Chapter 23: Fashion Sense

“What do you mean white is surrender and peace?” Nunuk clearly finding the news quite troubling. Sapphire had gone to talk with her and Apuma in their room about the little problem she had been discussing with Tom.

“That is what it means to him, a white flag is their symbol of surrendering. Though they also see white as a symbol of purity. It sounds like their peacekeepers, whatever that is, use white too. So that is something at least.”

“Okay, so it’s not like he believes wearing white shows you have surrendered.” Nunuk seemed to be relieved at that at least.

"No, I don’t think so besides he seems to grasp that here things are different here, he was more disturbed that we use blood to dye our leathers. He honestly seemed terrified for a moment when I told him. ”

“What, he finds blood repulsive why?”

“Not sure, to be honest. He didn’t seem to be when treating wounds, or being treated for that matter”

Nunuk let out a sigh ”He just keeps getting weirder. Okay then so what about his colors?”

“He claims green is Nature and black is night and shadow, he wears them so they will help him hide from his enemy”

“So he admits it is because of cowardice?” Nunuk didn’t seem to buy that, tilting her head.

“I don’t think it can be called cowardice if the alternative is certain death. They must just fight differently from us. He swore his clothes were his old military uniform too.”

“Yes yes, but we can't have him running around like this in case of visitors, there should be a trader coming by within a week or two.”

“What about formal robes?” Apuma added

“He is a guard, not a scholar.” Nunuk rejected “you don’t run around with a sword on your belt either”

“His own idea was to modify his existing stuff. I think his problem is with being seen, not any color in particular. White is just easy to spot on the ground” Sapphire could understand Tom’s point of view and did her best to relay it.

“Can’t we just drape some proper clothes over him?” Apuma questioned, it would sort of work Sapphire guessed.

“Sure, that will have to do. Sapphire, make sure his armor ends up having at least something bright even if it is just blank steel, to be honest, I don't want to spend the time and effort on making enameled armor for him if he doesn't even want it. Maybe we can just convince any visitors he bleeds green, then we don’t have to bother with his existing clothes, black is a problem though. Try and see if you can work something out with him.”

“We could just claim what he was saying, that it represents night. Maybe say he worships the moon or something."

“Sure that will do, we just need an excuse if it comes to it, we need him to like us anyway. Go along now, sounds like you have work to do.”

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Soo… he was allowed to keep most of his kit, as long as he used some polished steel, that wasn't too bad and they could just be quickly smeared if necessary. He needed the weight anyway to try and compensate for the gravity. He could already start to feel his legs beginning to atrophy, the fact he had been doing next to no activity prior to starting with the guard most likely didn’t help. He should really start working out too, now he thought about it. And they hadn’t made him dye the leather in blood after he convinced them the result would likely turn brown, which was nice.

With that, the days had continued more or less as usual. With Tom spending the morning and evening working on his little design. He didn’t know much about how to make armor or tailoring for that matter. So he had been consulting with Sapphire and Shiva to get some input, they both seemed confused that he wanted releasable weights on his armor. Sapphire relented after a while and Shiva just found it funny, clearly believing she was working with a crazy person.

Shiva for her part had jumped on the armor plating idea, chain mail was clearly a lot more work than she wanted to put into this, and she had a sizable supply of stuff that nearly fitted. So both his arms would be covered from wrist to shoulder by individual plates with padded backing and fastened on with leather straps. Leaving out anything on his chest and modifying the pauldrons, to prevent interfering with shouldering his rifle. He would be making use of his vest at the same time to help with carrying stuff. He had gotten greaves, earlier and along with oversized metal knee pads and steel tipping of his boots that would constitute leg armor. This seemed to satisfy the whole purity thing at least for now. Though Sapphire had threatened to get him a white tabard and some white leather to make belts and the like. Anyway, those could be swapped out for actual battle without much effort and they didn’t seem to have any at the moment.

After he had presented his final design to Nunuk she seemed pleased enough and had approved it. Shiva had gotten right to it, mostly just modifying existing stuff she had lying around. Nunuk, Sapphire, and Esmeralda had gotten to the leatherwork right away as well. They even did it in black, apparently brown was repulsive, and blue not allowed. They seemed to have settled on selling his use of black as having something to do with the night and the moon? Sure he could roll with that. So all in all that had been easier than he had thought it would be. It would look quite dapper too he thought.

It had taken over a week to get everything done, but it was so worth it. As he stood admiring himself in the mirror in Nunuk’s room. He thought he looked like a knight who had been introduced to the wonders of modern warfare, clad in steel plate, camo, and black leather. With the black lenses in his goggles and new faceplate on, he looked quite intimidating. He needed to draw something scary on that faceplate too, such was tradition. Even if hiding would be harder now, he could scare the shit out of people, of that he was sure. He had his two revolvers still in their thigh holsters, with the thigh now reinforced by thick black leather, his blunt training sword now hanging on his off side from his belt of 44 Magnum. His bandolier of 45-70 was draped over his left shoulder and the trusty rifle in his hands.

He smiled to himself then turned to the others

“So, what next?”

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Sapphire had to admit with his face covered and those dark colors. Tom in his new armor looked like something you didn’t want to meet alone in the night. It didn't help that she knew what those revolvers could do. Nevertheless, he was sufficiently presentable, he was a guard, after all, they just wore polished metal to indicate they were pure of heart. The White enameled armor she wore when out on the hunt, was not really suited to the constant sparring the guards indulged in to keep sharp. The coating would just crack and splinter. For sparring training, the huntresses would use some of the same training armor Tom had been given initially.

The detachable weight was a weird addition though. Tom had claimed he was heavier back home. Sapphire couldn’t quite understand what he meant by that, but lead was cheap so sure, why not?

He had also started doing what he called exercising, it seemed like training but not for something specific. He would just lift heavy things, do what he called pushups, and other weird motions often with additional weight on him, and run around a lot. That had caught the attention of some of the guards. They had thought he was fleeing from something at first and rang the alarm bell. After that, everybody had been informed that seeing Tom running towards the keep didn’t mean something was wrong or chasing him.

He claimed it was to get stronger, which sort of made sense. Hard labor made strong people, but why waste the effort on doing something not worth doing in the first place? In the end, she elected to just leave the lunatic be, he was confusing enough already. Besides they were expecting the year's first trader coming through any day now, so they had plenty to do. Tom’s armor had been given top priority so he could be somewhat presentable, but apart from that, they had been working hard to get what few leathers and other things they had ready for trading.

With Tom around and her injured, they hadn’t gotten nearly as much done as they would have hoped but such was life. Besides, by the sounds of things they could expect some changes on that front fairly soon. Tom’s little sugar experiment looked set to change that on its own in fact.

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After Tom had received his new armor, Rachuck had apparently decided he was fit for guard duty. Even if Tom was fairly sure that was just because it meant less for them to do. His training clearly wasn’t complete. They had given him an actual sharp sword though, and a fairly nice one too. It wasn’t gem-encrusted or anything like that, but it had a nice hilt of what seemed like ivory and it was very well polished. He could even see his reflection in the blade, very sharp too. He wondered if swords were kind of like a traditional armament, they had other weapons in the armory, but didn’t seem to carry them? He would need to ask at some point. Having one was awesome though, so maybe that was why?

They had given him alternating morning and evening shifts, which kind of sucked. At least he had been spared from night duty on account of his ongoing classes. Still, it was a lot of time wasted just staring out into the nothingness. They had warned him a trader was apparently due to arrive any day now. He didn’t really know what to expect from that. Sapphire had then gone into how he should behave around it/them, he wasn’t entirely sure. Apparently, Tom was a traveler from a distant land, who had come here to honor an ancient debt by a lord Joakim hence why he was so weird and dressed strangely. Tom got to pick the name much to his amusement. He worshiped nature and the moon rather than any gods. and wore appropriate colors for that worship

When he had asked what the trader looked like she had just beaten her wings a bit and made a gesture indicating something large so he guessed a massive flying creature of some kind? That would make sense if they were trading between islands, and they certainly didn’t have any roads leading out of the keep.

The prospect of seeing whatever that thing was, was exciting at least, even if it wasn’t much comfort as he was sitting on top of one of the towers late one evening. It was pouring rain and the wind was howling, he had gotten a nice thick pelt to help keep warm. The sun was about to set and with the thick cloud cover and rain, it was almost dark out. The wind was picking up and it was starting to get uncomfortable. It looked like it was going to be a very stormy night. He had donned his old Russian NVG’s just in case, even if he wouldn’t turn them on unless necessary.

As he sat contemplating just how miserable this was, he heard a gut-wrenching roaring screech out in the dark. He quickly sprang to his feet, looking out into the semi-darkness.

“What the fuck was that!” he exclaimed to himself, he had been told to wave a torch or something about if the trader came when it was getting dark. Was that the trader he had heard? Why would they be out in such weather, did they just not care?

He elected to start ringing the bell, hoping somebody who knew what on earth, wait what was this place called? Screw it Tom thought. Somebody better get up here and tell him what was going on and what he was supposed to do about it. As he rang a lightning strike hit something out near the horizon and he swore he saw the silhouette of something truly massive, at least if he had estimated range correctly. His heart sank a little it fits the description but Jesus fuck he didn’t want to be wrong! Luckily it didn’t take long before Jackalope stuck her head up the trapdoor.

“What is it?” She seemed winded likely having run up the stairs.

“Big fly thing, roar. Don’t know”

“I heard the roar! What is it?” She seemed a bit confused, which probably wasn’t a good sign if she hadn’t recognized the roar.

“Don’t know!” He really didn’t know what the heck he was supposed to do, so he was relieved when she climbed up to join him looking out. Even if she clearly couldn’t see any more than he could. Then the roar sounded again, Tom squinted, that sounded familiar he thought.

“Help!” Jackalope went. Oh shit! That was what it was! Tom hadn’t recognized the sound, it was fucking draconic! But it was so far away the sound was all distorted, or maybe the creature was just speaking differently. No matter, it was apparently a friend and in need of help. That was better than a flying death monster coming to kill them all.

“Help How?!” He half-shouted through the howling wind at Jackalope.