Asidhara nodded with a pleased, friendly smile almost immediately upon seeing Hashel's reaction. Ensnared or not, he was the closest thing she could call a friend now (beyond her retinue consisting of Gem, anyway), and she needed as many as she could find.

"I understand, as do mine. Your men, my men, they are the only ones worthy of the closest graces of my loyalities now. My plan is thu-"

Kwftwit! ting, kshtt...

Asidhara felt the rose shatter before she saw it, an instinctive response of her glamour being acted upon by an outside force. Her eyes locked on the arrow now firmly clutched in Hashel's hand, and then drifted into the firer like a river in a daze.

"He saw us!" she hissed in frustration and immediate urgency, "Quickly, kill him before he can tell the others!"

Raising her left fist, Asidhara's fingers and gauntlet immediately glazed over with the ambient moisture within the air, a snap-frost instantaneously covering said gauntlet with ice. Swinging her arm imperiously at Sergeant Ark, she flicked her fingers open, and her gauntlet returned to normal, dislodged water-crystals flying off in varying directions...

Meanwhile, however... Sergeant Ark found himself suddenly glazed over with a milimeter-thin sheet of ice, the exthermiate spell leeching the heat from his body, stiffening his joints and preventing his movement.

((Exthermite, a lower-level freeze spell. Jack probably could break out of it, but not likely without some effort. Things don't look well for him.))

Jack shock all over. He was able to retched his right arm free. Thrashing about he fell on his bad foot and let a curse part his lips and shock his hair. On the ground he strung his bow a second time, and aim at a high angle “Halt Thy senses have ye?” He had to use his high and low speak for this moment. “Before ye strike me mayhaps you should converse with a man draped in death.”

“A friend you might be found on the north roof during battle; you bloody half and you glamed Fae.” Jack brought the arrow taught before the blade at his neck. Jack truly didn’t care what happen to him now as long as they heard words and took them to heart.

Hashel eyed Asidhara suspiciously as his blade caressed the neck of his attacker, he'd covered the ground between himself and the bowman in an eyeblink, the Fae's frost spell holding the mad sergeant just long enough for Hashel to place himself in an inviolable position. For a moment shere bloodlust burnt in the half-elf's eyes, all the fury from years of subjugating himself to underhanded discrimination, his frustration at his current situation, everything held balanced on the edge of his masterful blade, skimming skin as close as any lovers hand had a right to.

Hashel gained control, a breath away from bloody vengeance. His eyes still fixed on Asidhara, still listening to the rambling of the madman under his blade. "Commander Johanna, though I am sure no such title could truely hold itself to your true name, understand this much of me before you create any further schemes; I am no dog to command!" Hashel barked, insensed at Asidhara's order to kill, at her imperious tone.

He then turned his attention back to his quarry, eyeing the strange man coldly. "As for you Sergeant, your life is mine by right, half though I may be, I hold a Commander's rank! merecenary or no you must know the laws of this land! At best you can pray for a courts marshal you swine! Now tell me! What madness drives your hand!"

"You are my first catapracht, dear Hashel. Do forgive my tone, as it has been some time since I have been amongst your kind." Asidhara frowned, looking hurt at the half-elf's sudden rebuke of her air of superiority. "Circumstances as they are, you can accept or deny it at a later date."

She stepped toward Sergeant Ark, not taking her eyes off of Hashel's sword and his most impressive form and speed... She wasn't entirely sure it was her right to give him such a title, but it didn't matter. General Astidus' folly had dropped him in her lap, and she had found him acceptable to her standards. This one valued freedom, he did...

She spoke no more, allowing Commander Thalas to deal with the man as he willed.

The word struck Hashel lightly, a half remember lyric in an old bedtime song. His mother's voice, inhumanly beautiful in the ears of a child long since grown, in the ears of any who'd ever heard it.

It was said, by whom and for what purpose Hashel could not recall, that the songs of elves hold magic over lives, that the words entwine with souls to create fates. He felt a shiver etching it's way into his spine, threatening to cause a spasm severe enough to give the sergeant quite a shaving injury. He held his breath for a moment, unwittingly.

That word...

In all the songs of Iriel,
The long forgotten way of shells
'tween the borders, false and fact
may you dwell, my cataphract...

"No My lady, the fault is mine, Forgive my temper, the day grows long and my patience thin." Hashel apologized, not knowing precisely why.

The blade seemed to dissapear, as if by some pretidigitation it was sheathed once more and the scraggly sergeant had been grasped by his neck, hauled to his feet and tossed into the dirt, bereft of his weaponry, disarmed in a gesture by the glowering Prince of Blades.

A small crowd had gathered now, mostly newly recruited conscripts and a few regulars, men at arms looking bewildered at the strange turn of events.

"You! Soldiers! Take this man into custody by my authority, lock him in the stockade for attempted murder and severe disrespect to a superior officer!" Hashel ordered as the regulars immediately began going about their assigned task, too bewildered to operate on anything but orders from a superior.

As the men dragged the sergeant away Hashel returned his attention back to Asidhara.

Asidhara couldn't tear her eyes from Hashel for any length of time. He was kind, brutal, firey, and gentle. Paradoxes all, and so balanced... Body quivering with a sense of something more than what he was, elsewhere... elusive. It filled the old faerie dutchess with a feeling of empowerment she'd not felt in a very long time.

She bowed respectfully at the Commander's reply, nodding with a small gesture of courtly respect.

"As I was saying... Our plan is thusly... Our good General has placed us behind the gate, and surrounding our flanks and rear are phalanxes which are ordered to block our retreat. Archers too, forming a kill-zone encompassing our unit to which there can be no escape. The ogres will pour through the gate, catching us between four sides of certain doom."

Johanna's grave nod did nothing to properly convey the level of direness the unseelie tactician attempted to project with word 'certain doom'.

"I however, intend to secure for us a place to fall back to more favorable ground. By slanting our formation and using the destroyed gate as an improvised obstacle, I believe we can route the ogres into our right flank's keeper. Thus fittingly using the general's "enemy of my enemy" logic agaisnt him, as I feel is the only suitable recompense for his audacity."

She offered her right hand to Commander Thalas, and smiled broadly. "I am certain we can win this with minimal casualties, if we work together. Later, under the waning light of the red moon of battle amid the corpses of our foes... We can discuss your future in more... vivid detail."

Hashel considered Asidhara's words carefully, the tactic seemed sound. By using the enemies numbers against the containment forces, they could force a wedge into their own lines, but what then?

Suddenly he realized the futility of it all. This Fae, this creature of surpassing grace only hinted at in it's current form, was playing games with lives. His passions had threatened to run away with him, but the cold calculation of humanity had once again reasserted itself.

He had not made up his mind about this Fae, and only that could his mind be certain of. His heart however...

He met her hand with his, holding it lightly as he knelt to kiss it in the fashion of a courtly gentleman greeting a well bred Lady, the gesture felt even emptier between two such magnificent egos. "My Lady, I would not besmirch the honor of my men by leading them into a losing fight. But this, this treachery must not go unpunished. It seems the best retribution would be victory, a turning of this bigot's own plans back upon him. I will play this game to my utmost ability, and when the day is won we shall converse more." with that Hashel turned and left, trying in vain to remove Asidhara's eyes from his mind's vision.

Red Jacket was carrying Jack shoulder to shoulder cause of his recent set back of his bad foot “I’ve had enough of this horse shit.” They didn’t even listen to me.

“Me too comrade” red told him. “The non humans are making this worse than it already is. A woman without seniority can’t be a commander, but you can’t get drunk and start taking pop shots at every one of them not now anyways.”

“Who said I was drunk?” Jack said this as clear as day, not a pint had reached his lips since being on call.
“My report and if you go against it I’ll shoot your other foot. Those monsters will get their just deserts; until then don’t get so trigger happy. ” They arrived at the medic tent “I just don’t understand why only one shot.”
“Like you said I’m drunk.” Jack sat on the mat laid on the floor.

“Depending on the next few days it wouldn’t even matter.” General degree only allowed court marshals where the defendant and prosecutor were alive; if there were but one witness there would be no evidence that the victim wasn’t in fact the aggressor. “Just hang low and don’t stick your neck out too far for the rest of this week and it will all pass under the rug.” The medic by the name of Kylo came by in a fuss; Red Jacket shoved him away, so he could have a few last words with the Sergeant.

“You only have one more assignment before we’re putting you on leave.”
“Kay”
“The half in our ranks yes” Jack looked down at his thumbs, and said nothing.

Chapter 1: COMPLETE!