Thalia…
When she heard her brother scream out in fear, her blood went cold. She has heard him shout in pain but never fear.
She ran down to his bedroom to see if he was okay only to find him shaking as he was waking up from a nightmare.
Yet just as she was about to console him, she was greeted to something even more terrifying.
She watched as his eyes rolled back into his head as he was dragged back into the nightmare.
“Marcus! No, wake up!” she yelled as she ran to the side of his bed, grabbed hold of his arms, and tried to shake him awake.
She continued to shake him for over a minute, nearing on the verge of tears, when his eyes finally opened up once again.
“I thought...I thought that you would never wake up…” she said, giving him a sigh of relief to try and hide the panic attack that she was having.
“Yeah...that nightmare was...awful,” he said, giving her a smile to try and play it off.
Looking into his eyes, she knew better than to believe that he was alright.
Whatever it was that he saw in that dream, if it could scare him then she couldn’t imagine what horrible things he might be dealing with.
“Are...are you alright?” she asked him warily.
He didn’t answer her.
“Marcus...brother!” she said a little louder.
“Hm…? Yeah, I’m fine...Just give me a minute,” he said as he walked away.
She looked down at his hands as he passed by her and realized that they were shaking.
She then heard footsteps as Alta started walking down the stairs with groggy eyes.
“Hey...I heard screaming. What’s going…?”he tried to ask but took a look at Marcus’s face and they seemed to share a moment of silence.
He took in a deep breath as he said, “Hey Thalia, why don’t you get ready for the day. My older sister is going to be fighting today.”
“Huh? But what about-”
“I’ll be fine Thalia. Just go with Alta for today,” he said with his back turned to her.
She reached out her arm as if to rub back gently but she hesitated and pulled herself back.
She knew that he would be able to handle it. Her brother was the strongest person in the world to her. She knew that no matter what the circumstances, he would always come out of it alright.
At least, that’s what she wanted to believe.
So she did what Marcus asked and left the house with Alta.
As the two of them walked, making their way to the arena for today's fights, Thalia was staring at the ground thinking about her brother.
Cutting through the silence, Alta said, “Look kid, I get that you’re concerned for Marcus, but now is not the time for you to worry about him. You are far too young to be stressing out over him. Thing is, for an adult like him, if you stress out over him then he is going to feel even more stressed trying to make you feel happy. The best thing you can do for him right now is let him figure his problems out on his own. Do you get what I’m saying?”
She paused to think over Alta’s words.
“I...I guess, but...he’s my brother. I can’t help but worry about him. What if it becomes too much for him? If I can’t do anything, then who will help him?”
Alta shrugged as he said, “Well, you could always bring it up to Selene if you’re that worried about him. I’m sure that she can probably help him better than either of us.”
Her eyes lit up and was about to ask to go see her only for Alta to raise his hand to stop her.
“Hold on. Lets wait a little while before we go to her right away. I’m sure that he probably wants some time to himself. For now, lets have some fun watching my sister get her ass beat.”
Fayebel…
Today marked the first time that she has ever participated in a fighting tournament like this one, yet she was filled with exhilaration.
Her original reason for coming to Duranell was because she heard that her younger brother Alta had joined the Darkmoon Knights brotherhood.
When Alta left New Alfheim to ‘figure out his place in the world’ as he said it, her father, King Rohen, ordered her to look for him and bring him back home.
Of course, that was easier said than done as she had struggled to find any trace of him over the last five years.
But just as she had finally found him, her father gave her a new order, to participate in the tournament as one of two champions of New Alfheim.
He had said that it was because all the other kingdoms were in attendance and it would make New Alfheim look weak if we did not participate, but she knew what the real reason was.
Her father wanted revenge against Frosk for killing her mother Lorra during the Mordrinite War.
Her mother was the champion of New Alfheim at the time and aided Mordran during the war. When the war came to a close, she fought alongside Alan Mercer in the final siege of Alken only to die at Frosk’s hands.
She could not deny that she still felt bitter towards him, and still grieved her mother’s death even now.
But Frosk himself came to New Alfheim and had apologized to her father directly about her death, saying that he wished he hadn’t faced her in battle.
If she managed to make it far enough to face him in the tournament, she doubted that she could muster up enough anger to face him in battle.
Rather, she looked for a different reason to fuel her motivation to participate in the tournament.
She wanted to test her strength and see how far master Ranni’s teachings could take her.
To make things even better, Master Ranni herself was fighting in the tournament as well.
She had to fight now, if only to make her master proud of her hard work.
As she stepped onto the floor of the arena, she could see her opponent approaching her.
He seemed to be an older looking man, but with many scars on his arms and on his face.
As soon as he got a good look at her, his eyes narrowed.
“So a dark elf huh…? Hmm...I’ve fought against quite a few like you in my time, yet you don’t look much like the others,” he said as his expression softened a bit.
She was surprised to hear that, but also a little offended by how he worded that.
“What do you mean when you say that I don’t look like other dark elves?” she asked, her tone sounding more annoyed than she intended.
“Looks to me like you haven’t seen the battlefield before, you still have a bit of childish innocence left in your eyes,” he said as he pulled a greataxe made of Black Iron from his back.
Her eyes twitched in anger at what he said.
“Childish…? I have likely lived five of your lifetimes, and yet you call me childish? I’ll have you know that I’ve been taught by none other than Ranni of the Mist Blade herself!” she said, raising her voice as she pulled her sword from its sheath.
He simply smirked and readied his ax as he waited for the announcer to call for the start of the match.
Her sword, an adamantine blade gifted to her by her father, was a falchion with an ivory handle and engraved with old elvish writing along its face.
The old soldier eyed the sword and said, “Hah! A sword like that must cost a fortune to make. You must be a royal’s daughter or something.”
“Just shut up and get ready to fight!”
Both of them tightened their grips on their weapons as they waited the call.
“Begin!”
As if being launched from a cannon, the old soldier lunged towards her at frighting speed, with his massive ax pulled back to cleave her in one stroke.
How was he able to move so quickly? I couldn’t even sense the change in spiritual energy! She thought to herself as she barely managed to raise her sword fast enough to guard against him.
Yet even though she could tell that his soul was significantly weaker than her own, even though she thought that her spiritual energy flow should be greater than his, she could feel herself being overpowered.
She groaned as she strained herself tried to block it while feeling her feet dragging against the ground.
She couldn’t hope to deflect against it, so instead she shifted her weight to deflect it instead.
His greataxe passed by her and its weight pulled him along.
She used the opportunity to swing her sword at his head, hoping to end the fight right away.
With his neck exposed to her, with no armor to defend him, she expected his head to roll, yet her sword was halted in the most unexpected way.
“W-what the hell…?”
He had turned his head just in time to catch her sword in his teeth.
The sharp edge of her sword cut into the sides of his mouth as he smiled at her.
With his right fist, he let go of his greataxe to punch her in the gut.
With the wind knocked out of her, she lost her grip on her sword and fell to the ground.
He spat out her sword and held his greataxe with both hands as he raised it high above his head.
Using her magic to force the air back into her lungs, she rolled out of the way just before his greataxe fell upon the earth.
Unleashing a gust of wind, she pushed herself out of danger from the shockwave and debris that came with his strike.
“Wind magic eh…? Very nice…” he said as he faced her once again.
She then reached out her hand and called her sword back to her.
Breathing heavily, with adrenaline rushing through her veins, she tried to calm herself down so that she could better control her magic.
“Hah...hah...that was a good start, but I won’t let you win without putting up a fight,” she said as she released all her restraints.
“Swift Gale: Full Release,” she said as she infused her sword with magic.
The wind picked up all around her and began to swirl around the length of her sword as if a tornado were spinning around it.
With all her power unleashed, she assumed a stance with her right foot in front of her, the handle of her falchion close to head, and the point of it aimed at her opponent.
“Bring it on little elven girl,” he said, egging her on as if to bait her.
But she could tell what he was doing and would not fall for it.
Instead, she tightened her grip even further and compressed the wind even tighter until her sword began to hum and vibrate with power.
As if realizing that she was not going to be baited into attacking, the Old Soldier decided instead to charge at her directly and swung his greataxe in a wide sweep.
In the brief moment, she came to a realization about this man’s strength and how he was able to fight the way that he did.
Some people manifest the power of gods to aid them in battle, while some gods manifest the concepts they represent to warp reality.
However, there are some men and women who have no innate talent for magic, nor the mental discipline for academics to learn sorcery.
Some people are born with a soul and a personality so mundane that they cannot attain the strength that the world so generously offers them.
Instead, they turn to themselves.
Some people decide to abandon the path of magic and devote themselves to training their body and sword alone and gain a mental fortitude that allows them to manifest power within themselves.
It is their fighting spirit and determination that fuels the manifestation within their own being that gives them strength.
This Old Soldier, facing against a dark elf with many more decades of life experience, proficient in magic, and trained by even Ranni of the Mist Blade herself, he took up his ax with nothing but his unstoppable will alone.
Unfortunately…
That alone would not be enough to place him amongst the greatest of champions.
Before his greataxe could cleave her in two, she swept her falchion through its edge and shattered it into pieces.
The only thing left in his hands now were a useless piece of metal with a broken edge.
He clicked his tongue and through his broken weapon away as he said, “I’m not going to admit defeat just because my weapon is broken. My body remains untouched by your sword while you still suffer from the earlier attacks, not to mention the strain of your magic. How much longer can you keep this up?”
He reached into a pouch on his waist and pulled out Black Iron knuckles. He then pumped his arms as he prepared himself to continue the fight.
But what he said about her was true.
Just because she broke his first weapon doesn’t mean that he is defeated. She was exhausted, she was pushing herself too far.
But she just needed to push herself a little farther and end this before things go out of hand.
The Old Soldier rushes forward with a series of jabs to which she was just barely able to deflect in time.
Compared to when he was using his greataxe, his attacks were actually much weaker now, but how could that be?
Was it possible that the reason for the waning of his strength is that his fighting spirit could be undermined, therefore making him weaker as a result?
He might have tried to play it off as a minor inconvenience, but losing his greataxe must have been a significant blow to his fighting spirit.
Having to resort to a secondary weapon that relies on close quarters combat, which judging by his technique, he did not excel at, must be wearing down on his confidence.
Maybe she should start trash talking him to wear him down if it will help.
“Hah! Even though you said all those things about how worn down I am, it seems like once I broke your greataxe, all your attacks pack the weight of an angry child!” she taunted, flashing him a smile as she struck him with everything she had.
If not for his arm bracers, he would have lost both of his arms. Yet it only did so much to protect him as he was knocked back several feet and she continued to put the pressure on him.
The two combatants finally felt like they were fighting on an even playing field as neither were willing to give up any ground, and neither had the innate strength to completely demolish the other.
It seemed that this fight would end up as a stalemate unless one of them did something drastic.
With the way this fight was playing out, she wouldn’t be able to make use of Ranni’s teachings in a traditional sense.
She would have to use a more...unorthodox strategy.
Then it hit her, an unusual tactic that would ensure her victory if she could manage to pull it off.
She back-stepped to coax him into attacking her, making him believe that she was retreating, and it succeeded.
He rushed her and threw his weight into a left jab aiming for her ribs…
Right where she wanted him to hit.
Just before his punch was about to land, she relaxed her body instead of tensing up.
As soon as his punch struck her ribs, she could feel them crack but she fought through the pain as she spun herself around and used his own momentum against him.
He stumbled forward as she spun away from his attack and switched the grip on her sword.
He would not be able to stop her strike with his teeth this time as her blade of wind cut through him effortlessly and his head fell to the ground.
Before the rest of his body could fall to the ground, Fayebel fell to her knees and started coughing up blood from where she was hit.
It was a risky strategy but she managed to pull it off.
After she had finished her coughing fit, she struggled back to her feet, raised her sword above her head, and shouted her call of victory.
When the match had finished, and the spatial battlefield was pulled away, the old soldier stood back up and approached her to shake her hand.
“I’m man enough to admit that you put up a pretty good fight. I’ll respect your grit,” he said.
She decided to take his hand and asked, “I wasn’t paying attention when they called out our names. What was yours again?”
He snorted in exasperation but still smiled as he said, “The name is Rick. Be sure not to forget it.”
With her match coming to a close, the two parted ways and she was about to head back down the hall and join the rest of the audience when her eyes caught the sight of her brother looking directly at her.
She stared back at him, dumbfounded, “A-Alta…?”
With his arms folded in front of him, he gave her a shit eating grin.
Seeing that expression on her face made her angry after all the time she had spent looking for him only for him to show up here of all places.
She dashed through the hall way, worked her way through the arena, and then sifted her way through the people in the audience until she finally reached her brother once again for the first time inf over five years.
The first thing he said to her as soon as she stood in front of him was, “HAH! You got your ass kicked. HAHA!”