Private The Imperial Dream

[Kelinna Tryn]

REAPER
LATE NIGHT PREP - PRE-TYTHON DEPLOYMENT
ARMOURY | SAXON BASE
TAG: Hal Vaiken

TIE DOWN​

Something had snapped.

Lily had not taken a beat at all since her father's execution, opting instead for constant sparring, drinking or shooting competitions with other troopers in down time at the base. On deployment, she was suddenly much more ruthless with her shots. No one was safe from her crosshairs anymore.

Despite her constantly being among the other troopers when she wasn't sleeping, she subconsciously avoided interacting with her CO when not directly responding to an order. The sudden humanity in Sarge had rattled her more than she realised.

Humanity was the last thing she needed.

The night before deployment was the first time since she had pulled the trigger in the execution room that she chose to be alone in the armoury to prep her gear and clean rifles.

Sitting on a bench with a bottle of gun oil next to her, she had her precision between her knees as she ran the cleaning rod back and forth down the barrel. It was quiet in the armoury aside from the sound of the rod moving up and down against the alloy barrel.

Most people's minds would be racing with all manner of things while going through routine things alone. Lily, on the other hand, enjoyed the silence in her mind, just letting her body go through the familiar, almost automatic motions of cleaning a rifle.

The loom of battle was oddly thrilling and soothing at the same time.

 

[Hal Vaiken]

S A R G E
501st LEGION
IMPERIAL SPECIAL FORCES
PRE-TYTHON DEPLOYMENT | SAXON BASE
Lily Stevens

Rarely—

Never.

Never before had any actions by the Empire left him wondering; a faint question mark hanging over his head in the rare moments of privacy. Hal wasn't sure what exactly the question was but the events revolving around Lily's execution of her father manifested a puzzle he seemed unable to solve. Hard, or rather impossible, to admit, everything about it left a touch of bitter taste in his mouth.

The Empire was infallible. Her father was a traitor and a traitor's fate was only one. But it was not the death of the father that bothered him, not at all. It was the Empire's intense suspicions cast over Sergeant Stevens. She had proven her how unshaken her loyalty had been throughout her whole service as a SCAR trooper—was it truly needed for her to prove it again? Perhaps that wasn't the question, either. Perhaps it was never a question that hung above him, after all.

Perhaps it was his helplessnes in it all.

There was nothing he could've done to stand up for her anymore than he did.

While, by the book, they were bound solely by their mutual oath to the Emperor... in practice, soldiers truly forged their bonds in their shared cauldron of fire on the field of battle. She had burned as much as him and maybe some more and still for the Empire—or at least to some paper pusher—that was not enough.

So what was?

Shaking the thoughts away, the sergeant suddenly realized he'd somehow found himself leaning on the door frame of the empty armory. The scraping sound of a gun being cleaned drowned away the fog that had befallen his usually clear mind.

"Can't sleep?" he heard himself assuming, paused and then added, "Thought the pre-deployment jeebies were a thing left back at the Academy."

The sergeant walked in and approached a neatly concealed compartment on the wall, then plunged his hand inside looking for something specific, "The rookies stash some local moonshine in here, call it the 'knockout serum' -- supposedly helps them pull an all nighter duty faster."​

 

[Kelinna Tryn]

REAPER
LATE NIGHT PREP - PRE-TYTHON DEPLOYMENT
ARMOURY | SAXON BASE
TAG: Hal Vaiken

TIE DOWN​

The solitude was shattered.

"Can't sleep? Thought the pre-deployment jeebies were a thing left back at the Academy."

The rod stopped mid motion. Lake-blue eyes regarded Hal as he entered the armoury.
"It's the only time of the day I can do this in peace." she deadpanned before continuing to run the rod up and down. She had nowhere to disappear to with him in the middle of the room, so she might as well go through the motions anyway.

"The rookies stash some local moonshine in here, call it the 'knockout serum' -- supposedly helps them pull an all nighter duty faster."

With a sigh, Lily removed the rod and set the rifle down.
"Why are you even awake? Jeebies got the Sandman?" she asked him, leaning forward while folding her hands between her knees. Those were probably the most words she had spoken to him outside of the field since the ISB shitshow.

She didn't blame him for what she pushed to do. In truth, she had no idea why exactly she had been avoiding him up until now. But the power of avoidance had been ripped from her hands with his appearance now, cornering her in a room with no way to to disappear.

He was bloody good in cornering things.

"Fine, gimme some of that. I'll need it to sit through your morbidity." she sighed with a quip and the slightest curl of the mouth while holding out a hand. Might as well roll with it. He ruined her zen in any case.

Rookie moonshine was the best kind, after all.

 

[Hal Vaiken]

S A R G E
501st LEGION
IMPERIAL SPECIAL FORCES
PRE-TYTHON DEPLOYMENT | SAXON BASE
Lily Stevens

"Why are you even awake? Jeebies got the Sandman?"

"Hn." Sarge halted, arching an eyebrow thinking of an answer, "Maybe." he moved to sit beside her, handing her the moonshine and producing a pack of cigarettes. He'd had them cut down before but since the whole debacle surrounding Lily, Hal had found himself smoking more often than usual. A nasty habit everyone picked as a grunt in the infantry. The grueling Special Forces school never got rid of it, either.

"Morbidity's just part of the job." he admitted; it was half-true. A commanding officer had to retain a certain level of detachment from those under his command. It only helped that by nature he did carry a dose of brooding character. His presence did often emanate as if he was trapped in a trench facing no man's land in a war lasting a lifetime.

It's how he kept his soldiers battle-ready, he believed.

But the curtain falls on every act.

"You thought about what you want to do after the war?" came the unsuspecting question.​

 

[Kelinna Tryn]

REAPER
LATE NIGHT PREP - PRE-TYTHON DEPLOYMENT
ARMOURY | SAXON BASE
TAG: Hal Vaiken

TIE DOWN​

At this stage, he seemed to need the shine more than she did. But she took the flask as he sat down next to her while he fished for his cigarettes.

"Morbidity's just part of the job."

Lily took a gulp of shine, the crude liquid hitching her breath for a second - the Rookies weren't screwing around making it, that's for sure.
"That explains all the smoking lately." she deadpanned after clearing her throat, handing the flask back to him. Spending as much time with your team, you become accustomed to their habits and mannerisms. There was the casual smoking of a soldier that the rest of them partook in and then there was Hal in the last couple of weeks.

"You thought about what you want to do after the war?"

The question blindsided her. She had been running non stop since the whole ISB issue. When she did stop, it was to take meds to knock her out cold for the night so as not to have the risk of dreams or guilt. Her plans for after the war had departed the realm of the living along with her father. She hadn't bothered to make new ones yet.
"Not really. I might sign up for peacekeeping afterward or something if the team is disbanded." she said. The team and her rifle was all she had left. She had been fighting for so long, it was difficult to see anything beyond it. "You got any?" she then asked him, closing the bottle of gun oil properly and stuffing it back into her kit.

It was a sad realisation how dependant so many of them had become on the war. It was an equally sad reality that so many soldiers yearned for death's embrace as a war drew to a close because there's nothing left for them outside of it. Would that be the case this time around for all the gears that kept the Imperial war machine turning?

 

[Hal Vaiken]

S A R G E
501st LEGION
IMPERIAL SPECIAL FORCES
PRE-TYTHON DEPLOYMENT | SAXON BASE
Lily Stevens

The grizzled sergeant another gulp of the moonshine and fell silent for a long moment. His eyes were distant, beyond the realms of the present, as if trying to recall something. Anything.

"This has been all I've known." Sarge admitted, finally breaking the silence. Serving as a trooper wasn't just his life. It was all that he was. "The past is long buried, a place I can never go back to, nor do I want to." a gladiatorial life that could not be equated as barbaric to Imperial standards.

He handed the flask to her and leaned back with a slight grunt of pain as he brushed away the gloom that had settled between the two with a faint smirk, "Peacekeeping... you?"

"Stevens, you're anything but a peacekeeper."
​

 

[Kelinna Tryn]

REAPER
LATE NIGHT PREP - PRE-TYTHON DEPLOYMENT
ARMOURY | SAXON BASE
TAG: Hal Vaiken

TIE DOWN​

"The past is long buried, a place I can never go back to, nor do I want to."

"Yeah tell me about it." She may have had a better past, but the burying and going back would be impossible now. Such was the life of a soldier, it seemed.

A heartbeat passed before she took the flask he held out to her again and she let the homebrewed liquid burn away the ghosts that plagued her thoughts. It worked bloody well too, especially with a big swig. The rookies weren't joking about that near-instant buzzy feeling.

"Stevens, you're anything but a peacekeeper."

Half a laugh accompanied the pout and the soldierly punch she landed on his shoulder.
"Fake it 'til you make it, Vaiken." she said in a faux aloof tone before cracking a solid smile. "But yeah you're right." She took another swig before handing the flask back. "There will be more civvies without heads than there will be peace."

She kicked her feet forward as she leaned back slightly as just the right amount of buzz was starting up in her head.
"Yeah I guess we're pretty screwed without war." she smiled, a sigh accompanying the headshake. "Either that or, gods forbid, one of us ends up teaching these kids how to shoot and dodge properly." She might end up shooting them if they manhandled a rifle again, but that was beside the point. The future was unimpressive either way.

 

[Hal Vaiken]

S A R G E
501st LEGION
IMPERIAL SPECIAL FORCES
PRE-TYTHON DEPLOYMENT | SAXON BASE
Lily Stevens

He silently snorted trying to imagine Lily as a law enforcer of any kind. Prone on a Ravelin rooftop, one eye zoned in through the scope looking for any jaywalkers to eliminate.

Yeah, she wasn't getting in on that, that's for sure.

For a moment, his eyes never left her form as she leaned back next to him. Of all the soldiers he had served with, Sergeant Stevens seemed to be the one he had formed some form of a relationship within a shorter amount of time than usual. He wondered whether it was something deeper than an intimate desire seeking to liberate both from the compounded hardships recently that had them pressed together; whether it was a form of escape or whether it was beyond. Or whether it was just the buzz of a grunt's experimental moonshine.

Only time could tell.

Whatever the intention, he found his hand on her thigh, "I say we take it day by day." it was the soldiers' axiom. The strategists, the generals, the masterminds - they had the benefit of longevity, the luxury to gleam far beyond for years ahead but grunts - they lived and died in a day, "Who knows, maybe you'll soften up enough for a cop's admission." he joked. That was a very, very doubtful prospect.​

 

[Kelinna Tryn]

REAPER
LATE NIGHT PREP - PRE-TYTHON DEPLOYMENT
ARMOURY | SAXON BASE
TAG: Hal Vaiken

SAVE YOURSELF​

"I say we take it day by day."

The comment itself was harmless, but the sudden hand on or thigh caught her slightly offguard. Dark-blue eyes glanced in his direction. They had been fighting alongside one another for a long while now, but since the ISB mess, the professional dynamic had shifted slightly.

It was much more personal now.

"Who knows, maybe you'll soften up enough for a cop's admission."

She couldn't suppress the snort of laughter. "I highly doubt that. But points for optimism, Vaiken." she grinned, nudging him with a shoulder. On the surface it was nothing more than a joke between soldiers, but whether it was the moonshine buzz or something more, the sharpshooter could not help but notice the athletic masculine frame in a different light as she made contact with it.

Probably the buzz.

Sitting up straighter, she cleared her throat before flashing another grin.
"We'd make terrible civvies."

 

[Hal Vaiken]

S A R G E
501st LEGION
IMPERIAL SPECIAL FORCES
PRE-TYTHON DEPLOYMENT | SAXON BASE
Lily Stevens

"We'd make terrible civvies."

"There's no denying that." Sarge chuckled in response. The armor, the rifle, the blood, and the sweat -- that's all they've come to know. It was a far cry from any semblance of a normal life the people lived on Ravelin or anywhere else across the Empire. The same people's lives that they fought to protect even if it cost them their life today. Or tomorrow. Or the day after.

But for a soldier, there is no tomorrow. Only now, the moment. It's all they had.

She didn't rebuke his touch and Hal set the moonshine aside. The hand on her thigh softly moved further up, feeling the shapely curves borne of rigorous physical training as his eyes traced her from bottom to top indulging in her enticing form. He felt his heart beats race faster than usual as desire shot through his veins. They only had the moment and he wanted to snatch it now, more than anything else.​

 

[Kelinna Tryn]

REAPER
LATE NIGHT PREP - PRE-TYTHON DEPLOYMENT
ARMOURY | SAXON BASE
TAG: Hal Vaiken

SAVE YOURSELF​

There wasn't much left for soldiers that have lost everything.

Only your team that has your back when things turn hot. Only the sword over your head that any day might be your last. You learn to appreciate the present as the next op behind enemy lines can be the last one you do.

Seize the day gets a whole new meaning as a soldier.

The battlefield was one thing - there was no room for error. But in this moment, in the peace before the next run at death, there was only two people that have been thrown together in the most unusual way with the buzz of rookie moonshine and the threat of impeding doom pumping blood through their veins.

Lily's breath hitched when his touch on her thigh changed. As her heart started to race, blue eyes caught his gaze. The combination of moonshine breaths, the warmth of unarmoured bodies and the knowledge that they only had the present was intoxicating and before she realised, she was leaning towards him, rank and war forgotten for the moment as desire sparked to life.

All that mattered was the present and the soft touch between two hardened and broken people.

 

[Hal Vaiken]

S A R G E
501st LEGION
IMPERIAL SPECIAL FORCES
PRE-TYTHON DEPLOYMENT | SAXON BASE
Lily Stevens

Split lips touched mending the dry blood blemishes of previous battles and calloused hands ran across their battered flesh, removing the barrier of camo clothes separating the two soldiers. Bare skins pressed against each other concealing the scars of a hundred wars as they bonded into a burning whirlwind of desire and emotion as the hardships of the past and the tribulations of the future were shed through the sweat peeling off their skin.

There was no war, no ranks, no soldiers, no ISB and no Empire.

Just the two of them.

Seizing the moment.
​