WARNING: PROSTITUTE POV & DEAD DOVE (TRAUMATIZED VETERAN)

Calin was a hero. He had to remind himself that sometimes.

He had spent the last four years on campaign under the banner of the allied city-states. Watched friends die due to the incompetence and glory seeking of the nobles. Personally executed deserters as a harsh reminder to his men. Watched as the enemy forces started off with seasoned veterans and eventually become little more than teenagers and elderly with ill-fitting armor and scavenged gardening tools.

The last efforts of a desperate king who wasn't even in the city once the gates were opened. The defenders surrendered, the people fearful but compliant. Four years of near endless combat, all done in less than a day.

Months of "peacekeeping" followed, wiping out the last of the loyalists and protecting the new government until they could rebuild the spent forces of Inon. Years of living on adrenaline and camaraderie reduced to patrols and busywork. Nothing to silence his unquiet mind.

Calin had never been the type to settle. Part of his payment was in land, but he quickly broke it up between his lieutenants. He had only loved fleetingly as a teenager. But even so, a man has needs.

So after finding himself in a bathhouse in one of the city's brothels he did not hesitate to find one who could satisfy those needs. He paid for a room and service for the whole evening.

(Another part of the Blackvale series)

(Image source is pawmakelove)