Cerina Polya Side Story 9, Mia & Katha Theodoros 27 - The Parable of the Board and the Nail
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Mia And Katha Theodoros 27/Cerina Polya Side Story 9 - The Parable of the Board and the Nail
Swing. Sweep. Smash. She thought, her body performed, and the beasts around her died.
In the shallows of the Beast-Raising Forest, the twilight strip where civilisation ended and nature took hold, there was a young maiden. Fair of skin and lean of muscle, her long raven-black hair swept around as she whipped her body around, sweeping like the inkbrush of a painter making their mark on their canvas. And as the painter did, so did she, her inkbrush a curved and lean blade a meter long, her canvas the monsters who struck out against one who had invaded their territories.
They struck and they died against the one who aggressed, her blade ringing with iron sound from every flourish and every sheet of blood shed. With unreal power and unnatural speed, the young woman was a storm of steel, a spiral of bladed demise. For the last eight hours she fought and of the last twenty beasts to attack twenty have died. Inch by inch, blow by blow, she has staked dominion upon this place.
Painted in the blood of her quarry, dressed in the proof of her success, Mia Theodoros demonstrated upon the forest what her ancestors once demonstrated upon the world. The prowess of the Vanguard. The violence of action of the Vanguard. The power of seizing the initiative. The value of explosive force. The strength of the Vanguard and the Blood of Iron.
And with the passing of the rains and the return of the sun, she would soon turn eighteen, the age of her majority. A grown woman, a Legionnaire of the Clan, a Golden Devil without bronzed skin. The first of the Pale Devils of her generation and living proof of the Vanguard's rebirth.
Yes, she would soon turn eighteen. And already in the Twelfth Heavenstage.
As she stood beneath the twilight of the canopy, the bush intermittently lit by rays of sunlight through the gaps she punched through with her attacks, Mia stood straight-backed and motionless, not even winded by her extended battle. Fatigue was a problem for other people, not a child of Theodora. And she was no mere scion. She was worthy.
In her ears, an echo. A towering beetle, looming silhouette lit by the light of the altar.
"Mm. You will be my Worthy Aspirant . Come, child."
She smiled despite herself. Yes, she was worthy.
From the darkness of the woods, she heard shuffling and felt tremoring. She smiled and adjusted her grip on her sword, a curved design once favoured by the Ironblooded for its slashing force and its demanding characteristics. Though it demanded perfect angles on the cut, when those conditions were met it did so flawlessly, though beast-skin and through array-steel. A sword for a swordmaster. A weapon for a warrior.
There would be no worthier weapon for Mia Theodoros, scion of Theodora, niece of Katha, Vanguard of the Clan.
Then, suddenly, the tremors stopped. The beasts fell quiet, intimidated and fearful as they hid for their lives. Mia felt a sudden joy as she demonstrated her dominion, but then stopped. They were fearful, yes, she could smell it. But they were not fearful of her.
The raven-haired beauty, the flashing blade that sang forth the spring song, Mia turned around as she felt herself be watched. And Mia locked eyes with the true master of the Beast-Raising Forest.
----
Cerina had been home for maybe a few days and already the spring harvest looked to be amazing this year.
An interesting little creature had fallen into her home and created a great deal of amusement in the past few hours. Her aunt was surely shaking her head forlornly and bemoaning her family's luck. Cerina could barely suppress her laughter as she stared down at the little beast girl, watching her carve a bloody trail through the Qi Condensation beasts of this outer edge of the forest.
Little beast girl.
Mia had the posture, the temerity, and the vicious fang of a young beast establishing herself in new territory. How she acted and the toothy, snarling expression on her face was hilarious. Yet for all her funny little beastly quirks, she still moved like a human. Cerina chuckled silently as she recalled Katha asking her to keep her eye on this little scamp, and then the sneaky little girl escaping from her aunt into the forest.
Cerina was hanging upside down from a tree branch by her legs, head dangling as her arms were crossed behind it. Far away, more beasts began to move, paws and hooves and heavy scales creating an ominous rumbling and that wouldn't do at all. Her Eye opened by a sliver and a subvocal growl shivered through the Wind. The tremors ceased, retreating into the distance and under cover as the little beast girl turned to look up at Cerina, no longer concealed by the vines and ivy.
She dropped to a tall stone beneath her tree, landing upright and hands folded before her. Waiting. What to do, little beast girl?
The girl acted immediately. First, she drew a line in the dirt with her blade, scratching a shallow divot into the soil with practiced ease, using the tip of the blade to do so. Then she raised it and drew a graceful circle, tracing the line she drew. Finally, as she drew the sword up from the ground, she held it up high, pointing to the sky. The girl exhaled and lowered it until the tip of her blade was level with her eyes. As she held the hilt with both her hands, Mia awaited Cerina's response.
Little fireworks of excitement popped behind Cerina's smile as she drew an arc with her foot, turned her body to one side and rolled her arms up into her opening stance. Steady knees, a small profile, one arm ahead and one to guard in a classic stance.
Mia smirked. Then her smirk turned beastial and vicious. And then she launched sideways with unreal speed as the ground heaved upwards. Cerina maintained the illusion of her stance, her weight shifting subtly as she tracked the girl by Qi and heartbeat, sweat, and the pressure wave she pushed through the air.
Cerina's head snapped around like an owl's, lips stretched in one of her widest grins as she beheld the point of the sword glinting for her neck and the girl having just leapt into the air. Blue not-light pressed down upon the scene and slowed the scion of Iron. Cerina's arms and hands twisted, snapping up and crushing Mia's ankles like shackles as their owner ducked. Mia's sword went over Cerina, as did Mia in a blur before her face and upper body powdered the top of the boulder.
Mia twitched. The young Legionnaire shuddered. Her limbs seized, filled with sudden strength, the power of outrage and defiance. Then, just as suddenly, she went limp. Like a pile of noodles, Mia splayed out on the rock that Cerina had smashed her head-first against. Only a soft groan, like the ticking of a clock, helped prove that the girl was still alive.
Then under her, a crack began slowly tearing across the boulder.
"...eh?" Cerina said in confusion, Eye shuttered again. Was she okay? Does the little beast not have a Katha-head? She was quite befuddled as she lifted the girl up by her ankles, the boulder suddenly shifting under her giving her a start before she leapt to the ground. One hand on Mia's ankle, Cerina gave her a jiggle.
"Hey. No sleeping. Are you dead, Iron-blooded?" Cerina asked, channeling her memories of Instructor Vasto's harsh tones.
Katha always responded better to that kind of tone, so it stood to reason her niece would too. And like, come on. Unconscious after one hit? What was this? Behind them, the boulder finished collapsing into a pile of rubble.
It wasn't even a hard hit!
Face down, on the ground, Mia started crying.
"Ack!" Cerina gasped, letting Mia down quietly and then rolling her over, looking at the little girl with concern. Her nose was bleeding, squashed a bit out of shape and her face mottled with bruising. "Sheesh kid. Come on Aspirant, take a breath and fix your nose. You're fine."
Which she was. No Iron-blooded was a fragile little minx. At worst they were untempered. Just in case though Cerina had herself at a safe distance if this was a ploy.
Mia, no longer the untouchable and aloof Soldier, now looked more like a girl who was not even a third Cerina's age. Sitting up, she sniffed and nodded, rubbing desperately at her eyes with her forearms. "'M not crying," she insisted, through a clogged nose and stifled sobs. "Not crying, I'm not crying, Legionnaires don't cry…"
Cerina huffed. "Get the dirt out of your eyes and we can go again. Do not go in a ballistic arc around enemies with superior senses and reach."
Mia nodded numbly. She tried to stand, but lurched forward as she did so and only just caught herself with a hand. The other was still clutching her head, and she shut her eyes so tightly that tears were dripping free. "O-Okay… Okay, I'll…"
Without another word, Mia rolled on her back again. "I'm gonna… Mhh… Get stronger than you… Just you wait… Until… auntie Katha hears…"
Cerina smiled. "Yay! Maybe I can fight her!" She shouted excitedly. "Come on, come on. Hurry up and get up. I want to fight more!"
Mia was already out like a light, eyes scrunched shut as her head continued to pound like the Great Mountain Bell.
Cerina's arms slumped and she pouted. "Really?" She groaned. Shaking her head, she hefted the little cub up in a gentle carry and walked into the trees.
----
The ringing eventually became rustling and crackling and then Mia felt herself jolt awake as the smell of meat invaded her nostrils. Her stomach gurgled. "Ahh! You're awake, Aspirant!" A voice called and for a moment Mia was certain it was the Beetle. But then she turned her head and saw her.
Cerina sat across a fire from the little Theodoros, waving her hand as she poked at some meat with a spoon as it bubbled in a stew pot. The sudden flash of remembered pain across her face jerked Mia back to the fight she had just gotten out of and she leapt up, reaching for her sword. Which wasn't next to her, it was leaning against the stump by the fire.
"Are we gonna fight? Or are you hungry?" The spooky-woman asked cheerily.
"...Hungry." Her eyes darted to Cerina, then to the pot of stew. She quickly jerked forward and sat down, cross-legged. "N-No fight."
Cerina nodded as Mia sat and the girl loaded up her own bowl. She'd already had her meal of course, the red stained depression in the leaf litter off to one side attested to that. She kept part of her attention on the sword, and the rest on the girl.
Mia ate with the fervor and nerves of a small creature, bites disappearing rapidly as her eyes stayed fixed on Cerina. Soon the little one would make a move. Her body was already leaning towards her sword as she shoveled food into her face.
Then she did, suddenly, violently, explosively. The speed of Iron lifted her as Mia dove for her sword, a gift from her father. Who strikes first wins first, and she would not let Cerina have the initiative. They already knew what happened when she didn't have it.
All for naught, because Cerina was already ten steps ahead of her.
"Got your sword!" Cerina said happily as Mia's hand closed on nothing. The girl's eyes blew out in shock as she saw Cerina a fair distance away, holding her sword with a terrible, unpracticed grip, waving it around like it was a stick. "Come and get me!" She said and then leapt away into the trees.
Mia screamed in outrage and launched off the ground as hard as her legs could manage. Deep divots pressed into the ground where her feet previously stood as she soared into the treeline and as the chase began she pursued the gangly senior through the forest, leaping from tree to tree, branch to branch, swinging and stepping as if she lived all her life amongst the woods. And all the while, she had only three words for Cerina:
"GIVE IT BACK!" She cried out. And with every outcry, she launched attack after attack, fist-shaped impressions of Iron Qi denting tree trunks and scattering branches and foliage.
"COME GET IT!" Cerina shouted amid giggles as she ghosted ahead. While the little beast girl moved like she lived in the woods, Cerina actually did, and she did it like no human shaped body could; limbs twisting in broken angles to have her scuttle like spiders and lizards, or swing like monkeys while the wind blew at her whims.
Cerina moved like a fluttering flag before every one of Mia's blows, an infuriating spectre that refused to be hit.
How do you hit something that is not there? How do you defeat an enemy that is smoke and the wind?
Mia screamed as she pumped more blood, more sweat, more Qi into her attacks. Soon dents became chunks as she tore her way through the forest, violence of action tearing scars into the landscape. She risked exhaustion and she risked overextension, but through the haze of anger the Legionnaire saw nothing but the target, nothing but the need to enact total destruction.
To destroy the flag, destroy the flagpole. To destroy the air, destroy the world beneath its feet. If it costs everything, then so be it. Death. Death to the Enemies of the Imperator.
Mia cried out, hands clasped together. She swung and split a trench with an oversized crescent of Iron Qi, ragged and uneven, the crest wave of a juvenile sea. "DESTROY THE ENEMIES OF THE IMPERATOR!"
Canticle of Theodora: Squall Beneficence
"YEEP! Fuck!"
Wind Number 24: Dragon's Tail-Wind
Cerina jinked aside as she cried out, her body buffeted by the jetstream of wind and energy that had blasted her free and puppeted her like a leaf, half her long braid being sheared off by the Iron Wave as she threw herself out of its way. Three of the forest's massive trees collapsed into ruin as the wave raged, most of their mass falling into the trench it had ripped open.
Okay, little cub, okay. Time to chill out.
But Cerina was smiling.
What fun this was!
She juked and dodged and flit to a new branch in the chase, unsteady and arms pinwheeling. Then she was off again and Cerina zipped out of sight for a fraction of a second and scuttled into a tree burrow of some long gone beastie. Just in time for Mia to blow past, hollering like a cheeky little monkey.
That cheeky, angry little monkey yelped when Cerina snapped out like a snake and grabbed her heel. Mia yowled, writhing like a caught tiger, but with one mountain crushing hand Cerina kept hold and they were both off. The sheer incongruity of the situation probably stunned Mia for a second, as her screams sputtered with a confused hiccup. They raced out of the canopy for a moment, raucous flocks of yellow-red-green birds with long pennant like tails squawking at the interlopers in fury as they fled.
Mia felt freefall and then a blast of wind as they were forced back into the canopy, branches slapping them and snapping off in a great cacophony of breaking wood.
Mia screamed some more, her voice hoarse, her throat deathly painful. She coughed blood from the strain and her limbs shook from the exhaustion, yet she continued to claw at Cerina, hands flailing for any sort of purchase against Cerina's iron grip.
Cerina laughed. "Your aunt should let us fight more Mia!" She hollered, only to be cut off by an even angrier scream as they soared over a thick muddy swamp. Mia redoubled her efforts to escape, folding up and trying to hit Cerina with a Iron empowered kick.
Couldn't have that.
Cerina's arm whipped around and Mia's body scrapped through the meters thick mud, forcing her to hold her breath instinctively and then rip free of the muck, eyes blinking stupidly. Don't hit her in the head this time. The thought flickered through Cerina's own head as she flipped Mia up before her, the girl cartwheeling through the air. Cerina's chambered straight kick caught Mia in her Iron-blood reinforced sternum; the girl flew like she'd been shot out of a spirit cannon, breath disrupted. Stance, senses, breath, all disrupted and rage thereby shaken.
The impact of her back into a tree and the redirection of her path into a wild arc knocked the rest of it free, left it floating in a sea of confusion and disorientation until she slammed into a pair of long arms.
Cerina caught the ballistic girl, skidding through the leaf litter to a stop, and then sat on the Iron scion.
Now Mia continued to squirm, despite clearly being dazed. Anger allowed her to push through where pride had failed to provide, and even beneath her larger and stronger senior she continued to scrap and swing at the older Cultivator. More than anything, she tried to grab for her sword, believing more than anything else that it would let her even the score, even past her exhaustion and even past her weakness. Not that it would matter. Tapped of Qi, she was helpless and at Cerina's mercy.
Cerina wrestled with Mia, letting the girl exhaust herself by degrees until she was not quite unconscious, but close. Her blows weakened to the feeble pawings of a kitten, Cerina hefted the girl up and tucked her under her arm. With Mia grumbling and moaning under one arm and sword in the other, Cerina walked through the forest back to their camp site, dodging Mia's weak grabs for the sword the whole way.
When they arrived she sat the younger Cultivator down, where Mia sprawled in a heap on her hands and knees before the soup pot, breath heaving and exhausted to the point of almost immobility. "Good job so far Aspirant! Next time, be the lightning rather than destroying the earth. Would you like some soup?" Cerina asked, holding out a steaming bowl of the delicious Spirit Beast stew.
Slowly, Mia glared at Cerina. Her eyes darted to the bowl, then back to her senior. Slowly, she nodded. "...Fine. I'll have your stupid soup."
Cerina quirked an eyebrow. "So feisty, I like it!" She said, holding Mia's gaze as she handed off the full steaming bowl to the little beast girl.
Mia snatched it immediately, brusquely enough that no small amount of soup spilled onto Cerina's hand. Then she slurped it up all at once, with no care or attention given to manners or decency. She licked the bowl clean as well, before placing the bowl on the ground, its top buried into the ground.
Cerina hummed happily, licking off her own hand without a care. Still holding onto the sword as she turned slightly, opening up her flank by a hair as she reached for another bowl from a little stack beside her to load with soup. "More?" She asked as she glanced at the soup pot..
Mia nodded. Then she spat out a glob of boiling hot soup at Cerina before throwing herself right at her cyclopean senior, fingers clawed and swiping.
Klonk!
The flat of Mia's sword impacted like a board striking a nail directly between Mia's eyes. With the ringing of metal on metal, she was out like a light.
----
Mia woke up in a fright, her breath hitching as she jolted awake. Her heart was racing. She could barely see, only some flashes of orange and yellow through the darkness. She tried to move, but found she could not roll over or sit up. Laying down on her belly, chin on the ground, it was like she was being crushed by a rock.
…Given what Mia saw when she strained her neck and looked behind her, that was probably because she was. It wasn't a huge rock, only about six feet tall and taller than it was round, like a pear or a papaya. Mia could probably lift it if she got some leverage under her. But it wasn't the rock, but who was sitting on the rock that made that a problem.
Cerina sat on her carefully chosen rock, kicking her legs and humming a sweet tune as she watched the birds flit through the trees, with one ear to the breath of her little apprentice as Mia lay pinned under the stone. Rustling made her look down and she spotted the eyes of her apprentice peering through her hair up at her. "Hallo!" She called from atop her perch, giving a little wave as she smiled.
Framed in shadow and - somehow - backlit by flame, the cyclopean senior made for an inadvertently menacing sight. But to her credit, young Mia Theodoros was not afraid.
She was stupid.
"Let me out! When I get out I'm going to kick your ass and get my sword back!"
Cerina clapped. "That's the spirit! I'm looking forward to the attempt!" Reaching over, out of Mia's sight, she picked up the girl's sword and leapt down to land before her with the sword over one shoulder. Cerina assessed the rock again. "You should be able to lift this. Come get me when you do!" She ordered and turned, stepping away jauntily and leaving Mia in her geological predicament.
Immediately, before she had even vanished into the treeline, Mia was already squirming and twisting. Flat on the ground, arms and legs straight, it was difficult to get leverage and difficult to adjust. She tensed, then pushed against the rock with her hips and shoulders as leverage. No dice; she remained firmly planted to the ground.
Again she tried, harder this time. Then again, crying out in exertion. But each time, the rock did not budge. Though there was enough give in its bottom to leave Mia able to take in shallow breaths, it wasn't enough to get out. Frustration began to peak as she tried once again, fists clenched and full of grass, but it just wasn't happening. Angry, hot tears began to fill the corners of her eyes as the young Ironblood was confronted with another challenge she could not simply power through, by dint of superior breeding and overwhelming strength.
Stupid. It was so stupid! This shouldn't have happened! She just had bad luck, that's all! Bad luck to run into this stupid senior with one stupid eye that took her sword and kept not letting her hit her! All it would take is one good hit and she would be down, then Mia could just continue her training, but no now she had to deal with this nonsense, with her stupid grin and her stupid soup!
Frustrated, on the verge of tears, Mia swung one arm up, ripping up grass and weeds, and struck the ground. Her fist tore through the dirt like it was putty, her strength overwhelming. Though her body was not as strong as her aunt's, it was still forged of Celestial Iron. She had managed to unlock the Steel Sinews, giving her strength greater than any other in her Realm. If she did not watch her step, something she did intuitively as one who has lived with it all her life, the ground would be like so much air to her.
And feeling the ground falter beneath her gave Mia pause. Gave her ideas.
She swung her arms again, both this time, and dug open a trench. Narrow and shallow, it was still space. Now she had enough to prop herself by the elbows. And from that point, it was a simple matter of pushing.
And with a single shove, Mia managed to push the boulder off with a hop and a skip, followed by the heavy thump of a great weight off her shoulders and onto the ground.
Panting with exertion, now shedding tears of relief, Mia rolled onto her back, limbs out like a starfish, and watched the starry night sky above.
That was… That was hard.
She never wanted to do that again.
Over her, the stars were suddenly darkened. One took their place. One large blue star, which blinked at her once and then shuttered.
"Hmm. Good. Good!" Cerina smiled broadly with sharp teeth as she looked down at Mia. Then, Mia noticed the rock she had just tossed off being held in Cerina's outstretched hand, looming above the pair of them. The girl's sword glinted in the other by her senior's side. The stone shifted overhead.
"Now run, little nail."
Slowly, Mia rose to her feet. Though shorter than Cerina, she looked her in the eye and stood her ground. There wasn't a single part of her that wanted to run. Not one part of her that was afraid of Cerina.
There was no fear to quash, because there was no fear at all. She had not learned that instinct. Not yet.
But she would.
Weakness and the withering of her muscles choked her from one breath to the next, causing her knees to shake and joints to ache, as Cerina's terrible Eye opened and her beastly smile split her face with needle teeth. The boulder struck Mia, smearing her across its front as it launched through the forest like a massive cannonball. Mia could hear only the rushing of the wind and the blood in her ears, and she swore it sounded like laughter.
That laughter abruptly ceased as she was driven into the ground, dragged across it and then the sudden relief of weight as the boulder skipped like a stone across a lake behind her. That relief shriveled when Cerina appeared overhead, already in the midst of a scything kick, the sickly coronal blue of her Eye robbing Mia of everything.
It was so hot, ten times, a hundred times worse than the desert.
Every foundation of muscle and might and pure monkey brained stubbornness, collapsing and withering in the face of entropic decay and dissolution into ash.
And for the first time, her body began to shake. Mia felt the pit opening up inside her, yawning and endless, the inescapable void of terror. It was a new sensation, an unusual feeling. It was awful for seasoned legionnaires, who have dealt with weakness and learned to quash that feeling into something constructive, a lifesaving asset. But she was born strong, made stronger, and thought herself unbeatable.
It was the worst thing Mia Theodoros had ever felt. Not the withering. Not the weakness. Fear.
And unhoned, her instinct was raw and stupid. She crossed her arms instead of rolling and caught the attack right in the center.
The explosion of impact shook the trees and cracked their bark for dozens of meters around the two cultivators.
The cloud of dust ascended beyond the canopy in a plume of ancient soil and powdered rock, then was torn away in a shredding gale. When it cleared it revealed them again; Cerina was standing atop Mia, her foot flattening the girl's arms to her chest, the both of them standing in a crater half as deep as Cerina was tall.
Her breath hitched as Mia gasped for air that just would not come. She had gotten the wind knocked out of her, and with fractured arms and ribs it was the first real injuries she had suffered so far. She looked up at Cerina, blinking through teary eyes, eyelids twitching as she tried and failed to reconcile anger and terror towards the same figure. She held up her hands, even though they were broken, though whether in defiance or in surrender even she didn't know. But though objectively her body was still capable of fighting - no Ironblood would ever be slowed down by something as banal as fractured bones - her will had been thoroughly broken.
Unfortunately for her, Mia had spent her life up to that point ignorant of the mental phase of battle. And she was receiving a remedial session from perhaps the most brutal source short of a Nascent Soul's attention.
It would be a good lesson. But it would not be an easy lesson.
Cerina's foot lifted off her body, as her long fingers wrapped around Mia's head and lifted her up to dangle like a limp sack. Hanging from her senior's hand, Mia's face twitched, blood running from her nose and abrasions which had accumulated from their battles. That terrible blue weakness buffeted her like a sandstorm, and Cerina's voice pronounced her fate with a noise like the ringing of funeral bells.
"You will heal. You will eat what I give you. And we will repeat this until you can take your sword from me and fight me properly."
Numbly, clearly and with total sincerity, Mia now nodded. All the fight in her had gone out. She had lost the mind war, where it most mattered. The only thing left to do now was supplicate and obey.
And maybe, just maybe, learn something from the experience.
----
Days later, Cerina listened to her little beast girl sleep, pinned under yet another stone. This was not the second stone, nor the third, each one getting subtly bigger with every instance. And every time, Mia's body could just barely lift it.
Silly little girl.
Cerina knew Mia did not intellectually understand what she was trying to teach. Her brain was silly and impulsive and prone to poor decisions from a lifetime of being the strongest scorpion in the pit, with no one who could challenge her. Thankfully, the world was much bigger than her little pit! The fear had made her brain get out of the way and the girl's blood and body were eager listeners.
The sun glinted off of Mia's sword before her eye. Lowering the girl's sword, Cerina put away the cloth she had been using to clean it. Wouldn't do for it to get rusty before the girl got a hold of it again.
But. She set the sword in her lap. She recognized that she'd been mostly flying by the seat of her pants here. Intuition and memories of Katha.
…"I should probably thank my dad," Katha hummed from where she sat beside Cerina, deep in the bowels of Yuan's caves, reminiscing around good drinks and a glowing crystal for their campfire.
"Oh? Why? Did he train you?" Cerina asked.
"Yeah, since grandpa was busy with Rathos. I didn't like studying or training as a kid - shocking, I know - so he had to essentially force me to do anything until I turned twelve. I literally had my brains beaten into me as a child," her friend told her. "Of course, it helps to have a twin brother. We fought a lot, but we also learned a lot from each other."
Hmm! Well that helped her understand what her instincts and intuition were telling her. The part of her that dreamed of being a teacher was downright giddy. She wasn't quite sure what she was doing right now, but the Blunt Force method seemed to be working admirably, so she'd keep at it until it didn't.
Mia snorted through a slightly bent nose, courtesy of it being broken a dozen or so times. Cerina looked down at her student.
"Well, at least you're healing alright," she muttered. Be a pain if she was more like Katha, in this particular case.
Cerina stood and dusted off her hands, packing away her contemplations for later as she checked the rising sun through the trees. "Bout time for another round." She hopped off the stone, and another day of training began.
----
"A boulder again?! Seriously?!!"
Each and every morning, there would be another. No matter whether she slept on the ground, against a tree, or atop the tree, there would be a boulder on her. Always just short of crushing her flat, always with the slight hope of escape, but always a boulder. By this point it had stopped being frightening and started being annoying, particularly because the boulders kept getting harder to throw off.
It was also the only constant to each and every day of this demented 'training' she was being put through.
Some days, Mia would be tied to a post and fed strange things. That would be food for the day; it would be up to her to sniff out what was poisonous, what was not, what was an antidote to poison, and which antidotes were poisonous if she had not ingested the right poison earlier. It was a crash course in herbology through gastronomics that she did not want, but apparently Cerina believed she needed.
Some days, she would skip the food and just get poisoned. Those were the days for traps, cowardly things she was not interested in. Pits, snares, nets, flying logs and, of course, more poison, in the forms of clouds, mushrooms and darts. Learning those antidotes was a pain as well.
And then there were the days they ventured into the Beast-Raising Forest proper, without a weapon and without support. Sometimes Cerina would use her as bait and make her go up against monsters in Foundation, where she would have to outlast creatures a full Great Realm above her while Cerina withered them down to size. Other times, Cerina would just use her as the weapon. The insane cyclops seemed to enjoy those days the most for sadistic reasons Mia was never keen on learning.
The laughter haunted her dreams.
But then some days, she simply would not dream. Because you only dream when you sleep, and sleep was a luxury sometimes. Cerina would hound her for days straight, sometimes even an entire week, using sticks, insects, intentionally bad music and false hope to keep her up. When that failed, they simply ran laps. Mia knew there was a way you could run while sleeping, but she had never learned it, and Cerina made that impossible anyways, not with the windy, debris-ridden paths she'd get chased through.
And somehow, when she didn't realise, she'd just plant the boulder on her anyways!
How does she even do that?!
Through it all, after every beating and slip up and failure and moment of weakness, Cerina was there. Inescapably, her tormenter paradoxically had words of praise and shreds of wisdom, each moment hammered in with hammer-like blows.
----
It was near the end of their time together, Cerina figured as she sat on a branch, chewing through a ream of fruit jerky. Mia was down below, stalking through the midline canopy after Cerina. Her body was still shaped like a human's and so still bore some of its limits, but her mind had cast off other, more important limits.
Now Mia moved a little more like a beast, like a creature that knew fear down to its soul. The fear of something larger, stronger, and far more dangerous suddenly noticing you and deciding to end your life. That was the secret in Cerina's mind, though simply telling someone that would never teach it to them.
But her little beast girl had learned it admirably, and was now no longer quite so little.
Mia stopped, pausing as she noticed a glint of reflected light on a patch of leaves ahead of her. She already knew where it would lead, and so the scion of Iron was not surprised to find herself moving out of the way of the first strike as Cerina's kick split the air.
There was a smack, a crash, an exchange of blows. Mia hit the ground in a roll as Cerina landed lightly and gently, the forest's underbush ravaged as Mia skidded to a stop, eyes never leaving Cerina's. She slowly stood, battered and bruised from head to toe from all her lesser injuries up to this point, and her right hand bleeding a small trickle of fresh blood from this latest exchange.
But her left hand, unmarked, held her scabbard instead. And it took even her a moment to realise just what she held. But without looking, when she knew, Mia laughed. Mirthful, relieved laughter, the fruits of a job well done, all the suffering finally paying off.
With a flick of her thumb, she launched the blade forth and caught it with her bleeding hand. Then she drew a line in the dirt with its tip, shallowly but quickly, before drawing a circle before her. Then, when the blade was at its highest point and pointed towards the sky, she brought it level to her eye line and held it with both hands.
Once more, a challenge issued. But this time, with a full understanding of her opponent.
Cerina Polya. The Withering Witch.
The last living scion of House Paratiritis spread her arms, her feet tracing their own line as her body twisted, heart thundering like a drum. Her palm rose, thumb and fingers framing Mia Theodoros.
Wind Number 24: Dragon's Tail-Wind!
Cerina followed her extending hand, arms and legs blurred by power and force that brought her to Mia surrounded by a howling wind. Her trike flew for her student's face, one more strike to the nail.
Mia responded in kind. Eyes wide open and unblinking, she swung her sword upright, a wave of white-hot Iron Qi fanning outwards. A technique familiar to Cerina, performed by younger hands, yet done so in a far more refined fashion.
This was no guarding blow, but a counterattack. And Mia's sword sang, like it had never been apart.
Canticle of Theodora - Slayer's Sky Song
The weight of rot and timeworn dust answered the Storm Killer.
The weight of heat and decay and exhaustion caused the forming attack's course to slip. Through the eye of the needle Cerina flew, her left side screaming as her right extended to its limits and impacted. Cerina slammed to a stop, momentum arrested as Mia flew, sleeves and robes torn apart, her arm raw and bleeding from being nearly flayed. Behind her the monument trees fell like so much kindling.
Cerina's body was burning, twisting and shaking in a great tempest that roared down to her soul. Strategies aligned with instinct, knowledge of wind and mountain and fist slamming together and finding new shapes in this crucible.
This was what they needed.
"Your enemy lives Mia! DESTROY THEM!" She shouted. Match me!
Distance would only favour Cerina, whose strength was so much greater and her Withering Eye exceptional. The only solution would be to disappear and to strike in close quarters, in the shadows around the gaze of the Eye.
Mia moved immediately, the moment her feet hit the ground. In a flash she moved, her charge erratic even as she approached Cerina. It took advantage of Cerina's incredible vision to transform herself into a smear of motion blurs. Within five heartbeats she appeared before Cerina with a diagonal upwards slash.
Raindancer's Charge
The blow was warded off, yet that was expected. Surpassing the speed of thought, Mia's instincts drove her to jump when Cerina threw a sweeping chop at her, crossing behind her as she flipped head over heels and swung once again, at the neck that joined Cerina's head to the rest of her body.
Midday Mist Reversal
Cerina's gaze met Mia's. Veins bulge and muscles swelled as Cerina bloodily hacked out her improvised counter from her own muscles.
Weirding Mountain Art
Her Storm's Disregard and Mountain Tossing Art fused in her muscles, incredible strength meant to toss hills was instead focused by the wind and smashed Mia into a wild spin. Bones shattered and twisted in their flesh. Mia struck a tree, plowing through it and skipping across the stony ground before slamming to a stop.
Cerina stood, panting, her already injured arm now shattered at the wrist. A risky gambit, but worthwhile it seemed.
Mia pulled herself out with a rough shove, greeted by a shower of wood chips and debris. Panting heavily, one eye was now swollen shut, and her arms, previously fractured long ago, began to ache and shake again. It was the telltale sign of exhaustion, both mental and of Qi, yet Mia carried forward. With a snarl she launched forward again, riding the crest wave of a blast of Iron Qi.
Cloud Chaser
In a step and a breath she was in the thick of it again, a flurry of slashes against punches raining against one another like the rain against a block of steel. Cerina's strange joints spun, locking her ruined arm behind her back. Her stance was recovered and she met her student with foot and fist, darting about on one foot as she used her other leg in place of her useless arm.
Iron rang on bronze again and again. One blow for one more, two for two, three for three, three for four. Five. Six. Mia slowed, her muscles crying out as they decayed in her flesh and her bones creaked with false age.
Iron was easy to sharpen, it could be tempered. But Mia's tempering had only begun.
Bronze was harder than iron, less flexible. It weathered the hurts of the world better than iron, but even Celestial Bronze had limits.
Cerina tripped, twisting to one side as she overextended and showed her back to the Theodoros scion. Death clawed at her, just out of sight.
Breathing deeply, heavy with exertion, she had one attack left. Mia intended to make the most of it. She brought her sword low, level to the ground, then pulled it to her side. Then as Cerina began to turn, one eye closed, she made note of Cerina and the world around her.
Then, she gripped her sword harder, and with it grasped a power that existed long before and will survive long past her. Qi, raw and simple, flushed her muscles where energy would no longer suffice. And in her heart, she grasped the simplest of truths, so obvious that it often went unsaid.
Destroy the Enemies of the Imperator.
She vanished. And in her wake, the forest became a tempest.
The Canticle of Theodora - Tempest Death Dance
Cerina roared, every drop of her Qi concentrated on a single finger and her wounded arm lashed out faster than sight. A tempest was met with a cutting northern gust, the hand of a god smashing through it. The child's tempest exploded into howling rings around Cerina's attack.
Weirding Mountain Art: Northern Gust
Mia's blade shook, keening, then ripped away from her suddenly bleeding hands. Her arms were thrown up, her legs uprooted like a tree before a tornado, her limbs jerked about in a frenzy as the wind struck her sternum. Compressing her rib cage and smashing her bones against her flesh. She swung, countless slashes in an attempt to calm the winds and stir them in a favourable direction, but it was for naught.
She was out of Qi. And Cerina had a handful to spare.
Mia soared away like a leaf caught in a hurricane. She had a brief moment to wonder, images in her brain fluttering against each other as she pondered the branches racing by. And then her wild flight was caught by arms of iron.
One hand gently but firmly holding onto Mia's neck, the other wrapped around her abdomen, Katha skidded slightly as she halted her niece's backward momentum. Where it was trying for Mia, it was trivial for the older Legionnaire, who had the decades of experience at war that the gifted young Ironblood simply did not and could not have. When the dust settled and the winds calmed, it was Katha who walked up to Cerina with her niece and her niece's sword both in her arms, carried like a bed as Mia's head spun and her face went green.
"So did it work?" Katha asked, as she knew that Cerina had been putting Mia through her paces; she had wanted the opportunity, and why else would Mia be here?
"Oogh. Owie, my wrist is all floppy… fuck," Cerina first response was not reassuring. She moaned as she held up her arm, her left hand dangling pitifully from her wrist. The cuts and abrasions on her body were already healing but the bones, those would take a few days. Then she registered her friend.
"Katha! Yeah! She's done great!" She burbled happily, waving with both hands wildly, wincing as her broken one stabbed her nerves painfully. Ignoring that inconvenience, minor in the face of her excitement, she marched up to the dazed and nauseous Mia and looked down at her with genuine warmth and a smile.
"Good job kid! You started your first attack too early! Wait for the Eye," She said and then pat Mia on the head.
"So, were you entertained watching all that?" Cerina asked Katha when she looked back up.
Katha began to nod, but then she shrugged. "You probably could have hit her harder. And not let her hit you. The faster you break her down, the better we can build her back up. But I did like that you pushed her." A blink. "Did you really have to feed her poison though?"
Cerina looked at Katha like she'd grown a second head. "Yeeeesssssss? Do you not remember the Yuan Shroom Incident?"
"The… Mm. Right." Katha nodded. "Good thinking, Cerina."
"I couldn't think of any other way to teach your family how to eat properly, so poison it was." She huffed.
In her arms, Mia stirred. As she blinked blearily, her eyes suddenly widened as she saw who was carrying her. "A-Auntie? Auntie Katha?! You're here?!"
"Of course I am. I'm supposed to be watching you." At Mia, Katha tilted her head; with the eyepatch, raising an eyebrow was not going to have the desired effect. "Did you think I forgot you were here and left you alone?"
"...Yeah…"
Katha sighed. Then she dropped Mia like a sack of dumb potatoes. And as her niece's head spun and she rubbed her aching butt, she squatted next to her and flicked her in the earlobe. Mia cried out and whined, and she only got louder when Katha flicked the other ear.
"I'm not about to abandon you like that. I'm harsh, not heartless." A pause, then Katha flicked both her earlobes at the same time. "Insolent brat."
"...W-Waaah, I got bullied and I'm being scolded for it…!"
"And I'll do it again, Mia, don't think I won't!"
Cerina smiled from her position above the two Theodoroi. It was almost sibling-like! Though… she tilted her head like an owl and looked at Katha, her friend's muscles and bones and their movements traced out by her Eye. Her friend was recovering swiftly. It wouldn't be long now until she was at full readiness again, and it struck her that Katha was moving differently these days.
She moved like a judge's blade. No hesitation. No remorse. Simply movement.
The thought just… popped into her mind. Cerina hummed, and looked at Mia. And all she saw was a girl, with a beast's heart and a fang to call her own. Less refined ore. Just a girl. Maybe she wasn't that much like her aunt after all.
That girl was also teetering on the edge of exhaustion, more than a month of pain and suffering, and humiliation. She probably needed to eat. And sleep. And other human things. "Hey. Mia. It's time to eat," Cerina said, directing the kid towards a rock a decent distance away and handing her a bag full of meat jerky and fruit.
"Huh… Okay, okay…" Still dazed, Mia just took the bag with a nod and then wobbled over to a different corner. For her, her trials were finally over and done with.
----
But for her teacher and her aunt, their trials haven't even begun.
Now Katha and Cerina had privacy, reinforced as Katha activated an array that enforced it; a gift from the Spirit Oasis.
"So." Katha knew her friend well enough, and for her she would raise one eyebrow. "What did you wanna talk about?"
"You're moving differently. Is it going to be soon then?" Cerina asked, slowly unwinding from the fight by stretching her limbs. Each joint inhuman, but welded together in a vaguely human shape.
"...Right. Yeah." Katha nodded. "After the Trials. I think. The Ninth Prince is planning something, but we haven't been invited. But… Yeah." She inhaled, then exhaled. "I'm saying yeah a lot. Hopefully, I'll be ready to face Five-Element Tribulation soon. You're planning to go for it too, right?"
"Oh? Senior Snake is up to something… pmmff, and we're not invited." Cerina pouted. She shrugged. "Ah well. I'll do what I can to prepare for the trials and then… After I make another visit to Yuan, I'll start preparing. Might do Qiguai too. Depends if I get hurt." She answered.
But her eyes were on the beast girl, Mia sitting on a rock and munching her way through the tasty snacks. "She's making fantastic progress," she said, tilting her chin at the girl. But her tone was somber.
"She's always been a smart kid," Katha said, a small smile on her face. But then, her smile faded. "But she's not like us." It might be harsh to say so, but in some ways it was a relief. The Fourth Keystone was more troublesome than the previous three combined. But the Judgement was… Impartial. And it was clear.
The truth of it settled on Cerina's shoulders like a heavy cloth. "... Yeah. Born too strong to wonder at the Dao."
She sighed. "Shame. But she'll be fine without it." A little piece settled into place, one more grain of sand amongst a slow trickling avalanche. And it really did seem inevitable for her. That blind, grasping, sublime struggle.
"I told Rina during my intake that I was aiming for the Ninth. What about you Katha?" She asked, pondering the world all over again.
She nodded as well. "Me too." Katha smiled. "I guess that means we're both crazy. That'll be something! The 302nd and the 501st, with their Kings and Emperors."
"Utterly mad, the lot of us. I'm sure it will horrify all of my trainees." Cerina laughed, her expression softened by a doting look, aimed at Mia and all the students she could foresee in her future.
She shook her head. "But! Enough! I'm feeling older by the second and screw that, lets go hunt something Katha. I'm hungry!"
"Yeah, it's about time we…" Katha trailed off as a terrible thought occurred to her. Then, a sinister smirk splayed across her features.
"What?" Cerina asked, bemused as she looked over her shoulder, already heading into the forest.
"We should go hunt the Great Glacier Bear with Mia. Then eat it. In front of Mia."
Cerina's cackles sent Mia fleeing, crying out with instinctive, panicked screaming.
@Swordomatic
[Word Count: 8720]
