24th Spring 511AV
The Drykas society was a rigid one. There was not much Eda could do to escape any of the pressures placed upon her there. Everywhere she went, the warrior aspect of their lives glared at her. From every angle, she saw spears, shields, bows, long swords – broad swords. Broad swords were by far her favourite. They gleamed, wide and flat and intimidating, speaking of destruction from the edges of their blades. The weapon was not as graceful as the others, not as swift cutting as the longsword nor as elegant as the spear, but she did not mind. Eda was not graceful. It made sense that her choice of weapon reflected that.
But nor was she brutal. The broadsword was. Her father, and her cousin, Yartree were – they were users of the weapon too. She was skinny, gangly even, and small. She did not look intimidating. Drykas warriors laughed at her from the side lines when they saw her training in the War Pavilion. It did not help that she dropped the sword a lot. It was big, perhaps a little too big for her, but she stuck at it anyway. There was of course, the fact that her father gave her the sword. She could not give up a weapon that had carvings upon it, inspired by her dead mother.
But no one really thought she would amount to anything as a warrior in Endrykas. She was too young. Too flighty. Too unpredictable. Too immature. Sixteen, they said, was the cut off point. If you had not matured into a battle hardened warrior by the age of sixteen, there was no way you would ever be accepted into the elite Stormwatch, those Drykas warriors who watched over everyone else, who kept Endrykas safe. Which of course, Eda and every other Drykas child had dreamt about. It did not look like Eda would ever be accepted there. It was depressing, but she was determined to prove them wrong.
She did not need to be a member of the Stormwatch to be a great warrior. She could train – she would train to prove them that. She could be a master of the broadsword. She did not need to be officiated into some group to be told that she was good at something. She was not all that good, not yet, but she would be. Soon. She would show them all.
The spring morning was cool. It had only recently passed into Winter, and Eda swung herself up onto her new Strider, Ayira. In her gallopings around Endrykas and the Sea of Grass, she had discovered much about her. Ayira was small, a smaller horse. Yartree had laughed at her for such. His Strider was tall and big and strong, the perfect war horse. But as Eda had ridden around, she had discovered that while she did not have strength and size on her side, she had speed. Ayira was fast, faster than many she had seen. It was an asset that cheered her heart everytime she experienced the rush of wind against her face.
She rode out from her pavillion, the light still rising out over the tent city. Her pavillion was situated not far from the outskirts, so the ride out of Endrykas was slow and steady. No one was really awake yet, no one yelling, no one bothering to stop this lonesome teenager making her way into wilderness. The ride was silent. She did not really consider what it was she was doing. All she knew was that she was riding out of Endrykas, alone with Ayira and one carved broadsword at her side and that she wanted to kill something. |
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by Edalene on April 18th, 2011, 2:51 am