[@Lady Selune]

The Warhawks singing was barely more tolerable than the deadening propaganda message still being pumped from the vox-speakers – he was out of tune, out of time, sang in the horrible Harakoni dialect, and was just all around terrible – but at least it was a human voice with some emotion in it. That, and he could barely hear it anyway.

"Hey! Sarge!"

"Thay say that your lot don't feel fear! You'd make one of us pretty good then, wouldn't ya? Gotta 'ave them big balls to drop from a ship with nathing but a bit 'o metal strapped to ya back!"

“Katadan, Darius,” intoned the Colour-Sergeant as he lifted the brim of his pith only so that he could meet the grey eyes of the grav-trooper with his own, “formerly Seventy-Second Warhawks,” he neither blinked nor looked away as he spoke and expected nothing less from the mouthy specialist.

“[i]They[/i] say a lot of things, Sergeant Katadan. [b]They[/b] say that the T'au are pathetic and weak specimens, [b]they[/b] say that the Guard run on clockwork timing and perfect order, and [b]they[/b] also say that this war...this 'battle for Molov'...will be over within the matter of a week.”

For a moment he flexed his toughened fingers around the stock of his lasgun, taking in for the first time all those who sat closest to him, before giving a short shrug of his powerful shoulders.

“I will leave you to decide what is truth and what is fiction, but I tell you unequivocally that becoming a grav-soldier has never even crossed my mind. No matter the relative size of my genitals.”

It was a half-joke delivered in the deadpan and dry manner that marred all Praetorians – giving them [i]somewhat[/i] of a uniqueness not found on other planets – but the kernel of truth that lay in the heart of it was correct enough; Kinsley had never once imagined himself leaping from any aircraft into enemy fire, always straight on instead, he had been born a footslogging grunt, had remained one his entire life, and would no doubt die one.