Decay

It was mostly small things, really. For example something as mundane as going out for a drink after a long day in the field.

Now outsiders might have smiled at this, but the Wulvers did enforce a certain… well, Alexis wouldn’t exactly call it chivalry, but maybe proper behaviour?
No harassment of waitresses, no bullying other patrons… basic manners, one could say.
Clearly something that didn’t really matter that much to the newer additions. There was a steady increase in occasions where longtime Wulvers felt the need to interfere when the newcomers displayed abysmal behavior out in town. What rubbed Alexis the wrong way was that a lot of the members, even those who had been with them for quite some time, seemed to think this was perfectly fine. Seoras certainly did.

“Gods, get off of it, girl! You’re acting like they were shiv’n people. Sounds to me like they were just having some harmless fun.”

Alexis gave her leader a deadpan stare, arms crossed.

“You’re about two years older than me. You don’t get to call me ‘girl’.”
she said flatly.

“And I wouldn’t exactly classify almost ripping that poor wench’s clothes off in the middle of the tavern as ‘harmless fun’.”

Seoras rolled his eyes, but raised his hands in a placating gesture.

“Fine, fine. Alexis. Come on. We are no freaking knights in shining armor. You know why? ‘Cause we are the ones in the thick of blood and gore, while those knightly types keep their armors shiny in the background. And if after surviving yet another day by the skin of their teeth the guys wanna have some fun, can you really blame ‘em?”

When her answer consisted of a further darkening of her expression, he applied his best roguish smile and stepped up to her raising his hand towards her. Oh, he could be charming if he wanted to be, but Alexis had known him for too long for such games. With her subtly tensing his hovering hand compromised with settling on her shoulder.

“Hey, hey, hey. Seriously. The wench is fine, ain’t she? It’s not a fun line of work, that, right? Would be surprised if that was even her worst offense this week. Besides, I was under the impression that you gals and Iain already quite firmly imprinted on them the error of their ways?”

They most certainly had. Needless to say, that night had been rather painfully cut short for the individuals in question .

“…yes.”

“There you go! Issue solved. Now, why don’t we focus on more important things…?”

He smirked again, squeezed her shoulder and then seamlessly shifted over to their next job, and her task in it. Most likely scouting again, which in their current composition she was the best suited for.

Alexis complied, but it was yet another ‘unimportant’ issue Seoras didn’t care to address.

There were others. Like an increase in brutality on the battlefield - they were no fancy fencers, but there was a difference between fighting with all you got to see yet another day and gleefully hack an inferior opponent to pieces. Hard to argue that this might just be an isolated, subjective impression though.

And then there was the plundering. That one had indeed been a pretty heated subject, actually spanning more than just the ‘old’ members. Seoras had been quite annoyed to have to make a call on that, but compromised that perishable goods were fair game if the owner wasn’t around anymore and they would likely go to waste anyway, but other than that, yeah, it might fall under the ‘no stealing’ policy.

Again, it made kind of sense but… it still felt wrong, and that even without her suspecting the offenders would continue as they pleased, just watching out that they didn’t get caught. It felt like there was a slowly spreading illness under the surface.

And as Alexis knew all too well, an illness like that, if untreated, ate away at body and spirit.