Ta Milotia Criatosia

The Standard "Unit Size" for Ta Milotia Criatosia is a ten child crew assigned to the average Kinatis; 10 children to pick up after the spoils of a hundred or so soldiers they are assigned to.
Each "Unit" Of Ta Milotia Criatosia is also subservient to a single caretaker, usually a military bonded slave or a Leconis' wife who has been hired by the local military unit to take care of the children assigned to it, which they must follow any orders of in the moment.
Furthermore, their transportation is driven by two Cilusia, which are themselves cared for by a single animal specialist that stays with the unit and drives the wagon within which the children and their caretaker travel.   While these children may, at first, seem like they would be field janitors such things could not be farther from the truth!
Ta Milotia Criatosia are NOT there to clean up, look after the hygiene of the soldiers, cook for them or do any other such simple things that any good Kinatar should have his own soldiers maintain as military standard!
NOR are Ta Milotia Criatosia there to carry around things, pack stuff up or keep clean the weapons and armor of their higher ranking superiors as a standard military slave might manage when a unit's inventories are growing out of control!   Instead Ta Milotia Criatosia are a dedicated military class of post-battle scavengers tasked with recovering the fallen weapons, armor and equipment of both friends and enemies alike!
Sent out after a battle is decided, it is the role of any good child on duty to, first and foremost, find living allies who need medical attention or enemy survivors which require capture or trained dispatch!
Secondly, the child must do whatever they can to locate the bodies of the injured and dead belonging to their unit!
While this can be difficult, all Kandia Leconia carry rudimentary dogtags and are identified by their unit tattoos so a well trained child has a much better chance of finding them even after their death!
Finally, Ta Milotia Criatosia exist to collect weapons, armor, equipment and treasure from the field and turn it in to their superiors and caretakers!

Ta Milotia Criatosia, being the lowest and most basic rank in the logistics branch of the Kandia Military, are not equipped with much!
HOWEVER, Kandar Lucus and the Military Structure Of Kanda DEEPLY value these children and have given them more than enough for their assigned duties!   Any child in Ta Milotia Criatosia comes equipped with solid, metal soled boots fitted specially to them to protect their feet while their hands are covered by thick, waxed leather gloves roughly twice the thickness of the standard Leconis' glove!
While somewhat clunky and difficult to manipulate, most of Ta Milotia Criatosia quickly learn to adapt to their protective gear in short order!   Furthermore, baked red leather aprons adorn the chests of every child in military service, each with a Great Green Tree in the center; representing the importance of raising children properly and helping them grow through responsible service.
While these aprons may seem paltry to the casual observer their multiple thick, hardened layers allow them to easily stop an arrow if some horrible enemy of the empire were to target them while they innocently went about their work!
Perhaps as important, the waxed leather aprons keep them from being splattered with blood and ichor in the aftermath of battle; through which all manner of diseases and foul effects can be passed by enemy magicians.
Following this very same line of logic, MOST of Ta Milotia Criatosia is also given a cloth mask to wear over their face to avoid potential breathing hazards of the battlefield; protecting them from the scents of nauseating agents often employed by the people from the Band of Green, the harsh sand of Eldin's deserts, the boggy stench of the Former Salvin lands and the cold, salty air of the Vaennland borders and northern Kandia coasts!   Finally, every single one of The Military's Children are equipped with a simple signal whistle, which they use to call superiors or warn that enemies are still active nearby.
While trained not to simply blow on their whistles for any reason, most of Ta Milotia Criatosia are encouraged to be relatively liberal with their whistling, since maximum awareness on the periphery of any battlefield is important even after the fighting has been finished.
Using old military manuals from their history education as reference, a vast majority of the children have begun using their whistles to send off coded messages that have become functionally synonymous with Morse Code to talk to each other across great distances; communications composed of ordered sets of long blasts, short blasts and stops which lay out letters that can be constructed into words by fluent listeners.
Inspired by this, some small units of Leconia on the empire's frontiers have started learning and using this already well established children's whistle code to great effect.

Ta Milotia Criatosia are EXPLICITLY a non-combat part of the military, the lowest rung of the Logistics System that runs one of the largest armies on the surface of Ta Mando!   THAT BEING SAID, most children serving in the military are given a standard Paga (Dagger) for utility to help them cut the straps or clothing from those bodies they are scavenging!
In a worst case scenario, though Ta Milotia Criatosia are always accompanied by actual fighting soldiers, a child may use their Paga as a personal defense weapon!   Ta Milotia Criatosia are also highly encouraged to consider carrying a sling and bag of lead bullets with them wherever they go just in case they spot a potential enemy from afar!
While a required piece of kit for all Leconia already, the sling is a versatile weapon that even children can benefit from possessing; practicing for their eventual term of military service by hunting small game for dinner or playing at target practice in the Castania.
Sneaky boys found to be particularly gifted in the Sling might even be considered by the Scouts and fast tracked into roles as student rangers and apprentice spies as they near adulthood!

Because of their soft feet and the nature of their unit as logistical support, Ta Milotia Criatosia are not expected to march with the other soldiers!   Instead the children are made to travel along with the rest of the baggage train in standard military wagons that they use to store salvage from the field, normally driven by their unit's animal caretaker!
Each wagon is typically pulled by two Kandia Cilusia (Donkeys) and those Cilusia themselves have at least one caretaker!   As Ta Milotia Criatosia do NOT extend into the Kandia Navy, however, there are no ship-bound children and most transportation over sea is done in the same transport vehicles as the adults.

Every "Unit" Of Ta Milotia Criatosia is trained to be well aware of their commanding figures, of which all Leconia in their particular assignment outrank them but final orders are to be taken only from the superior officers and all children understand that the Kinataria maintain final say over any lesser officer.
Trained to recognize different ranks and understand the chain of command, any of The Military's Children will typically be able to understand which officer is superior by kit alone and will follow their orders first and foremost.

The Military's Children have little in the way of tactics to speak of, though they DO have a set of rules that they are taught to follow whenever possible!
This comes in the form of a short list of simple but broad orders they learn that generally teach them to keep from getting hurt and to make sure that they are effective in their duties!   1: Never Leave The Sight Of Your Unit!
Much like any rung of the Kandia Military, Ta Milotia Criatosia are heavily drilled to maintain constant awareness of their partners on the field!
All ten of them must be within eyeshot of each other at all times or they can be harshly chastised by their caretakers for journeying too far from each other and breaking group cohesion.   2: Never Leave Sight Of The Leconia!
Similarly to how they are to rely on each other, The Military's Children are always to rely on their superiors in the military structure itself!
If any of them finds themselves outside of the sight of any adult soldiers they are to immediately return to base and regroup before receiving further orders!   3: Battle Is No Place For A Child!
Ta Milotia Criatosia are ONLY allowed their role on the battlefield because it is assumed that the battle is done!
If conflict EVER resumes on a battlefield that The Military's Children are scavenging they are to flee back to base without delay and are only to take part in the conflict if they absolutely must!
They are NOT to try to save each other while they flee, as every child back at base as soon as possible is a child that does not have to be retrieved!   4: No Child Will Be Left Behind!
Despite their overarching orders to abandon their own if conflict resumes, Ta Milotia Criatosia are never abandoned for long!
Historically, any child captured by the enemy has been retrieved, even at the great risk to their Kinatis!
To the Leconia that these children are assigned to, the children are their own!
Each man would gladly die for the safety of these children and every one of The Military's Children knows that if they don't make it back to base and are unceremoniously scooped up by an Eldinia cavalryman or grabbed by a northern raider... they need not fear... for help will always be close behind!   5: Hold Out And Defy The Enemy!
When captured one of Ta Milotia Criatosia is simply not to speak at all.
They are to hold out and defy the enemy at every turn in a passive fashion as much as they can.
They are taught that the enemy will strike them and bring them pain JUST as easily as they will be kind and offer sweets and treats laced with alchemical substances made to coax secrets out of them.
And They KNOW That Help Is On The Way!
So no matter what pain is dealt upon them, whatever bait is lain upon the interrogation before them, it is only a matter of time until they are rescued by the TRUE soldiers, which they themselves will one day be counted alongside!
One Of The Military's Children in the camp of an enemy might not spit in the face of his captors or struggle at her bindings when the guards look away... but instead will sit silently and patiently and stare out at the horizon, waiting for reinforcement!   6: Learn Everything You Can Whenever You Get The Chance!
Ta Milotia Criatosia is an institution based on the practical education and care of children.
Suitably, The Military's Children KNOW that they are there to learn whatever they can from any source available and they are raised to do so with wild and feverish abandon!
And this, of course, includes learning whatever they can about the enemy whenever possible.
With the above rules in mind, any captured child will do whatever they can to take note of the circumstances, culture, language and even magical practices of their captors if they have the opportunity to do so!
Even at home and in a more domestic setting like in the industrial divisions of the core's guardian military Ta Milotia Criatosia are conditioned to soak up knowledge like little sponges while the Kensaria and Scurilia of the Ta Kandia Miloti gleefully monitor their progress and organize them according to their best abilities and talents for the benefit of the state.

While the upkeep of Ta Milotia Criatosia is, at least in equipment and food maintenance, quite minimal it is not to say that there aren't costs to the unit's upkeep!
As children require education and Ta Milotia Criatosia was made by Kandar Lucus as a means of providing that education, every ten units of Ta Milotia Criatosia (Collectively Belonging To A Wealis) has a set of five tutors to tend to their mental upbringing!   Each of these five teachers has a specialty that they impart upon the children; philosophy, mathematics, discourse, practical craft and athletics!
Each of these tutors is explicitly there to teach the children important aspects of being Kandia citizens!   Tutors of philosophy impart the children with the capacity to reason, think efficiently and formulate sound arguments with the capacity for leadership or instruction.
Mathematics teachers educate Ta Milotia Criatosia in the value of understanding numbers through distance and practical usage; encouraging the children to learn to count accurately, monitor their time and adequately estimate distance, speed and spacial dimensions!
Discourse tutors offer the children an understanding of the Kandia Language along the lines of grammar, rhetoric and logic; helping them to learn how to speak, write and act in the way of Kanda and be unmistakably recognized as Kandia!
Practical Craft Tutors are normally would-be Censaria that are able to instruct the children on all manner of handicraft and trade skills from sewing and leatherworking to metal sharpening and carpentry; there to help teach the next generation of Kandia children the skills they will one day need to be functioning adults!
And finally the Athletics tutors maintain the physical health and wellbeing of the children; pushing them to reasonable limits, maintaining their fitness and making sure that they grow up to be strong and energetic soldiers and eager, healthy wives with strong constitutions and capable muscles for eventually birthing many strong children of their own!   Altogether, though not a truly compulsory form of national teaching, this method of upkeep has created a near perfect assembly line to make Kanda's Military Children into a future force that is well trained, well educated and well used to the conflict that Kanda's martial culture can be involved in!
Though no expense is spared to keep these children safe, nobody in their right mind would consider it all out of pure generosity; quite the contrary!
To The Realm Of Kanda and Kandar Lucus himself... the education of these children guarantees a functioning society into the future regardless of the potential risks from abroad!
And it means entirely new generations of children who have seen Kanda's enemies, known their faces and steeled themselves against the dangers of sedition and corruption that those enemies would love to cultivate from within the borders of the Empire; the enemy otherwise feeding on a new era of eager and dissatisfied Kandia youths looking to find a reason to rebel!

Ta Milotia Censaria (The Military Censaria) have final say over how the Military's Children are provided for and what sort of support they receive.
However, by and large the military does whatever is needed to maintain the wellbeing of their charges however possible.   Furthermore, while the Censaria are those who decide the overall resources provided to and policies presiding over Ta Milotia Criatosia, most Kinatia form strong bonds with the handfuls of children that follow them, help them clear the field and find them if they've been incapacitated in battle!
Since their arrival in the overall infrastructure of the military, countless lives have been saved thanks to the keen senses of The Military's Children; combing the fields immediately after the battle has finished to find those familiar to them and call for help to save those who still survive!
Because of this, it is not rare for a Kinatis to spoil these children and buy them special treats when they have performed well.
Especially beloved young men graduating into military service might be bought an entire custom set of armor and weapons or a fine horse by their Kinatis while young women leaving service at the coming of marriagiable age may be set up with wealthy suitors by the well-to-do officers of the Kinatia under which they served!
Even if they do not excel at their duties it is rare that a child will be mistreated by the Leconia above them and the Leconia above them are equally encouraged to treat the children well or their disrespect to and mistreatment of the structure of the Kandia Military will be met with harsh physical punishment by their superiors, often publicly.

The Military's Children are a surprisingly easy force to care for, despite their truly gigantic population and advanced needs!   Though children grow quickly and require many new sets of shoes, tunics, underclothes, cloaks and more... these items tend to last far longer than their wearers have need of them and so can be handed down many times before they must be recycled.
Food is the stock and trade of Kanda and the military system of the empire already accounts for hilarious amounts of rationing and the replacing of weapons, armor and gear.
Compared to the millions of actively marching and fighting soldiers of Kanda that presently serve, just under three hundred thousand children, just under thirty thousand attendants and just under thirty thousand donkey handlers require a paltry sum that the military alone can afford to feed, house and protect.   What is less paltry is the matter of education, as every hundred children are tutored by five state assigned teachers that themselves cost quite a sum!
However, due to the overall resources brought in by the existence of The Military's Children, the expenses these children have cost the military have been easy to offset.

Most often Ta Milotia Criatosia are the children of Leconia who have ended up getting married in their first term of service and had children with some camp follower or a denizen of some village their unit has passed through.
However, any boy or girl, orphan to aristocrat aged three to fifteen may be signed up to join Ta Milotia Criatosia and serve under the care of the military banner; after which they will be cared for, protected by the military complex and given the best of military educations!   While originally only allowed to join with the permission of a parent, Ta Milotia Criatosia was reformed in 1620 to allow any child to join of their own volition whether or not their parents approve of their entry into the military infrastructure!
This, at least on its face, was to allow orphaned children of departed Leconia to gain the protection and education of the military in hopes of guaranteeing the retention of their family land after their inevitable term of service; receiving training and gear long before they are called to battle to better their chances.
However, in practice it has become a saving grace for countless city orphans that have run to the protection of the Kandia military to avoid the prying eyes and hands of slavers who prowl the streets of every major city looking for abandoned children to coax into capture and slavery.   At sixteen years of age the boys of Ta Milotia Criatosia are normally fast tracked straight into higher military service ranks while young women just coming of age often find themselves joining feminine or unisex institutions closely aligned to the Ta Kandia Miloti such as The Imperial Weavers, Battle Herbalists or even caretakers of new units of The Military's Children!

In 1620 the Theocracy Of Eldin closed the borders to the distant west, forcing Kanda out of a flourishing global trade system that extended all the way to The Western Kingdom and enriched not only those two nations but every realm that lie between them.
Having reached the fullest extent of their southern territory, The Band Of Green housed dangerous natives that halted Kanda's advance.
And to the east The Ducky Isle Wars had been finished and Wing Island was simply unwilling to trade after such dreadful humiliation at the hands of the Kandia!
The Salvinia had been brought to heel and, for the first time in over a century, Ta Fanusia Hyanus had reached a sort of stability in both trade and territory next to the natives of the southern continent!   With only the fractious north to trade with after that, Kandar Lucus had to acknowledge that the border raids were slowly but surely sapping his military's inventories and his empire's coffers!
Every Kandia death from a border raid lost the Empire a set of armor, a sword, several spears... an ENTIRE person's kit!
And Kanda no longer had many allies who could help them recoop these losses!   So, with that in mind, Kandar Lucus came up with what has been his most controversial declaration to date!
He decided to put the lowest classes of children... orphans and bastards and the sons and daughters of camp followers and whores... into military service!
It was his thought that these children would, over the course of time, create a presence on the battlefield that would consistently restore those weapons and armor lost to the Kandia by violent attack, that they could be trained and educated in the field and shown how it was to be Kandia!   And, to the horror of many and the relief of the Imperial Censaria, he was right!
Within just a few years the first units of Ta Milotia Criatosia had already paid themselves off several times over; an organized and helpful force of youths, normally the children of those very same soldiers they were serving alongside, who located injured soldiers and recovered not just armor and weapons... but TREASURE from the enemy dead!
And the presence of these children alongside them made the men fight even harder; confident in their cultural standards and a sort of distant apprenticeship that all of The Military's Children were a part of under the soldiers they followed!
The men over each unit started seeing Ta Milotia Criatosia as their own and they would go through the deadliest of trials to see them safe!
And the children, learning firsthand how important and dangerous the work could be, learned respect and courage and important skills for all Kandia to learn!   Eight Years Later even the borders of Vaennland closed... and shortly thereafter the northern raids began!
Already a resounding success despite overwhelming populist resistance, Kandar Lucus declared subtle but undoudtedly effective reforms that expanded Ta Milotia Criatosia considerably by allowing any child that wanted to to flee to Ta Kandia Miloti and join The Military's Children!
This was originally to provide orphaned boys waiting to inherit land from their late fathers the chance to learn and train before they had to fight for their right to said land... however, it ended up encouraging the countless orphans and abandoned children of Kanda's cities to enlist into the service to avoid the all too common slaver culture that pervades the dark alleys and slums of the largest communities in the empire.   Having received from Ta Kandia Miloti refuge from poverty, a family to replace those they lost and freedom from the life of slavery that might have awaited them, the majority of The Military's Children who joined after the 1620 reformation have gained a reputation as happy, helpful and energetic things always thankful for their lot in life when reminded of the potential alternatives!
And, of course, this reputation has encouraged young parents from all across the Empire's fringes to push their own spare children to enlist both as a way of helping them advance earlier in life as well as to cut the potential costs of raising, feeding, clothing and otherwise caring for their own children!

Ta Milotia Criatosia, while trained to be publicly loyal to The Kandar and The Empire Of Kanda first and foremost, obviously have their own special loyalties to the Kinatis under which they are assigned!   That being said, there is an overarching appreciation to Ta Kandia Miloti as a whole thanks to the way that The Military's Children and its structure works!
Each Unit is like a family and that family is taken care of by a much larger clan, which cherishes them and fits into an EVEN LARGER pact of brothers in battle, who themselves support a group of tutors to educate and guide their collective children toward a brighter future!
Only through THEM do the children really learn the importance of community, cooperation, communication and consideration toward one another's needs and talents throughout the whole of society!
Growing up, Ta Milotia Criatosia are, by the soldiers they are assigned to, raised to value brotherhood and unit cohesion and they will seldom abandon the wills of their units for the preferences of others when given the chance.
While such a thing would never happen... Ta Milotia Criatosia would be assumed to take the side of their own overseers in any hypothetical event of civil war... but, of course, it is not the role of Children to make executive decisions in war so they could not be blamed for their loyalties in the heat of the moment!