Commander's Rounds

Entry 83: Early Hours

The commander blinked as he was woken up by the sun. It would rise early at this time of year, earlier than the commander would like, and certainly so early that he would be unwilling to get out of bed.

He looked beside him. King George V was smiling, but was still sound asleep, and it only took one look at the clock to tell him why. He never got used to the sun being this bright this early at this time of year. No one reasonable would or should be awake at this hour.

And as the commander thought about this, something came to mind- Who would be awake at this time of day? He knew that there were a number of night owls on the base who would be up and out at hours of the day he would consider to be unreasonably late, such as Duke of York. So his mind began to approach the subject of who would be up with the sun, regardless of how early in the day the sun decided to come up.

The commander decided to do something he felt like he hadn't done for a long time- take a walk around the base and find things out for himself. He had at least a couple or so hours before King George V would wake up and start breakfast, but he left her a note telling her that he would be back in time.

He eased himself out of bed so as to not disturb his sleeping wife, and he quickly cleaned up and threw on his uniform before going outside in the very early morning, far earlier than he would normally go out if it wasn't for his curiosity about his own base.

On first inspection, it was as quiet as he thought it might be, and the commander's first steps into the outdoors were slow, as though he didn't want to do much to disturb the peace he was intruding on.

But he didn't have to go far to find that the base was never truly asleep.

The commander only needed to look towards the road along the sea to find that there were people who had not only gotten up, but had also started their own day in earnest, as he saw two of the ships dressed in tight workout clothes.

In retrospect, he might have suspected that ships like Baltimore might have wanted to get in a workout before doing absolutely anything else, and that included other fitness-minded ships- in this case, Baltimore was sharing her very early workout time with Giulio Cesare, and from the way the two of them were behaving, they were coming to the end of their morning run rather than just starting out. This made the commander wonder exactly when the two of them started their day- At least on days when they decided to do this together.

Once they had stopped, Giulio Cesare put her hands on her knees and looked over at her workout partner. "...While my speed is no match for yours at sea... All right, it's pretty tough to keep up with you on land, too."

Baltimore took a drink from her water bottle. "But it's not a problem, you know? Having someone to do this kind of thing with means you don't want to sneak off or give up or anything like that. Having someone to work out with just gives you better results all around. So, whatever you might think of your own performance, I like doing this kind of thing with you."

"Oh...?" Giulio Cesare scratched her cheek a bit. "You know, when we started this, I didn't think you'd be so accommodating. Us older ships sometimes have to work harder to get the same results."

Baltimore blinked. "You thought I'd prefer to be with someone else?"

The Sardegnan dreadnought shrugged. "Maybe someone more modern, maybe people from your own country."

Baltimore smiled. "Okay, so it's true that Tennessee and the South Dakota sisters and Marblehead and others do this kind of thing. But when it comes to Azur Lane, I can't just think about my own country. So, maybe I just wanted to help you out, too."