Chapter Seven:

The Proper Army Welcome

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It had seemed that Harriet had just drifted off to sleep when suddenly she found herself drenched in ice-cold water. Gasping, she sat up as fast as she could, wiping at her eyes to get the water out of them, all while her gasping noises were accompanied by loud snorts of laughter.

"Wakey, wakey, little soldier. Time to get up!" Garreth shouted, his hands holding on to his barrel-like chest as he wheezed in laughter.

Harriet shivered in her bedroll, glaring up at the three men staring down at her.

"Was that supposed to be the proper army welcome?" Harriet said, her words coming out through clenched teeth. That caused the men to start to laugh again.

"No, that was just your wake up call! Don't you worry little soldier, your welcome will be coming to you all day, every day, for as long as we want it to," Garreth told her, throwing the bucket that must've held the water at her. Harriet fumbled to catch it before it hit her in the face, barely getting a good hold on it.

"Better get up little soldier, Breakfast ends in ten minutes," John shouted over his shoulder as he and the two other men left the tent. Harriet's eyes widened at his words before she scrambled out of bed.

Hopping around on one foot, she tried to put on her boots, tuck in her wet shirt, and straighten her pants all at the same time. She didn't even bother to touch her hair. After all it was short now, she figured it was fine the way it was.

With all of the grace of a beached whale, she darted out of the tent and rushed towards the mess tent, stumbling as she went in the leftover mud. She hoped there was at least some food left and so she hurried her steps, but as she crossed the threshold, a foot stuck out in front of her path, causing her to go flying.

With a groan she landed almost on top of someone's feet and the next thing she knew, she was being hauled to her own by a large hand that was tightened around her upper arm.

"Mr. Greenfellow, that is hardly behavior befitting a gentleman or a soldier. You should not be going running around like that in a crowded area," Leopold reprimanded, staring down at her with a stern expression. Harriet gulped.

"I'm sorry sir, it was an accident. I got up later than I had planned and so I felt that I needed to rush."

"Then see to it that you don't do it again. Training starts regardless of whether or not you have had your breakfast." With that, Leopold let her go, turning on his heel and walking out of the mess tent, leaving snickering soldiers in his wake.

Harriet frowned. It had been an honest to goodness accident.

Harriet shook her head and then hurried over to the station that had food. Seeing an apple she grabbed it, figuring that something light and easy to eat would be the best option. Not to mention, she would have to take advantage of the fresh fruit now. In a few weeks there probably wouldn't be any left.

Biting into the crisp flesh of the apple, Harriet did her best to eat as quickly as possible; all the while savoring the fact that it was a McIntosh apple, kind of like the last name of Garreth. She bit into it a little harder, picturing her revenge for yesterday but as she remembered the time she cleared her head, knowing there were more important things to worry about. As she walked towards her tent to grab her gear, she continued to eat the apple, even when it became hard to hold on to both her armor and the apple at the same time.

By the time she had finished her breakfast, she had reached the training field. Men of all different shapes and sizes were mingling, laughing, or just standing quietly by themselves. Harriet noted where everyone else had put their armor and so she carefully placed her armor with the rest of theirs.

Looking around Harriet spied Leopold talking to his advisors on the other side of the training ground. His posture was as straight as a rod, and she could see his clenched fists from where she stood. She didn't envy them, but as he turned around to face the rough-housing recruits, Harriet realized that perhaps his advisors would pity her.

"Line up!" Leopold yelled, and Harriet rushed to join the line of other men. She was by no means the shortest of the recruits, but she was the smallest in terms of who was the smallest and the slightest. Eyeing everyone else in the line, she suddenly was very aware of how much of a disadvantage she had in terms of body mass.

By the time every man had settled into a place in their slightly arced line, Leopold's face had become more severe. His mouth was set in a hard line, and Harriet could see that he was disappointed.

He began to walk slowly down the line, straightening and rearranging recruit after recruit into the proper stance. Harriet was amused to see that Garreth had been almost entirely wrong, as he had been slouching with his shoulders curled and arms crossed. She had to hold in a snort. Here he was threatening her with a "proper army welcome" and he didn't even know the proper army etiquette.

Harriet straightened her posture and double and triple checked her stance. She had been trained since she was ten to have a certain kind of stance that was suited for fighting, so she only hoped that it would be up to par with what Leopold wanted. It would be hard to change something that was ingrained in her in the way that her fighting stance was.

Once he reached her, she tried to contain her nerves as his eyes swept up and down her figure. He met her eyes only once but instead of telling her what she needed to fix, his lips quirked up slightly and his gaze was less stern.

"Very good, Mr. Greenfellow," he said, enunciating his words in such a way that the sound carried all the way down the line. Harriet inwardly grimaced as she found herself on the receiving end of several glares, but ignored them in favor of nodding to him in thanks before he continued on down the line.

Harriet, while disquieted by the glares being sent her way, was pleased that she didn't have to change anything. With any luck, training would be something she could manage, however, that opinion changed in a matter of seconds.

"I expect you all to be here every morning during our time here in these stances exactly. You will not socialize, you will not rough-house. This training requires your entire concentration and thought, if you want to do those things to do them before training begins or after training ends. Now, in a single file line, I want you to follow me. This is a run, but I want you to keep your stamina in mind."

With that, Leopold began to run towards the tree line, heading onto the trail, and every soldier started to follow him, but while some of them were clearly used to running, others were definitely not. Harriet was unfortunate enough to be squished between two groups of the latter option.

Normally, running was something she enjoyed, but not how they were doing it. She was hard pushed to even run properly as the men in front of her were stumbling and swearing more than half the time, ruining her pace.

She had just started to get used to the stilted pace when suddenly she found herself being elbowed in the back. Though she was tripping over her own feet, she still managed to stay up, but now she was displeased to realize that she was no longer running alone. Garreth, John, and Matthew were all running hot on her heels, and as they continued to run over the hilly and root-strewn terrain, Garreth began to talk to her.

"It looks like the little soldier is already aiming for favoritism," Garreth said, his words broken up by his breathing pattern. "Are you hoping that brown-nosing will spare you from training?"

"I'm not," Harriet replied shortly, wary of what the reaction to her words might be.

"Well, you've certainly been noticed little soldier. But is it a good thing or a bad thing?" His last two words were punctuated by an elbow in her side and Harriet did her best to ignore the sharp pain below her ribs at his blow.

Harriet didn't pay attention to them, picking up her pace to as fast as she could without running into the person in front of her. They tried to do the same but where Harriet was small and lithe, they most definitely were not, causing them to crash into branches and bushes when they tried to catch up to her.

Leopold must've been leading them off the beaten path as soon Harriet noticed that the people ahead of her were leaping over a fallen tree. She was almost relieved. If she sped up enough, she might be able to lose the three men directly behind her.

As the fallen tree got closer Harriet pumped her legs, and a split second before she ran into it, she vaulted over it. Once her feet were safely planted on the ground she heard a loud thump and several swears behind her. Peeking over her shoulder, she grinned as she saw Garreth, Matthew, and John all lying in a heap and holding everyone behind them up as they blocked the way with their bodies.

She turned her head back around to face forward, a smile still in place. While it wasn't exactly what she'd had in mind for getting back at them for the incidents the day before, it was a good start.

The group of recruits continued to follow Leopold for at least thirty more minutes and by the time they had returned to the main training ground, Harriet was a lot more tired than she had thought she would be. Panting as quietly as she could, she licked her lips and slicked her hair away from her face with the sweat that now had it matted and curlier than she had thought was possible for short hair.

"Alright men, let's move on to more challenging things," Leopold called, earning a number of groans, but Harriet didn't say a word. She had signed up for this, if she couldn't handle training she wasn't likely to be able to handle the war. She wouldn't complain, at least not out loud.

Ignoring the fatigue of her limbs she followed through with Leopold's orders, actively avoiding the three men she had succeeded in ditching. However, everything stopped going well the second Leopold decided to have them train with their tent mates.

The other four men were as quiet and diligent as they had been the night before but Garreth and his cronises most definitely weren't.

"Little soldier! It looks like you couldn't leave us behind after all. Are you ready for that proper army welcome?" Garreth said, his grin stretched too far across his face. She was reminded eerily of a shark.

"I don't think so," she said, turning her back on him and trying to go about the task that Leopold had set them. They were supposed to be practicing getting on and off of horses, going over a number of different ways to get off of a moving horse or help others do the same, but Garreth, Matthew, and John seemed to have other ideas.

"C'mon little soldier, you can't even handle a good ol' welcome?" Garreth taunted. Harriet continued to not pay him any attention, instead focusing on swinging her leg up and over the horse between them. However, that was her mistake.

Garreth gave a loud whistle, causing all of the horses within hearing distance to rear up, move towards him, or away from him, which unfortunately for Harriet, was exactly what she didn't want happening.

The horse reared up as Harriet's eyes widened and with one foot still in the stirrup he darted forward, causing her foot to come free, but instead of landing on her feet on the ground, something else happened entirely.

Harriet's stomach felt like it was plummeting as she fell through the air. She closed her eyes in anticipation of the impact, but when it eventually came, she was glad she had closed her mouth.

All of a sudden Harriet found herself pressed into something warm, squishy, and as she tried to open her eyes, she realized it was brown. She stilled in the place where she lay, not daring to move an inch, even when she heard the roars of laughter from Garreth above her.

Feeling sick to her stomach, Harriet shakily got to her feet, not daring to breath or make sudden movements. Her whole front was covered in horse poop and as she tried to wipe some of it away to no avail she wondered if the universe had a thing for making her become covered in gross substances. First, it was punch, then, mud, and now, manure.

She was barely paying attention when suddenly the laughter around her cut off and Harriet found herself being handed a cloth. Unable to say anything due to lack of air from not wanting to breath in any of the substance covering her, she quickly took it and wiped her face clean as best as she could, letting in a gasp of air once her mouth and nose were clean.

Harriet looked up to see one of the other men standing beside her, watching her carefully while Leopold stood on his other side, facing the rest of the men. Harriet gave a hesitant smile at the stranger, earning one in return, before continuing the task of wiping her face and hands clean, all the while listening to Leopold.

"Who was it who whistled?" Leopold demanded, his voice hard.

"Greenfellow, sir."

"Don't lie to me, Mr. Macintosh. I am not so blind as you believe. Now, again, who whistled?" Harriet was stunned at how Leopold hadn't seemed to even consider that Garreth had been telling the truth, but nonetheless she was grateful.

"Perhaps I should rephrase that. Who put the lives of every recruit who was attempting to get on a horse in danger?"

It was completely silent as no one looked at Leopold or each other. Harriet watched as Leopold's jaw tightened and he turned to her.

"Mr. Greenfellow, do you have an answer for me?" His eyes locked with hers, as he singled her out. Harriet swallowed. If she told the truth she would never be able to be left in peace from Garreth and his friends, but if she lied she didn't want to think about the consequences.

Leopold had never been an idiot, he would know if she lied as he did with almost everyone. She would lose his trust, but that being said, Leopold was still no fool. He had to know the position he was putting her in, there was no way that he didn't. She only hoped that she chose the option he wanted her to. Harriet weighed her options, looking into his blue eyes that were focused entirely on her.

"My apologies your highness, I do not."

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Do you think Harriet made the right choice? What do you think will happen now that she had lied for Garreth and his friends? Tell me your thoughts in the comments!

Next update will probably be on Friday or perhaps even before that! :) Make sure to vote if you liked the chapter! (If you didn't like the chapter, tell me why in the comments!)