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“So you must be Temeraire,” a Prussian soldier said, coming up to him. He was an officer of some sort, not an ordinary soldier, though Temeraire couldn’t be sure of his rank as he wasn’t familiar enough with the Prussian infantry. And he certainly belonged to the ground troops and was not an aviator at all despite his lack of fear. He did seem very pale, though that could have been due to injury rather than fear. His leg was bandaged, with red blood seeping through and he walked with a crutch. His hair was odd too, white although he otherwise appeared to be a young man. Then Temeraire saw that the man’s eyes were red.
“Oh,” he said, “You are like Lian. Is it really bad luck?”
The man raised a pale eyebrow, and Temeraire realized what a terribly rude thing that was to say. The man didn’t seem too bothered, though.
“Not that I’ve noticed,” he said, “Who’s Lian?”
“The dragon with Napoleon,” Temeraire said, “ She’s the one who thought up all their strategy and routed all your dragons flying in squares.”
Temeraire didn’t call them stupid squares, because he did know how to be a little polite.
“Of course,” the man said, “That isn’t the natural coloring for her breed, then?”
“Oh, no,” said Temeraire, “She’s the same breed as I am, a celestial. She’s meant to be black like me. The Chinese say that it is very unlucky that she turned out all white instead, since that’s the color that symbolizes death.”
“It symbolizes death, does it,” the man said with a small smirk, “Well, I don’t see how that’s bad luck, necessarily, so long as you can keep it pointed towards your enemies.”
“Oh, that does make a great deal of sense,” Temeraire said, feeling as though he had to rearrange several of his ideas, “Do you suppose that’s what Lian’s done, why she beat us all so badly?”
“What I think is that Lian is a brilliant strategist. And that my military has gotten terribly stodgy and old fashioned and overconfident in the past few decades.”
“Those squares are very stupid,” Temeraire said, since the soldier hadn’t taken offense at anything he’d said so far, and honesty was supposed to be a virtue.
“They’ve served me well in the past. Order and discipline really do make a difference, you know. But war, like everything, changes. There isn’t ever going to be a perfect formation, any more than a perfect strategy or a perfect army, the difference between winning and losing will ultimately come down to innovation and adaptability, which it turns out I suck at these days,” he shrugged, “I’ll have to learn it again. That’s life, I suppose, can’t stay at the top forever, have to get knocked down and crawl your way back up, have to work for it.”
This all seemed a bit philosophical to Temeraire.
“It is very silly, though, that European dragons aren’t in charge of our formations or taught any of that military strategy that our captains and the generals and so forth are always going on about,” Temeraire said.
“Oh, I won’t argue with that, I’ve been saying that our attitudes towards dragon warfare are idiotic since the damn crusades,” the man said.
This was a very odd statement indeed. There weren’t even any dragons still alive, so far as Temeraire knew, who had been around to be giving opinions during the crusades.
“Sorry if it’s rude to ask,” Temeraire said, “But what are you?”
The man laughed, “I suppose I haven’t introduced myself. I am the great nation of Prussia. You really saved my ass back there, you know. It felt only right to thank you in person.”
“Oh, it really wasn’t anything too impressive,” Temeraire said, although inside he felt quite self-satisfied at the praise.
Prussia grinned as though he knew exactly what Temeraire was thinking.
“Oh don’t give me that, Kid,” he said, “You’re awesome and you should say it, politeness be damned. I’ll see you around,” he added, giving Temeraire a vaguely salute-like wave, “I’m sure you’ll give England hell.”
“It was a pleasure making your acquaintance,” Temeraire said, which was how you were meant to say goodbye to important people, but in this case Temeraire also meant it.
So that was a Nation. He wasn’t at all how Temeraire might have expected.