Yes, My Alpha: Mother of an Empire

Chapter 78

It took about twenty minutes for the stage to be set up for Darius's speech. Ophelia watched as the others made a show out of building the stage and making noise to get the attention of the villagers.

Marl Post was a village was much bigger than Flat Trench, the thatch roof houses were numerous and the local pub appeared to be rather large. Much more sizable then the small four bedroom pub and inn in Flat Trench. In Ophelia's time in the Imperial army-- almost a year now according to her count. She had seen larger villages and even towns. There wasn't much in the way of visiting cities, both Snowfel and Clover had focused more on establishing foot holds in the country side.

While it hadn't been specifically discussed with her Ophelia assumed that meant they were trying to either steal the land and hope Spade didn't fight back. Or they were gathering infrastructure to gear up for an attack on the larger towns and cities within the Spade Dukedom. Ophelia was leaning more towards the latter half, after all, why settle for scraps of land when you could go for the main course?

Snowfel's goal was clearly resource based, after all Ophelia had both heard and seen it herself. The nobility in the Kingdom of Snowfel saw farming as beneath them and had took much of the useful farming land and repurposed it for vanity projects or to produce luxury items like silk. Ophelia had seen it herself when the barons and lords from the kingdom would come gallivanting through to Flat Trench begging for food and supplies for their territories.

Always having fat bellies and even fatter pockets. Though gold didn't do you much good if the peasants under your care were starving and desperate. The church-- ever generous was always willing to take the resources that would've normally been used for girls like Ophelia and donate them to the needy.

Never mind the fact a fat donation of luxury goods and gold would mysteriously end up in the bishop's office soon after. God moves in mysterious ways, but the nobles were always a bit too obvious. Too good the shake the hands of the farmers who's food they bought. But always willing to devour more than their fair share...

Ophelia would be lying if she said she hadn't made her fair coin off of those people in order to support herself. They had no concept of what common goods cost, so if she showed up with a prepped deer or two, she'd be able to support herself for a few days from just one hunt.

Ophelia's thoughts were stopped when Darius finally climbed the stage. The thudding of his boots brought her attention back to the present. Ophelia smiled a bit seeing Darius up on the stage with a brilliant smile on his lips just like always. It had been a while since she had heard his speech...

When was the last time she had heard it...?

Was it three months ago? Before her and Darius's first night together? Or was it after?

"My name is Darius Trudeau," Darius introduced himself just as he always did in his speech, Ophelia and the rest of the army could probably recite it line by line at this point. "I'm looking for fighters to join my cause." Ophelia barely registered the change in the speech as she was still trying to remember the name of the village which Darius last gave this speech. She had been rubbing her chin in thought when she looked back up feeling confused.

Looking for fighters? She thought questioningly, wasn't it looking for men-- fighters? Darius always made a point to flirt with the crowd a little bit to coax them into joining. The lure of Darius's attention was always a good way to get the young and stupid to join to bolster ranks.

Ophelia winced wondering if she'd be considered among the young and stupid... She looked up on the stage as Darius continued his speech, "To join my cause!" He was charming as ever, bright smile, shiny uniform, lots of emotion and movement with every word. "I wish to unite the five Dukedoms together into one country! An empire! One that withstands millennium!"

"is it just me or does the speech seem a little different?" Ophelia heard a familiar voice next to her, she turned to see a familiar face but she couldn't remember the name. The cadet next to her was one of the handful in her troop, he had been there since she had joined... What was his name... Ophelia thought of when and where she last saw him... He usually handled the horses and donkey--. "Philips." Ophelia spoke remembering that he usually took care of the donkey Maybell.

Right this was the guy Spencer kept yelling at her about because Maybell kept trying to make him carry her.

"Hey Reeds." Philips greeted, "Surprised you remembered my name." He joked softly, "I won't lie it took me a minute." Ophelia confessed frankly, a snort came from the cadet in response, "Honest as ever I see." Ophelia hummed in response, "So you noticed the difference too?" She questioned in a low voice not trying to interrupt the speech. "Yeah." Phillips said leaning towards her trying to do much the same. "He's usually much more-- you know-- with the crowd." Phillips spoke carefully.

"Yeah, I know." Ophelia folded her arms, "I wonder why he made the change then?" Phillips questioned thoughtfully. "I don't know." Ophelia answered honestly, she had no idea why Darius would make such a change. It's not like she expressed being uncomfortable with Darius doing that-- then again it wasn't like this came up since they started being together either.

As deep as the bond felt for Ophelia, it hadn't been that long and she was still learning new things about Darius every day. She could only assume the change was made by Darius just in case she'd get upset. Darius was often concerned with what she liked or didn't like... Ophelia paused thinking to last night... She remembered bits and pieces of the conversation with LeRoy.

Darius referred to the army as his, which was fair it was his... But if he saw the army as his then why should he care about how Ophelia felt about something as important as these recruitment speeches? Whatever worked in the past really shouldn't be messed with just because of a change in a relationship right? Ophelia was sure that there would've been no way for Darius to have ever made that change in his speech when he was with his last lovers... Especially with Philips being so confused by it that he brought it up to her.

So why was there a sudden change now?

Ophelia didn't get the chance to think too deeply by this when Phillips leaned over talking to her again. "So after the speech Officer Spade said we could go around town, the rest of the troop is headed to the pub. Are you in?" he invited, Ophelia turned looking at Philips surprised. This was the first time she had been invited... She was about to agree when she remembered she still needed to talk to Kellis and check to see what happened to Sylviane. 

She turned to refuse when Spencer cut in, "Cadet Reeds isn't allowed to drink." Spencer spoke squeezing his way between Ophelia and Philips. Her brows furrowed in confusion why Spencer would suddenly do something like that. "She doesn't have to drink, everyone's just wanting to hear what it was like to lead a charge into battle." Philips spoke seemingly just as clueless as Ophelia why Spencer was doing this. Spencer looked to Philips before turning to Ophelia, "It's best not to tempt anything." he spoke meaningfully.

Ophelia nearly groaned in response, was he really--? It's not like Darius would care. Ophelia glanced back up onto stage seeing Darius still chattering away about joining the Imperial army. He didn't even notice, why was Spencer being so sensitive about this?

"I can't go anyway." Ophelia turned back to Spencer and Philips, "I have errands to run." She spoke leaning over to make eye contact with Philips, "Maybe some other time." She offered, the other cadet grinned hearing this. "Alright." He agreed with a smile on his lips.

Spencer gave Ophelia a look which Ophelia returned. She had no idea why he was suddenly so concerned with her relationship status with Darius. Everything was fine, and Philips was ultimately harmless.

Darius finished his speech and managed to actually get a couple volunteers from the crowd of villagers that had gathered. Young alpha men who looked eager to make a name for themselves. As the stage was taken down, Darius and the other generals spoke separately with the Mayor of Marl Post leaving the rest of the army to mull about for now.

The local pub and market quickly became packed as everyone went to get a warm meal or supplies. Ophelia had attempt to invite Kellis and Charles to head over to the church but they refused saying that it had been a while since they had gotten a drink together. So they headed to the pub with most of the others from Clover.

This sort of left Ophelia to her own devices... Mostly.

"Why are you following me?" Ophelia questioned, Spencer gave her a look, "You know why."