Legend of Ransera

Arvælyn arrived for his scheduled training session in his designated black uniform and habitually removed his shoes in the doorway, kicking them aside and stepping barefoot to the mat. Phocion was already standing there in matching dress- his moonpale skin stark against fabric as dark as his hair. Though Phocion was the pædagogus, he remained the leaner of the two brothers. They weren’t far apart in height, but Phocion had a taller air about him with his long, lithe limbs. Arry’s had thickened a bit over the course of their work together.

The Golden sibling was not unathletic, but he’d been months away from his former exerting work of dance and stagecraft by the time they started. He’d started getting skinny, but Phocion’s taskmastery toned him up and gave him a rather voracious appetite. Behind closed doors he was as ravenous with his meals as he’d been with lemon cake the day Aurin had treated a half-starved waif to it all those years earlier. In public, of course he was as dainty as any prince with his haute cuisine and formal manner.

“We are going to do things a bit differently today.” Phocion announced. It was in that moment Arry’s eyes fell upon another occupant seated against the back wall in shadow. Even so, gold features so like his own bore lustre that drew his eye. It was unusual for Arry to be caught by surprise this way, anymore. His mastery of Mesmer tended to find the Symphony, even when the individual was concealed. But ever since he’d met him, Kyrin’s Symphony had been overcast. He must have been a powerful Mesmer in his own right, or perhaps a Sembler. Or maybe one of his adornments was enchanted with some obscuring ward, but whatever the case it was unnerving.

“Salve, Pater.” Arry remarked, offering a playful wink to his counterfeit father. As usual, it was received with a blank, golden stare like that of a statue.

“Yes,” Phocion conceded, “Sentinel Kyrin will be sitting in today as he sponsored some of the learning tools we will employ. But before we get to that…” Phocion extended his arms to either side, and Arry reflexively mimicked the gesture as short swords spun from off their racks. The wooden practice weapons’ handles fell neatly into all four hands. “Have at me.”

He hadn’t even finished the utterance, and already Arvælyn was bounding forward to deal a slash attack. Phocion leapt into the air without even needing to crouch for momentum, using the kinetic force of his mastery of æther instead as he overperched the arc of Arry’s weapon, landing on his feet after it had passed. He dealt an opportunistic strike, which Arry blocked with his other blade even as the first was still sweeping across in follow-through.

“Nice try, catulus!” Phocion was grinning. The sparring was actually starting to get fun for him, now that his pupil had proven apt. It was clear that the boy had been working outside of their sessions. He’d happened upon a bout between the lad and his lover, and his firm form was as much evidence as his improving prowess.

At Phocion’s words, Arry’s eyes darted for a blink toward their stoic audience. It was enough time for Phocion to catch him off-guard with a sweep at Arry’s shoulder level. The lithe Golden Elf caught the move in his periphery and arched his back, bending his knees and putting his blade hands behind his back to halt what would have been a fall with a kinetic field. When the swing has passed, he sent a burst behind him and arced his blades toward one another in a pincer attack that might have closed about Phocion’s neck, if the Moonborn hadn’t ducked it deftly. The teacher vaulted backwards, putting space between them and chuckling.

“I felt the breeze on my scalp that time, Goldfinch!” He hadn’t done it consciously, but Phocion blurted out the nickname he’d had for his other bastard brother, Raithen, for whom it was more appropriate.

“And you’d have gotten a haircut if these blades were real, Silverfish!” Unwitting to Phocion’s unconscious allusion, he grinned impishly- pleased with his own less-flattering retort.

“What a novel development! The boy has banter!” Phocion japed, “This must be for your benefit, Kyri-” The moonborn cut himself off to duck, as he ducked a third blade Arry hurled his way from off the rack along the wall. As it clattered to the floor, Phocion threw the words in both of his hands and guided them with his manipulation of the Flux to swirl in countering directions on either side of him.

Arvælyn blocked the levitating weapons, with practical use of those in his hands as he used Compression to slow their advance and make the blocks more manageable than they’d have been otherwise.

Kyrin watched impassively as the younger elves went through their paces. Still as a statue only his golden eyes followed the path of the coordinated conflict, until finally the paler elf with the darker hair succeeded in distracting the bronzer elf with the lighter hair with a frontal kinetic assault that distracted him from a rear approach.

Both were breathing heavily, with Phocion’s front flush against his younger brother’s back- One wooden blade to his throat and the other at his midsection like a deadly embrace. Arvælyn looked frustrated as he dropped his practice weapons onto the mat.

“You should be proud, Catulus.” Phocion bade, as he tucked both swords under his arm and helped Arry to his feet. “You’ve never lasted that long, and I’ve been training for decades. There were points at which I was barely even holding back.” Arry grunted in response.

“I thought you said today’s lesson was to be different.” The Golden boy sighed, stretching both arms behind his back. “Just because we have an audience of one?”

“This was but your warm-up, Arvælyn.” Phocion countered, “Your lesson begins in earnest now.” He glanced over his shoulder and raised his voice to call: “Servi, accede!”

A door set in the wall against which Kyrin was seated swung open and two human men entered, carrying a heavy chest between them. As the door shut behind them, they placed the chest on the floor. Arry noticed they were each dressed as he and Phocion were in martial blacks.

“Ah,” Arry glanced snidely to his instructor, getting the gist “I am to train against multiple opponents?”

The chest snapped open, and the bright glint of steel could be seen under the artificial moonlight that poured across the room.

“With real weapons.” Phocion added, causing the younger elf to lose his smile as the elder’s broadened. “These men are convicts and slaves. Subjects of the Lex Agni purchased by your benefactor.” He gestured to Kyrin, who nodded slightly, “They have already been given their instructions.”

“...which are?” Arry arched an eyebrow,

“To kill you, catulus.” The prince stated plainly, as he watched his brother’s eyes go wide with shock and uncertainty. “No. I am not joking.” He clarified. It required no Master Mesmer to glean that question crossing the young man’s mind. “Not only that. They have been promised their freedom in exchange for your life. They win, they are free. They lose, they die.”

“I…” Arry was speechless.

“Desperation is the name of today’s lesson.” Phocion proclaimed. “Your life is an obstacle to something they are desperate to attain, and the threats they present to you are legitimate. Your very life is at stake.”

“There is no way the High Sentinel approved of such a… such a reckless exercise.”

“She has, boy.” It was Kyrin who spoke, now, causing Arry to blanch.

“Then again he has forsaken me…” He was verging on tears. If this was a jest, it was passing cruel. “Again she has cast me to the wolves!”

“I understand your vexation, but I assure you this is a show of faith, not of disregard.” Phocion explained. “You must kill these two men to walk out of this room alive.”

Arry’s mind was drawn back to that great fighting pit he’d visited- The Fortis Lacerta. Of the hulking brutes drawing blood for the amusement of a crowd. Gladiators. He may have been fitter than he’d been upon arriving, but he’d only been fighting for a few months now. These men were both larger than him, and…

“I’ve never slain a man by mine own hand.” A familiar pang of guilt burgeoned in the pit of his stomach. He may not have ever killed a man directly, but there was little doubt he’d led to at least one suicide as collateral damage to his theatrical ambitions. And there was no telling what tolls he’d wrought upon the people use to shield himself and Finn at the reception… Powerful Mesmer could have all sorts of unforeseen consequences, and he was very aware that he might have led to deaths indirectly. But those were so much easier to rationalise and bury away.

“Never?” Phocion pursed his lips, “The North sounds very quaint. In any event, you have an advantage that these men do not. They bear no Runes. Their attacks will be practical only, but do not doubt the resourcefulness of a desperate man. You will be a desperate man yourself and I expect you to behave accordingly. I hereby lift the restrictions I have placed upon our lessons. You know the rules: Break them,” He gestured to the two slaves, “And break them.”

As Phocion stalked off the mat to where Kyrin was seated, he clapped his hands twice and called out:

“Armate vosmetipsos!”

The two slaves grabbed khopeshes from the chest and then marched to opposing sides of the mat. The sized Arry up as they passed him, which made him shiver. He padded to the chest and collected the remaining two blades therein. He took a breath and turned to complete the triangle. Both men were glaring at him in anticipation. He took a deep breath and opened his Rune of Mesmer to their Symphonies. Then he opened his Rune of Kinetics to the Æther Flux to sense the potential surrounding him.

“Incipe!” Phocion shouted and, as the two men rushed toward him, Arvælyn opened his Rune of Masquerade and suddenly Finn blipped into view in front of them, armed with his blade and poised to strike them down. Phocion blinked- Had Finn somehow been alerted to this exercise?

The first man stumbled, jostled by the sight of a second opponent and tripped through the illusionary Finn and tumbled to the mat. Phocion smiled.

Arry ducked low as he darted toward the man who was still standing, and amplified the sense of bestial fear in his Symphony to enhance his trust in the illusion, even as it proved itself false. One khopesh cut his hamstring, and the other slid along his side, leaving a long, weeping gash.

The other man found his feet, and glared at Arry- preparing to rush him, as one of the practice swords flew off the rack and broadsided him in the temple, disorienting him as Arvælyn hurled one of his khopeshes and guided the æther to lodge it into the man’s chest. He crumpled to the ground, inert and bleeding profusely.

"Prima mors!" Phocion yelled, as the slave who was wounded but still standing lurched toward the golden elf, and attempted a slash- which was offset by a burst of æther that nearly sent the blade flying from his grasp.

Golden eyes glared with ethereal intensity into brown, as the hand that had just thrown the blade extended toward the would-be assailant and unseen tendrils of Craft wove into his æther. Arry’s voice was legion speaking consonances directly into the desperate man’s Symphony.

“Iam morieris.” Instructed the chorus of voices that entered the man’s soul through his æther. With a quaking hand he lifted his blade and drew it along his own throat. Tumbling to his knees as he bled out onto the mat, gurgling.

Quaking with a heady blend of adrenaline, ætheric overload, fear and horror Arvælyn looked to Phocion.

“Your work is incomplete.” He extended a long pale index finger toward the man with the khopesh lodged in his chest. It had gone deep, but not deep enough to end his life. Arry knitted his brow. The man was helpless…

“Surely he can be taken to a healer…” Arry protested, “He might yet be a serviceable slave to Gens Val’Sorokys…” He turned his plea to Kyrin, who merely stared back with his own pair of golden orbs and remained motionless.

“Come now, catulus parva…” Phocion urged, “Let us conclude our lesson.”

“Very well.” Arry clenched his teeth and turned his gaze upon the bleeding slave, extending a hand toward him and weaving æther into the descrescendo of his Symphony. “Dimitte.” He whispered. The man reached up with both hands to grab the blade protruding from his chest and, with the last of his might, he pushed it loose. The blood that erupted forth was copious and enough to end him in a matter of seconds.

Wearily he glared at Phocion. He was surprised when he felt a tear slide down his own cheek.

“Happy?” He inquired through clenched teeth.

“Elated. I had faith that you would prevail, or we'd not have performed this exercise, but I hadn't expected things to go... quite so quickly. I was impressed that you recognised straight away that the goal was to use all the tools in your ætheric arsenal.” Phocion replied blithely, “And, look at that…” He gestured down to both corpses, “You still haven’t slain a man ‘by your own hand’, so your quaint, Northern reputation remains intact.”

Kyrin rose from his seat, drawing Arry’s attention. The stately Golden Elf simply nodded once, and stalked across the room to exit.

“Well,” Phocion clasped his hands together as the door shut behind Kyrin. “He seemed impressed, wouldn’t you say?”

Arvælyn dropped to his knees as the emotion caught up to him, and wept profusely for quite some time thereafter.