Change of pace

It was a strange feeling, being so… stationery, for a lack of better words. When had she actually stayed in one place for more than just a few months? It really must have been back when she was still living with her mother, as a child.

If anyone would’ve told her a year and a half ago that this is how she would end up, she would have laughed at them.

Wasn’t even the leaving the military. She would have done that anyway, when her tenure would have naturally come to an end, provided she would have lived to see it.
For all the similarities between a soldier and a mercenary, there were some glaring differences as well. Armies were efficient war machines, and largely relied on all their gears doing exactly what they were ordered to do.
In her old band structures had been much less defined, probably even chaotic from an outsider’s view.
There was a chain of command, yes, but it was less rigid, as were the roles and jobs one was assigned. In a way, they had been a bunch of jack of all trades, each and everyone capable to fulfill any given task at a basic level at least. They just didn’t have the numbers to extremely specialise.

Thinking back to her life in Helias was still somewhat of a sore point. She did not regret leaving her band. But she missed what they once had been.

Alexis had improvised a little training area on the plot, keeping up her daily training routine and her skills sharp. Farming was all good and fine, but she was, at her core, a mercenary, and intended to earn her share as one.
Though she could already tell things would be very different than to what she had been used to.
Quite a bit out of her comfort zone, too.

Getting their plot set up required a lot of visiting the markets and commission appliances they could not build themselves, and with both Islana and Gonyaul having their own duties to attend to (and in Gonyaul’s case being a bit out of commission due to excessive bee stings on top), that job was mostly Alexis‘ to take care of. As such she was required to talk to people outside of the martial setting much more than she ever had before.
It was quite an awkward experience on her part.

Not so much, it seemed, for the people she was talking to. The rumors about that night had not completely died down yet, and Alexis didn’t really know what to do with the wholly undeserved attention she was still receiving. Mostly, she tried to ignore it.
Mostly. There were those odd times when she would be shyly approached with a request for assistance.
Little things, really. Like foragers still feeling uncomfortable in the woods the cult had haunted asking for her to come along.
Or plots at the edge of the city having trouble with some aggressive wild life.

It wasn’t any skin off her back to help out here and there, and it served not only to keep her training up but also to keep an eye on the woods, so she didn’t mind.

What did bother her was this lingering sense that many of the people who had been here from the start had no trust at all in the government. It had bothered her ever since the exchange between Zane and the old woman during the raid. That the animosity had come so far that they would spit at the knight’s feet and attack despite knowing there would be consequences, even if they might not have anticipated the magnitude. There would always be a divide between those in power and station and those who weren’t. She understood that. But here, that divide felt like an abyss.
Alexis wanted to understand how this had come to be. Wanted to know about that first winter that had given rise to Slivikhi‘s cult. That clearly had never been properly addressed. How things had progressed from there.

So… she just asked. And listened.