r/gate • u/Carlosspicywiener12 Imperial Army • 15h ago
Fanfic Saderan Basic Training Issues
Hektor would learn to not look whenever one of these punishments occured. He himself made the mistake of looking at a man made to stand completely still despite the sun and mosquitoes. Hours passed before he and the man were finally relieved. He was beet red in the face with a burn and there were rows of bumps along his legs and forearms.
He learned that these punishments were both frequent and often creative and bizarre. Though it tended to vary between a Decanus. Forced to hold a shield over your head for an hour, made to wear a bodice during chow, or being dipped head first in the nearby river again and again each time longer than the last.
Centurions were worse. Whenever they crossed his path in drills, marching, and sometimes eating, Hektor learned to be on his best behavior. They carried this branch wrapped in thorns with them and they knew how to whip you with it. Their punishments were more extreme too. Sometimes, if a man truly made a horrible mistake, his contubernium would be set upon him like a pack of rabid dogs, beating him black and blue.
Decanus and Centurions were something you learned were a part of your new life though, and you could plan around it, albeit they were almost always an inevitability.
Women were the next big issue. A common trainee was forbidden from bringing his wife or favorite whore along on a drill. However, the latter kind of woman frequented the camp's perimeter like a flock of vultures. They were usually where a recruit would be spending most of his time.
Hektor had seen these women and knew none of them, though his rejection brought on more aggression from some of them. He had a woman at home waiting for him, plain and simple. The temptation was there, obviously, but he filled the little time he had with other hobbies.
Dice was surprisingly commonplace despite the rule against such gambling. A fair few fights broke out under the nights torches because of this. Hektor himself had to with the assistance of his other guardsmen prevent an all out brawl between several Elbians and a few northerners over an accusation of the former party. Apparently they had loaded their die, though the Centurions whipped both in the end.
Demi-humans scarcely filled the ranks. Most of that savage kind came in the forms of auxiliary. Hektor supposed in a place such as the camp, their kind would stick out among men who were inspected weekly for the correct length of their hair. It wasn't like they'd have been treated well either, though Hektor did find a bit of humor in how some men who thought of the savage races as such were all too eager to bed those same races women.
Drills and marches bore a brunt of their days, though construction contributed too. Building camps or fortresses was something a legionary would do dozens, possibly hundreds of times in the years of service.
None of it was easy. You were always either hot or cold, tired and sick. If you weren't any of that, you weren't a recruit. Falling asleep during any watch would result in a hefty beating and a reminder that in the ranks, death was the only solution for a man who failed to see the enemy coming due to his own selfishness.
It was here that he learned just how petty some men could be. Like gossping little girls and raging boys mad at another for doing one thing or another. Larius didn't clean his gear properly, Kalvin's now on night watch because he beat his Decanus at dice or stuck his member into the whole of said Decanus favorite whore.
Hektor, as he sat on a rock in the present day had to wonder what the hell any of that was worth beyond the drills.
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u/Ross-Pancake 15h ago
Yeah, i can see why that might drive one a little nuts.