[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] (M7) General Housing -> (V) Chapel [i][b][color=662d91]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/Kj2PJmD/Mugsy-in-the-rain.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] It was not the downpour of rain that stuck out to Alexander from that week now passed. Not even when the raindrop dripped ceasessly down his face, hair and fingers, warm to the touch contrary to what most people home in Chicago had been used to. No, this kind of weather was all to familiar to Ol' Mugsy, as he walked carefully, yet determined through the rainy streets of Camp Mexico Beach. He'd been out in this kind of ran far too many times to count, even if he'd tried. Neither was it the tremendous change of pace that really stuck with him, now that he and the others had spent close to two weeks inside the safe walls of CMB. It had been a less than easy change, more of an upheavel the first days of his stay. He couldn't speak for the others, though he felt he probably wasn't alone in that line of thinking. Yes, it had been one turn of a dime to stop fighting for your every living minute and then start a life of routines. It still didn't feel like an integral part of his life to wake up, eat breakfast, work, eat lunch, work some more, eat dinner, help Aeron in the basement, socialize or talking to Atticus, but it was getting there. Hell, it wasn't even the fact that for a solid week now he'd been able to walk normal on his one good leg and his prostethic one. As normal as one could, mind you - the rain made his footing less ideal, but with a slow and steady pace it was just like trudging down a muddy trail somewhere in south-east Asia. The leg had been good to him, being that one small part that helped him feel less of a burden. So no, it was not that. What stuck to him, just like the rain made his clothes do as he kept on walking down the street, his body focused on reaching the Chapel where he'd visited several times over the past week, was how much of his past life crept out from the darkness. With the rain, heat, military-styled routines and ever presence of the Army all around him, that morning's reveal that his presence was required at the coming court martial-trial, he felt as if hunted by the Storm behind him, Riders chasing the rainy clouds ahead of them. [hider=Riders on the Storm] [center][img]https://i.ibb.co/RC7NtQh/ezgif-com-resize.jpg[/img] [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G2-FPlvY58&ab_channel=RHINO[/youtube] [i]South Vietnam Sometime early 1970's[/i] [/center] [color=662d91]"You ever think it's gonna stop?"[/color] They'd been out on patrol all morning, just around local villages and smaller hamlets, on their way to a friendly US Marine Corps camp further east. Alexander was in the back of the column, doing his best to not step over his two own feet as they got heavier and heavier from all the mud accumilating on his boots. Boots which, contrary to his own complains to the quartermaster, "It's not the boots that don't fit your feet, it's your feet than don't fit the boots!" "What are you talking about, Al? The rain?" Came the question straight back at him, sent with love from the L.A. surferboy, Mason, who'd probably never seen such a long period of rain before. Hell, he probably never imagined it was possible, save from the 40 days of rain in the Bible. [color=662d91]"No, Shawn, I'm talking about knuckleheads still liking the Kinks or the Beach Boys. Yeah, of coure I'm talking about the rain! Jesus H. Christ, I thought God was done with this bullshit after Noah. My feet are getting wet…"[/color] "Well you know what they told us back in boot camp, it'll end eventually. It's just a short drizzle, and the proud soldiers Uncle's Sams Armed Forces don't care one bit about rain…" Mason sighed at his parody of the drill sergeants trying to toughen them up. They kept on telling them they needed to be prepared for combat in any and all climates, be it the plains of West Germany or the snowy hills of Norway, wherever that was. Clearly they'd forgotten about Vietnam. [color=662d91]"Well my second pair of socks and I do care. If it isn't Charlie in the trees, it's the booby traps they leave. If it isn't the traps, it's the snakes and spiders…and now the rain…the fucking rain…"[/color] [/hider] The fucking rain bothered him less than before, or else he pushed the sense of liquid dread past him as he approached the Chapel as intended. The court martial was due later that day, and before he would attend he'd need to get his thoughts set straight. What would he say, what would they ask and what would they say about Hunter? How would he himself deal with it, whatever the outcome? What would have happened to him if he was in the young boy's shoes. Christ, he was just a kid. That'd never stopped them before though, had it? The best place he could found that kind of solace was the Chapel. Whether he would be alone or not, it would be a nice place to collect his thoughts. [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] (M7) General Housing -> Quarantine (W) [i][b][color=B8860B]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/LrnKm2S/Nigel-Hadrian-1.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] Fortune favoured the bold it had been once said. The Latin phrasing of it would have gone something the lines of "Nil sine labore" or "Sine labore non erit panis in ore", in essence nothing without labour and no bread without labour. This would have been befitting Nigel to use as a motto for his family crest over the past week, amongst many other phrases he'd memorized over the years. The past week had been one of hard work from his side, helping Thana with whatever she had needed of Atlas to carry. It had been hard work, but if anything Nigel was a workhorse, if not a stubborn mule. Thus the lack of work that day was a tumbling stone for him. Upon reading the list put up on the board of notice, it had been abundantly clear to the neo-Roman soldier that this legion would set sail for new, unknown frontiers of the empire. A teacher and then a soldier, he had been called up for the service of the law of Camp Mexico Beach. At first Nigel was surprised to be on said list, though he could guess why he qualified to be there. He'd been with Hunter during Quarantine, not to mention kept watch over him that night he crossed the Rubicon and utterly failed the die. Nigel, without any tasks for that day other than the court martial and mentally preparing for whatever he would be asked to testify later on, thus made his way over to Quarantine. What else could he do? The outdoors showed more hostility than Roman taunting the parade of prisoners carted down the streets of Rome, while he had few hopes for getting to practice his melee that day. Running as fast as he could safely through the rain pouring down, Nigel made his way to Quarantine to pass the time. If alone, at least it was dry and with books, perhaps something to enlighten his jury-prepared mind. It was with a mixed surprise that he found their former isolation quarters occupied by two fellow newcomers; Ashton the soldier and Thalia the one-armed Amazon. Clearly he'd entered just as Thalia had posed a question, him having missed it by a moment or two. While he could't answer her, he greeted both of them in his usual static style. [color=#B8860B]"Sautem amicus, good morning. Thalia, Ash. I see I was not alone in being drawn back to this room, awaiting for the court martial? I won't bother you if you are busy, unless Thalia would be able to provide a safe duel of sorts?"[/color]