The situation got a whole lot more scary when the tables were turned and my Captain turned to me for my opinion. Without a trace of snark, too. Like, I could’ve handled it if she wanted to scrap about me bein’ an ass and calling them all here without rank or authority--shit, I would’ve bit the bait at a heartbeat, but no, there was nothing ironic or challenging at all about the way she looked at me. About how they all looked at me, one of them with an alarmed zeal as she struck the ground with wordless energy.

Well….most of them looked at me. One of them, a black winged, smokey straggler came up, gave her name and rank, and let her eyes fall to ground. There was a !!! from Chico that I didn’t register at the moment and that he wasn’t really trying to explain right then, either. It was just a !!! that he’d need to remember to explain later.

I bit my lip at Nyx’s question--cuz, honestly, I did have ideas. At the very least I had an outline, an impression from long ago, back when I used to live in the Foothills: the memory of vague, colossal shadows tramping about; the constant presence of a patrol that made it damn-near impossible to go out and explore as an asshole kid; the persistent scent of sweat that permeated the sparring grounds (holy shit, do we actually have legitimate sparring grounds here?); the heavy tension of purpose laying on all of the herd like a thick blanket. All those feelings and more was synonymous to me with herd life, so it was a wonder that I immediately missed it without even really acknowledging its absence. So yeah. I had a rough idea on how things could work.

But I was also heavily aware that this was not the Foothills, because that was one of a few things that the Earth God himself decided was better dead (oops, salt). This was the Edge instead, a place that was creeping to the “loved” area of my headspace even though there was a ton of shit I still needed to sift through. Enough shit that briefly crossed my mind and made me wonder, for the briefest second, if this was an army I wanted to help build.

I bit my lip. Blue, green eyes were watching me, and I didn’t know how things were done in the World’s Edge anyway. But I was asked and after a moment of “Um”’s and “Er”’s and “I don’t--”’s, I tossed my head and rolled my shoulders, and there was a shift in everything of me--my voice, my stance, my uh...I guess my eyes changed too, but I can’t feel those directly to know for sure--because now I was getting down to business. “I think,” I said slowly, reviewing everything that was leaving my mouth before I spit it, “We’re entirely too damn small to be any use anywhere, but we can’t just wander around aimlessly. We need some kind of order. So--” I looked around, assessing all who was there and everything I could tell from them in a span of like, I ‘unno, 6 seconds? It wasn’t much but it was a start of a pitiful spreadsheet, at anyrate. “We need patrols--both around the herd, and outside of it. You--” I looked at the youngest of us, that strapping young ‘gal with an eagerness in her earnest eyes, “and me are gonna run borders, day and night, as hard as we can without killing each other. I’ll see you later to hash it out.” It was gonna suck balls but until we had more warriors we were gonna have to do what we had to. Even if we found volunteers from the other ranks, I didn’t feel comfortable with someone running the border who wasn’t trained or eager to kick an ass.

“You, Auriel,” I said, glancing at the latecomer’s smokey wings, “I need you to lead patrols out of herd, since you have--since you can fly.” I was nimble-quick in avoiding that touchy little sore on my personal pride. “You ain’t gotta run all over the goddamn map, but we need to know what’s moving around near us--like the Blue or the Meadow or--” I stopped, blinking; I took a step toward her, squinting for a moment, because something about her and the meadow jogged in my memory in a way that gave me pause. But I was too caught up in the torrent of shit to do that I turned away from her--slowly, grudgingly, but I couldn’t lose my train of thought.

“...Nyx,” I said, falling back into my thread of ideas she’d asked for, “I need both you and the Queen to recruit new soldiers, either from the herd or outside it from the Threshold.” I couldn’t ask the Queen to keep leaving on errands outside the territory--she had shit to do as is.

I looked at all of them. “These are primary tasks, but everything I just said applies to everyone else in part. If you leave, keep your eye out for something we might need to know. Get someone to join up as warrior. Bribe them, kiss their ass, I don’t give a damn but our priority now is to run patrol and recruit, goddamnit.” I paused, remembering what was probably the most important part. “Oh, and by the time autumn comes around I want to have fought each and every-fucking-one of you. Can’t keep getting fat and slow; if someone comes, we’re fucked on numbers so we gotta bite ‘em too hard for them to wanna keep messing with us.”

By the time I’d said everything on my mind and reeled it back in, I realized that Nyx had asked for goddamn ideas--but here I was barking at them, giving them directions, and I felt something burn in the back of my head that could’ve been shame if I wasn’t on such an adrenaline high. “So…” I finished lamely, not having the gall to ask “any questions?” but begging for someone to answer to whatever it was I had spit at them.




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