From Kaerls to Huscarls.

[aleifr]

Aleifr's fingers flexed a little as the shuttle began to rumble with the thrum of it's engines, digging into his harness as he felt the thing lift off the ground. He still wasn't used to this. Even after months of serving the Rout and seeing the wonders that they had at their disposal, riding in the belly of one of their flying ships still made him vaguely uneasy - at least until they'd hit the point where they were flying smoothly.

Once they were, he unbuckled the harness strapping him into his seat and made his way to the viewport at the back of the ship. Thick, white clouds filled up most of the view, but he could see little scraps of Fenris through the gaps. Mountains, ice, braces of pine trees and the endless expanse of Asaheim. As they climbed, the details grew harder to make out and his perpetual scowl deepened.

He was grateful to Jarl Ironwolf for the honor he'd given him - him and Aila both. He'd be a fucking idiot not to considering he's to be serving one of the Allfather's agents directly ... but it was strange to think that he might not see this place again. Their world. Their home. He didn't like that thought.

But his jarl had given him a task, and he'd see it through.

Comments

[aleifr]

"Good folk to have at your side, then."

Valuable knowledge, stout hearts ... fine enough companions, whether or not they prove to be a match for Aila or himself in strength of arms. They'll more than likely have to fight in these 'cities' in the Inquisitor's service, and if they live up to the pict-captures Aila has described, they're going to have to lean on the Cadian's expertise at first.

"Are there any other people amongst the crew we ought to know before we meet them?" Aleifr asks, eyes moving away from their careful study of his surroundings and on to McCoy. "Folk with an important role or skill we ought to lean on?"

[steady_hand]

"Scott—Captain Summers—runs the ship, and he's a superb pilot if you felt like picking up that skill. He's all duty, all the time, but he's a good man. Brother Kurt is holding down the fort for the Ecclesiarchy—"

McCoy breaks off as the elevator arrives and he has to move out of the way for a disembarking tech-priest who doesn't so much as glance at the trio (though between the hood and the glassy lenses that have replaced their eyes, it's hard to tell.)

"And, speaking of the Cult Mechanicus," he goes on, as the tech-priest continues to whir down the hallway, apparently oblivious to the discussion or even their presence, "Magos Culo is our senior representative from that august order, though I mention her mostly to caution you to stay out of her way."

Frowning, Aila points at the departing tech-priest with a quizzical look on her face. Being close enough to tug on the rust-red robes does not seem like avoidance.

"That's not the Magos," McCoy clarifies. "And most of the Machine God's chosen can see behind themselves, incidentally."

Aila drops her hand back to her side like a child caught making a naughty gesture and decides the inside of the elevator is a better place to be at the moment.

[aleifr]

Under other circumstances, Aleifr might have found some amusement in his wife's unintentional indiscretion, but in this setting ... he's simply filing away a tech-priest's augmented sight as a 'good to know'.

"Thank you." He nods to McCoy as he steps into the elevator behind the others, stepping off to one side so as not to obstruct the door from either of them. "For your patience with our questions."

McCoy may have been ordered to help them adjust, and his manner hasn't given Aleifr any reason to suspect that this experience has been trying ... but he knows that patience is a finite resource, even if it isn't being actively taxed.

[steady_hand]

"Hmm?" McCoy seems like he's about to brush it off as nothing, but reconsiders, looking from Aleifr to Aila and back again with a solemnity foreign to his character, at least from what he's displayed so far. "Ironwolf threw you into the fire," he says, a statement of fact rather than an accusation. "And since we're all here burning together, the least I can do is help newcomers get used to the flames. Crew decks."

McCoy changes the subject without a pause, indicating a button near the top of the panel before poking it.

[aleifr]

It's a moment of honest candor that Aleifr appreciates. He's under no illusions that the challenges they'll face in the coming days will be easily overcome. The sudden somberness in McCoy's demeanor and the acknowledgement that those challenges will test them all ... it speaks well of him, in Aleifr's eyes. As an ally.

The shift in topic does bring to mind another question, though.

"How many aboard?"

The Arbiter had struck him as small on approach, at least for the personal vessel of an agent of the Allfather's will. He's curious to learn how large her retinue actually is.

[steady_hand]

"We run 13 to 15 thousand, depending how many combat troops we have aboard. We're on the lighter end of that right now, after the Inquisitor's last mission went ugly fast and we took heavy casualties." McCoy purses his lips, a doctor's distaste for death clear in his expression.

Losses of a few thousand people would destroy entire tribes, and Aila wonders how much that had to do with their recruitment. Obviously the jarls wouldn't strip Fenris's defenses to bolster someone else's forces, but the Inquisitor strengthening whatever it is she uses for a command pack with a huscarl or two is, in Aila's totally unbiased opinion, a very smart move.

"Will we be picking up reinforcements?" she asks.

"Eventually." McCoy shrugs. "The Inquisitor prefers to avoid using armies—for all she's a platoon on her own—so she might or might not prioritize it. Depends what threats to peace and goodness she's got on the agenda, I suppose."

[aleifr]

It goes without saying, but Aleifr shares his wife's opinion on the prudence of adding a pair of huscarls to help augment the strength of the Inquisitor's personal guard.

Still ... interesting to know that the she prefers to avoid pitched battles.

"The Inquisitor tries to smother threats in the crib, then?" Aleifr grunts. "Before armies are needed."

[steady_hand]

"In my experience, she uses a disease metaphor when she's arguing with her peers, but yes—smother it in the crib, uproot as soon as it sprouts, that general principle. Better all around to shoot a few Chaos sympathizers rather than wait until you've got daemons crawling out of the wainscoting."

"Wains...coating?" Aila ventures, unable to keep up with McCoy's command of Low Gothic.

"Ah. Sorry," he says, looking abashed. "A kind of wall treatment. Just a figure of speech, not really important."

Aila doesn't know what a 'wall treatment' is, either, but she's not going to pursue what she suspects is unsatisfying prey, so she just nods. The rest of it made sense, at least.

[aleifr]

Easy enough to follow outside of the obtuse reference, aye. Stands to reason that the Inquisitor solves problems of a different nature than the Rout. Of course that begs the question ...

"What went wrong on the last mission?" Aleifr glances towards McCoy as the elevator continues to climb. "Daemons already crawling out of the wainscoating?"

[steady_hand]

"Remember earlier when we talked about Genestealers, and how you can't necessarily tell a Genestealer cult from a Chaos cult from a distance?" McCoy hisses between his teeth. "It wasn't far enough along to have fully compromised the planetary government, but they still made an unholy mess before we were able to get a few Guard regiments in to do the work the PDF couldn't manage. In the meantime our Storm Troopers were taking the shock."

The elevator door slides aside to reveal that officer country has carpeting over the deckplates in the halls, a deep midnight blue with a meandering border in golds and whites on either edge, paralleling the walls.

"We lost the unit commander in that one," McCoy says, shaking his head. "He was beyond my skills and Emma couldn't get there in time." Taken by unpleasant memories, he doesn't seem to have noticed he used the Inquisitor's first name, and it comes so naturally Aila thinks that must be how he usually refers to her. Surprised and unsure what that means, Aila shoots Aleifr a look.

[aleifr]

It's caught him off guard as well if his expression is anything to go by. Perhaps they've simply worked together closely enough for a long enough time that the Inquisitor doesn't mind that sort of familiarity, perhaps offworld thanes are just more permissive of it, but it's still more than a little strange to his ear.

"Does the Inquisitor often go by her given name?"

Nothing accusing in his voice. A genuine question, and an opportunity for him to correct himself if he's inadvertantly lapsed.

[steady_hand]

"Mm?" McCoy looks at Aleifr with a puzzled frown, then his eyes go glassy for a moment as he presumably reviews the last few things he said. "Ah."

"If that's a roundabout way of asking what I am to her, the answer is 'an old friend.'" He sighs, and seems somehow to slump despite his posture not changing. "Inquisitors in general are very lonely people. The only luxury they can't afford is trust." McCoy shakes his head. "No, she doesn't often go by her given name."

[aleifr]

"I see."

Again, it makes sense. Whatever duties an Inquisitor has officially can't be an easy thing to bear. Such responsibilities require sacrifice. Just as the warriors who join the Rout must give up the lives they used to live, Inquisitors likely have to set all else aside.

As to the question of trust ... The Astartes of the Rout don't often speak of them, but beyond Jarl Ironwolf, he's not heard one speak of an Inquisitor kindly. They didn't sound as close-knit as the Rout, so perhaps conflict amongst their ranks wasn't an uncommon thing.

He glances to Aila. Her ability to ingratiate herself to anyone had extended to the Astartes of the Rout, and she'd gotten to know them better than he did as a result of it. He was curious to see if her thoughts had gone to the same place.

[steady_hand]

Aila is studying McCoy intently as various comments and observations over the months she's been properly part of the Imperium slot into place. "'The threat within,'" she quotes Ordo Hereticus's epithet back at him, a grim spin on the words. He laughs, if that mirthless a sound can be called laughter.

"'Who watches the watchers?'" That has the sound of a quotation. "Power corrupts. And the Inquisition has a hell of a lot of it." McCoy huffs and fights a short internal battle if the flicker of his expression is any indication, and when he continues, it's in juvyk.

"Why do you think she went to Fenris for you two? No disrespect to the Space Wolves and the kaerls, but the Inquisition is bursting at the seams with lethal bastards who already speak Gothic. The thing Fenris breeds that she can't get anywhere else is loyalty."

[aleifr]

"You've given no disrespect."

Aleifr's reply was, likewise, in juvyk. He had said that he believed there were offworld warriors that were worth a damn in a fight, even if he believed that he and Aila would prove more than an equal.

"The Inquisitor sought people who would serve her faithfully, and we're what wyrd has delivered to her."

That they were selected specifically, regardless of whatever political factors shaped the decision, was an honor to the two of them. Faith put into their ability, and their character.