Mortaine: Comrades
Comrades
First there was one.
You're getting old, Mortaine. You wanted to see the world and fight for your Empire - but more than that, you've watched the Lords and Ladies passing through on their way to hunts and tourneys for years and every time you said to yourself that you would walk among them one day. Now is your chance. Perhaps your last. Leave one anvil behind and find another.
I returned a weary, homesick Cambion from years of hammering out dents and scrubbing rust from Golden Sun armour. Back to the family business, only to find everything had changed. The years had taken my father's strength and left an old withered man in their wake, had turned my mother's hair white and brought a pained stiffness to her movements.
I came home just in time for all the excitement. An Empress lived and died and all that marked her passing was the ring ring ring of hammer on iron, but when the news eventually broke, it ignited a fire in Auvanne. Commissions were easily found in the hurried rush to fill the space left behind by the fallen. Plans made, provisions gathered and old dreams reawakened. Money was collected and slowly, steadily an idea took form.
Then there were three.
Three comrades, bound by the road and a chance meeting enroute to the seat of the throne. For each a tale to tell and an open book lying before us. With small names waiting to be embellished and big hearts singing with ambition, drinks were shared and the ties of friendship forged. What will the future bring? We resolved to discover it together.
We stepped into the heart of the Empire and soon our little names - boots fashioned in the shape of those who have walked this road before - began to grow. We spilled our blood and devoted our hearts to greatness and with every passing day, we became a little stronger, a little tougher, a little braver, a little wiser, a little prouder. It is amazing how easy it becomes to forget where you came from; To stop looking back and only look ahead. Where once there was mud and tired old cloth, now there are clean bedsheets and beautiful gardens. Where once there was hunger and uncertainty, now there is relative plenty. This is a good life, and soon I will have earned the right to enjoy it.
But what do you truly want, Mortaine? As one prize draws near, two more reveal themselves just a little further ahead out of reach! You are offered a dream and rather than make it real, you set it aside and reach for another. And another. And another. This is more than you have ever had! You will be dead before you are ever content; Before you have ever achieved one of these things!
Now, there are many.
An entire nation. Lords and Ladies and Errants and Weavers, Seneschals and Troubadours and Earls and Enchanters, all united by a love for their Empire and a hunger for adventure. All standing shoulder to shoulder, jostling for position but never losing sight of the prize. As I raise my voice in chorus with them; As I raise my blade to join the others striking at our enemes; As I laugh and flirt and dance and fight alongside them, I feel as if I am truly at home. We may find ourselves individually rivals or even enemies, but together we sing the song of Dawn and it is glorious!