Open Reforging an Empire

[Gunnbjorn]

Arillious almost doubled back at the bland response this man had left him with.

"I must have been in the opposite, then - I haven't been near you."

Very cruel, Arillious almost felt bad - Hale wasn't the joyously annoying man he was the last time he saw him. His senses seemed keen, and he looked worn and tired, Hell seemed like a valid answer judging by his condition.

"Fighting the good fight - I continued to help the Legion fight the Stormcloaks, after the little adventure, Ulfric launched a siege on Solitude the day I got promoted. I lost all my men, my brother, and my Commander - I've been on the run for many months, and now I am here, hungry for revenge. Helping good old Simus rebuild the Legion and retaliate before things get too bad for reparation."

He said so in a more calm tone, not showing any feeling in any of the words. The anger and sadness it once caused him was more than diminished by this time.

He looked to Hale with his same old glare, he doesn't remember ever engaging in conversation with him before just now. His glaring had no effect on him, he must still be used to even after the long absence, he wish he wasn't.

 

[Hale Loneshadow]

Shrugging and with a shake of his head, Hale looked up and replied to the same old glare.

"Loss. Death. Pain. That is why most of us are here. I am sorry for your losses, Arillious. I know what it feels like to be running...constantly running...constantly in fear of where the next death will come from." Hale hoped he hadn't revealed too much by his plural use of 'death'.

With a resigned smile and short, quiet laugh, Hale continued. "Though that is why most of us are here, is it not? To finally be truly free. I'll say this, I am out for revenge as well, though not Ulfric directly. It is who serves him that sent me to Hell, and who burned my father, friends, and lover alive. It is that man whose fingers I shall slice from his hands, whose scalp I will shear from his head, whose features I will castrate, and whose heart I shall cut from his body," finished the Ranger with a Hell-bred stoic face.

 

[Gunnbjorn]

Arillious got bored during Hale's little lecture of death, fear, and loss. He was angry, and a little sad at one point for his fallen comrades, but at the same time knew that they wanted nothing more than to die on the battlefield alongside each other.

What bothered him was how easily they were swept, how slowly Ulfric walked up to Castle Dour and killed General Tullius and Legate Rikke without any doubts.

He reached around and grasped the hilt that was hiding under the bag on his back, making sure that it wasn't somehow stolen right off of him.

He tuned back into Hale's talking in what seemed to be the second half, his talk of freedom could be valid, but just about everyone here could easily have crossed the borders out of Skyrim if they wanted - but instead they came here to volunteer to be apart of the impossible odds of defeating the entire continent that is Skyrim.

Arillious' eyes wandered a little at the sound of Hale also seeking revenge, it wasn't revenge to Ulfric himself, the curiosity was tempting him to ask.

Listening further, he now has discovered that Hales believes he literally spent time in Hale during his absence, yet another intriguing question to as, but one he shall wait for - every man has a story, and it's never as riveting when somebody asks them to tell their tale.

"Just stay away from Ulfric - it hasn't been decided who gets the honor of chopping that disgraceful piece of filth into little pieces yet, but if I see him first I am taking my chances. It's something of a priority - a great addition to my currently unpromising resume."

He replied, still with the cold glare, the crossed arms, and emotionless voice.

 

[Dabiene Caristiana]

Soldin couldn't help but overhear the confrontation. Stopping the sparring he turned and held his gaze confidently at the young men.

"Just stay away from Ulfric - it hasn't been decided who gets the honor of chopping that disgraceful piece of filth into little pieces yet, but if I see him first I am taking my chances. It's something of a priority - a great addition to my currently unpromising resume."
"Then you would be no better than he is, friend." He looked over at Simus, it had been 5 minutes since he told him and Baroth to spar, so he figured it was time to stop.

 

[Gunnbjorn]

Arillious listened to the words of the mouthy Nord who stopped sparring to interrupt his conversation. He remained in his position and spoke as if he was talking to Hale.

"I never said I was better than him." he said, in a rather annoyed tone, "This whole rebellion is aimed at taking Ulfric off the throne and replacing him with Jarl Balgruuf, because it has been decided that he is not fit for such power. In order to accomplish such a thing, we must kill him. But you wouldn't know about any of that - because you were rather late for the meeting."

He cocked his head over to the interrupting Nord now, and turned his steely glare toward him.

"If I get the chance, I will take the honor of doing such a thing. He is responsible for the death of all of my comrades, and my General. I have every reason to kill him, one soldier to another. I am no worse nor better than Ulfric - such is the art of war. You can question my logic due to my youth, but my motives are filled with nothing but reason. Now, are there any other untrue statements you would like attach to me?"

 

[Hale Loneshadow]

Nodding at Arillious, Hale again kept the stern look on his face.

"I will gladly leave that pleasure to you, Arillious, as long as you let me have my own revenge."

As he listened to the exchange between Arillious and the other knight, Hale cocked an eyebrow at Arillious' response toward Soldin's accusatory statement. Even though their rivalry would most likely never end, Hale couldn't help but feel that Arillious had changed somewhat, even if his glory-hounding attitude had not.

"Good Sir, I don't think you realize whose attitude you're trying to change, here!," Hale chimed in with a short burst of laughter.

 

[Dabiene Caristiana]

Soldin shook his head while he closed his eyes. Sighing he thought this through. This is definately not what I had in mind... Sighing he talked in a calm voice. He wasn't intimidated in the least. Folding his arms he locked eyes with the two men, "Look, I didn't mean to come off as... Uh, a 'know-it-all', but I'm just saying. And I'm perhaps close to your age, though from what I've learned, age is just a number. Along with the height. It's spirit that gets you were you want or need to go. With Ulfric, he definately had that. And that's the only compliment I'll grant him that will spout from my lips. Yes, the man has done horrible things, slaughtered countless men, women, and maybe even children. We don't know for certain. What we do know is that he ultimately carried out those orders.

As for myself, I never took part in the war, mainly because I had my own matters to attend to. Politics never really appealed to me. Too much... Verbal conflict. That and too many innocent lives at stake. That being said, when we do overthrow the knewly proclaimed 'Barbarian of a man', and when Balgruuf accepts the offer of High King... That's when I will rest. I probably should have taken part of the war. That is one of the things I do regret, friend. But hear me out, when we do confront Ulfric, you can bet I'll be damned if the man escapes. Or if he lives. He will pay for his crimes. You can count on that."

Rubbing his chin he asked a thoughtful question, "The only matter is... What if something arises? What happens if we get blindsighted? No that'll happen of course, but we can only be too careful. If there is one thing I've learned from years of being a fighter and a tactician, it's to plan out every possible route, and coordinate those plans and try to figure things out from there. Even though sometimes two paths of probabilities can clash, and that can lead to complications. The first problem we have is there are only so few fighters. I hope we plan to change that. Because I'll admit, it might have to be a miracle of the Divines to get us through this uprising. And a damned good one infact."

Breaking into a huge grin he let down his arms and put a hand on the mans shoulder. "But you know what? I have a gut feeling that we'll win this. I just know it." Taking his hand off he turned to Simus again. "Do you want Baroth and me to spar again or is that enough sir?"

(OOC: By the way, I'm thinking Soldin might have Farengar's voice. It just keeps popping into my head for some reason..)

 

[Gunnbjorn]

Arillious remained staring at the man as he began to speak, he didn't really know where he was going with the whole Ulfric thing, but the question he had was somewhat obvious.

"As far as I know, we're working behind the scene and in the shadows. Everybody in this room has to go up with all of Skyrim at this point. I trust Simus will make the best decisions he can possibly make, I won't be surprised if he is able to keep us away from all the pressure the entirety of the way to Windhelm, but I also won't bet against not getting caught in the process - anything can happen. Your years as a tactician obviously have served you well, since you are still alive - but your just a soldier now. Your not here to think, that's Simus' job, and anyone else he deems worthy of such a role. Your role is to make sure the plan works, and that will involve fighting... and not asking questions. As for your worry in our numbers, this is probably all we're going to have in this fight, so right now it can be best to have the mindset that you are not going to survive this thing, that way you won't get disappointed. If your one to believe in miracles, that's you. I believe in strength of will, as you've touched up on before. As soldiers, we're going to do as we're told, we're going to fight and make sure every plan Simus has for us works out, we're going to get to Windhelm and we're going to accomplish what we're here for, and if there's any bumps in the road, we'll fight our way through it."

He took his glare off of this man, glanced back at Hale, then back at the man. "I'm Arillious by the way, expect to have multiple arguments with me in the near future." he said this in all seriousness, but with a slight bit of sarcasm.

 

[Dabiene Caristiana]

Raising a brow he frowned a bit, but shook it off and shrugged. Obviously the man named Arillious had issues. Whatever was stuck up his arse was his problem. "Alright, whatever works for you. Although I don't care much for the attitude, Arillious. But then again we're soldiers, like you said. We shouldn't think. In that case, we shouldn't feel any emotion either, should we?" Smiling, Soldin wasn't fazed by the man. If he wanted to throw petty insults or sarcastic remarks, that would be ok with him. He would just throw them right back, like playing catch with a small ball. Only this time with wasn't with the Husky dog, Bran. Gosh, he loved that dog.

Simus looked deep in thought so instead of sitting down somewhere, he folded his arms and waited for an order.

 

[Gunnbjorn]

Arillious slowly shook his head, showed a slight grin, and started in a slow, soothing kind of tone,

"My attitude? Well, I guess my soft spoken lecture was a little too rough around the edges for you, yet all I was doing was sharing my outlook on the situation - well, most all situations pertaining to war, I was thinking more along the lines of maybe if you were to adopt my outlook it might make it easier for you to not worry. For a thinker, your not too kind to taking much constructive criticism, or maybe you've never gotten any."

He gave a small chuckle as he paced closer towards the man.

"The way I see it - yes, it is best for soldiers not to think, and having no emotion is another benefit, if it's possible. It's not our job to think, we are being controlled by a higher power - our Captains, Generals, our Commanding officers - they are the thinkers, they are the strategists, we're here to test it and see if it works. They don't want us for our mentality, they want us for our physicality, and as soldiers, if our mentality gets in the way of how we use our physicality, then we must stop using our mentality to take advantage of our full selves, and hope to survive. Maybe you've been of a higher power before, where your thoughts mattered, but now your a volunteer, and your back at the bottom, brother. That's what I'm saying, I'm simply telling you the honest truth, I'm not trying to offend you - you signed up for this."

Arillious looked to the man, he was a bit puzzled at how he was able to get on the defensive so quick when all he was simply doing was voicing his opinion.

"As for soldiers having no emotion being a benefit - well, I guess it's more-so soldiers being selfish. Out on the battlefield, you can't be thinking of your loved ones, whether it be your wife, your family, even your children. Death comes easier that way, it becomes harder, more painful to deal with your death when thinking about everyone else. This is hard for everybody... but I'll stop here. I guess the moral of this lecture is don't interrupt people when they aren't talking to you.... I didn't get your name by the way."

 

[Dabiene Caristiana]

He looked long and hard with a straight face, showing no emotion. He stared at the man named Arillious for a few long moments. In a blink of an eye he stuck he right hand forward for the man to shake. "Soldin Whiteknight." He grinned. "You have a way with words, I can see that." He chuckled. "Although I can imagine, we might be butting heads from time to time. Which I don't mind." He gave a grin and showed off his canines. His blue eyes sparkling with mischief. "Can't wait to train with you, brother."

 

[Gunnbjorn]

Arillious took Soldin's hand to shake. A smile was on his face at this point. He liked this man. "My way with words is fueled by my need to win every argument, same with how my skills in arms is fueled by my need to dominate." he gave Soldin a friendly wink, "everyone in this room is going to butt heads with me in some way or another, but I'm worth hanging on to - you might want me in certain situations."

He couldn't help but notice the rather large dog-like teeth Soldin seemed to be showing off, he looked into his eyes, it was the first time he specifically did so. There it was - the fixed, aggressive stare. He lowered his voice considerably, as to not allow any other ears the privilege, "Ah, I think I have figured out why your so quick... I don't find it much fun to fight those witch such a gift when I have the option... they are quite nasty."

 

[Simus]

(OOC: Behold! My long silence is now broken, and I am made whole once more!)

Simus was deep in thought as Soldin and Baroth fought. The two metal-clad giants had been smashing into each other for over five minutes now and neither showed signs of stopping. Baroth's huge greatsword met Soldin's shield and was stopped cold, Soldin's sword met Baroth's armor and bounced off, both warriors dodged, parried or blocked almost every attack. They were completely even.

While it was entertaining to watch they needed to get on with their day. Simus had missed breakfast while tending to Alice and Dabiene and he was crabby from lack of coffee. Thinking that he wasn't watching, Soldin paused to interrupt the argument between Arillious and Hale.

I was wondering when they woud find each other. Simus thought. Let's hope this war beats that old rivalry out of them. At least they've grown up some.

"Do you want Baroth and me to spar again or is that enough sir?" Soldin asked, getting Simus' attention before going back to debating with Arillious. He wasn't looking forward to the head bashing these two would probably get into, but at least they were able to have a good debate. It was an improvement from the arguments Arillious had with Hale.

"You two are done." Simus said to Baroth and Soldin. "We've got no clear winner here so you're both going to have to split chamber pot duty tomorrow. However, you both get to sleep in as well. Good job."

Arillious seemed to have made some sort of revelation concerning Soldin. Simus wasn't sure what it was but Arillious could revel in it later.
"You seem to be having quite the debate over here Arillious." Simus said. "Since you feel the need to chat so much why don't you tell the rest of the squad why there was no clear winner in this fight? After all, I'm sure you were paying attention to every detail since you have such a desire to 'win every argument'."
Simus then turned to Soldin and lowered his voice, leaning into the man.

"By the way Soldin." Simus said. "Fierce and hardy a Nord as you are I'd ask that you cut down some on showing your teeth to everyone. I find your wolfish grin...unsettling."

 

[Gunnbjorn]

Arillious was interrupted by Simus before he could continue his civil conversation with Soldin.

Simus, in what seems like an attempt to make a fool out of Arillious, put him on the spot to explain the cause for stalemate in this first spar - unfortunately for him, Arillious is hardly ever fooled.

"It's quite simple really." he announced, his voice at an obnoxiously high level, for the simple reason being for everybody in the room to hear him. "Both men fought well, they both defended themselves well enough as to not allow the other to get the best of them, no critical or direct hits to any weak areas, nobody was knocked down, hell - Soldin even stopped for a bit of a chat right in the middle of it it was so boring - but either way, the adrenaline of real battle wasn't there, it's good practice, but the adrenaline is what allows the execution of the life-ending hit, well, at least for me. I think as a suggestion, everyone should work on finishing their opponent as quickly as possible, because when we siege Windhelm with just a dozen or so people, we'll be facing 10 times more enemies, and any lollygagging during a 1 on 1 fight will most definitely be interrupted by another Stormcloak, who will in turn stab you in the back, and you will die..." Arillious did try his best to stop himself in the middle of his rant, but he's feeling quite talkative all of a sudden.

 

[Dabiene Caristiana]

His grin faultered slightly, but before he could reply Simus had cut in. When the man spoke to him and asking him to cut down on showing his canines he smiled gently at the man, careful not to show his teeth. "I apologize for my lack of concern of others. I'll try to keep it down to a... 'Dull roar' if you will. But don't worry, I only take advantage of this 'skill' if people are in serious danger and need someone to barrel people out of the way. And I'm very responsible with it. If I'm hungry, I go out into the wilds to hunt game." Still smiling he added, "By the way, thanks for the compliment. Baroth is a good knight himself!" He smirked at Baroth.

 

[Simus]

Simus was impressed by Arillious' analysis of the match if not entirely surprised. That boy didn't miss a thing when it came to fighting and he wanted everyone to know it. Simus had tried to work with him on that point but so far his youth and stubborness have prevailed.

"Very good Arillious." Simus said, smiling with approval. "Had the match gone on longer there might have been a clear winner but for now both men are even. I know this isn't exactly live combat but there's no need for such embelleshment. As you've already said it's not a soldier's job to think. So during exercises at least try to keep those little philosophy speeches to yourself? It throws us off track. I will say this however: We are not the entirety of this rebellion. That's all I can say at this point, but try to keep that in mind. We are not alone."

Simus turned to Soldin, umcomfortalbe with what he had just revealed to everyon here but he wasn't exactly hiding it in the first place.

"I'm glad you've got some self control Soldin. It will be tested many times in the coming days. I hope you can handle yourself."

Simus then gave Soldin and Baroth permission to rest by the wall and rejoin the squad when they were done. Then he turned to Hale and Arillious.

"Why don't you two go next?" Simus said with a hard look. "I know both of you and I'm not going to have your personal disdan for each other get in the way of being soldiers. This is your one chance to have at each other so make it worth your time. Is that clear?"

 

[Aethalia]

Aethalia leaned against the far wall, waiting for the general to call her and the Bosmer to spar. She kept wary eye on the three men. There was a distinct smell about the tall, great sword wielding Nord that put her off, almost like a dog...She found her gaze trailing to the bound man, who seemed to be enduring his imprisonment fairly well, although his face wasn't looking so good from where the ranger had punched him. She found herself feeling a little pity for the man, although it wasn't like they'd been any gentler with prisoners in the Thalmor.

Her keen hearing picked up on the three of them speaking of Ulfrics' demise, and she could barely contain her mirth. ' If anyone kills Ulfric...it'll be me' she thought to herself. Perhaps the High Kings' death would be enough to guarantee her passage back to the Isles. Although the vampire would never admit it, she missed being among her people, the Altmer. The spirals of buildings, swimming in the sea...She'd had quite enough of the death and despair that hung over Skyrim like a storm cloud. All she really wanted at this point was to go- "home" with a start, Aliah realized she'd spoken aloud. Quickly, she clamped her jaw shut, not wanting to look the part of a fool.

 

[Hale Loneshadow]

Looking up, Hale's deep green eyes flashed with exhilaration. Without a word to either Simus or Arillious, Hale walked over to the table of wooden weapons, weighing each one out carefully until he found two to his liking; a hand and a half sword that somewhat resembled his own in size, and a wood short sword that was the closest thing to his elven longknife.

Planting his feet firmly on the ground, the hardened Ranger stared hard and direct at Arillious and said in reply to Simus' request (but only so loud that his new Commander and Arillious could hear), "I have been on Nirn for eighty-seven years, did you know that? Ah, but that's another tale." Raising his voice slightly, he finished as he swept his brimmed hat upon his head, "I have sparred with bandits, vampires, wolves, and devils, Sir. I would be glad to share my experience with our young friend here."

 

[Gunnbjorn]

Arilllious nodded throughout Simus' constructive criticism, but began sarcastically disagree with his opinion.

"My 'philosophy speeches' are filled with logic and reason, and it's a great way to get to know me - not to mention, it keeps everyone on their heels, if I start to babble while we're raiding a Stormcloak Camp, some of you might get distracted from my astounding amount of intellect, hopefully by the end of training you will all be used to it."

He flashed a smile, and his eyes sparkled at the sparring partner he was matched up with.

He watched as Hale slowly walked over to the weapon rack, testing out his preferred set of arms, and began to go on a little bit about his personal past - the boring kind.

He gave a little chuckle, "Damn, your old."

He headed over to weapon rack. Immediately, he took the exact battle axe he had on his back - just in wooden form, off the rack. He replaced it with his steel battle axe, and then walked around Hale, before turning around to face him. "I hope your not too brittle, I can hit kind of hard." he raised his axe, getting into more of a defensive position. "Your move old man."

 

[Linamina]

Eilene got back in formation as Simus commanded, ready for her own match. ((Sorry guys, alerts stopped coming up and too much reading makes my brain hurt x.x))