“Some only lounged around and were handed everything they needed. Others grasped what they needed with their own bare hands through various difficulties. Was it any surprise that those who worked for what they had proved to be fitter to survive when push comes to shove?” - Old Folk saying

“Since five!? Wait a second… Aren’t you kids younger than us to begin with?” interceded Malika with some surprise at Erycea’s statement.

“Pretty much. I’m almost fourteen and a half now. Rhia and Wel there turned fifteen not a week ago. Some of our youngest only turned fourteen like a couple months ago,” said Erycea all too nonchalantly at Malika’s outburst. “Just about all of us have been preparing for this since before we were half your age, or even less.”

“Your parents allowed you to do that?” asked Hakim with some obvious doubt. He knew Erycea’s parents were the Captain of the Company and one of his lieutenants. On the other hand, his own parents would have probably yanked his ear and dragged him home that way if he said things like wanting to train to be a warrior from such a young age. Even when he talked to them two years ago they were pretty reluctant.

“Not like I ever wanted to be a scholar or a painter anyway,” said Erycea with a shrug of her shoulders as Rhiannon passed her a skewer of meat that had been broiling on the campfire. She took a bite into a rather tough meat - it wasn’t the good stuff by far, since it was meant to get the kids used to rations - and easily tore it apart with her fangs before she chewed. “When I told mine that I wanted to join the Company when I grew up, they had insisted on the training until then. My mother supervised most of my training herself, even.”

“So did mine, though she soon agreed that Aunt Friede knew better,” said Rhiannon from beside Erycea. The two girls were almost the same age and their mothers had been old friends, so it wasn’t strange for them to develop a friendship as well. “Not all of ours, though. Some were just happy to have us out of their hands and not causing mayhem for everyone instead, ain’t that right, Vlad?”

“Hey, c’mon now, that was like nearly a decade ago!” protested Vladislav from across the campfire. He was a bit of a hellion as a little kid, partly because those who helped take care of him back then spoiled him out of pity of his being orphaned, and he had hated that. Joining Ery’s little group had given him a direction and got him out from the hairs of his caretakers back then.

“My mom didn’t really care either. Then again, she said it herself that she’d be a pretty shitty coach at best, so she was happy to see me getting training from Aunt Friede,” said Aurora, who was a couple months younger than Erycea. The girl was a lot like her mother, slight and slim in build, which made her look even younger than her actual age. “But yea, that’s pretty much the case for just about all of us here.”

“I think Val’s like one of the last to join our group, no?” asked Beth as she shooed away a small bird that perched on her horn. “Really surprised at how well you kept up with the rest of us back then, Val, no joke. Had thought you’d be crying for your ma in like half a day at most.”

“Let’s just say that meeting you guys had been an… eye opening experience for me,” said Valeria as she leaned a bit backwards while supporting herself with one arm. The quarter-orcish girl nursed her drink slowly as the alcohol had started getting to her “but yea, probably running into your bunch is one of the best things that happened to me, even if it got me all bruised up at first.”

“Really… I don't think I got anything to say to that,” said Malika as she shook her head and took another swig from her tankard. The young girl understood quite well that while her batch had trained hard for the past couple of years, there would have been no comparison between them and these kids, who had trained for the same for half or more of their young lives. “That said… how did you deal with the jitters?”

“The what?” asked Erycea in turn.

“You know… that… unpleasant feeling from killing another…” said Malika somewhat haltingly as she spilled out what might have been seen as a weakness by others. “I had not noticed it in the heat of the moment, but after some time it sunk in that I’ve killed other people back there. I felt as if that man’s eyes were staring at my back all this while.”

“Well… for many of us, this was not the first time we killed,” said Erycea in reply, again all too nonchalantly, which caused raised eyebrows from Hakim and Malika, as well as nods from many of the surrounding youngsters.

“Those who had joined the Company for a bit ahead of us should be obvious,” added Ery, as she gestured towards Ayrie, Vlad, Gustav, and the twins. “As for me… I sort of got a head start since I first tore someone’s throat off nearly a decade ago, back at Theodinaz.”

“Our mom took us out to hunt for scumbags last year in Dvergarder,” said Rhiannon while Llewelyn nodded. “I don’t think anyone would miss those thugs. They definitely deserved what they got for coming at us.”

“Hey, my mom also took me out hunting, though that was in Jonkver some months ago,” chimed in Aurora. “I tell you, the guy I got had like this most disgusting look on his face, as if it wasn’t ugly enough already, and the stinkiest breath too! He was all lewd grin until I carved a more permanent grin on his throat, back then. Serves the fucker right.”

“Yeah, pretty much half everyone around this fire got similar stories,” explained Erycea to the baffled pair. “The rest probably don’t, maybe some of them’s feeling the same way you did, but what’s done is done. Either they’ll get through it or they’ll decide that they’re not cut out of this sort of living. I’m betting on all of them toughing it out.”