Castle McCarron
Altorra
Sian Commonality
Capellan Confederation
10 December, 3145



     "My Lady, we must hurry. If we don't leave soon, we'll miss the rendezvous."

     There was just enough of a breeze to move the cold air of the Altorran winter across her face as Freyja McCarron shoved her hands a little deeper into the pockets of her parka. She stood on the balcony and took in the grand view of the gentle valley below. The recent snow still covered most of the ground and the trees, only the tops of a few particularly jutting rocks peeking out, and the gentle winding of the river stood out against the still pure white of the snow.

     "Thank you, Henry. I'll be along presently, I assure you." With that, her aide turned scurried back inside as quickly as would seem appropriate, no doubt to double or triple check some minute detail. She stood motionless for another minute or so, taking in the serenity.

     "It can be hard to leave, sometimes, can't it?" She paused for a brief second before turning her head ever so slightly to catch a glimpse of the speaker. She didn't really need to, but she always liked to acknowledge someone's presence, however subtly. As she did, a soft gust of wind brought a chill to her, gently swirling strands of her blonde hair around her face.

     "You'll catch a death of cold, Auntie Cat." The woman next to her gave no sign that she noticed the cold air, in spite of her age. She wasn't Freyja's aunt, or an actual blood relative of any kind, but the title had stuck with the family friend sometime along the road of her past years of association with the family. In spite of being over one hundred years old, her skin and eyes still showed the life and energy of someone perhaps half her age.

     "It will take far more than a cold to finally put me in my grave, child. But Henry is right, you should be moving along. The JumpShip will wait for you, the fleet at the rendezvous will not. And lovely as this place is, trust me, there will come a time when you wish you could still leave on adventures."

     Freyja chuckled. "I'm sure you could still kill Davions with the best of us, Auntie." The woman smiled softly in return.

     "I'm sure I could, but I'm smart enough to know I shouldn't." She paused for a brief moment, sighing, before continuing, "But still proud enough to hate that fact. Don't worry though, girl, this place will be waiting for you when you come back. Trust me, I was around when they built it back in the 50's"

     The "fifties" she was referring to were the 3050's, of course, now almost one hundred years ago when her great-grandmother, Faith, had built the castle. It had passed down through the women of the family, coming to Freyja scant years before, when her own mother had died fighting the Republic. She had also inherited the title of "Lady", although now it was a hereditary title of nobility, not the title that her great-grandmother had won in combat and worn more as a sign of pride and bravery than anything else. That was a much simpler time, a time of adventures.

     "You still miss it, don't you?" she asked of the older woman.

     Cat stared out over the landscape for a time, before turning back to Freyja. "The fighting? Yes, a little. The killing, no. The people, all the time." She paused for a moment, as if remembering. "Relish all the time you have with your comrades. If you're lucky, you won't outlive them. There's something about riding into battle in a mech with people you trust and care about, that you'll never get back once it passes. You'll be the first one in your family that I never fought beside, you know."

     "And which of them was the best?"

     The older woman shook her head with a gentle smile. "That's not something you ever think about. It's like a person ranking which children they love the most, or which of their lovers were the best. It's just best not done. They were all great. Great women, and great mechwarriors. Of all of them, you look most like Faith. But heavens knows, you haven't got a tenth of her impatience or temper. If you did, you wouldn't be standing here pondering on such things, you would be burning hard for the jump point now to get to the fight as fast as you can."

     "So you're saying I should be more impatient and angry? Now that's a hell of a thing to say to a girl," she chuckled.

     Cat put her hand gently on Freyja's shoulder. "Never be anything but what you are. It served all of them well, and it will serve you too. Faith and I, we fought in a very different time."

     That much was very true. Faith, her great-grandmother, had been the first in her family to become a mechwarrior. She had seen the coming of the Clans, fought in the fires of the Jihad, and witnessed the birth of the Republic of the Sphere. All of those things were parts of the world that Freyja took for granted.

     One thing that remained the same, however, was the omnipresent threat of House Davion. Soon enough, Freyja would be meeting up with an assault force that would be hitting the DavRats hard.

     "Well, I have a date with the Tau Ceti Lancers, and like it or not, they won't wait up for me."

   The two shared a long embrace. "Take care of yourself, Freyja."