Private Tales Meadow of Swords

[Anais]

Her gaze fell with a soft frown as he offered his own opinion that she should go. She knew she should, but she wanted to stay and ask him questions or just, sit in silence for a while. It'd been the first time she'd felt relaxed in forever, and in the company of someone whom she'd been taught to hate and fear, whom by all accounts should have been gutting her like a fish, not saving her life and lulling her with song. It had been an eventful, confusing evening.

He wanted her to go..Perhaps she was irritating him like she irritated her father, she thought to herself as she slowly climbed down from the branch she'd been lounging in. She landed next to him as he made his offer and she stared down at him..

"You?..You'd do that?.." she asked incredulously, but she decided not to give him a chance to change his mind and she nodded.. "Alright.. What time?.." she asked as she rushed toward Fintan and pulled herself into his saddle to turn him about.

As she looked back at him, her smile was one of happiness growing, much as a spring flower opens, and it caused her cheeks to dimple and her eyes to sparkle with a childlike mischief. Gods, if her parents ever found out she was a rebel..

 

[Amalric Urahil]

"Tomorrow," he muttered, so soft that it was barely audible.

The chirping cricket grew louder. Somewhere in the treeline, an owl hooted.

Amrose's chin tilted back and he leaned his head against the oak. Time passed, but he did not count the hours. He slept in the way elves slept, never truly passing out of consciousness, but eyes resting, connected to the world around him.

When the sun came up and shone down on him, he blinked fully awake and ran a hand through tousled auburn hair, picking away a few leaves.

He grunted as he tried to stand and felt a twinge in his back. Perhaps not the most comfortable position to rest in.

The elf sighed, divested himself of his rough spun tunic and breeches, tugged off his boots, and bathed in the stream. He ran through a series of stretches in the dewy, morning air, hoping to dissipate the soreness in his back.

 

[Anais]

Tomorrow...

Anais sighed with the distinct feeling that she was irritating him, and she made a mental note to try not to ask him so many questions the following day. She'd never so much as set a toe out of line in her life, too terrified of consequence, and now she was doing the worst thing imaginable for an Anirian noble to even consider.

Her sleep was plagued with disturbing visions that forced her to relive the trauma she'd been dealt in the meadow. She could still conjure the man's laugh, his voice and smell, the feeling of his arms around her, and yet this time the man threw her down and she gazed up at him in terror to see her betrothed unbuckling his belt, and the elf wasn't there to stab him in the neck. The man grinned down at her and lunged forward, and Anais' body jolted out of her sleep clawing air back into her starved lungs, her body soaked in cold sweat like morning dew.

The sun had only just begun to rise, and Anais rose as quickly as she could from her bed to bathe and dress before fabricating another lesson in herbal medicine and rushing off. She loaded some food into a sack and was on her way out of the city, casting glances over her shoulder every now and then to ensure she wasn't followed. She wasn't, and she relaxed..

"Amrose?.." Anais called out as she slipped from Fin's back and took his reins to lead him toward the stream.. "Amrose! I brought you breakfffffu-- oh..". And he was naked. A blush seared through her cheeks and for a minute she thought her face was on fire. She suddenly felt awkward, demure, and coy; even going as far as attempting to hide her rosy features behind her pale fingers as she curled her hair behind her ear and turned away..

"Breakfast.." she huffed and tried to compose herself. Gods, Anais.

 

[Amalric Urahil]

Scars warped and twisted all across the elf's limber frame as he stretched in the cool waters beneath the rising sun, some silvered by age, others the red and angry puckered lines of fresh misery. Long sinews stretched and contorted. He placed both hands on the streambed, feet together behind him, then arched his back like an inverted bow, hips pressing just beneath the waters surface.

He heard his name called and rose, slowly, without looking, until he completed his stretch. Only then did he turn around and approach Anais, sloshing through the stream until he reached the grass and stood before her. Beadlets of sweat and water coruscated down his pale body, shimmering in the dawn's rays.

"Breakfast?" he asked in that voice of his, chimes of silver in every note. Slender fingers picked the sack she held and rummaged through it.

"Did you bring a sword?"

I should have told her to bring a sword.

 

[Anais]

She tried to look everywhere but at him as he stood in front of her and rummaged through the sack she’d filled with sweet breads and apples.

His question forced her to look at him with a worried frown however.. “A real one?!” She blinked, and as she did she couldn’t help but steal a glance at the honed contours of his glistening torso. She suppressed a shudder and turned away from him with a quiet huff.

“I don’t have a sword.. I’m forbidden from touching them.” She grumbled and cast her face to the heavens as she folded her arms..

“Would you mind.. putting some clothes on?.. I’d like to eat and it’s a little, distracting..” she cleared her throat, and another hot flush turned her cheeks a deeper shade of pink.

 

[Amalric Urahil]

“Hm?”

Amrose glanced down just as he pulled out an apple. Why was she...

“Oh.”

He frowned, slender red brows drawing together over angular features. He might’ve been handsome once, but the scars littering his face warped the texture of his skin.

Amrose bit into the apple and chewed. Sweet and fresh. Juice dribbled down his chin. He licked it away.

“Ok.”

He stepped away and hauled on his trousers, shirt, and boots in between bites of the apple, which he finished - core and all, spitting away the seeds, and flicking aside the stem.

Maybe one of those seeds would grow into an apple tree one day.

“I guess we can do it with sticks if you haven’t a sword.”

Amrose walked around the tree before he found a broken branch of suitable length. He snapped it in half over a knee, then handed one length to Anais.

“Here.”

 

[Anais]

The scars didn't bother her, on the contrary, they intrigued her, but she wasn't accustomed to seeing anyone's naked flesh, let alone a man's. Let alone an elf's. "Thank you.." she cleared her throat and waited patiently as he dressed, though she did glance over her shoulder for a brief moment as he pulled on his trousers, for curiosity's sake.. her blushing was relentless.

When he spoke she assumed he was fully dressed and turned back to him, flushed and flustered and nodded.. "I think that's probably best, at least for today, at least to learn some basics..." she agreed, and reached to take the branch from him before stepping through the long grass to give them more room to move. She pulled her braid over her shoulder and looked back at him nervously, dearly hoping he'd have the patience she assumed he was going to need.

"I'm ready.." she winced..

 

[Amalric Urahil]

“You’re grimacing. We haven’t started yet.”

Was she injured yesterday? Amrose hadn’t thought so. He didn’t see any blood. Perhaps a strain. She could push through it.

“The basics. Follow my movements. High guard.”

He held the stick in one hand and raised the stick’s “hilt” slightly over his head, level with his ears.

“Low guard.”

Amrose lowered the stick and held it out just in front of him, tip angled out toward her.

“Watch your opponent’s sword and their shoulder, you can tell when it will come high-“ he drew his arm back for a high slash, “-and when it will come low.”

He dropped the length of the stick and angled it for a horizontal cut at her mid section that never landed.

“Do you understand?”

 

[Anais]

"Sorry.." she answered quietly and rolled her shoulders.. "I'm nervous.." she admitted in an even quieter tone, and nodded at his instruction to follow his movements.

She tried to stand as he stood and mimic his movements of his high and low guards, her eyes on his 'sword' and his shoulder as he instructed. As he slashed downward she curved her back and pulled her stomach in suddenly, expecting him to hit her, but when he didn't she relaxed again with a sigh and nodded.

"I think so.." she replied, and practised the same movements as he'd just shown her, murmuring 'high guard' and 'low guard' under her breath, her lips twisting in concentration.

"Do you think I can learn in a month?.." her brow rose as she lifted the stick up and then slashed it downward at his waist as he'd done to her.

 

[Amalric Urahil]

“A month?”

The elf moved with a languid grace, parrying her attack aside with such ease that it looked completely effortless. Gray eyes watched her with a faraway expression.

“No.”

He poked her back foot with his stick.

“Stance. Your stance must be solid. No matter how you swing. If I push you, you should not fall over.”

Amrose reached out and gave her a shove.

“In a month you might not impale yourself on your own sword.”

 

[Anais]

Anais's shoulders sagged and a look of frustrated desperation crossed her face for a moment as he told her what she didn't want to hear. "But I--" she paused as he poked at her foot and she moved it a little awkwardly and was trying to correct herself when he shoved her. She stumbled and fell back, landing hard and huffing a stray lock of hair from her eyes to let them glare more visibly at him.

"Take it easy!.." she frowned. She'd never been pushed down in her life, and the young noble quite obviously hadn't appreciated the lack of a chance she'd been given. She grumbled and pulled herself back to her feet to dust herself off and find a more stable stance and ready her stick again.

"I have to be ready in a month. If we have to train morning, noon and night. I'll pay you whatever you want, but that's the deadline... And I won't impale myself on a sword.." she frowned irritably and stepped forward with an attempt at slashing across his chest.

 

[Amalric Urahil]

Again the stick seemed to be an extension of the elf’s arm as he knocked her slash to the side, pivoted to let her momentum carry her forward, then thwocked her on the backside.

“If we meet here so often you will be discovered.”

Light gray eyes looked up to the sky in thought, where a flock of geese were passing overhead in a V formation,

“Why a month?”

 

[Anais]

Anias stumbled forward a few paces and gasped a sound of disbelief as the stick whipped at her backside. She spun around to face him, eyes wide and blinking as she shot him a look of incredulity. Her lips parted to speak and her cheeks flushed furiously but she huffed and kept her thoughts on the matter locked behind her teeth.

"Because." she muttered, and as she believed his attention was elsewhere she lunged forward to aim a stab at his stomach.

"That's when I'm leaving Vel Anir." she frowned, her voice strained with concentration and effort.

 

[Amalric Urahil]

He heard the strain in her voice, the pad of her soles upon the grass. Without looking he spun gracefully, fluid as water, as though in a dance. Her lunge met empty air.

The stick hissed through the air toward her backside a second time.

“Leaving? Why.”

 

[Anais]

Her back arched as though trying to avoid his second swipe at her rear but she wasn't fast enough and she turned to growl at him in frustration. "Stop it. You're supposed to be teaching me not tormenting me.." she grumbled irritably and rubbed at the slight sting on her right cheek.

"Because I don't want the life that's been written for me. I'm to be married, whether I like it or not. And I like it not and so I'm leaving." she frowned at him, having to bite her tongue from snapping at him about minding his own business...She really did need to learn.

"You and I both know I won't last a day on my own. If I learn this I might stand a chance of making it to Alliria." she told him, her expression relaxing from irritation to worriment. "We can meet in different places." she shrugged her shoulder at him before quickly stepping in with a slash at his chest.

 

[Amalric Urahil]

“No,” he said flatly, parrying her slash and taking a step backward.

“Here is fine. I like this place. It’s old.”

Like him.

“And I am teaching. Recklessness is not brave. Diving headfirst into danger will only get you hurt. The stings will remind you. If they were real swords you would be dead. Think before you strike.”

Then Amrose showed her the proper form for a thrust and ran through a combination, stringing together a few of the moves he’d already taught her.

 

[Anais]

She was glad that he didn't pry into her personal life. She didn't want to talk about it. It had been all she'd thought about every waking moment for the past few months, and finally she had something new to concentrate on.

"I do too.." she answered with a huff as yet again she missed her target. "But if I'm seen here with you..." she winced slightly.. "It won't end well for either of us.." she mumbled as she listened and mimicked and readied herself for another attack.

She had paid attention, and she was a reasonably fast learner, and so she thought before she struck, taking care not to let her eyes betray her move and to compose herself the way he did, elegant and smooth as she stepped onto her right foot and aimed a far more dignified start his chest.

 

[Amalric Urahil]

"No, it won't." Amrose agreed.

The girl attacked again and the elf's gray eyes followed the motions of her feet more than her arms. He met the incoming stick with his own, twisting his wrist as he did so that the sticks wrapped around each other.

"Better."

After a few more hours of teaching Anais the fundamental guard positions, proper stance, and how to hold a sword when attacking and defending, the girl looked exhausted. Sweat slicked her blond hair. Amrose wondered if this was the most she had ever worked in her entire life. Perhaps.

"We should stop for now. There's a tavern down the road at the next town. We can eat there."

A slight frown creased his brow as he passed her, wrinkling his nose.

"Perhaps you should bathe first."

 

[Anais]

Her chin lifted a little as he offered her at least some semblance of praise for her efforts, finally feeling like she was getting somewhere though she was painfully aware that it was far more difficult a thing to learn than she'd initially thought.

She was exhausted, but she wasn't lazy. She enjoyed her regular trips outside of the city, she loved to walk and swim, and take Fintan galloping through the country, but none of that was any comparison to training.

Anais might have been slightly hopeless, but she was determined and she wouldn't quit. She wasn't sure why she cared so much about trying to prove herself to the elf, but she hoped he'd see how much she wanted to learn, and that it didn't matter how many times he knocked her down or parried her blows she'd get up and try again and learn from her mistakes.

The moment he said stop however, her legs buckled underneath her and she collapsed onto her knees to wipe at her brow with the back of her wrist. Her cheeks were flushed pink, rivulets of sweat trickled down her face and dripped onto her chest. He was right to think she'd never worked as hard in her life.

"Bathe? Out here?" she looked around and then glanced up at him incredulously. "Absolutely not." she laughed under her breath and shook her head. Swimming in the lake was one thing, but she had clothes for that, she was most certainly not going to strip herself down in public in the presence of an elf.

"No.. I should be heading home. Perhaps tomorrow, I'll bring a sword, and spare clothes and coin, and after training we can eat." she reasoned and struggled back to her feet with another stumble.

 

[Amalric Urahil]

"Ok," replied the elf.

He swished his stick idly through the air, then tested the bend of it. Not so bad, but he had no catgut line, nor any cats to make catgut lines from, which soured Amrose's mood somewhat. He would have liked to spend the afternoon fishing. Now he would have to go into town after all.

A whistle summoned the chestnut horse, who had been grazing out by the dilapidated mill and came prancing over. Amrose saddle the stallion, then swung spryly into the leather saddle. Gray eyes flicked toward Anais, then up into the blue sky. The sun was at its zenith.

Amrose kicked his horse into a trot and in moments disappeared over a hillock without a backward glance.

 

[Anais]

Anais stroked the face of her stallion, feeding him the leftover apples as she watched Amrose curiously. Her lips parted to speak, but she thought better of it and pressed them back together with a quiet sigh.. She'd come back tomorrow at the same time, and just assume he'd be here.

Her eyes met his as he looked at her, she attempted to offer a small smile but he looked away, and she watched him trot off without another word..

She dropped her gaze, and cupped Fintan's bulging cheeks as he chewed his apple.. "I'm not sure he likes me very much, Fin.." she sighed. A delicate kiss was pressed to the horse's nose before she attempted to pull herself up into his saddle. It took three attempts thanks to the aching muscles in her legs, and suddenly a hot bath sounded like a wonderful idea..

___________________________

Anais returned the next morning at the same time with more breakfast and a sword in tow as promised. She slipped from her saddle, bit into an apple, and drew the ornate blade from a cloak she'd wrapped it in before proceeding to the patch of field they'd practised in yesterday to go over her movements until he joined her.

 

[Amalric Urahil]

About an hour after Anais arrived, Amrose came trotting in on his chestnut, looking well rested. His gray eyes were clear and bright today, the color of morning fog beneath the light of a rising sun. The elf reined in and slid smoothly from the saddle, alighting in the grass. He wore leather boots, a white tunic, and simple trousers.

One look at the sword Anais offered and he shook his head. He took the gaudy weapon and looked it over, weighing the balance in his hand, then shook his head again.

"No this is wrong. Too many gems. A sword like this will get you noticed." He glanced over at her, "Not in the good way."

A cutpurse not normally inclined to murder might think twice at the sight of the gemstones in the pommel.

"This is a sword for show, not for fighting."

He turned and reached under the saddlebags of his horse, drawing out a scabbarded sword. The hilt was simple and dark, like the scabbard. He handed it to her.

"I bought it with the money from the... Anyway. It's an arming sword. One handed. Not too long. Thick enough to cut but tapering enough for a thrust. It's for you."

 

[Anais]

She'd found her arm growing tired quickly as she practised, why couldn't swords be as light as sticks? She had some strengthening to do, and she begun to believe Amrose when he said a month was unrealistic. There wasn't much choice in the matter, and if she wasn't ready then she'd just have to wing it, but Anais was determined to give herself the best possible chance, no matter what it took.

Her sword fell to her side as she heard the horse and rider approaching and she turned, lifting her hand to shield her eyes from the low, golden hour sun that silhouetted the elf until he slipped from the saddle.. "Good morning..." she bid him quietly and a little begrudgingly as he decided not to bother with any form of greeting. Still, he was here, whether he liked her or not and that was enough..

She frowned gently and sighed as he told her the sword wasn't adequate, she didn't hide her disappointment, but he knew better than her and she wouldn't argue. She wouldn't mention that she'd removed it from the ornate feature of shield and sword on the family's dining room wall, opting to chew on her lip in silence instead.

Anais lifted her eyes to his scarred face for a brief moment as he held the sword out to her and she took it, the new blade instantly feeling more comfortable in her grip and far lighter than the heavy thing she'd been throwing around for the last hour. "You bought this for me?.." she asked incredulously, her head tilting as she lifted her gaze to his face again.

"I... I'll repay you, just tell me the cost." she told him with a brief frown and looked down at it. Perhaps he didn't hate her as much as she thought.

 

[Amalric Urahil]

"No," Amrose's eyebrows drew together e'er so slightly, crinkling his nose. He shook his head and strands of tangled, unkept auburn mane danced in the breeze like crimson banners.

He did not speak the words that leaped into his mind. Anirians. They never could understand the concept of a gift. Everything came with a cost, monetary or otherwise.

A flash of memory and sorrow like a night wind chilled his heart.

Perhaps they are right on this...

"Pull it out of the scabbard. How does it feel?"

 

[Anais]

No?...

Anais stared hard at him, her disbelief was obvious and her face seemed stuck in an incredulous expression, unblinking as her mouth opened and closed again as her brain stuttered and tried to conjure words..He was the last person she'd expect gifts from, and it had overwhelmed her. She wasn't used to receiving gifts at all.

She realised how ridiculous she must have looked and she closed her mouth and awkwardly dropped her attention back to the sword as her cheeks warmed with a gentle flush of pink.

"Oh.." .. One syllable. Great job, Anais.

Her throat cleared and she obliged and slid the blade from the scabbard and raised it to study it with a growing smile. She slashed it delicately at the air with apprehension, and as she did the golden glow of sunlight danced warmly within the cool steel.

"Feels comfortable.." she answered as she found her words again.. "Thank you, Amrose.." she smiled shyly, her voice quieter now, less sure.

“I brought you breakfast..” she gestured to the leather sack that lay in the grass, more apples and sweet breads..