Reneira Varrick

Fingers curl around the wooden pole of the glaive, gripping with a tightness that can only be born by a complete lack of feeling. It doesn't help. My sweaty palms give little purchase, and every adjustment in my stances has to be consciously matched by a complimentary scrunching of my palms back across the shaft where they've slipped. It's the godsdamned bladed end. It feels as though it was made to be unwieldy. I swear that every time I look down to check my form my right hand has nearly slid all the way to the pommel. Why a glaive? Why did she have to use a glaive? It feels so unnatural in my hands...

In front of me, across no more than a yard and a half of rocky sand, lies my target: a faceless little wooden dummy, stationary. I'm not permitted to spar with the others yet, not enough grasp of the basics I've been told. In fact, I'm the only one who still hasn't grasped the basics, the last of my cohorts having moved to real combat practice weeks ago. And so I am left alone and left behind in the shameful quiet with a mockingly unscathed mannequin as my only company. Another week or two of this and I'll have given it a name. I can't let that happen.

"Damn it... And what do you think you're looking at, you ugly little bastard...?" I mutter bitterly to the dummy, smudging my fingers back up the pole for what feels like the thousandth time. "I'm going to slay you this time. I'm destined for it."

" ...or so I'm told..."

With a final, resigned grunt of exertion, I raise the head of the weapon once again, priming my left leg behind me and putting the full strength of my back and shoulders into hoisting the glaive until it hovers just at a diagonal along my left flank. Okay. Deep breaths. Focus. I can do this The strike is lined up. I just need to remember my training. Step forward, throw with the dominant arm, and let the momentum of the weapon carry itself with it's own weight. It's just like I've been shown again and again...

I close my eyes, trying to focus on the center of balance for both my own body and the weapon that I am half-carrying, half-cradling across my chest. No. Bad form. That's bad form. I adjust again, hefting the heavy bladed end distinctly apart from my person. It wobbles, but I manage to sustain it there. Now I just need to follow through.

I open my eyes, blinking back burning sweat to stare down my adversary. It lacks the eyes to look back. Hmph. Fine. I'll make this quick then. Without another word I let instinct and muscle memory guide me. My left leg swings boldly forward, its boot planting firmly into the earth. I lean into that momentum, throwing the weapon from where it lingers near my shoulder and guiding it into a proper swing. There's the satisfying singing noise of metal cleaving cleanly through the air as the hefty blade descends, and for a moment, the weapon feels weightless. Oh, this is a good one! I'm letting the weapon swing itself, just like I was taught! Finally! Finally I can do something right!

CRUNCH. "AAIIIEEE!" CLANG

The weapon clatters to the floor as I double in on myself, curling into a fetal ball and sinking to my knees. Agony explodes from my left hand, and my right hand cups it weakly as I hold it up to myself for inspections. My left thumb - my left thumb which I have apparently just crushed full force between my heavy polearm and an infuriatingly still unscathed training dummy's head - is swollen purple and bent into an upside-down 'v', an angle it was never meant to go. I can see a bit of bone protruding at the middle joint. It's mangled well beyond being broken. My fingers and palms aren't in a much better state, skin rubbed off and raw wounds bleeding openly from long hours spent training with a slippery pole. I start to cry.

The tears are tears primarily of pain at the injury, but they are undercut by hot and bitter stinging frustration. I've been training, day in and day out for months now, yet instead of improvement, all I have to show for it is a shattered thumb. It's been months of blood, effort, sweat, and tears, months of "progress" only to remain in place and catch on the on the smallest of hurdles. My form is bad, my aim is bad, I cannot keep up with the others, and apparently even the inanimate dummies are too high a hurdle for me as well.

It takes me a minute or two before the crying stops, and for once I am grateful for the privacy afforded to me by my solitary training. It would shame my lineage to be seen in such a state. Only once I have calmed do I rise and dare to once again look down at my hands. Already there is signs of improvement. My fingers, still bloody, are no longer actively bleeding, and my thumb is now violently twisted at perhaps only a square angle instead of a v-shaped one. The pain has diminished somewhat too, enough that it no longer buzzes at the forefront of my mind.

Such is one of my 'divine graces': Regeneration. Within the hour my thumb will be perfectly straight and my fingers unmarred. I will suffer no sustained injury, no callouses, no signs of struggle, of hardship, of growth. No matter how hard I push myself I am always fine the next day. ...No matter how hard I push myself I always seem to end up back at square one. I am getting physically stronger, yes, and so too I am theoretically gaining deftness, but it seems a unremarkable growth backed by an empty strength.

Within the next several minutes, I mange to collect myself. I briefly dust myself off with my better hand before beginning to limp back towards the monastery where I've been sentenced to live and train alongside a few others. The thick wooden doors yield to me, though I more stumble into them than I do push them open. Still, the butt from my shoulder works just as well, and as they part a crack I slip inside. It's dark. And quiet. Only the faint sounds of sparring can be heard from the front through the dense stonewalls. Not a single evening candle has been lit yet, not that I expected there to be. Training is meant to continue into sundown, and we, me especially, are not supposed to be back inside yet. Still, a break would be welcome. I let the door slam shut behind me, venturing into the halls in search of one of my tutors. I'll state my intentions clearly as to not be caught being 'lazy'.

The interior of the monastery is much cooler than outside was, a welcome relief against for my tender muscles even though the drop in temperature seems to tickle and further irritate my bent thumb. For a moment a sense of shame almost overwhelms me. I should go back. I'm already in poor standing. They're going to think I'm lazy and good-for-nothing. Overwhelming exhaustion stays my path, however, and I wander down the central nave with nervous and begrudging conviction. It doesn't take long to find who I am looking for. As the smell of sweat and blood dampen against that ever pervasive and choking dustiness, I find a single light from a cracked door on the right. I hesitate, swallow the lump of shame in my throat, adjust my grip on my injured hand to make sure the damage is visible, and finally give the door two quick knocks with my knee.

"Master? Is that you? Ah... Um... Greetings. I know I'm not supposed to be in here, but don't-! It's not-! I'm not being lazy again so don't-!" I force out defensively, my tone whimpering and guilty despite the innocence of my request. I choke slightly on my own spit before I manage to collect myself. "My thumb got bent bad. Here. Look at it. May I take the evening off to let it knit? Oh! Or maybe watch the others practice? Or even chores! Please? Just no more sparring for today."

Both my arms plunge deep into the icy water, groping blindly along the riverbed as I search for the soft bottom. Fingers sieve through loose silt briefly, then clutch, and I withdraw cold-stung handfuls of the muddy residue. My right hand combs deep into my hair, slipping under knots and mats to seed the substance directly into my tender scalp. My left hand slides along my face, drawing a squeak and sputter from me as the icy, scratchy goop mars my cheeks, nose, and chin. I feel miserable. Regeneration may protect me from injury, but it does nothing to spare me discomfort. I can only hope I look the part of misery as well.

I wait a moment for the filth to settle before I redip my right hand and swipe it across my eyes, blinking rapidly as my vision clarifies. Beneath me, the woman looking back through the rippling glass is unrecognizable from how I know myself. My long, platinum hair, so often braided in recency, remains untethered, clumping in thick brown ropes that flush against my face and neck. My gambeson, armor, and that accursed glaive remain a continent's width behind me, abandoned at the monastery I left behind. Instead, I carry myself in a plain beige dress of a patchwork and second-worn quality. I look dirty, unwashed, almost feral, and save from my ever-yellow eyes, not a soul would look at me and see the murals. My eyes though... No. It has to be enough.

"Idiot girl... What are you thinking?" I mutter to the woman in the stream. "You don't have to go through with this. There's still time. You could still turn back."

Can I really turn back though? What would I do? Go back to the monastery? Reset my entire journey because I got cold feet at the very end of it? And then what? 'My apologies for being gone for five months. No, I wasn't training. Actually I went on a pilgrimage across the entire world, but I pissed myself at the very end because I'm just as worthless as you all think.'

Damn it! No! No matter how I tried to spin it, no matter how I lied or told the truth, the results speak for themselves. I could go back and bare my soul: confess my fears, my doubts, my anxieties, the struggle I feel every day. It wouldn't matter now. They wouldn't call me mad, but they'd all be thinking it. They'd spin some lecture about my delicate growth and the maturity I still lack and then they'd put me back to training - only with the caveat that they'd make sure I can't escape again. This right here is it. This is my one chance at being my own person, even if that person turns out to be a fool.

"I don't need to be afraid. If destiny is real, if I really am meant to destroy the evil near to here... If that's true, then I have nothing to worry about. I can't die. Fate will intervene." I reason aloud, even though I barely believe the words myself. "And... And if I'm walking into my own death then... Then maybe I am defective. Maybe I always have been... In that case, it's best the world never gets their hopes up to begin with."

On shaky legs I rise, sparing one more wayward, stomach-churning glance at the dirty waif reflected at my feet before turning my back on her for good. The longer I linger, the more cracks in this whole reckless spectacle I seem to see, and I can hardly trust myself to remain brave forever. I must carry on before I can come to my senses.

As I turn my attention back to the path ahead, I try to reconcile where I am. The last legs of my journey have been stranger than I could have expected, for while the signs of civilization abound here, I've not met a single other soul in quite a sometime. What must've once been a bustling countryside is no more, the former residents having fled their homes in anticipation of an emergent evil. I have not, however, actually encountered this terrifying evil that everyone seems to be so afraid of.

It's curious, and I find myself lingering on it more and more. The idea of an 'emergent evil'. It implies some kind of reawakening, or perhaps a coalescion of some ancient powers-to-be. So often I was told of the cyclic nature of my, or more so of her, battle against the 'darkness' or some other malevolence, but never did the glided histories detail what the true nature of the 'evil' actually was. I must admit, I left for this place expecting a menacing fortress surrounded by an army of the damned, but the closer I get to this root the more it becomes clear that it will be neither easy nor obvious to find who or what I am looking for.

Sometimes I even wonder if the cycle finally faltered after so many centuries... Perhaps the evil is flawed. Perhaps it is coming back but it is as useless and incompetent as I am... Perhaps it is so weak that I can slay them where they bud, neverminding that I can't actually Channel Radiance yet... Or perhaps... Perhaps they are a thinker like me... Perhaps they aren't a mindless beast of warlust... Perhaps harbor my same doubts about the nature of things... ...No. I dare not entertain such sympathies for long. I am here to find the evil, not... not...

It's no more than forty paces upstream from where I was just smearing mud on my face that I spot slow-turning waterwheel, It groans loudly at me as I pass it by, creaking, unsteady, and clearly having been left behind to do little more than decay. Just across on my opposite flank lies an equally abandoned farmhouse and a large field that is slowly being reclaimed by weeds. The sight gives me a different kind of pause than my previous anxieties. Without people around, food has become more scarce than I would like, and I am no survivalist by treade. Whatever shriveled, non-rotten vegetables I can scrounge up joined with the potential of sleeping in real bed is a powerful lure, that is if there even still is vegetables or a bad at all.

Still, my detour solidified, I quickly reach the porch of the farmhouse. The wood groans under my weight, an awful creaking cry that seems to carry across the treeline. The door waits ajar for me but so too has clearly been long abandoned. I shoulder it out of the way as I slip inside. The interior of the farmhouse is dark and dust-ridden. It appears to have been designed around a mixed lighting of windows and candles, yet the hour is late and the candles are predictably vanished from their sconces in the walls, leaving shadows long and visibility poor. I creep around the entryway, palming the wall in lieu of sight as I feel my way around a corner and find the space of what once must have been a dining room. Only then do I first realize that something here is amiss.

A lone window catches the last lights of the yawning sun, and dimly illuminates the contours of the new room, and where the outside of the home spoke to abandonment, I can see clearly that the inside speaks to vandalism. All cupboards are thrown open, the chairs overturned, and the table, meant to centerpiece the room is framed around, lies in an off-center and lopsided tringle by two of it's own broken-off legs. I gasp audibly. This is the first sign I've seen of something more than people fleeing their homes. Who or what could have done this? Wild animals? A scavenger like me? Or was it some kind of minion of darkness? The enemy that I've travelled here t-

Crreeeeaaaaakkk...

I choke and jolt at the same time, reaching for my glaive on instinct before realizing that I haven't been carrying that dead weight for months now. I settle for grabbing a heavy wooden table leg instead, wielding it like a makeshift club even though I doubt I could actually deliver a good strike with it. With little courage and even less sense I turn on my heels and start to palm my way back to the entrance.

"Hello?" I call out tremulously. "Who is there? Friend or foe?"

Idiot! Why did I announce my presence like that? It's too late now to run now. Whatever it is knows that I'm here. Unless maybe it's just the wind? It wouldn't be unlike me to startle at mere wind. One can hope...

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