II
Jenna
Jenna Sorens stood outside the office of her Company Commander Alyssa Turlo of the island Nation-State of Warmaedyn, but wanted to be there about as much as she wanted an arrow in her eye. She hated this, waiting on yet another administrative punishment for yet another infraction. The woman was impossible to please.
Maybe this time she'd find a hair out of place or a rust spot on her uniform -- a plain green and brown studded, hard leather jerkin with upper and lower arm guards and hard leather leggings, also studded. Although designed for women on the inside, her codpiece looked more like one for a male on the outside. This, along with a special potion that flattened and shrunk her breasts. Strategically placed padding on her sides straightened her hips made her look like some male Freshman instead of a young woman of 16. The deceptive tailoring served a purpose -- a woman who looked like a boy had little to fear from the Zagahss raiders who plagued the civilized lands and wilderness areas of the Known World.
It seemed like a lifetime ago that she'd been a Junior in High School, back on Atlantica, her homeland. Her life had been so much simpler then, the threat of being smacked on the butt by some grabby creep was the worst that she'd had to fear. With her plain face and straight, mousy brown hair she'd not gotten any catcalls or any pick up lines from any but the most desperate boys. Not that she'd ever wanted that kind of harrassment.
She'd been an athlete, but mediocore when it came to running and volleyball. Archery on the other hand...she could hit a bull's eye in a high wind at 100 meters. Neither rain, nor fog nor the heckling of others could distract her from hitting her mark. And her one other dubious talent: She could make her blue eyes look unsexy to any boy who stopped looking at her chest long enough to pay attention to the rest of her.
"Cadet-Corporal Sorens. Enter." Turlo spoke in her usual voice, which Jenna was grateful for. Getting a dressing down loud enough for others to hear was a regular humiliation for her, and something she could gladly do without.
She stepped into the Commander's office and stood at attention. Turlo was swarthy, with darker skin and light brown eyes that reminded Jenna of coffee with cream in it. Exotic, more attractive, and above all, more confidant. Turlo was career military, and Jenna, aside from being a prodigy with the bow, knew only a little bit of magic, and through no choice of her own had become an expert on shoveling out stalls. But Warmaedyn took all kinds in Her Military, which was all female. All the boys she'd gone to school with back on Atlantica may have been a bunch of rude, crude, macho jerks, but what she wouldn't give to be able to hang out with them again.
God, she missed Atlantica. And her hometown, Riverglen.
"I see here that your service record is less than exemplary. That was necessary for reasons I am not at liberty to mention at this time. But I do give apologies for it."
"I live to serve, Ma'am."
Once upon a time she would've told her to go eat a turd, but that had been a lifetime ago -- or so it seemed.
And serve she had: peeling potatoes, scrubbing floors, mucking out stalls for a wide assortment of mounts, not all of them horses, and doing every single dirty job they could come up with. All the while earning a dozen demerits a week for the most trivial things. One time it had been for not having her bedsheets folded to an exact 45 degree angle. Her drill instructors kept a special ruler to measure the beds, and the eyes of a hawk when it came to measuring things to tenths of millimeters.
