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Chapter 42

Mother Confessor:

Having concluded my efforts in cleaning the vast bathroom, the Sergeant allows me to have lunch. My tired body relieved in the rest as I eat. Wondering what the strict Sergeant will have me do next in my regimen to becoming a soldier. Try as I might, her hardened features do not give away what she is planning for the next bout of task and toil for me. Letting my mind loose to the will of the seasoned veteran. Reminding myself to follow her orders to the letter, and not rebel. The soreness in my body reminds me that I am still a ways from being the bold pilot of a war frame. However, I shall press myself to where I want to be in the end.

Never letting the image of my hand on the controls of one of the lumbering machines from my mind. I will be on my way to being the best armor pilot the universe has ever known, just have to make it through basic. As well as get the proper transcriptions signed off, so that I may pursue my dream of becoming the ultimate pilot and soldier in this fight. Well at least in a war frame, there are those that are far superior when it comes to being a raw ground fighting force. Continuing with lunch before we set off on my next step in training, I muse about my goals.

Graxis:

After the gravity well of an awakening and the rather uneventful breakfast, I still feel pent up frustration from the nightmares of the night before. Unable to shake the thought of being helpless to change what is laid right in front of me. Going for a workout should help preoccupy my troubled mind. Nothing ever really helps like practicing my skill with a sword, even two. It matters little that the practice weapons are mere hard wood, just the way they feel in my well-versed hands. Almost as if they were a marriage in the way I connect with the gracefulness of the art. It holds some similarity to dancing, but not the raw energy and skill.

They feel well balanced in my rough grip. I must be as fluid as a river, not rigid like a stone. Respecting the extensions of myself, as I slowly move through a warm up. Having the sense of true freedom as I move unhindered. Making broad sweeps in slow motion, my eyes following the invisible trails in the air trailing the wooden blades. Using my full body in the motions. Whirling like a tornado, rising from a crouch, and vice versa. Slowly building up speed in my action.

Before long, I can hear the whisper as the blades hiss through the air. Music to my ears, as I move into full combat speed. Adding kicks, punches, and acrobatics into the mix of motions. Collectively I become an unstoppable force fighting the shadows of foes I have yet to fight. Always stay in motion like the river, I remind myself. Feeling the aggression start melting away as I move, cutting up an imagined battlefield. With the tension draining from my mind, I let loose my full ability on the shadows. Beginning to feel like a leaf on the warm wind the first week of Tpyron d’oith when the leaves change on the trees. Lost in motion and the thought of the season, I can almost smell the sweetness of the wild flowers that grow in the valley where I spent my early years in life. The memory of running wildly through the open basin of the lush valley. Feeling as I did as a child playing in the valley, just past the fields of my families modest farm. Even at the age of two hundred and thirty eight, I still felt as spry. Though much bigger, and more disciplined. Wondering if my parents would be proud of my choice to serve instead of helping to tend the fields.

With the thought, I take a few minutes to rest. It has been so long since I have seen them. Sometimes I forget that I am the son of a proud farmer and his wife. Then I get into my rawest emotions when practicing my combat skills, letting such thoughts enter my mind.

Remembering the tears in my mother’s eyes the day before I shipped out, as though she were losing a vital part of her in my leaving. My father just gave me a good firm hand shake. Saying nothing as he does, though he had always been one of few words and one of hard work. A hint of a smile on his weathered face from many a year tending the fields, and harvesting what he had sown.

All the old stories the two of them would tell in my youth, about growing up in the great rebellion of the revolution. How hard it was to be living in such a horrific time in my people’s rich history. The farmers left the fields, armed only with their sharpened reaping equipment, to harvest the blood of the final king to reign along with his supporters on my home world. The farming communities were the most affected next to the impoverished, with the absurd taxation on their labors and goods. That was the catalyst that set the Revolutionary Rebellion in motion. The largest civil unrest in all of history. Lasting for five years, the bloodiest event outside of any all out war. The farmers fought with what they had against the now disbanded imperial guard. Five long years of strife and hardship. The streets of the city of the imperial citadel ran with blood, and littered with both farmer and imperial guard. On the final day of the bloody ordeal, the king was beheaded by the xharai wielded by a man who wished to remain nameless, for his work was done.

I had lain eyes on the legendary tool that felled a king, at the history museum in the imperial city that has since been renamed. Rumors floated about the hero who did the deed as to whom it was, but no one really knows for sure. If memory serves correct, it had a corroded blemish on the blade from the final stroke. The only thing that remained of the last king.

That brings me to be in service of the flagship of the armada. The leviathan of the black ocean so commissioned by the council. I am proud to serve aboard her. To be sailing into the depths of the unknown vastness aboard the Xharai onivos Zhanolai.