The soldiers arrived a couple of minutes after I finished eating breakfast.
"We hope you know why we came here."
"I understand." Replied Elizabeth.
The soldiers entered the small cabin, one of them even hitting his head on the entrance. The other one just limited himself to read the decree.
"By royal law, every citizen that is of age and under 25 years old is, hereby required to enlist him, herself or neither to the army of the kingdom."
He stared at me and then took a long look at the paper.
"Alexi... Will you protect our graceful kingdom from any enemy?"
"I- I will."
The man looked at me with doubtful eyes.
"Fine then, please grab anything you find necessary, and accompany us. We will present to you your introduction group."
"Welcome to your first day as a soldier."
The man who hit his head quickly interjected.
Yep, I had become a soldier for my kingdom.
Great.
I said my goodbyes to Elizabeth and Clarisse, we tried not to cry, but in the end, I couldn't control myself. I loved them, and now I was going to not see them for at least 4 years.
The two soldiers took me to a worn-down carriage and I sat with two other men.
"I didn't know there were people living in the middle of this forest." Said one of them
"I just knew that Miss Clarisse lived somewhere in the woods, she never said it was this far in." Replied the other.
He was wearing glasses and looked rather tall. The other one was just built like a brick house, he was massive. There's no way he was my age.
"I'm Arthur by the way and that huge fella is Dimitri. But we just cal-"
"But you can call me Dim."
"I'm Alexi."
"Are you perhaps Miss Clarisse's son?" Asked Arthur.
"You can say that."
"She never mentioned she had any."
"And we have certainly never seen anyone like you"
I never really liked going to town, Abilene was full of strange people. I just enjoyed myself staying in the cottage and preferred exploring the forest on my own. This had really negatively impacted my social skills in a way.
But I was contempt with that, I would rather prefer to be alone in the woods than to have to interact with other people. Elizabeth and Clarisse were clearly the exception.
They kept asking me questions about Clarisse, she had become a teacher to most children in Abilene. Dim and Arthur were interested in hearing more about how Clarisse was, she apparently was really secretive with her private life.
I just kept on answering their questions.
"Is she a good cook?"
"Huh? The one who mostly cooks there is Elizabeth, so I think not"
"Does she have a special someone?"
"I don't know."
The questions were becoming more personal as time went on. Eventually, more and more people gathered around me to ask more questions about Clarisse. We were now 10 in the carriage.
She was loved by everyone in Abilene. Everyone knew who she was, but no one knew anything about her.
We, at last, arrived at the training grounds.
"Everyone, gather around"
One of the soldiers who picked us was talking in the middle of all the parked carriages. We were in the middle of a green field and the 3 carriages were stationed in a circle.
Some barracks were visible in the background, and I could see a group of people running laps.
One of the soldiers, no, he was wearing a general uniform. So he must be General Wallenstein, he was the one in charge of sending us into enemy territory well prepared. We had to since we were now facing off against The Borrower unit of The Empire.
Somehow the Empire had managed to gather enough Borrowers to enlist into a special unit. They first recuperated what was a village we took from them, a week after the Queen's death, and were now in a process of further advancing towards the kingdom.
Luckily we had somehow managed to fend the Borrowers off, for long enough that they started to retreat.
I had somehow missed what the General said, and he had asked me a question. Now everyone was looking at me.
"I said, am I clear?" His uniform was all black with a few medals hanging from his chest. He wore the Naldelian Coat of arms, a black horse standing in three legs, as a badge.
The General was looking at me with serious eyes, he had clearly asked something important.
"Yes sir" I spoke in a soft voice.
"Good then, I hope no one does that then. We don't want to lose a few cadets"
I whispered to Arthur.
"What did I agree to?"
"Shh, not now."
General Wallenstein overheard us and began approaching Arthur and me.
"It appears you two are going to need some extra training. If you are not going to listen to some simple orders."
We spent the next weeks cleaning the bathroom floors.