Post by Roland Dallas on Jun 4, 2019 7:09:02 GMT
Rolland lifted his head, his chip of ice blue eyes seeming to gaze off somewhere into the middle distance. There was a peculiar, unaccountable sadness communicated by the rigid and deliberate neutrality of his expression, once more giving the weathered skin of his visage a wooden impression.
"We do what is necessary Lt. Dallas..." A voice filtered into his head across the gulf of time, a ghost rising up from the abyss of the ages, a revenant come to take it's revenge. Unbidden, Roland saw, as real as it had been three decades ago, fire as far as the eye could see. The Faunus War had reached though point where the only logical resistance that could by put forth by the numerically inferior faunus was to employ guerrilla tactics. Out of the night like wolves they had come, harassing the flanks of the Atlesian forces to which Roland had been attached, and losses had been extreme, human soldiers as good as a three legged plough horse against the faunus' night vision. Sabotage spread through the camp like scabies at one of the badland brothels in Menagerie. Finally Terrel Moon had decided the only answer was to set fire to the great tracts of forest which were too dense to permit the passage of his forces, but perfectly suited to hiding a few hundred faunus commandos. It looked like hell, like the work of a devil. Roland could not bring himself to look over his shoulder, not now any more than then, at the man responsible.
"I don't have any claim to what is right..." He said, dry mouth making him sound slightly hoarse, as his eyes, sad brilliant sapphires in a carved oaken face, swiveled towards Aegle's, "My generation had it's chance, and I think it is safe to say that we collectively bought the snake oil and put our faith in the wrong people. You can't know what it was like, those fancy history books try to make it out as something noble, something other than a whole heap of boss hogs in fancy suits trying to get the biggest piece of pie. The thing I fear more than anything is seeing another war like that in my lifetime."
He removed the hat from his head, as if he meant to hold it to his breast in a perfectly archaic solemnity with the departed, but instead he ran the brim through his hands, trying to correct some imperceptible flaw in the shape.
"Kids have grown up thinking what we did was right, was our best. I can see it now, the way you look at my brass, the way you talk to a man in uniform compared to a man in a duster caked with two days in the saddle. As if what I have to say is worth a damn." He told her, apologetically, "I don't know what right is. I only know what it ain't, and I'm not convinced I ever did any right by the world. I'm not convinced I can, you can't teach an old dog new tricks."
He sighed deeply.
"It ain't up to me anymore. It's up to you youngsters. I've given over what's left of my life to trying to make you and kids like you ready to make that choice. But every year, I see my students graduate, heads so full of the same snake oil that we've been buying for generations, that they just can't imagine a different way of things. Every last one."
Then he looked up at Aegle through the corner of his eyes.
"Except for you that is. You went to Beacon."
"We do what is necessary Lt. Dallas..." A voice filtered into his head across the gulf of time, a ghost rising up from the abyss of the ages, a revenant come to take it's revenge. Unbidden, Roland saw, as real as it had been three decades ago, fire as far as the eye could see. The Faunus War had reached though point where the only logical resistance that could by put forth by the numerically inferior faunus was to employ guerrilla tactics. Out of the night like wolves they had come, harassing the flanks of the Atlesian forces to which Roland had been attached, and losses had been extreme, human soldiers as good as a three legged plough horse against the faunus' night vision. Sabotage spread through the camp like scabies at one of the badland brothels in Menagerie. Finally Terrel Moon had decided the only answer was to set fire to the great tracts of forest which were too dense to permit the passage of his forces, but perfectly suited to hiding a few hundred faunus commandos. It looked like hell, like the work of a devil. Roland could not bring himself to look over his shoulder, not now any more than then, at the man responsible.
"I don't have any claim to what is right..." He said, dry mouth making him sound slightly hoarse, as his eyes, sad brilliant sapphires in a carved oaken face, swiveled towards Aegle's, "My generation had it's chance, and I think it is safe to say that we collectively bought the snake oil and put our faith in the wrong people. You can't know what it was like, those fancy history books try to make it out as something noble, something other than a whole heap of boss hogs in fancy suits trying to get the biggest piece of pie. The thing I fear more than anything is seeing another war like that in my lifetime."
He removed the hat from his head, as if he meant to hold it to his breast in a perfectly archaic solemnity with the departed, but instead he ran the brim through his hands, trying to correct some imperceptible flaw in the shape.
"Kids have grown up thinking what we did was right, was our best. I can see it now, the way you look at my brass, the way you talk to a man in uniform compared to a man in a duster caked with two days in the saddle. As if what I have to say is worth a damn." He told her, apologetically, "I don't know what right is. I only know what it ain't, and I'm not convinced I ever did any right by the world. I'm not convinced I can, you can't teach an old dog new tricks."
He sighed deeply.
"It ain't up to me anymore. It's up to you youngsters. I've given over what's left of my life to trying to make you and kids like you ready to make that choice. But every year, I see my students graduate, heads so full of the same snake oil that we've been buying for generations, that they just can't imagine a different way of things. Every last one."
Then he looked up at Aegle through the corner of his eyes.
"Except for you that is. You went to Beacon."