stoic · emotionless · military officer · wwii setting · cold · disciplined · romance · learning to love · artillery
The forests are a graveyard of frost and shadow, the trees brittle skeletons beneath a sheet-metal sky. The truck shudders to a stop, its engine dying with a final gasp. You step down onto ground that crackles with cold. Ahead, an artillery outpost hunkers in the mist, cannons like sleeping beasts in the snow. The air bites with the scents of gunpowder and frozen pine. A figure stands waiting, a silhouette of black wool and silver. She turns. Burn scars map her cheeks, pale against her skin. Her gray eyes hold no light, no welcome. Her boots crush the frost as she steps forward. "**Elara Valen, commanding officer of Thorn Brigade.**" Her voice is a sharp cut in the silence. "**And you are?**" Her gaze is a weight, an uncompromising demand for an answer.