Post by LLV on Jul 4, 2013 0:46:09 GMT -5
Hello! I am new to posting here, though I have occasionally creeped on some threads and the monthly writing challenges. I'm encouraged by recent activity and the site's apparent makeover, and have thus decided to enter into the fray, so to speak. Here goes!
The following is a rough, ROUGH, draft of a project that is the culmination of several brainstorms I encountered on long walks to and from work, as well as months on end of not having internet to distract me. While at first it began as a fun diversion, I soon realized I was retelling parts of my life, living vicariously through my character, as well as sharing a coming of age story of sorts (of course, the fantasy aspect is from my imagination; though I wouldn't mind it if it was real!). While I realize several parts of this excerpt from the opening chapter need revision, I am focusing more on simply writing to get the story out of my head, and will worry about the finer details later (could clean up some syntax, expand word choice, and "show" more than "tell." However, I wanted to get a part of it out for some criticism on my general writing style, etc. Let me know what you think!
*Background info will be supplied by request, and will be included in a subsequent post.*
The sound of steel on steel rang throughout the compound to mingle with the exhalations of exercise. In the morning hours this was commonplace among houses of stature, and did not alarm the passersby. The City, it was said, did not raise complacent girls, but boasted women well versed in all manner of Arts – among them warcraft and fierceness with weapons. This House in particular emphasized a dedication to each woman’s strengths, and every morning a sparring session preceded the day’s lessons for the younger members.
A shout, followed by the victor’s laughter rose to the third floor of the brick mansion and reached in through an open window of the small room in the back corner. The laughter died away to a heated disagreement on the merits of dishonorable techniques in battle, rising in volume until the boy in the bed roused gently, eyelids fluttering open in a bid to clear away the fuzziness of too little sleep. Grumbling discontentedly, he lifted twisted covers against the early morning chill then turned on one side. As the sparring started up again the boy lifted the bedspread to cover his ears.
Must they practice so loudly!
His protest registered quietly in his mind a few moments before a new thought jolted him awake – he was missing the sparring session!
Matron will have me turned out for this, he thought glumly as he snatched at clothes strewn about the room. Once dressed, he exited his room, took the back stairs down two floors, and ducked through the kitchen and out the service door. He turned a sharp right, following the delivery path right up to the garden gate which swung open with a squeak. Here he slowed his pace to a deliberate stride, not wanting to give the others the satisfaction of his appearing flustered at his tardiness.
He crisscrossed through the garden and, as was usual, marveled at the brilliant assortment of trees, bushes, shrubs, flowers, and other flora. His aunt Ilia was a prominent herbalist in the City, and the House benefitted from it – here and there were tucked small herb clumps, in addition to the many fruit and vegetable plants clustered in sections; the servants were instructed on proper care and cultivation of each plant in the garden, and as a result the House saved from having to buy its own herbal medicines, fruits, and vegetables. Occasionally, she would stop by to visit the Matron and always made time for a stroll through the grounds. The garden benefitted from her supervision, and the staff benefitted from her gentle instructions or news on new techniques to increase growth.
Of course, it helped that she was Goddess-blessed.
Many of her practices were secret in nature, as each herbalist would like her clientele to believe she knew more or better than others, and yet others strictly relied on her gift that truly marked her formidable in her craft. The gift of the Goddess, as each girl and boy in the City hoped would be blessed, enabled her to manipulate the world around her in subtle ways. Straightening trees or arranging plants to grow aesthetically was simply a matter of her will; if she concentrated hard enough she could actually make a plant spring up from the ground and mature in a matter of days, rather than weeks, and she always knew the best time and place for planting (Though, he reflected, that might be part instinct and part training.)
Her gift, however, was limited compared to the priestesses at the Temple; and theirs was paltry in the shadows of Mother Supplicant, who felt the hand of the Goddess directly involved in her life. Still, Ilia possessed the gift, and was therefore that much more rewarded for it as well as for being born female. Men who were blessed usually fared well enough, but their trades suffered in competition with blessed women.
It’s not fair! Men are capable of anything women can do!
He kicked a stone across the path, and it bounced off a tree trunk to disappear in the thick grass at its base. Sullenly, he shoved his hands in his pockets and stood at the fenced edge of the sparring grounds quietly observing its occupants caught in the dance.
Two girls were inside the white chalk circle, their soft boots shuffling around on the worn stone platform, each warily testing the other with her blade. A flash of sunlight caught on steel, then the raven haired girl, a hand shorter than the auburn, advanced. Loud clashes met his ears as he watched her push her opponent back to the edge. Marie, always the aggressive one, was his cousin and daughter to Ilia. She always seemed to instigate, whether verbally or physically, and would not rest until she thought she’d won or gotten the best of another. She had two years left before she was to be tested for the gift, but she’d absorbed herself into her studies of war, determined not to allow it to interfere with her excellence on the sparring field. But if she did have the gift, it would simply make her that much more dangerous as an opponent.
My cousin, the next Priestess General. No nation would dare challenge us with her leading our women – and men – into war.
As Marie, concentrated on launching another series of jabs, forced her opponent to back away in the opposite direction, Eva met Marie’s attacks with her own sword, rising and falling in a rhythm that seemed lazy. On closer inspection, her eyes glinted as she watched the younger girl’s attacks and judged her pattern. She met the boy’s eyes and recognized his presence, then turned back to Marie, spun, and parried a blow aimed at her head. She turned the flat of her blade against her sister and slammed it unmercifully into Marie’s backside.
Marie stumbled, caught herself, then was forced on her knee as she parried the blade aimed again at her rear.
“Yield,” said the auburn, a smile touching her lips.
“That stung, you witch!”
“Yield!” she said again, this time lifting her blade to hover inches from Marie’s neck.
The third person on the court strode quickly into the circle. She was older and wore reasonable garments for practice: a white blouse and undone ochre vest over snug leggings tucked into soft leather boots. Her hair was tied back in a loose bundle of graying brown, belying her age though her body was hale and sinewy as the freshest novice in the ranks of the Temple Protectorates. Sandra was the Matron’s younger sister and, though ungifted, served Goddess and House as Weapons-Mistress and instructor to her sister’s daughters and now to her sister’s granddaughters and grandson. She began quietly to admonish Marie for her reluctance to honorably yield when bested, and to congratulate Eva for using ingenuity in the circle.
The boy shifted feet. Maybe they’ll forget I was to attend this morning. Maybe I could slip away…
Irresolute, he shifted feet again, unconsciously sidling towards a towering rose bush easily his height and half again. If he could just hide –
“And now,” Sandra’s voice rang out across the now quiet sparring ground, suddenly starting two birds from their perch on the iron fence, “if you would be so kind to join us in the circle, Marek, we may begin again.”
Sandra’s authoritative command made the boy flinch, and he closed his eyes sighing quietly. He should’ve known his presence would be known, especially to a woman of Sandra’s age, so steeped in warcraft that her every sense was as fine-tuned as the Matron’s own gift. Marek stepped out from behind the bush and pushed through the wrought iron gate that separated the garden grounds from the practice area.
Here the artful dirt and gravel paths exchanged for worn stone, here and there drawn upon with diagrams, patterns of movement, and circles of all sizes. The fenced area stretched as a rectangle from the back right quarter of the House all the way to the far end of the grounds and met the large, ivy-covered stone wall separating his House’s garden and grounds from the cobbled road beyond. As he looked across the stone to the other side of the fence he saw the dirt path around the perimeter of the practice area and beyond that the hated wall separating the grounds from others on the block. A sudden desire to scale the walls and run, run as fast as he could, away from here washed over him, then faded almost as quickly. He turned his eyes to Sandra and, seeing her look of growing distaste, hastened to the circle. He waited as a proper man should, hands clasped in front and head lowered.
“Well, I think it is about time you joined us, young master.” Sandra’s voice, pinched and nasal, did little in the way of reassuring Marek’s expectations for the outcome of this tête-à-tête, especially in the presence of his two cousins, both inheritors to grand futures, not to mention – above all! – female. He raised his head to meet Sandra’s reproachful eyes, a half-formed excuse on his lips – “And no lies, either,” she continued. “I’m in no mood today.”
Sandra jerked her head at the three sided shed behind her.
“Get ready your blade, then approach the circle. You have –“she consulted a disk of quartz hanging from a silver chain attached to her belt, “ten minutes.” Having said that, she turned to Marie and walked her to a corner where they both sat in the shade of an oak. Murmurs of a conversation on legwork and patterning drifted across the grounds.
Marek, his ears still burning, waited a moment, then lifted his chin and crossed the circle to the building. There was a scarred wooden bench against the far side, and both other walls were filled with weapons. A few freestanding racks in the middle of the room offset the bench. He turned to the left and faced a wall laden from floor to ceiling with all kinds of swords: greatswords and long knives, shortswords and claymores; all different lengths and styles of blades were housed here in order to provide a variety of options to those members of the House in training. The other wall featured a great many wicked looking axes, and the racks supported maces and halberds and staves. All of those, though, remained unused until mastery of the blade was achieved.
And when will that be, I wonder?
Marek was an unexceptional swordsman of only average skill. He was told he needed to apply himself to better his ability, but he really did not have an interest in cultivating skill with weapons. His mother, he was told, had been a great student of Sandra’s, excelling with both claymore and double hand-axes, but just as deadly with spear or spiked mace. Her truly formidable partner in the circle, however, was the rapier. She was slight, and the tightness of her maneuvers when coupled with the whistling of her rapier as it slashed through the air was said to have been a sight to see when she competed in tourneys. But Marek’s birth had stolen away Sandra’s niece and best student, and he did not doubt she resented him all the more for the fact he’d been born male instead of female.
“Do you use the shortsword, then?”
Marek’s shoulders tensed, then relaxed, and he turned to face his more tranquil cousin.
“Eva,” he said, nodding his head at her presence, then moved to the bench and took the whetstone to the rapier he held tightly in his hands. She crossed the room and sat next to him, stretching dusty boots out across the room and sighing when joints popped. At nineteen, she was two years his senior, tall enough for a woman – men still claimed their height, no matter how insignificant their birth made them compared to women – and lean in body. Her auburn hair he admired so much was tied back with a leather thong and the tail of it snaked across one shoulder and rested somewhere below her collarbone. She wore typical sparring clothes – a vested blouse, trousers, and leather boots – and was presently engaged in tugging off tight leather gloves.
“The birds sang their song this morning, and when our blades took up theirs yours was missing from the chorus.” Eva glanced at Marek before taking up oil and cloth to clean her blade.
Marek returned her look before turning back to sharpening his blade.
“Indeed,” he said, noncommittally. When the silence proved she waited for him to add more, he continued, “I had trouble sleeping last night.”
“Ah. Perhaps Mother has a remedy that might ease you into more comfortable slumber.” Eva’s reply, as usual, implied the kindness she seemed to have inherited from Ilia. That gentleness and quiet assertiveness was what made Eva’s mother such a talented apothecary. No doubt an herbal tea would make Marek sleep better, but his insomnia had nothing to do with a simple inability to rest. His birthday was fast approaching, and with it the Test each citizen underwent to determine whether she or he had the Blessing of the Goddess. “But perhaps you might do better speaking to a friend first. Burdens of the soul are worrisome at best and unbearable at worst. Like a canker, one does well to rid herself of it lest it rot.” She was nodding to herself as if quoting some tenet of the Temple.
Eva’s insight into the cause behind his sleepless nights jolted him out of his chore; his hand slipped on the blade and the tips of two fingers shed droplets of bright red. His eyes glanced again at her impassive face looking out across the grounds to the garden. He returned to his work.
Burdens of the soul, indeed!
But the gift, when it blossomed, often bestowed many surprises – and Eva had it in abundance (both Ilia and her lifemate were gifted, if less so than their firstborn). Marek had forgotten the gift in full measure enhanced empathic feelings, sometimes a weapon, others a crutch. No doubt, to Eva, his turbulent thoughts of the approaching weeks were as plain as if spotlit.
Marek studied the shadowed corner, and, when he decided Sandra was not yet ready, he licked dry lips and said quietly:
“I am… nervous.” He bowed his head and inspected the rapier, hands traveling down the well honed sides. “My birthing day approaches, though with it I cannot claim the Gift, as you well know.”
Though Matron had drilled him endlessly, Marek showed not even the faintest signs of the Gift in any form, a disappointment to couple with his maleness. Other children from notable Houses, in whose veins the Goddess’s blessing flowed, were trained as soon as any hint of Her presence arose. With Marek, however, no such training proved fruitful; he could not even expand his senses (a trick that helped even untrained Gifted bastard children). He’d been reminded often of his particular uselessness and waste of a child in comparison to his mother who, though missing the Gift herself, had other skills to offer in exchange. And what was he to do after Sun’s passing three days hence? What would Matron do with him – or to him?
Eva rested her head against the wall behind her and closed her eyes. After a few more moments’ silence, Marek returned to his blade, loosening the leather straps on the hilt to rewrap them more tightly. A firm grip would help him today, even if it was just on the rapier.
“’The Goddess works, though none understand how or why; She moves quietly within and without, and no woman may be certain to her Ways’.”
Eva turned her eyes on Marek, stilling his activity with her bare hand. “Marek.”
His hands stilled and he leaned closer to catch her words. Her voice had taken on that tone so similar, yet different, to Matron’s when she was in communion with her Goddess, that Marek almost missed her next words.
“Let your blade sing.”
The following is a rough, ROUGH, draft of a project that is the culmination of several brainstorms I encountered on long walks to and from work, as well as months on end of not having internet to distract me. While at first it began as a fun diversion, I soon realized I was retelling parts of my life, living vicariously through my character, as well as sharing a coming of age story of sorts (of course, the fantasy aspect is from my imagination; though I wouldn't mind it if it was real!). While I realize several parts of this excerpt from the opening chapter need revision, I am focusing more on simply writing to get the story out of my head, and will worry about the finer details later (could clean up some syntax, expand word choice, and "show" more than "tell." However, I wanted to get a part of it out for some criticism on my general writing style, etc. Let me know what you think!
*Background info will be supplied by request, and will be included in a subsequent post.*
Skalgar (Tentative Title)
Act I
Chapter I
Act I
Chapter I
The sound of steel on steel rang throughout the compound to mingle with the exhalations of exercise. In the morning hours this was commonplace among houses of stature, and did not alarm the passersby. The City, it was said, did not raise complacent girls, but boasted women well versed in all manner of Arts – among them warcraft and fierceness with weapons. This House in particular emphasized a dedication to each woman’s strengths, and every morning a sparring session preceded the day’s lessons for the younger members.
A shout, followed by the victor’s laughter rose to the third floor of the brick mansion and reached in through an open window of the small room in the back corner. The laughter died away to a heated disagreement on the merits of dishonorable techniques in battle, rising in volume until the boy in the bed roused gently, eyelids fluttering open in a bid to clear away the fuzziness of too little sleep. Grumbling discontentedly, he lifted twisted covers against the early morning chill then turned on one side. As the sparring started up again the boy lifted the bedspread to cover his ears.
Must they practice so loudly!
His protest registered quietly in his mind a few moments before a new thought jolted him awake – he was missing the sparring session!
Matron will have me turned out for this, he thought glumly as he snatched at clothes strewn about the room. Once dressed, he exited his room, took the back stairs down two floors, and ducked through the kitchen and out the service door. He turned a sharp right, following the delivery path right up to the garden gate which swung open with a squeak. Here he slowed his pace to a deliberate stride, not wanting to give the others the satisfaction of his appearing flustered at his tardiness.
He crisscrossed through the garden and, as was usual, marveled at the brilliant assortment of trees, bushes, shrubs, flowers, and other flora. His aunt Ilia was a prominent herbalist in the City, and the House benefitted from it – here and there were tucked small herb clumps, in addition to the many fruit and vegetable plants clustered in sections; the servants were instructed on proper care and cultivation of each plant in the garden, and as a result the House saved from having to buy its own herbal medicines, fruits, and vegetables. Occasionally, she would stop by to visit the Matron and always made time for a stroll through the grounds. The garden benefitted from her supervision, and the staff benefitted from her gentle instructions or news on new techniques to increase growth.
Of course, it helped that she was Goddess-blessed.
Many of her practices were secret in nature, as each herbalist would like her clientele to believe she knew more or better than others, and yet others strictly relied on her gift that truly marked her formidable in her craft. The gift of the Goddess, as each girl and boy in the City hoped would be blessed, enabled her to manipulate the world around her in subtle ways. Straightening trees or arranging plants to grow aesthetically was simply a matter of her will; if she concentrated hard enough she could actually make a plant spring up from the ground and mature in a matter of days, rather than weeks, and she always knew the best time and place for planting (Though, he reflected, that might be part instinct and part training.)
Her gift, however, was limited compared to the priestesses at the Temple; and theirs was paltry in the shadows of Mother Supplicant, who felt the hand of the Goddess directly involved in her life. Still, Ilia possessed the gift, and was therefore that much more rewarded for it as well as for being born female. Men who were blessed usually fared well enough, but their trades suffered in competition with blessed women.
It’s not fair! Men are capable of anything women can do!
He kicked a stone across the path, and it bounced off a tree trunk to disappear in the thick grass at its base. Sullenly, he shoved his hands in his pockets and stood at the fenced edge of the sparring grounds quietly observing its occupants caught in the dance.
Two girls were inside the white chalk circle, their soft boots shuffling around on the worn stone platform, each warily testing the other with her blade. A flash of sunlight caught on steel, then the raven haired girl, a hand shorter than the auburn, advanced. Loud clashes met his ears as he watched her push her opponent back to the edge. Marie, always the aggressive one, was his cousin and daughter to Ilia. She always seemed to instigate, whether verbally or physically, and would not rest until she thought she’d won or gotten the best of another. She had two years left before she was to be tested for the gift, but she’d absorbed herself into her studies of war, determined not to allow it to interfere with her excellence on the sparring field. But if she did have the gift, it would simply make her that much more dangerous as an opponent.
My cousin, the next Priestess General. No nation would dare challenge us with her leading our women – and men – into war.
As Marie, concentrated on launching another series of jabs, forced her opponent to back away in the opposite direction, Eva met Marie’s attacks with her own sword, rising and falling in a rhythm that seemed lazy. On closer inspection, her eyes glinted as she watched the younger girl’s attacks and judged her pattern. She met the boy’s eyes and recognized his presence, then turned back to Marie, spun, and parried a blow aimed at her head. She turned the flat of her blade against her sister and slammed it unmercifully into Marie’s backside.
Marie stumbled, caught herself, then was forced on her knee as she parried the blade aimed again at her rear.
“Yield,” said the auburn, a smile touching her lips.
“That stung, you witch!”
“Yield!” she said again, this time lifting her blade to hover inches from Marie’s neck.
The third person on the court strode quickly into the circle. She was older and wore reasonable garments for practice: a white blouse and undone ochre vest over snug leggings tucked into soft leather boots. Her hair was tied back in a loose bundle of graying brown, belying her age though her body was hale and sinewy as the freshest novice in the ranks of the Temple Protectorates. Sandra was the Matron’s younger sister and, though ungifted, served Goddess and House as Weapons-Mistress and instructor to her sister’s daughters and now to her sister’s granddaughters and grandson. She began quietly to admonish Marie for her reluctance to honorably yield when bested, and to congratulate Eva for using ingenuity in the circle.
The boy shifted feet. Maybe they’ll forget I was to attend this morning. Maybe I could slip away…
Irresolute, he shifted feet again, unconsciously sidling towards a towering rose bush easily his height and half again. If he could just hide –
“And now,” Sandra’s voice rang out across the now quiet sparring ground, suddenly starting two birds from their perch on the iron fence, “if you would be so kind to join us in the circle, Marek, we may begin again.”
Sandra’s authoritative command made the boy flinch, and he closed his eyes sighing quietly. He should’ve known his presence would be known, especially to a woman of Sandra’s age, so steeped in warcraft that her every sense was as fine-tuned as the Matron’s own gift. Marek stepped out from behind the bush and pushed through the wrought iron gate that separated the garden grounds from the practice area.
Here the artful dirt and gravel paths exchanged for worn stone, here and there drawn upon with diagrams, patterns of movement, and circles of all sizes. The fenced area stretched as a rectangle from the back right quarter of the House all the way to the far end of the grounds and met the large, ivy-covered stone wall separating his House’s garden and grounds from the cobbled road beyond. As he looked across the stone to the other side of the fence he saw the dirt path around the perimeter of the practice area and beyond that the hated wall separating the grounds from others on the block. A sudden desire to scale the walls and run, run as fast as he could, away from here washed over him, then faded almost as quickly. He turned his eyes to Sandra and, seeing her look of growing distaste, hastened to the circle. He waited as a proper man should, hands clasped in front and head lowered.
“Well, I think it is about time you joined us, young master.” Sandra’s voice, pinched and nasal, did little in the way of reassuring Marek’s expectations for the outcome of this tête-à-tête, especially in the presence of his two cousins, both inheritors to grand futures, not to mention – above all! – female. He raised his head to meet Sandra’s reproachful eyes, a half-formed excuse on his lips – “And no lies, either,” she continued. “I’m in no mood today.”
Sandra jerked her head at the three sided shed behind her.
“Get ready your blade, then approach the circle. You have –“she consulted a disk of quartz hanging from a silver chain attached to her belt, “ten minutes.” Having said that, she turned to Marie and walked her to a corner where they both sat in the shade of an oak. Murmurs of a conversation on legwork and patterning drifted across the grounds.
Marek, his ears still burning, waited a moment, then lifted his chin and crossed the circle to the building. There was a scarred wooden bench against the far side, and both other walls were filled with weapons. A few freestanding racks in the middle of the room offset the bench. He turned to the left and faced a wall laden from floor to ceiling with all kinds of swords: greatswords and long knives, shortswords and claymores; all different lengths and styles of blades were housed here in order to provide a variety of options to those members of the House in training. The other wall featured a great many wicked looking axes, and the racks supported maces and halberds and staves. All of those, though, remained unused until mastery of the blade was achieved.
And when will that be, I wonder?
Marek was an unexceptional swordsman of only average skill. He was told he needed to apply himself to better his ability, but he really did not have an interest in cultivating skill with weapons. His mother, he was told, had been a great student of Sandra’s, excelling with both claymore and double hand-axes, but just as deadly with spear or spiked mace. Her truly formidable partner in the circle, however, was the rapier. She was slight, and the tightness of her maneuvers when coupled with the whistling of her rapier as it slashed through the air was said to have been a sight to see when she competed in tourneys. But Marek’s birth had stolen away Sandra’s niece and best student, and he did not doubt she resented him all the more for the fact he’d been born male instead of female.
“Do you use the shortsword, then?”
Marek’s shoulders tensed, then relaxed, and he turned to face his more tranquil cousin.
“Eva,” he said, nodding his head at her presence, then moved to the bench and took the whetstone to the rapier he held tightly in his hands. She crossed the room and sat next to him, stretching dusty boots out across the room and sighing when joints popped. At nineteen, she was two years his senior, tall enough for a woman – men still claimed their height, no matter how insignificant their birth made them compared to women – and lean in body. Her auburn hair he admired so much was tied back with a leather thong and the tail of it snaked across one shoulder and rested somewhere below her collarbone. She wore typical sparring clothes – a vested blouse, trousers, and leather boots – and was presently engaged in tugging off tight leather gloves.
“The birds sang their song this morning, and when our blades took up theirs yours was missing from the chorus.” Eva glanced at Marek before taking up oil and cloth to clean her blade.
Marek returned her look before turning back to sharpening his blade.
“Indeed,” he said, noncommittally. When the silence proved she waited for him to add more, he continued, “I had trouble sleeping last night.”
“Ah. Perhaps Mother has a remedy that might ease you into more comfortable slumber.” Eva’s reply, as usual, implied the kindness she seemed to have inherited from Ilia. That gentleness and quiet assertiveness was what made Eva’s mother such a talented apothecary. No doubt an herbal tea would make Marek sleep better, but his insomnia had nothing to do with a simple inability to rest. His birthday was fast approaching, and with it the Test each citizen underwent to determine whether she or he had the Blessing of the Goddess. “But perhaps you might do better speaking to a friend first. Burdens of the soul are worrisome at best and unbearable at worst. Like a canker, one does well to rid herself of it lest it rot.” She was nodding to herself as if quoting some tenet of the Temple.
Eva’s insight into the cause behind his sleepless nights jolted him out of his chore; his hand slipped on the blade and the tips of two fingers shed droplets of bright red. His eyes glanced again at her impassive face looking out across the grounds to the garden. He returned to his work.
Burdens of the soul, indeed!
But the gift, when it blossomed, often bestowed many surprises – and Eva had it in abundance (both Ilia and her lifemate were gifted, if less so than their firstborn). Marek had forgotten the gift in full measure enhanced empathic feelings, sometimes a weapon, others a crutch. No doubt, to Eva, his turbulent thoughts of the approaching weeks were as plain as if spotlit.
Marek studied the shadowed corner, and, when he decided Sandra was not yet ready, he licked dry lips and said quietly:
“I am… nervous.” He bowed his head and inspected the rapier, hands traveling down the well honed sides. “My birthing day approaches, though with it I cannot claim the Gift, as you well know.”
Though Matron had drilled him endlessly, Marek showed not even the faintest signs of the Gift in any form, a disappointment to couple with his maleness. Other children from notable Houses, in whose veins the Goddess’s blessing flowed, were trained as soon as any hint of Her presence arose. With Marek, however, no such training proved fruitful; he could not even expand his senses (a trick that helped even untrained Gifted bastard children). He’d been reminded often of his particular uselessness and waste of a child in comparison to his mother who, though missing the Gift herself, had other skills to offer in exchange. And what was he to do after Sun’s passing three days hence? What would Matron do with him – or to him?
Eva rested her head against the wall behind her and closed her eyes. After a few more moments’ silence, Marek returned to his blade, loosening the leather straps on the hilt to rewrap them more tightly. A firm grip would help him today, even if it was just on the rapier.
“’The Goddess works, though none understand how or why; She moves quietly within and without, and no woman may be certain to her Ways’.”
Eva turned her eyes on Marek, stilling his activity with her bare hand. “Marek.”
His hands stilled and he leaned closer to catch her words. Her voice had taken on that tone so similar, yet different, to Matron’s when she was in communion with her Goddess, that Marek almost missed her next words.
“Let your blade sing.”
