greenjacketed | SHARPE'S TEA ⚔ WRITTEN | VOICE

[ he's snug in a corner of the tea shop, with both a brew and a book in hand. the tea is strong; it's uncreamed and unsweetened, and yet it still somehow lacks the bite he's grown accustomed to through flanders, portugal, and spain. instead, this mug is as lightly spiced as the mugs he'd nursed on lonely nights in india. he'd been so much younger, then. and so much more foolish.

another sip and then it's time to get to it. in practice, his message has an intended audince of very few. but fear of his own sentimentality demands that he not approach anyone directly. and so he writes publicly, his script slanty and rough. unpracticed. it takes him a long time to carve out even a brief sentence: ]

Won't be around for a few days --- heading out, took the bloody shilling, got orders to march, &ct.
-- MJR R. SHARPE

[ he loops his pencil 'round the ampersand a few more times, chagrined by its childish slopes. he's no writer. not by any man's account. he's a soldier, he thinks. he knows when to kill and when not to kill, although that line was painfully blurred on the just-passed draft. he should know how to follow orders and protect the colours. but what on earth is a soldiering man to do with orders he didn't understand and no colours to speak of? it gives him a notion. a question, at least.

switching to voice: ] I suppose the village does not have a flag of its own, eh? Don't seeem proper. Perhaps it would've done no good in that last [ shit-hole/dungheap/disaster ] battle. But in future...?

[ he hesitates. he waits. and he lives his day as anxiously as any other day spent waiting to be deployed. a mission, this time? aye. perhaps it'll sooth his nerves and erase from his mind the bloody great cock-up of vaskoth. finally -- if the journal or the tea-shop won't do, feel free to encounter him elsewhere. he's bound to be in good spirits come the evening -- but he bloody well won't drink a drop. not the night before. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Modern Japan doesn't have an army, chief.

What?

[ surprised, really. ] How's that?

Japan's got no army. Gave up the right to invade other people and renounced warfare. We've just got the Japanese Self-Defense Force, now. [which admittedly has an army, navy, and airforce. But it's not technically allowed out of the lands owned by Japan ~~except for Peacekeeping~~]

...Can't tell if that's admirable or daft, lad.

Blame the second world war. It turned off Japan and Europe to the idea of conflict. These days, all the wars are in Eastern Europe and Africa with the United States randomly involved.

Edited 2012-12-01 21:52 (UTC)

[ what the bloody hell is the second world war. ]

I...I find that difficult to believe.

Well, it's the way things are. Don't ask me to explain how though, history's my worst subject.

[ what about the men who are only good for soldiering? what did they do?

poor buggers. ]

Beg pardon, lad. But your best subject...?

[ the question is a distraction -- mostly for himself. ]

[That... takes him aback a moment. His reflex would be to make up some excuse, but then he sort of chuckles] Languages and literature, honestly. I'm not nearly smart enough to be at Raira, but I like to think I keep up both in my Japanese and English classes.

[ he's about to tell the lad that his english sounds fine to him, but...

right. translation malarky. ]

You must be clever enough to begin with, to be going anywhere at all...[ he assumes 'raira' is the name of an academy. and he leaves unsaid his other assumption: clever enough or bloody well rich enough. ]

Haaaah... It's true. I think most of Japan's youth end up in high school, but it's pretty cool I'm not a part of whoever can't make it.

[94% goes, after all, but . . . Okay no he doesn't know the facts, but he can see Sharpe's point (or what he assumes it is)]

...High school?

[ seriously what the heck. ]

[ . . . ]

Hey chief, going to go on a limb and assume school's pretty much for rich guys where you're from?

...The very rich or the very pious. Perhaps the very clever, as well.

Mmm. In the land I'm from, there's public - that's to say government funded - and compulsory education between the ages of about six and ending at about fifteen. Those are what you'd call Primary and Junior High School. However, there's also a school below that a lot of parents invest in from age three to six, Kindergarten. And finally, of course, there's high school. Age fifteen to eighteen. You have to pay for that, but most of the nation guns for it as well.

[a beat] Of course, if you're really smart - and have the money - you can then go on to university for the next four or five years, and then if you're really smart, on to graduate school for another three.

It almost sounds silly, putting it like that, but to me, it's "normal"

We've...summat similar. [ no. it's hardly similar. but it's what sharpe thinks when he hears 'government funded'. ] Foundling homes -- to teach you hard work and religion.

I'm not sure we're talking the same thing, chief. But it's kinda beside the point of flags anyway, saaaah.

I confess, they -- [ flags ] -- are less relevant to the tactics employed by...these people. But I've seen a standard do amazing things. For moral and such.

I'll be honest, I'm not sure I'm seeing it. Buuuuut~ like I said, colors helped me back in the day. Someone makes a design, I'd wear it. Or bear it, I guess.

...I'll have to find one of the artistic sorts, first.

I know of one, but she's seven years old.

Seven years old and likely more accomplished than yours truly. Still, I might look further afield than that.

Well then, I'll be looking forward to who you find! Be sure to ring me, Masaomi Kida, when you've done so.

SHARPE'S TEA ⚔ WRITTEN | VOICE | ACTION

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