Post by Deleted on Apr 2, 2023 9:01:59 GMT -5
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It was in the evening after dinner, but despite the late hour, the training grounds weren’t entirely abandoned. In fact, they were more occupied than they would have been prior to the establishment of the new world order courtesy of the Captain Commander. Whether the people around him were soldiers on staff duty who needed the time to keep up with the increased demands or those who were clearly less confident in their ability to stay afloat despite the ability to dedicate their entire day toward it, he didn’t know, and he didn’t care. Either way, Ber didn’t like it. But there were a lot of things he didn’t like these days, so what was one more?
Nothing had felt right since the ball, but it was only after he’d been cleared to leave the infirmary that his awareness of that fact became painfully obvious. A street rat accustomed to fending for himself, he had grown up learning how to roll with the punches and quickly adapt to the unforeseen obstacles that the world threw at him. And although the foundations of his world had abruptly shifted, this should have been no different. He had thought everything would work itself out once he adjusted to this new routine, but even after nearly a week, he still, inexplicably, had yet to find his footing.
Everything bothered him, even stupid things that he would have easily ignored before. The way there was always someone walking or standing behind him. The noise, the shouting, that accompanied the drills everyone ran every day. The movement of someone’s arm as they swung a sword or scratched their head or went to slap a friend’s shoulder. The snoring in the barracks that he had previously slept through without issue but now kept him awake at night. Anything. Everything. And above all else, the damned crowds that seemed to follow him wherever he went so that he couldn’t have a single moment of silence and solitude to himself.
Lurking just beneath the skin, his temper was quicker to flare, too. He had lost track of the number of times he’d had to bite back an unnecessarily hostile response to something innocuous someone had said, and that quickly grew old because he wanted to fight someone, but he was already on thin ice, and picking fights was hardly the best way to not squander his second chance, but that meant the irritability inside him only grew, and— He. Didn’t. Know. Why. He. Was. So. Angry. All. The. Time.
The wooden dummy complained from the force of his blow. Ber had intended to get some actual practice in, but at some point, his measured swings had turned into simply railing on the inanimate target with his sword and he couldn’t bring himself to stop. His arm was fine. His head was fine. He was fine. He was alive. He still had a job. He still had a place to live. Nothing had changed.
So why did it feel like everything had?