The Wind... god it hurt so much more now. This was one of Ninke's mish mash of thoughts as she stood at attention with her... regiment. Though not the smallest, they were close. The Hirisit 482nd had 87.5% casualties over the course of a single battle... it was not what Ninke had expected when she had joined the guard. Ten thousand Hirisit had landed on the world of Verdus Prime and just over one thousand would be leaving it alive. The regiment, drawn from a shrine world, was oddly bereft of prayers, silent or otherwise save a few holdouts. The young and vibrant eyes all looked dead in their skulls, listing lazily about the field at pillars of smoke, the speech, other regiments and whatever else they coud settle on. Men slouched against walla or eachother, none looked like they wanted to be here at all... Ninke could not slouch though.

She had been given a surprising honor, though it lifted her spirit only slightly. Standing at attention, her cream colored armour no longer covered by her poncho stood out next to the large regimental standard she held aloft. It had been a lavish thing when they had departed from Hirisit, woven inside the great cathedrals of the shrine world and lavished with gold and silver... now stood muddied and tattered. The Golds and silvers shown through dried blood and muck and the visage of the Shining saint had managed to remain mostly untouched. Ninke stood, shivering in the biting wind all the more thanks to her new limbs. Her left leg starting at the knee, and left arm at the elbow had not survived the battle and now were both cybernetics. Neither could currently be seen through her boots or sleeve and glove. But by the Emperor did the chill hurt where they met flesh, the cold metal irritated her skin already and the chill winds were not helping. The medical technician said it would be like that for a while until Ninke got use to them... she was not looking forward to that.

She stood as straight as she could when the Commissars approached the regiment, and began pinning medls to chests. The first passed out was the Triple skull, after all the regiment had taken more than enough casualties to have earned it. All she could think aabout as the medal was pinned to her were all the dead; her squad and most of her platoon... Belgond... all of them hadn't made and she got this medal because of it. She shivered a bit more but not from the cold this time, nothing was going to be the same now. Her mind drifted to this battle, the hell that it had been for her. But she had survived... through it all when she really should not have... so was the grace of the God Emperor she supposed, eyes glazed over as the Commissar came to stand before her again.

Ninke still had Commissar Jarrack's Plasma pistol was still in its thermo-holster at her hip, no one had ordered her to do anything with it yet so she had just... held onto it for now. she fully expected it was going to be taken from her soon enough, regardless of what a dying commissar had said to her with no one else around to hear... a tear rolled down her cheek, spilling over the many ridges that marked her plasma burns, the other reason the wind hurt so much. The irritated and sensitive skin screamed at her from the cool, whipping wind, feeling like little needles on the scars.

The Commissar looked at the pistol, clearly not owned by the Guardsmen, then back at Ninke... and moved along not saying anything, pinning medals to a few more men before moving on to another regiment.


Truly, nothing was going to be the same for Ninke Ingran...

[hr]

The cold night came, fires were burning, some Guardsmen were drunk and cheering, some Guardsmen were drunk and sullen but most all of them were drunk by now. Ninke sat with a single glass of standard amasec, still mostly full. She had not had much yet, didn't feel like it... even as her regiment revelled in the buildings with others she seemed largely content to sit alone. The Regimental Standard was leaned against a wall nearby, kept neatly away from the ground and drunk, rambunctious Guardsmen. Ninke's eyes were trained on the fields, her armour was of and lay next to the standard in a neat pile, along with her miraculously intact Vox unit. Her hands shook a bit and she took another swig of the amasec, here ears ringing... why were they ringing?

"Ninke! Hey... N-*hic*-inke... why're youshh all alone over here?", Guardsmen Erics slurred at her from the doorway.

One of the few other survivors of her platoon, a private who had gotten through largely unscathed, unlike the vox-officer.

"e-ehm... I'm joost... nosing...", she stood and wiped a bit of dirt from her uniform, moving to the door.

"w-*hic*-ere are y-", She put a hand on his chest to stop him.

"Joost... stay vith the standard Erics...", she said and walked out into the night.

Guardsmen roused with one another, drinking and making merry as they wished. Ninke walked past them all as she wandered aimlessly between building, not sure where she was going, taking a swig or two of amasec as she walked... till she came to what looked like some kind of bonfire. It looked like some Guadsmen had put some kind of... creature on a spit and roasting... she couldn't tell their regiment in the shadows cast by the fire. The thick smell of promethium told her it had been a flamer that started this. She wandered into the group and quickly realized she was out of place. They were Cadians, like the ones who had so rudely passed them at the breach and payed dearly for it. Her cream colored fatigues were in stark contrast to the darker cadian fatigues.

She stumbled nervously amongst them, smoe no doubt glaring or casting a sidelong glance her way, the plasma burns snaking around her face illuminated by the flames as she struggled to hiide herself... not doing very well.

"S-soory... I did not mean to... uuhmm..."