Pushing past the other men, he scrambles for the armor pile outside, his feet slipping in the sand and the chaos around him making it difficult to concentrate. Frantic, he straps the armor onto himself, but not before an arrow needles its way though his right shoulder. Altana DAMN this shoulder. Why is it that this one is always affected?!
      Blood and sand collect to make a putrid mud. Aramis breaks excess of the the arrow off and leaves the rest inside. It'll slow the bleeding. Hastily, he throws his armor on. The pain is dulled. The adrenaline flows.
      He picks up his weapons. Time to fight.
 Bleeding Apocalypse · Wed Mar 07, 2007 @ 08:45pm · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
