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[color=Silver][sub]December 30th - Frontline Trench[/sub][/color]

[sub]Conversing with: [@TGM][/sub]

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[color=Silver]	From the corner of his eye, he made clear the intrigue of one Corporal Romijnsen. The split-second takeaway that he'd forged in his mind was that he had zero clue to her question. She stared at him with some sort of intrigue, yet he felt as it were simply the routine check of a far more experienced and developed soldier among incredibly unscathed soldiers by comparison. Sure, the 15th Atlantic Rifles had been dragged through shitter-after-shitter: an important, concentrated geographic assault and a pivotal offensive that sliced the scalpel blade over the frontline, casting the shadow of the Federation across the liberation of Essen. She, by word of mouth, had been here for as much as the start. She too was a Valois-born soldier, but if she were a warrior, a professional conscript at worst, then he was nothing more than a young man playing dress-up in her company. At first, it discomforted him to have someone of equal rank when they'd taking hit after hit for so long, as he assumed she had, but at the same time it gave him a sense of comfort. She at least knew what she was doing, and the pitiful misfortune of getting killed that far into the war made it clear to him she'd likely had no intention of dropping dead so early. If only he could've said the same for himself a month prior.

	Her question was perplexing. It was so very simple, yet that little, poetic, nonsensical tangent that came about in his head did so at a lion's pace. To ask such a question that was so simple had always unpacked a thousand questions: was one okay, or was one in dire need for comfort yet again? Had the loss of his obsessive source for warmth in a time of winter's blight done so much damage that he had rejected all prospect of granting himself security, all in the name of appeasing his subordinates as a soldier over a coward? He thought of his answer with a deep and overly pondered weight, before he slipped out his answer.[/color]

[color=03DAED][b]"Uh, yeah - sure, I'm good."[/b][/color] [color=Silver]He lied as he breathed. Worse still, he could almost imagine she knew he was lying. But that did little to dissuade him from talking. He simply recited the confidence as everyone had asked him to, because that was all he had been good for in the last two or three months - reciting the wills of others. Though, he did walk closer to her as he lowered his voice, lest those like Lucia would hear.[/color] [color=03DAED][b]"They say it's routine but - god, I don't know. Something might be on the way, and I heard a Sergeant - uh - a Sergeant McDuffery mention there was something coming."[/b][/color]

[color=Silver]	Her remark, though done in the most passive of ways, of his paleness did sharpen his self-disappointment. He looked around and fiddled with his rifle for a bit, before doing one last check of the barbed wire pack of one of his engaged associates. It was so bitterly in-jest that he couldn't help but smile, genuinely for once, if but a little curl of his cracked, dried-up lips. The frost on his scruffy appearance danced as he, for once before a horrific event, gave a prod and pride in wit.[/color]

[color=03DAED][b]"I'm pale? Compared to all the well-groomed [i]imbéciles[/i] we all are?"[/b][/color] [color=Silver]He hadn't quite noticed how much of a difference such a remark had made to his mood. Were he to pay attention to his health in proper, he would've thanked her then and there with the most a man could give in gratitude.[/color] [color=03DAED][b]"You could say: [i]Je me sens comme le gel.[/i] I feel like frost."[/b][/color]