Flashback Driving a hard Bargain [Shesha]

[Ayatah]

Ayatah shook her head, ”seeing as you’re the one who almost impaled yourself on a set of knives, I hardly think that you should be left on your own.”

Acrobatics?” Ayatah tilted her head to one side. The girl had had no weapon skills. Even if she could create fire, Ayatah knew that using magic was tiring, and that should the girl be too exhausted to use her ability in the face of an enemy.. ”You don’t know any weaponry?” Her head tilted to one side in confusion. Children were almost always given a wooden weapon of sorts as soon as they could walk - how else would they be able to serve the Goddess-Queen?

They had reached the training ground now, and Ayatah went to one corner so as not to interrupt any other individuals training. She had helped in the training of her younger brother and sister before she had joined the army, despite the fact that her younger brother had been quite hopeless with archery.

|| Ayatah's speech || Ayatah's thoughts || Others' speech ||

[Shesha]

Now Ayatah had confused Shesha "I was safe the whole time. I was just far ahead of you. If I did reveal my eyes it would have aroused suspicion and pulled me out of danger. If I hadn't been in danger, you would not have intervened, if you didn't intervene, I'd not gotten a second chance to talk ya, if I didn't talk to you, you would have left, if you left I wouldn't see anything interesting. Not all of that was planned ahead but it worked."

They then reached the training ground. Ayatah had asked her about weapons. "No I don't use weapons really. I'm a magical brawler... I can punch ya and set you ablaze with my punch." She finished and followed Ayatah to the corner.

[Ayatah]

"No I don't use weapons really. I'm a magical brawler... I can punch ya and set you ablaze with my punch."

Ayatah shrugged her shoulders. It didn’t make sense to her for a Myrian - the fierce cannibalistic warriors - to have no weaponry skills. ”What about if you can’t get close enough to your enemy to punch them, or even throw a fireball? Or what if they’re a more powerful… wizard than yourself?”

She touched her two weapons - the composite long bow and the double-bladed dagger at her hip. Ayatah couldn’t imagine leaving home without them, let along having no skills in weaponry to use them. To their race - or at least the majority of them - their weapons were like an extension of their clothing.

|| Ayatah's speech || Ayatah's thoughts || Others' speech ||

[Shesha]

"Magic... hmmm..." Shesha said, needing a moment to think till the words found her.

"I guess I can hit hard but I'm only 12... magic is special though. It doesn't care for size, rank, race, age or health. It rewards those with creativity, it punishes those who lack method. It can save someone or remove their existance... it loves everyone but plays no favorites. Caring like a parent but distant." She spouted this with a bit of happiness.

"I like weapons... but they discriminate. Someone like me couldn't compete as I am now. I..." endng her sentence short with a look of sadness.

[Ayatah]

"I guess I can hit hard but I'm only 12... magic is special though. It doesn't care for size, rank, race, age or health. It rewards those with creativity, it punishes those who lack method. It can save someone or remove their existance... it loves everyone but plays no favorites. Caring like a parent but distant."

Ayatah smiled knowingly. ”Weapons are no different.” Her hand went to her hip, and she pulled out her dagger.

The bade was beautifully made, with a fine bone as a central hit and two daggers either side. The blades curved slightly in opposite directions, and there was an engraved ‘A’ in the bone hilt. ”This only discriminates between able and disable - like I imagine magic does. The first time you tried to create that fireball, I bet you weren’t so successful.”

Her hands held the dagger near her eyes, and she smiled at it almost… lovingly. It meant a great deal to her; that much was obvious. It was one of the Scattered Bones’ traditions that when a female baby was born, her mother had a weapon crafted for them. The weapon was meant to represent the child in some way, and in Ayatah’s case, the two blades signified the Myrian and Eypharian blood within her veins. But the weapon had another meaning - one that Ayatah’s own Great Grandmother started. The woman, whenever she saw fit, may share her weapon with a person who had come to mean a great deal to her. Her mother, Paira of the Scattered Bones had shared her own birth weapon (as they were called) with a Kelvic she had known since she was a girl.

"I like weapons... but they discriminate. Someone like me couldn't compete as I am now. I..."

”That is only because you’ve had no practiced.” Ayatah shrugged her shoulders. Her little sister was eight, and could already release an arrow from her short bow, and would soon be training with a wooden handaxe. ”Age is no issue with weapons so long as you train.”

|| Ayatah's speech || Ayatah's thoughts || Others' speech ||

[Shesha]

"Just being smaller than you makes that blade biased against me." Shesha announced. She was convinced, and, this lady didn't seem to convince her. Proof was needed here.

"When I get older it might like me more?" Following with an odd question.

"Magic is all skill. If two people engage with magic, skill is a decider here. If you had my skill in it then victory is the child of creativity and ingenuity. Not years or mass." The girl said sort of in defense of magic.

These were two different people, as least in the Myrian sense of different. A young mage and a warrior with experience. The ebb and flow of conversation was apparent.

Yet they complimented each other.

[Ayatah]

"Just being smaller than you makes that blade biased against me."

Yet again, Ayatah had to disagree with the child, ”That’s not true. The dagger is a tiny weapon, and being a small person yourself, it means that you two are perfectly matched. Now a great warhammer, that would be another issue.” Such large weapons were not handed to Myrians until they were physically big enough to wield them, let alone swing such a great hulk of metal about in order to slay any foes.

She placed the blade back in its hilt, finger touching the hilt gently. It clearly meant a great deal to her; it was more than just a weapon to slay her enemies and prey with. ”Still, I imagine magic will be handy when you are old enough to join the army,” she said, to balance out their argument. Magic was uncommon amongst their people, let alone when it was the individual’s sole offence or defence tactic.

Still, this girl was a child of Myri’s, much like herself. Who was Ayatah to question the skill that the Goddess-Queen bestowed upon a clan, and a child? Especially when she herself was… different, to put it lightly.

”Magic won’t protect you from insults and latrine cleaning, though.” She added, more to humour herself than the child. Being so close to the end of her military service, Ayatah had experience the harsh training and also witnessed it from the other side (though she had been one of the kinder trainers, or so she liked to think). For the most part, that brutal first year had truly been a struggle - and for everyone, not just the half-breed. But now, Ayatah looked back on those years of insults, harshness and ruthless training fondly. She would miss the day-to-day rigour of training and drills, and how her military superiors spat out their insults as if they were curses.

Aah, fond memories…

|| Ayatah's speech || Ayatah's thoughts || Others' speech ||

[Shesha]

"Hmmmm... Interesting..." She mumbled to Ayatah. This lady brought out so many curiosities in the girl. Her mind was rushing with so many questions, what would get her so excited was something she was unsure of. She started to go quiet evaluating what she could learn and how she could learn it. Then it hit her.

"AH... That's how, I got it... I got the answer. Why this is beyond magnificent. Like thousands of drums in harmony." Again being but a mutter in near silence. Only audible due to her proximity to Ayatah. The she suddenly rised and started walking about. The Res flowing out of her pores, It's dense purple ethereal form tinged with black slowly coating her flesh thinly and spreading to nearby flammable objects.

"Tell me, you're older... Adults are supposed to know deep stuff like this. I can only guess. Do people deserve what they get? I mean... Our intelligence, power all of it. Sometimes I wonder what this all means. Are we just a tool for gods to get what they want? Knives to peel proverbial apples?" She asked in seriousness.

Before the girl could get an answer something went ablaze, a wooden pole with Res coating. Shesha was certain they were alone, she had no concerns right now. The flames quickly spread, partly due to her magic, her reimancy.

"READY YOUR ARMS!" Shesha yelled quickly letting loose a kick.

[Ayatah]

"AH... That's how, I got it... I got the answer. Why this is beyond magnificent. Like thousands of drums in harmony.”

The words made Ayatah frown, a little concerned. She had younger siblings, so she was used to spending time with children. And she knew well enough that when they were quiet, they were by and large planning something.

But the girl’s philosophical question was not what Ayatah had been expecting. It was a good question, and she considered her answer. The Myrian people firmly believed that respect was a thing to be earned. But general skill and brain? Was that something that they earned, or something that Myri granted them from birth.

”I don’t know,” she said eventually, shrugging. ”And I don’t think it matters. A person can be born with great skill, or can train for it. Either way, it’s what they do with it that is important, not how it’s achieved.”

She had seen fellow army recruits do as such; people that picked up a weapon for the first time, and three years later near master it. Then others, people like herself, that had found toy daggers and longbows in her hands from when she was an infant. Was she born with good aim or had that come from the years she spent pretending to be a warrior.

"READY YOUR ARMS!"

She glanced up from the call, having not realised Shesha hadmoved away from her and --

set fire to things.

Alarm flashed across her face, and Ayatah watched the child warily. ”What the shyke do you think you’re doing?” This was why she had no patience for children- they were unpredictable, and did not realise the potential thread that their stupidity could bring.

|| Ayatah's speech || Ayatah's thoughts || Others' speech ||

[Shesha]

She felt her foot connect to the jawbone of the still sitting Ayatah. She got upset as soon as it did, planting both feet on the ground.

"Petch... You're supposed to be interesting PEEETCCHHHH... I yelled for a reason. When some yells to ready arms your weapon should have been already in hand! Damn it! I'll put the fire out when I'm done." She followed in anger.

Shesha raised her hands, with a wall of fire maybe 4 feet high following, seperating the two. Be careful, fire is a hungry thing, very rarely full... only getting hungrier, words always spoken by Tezkatenoka. Shesha knew why she was suddenly pulling up things her mom said, her advice was always critical and given with literal demonstrations.

She knew if she was gonna start a fight then lighting things on fire is necessary. She was good for her age but trying to create more fire than she could handle would just lead to overgiving. She could instead manipulate a resource that would replenish and multiply itself.

"Reimancy uses a substance known as Res. The glowing purple stuff is my Res, a manifestation of my Djed. A physical representation of my spirit, my mind, my will... it is what cloaks me even now. Are you still so confident? Do you think we will be even if you strike me with that blade? To be crushed by your soul is far worse than cutting me." She rambled on.

"I would still like to remain friends." Shesha added in. With her hands together they were then spread, splitting the wall of fire to face Ayatah head on.