The man himself steps forward, having been watching with other armed rebels while the drama unfolded. He doesn’t address you or the Boscht, or the awkward standoff between the two of you. The old solider is a man who has hunted down slavers relentlessly since the day his wife and daughters were taken from him. His time in the gladiatorial pits has only made him more merciless, his appetite for dead Imps even more unsatiated. He takes a knee in front of the smaller Obdinian.
“Tell me your name, young one.”
…Frohl.” The Obdinian youth mumbles.

“Frohl. That’s a good name. A strong name. Can you be strong, Frohl?”

The young alien nods, not cough in distress like his mother. Sometimes when you look at Hail, look at the hard years and bloody hands writ in his dark expression, you forget that he was once a father himself. You don’t know how Obdinian age works, whether this adolescent is 5 or 15 in human years, but he does seem noticeably younger than a mature age of his species. Hail nods, his hand on the young aliens shoulder.

“I need you to listen to me, Frohl. Your clan-father and your clan-sister are not coming back. They killed your clan-father. They killed your clan-sister. And even then, before that, they took your future and killed it. You were not yet born and yet they took everything from you.” The Company supplies of superior quality weaponry has been thin on the ground since the blockade cut your off. Hail presses a shoddy-looking rifle into the young alien’s hands, not ungently. “This is your chance to take theirs. Even one of theirs. Just one. And then one more.”

[3/4]