Fine...Imp. What do you want to hear?
Ooh. What don't I want to hear, madam?
That's not very helpful, is it? I've got plenty of stories to tell.
I don't doubt it. But how many of them are true?
You calling me a liar, squirt?
I've no need to. You've called it yourself long enough. A self-made liar, as most tend to be. A big, fat, liar.
As big a liar as you?
Tis true, truth be found, I am indeed a liar of a lordly caliber! Hoho. But nothing I've said tonight has been untrue.
Same here, your majesty.
Quite the title, madam. But you see it's the spaces between your words that give it away.
What.
They're dripping with intrigue. So much of what you haven't said interests me.
Like what?
Why'd you join the army?
I already told you. Good pay, nice opportunities--
I hope you don't take me to be as stupid as I know you aren't, madam. What did you need the money for?
...
You obviously didn't have a long and storied career. What made you leave? Betrayal? Thievery? Some glorious purpose you were saving up for--
--I wanted to be a hero, okay?
Your candor stuns me. How suddenly honest of you.
Your supercilious nature irks me, you little... Besides. You'd have gotten it out of me eventually.
True. So the plan was to fund your own little adventure?
You're not gonna ask why?
It isn't hard to connect the dots, madam. Small town, big dreams, above-average vocabulary. Not much chance to find one in these parts. You're a reader.
Ditto.
Books of adventures, daring heroes and gripping tales. Maidens and dungeons, dragons and the like. Puts notions in a child's head. Escapism grows into an escape plan, one you evidently never grew out of. I assume something happened to forestall it, or you wouldn't be here, yes?
Shall I let you tell the rest of my life story, great detective?
I apologize for being correct, but the point is taken. I'll say no more.
Somehow I doubt it. But you've mostly got it right. The army was a dead end. Good enough for the rest of 'em, but not for me. So a couple of months in, I go up to Ronan, our commanding officer, and I ask if I can get my farewell package. It's this old tradition from back in the wars where they kept a third of your salary and gave it back when your service ended, so that you'd have something saved up. If you were killed in battle, the money went to your next of kin, as a way to support them in your absence.
Apart from the odd barfight, there weren't any battles to die in, so I was sure I'd get my money nice and easy, but Ronan tells me that since I'm technically an army woman, I don't get the exit package unless I've got a...husband to take care of it for me.
I tell him that's bullshit. I know the rules. Besides, I'm a kid. Looking and acting the way I do, I'm barely even a 'young lady', as my mother would have said. Of course I didn't have a husband.
And Ronan, he, uh, he gets down on one knee, and he, uh, makes a proposition. Yeah. I'm this close to just clocking him in the face and running, but I'd calculated how much I'd need for my plans. I...needed the money.
He reassures me, tells me it's not a big deal. Just a formality. A quick ceremony, maybe a nice dinner, and I'd have my pay, quick and easy. Didn't even have to stay at his house or cook for him or anything.
And...you know, Ronan was nice. Never teased me or came onto me like the other boys did, made sure no one disturbed me in my tent, was my patrolling buddy a lot of the time. Didn't look terrible. Bathed a couple of times a week.
Not a big thing, right? Plenty of girls my age were already getting married, and they seemed fine. Mom didn't bring it up much, but I knew she was pretty young when she first married, too. So I said yeah. Alright.
Give me that flask.
So that night we have a nice dinner in his tent, steak and wine and everything. Any drink that isn't made out of potatoes is damned expensive in these parts. And he's charming and polite and nice, and suddenly it's the next morning.
And I'm in bed, half undressed, woozy as hell. My head's pounding. I don't know which way's up. And Ronan's on the floor, fully clothed, big gash on his head bleeding out into a big puddle.
He's fine, I hear. Not as quick on his feet as he used to be, and sometimes he scrambles his words, but he's still in the army. Got a wife and three kids. I think I used to go to school with her.
Sorry. Anyway, I'm there, thoughts still kind of jumbled up, but I'm starting to realize that whatever happened last night, I am in very big trouble. Any time now someone's gonna come into the tent with his breakfast, and then I'm toast, heh.
So I take what I can and I run. And I know what that's called, and I know what they call me for it, but I've got nothing to apologize for.
I did what I had to.
Lang tosses and turns in his bed, sweating and turbulent as he dreams. Memories bubble to the surface.
Some time after Auren, his master, finally gives up and leaves him, the mayor finds him a new teacher. Her name is Esmet Rhyngard, a broad-shouldered, dark skinned figure with sunken eyes, and twitchy fingers. A hunter trained in the ways of the wild who, for some reason or another, finds herself in the middle of the civilized lands. Lang hopes she'll be instructive and kind, all things Auren wasn't, but instead she's cold and distant, saying no more than a word or two at a time. And he though Auren was a harsh teacher. All of Esmet's sessions are the same.
Fighting. More fighting. Swords, staves, bows, each lesson delivered with an economic brutality that Lang doesn't know how to answer. His magic fails him, even when he can summon it. She's too quick to punish.
Auren's sparring left him with bruises. Esmet's matches give him scars.
But Lang learns quickly, not asking for another teacher, fearing the shame of being a problem child, and the possibility they'll find someone even worse to teach him. Eventually, it's time for his first hunt. They go on a three day trip that brings the boy to the thick of the Carageenan woods, where civilization has yet to fully spread, and some of the more dangerous monsters still roam.
Esmet hands him a satchel that contains three healing potions and a knife, and melts into the bushes. The goal is to survive for three days. Whatever remains of him after will be qualified to start work as a licensed hero, with all the perks and responsibilities it carries.
At first, Lang makes do with nuts and berries, but when a stray wortenfruit wrecks his insides and leaves him heaving for the entire night, he whittles a branch into a spear, and decides to look for safer game.
He doesn't find squirrels or birds. Oddly enough, the area of the forest he's in seems devoid of all life apart from insects. After a day's worth of searching, he hears some breathing coming out of a cavern, and decides to take his chances. Maybe he'll find an owlbear, take home a trophy to make the town proud.
Inside he finds a young wyvern, bristly and green, and eight feet long, still settling into making the cave its lair. Its claws more points than bladed weapons, its nose barely steaming with its inner furnace. The remains of what wildlife lived in the area are scattered around the stone floor.
It lashes out as soon as Lang sees it, and ten seconds into the fight, the monster almost guts him. In less than a minute, he's scrambling out of the cave, one hand wrapped around a wound across his stomach, the wyvern snapping at his heels.
Lang spins around, the words coming unbidden to his mouth as he stretches out one hand and unleashes a gout of magical flame into the little cave. For a moment, the forest glows with its light, but the fire barely scalds the beast before it fades. While its scales are still small and unhardened, fire still does less damage. Lang hesitates.
The wyvern rushes forward, clamping its jaws around the boy, who screams and unleashes a spark of lightning into the beast's side. It shudders, knees nearly buckling with the pain, but it shakes its head and bites down harder. Lang loses his grip on his sword, and it clatters away into the bushes. He's gibbering with fear, elven words coming to him without him realizing, weaving energy into the air that sparks at his fingertips.
The fear and pain pushes his training aside and he raises both his hands and smacks them together against the sides of the wyvern's head. His shield spell, remembered from when he'd first summoned it as a child, clashes to produce a shockwave, stunning the beast enough that it loosens its grip, dropping the boy onto the ground, wet with spit and blood.
When did he start screaming? Fingers clutch at the knife on his belt, slicing his palm in his rush to yank it out. The blade glows hot with energy, burns him, but he holds on, scrambles to where the wyvern lies prone on the ground, and Lang lets loose what he has left, slashing and kicking and blasting. When he's finished, what's left of the wyvern is spread evenly across the ground.
He fumbles for the satchel, takes out a potion. Uncorks and swallows in one smooth motion. Some of the tears along his abdomen heal, the ligaments he's torn begin to knit themselves together.
Drinks another one. The sight returns to his left eye, his organs stitch closed. The wounds weren't as bad as he'd thought
But he tosses the bottle down and he reaches for the last potion, fingers shaking as he pulls it open and slurps the foul, electric red liquid down. It tastes of strange herbs and metal, or is that the blood in his mouth?
"Lang?"
It's the best drink he's had in his life. Panting, he reaches into the satchel, but it's empty. He clutches at it, holds it close and tight to his chest, muttering as he does.
"Lang, wake up. Wake up!"
Two more days. Two nights, one last morning, in this abandoned forest and he can go back home.
"This doesn't look good, Verona, he could lash out at any moment-"
"Get out. I can handle this."
"You sure?"
"OUT."
Home to what? More of this? Other trips, other teachers? What for? Lang doesn't even realize he's weeping. Fingers close around him, bring him close for an embrace. He tries to struggle free, but the healing's left him so weak, he hears a soft female voice sing a lullaby in elvish.
"I didn't..." He groans, the words tearing free from somewhere inside him.
My eyes open. I'm in my bedroom, my head in someone's lap. Soft. Verona. The half-elf in white.
"It's alright," she murmurs, eyes glimmering. "Just let it out."
"I didn't want to do it," I croaked.
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