[center][color=IndianRed]Erika Markovic[/color][/center]

[color=IndianRed]"All right Elliot, I'll fight you . . . some other time,"[/color] she sighed. If it would make the kid happy, she supposed there was no harm in helping him train.

With that, Erika turned to leave with her bear. The atmosphere seemed a bit too calm, she noted as she went back into her personal tent. She postulated that something was going to happen. She hadn't seen any Cimmerians for a long time, although she knew that their luck just might run out.

The tent felt dim and refreshing, a calm departure from the sun outside. Her bear was eager to lie down in his bed and Erika was eager to look over whatever letters had been sent to her.

She milled over the papers in front of her after she sat down. Almost all of it was fluff relating to the organization of her men or redundant moaning about her supposed incompetence. The constant complaints, she had thought, were probably because they didn't like how the war squeezed money out of their pockets. A few were, at the least, informative, even if they brought nothing but bad news.

Her petition for more horses: [color=Red]DENIED[/color], her petition for more men: [color=Red]DENIED[/color]. Not even her petition for a castle or fortress of some sort could get approved, she noted as she stared at the letter.

[hr]
[i][center]≼Dear Ms. Markovic≽[/center]

We regret to inform you that we cannot start any more building projects, as any assets that would be sent to help you would serve to cripple other, more important parts of our society. You understand that we are at war; thus we cannot spend resources on mindless frivolities of which you had the whimsical notion to ask for. You and your men should already have sufficient defenses and manpower to stave off any possible attack, so your demands are not only deleterious to the war effort at large, but also do not have basis in fact. Please do not ask to bolster your forces any more.

Signed, The Valeriyan Department of War[/i]
[hr]

[color=IndianRed]"What can I assume when those 'assets' are probably used for building manors of some sort,"[/color] she grumbled silently. She threw the letter to the ground, now angered that she was left without any real assistance. She somewhat calmed down and left her tent, trying to separate herself from what she had just read. The feeling of contempt for those pinhead politicians who barely knew the ramifications of this war stirred inside her. Erika knew it would take something big to change their mind, something very big. Erika patrolled the palisades surrounding her part of the camp, trying to calm down. She was livid.