Gulcasa gritted his teeth from the pain he received all over his body. He then continued his limping path to exiting the hospice. He passed through a plethora of injured soldiers laid upon their cots. Gulcasa determined. That he was one lucky bastard to have weathered through the battlefield intact. There were men in the hospice who had survived through cannon fire, with their limbs missing. Some men who were so deathly pale-they looked like the ghosts tethered to their flesh. The idea of having it much worse sent a daunting shiver of realization down Gulcasa’s spine. Finally, near the exit, Gulcasa quickened his limping pace. He endured the coursing pain, rushing through his body. Gulcasa cursing himself for a fool, again at the protestation of his muscles. There were two strange men standing out in front of the hospice, guarding the entrance. They were oddly garbed against the uniformity of the Registrar military camp. They had foreign black and gold silks underneath their plated steel. They ignored Gulcasa, as he limped passed them. They seemed to be blocking people from entering, rather than the people exiting. Gulcasa wondered who those men were and their odd garments of steel and silks. 'Why would they be guarding the hospice?' Shaking his head out from his musings, he ignored the odd curiosity. Gulcasa spotted the picketed path that was strung around the Military camp. The picketed path was like roads pathing into a city of white ant hills. He walked past two Registrar soldiers whose uniforms he was accustomed to two. The two soldiers were in their conscripted color of red crimson, edged by shadowed black of Registrar’s standing army. The two men glanced him for an instant than ignored him with the disgust of men unaccustomed to his appearance. Gulcasa with his high Perception could hear the men talking about the local yokels demeaning the uniform of the army. Gulcasa reddening at the insult froze his limping form. He pondered down his person with surfing realization, that he was wearing only the white undergarments of his uniform. The cloth was smudged with pools of sweat stains and splatters of dry crusted blood. A roiling growl deep in Gulcasa spoke out its desire. Suddenly, He felt hungry... he was hungry before, but this time... it was like a dark hole inside him that was consuming through the flesh of his organs. Panicking at the thought, Gulcasa waited a few more moments till the pain passed. After his stomach had protested its plea, the pain lessened down in a volume. But still, the sinking cramps in his stomachs had edged him to find food. Ignoring the glances of disgust that some of the soldiers were directed to him. He continued onwards through a haphazard assortment of camp tents. Gulcasa followed the picketed line out from the Medicas district and into a conjoining path that leads to the mess tents. As Gulcasa continued onwards, his limp slowly lessen. The muscles of his body decreased down in pain by half. Relieved at the decreased sensation, and sensing his body healing through the alteration of Blood Status. Gulcasa exited a path into a crowd of men, who were lined up heading towards an opened mess tent. Rattles of pitch bowls and brass spoons edged Gulcasa to line up with the men who were gathering for their daily midday meal. Annoyed at back glances he received from the men ahead of Gulcasa, made him redden with embarrassment. Yes, he was the odd one out in his white undergarments compared to the sea of Registrar Red that was surrounding him. And yes, he did look a bit bedraggled and sicken from the stains of his clothing. But it doesn’t mean he should be stared at and handled like a leper, intruding in their day. Annoyed, he stepped, as the line grew shorter each bell of a quarter candle. After several minutes have passed, Gulcasa was finally at his eager destination. A big-bellied man, with mutton chops crusting the side of his burns, stared at him with mechanical disgust. “Bowl?” The man grunted out. Gulcasa dumbfoundedly looked at the man, then gawked down at his bare hands. ‘Ah shite.’ “No bowl, get out of line and get back your military assigned bowl. Then come back here, at the back of the line.” Gulcasa still gawking down at his hands, cursing himself for a fool had his stomach suddenly growl out loud in displeasure. Gulcasa’s stomach edged him down to a path of violence. Holding fraying nerves, and a hungry stomach. Gulcasa dumbfoundedly continued to look between the huge metal bowl that was boiling with the brew at the side of the big man and the man’s ladle. The man seems to ready to hit him with it. With no other choice, Gulcasa told him the truth. “I don’t have a bowl at the moment.” “Then go get one.” sneered the man. “I just came out from the Medicas Hospice.” The big man stared down to scrutinized Gulcasa attire, at the blood stains and sweat marks. “You don’t look injured to me.” He said blatantly, implying that Gulcasa was a load of sheep dung. Irritation displayed on Gulcasa’s face at being practically called out a liar. “It’s true.” “Hurry up! Get out of line!” A gruff looking soldier behind him hollered. The fat man with the ladle scrutinized Gulcasa heavily at this point. He was annoyed at him and the man behind him who was impatient to get his daily rations. The fat man relented with a sigh, “Jeffrey, go get this man a bowl!” A brown haired young boy surfaced his head out from the mess of metal and steam of the tent. “Yes-sh sir!” He replied. “Not those new clean bowls, get him one of the other stacks.” The old man grunted, eyeing Gulcasa with a scorned eyebrow. The boy, Jeffrey came back with a bowl unwashed with dried up substances stuck into its interior. Gulcasa took a whiff of it and step back from the odor of cooked old meat and the aroma of aged soup. The fat man forced the bowl onto Gulcasa bare hands. He then took out his ladle and dipped it into the stew up, to scoop up a wallop of brew than dump it into the grimy bowl that Gulcasa was gingerly holding. “Gon-on, git.” The fat man with the mutton chop sideburns hollered with his common upbringing. Gulcasa, having a stew of hot brew brimming his newly acquired bowl, hurriedly rushes out of the line. He continued onwards past the line, as soldiers who were once behind him glowered at his back. Huddled up in embarrassment, he found a seat in the dining mess at the corner of the mess tent. The seat was a wooden stump, roughly cut with small splinters spiking out. He groaned sitting down onto that mess, but he soldiered through for the food. With no brass spoon given, he gingerly opened his mouth to pour down steaming brew. Taking minor sips and swallows, he continued his chewing and swallowing frenzy to sate his stomach from rebelling. Tongue burning, he guzzled down the stew. Gulcasa stood up to wait on seconds and thirds, sate down his hunger. *** During Gulcasa’s third helping of sipping and swallowing his stew. A gruff and grizzled older soldier purposely barged himself against Gulcasa back. Gulcasa spilled most of the leftover content within his bowl onto the stomped upon grassy dirt. The man and his companion both chortled out a loud at Gulcasa's horrified expression. Gulcasa outraged at the loss of his third helping, suddenly stood up to face the gruff and grizzled man... For some odd and strange perspective, Gulcasa towered over the two big and gruff soldiers. He wasn’t normally this tall when he fully stood up. Gulcasa recalled his last measured height at 5’7 feet, but now though, he felt and perceived taller than his previous height. ‘6 foot?’ Gulcasa figuratively guessed. The two gruff men stared up to Gulcasa’s eye level. They’re face turned from cock-sure to hesitant once Gulcasa stood up. Swallowing their doubts. “What boy?” The man that pushed him said. Gulcasa still musing about his heights, turned back his attention to the man in another time would have been a giant to him. The gruff soldier was muscular, not as muscular as Gulcasa was now, but the thickness of a veteran who’ve been through more than one campaign. “Why did you push me?” Gulcasa growled out. His stomach also growling out at the outrage of it all. The Gruff man’s face turned red at Gulcasa’s accusation. He was hesitant in his outraged, but his companion took a stand beside him, encouraging the man to reply to Gulcasa’s towering form. “Cuz’s Yokels like yous, shouldn’t be in this outfit!” The veteran sneered. “Look at you, you’re not even in uniform. Disgraceful.” He uttered. Gulcasa’s face brightens with embarrassed outraged. Embarrassed at himself for his meager attire, and outraged at the man who pushed him for the cause. “I just came out from the Medicas.” Gulcasa muttered a growl. Excusing himself for his attire he was in at the moment. “You daft boy?” The companion beside him said. “Yokels like you should be dead amongst the 97th. Cannon fodder for the crows and Rhaodian wasterals.” The veteran of a soldier spouted. By all the heavens, Regis haft watch, this man was infuriating Gulcasa to respond in violence. He took a step forward with his fist tightly clenched. “Take that back.” Gulcasa growled out, not of a man outraged by anger, but a man with the cold resolve of violence. “Ya gonna do something bout it? Yokel?” The atmosphere around the mess area was full of gunpowder tension, ready to explode from a moment’s notice. Every soldier around them was standing, waiting for the violence to start. A man sitting down on a much better stump than the rest of the soldiers stood up from his place. Judging from his epaulets which had three stripes and a star, that the man was Colonel. He turned to face the three individuals who were ready to spark the building tension. Gulcasa saw the man’s gruff and weathered face, and the black eyepatch covering his left eye. He was bald, with a plethora of scars all around his dome scalp. The man eyed the two soldiers who were facing Gulcasa than eyed him for a once over. The frown that was plastered on his face, turned with a sickening and cruel smile. “Tis is a violent age.” The Colonel said, in his common tongue. Rare for a Colonel to be part of the common folk. Usually, those who are promoted to roles of command were members of the peerage. But this man. Beyond his birth had managed to fight through politics and war, got himself up to such a high position of power within the Registrar Military. “If your ladies want to brawl.” The Colonel sneered. “Than scoop up your shit, and come with me.” He commanded mannered in violence.