The Sunspire Just think of your prospects, my darling take heed:

germanicus julius caesar learned two things that day.

one, that he was unholy.
two, that among the déorwine clan, it was he who was the heathen.

to step out of line once in formation was to invite a beating from your superior officer. germancius had not been exempt from a stumble or, when he was younger, joking about behind the back of the instructing captain. therefore he had earned marks still existent beneath his greatly disdained stormcloak. 

it was the training such pain enforced that kept the man calm now. for within his heart he was incensed, thrumming with a healthy worry that his service to the woman might end in death. but he would not have pledged himself to célnes if there was not some modicum of trust. even now she raised his name above their voices. he was a flawed vessel, but something to bear water all the same.

the soldier remained with limbs rigid and eyes fixed on some distant point, willing that he become a fixture of the land rather than their focus.