“Ajax,” A soft voice sounded in my ear, “time to wake up now.”

I groaned rolled over and saw the face of my adoptive mother staring down at me.

“Okay, okay, just wait, please.” She throws open the tent flap and sunlight comes rushing through straight into my eyes.

I roll over and then slowly get up.

Another day at camp.

I’m grateful though, I still wake up screaming sometimes from my memories of the slave camp and most of all the memories of The Madman and memories of Varic.

I reach up and touch my back, feeling the scars that cross it, whip marks.

That’s behind me now.

I’m safe here.

I just have to try not let everyone down like I have so many times before.

After Sonya leaves I get dressed and prepare go outside, looking for Aegus, my adoptive father.

I can’t see him anywhere. I walk through the camp, making my toward the mess.

“Hi, Ajax!” Tim shouted, smiling.

“Good Morning!” Tabitha yelled, carrying bundles of laundry.

“How are ya?” Hilden called, waving at me.

I had a place here.

A smile started to make its way across my face, three years since I was saved from the explosion, three years since I regained my sanity.

Three years since Varic died.

I made my way over to Simion, who was currently skinning some rabbits, I sat down beside him and started to help.

We worked in silence for a while, Simion was a quite guy and silence never seemed to bother him.

“Aj! Where are you damn bastard!” A voice carried out over the camp.

I smiled, Simon was calling, tall, well built, and fair, he’s the closest friend I have. We don’t have the relationship that Varic and I shared, but we were close. A prankster, jokester, and probably the least serious person I know.

“Get over here!” He motioned me over to the lake.

I rolled my eyes and laughed I knew exactly what was going to happen.

When I got there, he motioned me behind some bushes, “Agatha should be coming any time now.” He whispered.

This again? I thought he learned his lesson last year.

Agatha was the avatar of the huntress and had supernaturally good senses because of it, she was also one of the bustiest ladies in the camp, Simon had been trying for years to catch her with her top off.

To say the least he has never succeeded.

“Simon, you dolt! Don’t drag me into this!” Half of me wanted to see if it would work and the other half of me feared the consequences.

“Aw, shut up, you and I both know you want to see her as bad as I do.” He winked and grinned at me cheekily.

“Shut up.”

I looked up and took a fist hard to my face, I felt my nose break, and I was knocked flying, right in time to take a foot to my temple.

I started seeing double.

“Ugh.” I heard a groan off to my right, it seemed that Simon was in just as bad a condition as I was.

I heard laughing.

Damn.

Gerta, and Agatha seemed to have found us.

Damn.

“And what do you boys think you were doing?”

“Meesh wasshe abosh to washe meself.” Simon responded eloquently.

“Meesh, toosh.” I agreed.

I saw a foot.

Then all I saw was black.

I woke up with a splitting headache, and I seemed to be… strapped to a tree? By a river?

Then I realised I was naked.

Then I realised that most of the camp was watching.

Then I realised that Agatha was explaining what was happening.

“You wouldn’t believe it! We were right behind them and they just carried on talking!”

Oof. I looked around and saw Simon strapped to a tree next to me.

My mother came up and healed, me and Simons wounds, gave us a disapproving look, and then walked off.

Leaving me

… bound.

I sighed, just another day in the camp.

…

I looked for Aegus later that day, but found nothing. They were probably out raiding again.

I once asked Aegus if they were evil for raiding villages and towns.

He sat down near the fire and stared at it for a few long moments before saying.

“I wonder that myself sometimes.”

“Then I remember what life was like back in the army.” He stared at the fire again for longer this time and we hear in crackling.

“I signed up for king and country, I signed up for honour, the recruiters spat that crap to whoever would listen, and listen I did.”

He looked away. “I regret it to this day.”

“Being an attuned in Cenararian army is both a blessing and a curse.” He spat to the side.

“They’ll give you special training, teach you how to use your talent, make you the best out of the best. Then they tell you to slaughter your way through the enemy grunt troops find and kill the general then slaughter your way back to camp.”

“After you take the city they’ll make you locate the hiding spots of that same general and tell you to rape his wife to death, dash the head of his baby against a wall, then put the rest of the children to death.”

“I killed the wife as soon as possible, pretending to get too carried away. I couldn’t do anything for the children. Not unless I, and my squadmates wanted to suffer the same. This happened over and over and over again, until I became numb to it all, telling myself over and over that what I did was in the name of king and country.”

He sighed “That what I did was right.”

“But when I see a man laughing as he holds down a women and ravages her, when I see other men make the children watch?”

“I could never say that that was right.”

“Never.”

“My company and I were the best of the best, we were trained to be. It became a curse, they gave us all the black jobs, the jobs that had to do with the death of young ones and the burning of cities, I was glad and and horrified at the same time. I could prevent the emotional torture that others would inflict, but the burden of those deaths fell on me.”

“I hate them for it.” His lips curled into a snarl, an expression I didn’t see often.

“I saved as many of the children as I could, and if you look around you’ll see some of them have joined the company. It was good thing…until they found out, the arbiters are not a gentle force, and what they made me do almost broke me. I whipped five of them to death, young children, mind you, and I whipped them to death. That was when I decided it was time to leave, it took me a full year to have the opportunity to kill those arbiter bastards and get my company outta there, a full year! Even then we were pursued. I don’t regret any of it.”

“I look at what we are doing now” He gestured around at the bustling camp, laughter abounding and the fire running high,

“And I can’t think that this is evil. We raid with honour!” He laughed, “at least as much honor as raiders can have. We don’t rape, or burn the village down, we have a code, and by that code we will abide. We take only what we need and leave enough for the villagers to survive off of, we kill only those we have absolutely have to kill, and try to carry out our raids with stealth to prevent bloodshed from happening.”

“When I ask myself if what I’m doing is evil? I remember what I would be doing, and know that this is the best alternative.”