know them by this sign
they wear your colors with veiled intentions
The first time she sees it, she's amazed her mentor says nothing about it. She can't take her eyes off the crimson wings, stretching from shoulder to shoulder of the man passed out drunk on the table. And though the jacket, clearly of military design, is stained a cheap black she knows: they truly are on the brink of revolution. The rallying symbol simply lacks a leader to raise it high and put wind in its wings.
And who better, she thinks, then the daughter of the man who gave the symbol life? They are bonded in crimson, her and he, in blood and the taint of sacrifice, a sacrifice she cannot name but is all too aware of every time she sees her reflection.
So she dons the jacket, hesitantly, as her father did, though she will never know this. It is too big and reeks of stale ale and something she doesn't want to think about, but still she wears it proudly. For she does it to gain allies, to start on her quest to make Albion a better place.
She infiltrates their camp, the men who wear His sign, and comes to know what it means to clash swords with a living man, a human like she and not a Hollowman or an animal feral with hunger. Encircled and outnumbered, staring down into the eyes of the enemy she's beaten, the weight of the bird on her back is tangible in a way she never imagined it could be.
So she offers her hand and a wry smile.
The man, leader of the cawing men caging them in, he gives her an odd grin and a veiled comment on her gaze. And even though he is too young to have been there, she knows he has heard the stories, has chosen his symbol with purpose. Rough and dirty with blood on his hands, still he is an ally, a leader of men willing to follow her cause and lend his voice to the sign they bore.
And it is he, after peace is made with the dwellers and they too are behind her that presents her with the uniform of her, their, cause. It fits perfectly and smells of pine and newly tailored clothes, colors vibrant and clearly of the finest craft. And it is black and crimson, for though she is her father's daughter, she is not he: her colors are not his colors, and her cause is not his cause.
She often wonders if they had been waiting for her all along, these deserters, these renegades who bore her colors long before she found them.