Re: Blood and Iron

Tyrol lay golden under a high alpine sun, the rolling meadows and forested slopes painted in hues that seemed almost too vivid to belong to Europe’s simmering century.

Here, far from Berlin’s choking foundries and the brittle intrigues of Saint Petersburg, the world felt deceptively simple.

Children laughed in courtyard gardens. Horses pulled gilded carriages to waiting pavilions. A family estate was just that; a home, not a headquarters.

Or so Bruno might have wished.

But necessity took precedence over his wishes. And his family estate was far more than just a mere home.

It was a palace so grand that Versailles would weep in its ashes over its opulence, and yet fortified to withstand a siege or even an aerial bombardment deep within its bones.

He stood before the full-length mirror in the master bedroom, frowning as Heidi smoothed the heavy dark wool of his tunic.

The uniform was a unique cut; somewhere between the tailored lines of an M35 Waffenrock and the more ornate tradition of the old 1871 parade coats.

Its breast glittered with the accumulated weight of decades. Perhaps in the entire history of the German Reich and the Kingdom of Prussia which preceded it, there had never been a General so decorated.

And that was why he alone wore the most striking of all decorations. On his shoulders were a pair the broad gold epaulettes; each crowned with a stylized Reichsadler clutching a pair of marshal’s batons in its talons, embroidery so fine it seemed alive in the morning light.

It was the insignia of a Reichsmarschall, older than the uniform itself, rooted in the dust of medieval courts yet sharper now than any blade. Revived in the modern era solely for his command.

Heidi’s hands lingered at his collar, fussing with the crimson piping that framed the gilded laurel leaves on either side of his throat.