Hurrah for Dixie (Part IV)

															(MERRY CHRISTMAS BTW)
	You found yourself back across that creek staring at the long row of Yankees on the incline. With the bugle call to charge ringing out behind you, you rushed forward with a deafening war cry and took Dixie's part as the first soldier to reach them. All the fear you actually felt that day was nonexistent in this fantasy, but your heart was still going a mile a minute while you nearly leaped across the stream. An unexplainable new hatred of those Northern sons of bitches overpowered any doubt of your survival, and also gave you a burst of energy as you reached the slope and pierced a soldier through the chest. Into the fray you now were, stabbing some with the bayonet and ramming others with the stock. A blue-suited sergeant focused on you, dropping his musket and moving to unsheathe his saber, but you skewered him in the gut before he could do so.
	Several minutes of intense bloodshed later, you stood victorious atop a pile of Yankee corpses, watching the officers frantically order their men to fall back into the woods. Looking to your sides to see how the rest of the 12th fared in the charge, you found no Confederates there, living or dead. Even turning around to face the creek yielded nothing but a completely empty field behind it. You would certainly be considered a hero in town now! Expelling a Federal force singlehandedly is not an accomplishment easily topped! With a triumphant cheer, you made a motion to lift your rifle, but found your right arm unable to pass a certain vertical point in the air. Despite multiple hard jerks, it wouldn't budge, much to your frustration and confusion.
	Your eyes shot open, revealing the inside of a tent, and instantly causing the real memory to come flooding back. You weren't the hero of that battle; the petite "sleeping" robot clutching your right arm was. The faint light outside and a peek at your pocket watch with your available arm revealed it to be a few minutes past six in the morning. The weight of your eyelids was tempting you to try and get more sleep, but you wanted to see what a sunrise in the Shenandoah Valley looked like. Having only one arm, you easily pried her limb and fingers off of you and quietly exited the tent.
	You weren't the only one awake, you found. Countless officers and enlisted men were walking about, sitting by campfires, or having conversations outside their quarters. The sky was a beautiful shade of yellow, red, and some purple, with the sun not yet peeking over the horizon. While you were admiring it, you heard some footsteps in the grass coming closer.
	"Morning, Anon," Sam said with a clear and energetic tone, "you're up early."
	"Yeah, I wanted to check out the sunrise," you grumbled in reply.
When you turned towards him, he was wearing his full uniform, as if he never took it off to sleep last night. He stared at you in silent impatience, like he was expecting something from you.
	"What is it?"
	"I don't know what kind of army you think you're in," he began sternly, "but in mine, it's... well, customary for men to salute their superior officers when greeting them."
	"Oh yeah. Sorry, I didn't think I needed to if it's just you and me talking," you said while giving an unenthusiastic salute, causing him to raise his hand to his head in a neater fashion and quickly return it to his side.
	"It wouldn't hurt to get into the habit of doing it, as well as calling me sir in public. Anyway, if you want to sit on the hilltop and get a good view of that sunrise, there are plenty of free camp stools by the fires. You want some coffee, too?"
	"I'm all good," you responded, "that crap tastes worse than mud."
He chuckled at your strong opinion.
	"All right, suit yourself."

	Once you got to the top of that hill and sat down, the sun was starting to become visible over the tree line. Bird calls echoed over your glorious vista of the river below and its surrounding forest. The leaves on the trees were just starting to bud, which painted each branch with tiny green and red dots. Even if the grass isn't the right color yet, and the trees are almost bare, an artist would definitely be inspired by how the orange sky is reflected off the water. With such a serine sight, you thought of Dixie and her unexpected rampage days ago. Did she always have a killer instinct but no chance for you to see it before, or did she suffer a mechanical problem that affected her behavior? If the latter was true, then why was she still acting chipper and innocent afterwards? Is she just putting on a cutesy performance in front of you? Should you be intimidated by her? Regardless, she never told you why she signed up with you in the first place.
	You'll wind her up after the sun fully rises, you decided, and get that glaring question finally answered.
	You could hear the sound of grass rustling behind you once more. Standing up and peeking over the edge of the hilltop revealed it to be Sam again, but he was hiding something behind his back.
	"Hey Anon," he said immediately at the sight of your face, "what's your rank again?"
You sat and stared for a second, wondering where he was going with this.
	"I'm just a private, Sam. You know that."
A smirk came over his face. "Not anymore you're not," he exclaimed while revealing a scabbard with a gold hilt protruding at one end from behind him, "First Sergeant Ardwick!"
	Grabbing it and examining it, you felt both flattered and puzzled at the same time.
	"Woah. Sam, what in the Hell have I done to earn this?"
He grabbed you on your unscathed left shoulder and handed you the appropriate chevrons for your rank. "It's an unspoken rule of the 12th: I always give out promotions to men that are wounded but can still fight."
	You looked down at the patches, still in disbelief about being boosted up three ranks only for being shot.
	"Y-you exp-pect ME to sew these onto my coat?" you asked with your stutter rearing its ugly head in, though weaker and hopefully unnoticeable this time.
	"No, but I could go down to your tent and send up someone who will, with your permission, Sergeant Stammer," he said while laughing.

	Around five minutes later, Dixie had come up the slope and taken your position on the stool while you stood watching and shivering infrequently. With a small chest of sewing materials at her side, she was delighted to patch those new symbols onto your coat, even though she had only one usable arm. During her work, it seemed like the best time to have some things cleared up.
	"Hey, Dixie," you started, "you never told me why you enlisted. I only expected you to keep watch of the house while I was gone." She paused her task and looked up at you with her usual upbeat expression, which now seemed like simply an act.
	"Well, I wanted to keep you company, Anon! War can be mighty terrifyin' if someone ain't at your side! We should-"
You were becoming frustrated, but reacting angrily wouldn't make her any more honest.
	"Dixie, please don't lie to me," you interrupted, "you didn't join for the sole purpose of looking after me, did you?"
Like a flashback to weeks prior at the dinner table, she dropped her smile and looked down in guilt momentarily before raising her head again to answer truthfully.
	"Anon, I had some doubts about ...your chances of survival when you finally promised to enlist. I sincerely do want to protect you, but you're right in believin' that's not the only reason."
She took a very bold tone as she queued up a statement you would have never predicted she'd say.
	"What I did at the charge gave it away, didn't it? How much I hate those Yankees? Every mornin' after you left for work, I read the papers, and I found out what that tyrant Lincoln is doin'. You know that last year, before I was first activated, he suspended Habeas Corpus in Maryland and arrested anyone speakin' in support of the South, just to keep it from joinin' us? No elected man should be doin' that! He's become as controllin' and evil as King George durin' the revolution, and I want to bring him to his knees, just like the patriots did back then!"
	Hearing her voice raise as she gave her passionate speech made it clear to you why everyone in town dislikes your lack of patriotism.
	"This isn't so much a war about the freedom to own nigs," she continued, "as it is about one man, who over half the country didn't vote for, to tell that half what they can and can't do! I'm sorry, but unlike you, I refuse to sit back and let that happen. That, Anon, is why I'm really here in this conflict. Also, talking about your brother to convince you to enlist first, I thought, would shock you less than if I just disappeared one day and left a note sayin' I signed up to fight."
	Concluding her confession, she promptly returned her attention to your coat and carried on with sewing those chevrons to the sleeves. Without looking up and hearing nothing from you, she tensely asked the same question you were thinking yourself.
	"Are you mad at me for lyin' to you?"
You marveled at her surprising free will and use of manipulation, and slowly exhaled through your nose before answering.
	"No, I'm not mad at you, just..." you moved closer and put your hand on her upper back to make your point definite, "for the love of all that is Holy, DON'T use me again, you hear?"
She looked up at you with mildly intimidated, but still confident eyes and reformed a modest grin.
	"Understood, Sergeant Anon. I've been waitin' to say all that for a long time."
She turned her eyes back to the coat as you removed your hand from her and looked back towards the now risen sun. "Good, I admire a woman that is ambitious and not afraid to speak her mind," you thought to yourself.
	"Ha ha! Well, I'm not exactly a woman, Anon," she playfully responded from behind. You must have accidentally mumbled that sentence instead, but rather than admit that was an accident, you made a daring move and faced her again.
	"That may be," you said, "but you're superior to every single one I've known."
	You stepped over to her and planted a quick kiss on her hard wooden forehead. As you pulled your head back, she swiftly let go of the needle and grabbed your shirt by the collar, scaring the Hell out of you before her eyelids lowered and her smile turned devilish.
	"You missed my mouth, Sergeant."