June 3rd
I wish the Demacian army had taught me how to write a diary.
My name is Amatea Dufarj. I am the twenty year old Captain of the Demacian Border Guard, and I have never maintained a personal diary past the age of fourteen. I live on the eastern bank of the Serpentine River, where it sweeps toward Demacia and the Bubbling Bog. The region is a homogenous marshland all around, save for the river. Hard, firm earth is scarce. Most of the landscape remains as it did before Demacian occupation. Soft peat blankets everything past my property. Prison workers drained some of the bog many years ago, but they never got the job done. My father planted our house on the most recently drained plot. He built it when he married mother, before I was conceived. He liked the early morning fog, and the preference rubbed off on me.
I call the place a house, not a home, because my true home is with the Wanderer Company stationed on the other side of the river. The barracks are sometimes visible from my cottage; small mason buildings that always let in a draft during winter. The cold season near the bog is unbearable. A ten day's ride northeast, assuming you avoid the Howling Marsh along the way, is the icy Freljord.
My mother lives in the capital, due south. On any other Monday I would have sent her money. But I'm riding first light tomorrow. Right now, I'm staying the night to finish preparing. Stop and go visits to my house are the norm.
I can't believe my hair still looks alright, even after such an extended lull in my regular grooming. I stepped in front of a mirror for the first time in a week and trimmed it.
Earlier today, on the way to my house I stopped by the home of Pvt. Vyland and his wife Freya. Vyland is a man of no mystery. He is honest, diligent, but a total scatter-brain. With a spear in hand, he could punch through the trunk of a tree. Among the men under my command, he stands out as being the most ravenous eater.
We talked for an hour or so over tea. Somehow the conversation ended on me not being married. It's not like I want to end up a spinster! I...just haven't found anyone yet. I work too much to just settle down and search. Of course, it didn't go exactly like that.
""I feel like I've known you forever, yet we've just met!" said Freya on the tail-end of my story about how Vyland got lost by circling his tent three times while looking for a pair of boots. "I just hope we don't share the same taste in men. Vyland is such a klutz!"
"He's the deadliest and most proficient klutz that ever served the Wanderers" I replied, giving my best impression of an old gruffly general.
Freya and Vyland laughed. "Speaking of men" Freya spat out between heaves of laughter, "what do you like in a man?"
"Like what?" She caught me flat-footed, and I tripped over my line of thought. "Y-you mean my subordinates?"
That pretty much sums up my nonexistent love-life. Nearly all the men I know, I've met through the army. And I outrank most of them! How awkward would it be to have a superior officer make advances on a subordinate? Ugh!
During the barbarian raids, I was really close to doing just that. Joe Pasture was humble, but the kind of humble that shows itself outwardly as noble. Even though I'd always get riled up in the heat of things, he'd be on the reply of my every order with an endearing little "Always there for ya!" I'd outright abandon my rank and fortune to hear his voice again.
And no way would I just fall for anyone with an alluring voice and a strut! He could bandage a wound better than any of our trained doctors. He knew the family of everyone in the company two generations back. He was one of the few men under me who noticed when I did my hair differently, or when I brandished a different blade, or noticed what I saw when I looked out on the horizon. He noticed when I held back tears from the rest of the company. And he'd try his damnedest to brighten me up with a smile. We lost some great men and women like Joe Pasture during the Freljord conflict.
Great. Now I can't sleep. Thanks, diary. Perhaps this isn't such a fantastic idea after all.