Give me a crisp autumn morning with the smell of woodsmoke in the air. Give me coffee brewing and a hastily broken fast. Give me the scritch of sharpened steel and the clank of polished mail. Give me the glint of metal from distant hills, revealing that the enemy is there. Give me the company and counsel of battle-tested, loyal men. Give me the knowledge that today we shall live or die by the strength of our arms and the keenness of our intellect, that we shall live or die as brothers, united in purpose and as of one heart. Give the knowledge that truly I live, that blood thrums through me, as my heart lifts upward, every sinew of my being concentrated on the test that is to come. Give me the life of a man at arms.

-- A Life at Arms, Manfred Baron Helweg, Chung & Tsao, Celestial City, 2 IV Age