Thread: Prom Queen Goes To War (MeggyMeow x DeRe)

The Civil War had been raging for seven years. The death toll was in the millions, those millions including Haley Rivers's three older brothers, leaving her as the oldest of four children of her single mother in a backwater town in rural Appalachia. According to the law, families who'd already lost two children did not have to send recruits to the Supreme Armed Forces but then, the government had been ignoring the law since long before the Civil War began. And so, six weeks after her 18th birthday, Haley received a notice that she was required to report for military service at Fort Iron Rod, the base of the infamous expeditionary unit colloquially known as The Ravagers, feared across the country for their alleged brutality, human rights abuses, and disregard for the law - 'alleged', because the UN Human Rights Commissioner that had been ordered to investigate them had himself been abducted, tortured and murdered. She initially thought it had to be an administrative error - she'd thought that if she were called up, it would be at worst hospital or office duty behind the lines - but when she contacted the local SAF office to check, they simply threatened her with imprisonment and bulldozing of the family home if she failed to comply. At least the knowledge that her signing bonus and monthly paychecks would go a long way to supporting her impoverished family, who hadn't had a single day of financial security since the industrial plant in town had closed down, laying off her mother, and since all financial assistance payments had been cancelled by the government to pay for the war effort, cheered her as she made her way across the country to report in. After tearful farewells with friends and family, she'd loaded her three bags of clothes onto the bus and set off on a three hour journey that took her through countryside turned to ash by the war, deserted towns, broken down industrial units, burnt out cars, and the grim spectacle of bodies. Most of this she ignored, though, as she spent the entire journey on her phone, chatting with her best friend from home, Samantha. Haley was a petite, pretty slip of a girl who'd been a cheerleader in high school, a prom queen, and voted Biggest Sweetheart three years in a row. Barely 5'2 and 110 pounds, she didn't look anything like the muscular young men on recruiting billboards spaced out every 50 miles or so on the expressway alongside patriotic slogans, Join up and defeat the rebel scum!, Do your duty!, Obey!. She was slim and slender with a tiny waist, narrow legs tapering to dinky feet, and toothpick-thin arms. Her skin was lightly tanned and her button nose, light freckles, and wide, long-lashed amber eyes gave her an innocent, delicate look. Her long, wavy blonde hair, with a streak of pink dyed into it, reached almost down to her waist in a thick mass she had tucked it back with a flower-print headband. She was wearing a tight white crop-top, cut off to bare one shoulder and showing her flat, almost concave stomach, a silver piercing glinting in her navel and a small flower tattoo on her hip. Her short skirt was frayed denim, so short that as she slumped in the bus seat it rode up high enough to show a flash of hot pink lace beneath. She wore long neon knee-socks and flat shoes, sparkly with sequins, and had accessorised her appearance carefully big silver hoop earrings framed her delicately made-up face, pink glitter-gloss sparkled on her pouty lips, and her inch-long nails were painted in alternating rainbow colors. When the bus finally pulled in at an imposing military barracks, she hopped off. A figure in dusty green SAF uniform was directing recruits towards the camp. Rivers? he barked at her. You can call me Haley, she smiled. Could you take my bags for me, sweetie? They're really heavy. Then she resumed talking on her phone to Samantha, and wandered towards the base, stopping to stoop and pluck a small purple-pink flower from a grassy bank, twirling it beneath her nose and then tucking it into her hair. Maybe this tour of duty wouldn't be too bad, Samantha was trying to console her, surely they wouldn't expect too much of her...?