[IC] The Fight for Home.

[eskimolander]

It had been a long day of nothing in the camp. To be expected, really. They were just south-east of Solitude, as if those Stormcloak rebels could advance this far. General Tullius had said "You are most prized soldiers. If those rebels were to get through all our other camps, you'll be our last hope. Isn't that a great honour?" While near everyone would just nod and go with it, Rogdul knew better. The majority of them were here because they couldn't be trusted on the frontlines. For many of that majority, rightly so. However Rogdul was back here for different reasons. While he would be put to good use on a battlefield, his talents were with the forge. He made a large amount of armor and weapons for The Legion. And it was a lot easier to craft and send them out if he could do so without interruptions.

Most days, the other men of the camp stayed clear of him. Only coming with business-matters, which was fine by Rogdul. It would be a hot day in Skyrim when someone dared call him a people-person. He was running a blade along the grindstone sharpening it for one of the men. How he managed to degrade so fiercely was beyond him.
Suddenly a shadow loomed over him causing him to stop. Glancing up to see who interrupted his work he was greeted with the face of Legate Taurinus. Rogdul immediately stood up and saluted the man. "At ease, orc. Your strength has been requested at Castle Dour in Solitude immediately." Rogdul nodded, placing the sword he held onto a rack. By nightfall he was mounted on a horse, all packed and ready to go to the capital. With a kick and a "Hup." He was off.

He came riding up to the gates early the next morning with minor hiccups. A few wolves, skeevers and a bear or two was nothing of issue for him. Going through the gates he walked briskly to Castle Dour, nodding a morning to a few people along the way. Coming into the training grounds it was no surprise men were already awake and at practice. There was no time to waste in times like these. He was about to go inside when General Tullius and Legate Rikke came out to greet him. One of two things were happening, he was being sent on an extremely important mission or being discharged. He prayed to Malacath for the former. "Morning soldier," The General spoke in his usual sternness. Rogdul saluted briefly, "Forgive my rudeness General, what is this about?" General Tullius nodded to Rikke, indicating for her to tell. "As I'm sure you know, the Forsworn have returned to Skyrim." Rogdul nodded, anyone this side of Whiterun knew that. The Reach was nearly all but overrun. "Well with our efforts focused on those Stormcloack scum. They've come to the idea that they could take Solitude." She paused letting Rogdul soak in the information. "We will be sending a troop to patrol the Reach-Haafingar border. We have hired someone who has a better knowledge of the terrain and people. You will be taking command." Rogdul bowed, "A great honour, Rikke, General." After telling him to wait for his 'assistant' so-to-speak, the two went back inside. Not wanting to stand around doing nothing, Rogdul went over to the targets and caught up on his archery.

[Rockette]

They found her in the tavern.

A hole in the wall down by the harbor, a shady resort of sailors and their sea wenches cluttered around rickety bar stools and even flimsier tables devoid and smashed of their paraphernalia. It's a botch on down by the docks with a blemish of company assorted of Beast folk and Mer, it's loud and never empty of her usual patrons and suitors. It's where she often lurks in her retired days, a forced upon decision from the marring of her rather imperative features. She's marked by her former years, aged in the presence of most from the sheer amount of damage she has sustained, they speak of falls, of beasts and of more volatile persons in the various experiences of a rouge.

To her they are a tale of misfortunes and graces and while she may feel old with their bearing truth, the falsity of such is much worse in their ascension on her body. She'd say that any and all were gained on her scouring tombs and pillaging caves of their luxuries, but the harsh scar across the fluffed bridge of her snout is much more tantalizing and worthy of a tankard
.
But she wouldn't ever say from what, a secretive krin was all she had to guard against the curious squabbles of sea men, but they found it endearing and all the more focal to her lure. And with the wiles of a woman, though donned in various colours and the dermal cosmetics that she possesses, she could bend and cajole most of the stammering drunks into whichever she sought after. It was with this that she often lurked in that hole, rank and burdened with filth, but it was life and honesty no matter the stench that made her krin curl into a grimace. She remained there with her stories and her companions of sea storms and creaking ships in the harbour and she liked it that way.

Too bad it was all coming to a change.

---

Her wrists are still sore from the Legionnaire's grip and she hisses at the bruises left from their gauntlets. Practically dragged from her home in the flush of dance and song, they spoke of a mission, a quest, a chance to redeem herself from her years of simply pilfering through the graves of the dead and forgotten. She cursed her whiskered mouth and the much larger ones of the sailors for lavishing over her adventures; a woman had to get by and simply hunkering down with the caravans wasn't enough to sustain her up most curiosity. Hailing from her Elsweyr of sand and harsh Chieftains and her doting Clan mother, she had browsed up North in likes of tales and stories, seduced by treasure and its gleam, to say that she was attracted to shiny paraphernalia was an understatement. As obvious by the copper in her ears assorted of various circular appeal and studs in a statement of fashion rather than practical means.

A rasp of a sigh passes through her snout as she tugs her hood over her felidae features to filter the harshness of the sun; spend so much time in the underbelly of Solitude and the brightness of the city above blinds you. Nevermind the leftover slur and honey of mead from the previous night, though it made her cranium soft of cotton bush and silver linings. She's a decent pretty thing of pale silver-white fur and the dermal of her visage of bark brown speckles and stripes, eyes a strange genetic of blue and yellow in their bi-coloured stare. All this hidden beneath the pull and tug of her cloak and the studded armour she managed to pilfer from one of her bequeathing sailors back at the Drowning Wolf.

She's nearly sweltering within the confines of fur and leather and wool when she trudges up the training ground per her designated directions, cursing Imperials and all sorts, she's not used to the weight on her shoulders and arms anymore, it has been so long since she last bore such protection and arsenal. But the longsword and dagger at her hip will have to do, if her former years of scouring the mountains and valleys of Skyrim has taught her anything, it's to always be prepared.

"Now they said he'd be here..." She rasped, scratching her claws lazily over the nape of her burning neck, coursing through her fur in a touch of annoyance as her whiskers twitched into a grimace. She never had graced the training grounds before and the architecture wasn't familiar in the least to her senses, but smell alone guided her and her ears twitched beneath the wool of her hood as she listened for a voice, anything, something other than the call of a hawk capering above them.

Her wonderful escorts said the supposed leader of their troupe was be delegated here, though she wasn't entirely sure what the assemblage was for, no information had been supplied to her, only that she recall back on her days in the Reach and the local barbarians. In which made her shudder at the memory of rituals, and blood and bones, the things she witnessed within the shadows of a camp made entirely of hide and marrow. She didn't want to go back to that, but to go against the Legion would only ensure that her execution would be the next one publicly displayed and she wasn't ready to pass on just yet though the rest would be a decent reprieve.

The Khajiiti woman sighed in her tired drawl before her ears perked at the sound of fletching and the unmistakable pierce of arrow in wood, it drew her eyes to the hulking mass of the Mer stationed there practicing his archery. She knew little of the proper form but it was interesting enough to witness if he was to be her assigned Captain of sorts, the title made her snicker behind her clawed gesture as her whiskered krin spoke of amusement. She approached in slow slinks at his flank, swishing her splotched tail over cobbled stone to make herself more obvious in her strive up to him.
"This one was sent to meet you." She announced in a purr, keeping her stare hidden in the brim of her hood, trying to keep the distaste from her voice at becoming involved unwillingly with the Legion anymore.