Icarus's blog: "Somantics"

His shoulders creaked now in the morning. His rich, dark hair, now speckled with "just a hint" or "the most austere whisper" of grey. Depending on which kissass described him.

Such was the glamorous life. Waking up to footsteps outside of your tent, always one hand on your knife, and a cavalier smirk on your face. How many seasons had he ridden with this fat, pompous, lord with a dirty little private war to fight?

"Captain?" came a meek voice behind the canvas.
"Enter" the old campaigner had his boots on and enough leather to stop one clumsy assassin from hitting anything vital. He recognized the voice, another green farmboy looking to make a pittance at the risk of his life. What had happened to this land in absence of his king? Power vaccuums... good for business, good for war, not so great on the commonwealth and well being of your neighbors and former subjects.
Did this boy even remember the nation? The towering spires, the great columns supporting auspicious knights and warriors, the statues of heroes, men that the captain once looked upon with admiration, as if knowing one day he would grasp the lofty stars they looked toward.
What lesser men reached for...

He was just scraps on rags on stitches. He may as well have been wearing his mother's pots and pans and waving a particularly dry branch to defend himself. The captain sighed, far too young, he went back to pulling his armor tight against his body. Nothing too heavy or unmanageable, not because he would see no action, or because he needed to stay light on his feet this morning, but because the last six paiges had been flattened, in rapid succession. He opted instead to dress himself.

"I could do that for y-"
"No." He reached back and slung a humble, crude olde blade over his shoulder. Something chipped and nearly a dull, wavering wedge. The armor he had replaced, pawned, stolen, "borrowed", the blade had stayed. The pommel conforming to worry under his palm, the grip smooth and shedding tiny filiments and grit from years of sweat biting into it.
"What do you have for me?"
"A counter-offer to your terms of surrender sir!" The young messenger said with a snap-to-salute, his scrappy armor and sidearm clanking comically against his body. Obviously a size or three too big.
The captain sighed, though he wasn't sure to what, the message or the messenger.
"And it was?"
"The full quotation was a bit too harsh ro repeat in front of my superior sir- but it was something to the effect of 'those southie motherless cutthroats can kiss the fattest part of my fattest daughter's pimply ass' ... sir"
The captain paused a moment. "That was the nice part of the message?"
"Indeed sir." The messenger trembled a touch.
"Hah! They've got spunk but no brains. I take it we're to attack in response?"
"Indeed sir."

The captain digested this information for a moment, clapped the messenger on the shoulder,
"you wouldn't happen to know who among my men isn't married would you?"
"I would not sir, I do believe Robert has no sons th-"
"Robert will do."
He stepped through his tent flap to greet the morning chaos.
The mill and hum of blades sharpened, knicks inspected, and joints greased for battle. The smell of dew and steel, campfires and nervous nausea. Drills to the west. Stamping chants of morning exercises and military discipline, snap-to-roll, parry, lunge, KILL!
But in his camp, there was ease, uncoiled vigilance, the rag-tag sons of mothers, rookies, deserters, foreigners, and mercenaries, the line blurring between thief, lunatic, murderer and gladiator. People that bring artistry to war, survival and killing.
The kind of men no war is complete without.
"Assemble the bootouts, we'll hit them right in the pride".