<div align="justify"><font color=green>That day, a tall young woman was walking along the Baronian streets, completely alone. A slight breeze picked up and tossed the end of her ponytail, which was peridot-green and stretched from the top of her head down to her waist. This singularly unique trait identified the woman on-sight to nearly half of everyone in the city. Regardless of whether or not one had actually met her, most citizens of Baron City had heard of Rune,
the trouble-maker.
Sporting a sturdy lance and dressed in the worn leather armor of a dragoon-in-training, one could easily identify Rune as a member of the city guard. Frowning, she tore down another flyer off a building, tearing it to shreds and dropping the pieces carelessly to the ground. With a very quiet grunt, she trudged onward, her mind musing darkly over the events of earlier that day.
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"Rune of the 2nd trainee battalion! You are hereby charged with abandonment of your station! How do you plead?"
"Abandonment?" Rune's voice had been quiet and nonchalant, as it normally was. "I didn't abandon Baron...I just...took a little furlough."
"Furlough?!" The commander's face turned such an amusing shade of red. "You! Were! Not! Given! Permission! For! Furlough!"
Rune responded with a shrug. "That's beside the point. I rather felt I deserved one. So I took it."
She'd watched with amusement as the commander furiously struggled to keep his anger under control. After flapping his jaws soundlessly for a few moments, he finally managed to bark out: "You are incorrigible
! This type of behavoir is completely unbecoming of a Dragoon of Baron! You are hereby and indefinitely
suspended from your training and placed under probation until such time that you can prove you have the maturity and right-mindedness required to join our ranks!"[/quote]
Rune snorted as she ripped down another flyer. "Maturity" and "right-mindedness"...yeah right. Mindless obedience and conformity, more like...they wanted her to be as retractable as a brainless watchdog.
Honor...prestige...comraderie...all these things you could attain through becoming an ever-so-esteemed Baronian dragoon -- so long as you let them squash the individual out of you. Rune was learning more and more, that she was
not willing to trade her personality away like that.
And still they have me on their leash, she sneered to herself, looking down at the flyer in her hand. Naturally, her probation included mandatory, menial community work...and when these flyers had popped up overnight, the least favorite dragoon was sent out with other undesirables to take them all down.
"'Unsavory types,' huh? 'Adventure'...'new lands'...blah blah..." She smiled. "'Loot.'" Whoever had written this knew how to appeal to
real people. The next line she whispered to herself in a sing-song voice, a slow grin creeping over her features. "'Law-abiding...need not apply'...well now..." She smirked. "They don't want any leashed puppies for
this job..."
Rune glanced around and began folding the flyer carefully, forming a paper airship. Then, she climbed up onto a nearby bench, setting it free on the wind. The same breeze from before picked it up, and carried it along, away from Rune.
A very small smirk seemed to somehow settle over Rune's entire face. Shouldering her lance and turning around, she headed for the Belching Dragon. Upon reaching the establishment, she entered without hesitation, ignoring the stares her appearance solicited and heading straight for the basement.</font></div>
Edited by: pd Rydia at: 1/27/03 3:40:19 pm