On the Road to Elspar [Book 1] (Dryad Mercenary Schoolgirl Quest)
- Thread starter Kei
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
Mechanical
Initiate Action: Buzz
- Location
- Somewhere Strange
If they do exist they're really, really good at hiding.
Please remember: If you enjoy this work and want to support it (aside from supporting me through Patreon), the best thing you can do (even moreso than supporting me on Patreon) is to tell your friends about this quest. Shill the quest for me, get them to read it, invite fantasy fans not only within SV but also without. This quest is nothing without its questers.
Fixed, thank you.
It was a tie with a decent amount of votes. I figured I can make this work this once.
lewd
r u tempting f8 on lucilles behalf
I suspect that Wendy knew she was being ridiculous to begin with, but her snarky defensive mechanism activated before she got to keep a check on it.
This kind of culture is definitely something I'm deliberately trying to depict in Caldrein. Which doesn't mean the entire confederacy doesn't have problems, but...
Fixed, thank you.
It was a tie with a decent amount of votes. I figured I can make this work this once.
lewd
r u tempting f8 on lucilles behalf
I suspect that Wendy knew she was being ridiculous to begin with, but her snarky defensive mechanism activated before she got to keep a check on it.
This kind of culture is definitely something I'm deliberately trying to depict in Caldrein. Which doesn't mean the entire confederacy doesn't have problems, but...
Mother Nyx
Mother of Elpis
- Location
- The Kei Klub
- Pronouns
- She/Her
We love you, Kei-sama. Your will will be carried out.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I would if I had any non-SV friends that would be interested in quests.
If Spectrum isn't, I am.
Great stuff as always Kei, can't wait for the next installment.
I am late because I missed this post, but there's probably a continent on the other side of the world called Iyosia populated by cute bishie guys.
I also feel compelled to point out that the continent this quest takes place on, Iuryis, is an anagram of "is yuri". I wasn't exactly being subtle.
AnonymousRabbit
Rabbit Faced
It's like every day it's the Free!! Anime over there.
- Location
- in the trash
women are from venus and men are from mars
Mechanical
Initiate Action: Buzz
- Location
- Somewhere Strange
Quest set on Venus confirmed?
I see what you did there
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I feel strangely compelled to write about this newly uncovered land.
1.20.2 Summer Vacation (Part 2)
This update was basically half-written by @Gazetteer because I still can't write at any appreciable speed save my life. Thank her, please.
BGM: Final Fantasy IX - Secret Library Daguerro (Piano)
Your father has a pot over the fire by the time you settle into your own home, relieving yourself of your bags and buster sword - and with them the aches in your shoulders. Stronger though you are relative to the other girls at Faulkren, dryad strength is not quite enough to take that soreness away from days of traveling. It's a great feeling to have your shoulders free once more more after you put your belongings down in the bedroom you share with Elana. Your mother brings enough coin back as a woodcrafter for your family to count as freeholders, but you're hardly rich either, not even by the standards of rural villages out in Apaloft. Home - that cottage of wood and stone - isn't large, but it's rustic, clean, and comfortable.
Your mother does not laugh loudly as many Caldrans do, but instead grins widely, as if suppressing a guffaw. You supposed Caelon has rubbed off on her; you remember her being more stern and stoic, once upon a time. "Did you send her flying?"
"I d-didn't!" you insist, blushing a little, very much aware that your sister is giggling and kicking her feet in mirth around where you're seated at the table. "She was f-fine!"
"She landed on something soft, then?" Elana asks, in between bouts of laughter.
"...A hay b-bale," you admit, face coloring. Before insisting once again, "She was f-fine!" It was, after all, only four meters.
"I'm sure you didn't hurt her too badly," your father adds consolingly, glancing at you from over her shoulder. Nonetheless, you recognize the slight tug at the corners of her mouth that show she's trying not to laugh.
The smell of a second set of herbs wafts from the stove, indicating that lunch is almost ready; the first set flavors the meat while the second set, only lightly cooked, adds just enough of an aftertouch. You have lived long enough in Caelon to secretly prefer the cuisine of the Caldran plains - like what you are served at Faulkren, where the flavors are heavier and richer - but there's just something about dryad cooking from your father's pot, lightly flavored with complex herb mixes gathered by your mother, that reminds you of home. Hot summer days and quiet winter nights. Birthday feasts and small meals during lean years. All of it comes together in a complex tangle of memories and emotions.
And besides, even if the spices in Caelon are more favorable, plainsfolk really could do with being more adventurous in their use of mushroom.
"Can we t-talk about something other than my s-sword?" you ask. The reactions - first from your own roommate, then from your fellow apprentices, then from Wendy, and now from your family - have gotten just a little out of hand. In your humble opinion, at least.
Fortunately, your father obliges you from where she is at the stove. "I'm sure you have a lot of better stories to tell," she declares gently. "You've made friends, yes?"
"Yes," you nod. "We're p-put in squads of four. We're..." you hesitate for a moment before allowing in a quieter voice, "...friends."
Never mind, after all, that you know nothing about Stephanie even after a year; she cares for you and even washed you in the baths when your arm was injured. Never mind that Sieglinde and Elizabeth rarely speak to each other in casual settings beyond barbed comments; the two don't seem actively malicious to each other in spite of such, and there's that old adage about the strength of such a friendship. Never mind that Elizabeth is...well, Elizabeth; she's gone as far as to invite you to Marloch, so that must mean you're friends...
...Right?
"Is your roommate an elf?" asks your father.
"N-No, a-aseri," you answer, "and my other two squadmates a-are elven."
Elana grins mischievously - in the manner of a girl who knows she's being a little mean - and adds, "Are the elves bossy?"
You think about Sieglinde's insistence on standing aside from a leadership role even when lives are at stake, and Elizabeth's preference for yawning and napping rather than taking command. "No, they a-aren't bossy. E-Elves aren't bossy."
"Yes, they are."
"No, they aren't!"
"Tell me Margery isn't bossy. Or Silva."
You wince a little; the two elven girls - roughly your age - are known to be a little overbearing in your village. "Th-That's Margery and Silva being...M-Margery and Silva."
Your father produces a tiny sigh in the manner of a parent having to endure the silliness of her children. "It's very easy to call someone bossy," she observes, arriving at the dinner table with two bowls of stew for you and your mother, "when they're the one taking responsibility."
"I'm joking, dad," Elana rolls her eyes.
"Will you make that joke in front of Margery and Silva?"
"Well, no, but..."
"And do you not think they're bossy?" And when Elana makes a face, your father concludes, "If it is not something you are willing to say in their faces, do not say it at all. When the time comes, girls like Margery and Silva will be expected to shoulder their burden. The best you could do is not undermine them behind their backs."
Elana nods, if only unenthusiastically. You can't help but notice that the core point - that elves are prone to telling others what to do - is not being disputed. Images of Sieglinde and Lucille go through your head. "S-Sometimes," you say, not quite looking up as you eat your lunch, doing your best not to fidget uncomfortably, "they d-don't want to be in ch-charge. But p-people expect it anyway."
"It would be very convenient if we all just got what we liked," your father says, lightly. For all her gentle manner, there has always been a confident steadiness about her that you've envied all your life, perhaps even more than your mother's forwardness. "But this is the World, Sprout. Not a Conceptualist's paradise. Duty and responsibility and hard work wouldn't mean anything if it was always what we wanted anyway."
This is hardly the first time you've heard this sentiment, but after your year away among girls with a great deal more duty and responsibility pushed onto them than yourself, you wonder if it's really always that simple, and you're uncertain how to say so without sounding like you're arguing. Even the thought of a real argument - beyond a childish disagreement with your younger sister - makes you feel beyond exhausted. You hope dearly for anything to change the subject.
Thankfully, your little sister provides that change: "Were you the only dryad at the academy, still?" Yours is the only dryad family for miles, and even with as welcoming an atmosphere as the other villagers create, it's hard not to be somewhat aware of it.
"No," you tell her. "There was L-Lady Charmaine, and a few others."
Your mother looks mildly impressed. "You've met a Charmaine? Did she give you the time of day?"
You nod, feeling slightly defensive of someone who is, if not overly close, still a friend. "Yes. L-Lady Azalea's very n-nice! Even if she likes to t-tease." You can't suppress a pout at this last, and Elana laughs with delight again.
"I like her," she says, nodding her approval.
"You d-don't know anything about her!" you protest.
"I know enough!"
"Her family has a reputation for being a bit above it all," your mother explains, with a shrug. "When it comes to us bumpkins fresh out of the forest."
"It's easy to complain about people when they're the ones taking responsibility," Elana mutters. A little too loudly.
Your father looks at her. "What was that?"
"...Nothing."
In spite of everything, in spite of the little barbs being thrown around the table, returning to your family and seeing this dynamic is honestly comforting. Your gentle, mature father; your straightforward, confident mother; and your cheerful, bratty sister. Even if your parents are reserved by Caldran standards, and even if your sister is impish by any standard, this is the family you grew up with, and it's heartwarming to see that this snapshot of home has not changed after what's been an exciting year for you.
But you still come to Azalea's defense: "B-But Lady Azalea is nice. W-We've had a few tea parties together."
"Well," your mother shrugs good-naturedly, "it's good of you to make another dryad friend. What about your aseri roommate? I imagine your evenings are quite loud and exciting with her around."
"Actually, Stephanie is k-kind of quiet."
"Boo," Elana drones from the side. She clearly wanted something more exciting for you. Which you're not sure you necessarily want; you probably wouldn't survive Mia as a roommate.
"Sh-She's really good with her k-katana and wakizashi, though! And she's r-really fast."
"You could've been too, but you chose a giant sword instead."
You blush just a little. "I almost w-went with two greatswords."
Your little sister grins a little smugly at that, deliberately straightening up in her chair. "Are you sure you're not compensating for your height at all?"
"Th-They were smaller than this one!"
"There are houses smaller than this one," Elana points out sarcastically, playfully sticking her tonguie. After a moment of continuing to try and look smug, she relents, and admits, "Two big swords would have been cool."
"Only dryads c-can do it," you explain. "It's just t-too much weight on each arm for anyone else." It feels good to be able to inform her about something you're knowledgeable on that she can't even pretend not to be fascinated by.
It's to the point that, when Elana replies, it's with an oddly longing whine, "And instead you picked swinging around a big metal door?"
"U-Using dual greatswords is very tiring!" you say, defensively. "B-Besides, a buster sword can bring down just about anything! It's v-very good against large monsters."
"Like chimeras?"
"Like chimeras, when the guard isn't already t-taking care of it," you reply, pointedly.
"She's an apprentice mercenary, Elana," your mother points out. "Not a member of the county watch. She doesn't have to blunder into every problem she comes across."
"Could it cut a chimera in half?" Elana presses, dropping the previous note of complaint, at least.
You think. You've never actually seen a chimera, but... "Probably not all the way," you admit. "But kill it in one blow. Or cut its head off."
"Which head? It has four!"
"Any head?" you offer. You suppose that the snake head would be a lot easier than the rest, but beyond that, this really is splitting hairs.
Your mother sighs. "Your father didn't work hard on this meal for you two to ruin it by talking about decapitation, girls."
"Sorry, mother," you both chorus, an automatic response from childhood. It's strange how quickly things like that snap back into place as if you were never gone at all.
And so the day passes by, even after you finish your late lunch with your family, and as time drags on to dinnertime. You share your stories of Caldran apprentice mercenary life with your family, and they soon come to know - if only by reputation - your squadmates and your friends, their personalities and origins - what you know of them anyways - and all the little episodes you've had together. The conversation soon moves to the other side of the house as you and Elana help your father gather the eggs up from her chickens, in the process of depositing the filled baskets on the countertop inside. Your mother sits down in a rocking chair on the porch - her own handiwork - as she watches her two daughter works, while your father tidies up the kitchen while remaining in seeing and hearing distance through the window.
"Ravenhill does sound like she has a good head on her shoulders," your father notes with a pleased note of approval, counting each of the eggs in the basket. She speaks again without looking back up.
"She's one of m-my closest friends at the academy," you reply, surprised to hear yourself bold enough to make the claim. Sieglinde doesn't have many close friends, but you did have the nerve to hug her before you left.
"That's good," your mother nods, kicking back and forth in her rocking chair. She has decided to take the rest of the day off; there isn't so much work that it can't be postponed to tomorrow, and no one in town expects her to continue working when her daughter has come home from Faulkren. You should learn from her. She sets a good example."
"E-Even if she doesn't want to take charge?" You're surprised, given your mother's strong, traditional Gaianist beliefs about doing what needs to be done and never shirking responsibility. You hardly imagine she would approve of someone with Sieglinde's abilities taking a backseat to let a less capable girl lead others into danger.
"No one's perfect," your mother admits with a snort.
"You'd know," your father smiles so sweetly at your mother from the window that it's impossible to tell whether she's being sincere or sarcastic. You're not sure if that's a reference to the stories of all the responsibilities your mother was said to have been made to take in her youth...or just a bit of teasing from a spouse.
"But you do need friends like her, an oak tree to lean against in your troubles," continues your father, pointedly ignoring your mother save for the slight roll of the eyes. "Someone who is steady, well-learned, and with restraint and a good head on her shoulders."
Elana makes an amused teasing noise from her throat as she observes, "I don't think Neianne needs more restraint."
"The point is she sounds like a good person," your father adds a little impatiently. She's not really annoyed insomuch as she likes to get to the point. To a degree, this applies to your mother as well, but she tends to be more willing to devote time for explanations. "A sprout cannot grow without good soil. She'll be good for you."
"Whereas Zabanya is basically a bully," Elana adds with a degree of disdainful certainty, as if she's met Elizabeth, and earned this opinion through hard experience. "Who gets away with things because she's a lady."
You make a face. It's not that your sister is wrong - not exactly - but you feel like summing up Elizabeth with "bully" misses a lot of what draws you to her in the first place. "Sh-She's only ever hurt people i-in retaliation."
"Yeah, and that 'retaliation' was messing up a bunch of poor girls." Poor in what sense, Elana doesn't elaborate. You can tell where her sympathies lie, however, from the set of her face, the way she's crossed her arms.
"Th-They poured soup on her," you point out, and even to you this sounds weak.
"And so she used magecraft on them?" Elana seems deeply unconvinced.
Even with you sparing your sister the lurid details of exactly how harsh Elizabeth's retribution had been, phrased like this, it sounds almost maniacally disproportionate. And maybe it would be, for most people. For Elizabeth, though...they had pushed Elizabeth down, attempted to humiliate her in front of everyone, dumped hot soup onto her. You'd like to think that Penelope has grown a little since then, but it's very hard to imagine that the attempts to bully Elizabeth wouldn't have continued once escalated to the level of physical violence, with no consequences for the human girls to make them hesitate.
Or maybe having spent so much time with Elizabeth - having her as a squadmate who has come to your aid when the Squirrels attack - is coloring your perception, making you more willing to defend the indefensible. Faulkren has changed you.
"Zabanya did not act without provocation, is what I believe Neianne is trying to say," your father explains, coming to Elizabeth's lukewarm defence. "That is well and good. Still, she does sound...dangerous. You'd best be careful around her." The last is directed at you.
Which, again, is drawing a conclusion about Elizabeth's person from the worst - or at least cruellest - impression given. You suppose you're not going to be able to change your family's mind on that...which makes one announcement just a little awkward. You don't know how to explain your certainty that, quite beyond her disinclination toward violence for no reason, Elizabeth has no attention of hurting you in particular. She likes you, or thinks you're amusing to have around, at least. And, all her eccentricities aside, you are receptive to having her as a friend as well. Mostly. Kind of. It's complicated.
This does, however, lead them to an observation.
"So," your sister concludes with a raised eyebrow some time after more stories with the other apprentices are shared. "That's Celestia, Charmaine, Ravenhill, Zabanya...are you friends with anyone who isn't a noble?"
"Stephanie isn't a noble!" you protest, a little taken aback. "And neither is Melanie." You've reflected, before, how far outside your social standing your circle of Academy friends rests. Even Melanie, common though she technically might be, is from a family of wealthy and connected merchants, who in many ways seem to have more resources and pull than many minor nobles do. "And Vesna and Wendy definitely aren't."
"Still, it seems like you're getting really cozy with as many highborn girls as you can," Elana presses.
"Planning to seduce one, Sprout?" your mother ask as she comes in, carrying a basket of freshly chopped wood for the cooking fire. She smiles at your response. "I'm joking. Joking!" After a moment or two of enjoying the sight of your pout, she relents, and reminds you: "Just, remember what it might look like to people who don't know you so well."
You frown, not sure what the implication being drawn is, but feeling intrinsically that you don't like it. "What does it look like?" Not really that you're trying to seduce a highborn girl, you hope.
Elana is helpfully blunt. "No one likes a suckup," she says. "A common girl who spends all her time with nobles..." she shrugs, as if the implication is obvious.
You suddenly wonder if this had any bearing on Penelope's early animosity toward you, as much as simply being on the same squad as Elizabeth. You dislike the thought intensely.
"And to think," Elana sighs, "People here were so worried about you, and you were just off swinging a giant sword and making up to girls with 'lady' in front of their name."
Your mother gives her a look that's halfway amused, halfway annoyed before sighing herself, and setting herself down into a nearby chair. "Truthfully," she begins, "we were quite concerned to hear the stories from Faulkren. First a wyvern, of all creatures, here in Apaloft. Then Tennies attacking the academy. We were relieved to receive word that you were safe."
You father nods, her mouth a hard line. She doesn't quite reach for your mother's hand, but she subtly positions herself closer to her, as the ghost of anxious nights with no word from you seems to pass between them. "If it's something you'd rather not talk about, we'll understand," she says, voice slightly reluctant.
"N-No, it's okay," you quickly stammer, not wanting this to become too awkward. There's also you recognizing that this is probably something that's eventually come to come up sooner or later...and possibly even repeatedly, seeing how your neighbors are likely to ask you about the Squirrel attack as well. "It's just...s-some apprentices died. S-Staff too. I...g-guess it could've been worse, but s-some apprentices have left. And I know o-one of my squadmate's parents wants to b-bring her home."
Your mother blinks and pauses for an extra beat before nodding, "Ah. Yes, I suppose that's a concern."
Elana makes a face to your side. "Of course it's a concern, mom. Most parents don't want to leave their children where it's dangerous."
For someone who had been concerned for the well-being of her own eldest daughter, your mother is remarkably unsympathetic to this line of reasoning. "A healthy degree of danger builds character."
"Or, you know," Elana says, voice deadpan, "kills someone."
"Soldiers are already dying in Elspar," your father says, shaking her head."This has always been a risk. That your sister is in Faulkren means that she intends to manage it."
Elana turns away from your mother just enough - just enough towards you - to roll her eyes. You, for your part, remain awkwardly quiet. You're too young to really remember that much about how things were back in the Thionval commune, but given the stories your parents told you - the way they talk about what "plainsfolk society" is like relative to dryad culture, the way they react in accordance with their own biases and values - you've always known that your parents have a greater tolerance for danger and risks, at least certainly moreso than the plainsfolk you've spent most of your life with. You are certainly aware of the stereotypical views of your kind in Caldrein, at the very least, where every dryad is a hunter who lives on their own, where neighbors can often live very far away. It's not precisely accurate - no one in your family, for example, is a hunter - but that woodland dryads are more willing to coexist with the dangers of nature and that dryad families generally live further apart from each other for the personal space does, to some level, speak to the conditions that inform dryad values, something that more than a decade in the plains has yet to change.
Elana has been raised all her life in Caelon, and her values don't deviate far from the other children in the village. Neither do yours, really. But you do feel like you understand your parents better in this regard. You have rarely ever heard your parents - your father in particular - give voice to their opinion that elven, aseri, and human children are too "soft", but you are certain that opinion exists. And while you want to think that this is more about a self-reliance culture rather than a warrior culture, you really aren't sure. You left Thionval at so young an age, after all. You're not really sure how you feel about that sentiment. It's true, on some level. You know now better than ever that you could die, and not even necessarily in a glorious way. You could just die. But you can hear a trace of pride in your father's voice, and something about that makes you entirely conflicted about the whole thing.
But you don't want to dwell on this topic, not with your sister around, so - motivated in part because you just remember this - you exclaim, "O-Oh, wait!" And with that, you jump out of your seat and dart back into your bedroom, even as your family exchanges confused looks. When you emerge, you've fished out something from the backpack you placed in your room. Walking up to your younger sister, you thrust a stuffed wyvern into her hands. "This is for you!"
Elana eagerly takes the massive stuffed toy from you, holding it up to admire it, before giving it an experimental cuddle. The wyvern is as big as your head, with vivid yellow and green mottled scales somehow stitched into the fabric, impressively soft wings, and cheerful button eyes that transition smoothly from red to yellow. Elana's face lights up with genuine, unfeigned delight.
"Aw, it's so cute!" she exclaims.
"Did you spend your money on gifts for your sister?" your mother asks. It's difficult to tell whether or not you're being scolded.
"I-I won it as a prize," you clarify. And Elizabeth had given you extra money beside that, but after the comment about how you might appear to be a "suckup" to others, you feel reluctant to mention this.
"What do you say to your sister?" your father asks, eying Elana with good humor, despite the stern words.
"Thank you, thank you!" Elana beams, holding the wyvern up over head head to spread its full wingspan. "Did you know a wyvern can weigh over a thousand kilograms?" she adds, with the stitched version held easily over her head.
You suppress a wince as your remember your very personal experience with a wyvern's weight. "...Y-Yes."
Elana, wrapped up in her gift, doesn't appear to notice your somewhat subdued response. Your parents, however, exchange an undisguised look over her head. You have a feeling that, sooner or later, there's going to be another conversation about death and violence.
The fire in the hearth has grown low and Elana has been reluctantly carted off to bed before you finally give any details about the incident with the wyvern. You're not sure how much of the news, rumors, and letters your parents shared with your younger sister, but it's not really something that you want her to hear from you in excruciating detail. And so the story is retold: The dead huntress, fleeing for your lives, Wendy's brush with death. The argument between Lucille and Penelope.
You've heard enough jokes about stripping and seduction in the previous months to be slightly unenthusiastic about revealing what happened next to your parents. They don't laugh, though, nor do they look mortified. Instead, your mother claps a congratulatory hand on your shoulder:
"Disguising your scent to sneak past a predator," she smiles approvingly. "And your grandmother said bringing you out of the forest so young would ruin you. She'd be proud." Your mother's mother had been a huntress of great skill and some renown, at least among the dryads of Thionval. She died less than a year after your family moved to the plains, and your memories of her are vague and fuzzy. The compliment still makes you glow with pride, and you smile as your father leans in and kisses you on the forehead.
"We're proud too," she says, gently.
Your mother abruptly gets up and goes over to a high cabinet, rooting around in it. The dim, flickering light from the fire makes it impossible to see what she's doing, until she comes back with a bottle. "You're not a child anymore," she declares. "Here's a little something to celebrate."
"G-Grape juice?" you guess. Your mother shakes her head.
"Wine. Fortified, fermented from elderberry. Had it sent special from my cousin back home." She grins, the firelight reflecting her somewhat wicked smile. "This," she says, fetching three glasses, "is a real woman's drink."
You struggle not to let out an intimidated squeak. And you would have been right to, as it turns out. The wine kicks like a horse, and puts you to sleep after only two glasses.
You like it.
For the next few weeks, you're something of a celebrity in your own hometown. You are invited by almost every family to eat with them, at which point you're bombarded by hundreds of questions. Your apprenticeship at Faulkren is the talk of all your friends, to the point where you feel a little bad that they aren't really talking to each other. Although most are polite enough to leave you alone when you're at home, curiosity does drive some to visit.
It's all a little dizzying, to be honest. The most attention you've ever received was after the Roldharen field exercise, and then there were only about a hundred or so apprentices who were constantly asking you for your take on what happened. In a village of around three hundred, this is far more than you'd usually otherwise willingly subject yourself to. But such as the Caldran way: Familiarity is to be expected, and seeing how the village had chipped in to send you to Faulkren in the first place, it's admittedly a little hard to say no.
It's during one of these sunny days, however, that someone asks good-naturedly, "Do they teach you hand-to-hand combat in Faulkren?"
Facing you is an elven woman somewhere in the morass between adulthood and middle age. Of middling height, she wears her brunette hair practically and possesses a wiry build that speaks of long hours of daily physical activity, hardly surprising for the village hunter. Selma is obviously not hunting now, but towering over most of your friends - and cutting a sharp impression amidst the other adults surrounding you in the village square, listening to yet another regaling of your experiences at Faulkren - it's hard not to miss that friendly but challenging smile on her lips.
"J-Just the basics," you explain. Enough so that no apprentice is completely helpless if without a weapon. "Later, I m-may choose to learn advanced hand-to-hand c-combat."
Selma smiles wider, slamming a fist into her palm. "How about we go for a quick spar?"
"Y-Yes?" you stammer in confusion.
Which, of course, is taken as an affirmative as Selma grins, raises her fists, and spreads her feet in a fighting stance before you even have a real chance to react, and already the crowd around you parts excitedly, oblivious to whether or not you actually want to suddenly go for a spar. "You'll probably beat me, but I want to see how much of a difference a year at a mercenary academy makes."
You are barely able to get your own fists in time as you dodge a blow from the village huntress. You give ground, still a little confused, not entirely willing to punch back, but you never give so much ground that you're beyond the range of Selma's punches, tilting your head here and ducking there as strike after strike comes, both from her arms and legs, and you continue to parry and evade in fluid, graceful moments.
It's almost amusing. As the village huntress, Selma has always been considered to be the toughest woman in Caelon. She was the one all the children looked up to as the closest thing you all have to a soldier. You know that she has some experience in a fistfight when not shooting arrows at her game. Yet here you are, addressing each and every one of her attacks. Your forearms easily deflect her punches when you can't just lean to the side in evasion, and your legs easily check any of Selma's kicks if you can't simply step backwards to avoid them.
A crowd is gathering with excitement, cheering on the spar as your neighbors form a circle around you. Perhaps she's pressed by the presence of a crowd, because Selma's blows are coming a bit faster now, even a bit reckless. She's not aiming to hurt, but she's clearly trying to get at least one good attack in.
But you're not letting her. It's nothing so dramatic as the world having slowed down for you now that you've been a Caldran mercenary apprentice for a year. Certainly, your reflexes have gotten faster, and you've sped up dramatically compared to when you left home for Faulkren. But that really isn't the key to why you are dominating this duel without so much as returning an attack, a prospect that still hasn't quite entered your mind yet. Rather, it's just an intuitive understanding of what happens in a fight. When Selma draws back her right arm, you simply know to sidestep to the left an entire beat before the attack even comes, even if you extend your forearm in a parry just in case. When Selma's hips begin to pivot, you automatically, instinctively know to step forward with one leg to arrest that kick before it even comes. You know just how far you need to give ground, just how much space you need to give to avoid an attack.
Perhaps that's experience. Perhaps that's the lesson pounded into you after not only an entire academic year of training, but also two life-or-death episodes in combat.
You allow Selma to overreach with one of her punches before ducking under her arm, your own arm reaching up to grab the elven woman by the opposite shoulder, the one that isn't throwing the punch. Being careful to compensate - you are a dryad, after all - you push just enough to spin Selma on a foot, causing her to lose balance, before redirecting that force forward and down. Selma gives a startled yelp before she slips and falls back-first onto the ground, looking stunned and a little out of it after hitting the dirt, blank eyes staring momentarily skywards as the crowd around you excitedly cheers, your friends rushing towards you excitedly to offer you praise and maybe even a towel, not that you're particularly sweaty right now.
...Actually, now that you think about it, isn't your current situation reminiscent of Aphelia's way back early in the academic year, where her own hanger-ons watched her spar with Sieglinde before they offered praise and maybe even a towel? The comparison is...actually a little startling, and as you are overwhelmed by your neighbors, you're not actually entirely sure what to feel about all this.
Selma, at the very least, seems to be taking her defeat well as she gets back onto her feet, rubbing the back of her head; you hope it's not actually very sore, seeing how you did your best to reduce the impact. "Wow," she chuckles, and the girls around you quiet down, albeit only by a hair, just enough so you can hear her. "By the Spring, what a difference a year makes."
You're personally having the same thought yourself. A year at Faulkren has turned you from a village girl into...something else. Not a Caldran mercenary apprentice, not yet...but against fellow apprentices and trained Tenereian saboteurs, you were never entirely sure how much you've changed from your average Caldran villager.
Now you know.
BGM: Final Fantasy IX - Secret Library Daguerro (Piano)
Your father has a pot over the fire by the time you settle into your own home, relieving yourself of your bags and buster sword - and with them the aches in your shoulders. Stronger though you are relative to the other girls at Faulkren, dryad strength is not quite enough to take that soreness away from days of traveling. It's a great feeling to have your shoulders free once more more after you put your belongings down in the bedroom you share with Elana. Your mother brings enough coin back as a woodcrafter for your family to count as freeholders, but you're hardly rich either, not even by the standards of rural villages out in Apaloft. Home - that cottage of wood and stone - isn't large, but it's rustic, clean, and comfortable.
Your mother does not laugh loudly as many Caldrans do, but instead grins widely, as if suppressing a guffaw. You supposed Caelon has rubbed off on her; you remember her being more stern and stoic, once upon a time. "Did you send her flying?"
"I d-didn't!" you insist, blushing a little, very much aware that your sister is giggling and kicking her feet in mirth around where you're seated at the table. "She was f-fine!"
"She landed on something soft, then?" Elana asks, in between bouts of laughter.
"...A hay b-bale," you admit, face coloring. Before insisting once again, "She was f-fine!" It was, after all, only four meters.
"I'm sure you didn't hurt her too badly," your father adds consolingly, glancing at you from over her shoulder. Nonetheless, you recognize the slight tug at the corners of her mouth that show she's trying not to laugh.
The smell of a second set of herbs wafts from the stove, indicating that lunch is almost ready; the first set flavors the meat while the second set, only lightly cooked, adds just enough of an aftertouch. You have lived long enough in Caelon to secretly prefer the cuisine of the Caldran plains - like what you are served at Faulkren, where the flavors are heavier and richer - but there's just something about dryad cooking from your father's pot, lightly flavored with complex herb mixes gathered by your mother, that reminds you of home. Hot summer days and quiet winter nights. Birthday feasts and small meals during lean years. All of it comes together in a complex tangle of memories and emotions.
And besides, even if the spices in Caelon are more favorable, plainsfolk really could do with being more adventurous in their use of mushroom.
"Can we t-talk about something other than my s-sword?" you ask. The reactions - first from your own roommate, then from your fellow apprentices, then from Wendy, and now from your family - have gotten just a little out of hand. In your humble opinion, at least.
Fortunately, your father obliges you from where she is at the stove. "I'm sure you have a lot of better stories to tell," she declares gently. "You've made friends, yes?"
"Yes," you nod. "We're p-put in squads of four. We're..." you hesitate for a moment before allowing in a quieter voice, "...friends."
Never mind, after all, that you know nothing about Stephanie even after a year; she cares for you and even washed you in the baths when your arm was injured. Never mind that Sieglinde and Elizabeth rarely speak to each other in casual settings beyond barbed comments; the two don't seem actively malicious to each other in spite of such, and there's that old adage about the strength of such a friendship. Never mind that Elizabeth is...well, Elizabeth; she's gone as far as to invite you to Marloch, so that must mean you're friends...
...Right?
"Is your roommate an elf?" asks your father.
"N-No, a-aseri," you answer, "and my other two squadmates a-are elven."
Elana grins mischievously - in the manner of a girl who knows she's being a little mean - and adds, "Are the elves bossy?"
You think about Sieglinde's insistence on standing aside from a leadership role even when lives are at stake, and Elizabeth's preference for yawning and napping rather than taking command. "No, they a-aren't bossy. E-Elves aren't bossy."
"Yes, they are."
"No, they aren't!"
"Tell me Margery isn't bossy. Or Silva."
You wince a little; the two elven girls - roughly your age - are known to be a little overbearing in your village. "Th-That's Margery and Silva being...M-Margery and Silva."
Your father produces a tiny sigh in the manner of a parent having to endure the silliness of her children. "It's very easy to call someone bossy," she observes, arriving at the dinner table with two bowls of stew for you and your mother, "when they're the one taking responsibility."
"I'm joking, dad," Elana rolls her eyes.
"Will you make that joke in front of Margery and Silva?"
"Well, no, but..."
"And do you not think they're bossy?" And when Elana makes a face, your father concludes, "If it is not something you are willing to say in their faces, do not say it at all. When the time comes, girls like Margery and Silva will be expected to shoulder their burden. The best you could do is not undermine them behind their backs."
Elana nods, if only unenthusiastically. You can't help but notice that the core point - that elves are prone to telling others what to do - is not being disputed. Images of Sieglinde and Lucille go through your head. "S-Sometimes," you say, not quite looking up as you eat your lunch, doing your best not to fidget uncomfortably, "they d-don't want to be in ch-charge. But p-people expect it anyway."
"It would be very convenient if we all just got what we liked," your father says, lightly. For all her gentle manner, there has always been a confident steadiness about her that you've envied all your life, perhaps even more than your mother's forwardness. "But this is the World, Sprout. Not a Conceptualist's paradise. Duty and responsibility and hard work wouldn't mean anything if it was always what we wanted anyway."
This is hardly the first time you've heard this sentiment, but after your year away among girls with a great deal more duty and responsibility pushed onto them than yourself, you wonder if it's really always that simple, and you're uncertain how to say so without sounding like you're arguing. Even the thought of a real argument - beyond a childish disagreement with your younger sister - makes you feel beyond exhausted. You hope dearly for anything to change the subject.
Thankfully, your little sister provides that change: "Were you the only dryad at the academy, still?" Yours is the only dryad family for miles, and even with as welcoming an atmosphere as the other villagers create, it's hard not to be somewhat aware of it.
"No," you tell her. "There was L-Lady Charmaine, and a few others."
Your mother looks mildly impressed. "You've met a Charmaine? Did she give you the time of day?"
You nod, feeling slightly defensive of someone who is, if not overly close, still a friend. "Yes. L-Lady Azalea's very n-nice! Even if she likes to t-tease." You can't suppress a pout at this last, and Elana laughs with delight again.
"I like her," she says, nodding her approval.
"You d-don't know anything about her!" you protest.
"I know enough!"
"Her family has a reputation for being a bit above it all," your mother explains, with a shrug. "When it comes to us bumpkins fresh out of the forest."
"It's easy to complain about people when they're the ones taking responsibility," Elana mutters. A little too loudly.
Your father looks at her. "What was that?"
"...Nothing."
In spite of everything, in spite of the little barbs being thrown around the table, returning to your family and seeing this dynamic is honestly comforting. Your gentle, mature father; your straightforward, confident mother; and your cheerful, bratty sister. Even if your parents are reserved by Caldran standards, and even if your sister is impish by any standard, this is the family you grew up with, and it's heartwarming to see that this snapshot of home has not changed after what's been an exciting year for you.
But you still come to Azalea's defense: "B-But Lady Azalea is nice. W-We've had a few tea parties together."
"Well," your mother shrugs good-naturedly, "it's good of you to make another dryad friend. What about your aseri roommate? I imagine your evenings are quite loud and exciting with her around."
"Actually, Stephanie is k-kind of quiet."
"Boo," Elana drones from the side. She clearly wanted something more exciting for you. Which you're not sure you necessarily want; you probably wouldn't survive Mia as a roommate.
"Sh-She's really good with her k-katana and wakizashi, though! And she's r-really fast."
"You could've been too, but you chose a giant sword instead."
You blush just a little. "I almost w-went with two greatswords."
Your little sister grins a little smugly at that, deliberately straightening up in her chair. "Are you sure you're not compensating for your height at all?"
"Th-They were smaller than this one!"
"There are houses smaller than this one," Elana points out sarcastically, playfully sticking her tonguie. After a moment of continuing to try and look smug, she relents, and admits, "Two big swords would have been cool."
"Only dryads c-can do it," you explain. "It's just t-too much weight on each arm for anyone else." It feels good to be able to inform her about something you're knowledgeable on that she can't even pretend not to be fascinated by.
It's to the point that, when Elana replies, it's with an oddly longing whine, "And instead you picked swinging around a big metal door?"
"U-Using dual greatswords is very tiring!" you say, defensively. "B-Besides, a buster sword can bring down just about anything! It's v-very good against large monsters."
"Like chimeras?"
"Like chimeras, when the guard isn't already t-taking care of it," you reply, pointedly.
"She's an apprentice mercenary, Elana," your mother points out. "Not a member of the county watch. She doesn't have to blunder into every problem she comes across."
"Could it cut a chimera in half?" Elana presses, dropping the previous note of complaint, at least.
You think. You've never actually seen a chimera, but... "Probably not all the way," you admit. "But kill it in one blow. Or cut its head off."
"Which head? It has four!"
"Any head?" you offer. You suppose that the snake head would be a lot easier than the rest, but beyond that, this really is splitting hairs.
Your mother sighs. "Your father didn't work hard on this meal for you two to ruin it by talking about decapitation, girls."
"Sorry, mother," you both chorus, an automatic response from childhood. It's strange how quickly things like that snap back into place as if you were never gone at all.
And so the day passes by, even after you finish your late lunch with your family, and as time drags on to dinnertime. You share your stories of Caldran apprentice mercenary life with your family, and they soon come to know - if only by reputation - your squadmates and your friends, their personalities and origins - what you know of them anyways - and all the little episodes you've had together. The conversation soon moves to the other side of the house as you and Elana help your father gather the eggs up from her chickens, in the process of depositing the filled baskets on the countertop inside. Your mother sits down in a rocking chair on the porch - her own handiwork - as she watches her two daughter works, while your father tidies up the kitchen while remaining in seeing and hearing distance through the window.
"Ravenhill does sound like she has a good head on her shoulders," your father notes with a pleased note of approval, counting each of the eggs in the basket. She speaks again without looking back up.
"She's one of m-my closest friends at the academy," you reply, surprised to hear yourself bold enough to make the claim. Sieglinde doesn't have many close friends, but you did have the nerve to hug her before you left.
"That's good," your mother nods, kicking back and forth in her rocking chair. She has decided to take the rest of the day off; there isn't so much work that it can't be postponed to tomorrow, and no one in town expects her to continue working when her daughter has come home from Faulkren. You should learn from her. She sets a good example."
"E-Even if she doesn't want to take charge?" You're surprised, given your mother's strong, traditional Gaianist beliefs about doing what needs to be done and never shirking responsibility. You hardly imagine she would approve of someone with Sieglinde's abilities taking a backseat to let a less capable girl lead others into danger.
"No one's perfect," your mother admits with a snort.
"You'd know," your father smiles so sweetly at your mother from the window that it's impossible to tell whether she's being sincere or sarcastic. You're not sure if that's a reference to the stories of all the responsibilities your mother was said to have been made to take in her youth...or just a bit of teasing from a spouse.
"But you do need friends like her, an oak tree to lean against in your troubles," continues your father, pointedly ignoring your mother save for the slight roll of the eyes. "Someone who is steady, well-learned, and with restraint and a good head on her shoulders."
Elana makes an amused teasing noise from her throat as she observes, "I don't think Neianne needs more restraint."
"The point is she sounds like a good person," your father adds a little impatiently. She's not really annoyed insomuch as she likes to get to the point. To a degree, this applies to your mother as well, but she tends to be more willing to devote time for explanations. "A sprout cannot grow without good soil. She'll be good for you."
"Whereas Zabanya is basically a bully," Elana adds with a degree of disdainful certainty, as if she's met Elizabeth, and earned this opinion through hard experience. "Who gets away with things because she's a lady."
You make a face. It's not that your sister is wrong - not exactly - but you feel like summing up Elizabeth with "bully" misses a lot of what draws you to her in the first place. "Sh-She's only ever hurt people i-in retaliation."
"Yeah, and that 'retaliation' was messing up a bunch of poor girls." Poor in what sense, Elana doesn't elaborate. You can tell where her sympathies lie, however, from the set of her face, the way she's crossed her arms.
"Th-They poured soup on her," you point out, and even to you this sounds weak.
"And so she used magecraft on them?" Elana seems deeply unconvinced.
Even with you sparing your sister the lurid details of exactly how harsh Elizabeth's retribution had been, phrased like this, it sounds almost maniacally disproportionate. And maybe it would be, for most people. For Elizabeth, though...they had pushed Elizabeth down, attempted to humiliate her in front of everyone, dumped hot soup onto her. You'd like to think that Penelope has grown a little since then, but it's very hard to imagine that the attempts to bully Elizabeth wouldn't have continued once escalated to the level of physical violence, with no consequences for the human girls to make them hesitate.
Or maybe having spent so much time with Elizabeth - having her as a squadmate who has come to your aid when the Squirrels attack - is coloring your perception, making you more willing to defend the indefensible. Faulkren has changed you.
"Zabanya did not act without provocation, is what I believe Neianne is trying to say," your father explains, coming to Elizabeth's lukewarm defence. "That is well and good. Still, she does sound...dangerous. You'd best be careful around her." The last is directed at you.
Which, again, is drawing a conclusion about Elizabeth's person from the worst - or at least cruellest - impression given. You suppose you're not going to be able to change your family's mind on that...which makes one announcement just a little awkward. You don't know how to explain your certainty that, quite beyond her disinclination toward violence for no reason, Elizabeth has no attention of hurting you in particular. She likes you, or thinks you're amusing to have around, at least. And, all her eccentricities aside, you are receptive to having her as a friend as well. Mostly. Kind of. It's complicated.
This does, however, lead them to an observation.
"So," your sister concludes with a raised eyebrow some time after more stories with the other apprentices are shared. "That's Celestia, Charmaine, Ravenhill, Zabanya...are you friends with anyone who isn't a noble?"
"Stephanie isn't a noble!" you protest, a little taken aback. "And neither is Melanie." You've reflected, before, how far outside your social standing your circle of Academy friends rests. Even Melanie, common though she technically might be, is from a family of wealthy and connected merchants, who in many ways seem to have more resources and pull than many minor nobles do. "And Vesna and Wendy definitely aren't."
"Still, it seems like you're getting really cozy with as many highborn girls as you can," Elana presses.
"Planning to seduce one, Sprout?" your mother ask as she comes in, carrying a basket of freshly chopped wood for the cooking fire. She smiles at your response. "I'm joking. Joking!" After a moment or two of enjoying the sight of your pout, she relents, and reminds you: "Just, remember what it might look like to people who don't know you so well."
You frown, not sure what the implication being drawn is, but feeling intrinsically that you don't like it. "What does it look like?" Not really that you're trying to seduce a highborn girl, you hope.
Elana is helpfully blunt. "No one likes a suckup," she says. "A common girl who spends all her time with nobles..." she shrugs, as if the implication is obvious.
You suddenly wonder if this had any bearing on Penelope's early animosity toward you, as much as simply being on the same squad as Elizabeth. You dislike the thought intensely.
"And to think," Elana sighs, "People here were so worried about you, and you were just off swinging a giant sword and making up to girls with 'lady' in front of their name."
Your mother gives her a look that's halfway amused, halfway annoyed before sighing herself, and setting herself down into a nearby chair. "Truthfully," she begins, "we were quite concerned to hear the stories from Faulkren. First a wyvern, of all creatures, here in Apaloft. Then Tennies attacking the academy. We were relieved to receive word that you were safe."
You father nods, her mouth a hard line. She doesn't quite reach for your mother's hand, but she subtly positions herself closer to her, as the ghost of anxious nights with no word from you seems to pass between them. "If it's something you'd rather not talk about, we'll understand," she says, voice slightly reluctant.
"N-No, it's okay," you quickly stammer, not wanting this to become too awkward. There's also you recognizing that this is probably something that's eventually come to come up sooner or later...and possibly even repeatedly, seeing how your neighbors are likely to ask you about the Squirrel attack as well. "It's just...s-some apprentices died. S-Staff too. I...g-guess it could've been worse, but s-some apprentices have left. And I know o-one of my squadmate's parents wants to b-bring her home."
Your mother blinks and pauses for an extra beat before nodding, "Ah. Yes, I suppose that's a concern."
Elana makes a face to your side. "Of course it's a concern, mom. Most parents don't want to leave their children where it's dangerous."
For someone who had been concerned for the well-being of her own eldest daughter, your mother is remarkably unsympathetic to this line of reasoning. "A healthy degree of danger builds character."
"Or, you know," Elana says, voice deadpan, "kills someone."
"Soldiers are already dying in Elspar," your father says, shaking her head."This has always been a risk. That your sister is in Faulkren means that she intends to manage it."
Elana turns away from your mother just enough - just enough towards you - to roll her eyes. You, for your part, remain awkwardly quiet. You're too young to really remember that much about how things were back in the Thionval commune, but given the stories your parents told you - the way they talk about what "plainsfolk society" is like relative to dryad culture, the way they react in accordance with their own biases and values - you've always known that your parents have a greater tolerance for danger and risks, at least certainly moreso than the plainsfolk you've spent most of your life with. You are certainly aware of the stereotypical views of your kind in Caldrein, at the very least, where every dryad is a hunter who lives on their own, where neighbors can often live very far away. It's not precisely accurate - no one in your family, for example, is a hunter - but that woodland dryads are more willing to coexist with the dangers of nature and that dryad families generally live further apart from each other for the personal space does, to some level, speak to the conditions that inform dryad values, something that more than a decade in the plains has yet to change.
Elana has been raised all her life in Caelon, and her values don't deviate far from the other children in the village. Neither do yours, really. But you do feel like you understand your parents better in this regard. You have rarely ever heard your parents - your father in particular - give voice to their opinion that elven, aseri, and human children are too "soft", but you are certain that opinion exists. And while you want to think that this is more about a self-reliance culture rather than a warrior culture, you really aren't sure. You left Thionval at so young an age, after all. You're not really sure how you feel about that sentiment. It's true, on some level. You know now better than ever that you could die, and not even necessarily in a glorious way. You could just die. But you can hear a trace of pride in your father's voice, and something about that makes you entirely conflicted about the whole thing.
But you don't want to dwell on this topic, not with your sister around, so - motivated in part because you just remember this - you exclaim, "O-Oh, wait!" And with that, you jump out of your seat and dart back into your bedroom, even as your family exchanges confused looks. When you emerge, you've fished out something from the backpack you placed in your room. Walking up to your younger sister, you thrust a stuffed wyvern into her hands. "This is for you!"
Elana eagerly takes the massive stuffed toy from you, holding it up to admire it, before giving it an experimental cuddle. The wyvern is as big as your head, with vivid yellow and green mottled scales somehow stitched into the fabric, impressively soft wings, and cheerful button eyes that transition smoothly from red to yellow. Elana's face lights up with genuine, unfeigned delight.
"Aw, it's so cute!" she exclaims.
"Did you spend your money on gifts for your sister?" your mother asks. It's difficult to tell whether or not you're being scolded.
"I-I won it as a prize," you clarify. And Elizabeth had given you extra money beside that, but after the comment about how you might appear to be a "suckup" to others, you feel reluctant to mention this.
"What do you say to your sister?" your father asks, eying Elana with good humor, despite the stern words.
"Thank you, thank you!" Elana beams, holding the wyvern up over head head to spread its full wingspan. "Did you know a wyvern can weigh over a thousand kilograms?" she adds, with the stitched version held easily over her head.
You suppress a wince as your remember your very personal experience with a wyvern's weight. "...Y-Yes."
Elana, wrapped up in her gift, doesn't appear to notice your somewhat subdued response. Your parents, however, exchange an undisguised look over her head. You have a feeling that, sooner or later, there's going to be another conversation about death and violence.
The fire in the hearth has grown low and Elana has been reluctantly carted off to bed before you finally give any details about the incident with the wyvern. You're not sure how much of the news, rumors, and letters your parents shared with your younger sister, but it's not really something that you want her to hear from you in excruciating detail. And so the story is retold: The dead huntress, fleeing for your lives, Wendy's brush with death. The argument between Lucille and Penelope.
You've heard enough jokes about stripping and seduction in the previous months to be slightly unenthusiastic about revealing what happened next to your parents. They don't laugh, though, nor do they look mortified. Instead, your mother claps a congratulatory hand on your shoulder:
"Disguising your scent to sneak past a predator," she smiles approvingly. "And your grandmother said bringing you out of the forest so young would ruin you. She'd be proud." Your mother's mother had been a huntress of great skill and some renown, at least among the dryads of Thionval. She died less than a year after your family moved to the plains, and your memories of her are vague and fuzzy. The compliment still makes you glow with pride, and you smile as your father leans in and kisses you on the forehead.
"We're proud too," she says, gently.
Your mother abruptly gets up and goes over to a high cabinet, rooting around in it. The dim, flickering light from the fire makes it impossible to see what she's doing, until she comes back with a bottle. "You're not a child anymore," she declares. "Here's a little something to celebrate."
"G-Grape juice?" you guess. Your mother shakes her head.
"Wine. Fortified, fermented from elderberry. Had it sent special from my cousin back home." She grins, the firelight reflecting her somewhat wicked smile. "This," she says, fetching three glasses, "is a real woman's drink."
You struggle not to let out an intimidated squeak. And you would have been right to, as it turns out. The wine kicks like a horse, and puts you to sleep after only two glasses.
You like it.
For the next few weeks, you're something of a celebrity in your own hometown. You are invited by almost every family to eat with them, at which point you're bombarded by hundreds of questions. Your apprenticeship at Faulkren is the talk of all your friends, to the point where you feel a little bad that they aren't really talking to each other. Although most are polite enough to leave you alone when you're at home, curiosity does drive some to visit.
It's all a little dizzying, to be honest. The most attention you've ever received was after the Roldharen field exercise, and then there were only about a hundred or so apprentices who were constantly asking you for your take on what happened. In a village of around three hundred, this is far more than you'd usually otherwise willingly subject yourself to. But such as the Caldran way: Familiarity is to be expected, and seeing how the village had chipped in to send you to Faulkren in the first place, it's admittedly a little hard to say no.
It's during one of these sunny days, however, that someone asks good-naturedly, "Do they teach you hand-to-hand combat in Faulkren?"
Facing you is an elven woman somewhere in the morass between adulthood and middle age. Of middling height, she wears her brunette hair practically and possesses a wiry build that speaks of long hours of daily physical activity, hardly surprising for the village hunter. Selma is obviously not hunting now, but towering over most of your friends - and cutting a sharp impression amidst the other adults surrounding you in the village square, listening to yet another regaling of your experiences at Faulkren - it's hard not to miss that friendly but challenging smile on her lips.
"J-Just the basics," you explain. Enough so that no apprentice is completely helpless if without a weapon. "Later, I m-may choose to learn advanced hand-to-hand c-combat."
Selma smiles wider, slamming a fist into her palm. "How about we go for a quick spar?"
"Y-Yes?" you stammer in confusion.
Which, of course, is taken as an affirmative as Selma grins, raises her fists, and spreads her feet in a fighting stance before you even have a real chance to react, and already the crowd around you parts excitedly, oblivious to whether or not you actually want to suddenly go for a spar. "You'll probably beat me, but I want to see how much of a difference a year at a mercenary academy makes."
You are barely able to get your own fists in time as you dodge a blow from the village huntress. You give ground, still a little confused, not entirely willing to punch back, but you never give so much ground that you're beyond the range of Selma's punches, tilting your head here and ducking there as strike after strike comes, both from her arms and legs, and you continue to parry and evade in fluid, graceful moments.
It's almost amusing. As the village huntress, Selma has always been considered to be the toughest woman in Caelon. She was the one all the children looked up to as the closest thing you all have to a soldier. You know that she has some experience in a fistfight when not shooting arrows at her game. Yet here you are, addressing each and every one of her attacks. Your forearms easily deflect her punches when you can't just lean to the side in evasion, and your legs easily check any of Selma's kicks if you can't simply step backwards to avoid them.
A crowd is gathering with excitement, cheering on the spar as your neighbors form a circle around you. Perhaps she's pressed by the presence of a crowd, because Selma's blows are coming a bit faster now, even a bit reckless. She's not aiming to hurt, but she's clearly trying to get at least one good attack in.
But you're not letting her. It's nothing so dramatic as the world having slowed down for you now that you've been a Caldran mercenary apprentice for a year. Certainly, your reflexes have gotten faster, and you've sped up dramatically compared to when you left home for Faulkren. But that really isn't the key to why you are dominating this duel without so much as returning an attack, a prospect that still hasn't quite entered your mind yet. Rather, it's just an intuitive understanding of what happens in a fight. When Selma draws back her right arm, you simply know to sidestep to the left an entire beat before the attack even comes, even if you extend your forearm in a parry just in case. When Selma's hips begin to pivot, you automatically, instinctively know to step forward with one leg to arrest that kick before it even comes. You know just how far you need to give ground, just how much space you need to give to avoid an attack.
Perhaps that's experience. Perhaps that's the lesson pounded into you after not only an entire academic year of training, but also two life-or-death episodes in combat.
You allow Selma to overreach with one of her punches before ducking under her arm, your own arm reaching up to grab the elven woman by the opposite shoulder, the one that isn't throwing the punch. Being careful to compensate - you are a dryad, after all - you push just enough to spin Selma on a foot, causing her to lose balance, before redirecting that force forward and down. Selma gives a startled yelp before she slips and falls back-first onto the ground, looking stunned and a little out of it after hitting the dirt, blank eyes staring momentarily skywards as the crowd around you excitedly cheers, your friends rushing towards you excitedly to offer you praise and maybe even a towel, not that you're particularly sweaty right now.
...Actually, now that you think about it, isn't your current situation reminiscent of Aphelia's way back early in the academic year, where her own hanger-ons watched her spar with Sieglinde before they offered praise and maybe even a towel? The comparison is...actually a little startling, and as you are overwhelmed by your neighbors, you're not actually entirely sure what to feel about all this.
Selma, at the very least, seems to be taking her defeat well as she gets back onto her feet, rubbing the back of her head; you hope it's not actually very sore, seeing how you did your best to reduce the impact. "Wow," she chuckles, and the girls around you quiet down, albeit only by a hair, just enough so you can hear her. "By the Spring, what a difference a year makes."
You're personally having the same thought yourself. A year at Faulkren has turned you from a village girl into...something else. Not a Caldran mercenary apprentice, not yet...but against fellow apprentices and trained Tenereian saboteurs, you were never entirely sure how much you've changed from your average Caldran villager.
Now you know.
Stasis
Unverified Lotus
- Location
- Milky Way, Earth
I noticed Neianne stopped stuttering several times! Is that because she's grown, or because she's with family? Maybe both?
Either way, i don't know if the amount or type of Chimera heads have been mentioned before, but i assume that with four heads rather than the more common three, it has both a dragon's head and a snake's head rather than either or? Or is it one of those fancy types of Chimera's that don't conform to standards and doesn't have the common 'Lion+Goat+DragonAndOrSnake'(though it obviously has the snake) heads? I have, for example, seen versions with eagle and wolf heads.
Either way, i don't know if the amount or type of Chimera heads have been mentioned before, but i assume that with four heads rather than the more common three, it has both a dragon's head and a snake's head rather than either or? Or is it one of those fancy types of Chimera's that don't conform to standards and doesn't have the common 'Lion+Goat+DragonAndOrSnake'(though it obviously has the snake) heads? I have, for example, seen versions with eagle and wolf heads.
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- Pronouns
- She/Her
Maybe a little of both, but probably mostly family. I have mega social anxiety IRL but I can still be really social with my mother and brother (and his boyfriend by proxy); when you know people your entire life, told all (or almost all) your secrets to them, and love them as much as you can and know they love you back... social anxiety, awkwardness, etc. tends to be a lot less of an issue.
Fantastic job Kei. Also ugh thanks for reminding me I still need to get caught up with Mecha Bridge Bunny Quest I READ ONE UPDATE TONIGHT AT LEAST ;-;
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
oh my god, what an incredibly wholesome and good update
oh my god
oh my god
oh my god
Interesting to see Neianne's reaction to her training, and how you portray her increased skill, as instinctive and natural; something that just happens instead of something she consciously makes use of. Super cool section, super good update. Plenty of good and wholesome things.
oh my god
oh my god
oh my god
Interesting to see Neianne's reaction to her training, and how you portray her increased skill, as instinctive and natural; something that just happens instead of something she consciously makes use of. Super cool section, super good update. Plenty of good and wholesome things.
- Location
- United Kingdom
Neianne's personality probably helps a lot here when it comes to people who know her.
She doesn't seem to make a habit of prioritising nobles over commoners (or vice versa, but that's not really the potential issue here), but then the bigger thing is that she's shy/polite with everyone, not just nobles or people she may have thought to be above her in status or power, so it's clear to most who know her that she's being genuine in her actions.
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I wrote that specific line and was thinking "three heads plus snake for tail". I half expected Kei to correct it in favour of some other configuration. Evidently four it is.
Elana is very up on her woman-eating monster facts.
Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
You're a team, that's closer than friends! Gosh, Neianne.
Ah, family arguments. That's a familiar tenor.
Yeah. *glances at Melanie* That's bedroom talk.
....
*fleeeeeees*
Oh, just wait until you see Awakened EX Riot of the Blood Neianne, you'll change your tune then!
Preeeeetty sure Neianne's the poor innocent village girl being seduced in most of these scenarios olol
Yay, growth! Yay, progress! Yay, learning! Yay, showing off to the crowd and being the village celebrity! Yay, taking advantage of--wait, hold on.
So, in a series of untimely events, I have accidentally enrolled in a doctorate program, and I'm starting next month. (It's kind of untimely and kind of an accident, but probably not that untimely or too much of an accident. Poke me if you're interested in the story.) What this means practically, however, is that while my employer is willing to retain me, it's going to be in a part-time capacity, complete with part-time pay.
In other words, if you're on the fence about supporting me on Patreon...um, please don't feel too guilty now? x_x
(Incidentally, to the surprise of absolutely no one who participated in Stand and Watch Them Fall, my major is political science and international relations.)
In other words, if you're on the fence about supporting me on Patreon...um, please don't feel too guilty now? x_x
(Incidentally, to the surprise of absolutely no one who participated in Stand and Watch Them Fall, my major is political science and international relations.)
1.20.3 Summer Vacation (Part 3)
Weeks turn to a month, and the novelty of your return as a Caldran mercenary apprentice eventually begins to wear off. That is, the novelty - if it ever was such for you - is wearing out for you; while you try your best, reminding yourself that these are lifelong neighbors and friends, the seemingly inexhaustible curiosity and excitement that your village shares is exhausting for you, and you soon find yourself trying to strike a careful balance between politely interacting with your fellow denizens of Caelon to avoiding them in the relative security of your own home to avoiding them out in the woods.
It's not as if you haven't come equipped with an excuse. When you disappear into the woods one afternoon, you bring along your buster sword, your alibi being the need to have space when you train. Of course, you actually are training, working on precise swings and slashes calculated in the heat of the moment, careful not to let your oversized weapon touch any trees as you slide and spin and jump. Like a needle threading cloth, your buster sword navigates in the spaces between the trees, guided by your expert hands.
The buster sword as it is, you will never be able to exercise its full potential out here in the woods. The weapon's true effectiveness lies in sufficiently open space to bring forth its full destructive power. But while you will be able to choose a second weapon come your second year at Faulkren - maybe you'll pick something faster and more versatile - you may one day find yourself with only a buster sword in hand on a battlefield not of your choosing. Practice, as they say, makes perfect.
You think you're getting the hang of it. It's more challenging than it was to manage your greatsword during the field exercise, but the fundamental principles still apply. It's all about knowing your surroundings, judging your swings carefully. You move through a series of blocks and strikes, carefully weaving your way between tree trunks and around shrubs, the thick blade of your sword parting the air like a steel avalanche. It's too ungainly a weapon for you to truly be dancing, but there is a sort of savage grace to your technique, enforced by the obstacles you've placed for yourself. You're doing a routine that imitates being assaulted by multiple enemies coming at you from all sides, each pivot flowing into another attack, another defense, another...
Thunk.
Pain shoots through your arms, the shock of the impact nearly causing you to let go of the sword's hilt entirely. You knew instinctively - or perhaps simply in advance, what with you deliberately training yourself in a woodland and all - that your buster sword had struck a tree mid-swing, and that you're able to hold on despite this - rather than falling back to leave the weapon embedded in the massive, ancient oak like an oversized hatchet - salvages your wounded pride very slightly as you barely manage to catch your footing and preventing yourself from spinning off into another tree.
Instinctively, you glance around, inwardly cringing at the thought of anyone having witnessed this. You'd like to think you're mostly modest, but having survived an entire year at a Caldran mercenary academy was supposed to be something special, so you're feeling just a little stubborn at protecting that little bit of pride. That, and a tiny bit of terror in the back of your head at what your instructor would say. Of what Wendy would say. You can almost hear her laughter as you plant a foot against the trunk and heave all your weight into pulling the sword out. It barely budges; the blade is sunk too far into the wood. It takes a lot of mewling, distressed effort on your part to gradually wiggle the sword free.
Finally, though, you can feel that it's just barely still stuck. You give one last straining pull, and as you do so, you could swear that Wendy's imagined laughter has become actual laughter. Stifled giggles.
Unfortunately, this is also when you lose your footing, falling back with a cry to land on a pile of soft earth, buster sword clattering to the ground beside you.
Lying on the ground motionless for a moment, you slowly close your eyes and heave a deep sigh, trying to catch your breath and get your humiliation under control. You need to get better at this. It's not that you haven't gotten good. You know it's useless to be excessively hard on yourself. No matter what, a buster sword has always been and will always be ill-suited for confined environments such as this, which is part of why you chose this spot for practice to begin with. Even if you one day manage to master the buster sword to the extent that you'll never accidentally hit another tree again, you'll never be able to work that to your advantage against an equally skilled opponent with a dagger.
The disadvantage, you well know, may be offset a bit when you choose a second weapon to master upon your return to Faulkren. At least if you pick something good for close-confines as opposed to a ranged option such as, say, a longbow. But you still need to get better.
The light shining on your closed eyelids dim a bit, and you open your eyes for a moment, expecting to see the sky beyond the canopy of trees, perhaps in the process of clouding over the sun. Instead, you see a face looking down at you as she smiles and says, "Boo."
BGM: Final Fantasy VIII - Balamb Garden
Your eyes snap open. Then you give a startled yelp, scrambling backwards, trying to regain your footing against the loose leaves on the ground, trying to make sense of why she is here.
"V-V-V..." you stammer, the name entirely caught in your throat as you stare in utter shock, one hand clutched to your chest, the other pointing to the brunette intruder accusingly.
"I've come to visit you!" Vesna declares cheerily, almost as if momentarily oblivious to your state of near-panic.
"V-V-Vesna?" you finally manage, face coloring crimson.
She shrugs, only now looking slightly awkward as her smile turns a little sheepish and she asks, "Yes?"
"Y-You're here!" You have - with a tiny bit of currently ignored pride - managed to bring your stammer mostly down to one false start now.
"Yes!"
"In Caelon!"
"Yes," she agrees again, that cheer returning to her smile. "To visit you!" You stare at her, baffled momentarily. She looks much the same as she did when you saw her last, which makes sense. It was less than a month ago. She's wearing a dress you don't recognize, and new boots in shiny black. "I said you might see me before it was time to go back, didn't I?"
"I didn't know what you m-meant by that!" you say, quite honestly. Overhead, a bird takes perch, song loud and mocking in your ears. "What if I weren't here?"
She only grins at your pout. "Where else would you be?"
"In Marloch! V-Visiting Lady Elizabeth!" You're aware only after you finish this outburst how unlikely it sounds.
Vesna, however, doesn't seem entirely surprised. Which surprises you at first, until you remember her unreserved enthusiasm when talking with Elizabeth during Midwinter's Feast. "Then I'm glad I caught you first," she smiles, giving you a small hug that you return awkwardly. "That's...not tomorrow, is it?"
You shake your head. "N-No, it's another month." It also still feels completely unreal to you; Vesna might be able to accept it easily, but it's difficult to really imagine that in such a short amount of time, you will be visiting with Elizabeth, meeting her family, doing...whatever it is Elizabeth does for fun. Other than reading and delivering troubling lectures.
"Does that mean I get to stay for a month?" Vesna's smile is optimistic, in a way that's just touching enough to break through your thoughts.
"I-I don't mind, but..." gathering your thoughts, you use the excuse of moving to retrieve your poor, fallen sword to avoid answering right away, "...sh-shouldn't you...be with your family?"
"They're doing business in the area. Bresdal, actually." That would be the largest town within a day's walk, roughly the size of Faulkren itself, but - without an academy of its own - not nearly as famous. "So I get to sneak out here and see you!"
"You...didn't r-really sneak away without telling your family, d-did you?" Images of search parties being summoned up pitch your voice up a little in distress.
She seems momentarily serious and uncommitted as she at first replies, "No, I didn't." This more serious expression lasts all of a few seconds, then she's grinning again, as if none of it matters. "But come on! Which way is Caelon?"
"U-Um, that way...?" you point in the vague direction of the village.
"You have to show me your village. And your home. And introduce me to your family. And your little sister!" She's practically bouncing with excitement.
"O-Okay!" you say, a little taken aback by the force of this request. It's not as though having Vesna around won't be fun. You like her. But this is all happening very fast.
You and Vesna emerge out of the woods not too far from your house, passing by the gnarled old crabapple tree on the edge of a large wheat field being allowed to lay fallow for the year. A small, dark-haired elven girl of fifteen years stands beneath it, holding a patched wicker basket over her head. Every so often, a small, green apple will fall down from the tree, landing in the basket about two thirds of the time. The ground is littered with the bitter little fruits.
"H-Hello, Margery," you say. She looks at you and Vesna, a strange girl with an arcane staff, with some interest, tilting her head to get a better look at the implement. This results in a crabapple originally destined for the basket striking her squarely on the side of the head.
"Ow!" the elf cries, nearly dumping the basket of fruit onto the ground. "Elana, this isn't going to work if you keep being such a bad shot! Aim for the basket."
"It's not my fault you keep moving around!" a familiar voice replies, from up the tree. "I'm trying to aim for the basket, but you keep wobbling."
"Well, I was looking at your sister," Margery says. She says it in a way that almost seems to suggest as if Elana is somehow responsible for you. You have a mild suspicion that Margery is a little annoyed about you having temporarily "stole" her place at the center of peer attention.
At this, you see Elana's green-blond head protrude from within the tree's foliage, your sister apparently hanging upside down."Neianne!" she says, looking at Vesna with slight excitement. She too has noticed the staff. And interesting strangers are almost always exciting, at least to her. "Who's she?"
"A-A friend," you say vaguely, hoping that Elana and Margery won't ask too much questions.
Sadly, village plainsfolk are nothing but inquisitive. At this point, you suppose this also applies to your sister who still remains upside-down from where she's hanging from the tree as she points out, "I've never seen her before."
"A recent friend," Vesna smiles. There's no chance she missed the fact that the girl she's talking to now is a dryad, and the rest is putting two and two together. "Are you Elana?"
Your sister is mildly surprised at this. "Yes."
"Neianne's little sister?"
"Yes?"
Vesna beams excitedly, jumping forth to greet your little sister despite the fact that she's still hanging upside-down. "I've wanted to meet you for a while now!" she gushes with surprising enthusiasm for someone meeting a friend's little sister. "I'm Vesna, it's nice to meet you."
Elana is generally good with people and certainly better with extroverted people, but a complete stranger's greeting does catch her slightly off-guard. "It's nice to meet you too," she blinks, inwardly wondering if she should come down from the tree now. For better or for worse, your little sister isn't Mia. "Where are you from?"
"Do you mean where I met Neianne?" asks Vesna with a mischievous smile that suggests she knows exactly how her reply would take things. "We're training together at Faulkren."
Margery's eyes widen, and she's suddenly excited by the presence of another Caldran mercenary apprentice. "By the Spring, really?" she gasps, placing her basket of apples down on the ground so quickly you nearly have to rush to it to prevent it from toppling over.
Elana, too, is suddenly excited at this piece of information, swinging around from the branch she was hanging from and dropping back down to the ground with a flip. "Are you a mage?" she asks eagerly, seeing the staff on her back.
"Yes!" Vesna beams. "A healer, specifically."
"Have you blown anyone up yet?"
"Not yet. I'm just a healer for now."
"Boo."
Smiling, Vesna leans in - Vesna is only a tiny bit taller than you, so Elana isn't that much shorter than her - and pretends to whisper in a mock conspiratorial manner, "I'll be choosing a new weapon when I go back to Faulkren after summer vacation. Maybe then I can learn to blow someone up."
Elana smiles impishly like someone who's been let in on a great secret. You're not sure you like where this is going.
"Were you also there when the Tennies attacked?" Margery asks, missing the fact that Vesna's happy expression flickers just a bit at the mention of that. The next question, delivered in rapid succession, further rubs salt in the wound: "What about Roldharen?"
Vesna pauses just half a beat long enough for you to quickly interject; the longer you stay here, the more likely the entire village will soon descend on your friend and overwhelm her before she even has a chance to settle in. "L-Let me at least take her home so she can m-meet my parents!" you declare, taking Vesna by the hand and preparing to pull her along to your house.
Except then everyone pauses and stares at you for a moment. Vesna, in fact, is blushing a little bit. You take a moment to think about what you may have just said to invite such a reaction. And then two moments. And then three moments. And then...
...And then your eyes widen, your face flushes red, and you start panickedly stammering, "Th-Th-That's not what I meant! I m-m-mean..."
Elana, for better or for worse, rolls her eyes and takes Vesna's other hand, pulling her along towards your house, dragging you along by consequence. "Let's go," your little sister says good-naturedly to the human, ignoring Margery, "Don't worry, she's always like this."
You're still a little too panicked to really say something in your own defense. Margery herself looks a little annoyed at being pushed aside, but is also already excitedly picking up the basket of crabapples, doubtlessly to run home and tell the entire village of Vesna's presence.
Fortunately, your return home is quick and largely devoid of interruptions, save for the few neighbors who greet you and ask questions about who the visitor is, questions that temporarily go ignored. Elana - perhaps simply looking forward to jeopardize Vesna's time - is at least of mind with you as she pulls your friend onto the porch and through the front door of your humble cottage, even as Elana calls out, "Dad?"
Your father steps out from her bedroom, looking surprised at the presence of a newcomer and - as far as you're concerned - Elana's early return. "Oh, my," she says, walking up to the three of you as Elana brings the two of you to a stop in what's functionally the dining room of the house. "Who's this?"
"Th-This is Vesna," you introduce your friend, determined to take some of that proactivity back from your sister. "Her family is in B-Bresdal, so she's visiting. She's a-also from Faulkren."
"Oh, goodness!" gasps your father in happy surprise, holding arms with Vesna as a greeting. "It's a pleasure to meet one of Neianne's friends from the academy."
"The pleasure is all mine," Vesna replies pleasantly. "She's been a great friend."
"I'm glad to hear it." Then, to you, your father sounds just a touch admonishing. "Neianne! Aren't you supposed to be a great friend? You should've told us we would be having a guest!"
You blush. "I-I didn't know she was coming!" A pause. "I-I mean, she told me, but not r-really!"
Elana rolls her eyes again, leans over to Vesna, and again pretends to whisper without actually lowering her volume much, "Don't worry, she's always like this."
Vesna giggles in commiseration, which only makes you feel a little defensive as you demand, "Wh-What do you mean, I'm always like this?"
Your father, for better or for worse, ignores the customary bickering between sisters as she talks mostly to your guest. "Bresdal is a bit more than a stroll away," she points out. "Have you ate? We can have an early supper."
"Oh, no," Vesna shakes her head, "thank you, auntie, it's fine, I'm not very hungry right now. I can wait."
"Please, call me Rianne. Are you staying the night?"
"I thought about staying in Caelon for a month," Vesna says entirely honestly and straightforwardly, to which a response was a moment of stunned, awkward silence.
You didn't actually think she was being serious about it when she asked you if she could stay for a month, but now that it seems she actually is, you're worried about how your parents will react towards it. Woodland dryads, or so you've always understood, tend to be better about offering shelter to strangers compared to even Caldran plainsfolk; living in conditions relatively more secluded than plainsfolk, dryads understand the virtue of hospitality. But they're also less keen about offering that hospitality for an extended period of time; dryads are ultimately more private.
Whether it was her intention all along or if she noticed the awkward split-second pause, Vesna immediately adds, "I have coin!"
"Don't be silly," your father says, quickly overcoming her hesitation as she shakes her head, "friends don't pay."
Elana leans over to Vesna and - with an impish grin - jokingly whispers, "I hope you're good at doing chores."
"Elana!" your father exclaims disapprovingly.
"She h-healed my arm!" you add defensively, clearly thinking this is compensation enough for a stay with your family.
Elana blinks, and you remember in a moment of panic that you've been trying to hide that story from her for the past month. "Arm?" she asks.
Vesna, thankfully, isn't lingering on that particular subject as she quickly declares, "No, no, please, if there's anything I can do to help..."
"We'll cross that bridge when we get there," your mother says warmly, guiding Vesna towards the bedroom you share with Elana. "Come, let's get you settled in and your bag unpacked. We're just a small village, but we'll make sure you enjoy your stay..."
Afternoon turns to evening, your mother returns from her workshop in time for supper, and it's not really a surprise that - as your family and guest sit together for a meal at a table - your mother is pleased by the extra company.
"We were getting a little worried whether shy little Neianne would ever make friends in Faulkren," your mother announces at the table with a grin, a cup of tea in her hand after a day's work at her workshop. The basic introductions are over with, and talk has drifted - as it inevitably does - towards your days at Faulkren.
"Neianne's friends with everyone," Vesna is pleased to announce, seated opposite you across the dinner table. "Most people think she's amazing, especially after Roldharen."
You fidget awkwardly in your seat, mumbling, "I-I'm not really amazing. O-Or friends with everyone."
"Yes, they do," Vesna insists eagerly with a smile. "Did you know that Neianne rescued someone from a wyvern by str..." then she catches your look as you shake your head in a panicked frenzy outside Elana's field of vision, and - to her credit - she quickly changes the rest of her sentence, "...aaapping Wendy to her back while sneaking past the wyvern and crawling to safety through the mud?"
Elana raises an eyebrow, clearly noticing that something happened there but not entirely sure of its significance. Your father quietly turns her back to you in the kitchen, partly to put the finishing touches on supper, but also - at least you suspect - to hide a smirk. Your mother is openly grinning, but she at least justifies it with a nod and a reply: "We've heard, yes."
Looking relieved at your own relief, Vesna continues enthusiastically, "It was the talk of the academy for a long time, too."
Determined to deflect attention away from you a bit, you insist, "Vesna is f-friends with everyone too!"
Vesna grins and replies, "You mean no one actively dislikes me."
"Th-That's what I am too!"
"But people actually look up to you."
Elana turns to you and blinks ever so innocently. "People look up to you? Does she mean when they're sitting down?"
"You're not even t-taller than me!" you pout.
"I still have room to grow!" Elana declares in a singsong voice.
"Play nice, both of you," your mother interjects with patient amusement at your sisterly interactions.
"People like Vesna, th-though," you point out, eager to move onto your plan to shift attention back to Vesna.
But the human smiles in the kind of way people do when they know the crowd is just trying to be polite. "I'm kind of...there," she amends.
"Because you're a healer," Elana offers her own explanation in a good-natured way. "You need to learn to blow people up."
"Healers are very important, Elana," your mother says, a bit more sternly than when it the two of you were bickering over your height. "They may not have all the glory, but they save lives, making sure masters live to impart their wisdom onto the next generation."
Elana rolls her eyes a little. "I was joking, mom."
"I don't mind not getting a lot of attention," Vesna says, perhaps wanting to move the conversation away from your mother scolding your younger sister a little. "I like just being supportive."
"A good mentality to have," your father nods approvingly as she moves from the kitchen to the dinner table with supper in her hands. The table is soon filled with plates, tableware, and food...albeit food that's a bit more tailored to dryad tastes. You suppose your father wanted to give Vesna something new to try, although you are suddenly consumed with the worry it may be just a bit too much on Vesna's very first day.
Vesna herself stares down at her plate with an expression that wouldn't be out of place if it contained live vipers, warring visibly with her natural inclination to be polite, justifying your concern. Specifically, the vegetable portion of the meal. Stealing herself to asks, she begins, "Is this...?" before weakly trailing off. Clearly, whatever she thinks it is, she has decided it couldn't be that.
"Adder's kiss mushroom and baby Gaia fern, steamed with some forest spice," your father says.
Vesna's eyes widen. Both of these items, common in the forest as well as less abundantly on the plains, are notorious. "Aren't those both...poisonous?"
"Deadly, usually," your mother agrees, the picture of nonchalance as she puts a large chunk of mushroom into her mouth.
Your father shoots her a look across the table in a silent, subtle exchange that likely goes over Vesna's head. Please don't make the plainsfolk guests afraid of my cooking, your father's look seems to say.
"Gaia's f-fern is fine if you soak it very well," you tell her, wanting Vesna to be at ease. "...And boil it a little, before cooking."
"In different water," Elana adds, an impish gleam in her eyes. "And throw both waters out away from where anyone drinks." She has always taken an attitude closer to your mother's, on this subject.
"It's Gaia's fern for a reason," your father explains. "She gave it poison to frighten away the timid, but made it delicious for those with the will."
Vesna is beginning to relax though, taking a cautious fork full of the dish. It's a much better reaction than many have. "The mushroom?"
"They're only poisonous for most of a moon, until they lose their spots," your mother says. "Then they're fine until they spore."
Vesna nods slowly, forking up a small helping deceptively harmless fungus and greens. "It is safe for humans as well?" she can't help but ask, but to your surprise, at this point she seems more intrigued than frightened.
"It's f-fine!" you tell her. If anything, the dish in question - traditionally dryad with an earthy, very mildly complex flavor - is more boring than dangerous, once one got past the fact that improperly harvested or prepared it could make someone very sick. You suspect that your father wouldn't have cooked this if she had known a human guest would be in attendance, and the ingredients hadn't already been gathered and prepared beforehand. The mushroom doesn't keep long once it's edible. "My father is a v-very good cook."
Your father waves the compliment off with a slight flick of her wrist. "I'm good enough to feed my family," she says. She's still looking at Vesna expectantly, with the faintest trace of embarrassment in her narrow shoulders.
Vesna experimentally puts the food into her mouth, chewing slowly and thoughtfully. As she fails to die horribly after swallowing, she relaxes and smiles, half tickled, half-chagrined. "I've never tasted anything quite like that," she says. "Thank you for the opportunity."
For a bit, the conversation turns to dryad cuisine, and then a bit about dryad culture and your family's own history in Caelon. Your own story - moving to Caelon in the plains from the Thionval commune - is revealed through the course of this conversation, a topic that unsurprisingly catches much of Vesna's attention.
"Why did you come to Caldrein?" asks Vesna enthusiastically. "I mean, I'm happy that you did. But I thought most dryads remain in the woods, so..."
Your parents exchange knowing looks; this is certainly detail that they've had to explain many times in the past, especially in the years immediately after their move here. "The adventure of it," your mother declares with a triumphant smirk.
"We saw the changing of the times," your father elaborates gently with a gentle slap to the back of your mother's hand. "When the elves first left the skytowns for the plains, the dryads adopted a cautious wait-and-see attitude...for so many centuries. We thought the time for waiting and seeing was over, and that the heart of civilization and culture has long left the woods."
"Not a very popular sentiment in the woods," your mother adds. "They accept that the times have changed, but very rarely will you have a dryad back in the woods willingly say they've lost the say on what is or isn't 'culture'. Them and what few elves who still live in the skytowns."
"But mom and dad still don't like the cities very much," adds Elana in a tone that was just a tiny bit smug. "So we're stuck out here."
"We've never had the wealth to live in the cities," your mother says with a slight drawl, rolling her eyes.
"And it's too...crowded for us," your father admits in an almost embarrassed tone. "And dirty."
"You could've settled in a town instead of a village," Elana protests lightly. "Like Bresdal." Turning to Vesna curiously, she asks, "But you said your family is from Bresdal? I didn't hear about anyone else that close going to Faulkren!"
"No, they're not from Bresdal," Vesna explains. "They're just there on business."
"Vesna's family are m-merchants," you explain.
"Oh?" Your mother looks suddenly interested. "What sort of things are they trading?" You know that, beyond simply making small talk with a guest, your mother is always happy to hear about a prospective customer for her woodcarving. There's certainly a local demand, but sporadic influxes of real coin happen primarily when a merchant bothers to come through the area.
"Oh, little bits of this and that. We're not really rich merchants, just traveling ones."
"You don't see a lot of those these days. Most trade is dominated by the guilds. How do you stay afloat?"
"We stick to lesser trading routes, mostly along villages where the guilds don't pay too much attention to."
Your father nods sympathetically. "Must be hard to make a living without marking up prices."
"We try not to do that," Vesna clarifies. "Villages have it hard enough as is. We don't come to Caelon, though, unfortunately," she quickly adds. "We try to stick with villages where we've established relationships with."
"That must be hard on profits," your mother observes with a raised eyebrow.
Vesna smiles a little. "We do what we can."
Time passes as dinner is consumed, and another two hours of conversation ensue before it gets late enough that your family is preparing for bed. "It's getting late," your father tells Vesna. "Why don't you wash up for the night? You'll have to share the bed with Neianne; Elana will sleep with us through your stay." This invites a slight pout from Elana, who clearly thinks she's old enough to not have to sleep with her parents, but relents due to the presence of a guest. It's been a very long time since you've had a guest stay over. Years, even.
"I'll do that," Vesna nods agreeably, and your father guides her towards the bathroom while explaining the setup. Your mother, meanwhile, takes a moment to step out onto the porch to make one final check, making sure the fence keeping your chickens in are closed and that there are no fire risks; you step out to help her.
"She's a little sheltered, isn't she?" your mother notes to you even as you make sure the gate to the wooden fence is latched and there's no danger of the chickens fleeing out a gate blown open by the wind.
"A...l-little bit?" you hesitantly half-agree, knowing she's talking about Vesna. You're not entirely sure whether that's your mother's way of saying Vesna is a pleasant girl who agreeably goes along with everything. You're not sure anyone who goes through Caldran mercenary training can really be "sheltered", though...with the possible exception of Emilie, maybe.
Your mother nods, dousing the last lantern outside your house; the only light that illuminates your house are the candles inside, and those of the moon and stars. "I suppose it's easier for parents to send their children off to learn how to fight for a good cause than to reveal how cutthroat their business really can be."
You blink, wondering where your mother is going with this, especially with a member of the family in question just inside the house, taking a bath. "Wh-What do you mean?"
"It's tough being a traveling merchant, you know? Most people who do it eventually just want to settle back down somewhere with their own shop, especially if they already have a family to support. And you don't get to do that without getting pragmatic and a little cold-blooded, buying cheap in bulk from the cities and then selling them at marked up prices in villages neglected by most guilds."
Your eyes widen; your mother's claim - and the fact she made it - is more than just a little surprising at and at least a bit more than uncomfortable to hear. "Are you...s-saying her family is cheating the villages?"
"No, nothing like that," she shakes her head, disabusing you of the notion. Your nightly check is done, but she stays outside for just a moment longer, clearly preferring to have this particular conversation in private with you. "They just need to make decisions that most people may not be entirely proud of. Everyone needs to make a living." She shrugs. "I don't begrudge them. Nor do I begrudge them of not telling their children about the whole truth about what they need to do to keep them fed."
"...Oh," you murmur. You don't have anything to add after that; there really isn't much to say. It's not really a thought you want to dwell on, especially not with a guest here.
Your mother catches your look, chuckling a bit and ruffling your hair a little. "You don't need to think too much about it," she assures you, her tone gentle as you pout at being treated like a child. "Children are not their parents. Vesna's a good girl, a good friend."
Even if your mother's last words for the night don't put her at ease, by the time you return to your bedroom, you're too tired to really think about it too much. Vesna is much the same way when she finishes drying her hair joins you on the side of the bed that Elana usually takes. The two of you chat tiredly for a few minutes before drifting slowly off to a peaceful sleep.
Last part was kind of a rush job, hopefully it isn't too awful. Again, post written with the help of the wonderful @Gazetteer .
It's not as if you haven't come equipped with an excuse. When you disappear into the woods one afternoon, you bring along your buster sword, your alibi being the need to have space when you train. Of course, you actually are training, working on precise swings and slashes calculated in the heat of the moment, careful not to let your oversized weapon touch any trees as you slide and spin and jump. Like a needle threading cloth, your buster sword navigates in the spaces between the trees, guided by your expert hands.
The buster sword as it is, you will never be able to exercise its full potential out here in the woods. The weapon's true effectiveness lies in sufficiently open space to bring forth its full destructive power. But while you will be able to choose a second weapon come your second year at Faulkren - maybe you'll pick something faster and more versatile - you may one day find yourself with only a buster sword in hand on a battlefield not of your choosing. Practice, as they say, makes perfect.
You think you're getting the hang of it. It's more challenging than it was to manage your greatsword during the field exercise, but the fundamental principles still apply. It's all about knowing your surroundings, judging your swings carefully. You move through a series of blocks and strikes, carefully weaving your way between tree trunks and around shrubs, the thick blade of your sword parting the air like a steel avalanche. It's too ungainly a weapon for you to truly be dancing, but there is a sort of savage grace to your technique, enforced by the obstacles you've placed for yourself. You're doing a routine that imitates being assaulted by multiple enemies coming at you from all sides, each pivot flowing into another attack, another defense, another...
Thunk.
Pain shoots through your arms, the shock of the impact nearly causing you to let go of the sword's hilt entirely. You knew instinctively - or perhaps simply in advance, what with you deliberately training yourself in a woodland and all - that your buster sword had struck a tree mid-swing, and that you're able to hold on despite this - rather than falling back to leave the weapon embedded in the massive, ancient oak like an oversized hatchet - salvages your wounded pride very slightly as you barely manage to catch your footing and preventing yourself from spinning off into another tree.
Instinctively, you glance around, inwardly cringing at the thought of anyone having witnessed this. You'd like to think you're mostly modest, but having survived an entire year at a Caldran mercenary academy was supposed to be something special, so you're feeling just a little stubborn at protecting that little bit of pride. That, and a tiny bit of terror in the back of your head at what your instructor would say. Of what Wendy would say. You can almost hear her laughter as you plant a foot against the trunk and heave all your weight into pulling the sword out. It barely budges; the blade is sunk too far into the wood. It takes a lot of mewling, distressed effort on your part to gradually wiggle the sword free.
Finally, though, you can feel that it's just barely still stuck. You give one last straining pull, and as you do so, you could swear that Wendy's imagined laughter has become actual laughter. Stifled giggles.
Unfortunately, this is also when you lose your footing, falling back with a cry to land on a pile of soft earth, buster sword clattering to the ground beside you.
Lying on the ground motionless for a moment, you slowly close your eyes and heave a deep sigh, trying to catch your breath and get your humiliation under control. You need to get better at this. It's not that you haven't gotten good. You know it's useless to be excessively hard on yourself. No matter what, a buster sword has always been and will always be ill-suited for confined environments such as this, which is part of why you chose this spot for practice to begin with. Even if you one day manage to master the buster sword to the extent that you'll never accidentally hit another tree again, you'll never be able to work that to your advantage against an equally skilled opponent with a dagger.
The disadvantage, you well know, may be offset a bit when you choose a second weapon to master upon your return to Faulkren. At least if you pick something good for close-confines as opposed to a ranged option such as, say, a longbow. But you still need to get better.
The light shining on your closed eyelids dim a bit, and you open your eyes for a moment, expecting to see the sky beyond the canopy of trees, perhaps in the process of clouding over the sun. Instead, you see a face looking down at you as she smiles and says, "Boo."
BGM: Final Fantasy VIII - Balamb Garden
Your eyes snap open. Then you give a startled yelp, scrambling backwards, trying to regain your footing against the loose leaves on the ground, trying to make sense of why she is here.
"V-V-V..." you stammer, the name entirely caught in your throat as you stare in utter shock, one hand clutched to your chest, the other pointing to the brunette intruder accusingly.
"I've come to visit you!" Vesna declares cheerily, almost as if momentarily oblivious to your state of near-panic.
"V-V-Vesna?" you finally manage, face coloring crimson.
She shrugs, only now looking slightly awkward as her smile turns a little sheepish and she asks, "Yes?"
"Y-You're here!" You have - with a tiny bit of currently ignored pride - managed to bring your stammer mostly down to one false start now.
"Yes!"
"In Caelon!"
"Yes," she agrees again, that cheer returning to her smile. "To visit you!" You stare at her, baffled momentarily. She looks much the same as she did when you saw her last, which makes sense. It was less than a month ago. She's wearing a dress you don't recognize, and new boots in shiny black. "I said you might see me before it was time to go back, didn't I?"
"I didn't know what you m-meant by that!" you say, quite honestly. Overhead, a bird takes perch, song loud and mocking in your ears. "What if I weren't here?"
She only grins at your pout. "Where else would you be?"
"In Marloch! V-Visiting Lady Elizabeth!" You're aware only after you finish this outburst how unlikely it sounds.
Vesna, however, doesn't seem entirely surprised. Which surprises you at first, until you remember her unreserved enthusiasm when talking with Elizabeth during Midwinter's Feast. "Then I'm glad I caught you first," she smiles, giving you a small hug that you return awkwardly. "That's...not tomorrow, is it?"
You shake your head. "N-No, it's another month." It also still feels completely unreal to you; Vesna might be able to accept it easily, but it's difficult to really imagine that in such a short amount of time, you will be visiting with Elizabeth, meeting her family, doing...whatever it is Elizabeth does for fun. Other than reading and delivering troubling lectures.
"Does that mean I get to stay for a month?" Vesna's smile is optimistic, in a way that's just touching enough to break through your thoughts.
"I-I don't mind, but..." gathering your thoughts, you use the excuse of moving to retrieve your poor, fallen sword to avoid answering right away, "...sh-shouldn't you...be with your family?"
"They're doing business in the area. Bresdal, actually." That would be the largest town within a day's walk, roughly the size of Faulkren itself, but - without an academy of its own - not nearly as famous. "So I get to sneak out here and see you!"
"You...didn't r-really sneak away without telling your family, d-did you?" Images of search parties being summoned up pitch your voice up a little in distress.
She seems momentarily serious and uncommitted as she at first replies, "No, I didn't." This more serious expression lasts all of a few seconds, then she's grinning again, as if none of it matters. "But come on! Which way is Caelon?"
"U-Um, that way...?" you point in the vague direction of the village.
"You have to show me your village. And your home. And introduce me to your family. And your little sister!" She's practically bouncing with excitement.
"O-Okay!" you say, a little taken aback by the force of this request. It's not as though having Vesna around won't be fun. You like her. But this is all happening very fast.
You and Vesna emerge out of the woods not too far from your house, passing by the gnarled old crabapple tree on the edge of a large wheat field being allowed to lay fallow for the year. A small, dark-haired elven girl of fifteen years stands beneath it, holding a patched wicker basket over her head. Every so often, a small, green apple will fall down from the tree, landing in the basket about two thirds of the time. The ground is littered with the bitter little fruits.
"H-Hello, Margery," you say. She looks at you and Vesna, a strange girl with an arcane staff, with some interest, tilting her head to get a better look at the implement. This results in a crabapple originally destined for the basket striking her squarely on the side of the head.
"Ow!" the elf cries, nearly dumping the basket of fruit onto the ground. "Elana, this isn't going to work if you keep being such a bad shot! Aim for the basket."
"It's not my fault you keep moving around!" a familiar voice replies, from up the tree. "I'm trying to aim for the basket, but you keep wobbling."
"Well, I was looking at your sister," Margery says. She says it in a way that almost seems to suggest as if Elana is somehow responsible for you. You have a mild suspicion that Margery is a little annoyed about you having temporarily "stole" her place at the center of peer attention.
At this, you see Elana's green-blond head protrude from within the tree's foliage, your sister apparently hanging upside down."Neianne!" she says, looking at Vesna with slight excitement. She too has noticed the staff. And interesting strangers are almost always exciting, at least to her. "Who's she?"
"A-A friend," you say vaguely, hoping that Elana and Margery won't ask too much questions.
Sadly, village plainsfolk are nothing but inquisitive. At this point, you suppose this also applies to your sister who still remains upside-down from where she's hanging from the tree as she points out, "I've never seen her before."
"A recent friend," Vesna smiles. There's no chance she missed the fact that the girl she's talking to now is a dryad, and the rest is putting two and two together. "Are you Elana?"
Your sister is mildly surprised at this. "Yes."
"Neianne's little sister?"
"Yes?"
Vesna beams excitedly, jumping forth to greet your little sister despite the fact that she's still hanging upside-down. "I've wanted to meet you for a while now!" she gushes with surprising enthusiasm for someone meeting a friend's little sister. "I'm Vesna, it's nice to meet you."
Elana is generally good with people and certainly better with extroverted people, but a complete stranger's greeting does catch her slightly off-guard. "It's nice to meet you too," she blinks, inwardly wondering if she should come down from the tree now. For better or for worse, your little sister isn't Mia. "Where are you from?"
"Do you mean where I met Neianne?" asks Vesna with a mischievous smile that suggests she knows exactly how her reply would take things. "We're training together at Faulkren."
Margery's eyes widen, and she's suddenly excited by the presence of another Caldran mercenary apprentice. "By the Spring, really?" she gasps, placing her basket of apples down on the ground so quickly you nearly have to rush to it to prevent it from toppling over.
Elana, too, is suddenly excited at this piece of information, swinging around from the branch she was hanging from and dropping back down to the ground with a flip. "Are you a mage?" she asks eagerly, seeing the staff on her back.
"Yes!" Vesna beams. "A healer, specifically."
"Have you blown anyone up yet?"
"Not yet. I'm just a healer for now."
"Boo."
Smiling, Vesna leans in - Vesna is only a tiny bit taller than you, so Elana isn't that much shorter than her - and pretends to whisper in a mock conspiratorial manner, "I'll be choosing a new weapon when I go back to Faulkren after summer vacation. Maybe then I can learn to blow someone up."
Elana smiles impishly like someone who's been let in on a great secret. You're not sure you like where this is going.
"Were you also there when the Tennies attacked?" Margery asks, missing the fact that Vesna's happy expression flickers just a bit at the mention of that. The next question, delivered in rapid succession, further rubs salt in the wound: "What about Roldharen?"
Vesna pauses just half a beat long enough for you to quickly interject; the longer you stay here, the more likely the entire village will soon descend on your friend and overwhelm her before she even has a chance to settle in. "L-Let me at least take her home so she can m-meet my parents!" you declare, taking Vesna by the hand and preparing to pull her along to your house.
Except then everyone pauses and stares at you for a moment. Vesna, in fact, is blushing a little bit. You take a moment to think about what you may have just said to invite such a reaction. And then two moments. And then three moments. And then...
...And then your eyes widen, your face flushes red, and you start panickedly stammering, "Th-Th-That's not what I meant! I m-m-mean..."
Elana, for better or for worse, rolls her eyes and takes Vesna's other hand, pulling her along towards your house, dragging you along by consequence. "Let's go," your little sister says good-naturedly to the human, ignoring Margery, "Don't worry, she's always like this."
You're still a little too panicked to really say something in your own defense. Margery herself looks a little annoyed at being pushed aside, but is also already excitedly picking up the basket of crabapples, doubtlessly to run home and tell the entire village of Vesna's presence.
Fortunately, your return home is quick and largely devoid of interruptions, save for the few neighbors who greet you and ask questions about who the visitor is, questions that temporarily go ignored. Elana - perhaps simply looking forward to jeopardize Vesna's time - is at least of mind with you as she pulls your friend onto the porch and through the front door of your humble cottage, even as Elana calls out, "Dad?"
Your father steps out from her bedroom, looking surprised at the presence of a newcomer and - as far as you're concerned - Elana's early return. "Oh, my," she says, walking up to the three of you as Elana brings the two of you to a stop in what's functionally the dining room of the house. "Who's this?"
"Th-This is Vesna," you introduce your friend, determined to take some of that proactivity back from your sister. "Her family is in B-Bresdal, so she's visiting. She's a-also from Faulkren."
"Oh, goodness!" gasps your father in happy surprise, holding arms with Vesna as a greeting. "It's a pleasure to meet one of Neianne's friends from the academy."
"The pleasure is all mine," Vesna replies pleasantly. "She's been a great friend."
"I'm glad to hear it." Then, to you, your father sounds just a touch admonishing. "Neianne! Aren't you supposed to be a great friend? You should've told us we would be having a guest!"
You blush. "I-I didn't know she was coming!" A pause. "I-I mean, she told me, but not r-really!"
Elana rolls her eyes again, leans over to Vesna, and again pretends to whisper without actually lowering her volume much, "Don't worry, she's always like this."
Vesna giggles in commiseration, which only makes you feel a little defensive as you demand, "Wh-What do you mean, I'm always like this?"
Your father, for better or for worse, ignores the customary bickering between sisters as she talks mostly to your guest. "Bresdal is a bit more than a stroll away," she points out. "Have you ate? We can have an early supper."
"Oh, no," Vesna shakes her head, "thank you, auntie, it's fine, I'm not very hungry right now. I can wait."
"Please, call me Rianne. Are you staying the night?"
"I thought about staying in Caelon for a month," Vesna says entirely honestly and straightforwardly, to which a response was a moment of stunned, awkward silence.
You didn't actually think she was being serious about it when she asked you if she could stay for a month, but now that it seems she actually is, you're worried about how your parents will react towards it. Woodland dryads, or so you've always understood, tend to be better about offering shelter to strangers compared to even Caldran plainsfolk; living in conditions relatively more secluded than plainsfolk, dryads understand the virtue of hospitality. But they're also less keen about offering that hospitality for an extended period of time; dryads are ultimately more private.
Whether it was her intention all along or if she noticed the awkward split-second pause, Vesna immediately adds, "I have coin!"
"Don't be silly," your father says, quickly overcoming her hesitation as she shakes her head, "friends don't pay."
Elana leans over to Vesna and - with an impish grin - jokingly whispers, "I hope you're good at doing chores."
"Elana!" your father exclaims disapprovingly.
"She h-healed my arm!" you add defensively, clearly thinking this is compensation enough for a stay with your family.
Elana blinks, and you remember in a moment of panic that you've been trying to hide that story from her for the past month. "Arm?" she asks.
Vesna, thankfully, isn't lingering on that particular subject as she quickly declares, "No, no, please, if there's anything I can do to help..."
"We'll cross that bridge when we get there," your mother says warmly, guiding Vesna towards the bedroom you share with Elana. "Come, let's get you settled in and your bag unpacked. We're just a small village, but we'll make sure you enjoy your stay..."
Afternoon turns to evening, your mother returns from her workshop in time for supper, and it's not really a surprise that - as your family and guest sit together for a meal at a table - your mother is pleased by the extra company.
"We were getting a little worried whether shy little Neianne would ever make friends in Faulkren," your mother announces at the table with a grin, a cup of tea in her hand after a day's work at her workshop. The basic introductions are over with, and talk has drifted - as it inevitably does - towards your days at Faulkren.
"Neianne's friends with everyone," Vesna is pleased to announce, seated opposite you across the dinner table. "Most people think she's amazing, especially after Roldharen."
You fidget awkwardly in your seat, mumbling, "I-I'm not really amazing. O-Or friends with everyone."
"Yes, they do," Vesna insists eagerly with a smile. "Did you know that Neianne rescued someone from a wyvern by str..." then she catches your look as you shake your head in a panicked frenzy outside Elana's field of vision, and - to her credit - she quickly changes the rest of her sentence, "...aaapping Wendy to her back while sneaking past the wyvern and crawling to safety through the mud?"
Elana raises an eyebrow, clearly noticing that something happened there but not entirely sure of its significance. Your father quietly turns her back to you in the kitchen, partly to put the finishing touches on supper, but also - at least you suspect - to hide a smirk. Your mother is openly grinning, but she at least justifies it with a nod and a reply: "We've heard, yes."
Looking relieved at your own relief, Vesna continues enthusiastically, "It was the talk of the academy for a long time, too."
Determined to deflect attention away from you a bit, you insist, "Vesna is f-friends with everyone too!"
Vesna grins and replies, "You mean no one actively dislikes me."
"Th-That's what I am too!"
"But people actually look up to you."
Elana turns to you and blinks ever so innocently. "People look up to you? Does she mean when they're sitting down?"
"You're not even t-taller than me!" you pout.
"I still have room to grow!" Elana declares in a singsong voice.
"Play nice, both of you," your mother interjects with patient amusement at your sisterly interactions.
"People like Vesna, th-though," you point out, eager to move onto your plan to shift attention back to Vesna.
But the human smiles in the kind of way people do when they know the crowd is just trying to be polite. "I'm kind of...there," she amends.
"Because you're a healer," Elana offers her own explanation in a good-natured way. "You need to learn to blow people up."
"Healers are very important, Elana," your mother says, a bit more sternly than when it the two of you were bickering over your height. "They may not have all the glory, but they save lives, making sure masters live to impart their wisdom onto the next generation."
Elana rolls her eyes a little. "I was joking, mom."
"I don't mind not getting a lot of attention," Vesna says, perhaps wanting to move the conversation away from your mother scolding your younger sister a little. "I like just being supportive."
"A good mentality to have," your father nods approvingly as she moves from the kitchen to the dinner table with supper in her hands. The table is soon filled with plates, tableware, and food...albeit food that's a bit more tailored to dryad tastes. You suppose your father wanted to give Vesna something new to try, although you are suddenly consumed with the worry it may be just a bit too much on Vesna's very first day.
Vesna herself stares down at her plate with an expression that wouldn't be out of place if it contained live vipers, warring visibly with her natural inclination to be polite, justifying your concern. Specifically, the vegetable portion of the meal. Stealing herself to asks, she begins, "Is this...?" before weakly trailing off. Clearly, whatever she thinks it is, she has decided it couldn't be that.
"Adder's kiss mushroom and baby Gaia fern, steamed with some forest spice," your father says.
Vesna's eyes widen. Both of these items, common in the forest as well as less abundantly on the plains, are notorious. "Aren't those both...poisonous?"
"Deadly, usually," your mother agrees, the picture of nonchalance as she puts a large chunk of mushroom into her mouth.
Your father shoots her a look across the table in a silent, subtle exchange that likely goes over Vesna's head. Please don't make the plainsfolk guests afraid of my cooking, your father's look seems to say.
"Gaia's f-fern is fine if you soak it very well," you tell her, wanting Vesna to be at ease. "...And boil it a little, before cooking."
"In different water," Elana adds, an impish gleam in her eyes. "And throw both waters out away from where anyone drinks." She has always taken an attitude closer to your mother's, on this subject.
"It's Gaia's fern for a reason," your father explains. "She gave it poison to frighten away the timid, but made it delicious for those with the will."
Vesna is beginning to relax though, taking a cautious fork full of the dish. It's a much better reaction than many have. "The mushroom?"
"They're only poisonous for most of a moon, until they lose their spots," your mother says. "Then they're fine until they spore."
Vesna nods slowly, forking up a small helping deceptively harmless fungus and greens. "It is safe for humans as well?" she can't help but ask, but to your surprise, at this point she seems more intrigued than frightened.
"It's f-fine!" you tell her. If anything, the dish in question - traditionally dryad with an earthy, very mildly complex flavor - is more boring than dangerous, once one got past the fact that improperly harvested or prepared it could make someone very sick. You suspect that your father wouldn't have cooked this if she had known a human guest would be in attendance, and the ingredients hadn't already been gathered and prepared beforehand. The mushroom doesn't keep long once it's edible. "My father is a v-very good cook."
Your father waves the compliment off with a slight flick of her wrist. "I'm good enough to feed my family," she says. She's still looking at Vesna expectantly, with the faintest trace of embarrassment in her narrow shoulders.
Vesna experimentally puts the food into her mouth, chewing slowly and thoughtfully. As she fails to die horribly after swallowing, she relaxes and smiles, half tickled, half-chagrined. "I've never tasted anything quite like that," she says. "Thank you for the opportunity."
For a bit, the conversation turns to dryad cuisine, and then a bit about dryad culture and your family's own history in Caelon. Your own story - moving to Caelon in the plains from the Thionval commune - is revealed through the course of this conversation, a topic that unsurprisingly catches much of Vesna's attention.
"Why did you come to Caldrein?" asks Vesna enthusiastically. "I mean, I'm happy that you did. But I thought most dryads remain in the woods, so..."
Your parents exchange knowing looks; this is certainly detail that they've had to explain many times in the past, especially in the years immediately after their move here. "The adventure of it," your mother declares with a triumphant smirk.
"We saw the changing of the times," your father elaborates gently with a gentle slap to the back of your mother's hand. "When the elves first left the skytowns for the plains, the dryads adopted a cautious wait-and-see attitude...for so many centuries. We thought the time for waiting and seeing was over, and that the heart of civilization and culture has long left the woods."
"Not a very popular sentiment in the woods," your mother adds. "They accept that the times have changed, but very rarely will you have a dryad back in the woods willingly say they've lost the say on what is or isn't 'culture'. Them and what few elves who still live in the skytowns."
"But mom and dad still don't like the cities very much," adds Elana in a tone that was just a tiny bit smug. "So we're stuck out here."
"We've never had the wealth to live in the cities," your mother says with a slight drawl, rolling her eyes.
"And it's too...crowded for us," your father admits in an almost embarrassed tone. "And dirty."
"You could've settled in a town instead of a village," Elana protests lightly. "Like Bresdal." Turning to Vesna curiously, she asks, "But you said your family is from Bresdal? I didn't hear about anyone else that close going to Faulkren!"
"No, they're not from Bresdal," Vesna explains. "They're just there on business."
"Vesna's family are m-merchants," you explain.
"Oh?" Your mother looks suddenly interested. "What sort of things are they trading?" You know that, beyond simply making small talk with a guest, your mother is always happy to hear about a prospective customer for her woodcarving. There's certainly a local demand, but sporadic influxes of real coin happen primarily when a merchant bothers to come through the area.
"Oh, little bits of this and that. We're not really rich merchants, just traveling ones."
"You don't see a lot of those these days. Most trade is dominated by the guilds. How do you stay afloat?"
"We stick to lesser trading routes, mostly along villages where the guilds don't pay too much attention to."
Your father nods sympathetically. "Must be hard to make a living without marking up prices."
"We try not to do that," Vesna clarifies. "Villages have it hard enough as is. We don't come to Caelon, though, unfortunately," she quickly adds. "We try to stick with villages where we've established relationships with."
"That must be hard on profits," your mother observes with a raised eyebrow.
Vesna smiles a little. "We do what we can."
Time passes as dinner is consumed, and another two hours of conversation ensue before it gets late enough that your family is preparing for bed. "It's getting late," your father tells Vesna. "Why don't you wash up for the night? You'll have to share the bed with Neianne; Elana will sleep with us through your stay." This invites a slight pout from Elana, who clearly thinks she's old enough to not have to sleep with her parents, but relents due to the presence of a guest. It's been a very long time since you've had a guest stay over. Years, even.
"I'll do that," Vesna nods agreeably, and your father guides her towards the bathroom while explaining the setup. Your mother, meanwhile, takes a moment to step out onto the porch to make one final check, making sure the fence keeping your chickens in are closed and that there are no fire risks; you step out to help her.
"She's a little sheltered, isn't she?" your mother notes to you even as you make sure the gate to the wooden fence is latched and there's no danger of the chickens fleeing out a gate blown open by the wind.
"A...l-little bit?" you hesitantly half-agree, knowing she's talking about Vesna. You're not entirely sure whether that's your mother's way of saying Vesna is a pleasant girl who agreeably goes along with everything. You're not sure anyone who goes through Caldran mercenary training can really be "sheltered", though...with the possible exception of Emilie, maybe.
Your mother nods, dousing the last lantern outside your house; the only light that illuminates your house are the candles inside, and those of the moon and stars. "I suppose it's easier for parents to send their children off to learn how to fight for a good cause than to reveal how cutthroat their business really can be."
You blink, wondering where your mother is going with this, especially with a member of the family in question just inside the house, taking a bath. "Wh-What do you mean?"
"It's tough being a traveling merchant, you know? Most people who do it eventually just want to settle back down somewhere with their own shop, especially if they already have a family to support. And you don't get to do that without getting pragmatic and a little cold-blooded, buying cheap in bulk from the cities and then selling them at marked up prices in villages neglected by most guilds."
Your eyes widen; your mother's claim - and the fact she made it - is more than just a little surprising at and at least a bit more than uncomfortable to hear. "Are you...s-saying her family is cheating the villages?"
"No, nothing like that," she shakes her head, disabusing you of the notion. Your nightly check is done, but she stays outside for just a moment longer, clearly preferring to have this particular conversation in private with you. "They just need to make decisions that most people may not be entirely proud of. Everyone needs to make a living." She shrugs. "I don't begrudge them. Nor do I begrudge them of not telling their children about the whole truth about what they need to do to keep them fed."
"...Oh," you murmur. You don't have anything to add after that; there really isn't much to say. It's not really a thought you want to dwell on, especially not with a guest here.
Your mother catches your look, chuckling a bit and ruffling your hair a little. "You don't need to think too much about it," she assures you, her tone gentle as you pout at being treated like a child. "Children are not their parents. Vesna's a good girl, a good friend."
Even if your mother's last words for the night don't put her at ease, by the time you return to your bedroom, you're too tired to really think about it too much. Vesna is much the same way when she finishes drying her hair joins you on the side of the bed that Elana usually takes. The two of you chat tiredly for a few minutes before drifting slowly off to a peaceful sleep.
Last part was kind of a rush job, hopefully it isn't too awful. Again, post written with the help of the wonderful @Gazetteer .
- Location
- Nebraska
You know I excepted Neianne to react more to sharing a bed with Vesna but I guess she was too tired to really think about it.
Nervos Belli
Don't think this means you've won!
- Location
- Murica
One thing I note is that Elana refers to Neianne's mother as dad. So I guess a different parent was pregnant for each of them? That must get confusing at times.
Typo on my part, sorry. Fixed.
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Secretly (not really a secret) though, Rianne, Neianne's mother, actually is Elana's father and she just calls her "mom" because they default to what the firstborn calls each of them to avoid confusion.
If none you hear from me ever again it will be because Kei has punished me too hard for leaking this top secret information.
Nervos Belli
Don't think this means you've won!
- Location
- Murica
Makes sense, though there are plenty of issues that could pop up. One thing I'm curious about is succession. Does a child who was birthed by the ruler have priority over one birthed by the spouse? In case you can't tell, I've been rereading Left Hand of Darkness.