Eleeria Silverwing

Then, Now

(then)

Lunge, swipe, parry, counterattack—

“Again.”

The motions repeated, over and over. Eleeria felt the sweat dripping down her neck, her throat. It had been hours of the same motions, correcting her form and insisting on repetition. Again she had lunged, parried; her legs shook with overuse, stomach growling. The next repetition was sloppy as she reflected on how long ago (and long forgotten) lunch had been. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast early that morning and yet, still her father demanded more. She was on the cup of twenty years and every day seemed to test her limits. Sometimes she didn't even make it into bed before her body began to shut down, curling up in the middle of the rug on her bedroom floor and deeming it suitable.

Again.

She was beginning to hate that word. That word, and all of the lessons that came with it.

Finally, she could stand it no more. Her entire body protested, and it was all she could do to stand. "No, Ann'da!" It was more petulant than she had planned, the combination of the cracking, whining voice and the sharp noise of her training daggers hitting the training yard floor. "I'm tired. I'm hungry. Can't we please go get food?"

Vanaal looked at his daughter with an impassive gaze. Where she was angry, prone to outburst, he was....nothing. A  mask, cleverly held in place through all situations. And while her own facade cracked more often than she liked, his never seemed to waver. It always unnerved Eleeria when he would stare at her, eyes more calculating than they were comforting. As if she were an investment, not a daughter.

(Still, she thought, she did love him. He had put weapons into her hands and taught her that she could be more than a woman to be abused by the rich and the strong. And she would work on her own mask, until she could exchange them with the ease that he did.)

"No." His answer was short. Eleeria crossed her arms, panting.

"Why not?"

He approached her, sheathing his own daggers so that he could reach to grip her shoulders. So rarely did he show any sort of positive touch or affection that Eleeria recoiled, before relaxing. He noticed that as well, but chose not to comment on it. Rather, Vanaal leaned over until he was of a height with his daughter, looking her in the eye.

"There will come a time in your life when you will be glad you practiced to the point where you could no longer stand. You will never be the fastest foe. You will never be the strongest. You are not the one of tires first, but neither will you be the one that tires last. There are always better opponents, Eleeria. The difference between you and a skilled foe is that you have learned endurance where they have not. You work through the hunger because there will be a day when you can't afford to eat, or you'll lose sight of your mark. You work through the pain because your life will depend on it. Do you understand?"

She was silent for a long moment. Rarely was he so candid with her -- generally his admonishments were all that she received, and the earnest advice (or perhaps, the idea that he cared for her wellbeing) seemed to shake something firm within her. She wanted to be just like Vanaal -- just like her father, with his unshakeable resolve, his tenacity. Eleeria wanted nothing more than to please him. She wanted to be as perfect as he imagined her to be.

And it made her love him all the more.

"....yes. Let's keep going." The small woman steeled herself once more, finding the resolve within herself to keep going, despite the pain and hunger.

--

(now)

"Again!"

A different time, a different weapon. Hundreds of years had passed, she thought, and the word always remained the same. Though four or five other initiates sat to the side, all in states of weariness, Eleeria alone remained on the training yard, small body tucked behind the shield so preciously gifted to her by Amren. The Knight who had been drilling the Initiates in sword and shield work seemed keen to continue, and so, spurred on by her own resolve, she continued to fight.

It was difficult, to remember that the shield wasn't simply a flat piece of metal or wood she was meant to wave around on her arm. It was a weapon too -- she could push people away, force people back. Cause them to lose their footing. The Knight indicated that they should begin once more, and lunged at her, his own sword and shield meeting hers. Eleeria shoved, practicing the motions that he had been teaching them -- initial force pushing them off of their center of balance, deflect their weaponry, lunge, kill. She had long stopped caring about hunger or fatigue. One Initiate groaned, laying down on his back as the Knight and Eleeria repeated the process, over and over. Many simply wandered off, while others stared in awe.

She had been here for hours. That she knew, and yet -- the pain was nothing. The hunger was nothing.

Vanaal had been right, in the end. She had been there, perched in the shadows of rooftops and withering with hunger. She had fought for her life on several occasions, many of which were spent trying not to die, herself. She was neither the fastest, nor the strongest, person she had ever met in four hundred years.

And yet, she was perhaps the singularly most persistent.

Time seemed to slow into a seamless motion of blocks and parries, over and over. Until finally even the Knight she practiced with was tired, and Eleeria shook her head, trying to bring her mind back from the strange place it had been where she moved so swiftly and surely, an instrument of nothing but war.

(She needed to speak to her father. That she knew, and was her first thought upon pulling herself from that battle trance -- and yet.... )

The few initiates who had stayed wore looks of mild awe. The youngest of them appeared frightened. Eleeria frowned, dusting herself off as she went to return her practice weapons to the rack. She had chipped the sword, she noted with a tsk. She'd need to have that fixed before next week.

"You're horrifying."

"What?" She turned, to find one of the younger Initiates -- one of Ry'aen's friends, she thought -- staring at her in horror.

"You're really scary. You fight like you're possessed. I thought battle was supposed to be glorious and fun, but you fight like...."

"Like what?" She felt her tone growing slightly defensive and clamped it down. Schooled her face to neutrality.

"Like battle is scary. Like it's something you can actually lose, and you never want to."

She paused.

(She saw herself.)

And she left the practice room, not bothering to merit that statement with a reply.