Captain Crozier

Raju shuts the door behind him, hand pressed to the door as he takes off the helmet, looks at it, frowns at the metal crown on its front. It seems cruel of this place, to make him wear this here and now. He'll need a mirror to check that everything on him is the way he expects, but without looking he knows every piece of this uniform better than he knows the back of his own hand, though he's never worn it before. The hat and the trousers, the same dark green colour, the trousers tucked into heeled boots with high cut brown leather he can feel tight around his calves, up to just below the knee. He knows the brown belt sitting at his hips with its wide silver buckle, with that damned crown. The strap from it, the weight of the pistol at his hip. He knows the red of the jacket, that bright red, and he knows the gold braid dangling from a shoulder and hooked into one of the golden, gleaming buttons. He knows the medals over his chest.

His hand drifts off of the door and touches its fingertips tentatively to his face. Bare again, save for the smartly kept moustache there. His skin might be flushed with the cold; all this cloth would be just this side of too thick at home, but here it lets the cold air through. The cold, at least, is familiar in a way which doesn't feel... strange. It's probably the jacket, the wide belt. Thicker, and fits more tightly than he's used to. That's all.

He hasn't stopped frowning, and he hasn't said hello to Francis yet. It's all too strange for hellos. He's still getting used to it.