Eothain froze, and started to curtsy again- forgetting that she had no skirt to curtsy with- when Gwaine Morran reached out and grabbed her shoulder- firmly, but not roughly.

"Now then, wee lass, before ye start bobbin' yerself silly, I must remind ye that in this place, there are nae formalities. Every man, woman and child are just as valued and honored as one another." Helping her to her feet, he stepped back, seemingly analyzing her- not lustfully, but as though a book of all her strengths, weaknesses, flaws, and life's experiences was open before him. Seeing the confusion and tinges of fear in her eyes, he smiled encouragingly and extended his hand. Eothain stared at it bemusedly.

"What's supposed to happen?" she asked quietly, feeling her cheeks redden in embarrassment at the sudden silence; Why was everybody staring at her like she was making some obscene social gaff, like she was coated head to toe in mud? Gwaine smiled wryly, not faltering a moment.

"It's how we greet each other. Here, look-" He carefully reached out his hand further and gently yet firmly clasped her wrist, locked in his armored, iron grip.

"A pleasure, Eothain O'Skye," he said, his eyes locked on hers. Looking into his eyes, Eothain felt a wave of emotions and whispers wash over her, nearly overwhelming her. Dark. Ever so dark. So many wounded, fallen, so few left to help. So much pain, so many loved ones on the ground. Whispers all around, so few left. Fear. Sin and temptation hacking away.  She is gone. Fallen into shadow forever. Light ahead. Only hope left is-

"Are you okay, lassie?" Eothain was shocked to find that she was on the ground, staring up into the worried faces of Addison and Gwaine, and surprised to find thin trails of tears down her cheeks. What in God's creation had happened?

"I'm... I'm fine," she lied, struggling to sit up. The wave of emotions had left as rapidly as it came. She could see the doubt in their eyes, but she accepted their proffered hands and got to her feet uneasily, feeling sick to her stomach. Noticing her discomfort, Addison turned to the still-gathered crowd of Riders. "What are the lot of ye still doing here? Cohorts dismissed!"

 As the swarm of colorful warriors scattered, heading back to their families and the rest of the grounds of the camp, Addison gestured over to a short, delicately-set mother in vivid orange armor, with a short, narrow-waisted sword belted to her side. The woman seemed to understand instantly, and smiled at her warmly, her green eyes sparkling and seeming to laugh, close-cut chestnut hair bristling in the cool morning breeze, with her two children huddling shyly behind her; one a boy dressed in a faded green tunic, clutching a little wooden dagger almost as big as his arm, staring at her with wide blue eyes, his shaggy brown hair hanging in his eyes, of about 5 or 6. Standing just behind the boy was a girl about her age, as short as her mother, garbed in deep blue armor. Her icy blue eyes glittered from underneath the shaggy black locks of her raven hair, and a faint, shy smile ventured across her lips.

As the family approached, Gwaine came up behind her quietly. “Normally, initiates are sponsored by their families while they go through training, but in your case, Farawyn has been asking around to see if anybody was willing to give you a spare bunk. Lucky for you, Eoran McGordon,” he whispered helpfully, pointing at the orange-clad mother now chatting softly with Addison, “has a soft heart underneath that armor, and has offered you a spare room in her home.” “And why hasn’t anybody told me this before I woke up this morning?” Eothain quipped back drily. Gwaine smiled wryly, and shrugged.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~

Standing in the tall doors of the armory, looking in, Eothain could feel her jaw drop to the hay-scattered floor, as she stared at the endless rows. Before her lay racks and racks of weapons of many different sizes and styles. Gwaine stood behind her encouragingly. "Go ahead lass, try one, if ye want." She reached out and unbuckled from the rack a monstrous two-handed Caledonian Claymore sword, and was nearly pulled to the ground by its weight. "Um... no." Struggling to her feet, she hung it back up on the racks, and moved on.

As time passed, more options for arming her were turned aside. Swinging around an antique Roman gladius passed down as a trophy from one of the families of the clan, she lost control and hacked it into the neck of a nearby training dummy, leaving it embedded there like some oversized body piercing. She passed over a belted set of rather wicked-looking bone-handled knives without a second thought. Finally, she found a short leaf-shaped sword, made from bronze, with intricate silver vines spiraling from the handguard down around the grip before twisting into a broad-headed pommel. The blade itself was etched with veins of silver, spiraling and weaving before finally meeting at the tip of the blade. Gripping it, the sword felt perfectly balanced, as though it was forged specifically for her.

Gwaine's eyes flashed slightly when he saw the blade she had picked, and took it gently from her hands. He ran his fingertips down the veins in the blade, closing his eyes briefly, but she could see the mournful look in his eyes when he handed it back. This blade bore a grief-stricken history, and Gwaine was somehow involved. He coughed nervously, and nodded in the direction of the rest of the armory. "Lets just get the rest of your gear, shall we?" She carefully slung the sword, belt and all, over her shoulder, letting the sheathed tip bounce against the small of her back, and followed him through the aisles.

Fitting her to her armor, however, was a harder ordeal then finding her sword. She stumbled around for a few minutes in a heavy, steel coat of maille that went down to her ankles, comically oversized, like she was playing dress-up. After trying on several other coats with minimal success, Gwaine dug out from behind a wall of tall, narrow Roman shields leaning against the wall a small, intricately woven shirt of maille. In the low light of the armory, its silvery links and bronze inlay seemed to glow.  As she held it in her hands, it flowed from hand to hand like steel silk. With a nod of encouragement from Gwaine, she bent over and slipped it over her, letting its comforting weight settle on her shoulders.

As the maille pulled itself into place by its weight, she looked down at herself approvingly, shivering slightly as the cold steel links slithered down her frame. The shirt seemed tailored to her perfectly, or at least tailored to someone her size. The hem of the shirt came down to just under her hips, not too loose, not too tight. Over her shoulders, a secondary layer of maille was woven in, serving as both padding for her plate armor, as well as additional protection for lucky strikes in between the plates. Suddenly, she felt a sudden burst of pressure in the small of her back, as she toppled to the ground. Rapidly turning to see what had pushed her, Gwaine stood in the open doorway of the armory-barn, a longbow in his hand, and on the floor, a broken arrow with a blunt, broad-headed tip. "Just testing to see if it still holds," he said calmly, as though that explained everything. She staggered to her feet, and got back to searching.

Apparently, her rig of armor was crafted from a rare metal from the mountains, making it lightweight, but nearly indestructable. After she had all of her gear assembled, Gwaine had shown her how to carry it all on a specially designed pack, called a furca, ripped off of old Roman designs. She was quite the sight, walking through town square with a long, T-shaped wooden bar, about four feet long, the T-bar nearly two feet long. Lashed to the T-bar were the upper torso plates of her armor, the abdomen plates riveted to them by leather strips in the armor. As she strode through town, it looked like she was hauling a massive steel lobster on a stick, with all the grace and quietness of a tinker's cart hitched to a flock of feral cats.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~

 As Eothain stumbled down the path from the Big House (as the chieftain's hall was commonly known) out towards the cropping of homes by the White Gate, her mind was rushing with the events from the past few days. For hunting a deer, a demon had slaughtered her village. She had been rescued by a knight-who-wasn't-really-a-knight, or perhaps an armored monk, and brought back to an encampment full of people who were fully trained in combat, and were gifted by God to fight evil. Apparently, they were willing to train her. Evil and Satan existed, and God had crafted an army to combat it, in more than just good works and prayer.

Approaching the White Gate, she began to see just how obscenely tall the wall was. Its white-carved stony walls stretched high into the sky, each stone tightly fit with its brethren around it. The walls were broad and wide, and Eothain got a strong feeling that it would take legions to breach the wall, much less cross it alive. Even if they could make it past the gate, or the wall, it seemed like two thirds of the populace of the clan were armored and armed to the teeth, even some of the children.

The gates themselves towered over her, faded and weathered bronze embossing decorating the monstrous wooden hinges and crossbeam mounts. Images of strange, savage beasts in combat with armored men and women were engraved into the wood, all under the same, strange circular cross as she had seen before in the dead center of each door. Stumbling forward in its shadow, she felt a wave of deep-set calm and peace washing over her. Not the same feeling as before, but looking up at the wall, and the mighty gates, she felt safe, and for the first time in days, she felt a little bit of joy and courage rising in her heart. She nearly forgot about what she was on her way to, staring up at the beautiful, tall gates, when somebody nearby coughed nervously, nearly sending her toppling over under the now misbalanced weight of her armor pack.

Leaning against the wide open doors, now dressed in a simple grey tunic, was the girl she had seen before, the daughter of Mrs. McGordon. She smiled shyly as she came forward to help the struggling Eothain with her pack. "Here, let me," she said softly, as she strode up and shifted her torso plates on the cross-bar, re-lashing them to adjust the weight placement. With her pack no longer threatening to drag her backwards, Eothain smiled appreciatively, and the two walked out the gates and out into the wild Highlands, on their way to her new home. Her name was Aidan, Eothain found out, and their conversation was mildly awkward at first, both of them very shy and a little bit uncomfortable in each other's company.

After a while, passing through misty valleys and over dew-covered hills before their conversation changed.

"If it isn't too foolish to ask," Eothain ventured timidly.

"There's no such thing as foolish questions, just foolish answers," Aidan quipped drily, smiling softly, her vivid blue eyes glittering. Eothain smiled inwardly, and tried a different approach to her question.

"Why is everybody's armor so different? Um, I mean, why is everyone so colorful? If they were a proper army, they would all be wearing the same color, as a uniform, right?"

Aidan’s burst of laughter at this rang merrily through the air, akin to the tinkling of many small hammers striking an anvil. Eothain scowled slightly, not wanting to upset Aidan but still feeling insulted.

"It was a perfectly valid question," she muttered, as Aidan finally regained her composure, still grinning.

"To answer your question," she began, "the Gaelic Riders are unlike any force on God's earth. We are not an army as such; we are not here to conquer and dominate, nor are we violent in nature. Our enemy, as such, is not one of flesh and blood. At least, most of the time, it isn't," she shuddered, looking back at Eothain with a haunted look in her eyes. After a moment's pause, she continued.

"As for the "uniforms," we aren't officially recognized by any worldly power. In Britannia, we are considered as irritants to the royal court, and worse. Up here, in Caledonia, the local clans occasionally ask us for help, but otherwise leave us to our peace. The one place where we are fully welcome is across the bay, in Hibernia.

"As for the colorful armor, I suppose that that tradition goes back ages, to the foundation of the Order. Instead of all being the same, dull and drab unpainted steel plates, we were encouraged to be creative with our armor. For some, it's simply a matter of personal taste, but for others, the colors are a personal statement about themselves. Blue for reliability, red for honoring our Father, green for duty, black for justice, white for purity, or forgiveness, orange-"

"What's grey for?" Eothain interrupted, entirely intrigued by what she was hearing. Meaningful order to the seemingly chaotic and random color schemes for the Riders' armor, armies that aren't armies, national secrets, what next? Aidan walked on in silence before answering.

"Grey... well, for some, grey is the color of mourning a lost loved one. Death, or simply... lost." Aidan finished off, setting a grim overtone to their conversation.

"So... who did Gwaine lose?" Eothain said softly, after a few minutes of silently hiking side by side through the mist. Another silent minute passed before Aidan answered.

"The first thing that you must know of the Riders, is that Gwaine Morran is a legend. Next to Lord Addison, he is the finest swordsman of the order, and the fiercest of warriors. Many of us are still alive because he was there like an avenging angel to rescue us. But for all his fame here, he has only ever taken two people before into apprenticeship. Just two.”

“And the significance of that is what exactly?” Eothain questioned, still trying to take everything in.

“Eothain, for normal apprenticeships, it is over a period of three years. For a man Gwaine’s age, 35, three years is nothing. But for him… well, the total sum of his two apprentices was about a year and a half.”

“But how-”

“Listen. Sometimes… sometimes apprentices don’t make it through training. Sometimes they wash out, because they aren’t strong enough, or brave enough, or simply want out. Sometimes they die. And sometimes… sometimes, they turn traitor, go dark… start working for the other side.”

“But-” Aidan turned to her, and stared her straight in the eyes warily.

“Eothain, I know you have questions, I know that you are completely new to this entire crazy world you now live in, but if you want to hear Gwaine’s story in full, you will have to get it from him alone. He has done right by us, and protected many of us while leading us to Camp Zion, so if he doesn’t want his story told just yet, we stay silent.”

Eothain sighed resignedly, and the two walked on in silence, the sun starting to sink over the hilltops far off to the west.

“That would explain why he seems so…”

“Insane? Entirely random in his moods and actions?” Aidan smirked warmly, shaking her head gently in amusement.

“I was thinking more along the lines of, um, different,” Eothain stammered, a rosy hue rising in her pale cheeks.

“In case you haven’t noticed, everyone here is a little bit insane. To be a Christian, much less a Rider, it’s pretty much a given. But yes, Gwaine is one of the maddest ones of our little crew.” Aidan smiled softly, looking ahead into the winding path, and Eothain followed her gaze, dropping silent. Floating in the wind, seductive and teasing, were the mixed scents of chicken roasting, freshly baked bread, and luscious herbs, all melting together to form one, singular thought: home.

She resisted the temptation to rush forward through the wild underbrush until she either passed out from exhaustion or find her way to the source of the overwhelming smell, but all thoughts passed as the two stood stock still. Nearby in the underbrush, something rustled, in a way that suggested that whatever it was was trying to be silent.

“Animal?” Eothain whispered, wishing that she hadn’t lashed her sword to her pack.

“No,” Aidan whispered hoarsely back. “worse.” Staring out from the bush, at about Eothain’s waist height, was a pair of vivid green eyes.