"Major Valya Ymirborn. We are here today not to honour you, not to decorate you, but to thank you. Because of your quick acts, because of your excellent bond with those under your command, because of your clever thinking, you saved lives. I could list numbers, based on countless projections made to analyse your deeds. I will not. Pulling in fiction to defend reality is a silly thing to do. Instead, we should simply praise you.
"You saved lives. Many. And words of gratitude cannot properly symbolise how grateful we are to you. That is why this medal exists. This title. This ceremony. So that we can present you with an act, however inconsequential, however symbolic, that shows how much what you did means to us. For your acts of valour and bravery, your quick thinking in a most incredibly dangerous situation, I present you with the very first Stalwart Cross. And I salute you, for the difference you have made."
There are no medals on Ymir. No decorations, no honour. The military is called
Defenders, because even though we are under
Martial Law, there is no army on
Ymir. There is no country to face off against, no war to be fought. There are just the people and this world.
Yet here we are, with an actual enemy. Not just hostile wildlife, but people that have turned against society. That steal and murder, that tear down buildings, that aim to kill all in the way of their view of how this world should be.
And against that enemy, against a massive threat that could have killed dozens or way more, that could have resulted in an
Ursa Major stampede breaching the
First City, Major Valya Ymirborn stood tall. She took the worst of the blast that she saved so many from, and even then, in an injured daze, she shone bright and prevented even worse from taking place.
There is no way for military leadership to properly express their gratitude. So they invented one. Thus, they made the first decoration on Ymir. The Stalwart Cross. And the now-inactive Major was the first to receive it.
We all pray she'll also be the last.
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