[color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=662d91][i][b]Alexander Polawski[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=662d91]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Education Center, Basement (M6) -> (M7) General Housing [i][b][color=662d91]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/BBfr494/Mugsy-1.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] Alexander would have a good hand with this that most others would. In a time where complimants were a rare commodity, one that sadly didn't put food on your plate, this was one that warmed Alexander deep inside. Alexander had to pull the side of his mouth into a smile, feeling that pleasent feeling warm his cold, wounded heart in a way only a friend could. He would cherish that feeling for many weeks to come, feeling useful, even more so than others. He was about to thank Aeron for that compliment, choosing to not linger on what else he said about action being seen unwantedly. Like he had said himself, the war had been hard on not just the two veterans standing in the cool basement, but to countless other lives. Lives neither of them had met and would never meet, not even considering those who's very homes had become the battlefields of a ideological war between two superpowers. As so many words had been written in ink and blood about the war, speeches spoken and movies made, Alexander had no more words to describe it after what he had said; He didn't know if 'Nam or the end of the world was worse. Alexander looked in honest surprise at Aeron, or more specifically at the key he held out for him. In a military society like the one they had built up in Camp Mexico Beach, to be offered a key was an exercise in trust. Alexander looked at the key for a long moment, unsure of what to say to Aeron before he was to leave him alone. In the end, as Alexander accepted the key and watched Aeron hobble his way out, he only managed to quietly say something along the lines of [color=662d91]"Thank you too, Aeron, for everything…This we'll defend."[/color] The room was cool and empty, and for a moment Alexander was too awestruck to even move the smallest muscle. This was a tremendous task for him, not in sense of scale but in honour. Slowly Alexander made his way over to a random stack of boxes, pocketing the key and peaking inside of a box labelled "Uniforms #2." Alexander understood what Aeron meant. This was not just a uniform, they came in different shades and forms according to the period, theatre and branch. Alexander, standing alone and holding up a beige coloured uniform, fought back the urge to let loose the dam of emotions balled up in him. It was that battle he fought as he locked the basement door behind him, walked out of the Education Center and headed straight home. It was that battle between him and himself that raged on as he went straight to his quarters and made himself ready for bed. Leg popped off, shirt folded neatly on the side and rosary gently placed at his bedside table, he couldn't help but mouth the words in silence. The words that once again haunted him with memories, good or bad. Mostly the latter. [color=662d91]"11th Infantry…Butcher's Brigade…"[/color] [color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=B8860B][i][b]Nigel Cooper[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=B8860B]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Beaches of CMB (E11) -> (M7) General Housing [i][b][color=B8860B]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/kmpyfSY/ezgif-com-resize.gif[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] Nigel stood around shaking the hands of Dusty and Bass, doing his outmost to commit their names to memory as so many of these callsigns had been thrown around his first week in CMB. Thankfully they were all friendly enough, bantering amongst themselves like Greek cities attending the Olympics in the golden days. While shaking the hand of Dusty, Nigel held back a chuckle as he was told the origin of his name. [color=#B8860B]"I see, and am I too bold to wonder if and when us newcomers would get such names as well? Are we allowed to choose ourselves?"[/color] Nigel posed the question, thinking quietly to himself his wishes not to be known as "Sportacus" by the entire camp. He would prefer "Hadrian", "Romulus" or "Mars", anything but "Sportacus". The name of Bass came as no surprise to Nigel, the handshake of his measured to his deep voice. Names from what characterized their roles on this grand stage that was the theatre of life. Cheers for cheering while drinking, Dusty for the dust from his work, and Bass from his voice. What then did they see in him? That question would remain unanswered as the banter continued between the three people at the beach, now Nigel included. [color=#B8860B]"That makes sense, though what is it that you work on then, since you start later than the rest of us? And yes, my first day went quite well…swimmingly, one could say."[/color] Nigel answered Bass, attempting to pull of one of those things he was never really good at; puns. When the joke fell flat on the beach like a dead fish, Nigel cleared his throat and continued. [color=#B8860B]"Ehm, I mean, yes I was with Sparrow, Thana today. I suppose she was thankful for my help, what with her leg and all. She impressed me greatly with that Hanging Gardens of Babylon you have. Quite the Wonder. "[/color] Though soon the night drew heavy on Nigel, who bid farewell to Dusty, Cheers and Bass to find his way home. Home, the first time in many years he could call someplace home. Time flew as he walked through the emptied streets of CMB, into his sleeping quarters and onto his bed. Did he say good night to those he passed? In his drousy state, he couldn't tell. All he knew was that today had been a hard, but good day. As he fell asleep, he hoped that tomorrow would be just as good to him, of Fortuna herself allowed it.