Yuriko bolted upright as the morning sun hit her eyes. She rolled off her bed, barely sleeping a wink the night before. Despite knowing the Ritual would only happen at dusk, excitement filled her as she bounded to the bathroom to get ready.
“Chaos!” she cursed, sucking her breath in sharply when she stubbed her toe on her desk.
She hobbled to the sink to wash the night’s sweat off her face. Thankfully, she had long since moved out of the children’s bedroom or her brothers would have laughed their heads off at her clumsiness.
She rushed through her morning ablutions, tearing her pyjamas off and changing her underclothing. This morning, she and her father would head to the outposts for a bit of marksmanship training. All the better to receive the proper Heritage during the ritual.
Yuriko chose her attire accordingly: soft padded pants and a short blue jacket made of forceweave. The Wyldlings that often invaded Rumiga, the plane her family currently lived on, made blunt force and light energy attacks. Both materials did well against them.
A quick lick of the brush tamed her bed hair enough that her golden locks kept away from her pale blue eyes. It was all she could be bothered with, at least for the moment.
She took off at a run, leaving the door to her room ajar, and slid down the bannister all the way down to the living room. Yuriko leapt off before she hit the stair post, neatly landing on her feet but nearly colliding with her older brother, Kato.
"Watch it!" he yelped, jumping back and spilling some of the lavan juice in his glass. The purple liquid splashed on his jacket, rolling in little beads until they dribbled down to the wooden floorboards. "Ancestors, little kitten! I know it's Ritual day but can you keep your calm enough not to run over everything?"
"Like you weren't the same three years ago!" Yuriko shot back, though she walked noticeably slower on the way to the kitchen.
At sixteen, Kato was tall and gangly, but a strict regimen of strength and endurance training filled out his lanky frame with wiry muscles. His hair was darker than Yuriko’s and he towered head and shoulders over her.
She snorted in annoyance. A few years ago, she was nearly as tall as Kato but his growth spurt overshot her, and even their eldest brother, Marron.
Kato patted her shoulders. “You’ll get it later.”
“I’m sure I will,” she answered with supreme confidence.
Heritages ran in families, hence the name, but not all children received the Heritage they wanted. A cold hand grabbed her belly, grasping and twisting until Yuriko’s own hands trembled. With a deep breath, she struggled to push her fears back into the closet where they came from. She would receive the Heritage she wanted; she’d been preparing for it all this time.
She entered the kitchen and found her father seated on a stool at the kitchen island, eating a piece of bread topped with cheese while reading the morning pamphlet.
“Good morning, Da.” Yuriko said after a deep, calming breath.
Virgil looked up from the paper, plopped down the sandwich on a plate and smiled. “Morning Yuri, Kato.”
Her brother, who stood right behind her, gave her a small nudge to get out of the way. “You’re wide enough to block the door,” he snorted.
“Am not.” Yuriko retorted immediately, though she did give way. She grabbed a couple slices of bread, took some of the pungent yellow cheese from the platter next to the bread, and put it in between the pieces of bread. She opted to drink water instead of the sweet lavan juice, or the bitter kaf that Da preferred in the mornings.
“Nervous?” Virgil asked.
“No, Da,” Yuriko said. Her voice was sure and steady, masking the trepidation that gnawed at her.
“Of course not,” Virgil smiled, “Not my brave little girl.”
“I’m not little anymore,” Yuriko said through gritted teeth. It had always been this way. Because she was the Davar family’s only daughter, her parents never held her up to the same standards as her brothers. Her younger brother, Rami, had begun training relatively early while Yuriko continued to languish with the Empire sponsored general education modules.
She had taken great pains to convince her parents to let her train to receive the Davar Heritage instead of her mother’s Mishala Heritage. The Mishala Heritage wasn’t bad, just that its focus wasn’t to her liking. After all, who would prefer a stodgy Heritage focused around controlling Animus over a Heritage focused on long-ranged sniping and general marksmanship? Plus, if she wanted to join the Imperial Legion Vagaris, as her Da did in his youth, she needed the Davar Heritage and would have to graduate from the Agaza Academy in Rumiga City.
“Where are we going?” Yuriko asked after a moment of silence, her heart beating quickly with renewed excitement.
“The Watchtower,” Virgil said casually, taking another sip from his mug of kaf.
“Where Marron is?” Yuriko gasped. Marron was her eldest brother and currently a squad leader of Faron’s Crossing’s town militia.
“Yes.” Virgil smiled. “There have been some sightings in the area. It’s the perfect place for you to practice.”
‘Of course,’ Yuriko thought with a bit of annoyance. ‘It’s a perfectly safe place to practice, shooting from the top of the tower with the tree line at least a longstride away.’
“Okay.” Her voice lost a great deal of enthusiasm and, for a moment, only the sounds of her, Kato, and Virgil eating and drinking could be heard.
“Basics first.” Virgil took a long drink of kaf. “You’re not that accurate beyond five hundred paces, and the line’s at least twice that.”
“Yes, Da,” Yuriko answered dutifully. He would know best after all.
They finished their meal soon after and Virgil led Yuriko to the house armoury. The armoury was hidden under the stairs, behind a simple looking closet. Virgil reached in, his arm out of sight, and a minute later, pulled out a couple of Plasma Casters with matching side-blades.
The slightly shorter rifle was Yuriko’s though she had only handled the weapon for the past couple of years. It was two thirds as long as she was tall; the stock was made out of well-aged wood and the barrel, which made up most of the length of the rifle, had runic script carved on it. The forestock, where Yuriko’s left hand would grip to support the weapon, was inlaid with red jade studs along both sides.
She strapped the side-blade on her belt, hooking it firmly to avoid it jostling at odd times. It would dig into her side painfully if she dropped prone but it was easy enough to shift out of the way. If she remembered to anyway.
Yuriko made sure the safety lock was engaged then looped the strap of the rifle over her shoulders. It would not fire without her supplying it with Animus, but not all weapons made use of that refined energy; it was still best to practice basic safety.
She was still a child, truly, unable to maximise the use of her Animus until she goes through the Atavism Ritual. But most children in the frontier were taught how to unlock the sleeping power within their souls as soon as they would be able to bear it. It was too dangerous to leave the Animus locked away otherwise. Wyldlings notwithstanding, sometimes Chaos storms swept through the frontier planes and those without even a smidgen of Animus found themselves either changed or simply dead.
“See you tonight,” Kato called out over his window when father and daughter exited the homestead’s main door. He was in his third year in Agaza but he was currently on break. He’d likely spend the day with his friends as he always did.
“Bye!” Yuriko yelled back with a small wave.
Her father led her to the garage, bouncing a keychain holding several white jade keys in his palm. The vehicle he picked was a two-seater shuttle. It was long and narrow, with bird-like wings swept to the side. The shuttle had a maximum altitude of fifty paces though, at that height, forward propulsion was only at one-third optimum.
Yuriko straddled the rear saddle, hooking the safety tether on her belt, while Virgil did the same and inserted a key into the handlebars. The wings were positioned between their seats. Yuriko positioned her feet on the base, avoiding the solar that gathered energy to help power the machine.
Virgil turned the key and the engine came to life. His hands started glowing purple, the colour of his Animus, and it flowed into the handlebars through jade studs. They hovered above the garage floor just long enough for the landing studs to retract. In a moment, they were zooming out of the garage at about ten paces up above the ground. Yuriko could see Kato still waving at them and she was tempted to do the same, but she chose to keep a firm grip over her rifle and the shuttle’s handles instead.
The sun was well above the Zarek Mountains at this point, its light warming Yuriko’s back. She could see Faron’s Crossing’s town centre just a couple of longstrides away. Their home was on the outer edge of the town centre, though they really should be closer considering Virgil’s role on the council. But no; the Davar Family preferred to have room enough to stretch.
The Temple was at the centre of Faron’s Crossing. It was made of pink-veined marble with five spires that towered over the main building. No other structure was as tall as the temple, not for half a longstride anyway. It was there where she and other children of her age will later in the afternoon for the Ritual, the ceremony that will determine her future.
Gulping down to settle her nerves, Yuriko focused on their flight path. Virgil followed the gently twisting cobblestone road while they were within the town proper. There were few pedestrians this early in the day and few wheeled vehicles rumbled along, carrying the morning’s produce to market. She waved to Matron Rosie who was sweeping the leaves off her front porch.
The woman waved back with a yell, “Good morning, Captain, little Yuri!”
Virgil answered easily, “Morning!”
It wasn’t long before their closest neighbour was too far away to see. Most of the homes in Faron’s Crossing were spread out, with ample room typically used as an orchard or garden. The little town had been founded about two decades ago and was about a hundred leagues west of the Planar Capital, eponymously named Rumiga. The rush of pioneers had stopped a decade ago, however, though a few continued to trickle in every few months.
Soon they found themselves outside the town proper and well on their way to the Watchtower. The shuttle blocked out most of the wind of their passage, with Virgil’s broad back sheltering his daughter. Still, Yuriko squinted against the wind as her eyes danced around their surroundings, observing fields of crops, wheat, and barley alongside leafy vegetables of different colours that provided odd patches of brightness from the uniform yellow. Unlike at the town proper, where the cobblestone roads were laid out in a curving pattern, the roads outside followed the lay of the land and were made of wide slabs of rough stone.
Out here, it was no longer completely safe. Sporadic Wyldling incursions were often stopped at the Watchtower but there was not enough militia to provide complete coverage. Still, the farmers of Faron’s Crossing started their day before the sun rose from the horizon. Some were tilling the fields, riding an Animus-charged contraption that turned the earth and sowed the seeds of quick-growing vegetables that would be ready to harvest in a few months.
Half an hour later, the hill upon which the Watchtower stood was within sight. It was the highest point in the area for several longstrides around and surrounded by a few streams glittering with reflected light.
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