Eran and Milo

Eran and Milo are not mighty in the way banners prefer, which is why soldiers keep underestimating them. They survive by noticing what proud people step over: a loose hinge, a hungry child, a culvert under the road, a cookfire hidden from patrols, the one kind word that keeps a messenger from running. Caerdun's harder officers would call them irregular until the ledger shows how many failures their small acts prevented. The Varric Marches understand them more quickly. Broken roads are kept alive by people who know one meal can save a mile as surely as one sword. Eran and Milo smell of damp bread, tallow, old leather, pine smoke, and mud dried in cloak hems. Their greatness is the refusal to become grand enough to excuse cruelty.