The Walker
He took a step.
The closed office door receded behind him as he took slow, measured steps, his mind dwelling on what he'd been told within. Lieutenant. Lieutenant Gimball. He rolled it over in his head again and again, each time more distasteful than the last. A promotion... It wasn't what he wanted, and was the absolute last thing he needed, but there was no changing it, nothing he could do about it. And, to top it off, he was now the man in charge of his unit. A heavy sigh escaped him as he considered that, shoulders sagging slightly, his deep, basso voice rumbling as he muttered to himself, "Just gets better and better..."
He stepped out of the admin wing of the Rozarrian border outpost, having to duck down slightly to do so, and looked out over the heads of what soldiers and personnel were there, an easy thing to do given how he towered head and shoulders above some, and more above the rest, the large badger-kin reaching one hand up to absently scratch at his eye patch. The outpost wasn't large, by any means, only a couple hundred soldiers garrisoned there, and though the walls were stone, the main yard was unpaved, and a recent rain left it little more than a mire of trampled mud, soldiers, chocobo, wagons, and more traversing the space. And into that mud he stepped, making his way towards the barrack where his unit rested.
His unit. HIS unit. He fought another sigh... His unit was well known. Famous, even. It'd been given the nickname 'The Doom Squad'. Not because it was a fearsome battle-hardened crack squad. No; the men were no slouches, well-trained one and all, but the nickname was earned for far less auspicious reasons... In a word: Misfortune. To be assigned to it was to be doomed. The accident rate in his unit was astounding, the turn-over abysmally high. It's what led Lieutenant Gimball to be a Lieutenant, by simple fact that he was not only the longest surviving member of his unit, but that he'd managed to outlive the unit's commander as well, something he was very much lamenting with every step. The responsibility for further accidents would now fall squarely on Lieutenant Gimball's shoulders, and that just wouldn't do. Gimball paused, and considered, mulled over things for a moment... And came to a conclusion. There was nothing for it: Lieutenant Gimball would simply have to die. He almost felt relieved.
The soldiers, twenty-seven seasoned men and women, came to attention as Gimball ducked his way through the door of the barrack, and stood to his full imposing height. He took a moment to look them all over, every one of them stone-faced and resigned, before speaking, his deep voice almost reverberating against the walls, "We've our orders... Three day patrol. Scouts and forward intel say that Archadia is nowhere near Rozarrian territory yet, but the Brass are being careful. We probably won't find anything, but we need to look anyway, for scouts, for forward and expeditionary units, for anything unusual tryin' to sneak past. So, gear up, we leave in an hour."
The soldiers immediately set themselves to preparing as Gimball turned and exited the barrack, stepping back out into the mud. The idea of war was almost refreshing. It had been a long time since he'd seen war... Not that Gimball enjoyed war; he didn't, not in the least. But there was a part of him, a hated yet integral part, that enjoyed the chaos war brought. Gimball didn't like that part of himself, not really, but he couldn't deny that part of himself either. And then, there were the whispers. The whispers that came from just over his shoulder. Whispers he heard even now, causing him to glance over his shoulder at the heavy hilt of his weapon, the length of weighty black steel, almost as long as he was tall, that hung down his back. Returning his attention to his own thoughts, he made his own preparations before meeting his unit and setting out, leaving with them through the gates of the outpost.
Two weeks later, and many miles north...
He took a step, his booted foot sinking though the heavy snow drift, the large, imposing badger-kin in the beaten, damaged, and bloody armor of a Rozarrian Lieutenant trudging methodically through trackless forest in a light snowfall, heading forever north. He knew where he was going, though he'd be hard-pressed to explain how, but the tracks of his path were arrow-strait, except for detours around trees that the badger's massive black-bladed sword could not cut down. The Doom Squad was left long behind, and Lieutenant Gimball as well, the identity cast aside like so many others over the years, leaving just a nameless mountain of a man who trudged through the snow.
He reached a small clearing, unremarkable save for the dilapidated cabin that sat half-buried under a season's worth of snow. While in disrepair, the cabin seemed largely intact, causing him to grunt to himself in satisfaction as he made his way to the cabin's front, spending time to clear snow from the door so that he could enter.
Inside it was dark, but the badger moved around the single room and it's broken furniture as if he'd left it just the day before. Shedding the Rozarrian armor, just like he'd shed the name Gimball, the badger hauled a chest out from under a collapsed bed, kicking it open and pulling out more clothes, dusty and a bit moth-eaten, from within, his mind just as busy as his hands... He'd avoided settlements on his trek, but still he overheard rumors, word of an attack on the trade-city of Emberstrand by supposedly Archadian forces, rumors of this army's or that army's troops moving hither and yon on roads or through fields, and as he thought of it, a whisper caught his attention. "Emberstrand," it said, and he listened, turning his one good eye to the sword propped against the cabin's wall. He murmured to himself, "Emberstrand... Yes..." And then sighed.
He finished dressing, pulling on a tattered, moth-eaten hooded cloak of black, then reached for his sword and the pack that once belonged to Lieutenant Gimball before stepping out of the cabin once more. He pulled the hood of the cloak up and over his head, and in so doing, took on a name, or perhaps it was just a title of sorts, that he'd not used in many years, talking to himself, or perhaps to the Whispers, as his voice rumbled, "A wayward child there is, in Emberstrand, eh? And another child which might have use for me besides? Well, the latter might be fun, but..." The badger-kin, the man called Walker, let out a heavy, long-suffering sigh, "But damn, do I ever hate baby-sitting."
And he took a step.
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