Never gets any easier [Crono; open]

[Anonymous]

To call Drestan Drake a trainee was merely a technicality; he was nineteen, and had been born to be a soldier. At least, that was what the priest who had taken him to the military academy at seven years old had told him. He was an orphan, after all, and while he could have been a novice in Sanctuary by now there was something about him that was better suited to the army. Maybe it was the fact that he was able to ignite things in flame with just a thought, and toast bread and marshmallows with his breath when he wasn't concentrating, and that he had nearly incinerated his section of the herb garden at seven. Maybe it was the fact that he had already been four and a half feet tall at that age, and had a wing span of... Well, that he had a wing span at all had made him clumsy at times and all in all it was decided that he would be better off in the army rather than in the priesthood.

Twelve years had apparently proved that decision correct. He had immediately been thrown in with an archery training group, and although he hadn't developed the build of a human archer he was now as strong as many hoped he would get. He had been required to make his own longbow now, since he kept breaking the standard issue ones and the bowyers who made the standard issues ones had started getting sarcastic about whether he wanted a longbow or a siege catapult, but learning to make a bow was just another part of his education. Just like the sword play he had studiously avoided until about a month ago when some bastard of a drill sergeant had realised this lack and decided to make sure that the young halfbreed was fully developed as a man-at-arms as well as an archer. Although since man-at-arms was some kind of rank that usually required a family name it was more a point of utilising strength rather than anything official.

As a result, though, skin that was normally pale blue no matter how long he spent in or out of the sun was marked with splotches of darker greys and yellows where training swords had pierced his defences. There was a splash of red, too, on the tunic he was now sat fixing, one that was darker than the actual red he was supposed to wear since the country's colours were red and black. Some younger archer had fouled a shot as he was walking by, and only the fine scales covering his torso had prevented a more dangerous injury. As it was he'd had to cauterise the wound himself, and the left hand side of his stomach, just below the rib cage, was not an easy place to breath on so he'd had to go all normal and use a poker. The flesh around the wound was still screaming from the ice cold water that had finished of the job, but he had other things to worry about. If he didn't get this tunic fixed and cleaned, he was going to catch hell for sure...

[Anonymous]

((OOC: Since you didn't really say where Drestan was, I'm gonna assume it's somewhere outside. x3 Let me know if I should change anything.))

Lucius was sore. It'd been a hard day of training and he still wasn't too used to it yet. Tanith was a content ball of consciousness in the back of his mind. He had discovered that not too long ago and it was another thing he wasn't used to. How it had managed to elude him over the years was a curious question for him though and, whenever he would think to ask Tanith, she'd give him that Dragon smile of hers and he felt like he shouldn't ask. However, his sore muscles were in the forefront of his thoughts right now.

The Dragon Rider had been dismissed just a little while ago and was heading back to his cot in the Barracks for a short nap before more training. In a sense it wasn't quite fair. Not only did he have to go through all of the normal training but the senior officers always wanted him to show off what he could do with Tanith. Granted, it wasn't much right now seeing as how they had never had any use for battle tactics and the higher ups were always ordering him to do this maneuver or something to that effect.

Tanith had it easy. The only time she really had to do anything was when she went hunting and when the officers were sizing up how the two would fit into battle plans. He took read of the Tanith ball that was in the back of his mind to see if he could gauge where she was. He was getting a feeling of her over 'that way.' Seemed like it was in the direction of the temporary stable they had made for her. He sighed. All of this trouble would all pay out in the end. He hoped.

He had to sit. Lucius knew that he wouldn't be able to make it back to his cot without collapsing first, so he decided to voluntarily go to the ground before the choice was taken from him. There was a person-looking creature sitting nearby, mending a trainee's uniform. The other trainee reminded Lucius a lot of Tanith. It was probably all the scales. He trudged over to the trainee partly because his curiosity was perked and partly because there was grass there. Grass tended to be softer than the stone of the walkways. He all but collapsed next to the mender. "Sorry if I'm interrupting but mind if I ask how your uniform got ripped?"

[Anonymous]

Dres tensed as someone approached, then relaxed when he realised that it wasn't a drill sergeant looking to bawl him out, or a newly graduated recruit looking to get up to some mischief or something. It was the new Dragon rider recruit, someone he had yet to meet but about whom his own curiousity had been peaked prior to this conversation. It was just that he was so busy with other things that he hadn't had time to chase the guy diwn himself and ask all the questions he had about just about everything to do with dragons and bonding and whatever else he could come up with. It was dangerous, he knew, to be a soldier who asked too many questions, but Dres' early life had comprised of him being allowed to ask. In Sanctuary, many things were allowed and most were forgiven. In the army, though... Well, at least it looked like the dragon rider was a question asker as well.

"Stray arrow," he replied, carefully finishing up the stitches to his tunic. "Happens sometimes with the younger archers; they get given a shaft that's not quite right, or the fletching is loose and the arrow spins. They don't usually give trainees the better quality equipment."

It was a twofold thing, he guessed. Firstly, having poor quality equipment made it easier for drill sergeants to pick out those who were excellent from tohise who were merely there because they didn't fit any where else. This gave the training squads structure, and it meant that soldiers given a decent weapon and ammo after they graduated had to exert less effort to get things to go where they wanted. Secondly, it meant that they didn't have to spend a lot of money equipping teens with weapons that were far too fancy for what was required of them. At least, that was what logic dictated, wasn't it?

Dres, though, was a trainee with a bloody good bow and the straightest arrows a fletcher could make. But then, he was coming towards graduation, and very few people liked to argue with him despite the fact that it was generally known that he wouldn't hurt a fly unless his own life depended on it. In battle, he would be deadly, but in general he was a quiet youngster who had apparently been softened by the seven years he'd spent in Sanctuary. But those who said he was soft also agreed that a battle or two might harden him up again. He was half dragon, after all, so there had to be some hardness there, right?

"You're the dragon rider, right?" he asked, a rhetorical question, since he knew the faces of all but the newest recruits, and given this one's age a dragon rider was all he could be. "I'm Drestan Drake, pleasure to make your acquaintance."

He didn't offer the man his hand; they were recruits together, not enemies, and so a gesture to prove a lack of weaponry and an abundance of good will seemed unnecessary. Besides which, he wasn't actually unarmed. A short sword hung at his side uncomfortably, and his bow was within reach. But he wasn't inclined to point either fact out to the newcomer, who seemed to be near exhausted. Dres guessed that getting caught up to other recruits couldn't be easy when you joined the academy so long after others your age.