THERE WERE MASTERS AND SERVANTS,

[agogemod]

WHO? Everybody!
WHAT? Prepare for the historic Battle of Valmy.
WHEN? Mid September 1792, France.
ANYTHING ELSE? Violence, as always. Please warn in subject lines for anything beyond physical violence, and move to a personal journal if things go beyond PG-13.

IT'LL BE FINE;

between sainte-menehould and valmy,
1792: revolutionary france.

read the valmy setting infopage

DEPARTING JERUSALEM

The clean up of the battle is slog. A full day of piling together corpses. Noting down famous men and women. In the heat, the bodies bloat and become fetid, and the smell builds until it cannot be ignored. Insects swarm, and vultures blot out the sun, swooping down and taking back what's been left for nature. Stragglers and the poor pick through the field for scattered weapons and valuables to collect. The bodies of important men and women are taken for burial; the rest are left for scavengers, animal or human.

It's in this gruesome scene that the order comes:

PACK UP, GET READY TO MOVE OUT. THE TARGETS HAVE BEEN NEAUTRALIZED. WE MAKE OUR DEPARTURE LOCAL TIME, DAWN.

DEPLOYMENT: VALMY, FRANCE. IT'S GOING TO BE A WET ONE. WE ARE EXPECTING MORE TRANSFERS ON ARRIVAL.

The present COST soldiers that have been in strict cover begin finishing their work, if they've decided to help the army move out, tend to the wounded, or clean up after the dead. There is no sign of the Commander yet, but maybe you recognise some of your fellow operatives. They seem be taking advantage of a particular event that maybe you stopped to see, maybe you didn't.

Saladin beheads Reynald de Chattilion and his words fill the camp as much as the news of their next move.

A king does not kill a king, Saladin says to King Guy, and the orders run like wildfire through the camp: next they take Jerusalem, and it's in this march, that when the rest of the army moves on that COST slips away. A order to fall back in steady increments; when the time comes, Saladin's army is out of sight, marching toward Jerusalem.

In the midst of all of this, COST operatives begin to disappear, here one moment and gone in another. Such a strange sight, more than one native soldier muses, must be the fault of heat exhaustion.

The Time-Step

The transfer begins, and it starts like a vibrating heat on the collar bone, not painful, not to start with. Just a hum of sensation. But the vibration spreads. Veteran COST soldiers often refer to this phenomena as 'the buzz'. The sensation builds, feeling not unlike standing near a great engine, or the wind rattling the branches of a great tree. There is long a moment of motion sickness, and one cannot always be sure if it is you that is shaking from the inside out, or the world that is shaking you from the outside in. It may just be better to close your eyes against the growing nausea as the world blurs out of focus. A star shines in the distance. You may hear the faint rustling of leaves. Some swear they hear voices in this moment, indistinct words echoing off nothingness. Some swear they feel a touch of the divine. One thing is for sure: One moment you are here, and the next, you are not.

The soldier next to you might not have been so clever, when it stops and you find yourself standing in the green fields of France, September 1792. She or he throws up as the vibration fades. Everyone seems to stumble sideways for a second. The world turns, and then rights itself. The heat is gone, replaced with cold and wet.



ARRIVAL FOR TRANSFERS FROM JERUSALEM

It's raining.

You're inside of a tent, (another one), and it already seems to be bustling with movements, they call to you in French, which you understand if you did not already: hurry now, they say, you need out of that cuircass before they're spotted. The rest of the army will be following, and the Prussian army to meet it. There isn't much time to loiter around getting sick in this weather. You have a kit to pick up, and perhaps training to do.

ARRIVAL FOR NEW RECRUITS

The first thing you'll notice is the sound of rain. You awake in a tent that seems to be sheltering against the ruins of a farm house, and everything feels damp. It's a wet September morning in 1792, and when the woman across from you in the tent speaks, you understand it to be French. If you didn't understand French already, you sure do now.

If you ask, she'll explain: you are fighting for France, as the Prussian army intends to invade and sack Paris. You may be a citizen, you may be a soldier; you have risen up in defense of France all the same.

She asks you what role you wish to play in the coming battle, and provides you with clothes and supplies to suit. She won't let you leave until you can pass for a native of France, setting up camp in the rain pouring down between Sainte-Menehould and Valmy.

MISSION OBJECTIVE

The forces of COST have gotten word that Regency operatives have gone to Revolutionary France, intending to turn the tides in one of the most historically important battles in European history. The Battle of Valmy, which decided the entirety of the French Revolution and all that follows it, must be won by the French army, as it was in history.

Unlike the incident in Jerusalem-- you may remember it, you may not-- COST has managed to get here before the day of the battle. Make no mistake; it's coming soon. But this time, you and your fellow travelers have time to prepare.

The French Army has managed to get ahead as well; they've maneuvered around the Prussians, cutting off their supply lines. You and your fellow soldiers are now chasing the invaders as they head for Paris. This is time to prepare and ready your forces. The fight is coming soon.



STAY DRY, STAY SECURE

A few things are strongly remembered about the Battle of Valmy; one of them is the rain. It's really pouring out here, and you're in the thick of it. Rain is a dangerous thing for an army such as this; during this era of warfare, gunpowder was an essential commodity, and wet gunpowder is useless gunpowder. Secure the supplies, rescue supply carriages from muddy sinkholes, steer the horses, check supplies, and try to keep the essential materials for victory dry.

TRAIN UP

General Kellerman and Dumouriez are training peasants in basic military tactics. While veterans make up the core of this army, there are a substantial amount of peasants, and most here have never seen battle in their lives, or ever held a gun. Many are equipped with only rudimentary farming equipment. Help train or be trained so you're ready when the Prussian army arrives.

MEDICAL

Plenty of people need medical attention, not from battle wounds so much as malnutrition and overwork. These are mostly peasant laborers, and they're not entirely fit for battle. Help people get as rested and ready as possible.

ESPIONAGE

We have reason to believe some of the 'peasants' are actually Regency spies. Root them out by seeing keeping an ear to the ground for suspicious activity. They don't know all the words to La Marseillaise? Off with their head! Be careful not to attack time travellers on your side, though!

MORALE

Keep spirits high! Sing, dance, and generally try to keep people from succumbing to fear. Despite the rain and the mud, despite the seemingly impossible odds, the average soldier is full of excitement for battle, ready to fight to the death to defend their freedom.

SUPPLY AND SEEK

Since the French army is behind the invading force, they've cut off the enemy's supply lines. This means that, should the Prussians become encamped here for any amount of time, they won't be able to send for food and munitions from their home country. It's your job to make sure it stays that way. You may see someone riding on a swift horse in a Prussian uniform, attempting to sneak through French lines and try to get word back to mother Prussia. Chase them down, and make sure they can't get their reports back home so a second force isn't sent-- or worse.

BE A COMMUNITY ORGANIZER

This battle is one that's widely known for its popular support-- for the most part, France unites against this invading force with alarming cohesion. Someone gifted with a clever mind, or perhaps a clever tongue, may be able to use that. The French army passes farms and peasant villages along the way-- make rousing speeches, and try to recruit more to the cause, secure donations of food and weaponry, anything you can get.

read the valmy setting infopage

NAV. NETWORK LOGS OOC PLURK DISCORD

Comments

[trample]

"Wait and hope."

There's a lot he could say about how the past affects the present, and messing around with space and time could very well lead to some major differences in the future -- but he won't. He's not feeling up to anything but playing a perfect game here, with some smalltalk in the meanwhile.

"Not as punishment, though it could have easily been mistaken for it. No, my squad leader was just that much of a clean freak. Builds character, for sure, but..." He leaves the rest to the man's imagination. "I figure a dirty bum like me's the last of anyone's worries. You, on the other hand, look like you're in the prime of your life."

It was half a joke, half a compliment. Eren threw a neat curve ball, certain that if the fellow was half the man he thought he was, he could snag it. There was something about the way he carried himself that made Eren almost jealous.

[mylawn]

That has 76 raising an eyebrow, because despite what Eren says, it definitely sounds like punishment. It's not something he would have done to his own men, and he certainly had a tendency to administer some tough love. 76 likes to think, however, that he was at least productive about it.

"You'd be surprised."

Shady government experiments will do that to you, but of course 76 has no real plans to talk about his own storied history. It's much easier to turn the conversation back on Eren, much like he takes a few long strides to catch the ball and fire it back.

"You're military?"

[trample]

"Was. I figure most of us here had answered our own call to duty at some point or another." He thinks about Midnighter and nearly has a laugh imagining him in the military complex before shaking his head and catching the ball by the skin of his teeth. "Most."

The same way 76 keeps to himself about his past, Eren keeps his own mentions vague. There's no bigger buzz-kill than his life story. And for what little they've got going on just yet, there's a certain level of respect Eren affords to anyone who shares the same sort of crankiness he was often called eccentric for.

"I take it you're no different. But if I had the choice here and now, I don't think I'd get very involved, myself."

And the ball's lugged in a steep, overhead arc this time.

[mylawn]

"Haven't met everyone yet."

But the COST soldiers that know what they're doing--the ones who seem to have experience. 76 doesn't know if that's from prior military knowledge or training they've received. It's vaguely reassuring, and would be more so if he wasn't entertaining the possibility of having been kidnapped, but at least he's not surrounded by incompetents.

He wouldn't be surprised if most of them had military backgrounds, though it does open up the uncomfortable possibility that COST knows exactly who they're plucking out of their own times.

As far as Eren's comment goes, 76 offers a shrug.

"I had business back home."

He imagines most people do, not that there's much to be done about it now.

[trample]

"And now you don't." Eren says it with a lick of sarcasm, but he means well enough besides that -- he certainly understands the feeling. "No plans, no home. It's all gone caput."

He returns 76's shrug, made all the more exaggerated by the fact that his glove makes his hand look huge. Quickly tucking his free hand into his crutch (leaning it entirely into your shoulder hurts like hell), he then places said glove over his face in that classic thinking look.

"If I were any younger, I might have been incredibly frustrated." That wasn't to say there weren't reasons to be frustrated besides having your life's efforts reduced to nothing, but that wasn't the point he was trying to make here. "And if you were any younger, I imagine you'd have less reason to look so wired."

[mylawn]

76’s eyebrows furrow as he tosses the the ball back. He won’t give up on home so easily—not when Ana is there and not when there are so many answers he still needs. If this is time travel, shouldn’t he be able to return to the exact point at which he left? It all depends on whether or not COST lets him go, which doesn’t seem in the cards.

At least not for now. The next thing out of Eren’s mouth has 76 looking just the slightest bit quizzical.

“How old are you, kid?”

He talks like he’s been around the block—certainly looks it, in some ways, but 76 can see that he’s young, underneath it. Has him wondering what kind of life he’s lived.

[trample]

If 76 is quizzical, Eren is perplexed. His age was generally the last thing on his mind, aside from being a countdown to the inevitable. While reaching out for the ball, his head does a few tilting motions, signalling that he's thinking real hard on this -- he kind of...has to.

"If it's September now, then I'll be twenty-one in a few months." He holds his chin with his forefinger and thumb. "...Probably."

His shoulders shrug (they sure were doing a lot of that) and it leads directly into a straight toss. He was probably half this guy's age or even less, and now that he thought about it, he probably ought to be taking advantage of that wealth of experience when he had the chance.

"Not sure how much that matters when we're hopping through time like it's nobody's business."

[mylawn]

76 doesn't know why it should matter to him. He'd been younger than this when he enlisted, and not long after that he'd signed his body over to the government for genetic experimentation. It had been desperate times, of course, but looking back on it a few decades later is a little complicated. Wars are fought by young people--he's the one who's overstayed his welcome. Perhaps he just resents the fact that kids are still being made to fight, for various reasons. That there really is no end to any of this, even across universes.

The catch and return is automatic, this time.

"Time travel's above my pay grade."

It's Winston's department, and he sort of finds himself wishing he could have a consult.

"Seems to me, though, that you could just go back to the moment you left."

[trample]

The moment he left was one he was, in a way, glad to escape. Being able to get away from the fight without consequences left him confused, but doubly relieved. There was so much weight on his shoulders that the pressure would have driven anyone else insane. But him, he just sorta took it. Go figure.

"I think I'll stick around here for a bit." He sounds almost resigned. "Not like they're giving us the option to head home anyway."

[mylawn]

"Glad you have that luxury."

The luxury to be okay with this, and 76 says it with a little more hostility than he perhaps intends. It's not directed towards Eren, but there's some force behind his next throw, like he's trying to take out his frustration on the ball. He's under no illusions about being able to get home, but that doesn't mean he isn't going to fight for it, if given the opportunity.

"Makes you wonder how long this is gonna take."

[trample]

"As long as it takes." He says this with a confidence that sounded a little bit like resignation. "That said, the last mission, back in the middle east, took...what, a month? Short? I imagine it won't be any different here."

Eren catches on to the soldier's annoyance, and sympathizes. Anyone who's been in the business knows how infuriating it is that things are out of control. And not knowing the full extent of the plan only suits to amplify that.

"And if it is, command's probably more pissed off than you are. Well, for different reasons, of course. That aside..." He caught the ball a while ago, but while talking he had paused and lowered his hand. A first so far. "You hear that? In the distance. Sounds to me like people are getting ready to march. If they're missing us in head count, and find out why..." He's got this uncomfortable smile on his face. "We'll probably be in a world of shit."

[mylawn]

Rest assured, 76 knows he's in this for the long haul. The only comfort is that if time travel is involved, then theoretically he can be returned to exactly the moment he's left. If he's roped into years of this, however, and ages accordingly, he'll have ended up wasting a lot of time either way.

None of that is something he's going to field to a stranger, but a distraction comes up either way. 76 takes a moment to listen, then nods affirmatively.

"Better get back, then."

He punctuates that with one final toss of the ball. It's Eren's after all.

"Maybe we'll be able to play a real game after baseball's invented."

[trample]

And that was that. When all was said and done, it was a good way to kill time. But it was more like his shoulder that was killed here. Goddamn was that thing sore from all the maneuvers he had to do just to get his hand on the ball. He was already aching from the walk back...oh well. There was nothing to be done for it. The most he could do was make small talk to take his mind off of it as they walked.

"Come to think of it, I never introduced myself, did I?" It's, unsurprisingly, the last thing on the minds of two overtly serious soldiers playing an intense game of catch while on vacation in centuries-old France. "My name's Kruger."

An easy lie. One so natural that he started believing it himself.

[mylawn]

“Doesn’t much matter to me”

Seeing as the reality of their situation means everyone is going to call themselves what they like. He doesn’t offer a hand in return, simply nodding in acknowledgement of Eren’s name and making it clear that he ins’t offended by the belated introduction.

“76.”

That’s the nice thing, perhaps, about everyone using aliases, at least while their boots are on the ground. No one’s going to blink twice at someone using a number for a name.

[trample]

Eren finds it a bit tongue-in-cheek of the man to use numbers...but then he realizes he's serious. So, 76 it is. Hey, that it's made solely of two characters made it easier to both say and write. And even better, those numbers are right next to each other. Eren comes up with a million different reasons why the name works in his head, but voices none of them. Until it's time to part.

"It's a good name." This is quite possibly the most awkward thing you could said, Eren. "I look forward to working with you. But for now, I've gotta hit the hay. Shoulder's beat."

And he then promptly slips away into a nearby tent to pass out.