Rise to power

[aimway921]

[OOC note: this is a retrospective of the journey of a character who would soon become an important figure in Ashinara]


Sablien, 1929
"Next!" 
The line was moving slowly. Factory workers, queued up at the end of the week to receive their wages. 
"Next! Name?" he was finally close enough to overhear the conversation at the table, where the manager handing out the wages was sitting. 
"Karcheno".
"Karchenko, Karchenko, ah, here we go. 150 Hryvnias. Next! Name?"
"Tkachenko."
"Tkachenko... Which one, we have 4 people with that name?"
"Pavel Viktorovych."
"Ah, here you are. 150 Hryvnias. Next! Name?"
"Shvonder," he said, it was finally his turn. 
"Shvonder... What a name..." the manager looked up at the young worker, barely in his 20's. "Ah, a fucking Eyrian. Here's your 50 Hryvnias, now get out of here. Next!"
"50?! Everyone else is getting 150!"
"Yes, because they're Ashins, what's hard to understand? Now get out before I call the guards, you're holding up the line. Next!"

Shvonder was pushed out of the line as the person behind him stepped forward, shoving him out of the way, to get his wage. He was used to this, by now. He moved to Akvilla in search of education and better employment opportunities. The fate of being a farmworker on his backwater of an island didn't particularly entice him. Or, at least, he tried moving to Akvilla. He wasn't allowed to enter the city, as an Eyrian - or any other immigrant from the Peripheral Islands. Instead he managed to find employment in a small factory - if you can call it that, it was a glorified workshop at best - in one of the small industrial towns surrounding Akvilla. There was an iron mine nearby, and he worked making equipment for the miners. But the wage he was paid was barely enough to survive. If anything, at least back home he could live in the family house and not worry about housing. Now, he was barely able to afford the corner of a room in an overcrowded barrack that he was renting. 

[aimway921]

Foa, 1930

Shvonder  had enough. For two months now he was living on the streets, choosing to cut the expenses for housing when faced with the choice of paying rent or buying food. Thankfully not everyone was as callous to him as his bosses. The prejiduce was mostly practiced by those well off - upper middle class, who had most of the management positions, nobles, and the like. The bourgeois, so to speak. He had  But now, an opportunity like none other shined upon him. War has been declared on the Union of South Touli. Signing up for the Royal Army would not only get him out of this miserable living situation, but also give him the chance to earn the decent respect. Instead of showing up to his shift, this day he went to the recruiter's office and signed up. 

Private Nikolai Fillippovich Shvonder. He liked the sound of that. Basic training started out tough for him, as his malnourished body was barely able to keep up with the work-outs the officers pushed them through. But a week of hearty soldier rations quickly got him up to speed. Of course, prejudice followed him here as well. The Royal Army was segregated. At least, he was now in the surrounding of other Eyrians, so he had that comfort in the face of the Ashin commanders and even privates from other units treating them as second class beings.

But who knows, maybe it would change on the frontlines? He will have the chance to find out soon enough, as his units was one of the first to ship out to Franerre, from where they will march down to Le Troi.