It was a pleasant day for a Trial. The sun was shining. The grass was green. Even her idol and hero, the Lady Forrester came to witness. It was truly auspicious, whatever that meant. The old men from her village used to say that whenever they wanted to sound wise. Unfortunately for Nelia, it was her Trial. She had trained for this moment. Trained hard. She trained to the point of complete exhaustion every day for months leading up to this point for one reason, and one reason only. Her hands wouldn’t stop sweating. If she had a second reason, it was because her knees kept shaking. Ah, maybe a third reason would be that her heart beat so hard her chest hurt. A fourth reason…

Seeing the Lesser Goblinoid in front of her, she was taken back to her village from nearly a decade ago. She watched from her window as the vanguard of the monster army poured into her town, only six years old at the time. At first it had seemed like a game. She had heard of monsters, of course. Everyone has at least heard of monsters. But only the unlucky ones went from ‘heard of’ to ‘experiencing’. It wasn’t a game, and it wasn’t fun. The monsters that raided her village were Lesser Sahagin, their tiny fish eyes wide with hunger and madness.

Her uncle had once told her you could always tell if a creature was a prey or a predator by the location of their eyes. If they are in front, they are predator. If they are on the side, they are prey. Lesser Sahagin have eyes on the side of their blue-lizard fish-heads… so prey, right? That must have made her uncle super-prey then, apparently. The monsters descended upon him like a swarm of locusts and reaped his life as though he were some dry grasses growing a little too close to a house. The monsters seemed to sense the life of humans and livestock and rushed towards it, regardless of the danger. Nelia’s fellow villagers fought bravely. Also, futilely. Their pitchforks and sickles made excellent tools for farming. The sahagins had three claws half a foot long on each of their hands and feet, reinforced scales covering their body, two rows of jagged teeth for both the top and bottom of their mouths, powerful lunging capabilities, and outnumbered the villagers twenty to one. What kind of fish needs claws anyway?

Most of the village was taken out within only a few minutes. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily if this is what drew the monster horde to the village to begin with, the fields of grazing livestock slowed the horde as the sahagin pushed each other in their desperate bid to be the monster to cull an animal. They didn’t even eat them. They just killed them and moved on, frothing at the mouth as though they had rabies.

The only reason Nelia survived the scourging of her village was because the Wardens of the Woods arrived in force. Not that they needed to come in force, as the Patriarch and Matriarch of the family were more than sufficient for the hordes. But they did come in force, and a small army of warriors cut through the horde to surround the few surviving villagers. Not even bothering to dismount and engage with the rabble, the Lord Forrester merely looked to the sky and huge flaming rocks appeared, falling into the densest pockets of monsters. They didn’t struggle or try to avoid the rocks. They just got smushed into nothingness. The display made Nelia gaze in wonder at the casual use of supreme magic. How could monsters exist when people like the Lord Forrester existed too? She could feel the heat radiating from the rocks from her window perch, half the town away. Still, only the largest groupings of monsters were hit, and it left over half of the horde.

Until they just fell over like puppets, their strings cut by the domineering woman sitting beside her husband. The true ruler of the Grand Duchy, as well as the undisputed leader of the Wardens of the Woods, was merely breathing a little hard after snuffing the life out of thousands of monsters at once. Of course it was strenuous. She was a healer, after all. Everyone spoke of the miracles of healing she could perform. The Lady was the pride and joy of the Kingdom. Every village and town she visited would sing her praises for weeks after she left. But a healer wasn’t able to kill all those monsters. At least not ‘naturally’. If her unnatural ability could create such a scene, just how amazing is her healing? Nelia felt her cheeks tint red as she remembered witnessing such power. So caught up in her reminiscing, she forgot how terrified of monsters she was. She was ready. With the Lady watching her, she would ascend and become a true Warden! This Trial was hers to pass. All she had to do was… “Look out!”, a boy’s voice boomed in her ears.

* * * * *

Everyone was a little confused by the Initiate’s fight. At first she looked terrified. Then it appeared that she had fallen asleep standing with her eyes open. Everyone in the circle started yelling at her to pay attention, but she didn’t react at all. Lady Forrester’s eyes widened ever so slightly as the raving goblin charged at the young Initiate with its axe raised over its head. Half a step from getting to her, the Initiate looked up at her attacker, surprised by its closeness. Several of the Wardens in the circle had prepared magic to stop the blow from landing, but the Initiate fell backwards onto her butt and barely dodged the axe from cracking her head open. The goblin had swung so hard it flung the axe backwards between its legs after missing the blow and just dove forward into the Initiate, claws and fangs first. The woman put her weapons in front of the claws and tucked her knees to her chest, rolling backwards and kicking the goblin over her body. Twisting her torso sideways, she pushed herself into a kneeling position, then quickly standing with her weapons once again in front of her and trained on her foe. She flipped the parrying dagger into a reverse grip, her body tensing for a moment before relaxing.

Whatever hesitation she felt before was clearly gone now. It was decidedly one sided after the bumpy start. The goblin lunged at her once again but she ducked and spun under its claws, slicing a deep cut under the goblin’s ribcage with her sword. Her parrying dagger had stabbed directly into its outstretched tricep, cutting through without slowing. The monster, to its credit, didn’t languish in the pain. It just ignored the heavily bleeding wounds and once again lunged with only one arm out. The Initiate parried the claw with her sword, knocking the goblin’s arm backwards and shaving off two of its long nails, before stabbing it directly in the throat with her parrying dagger. She followed the goblin to the ground, mounting its chest and holding its working arm down with her sword clenching hand.

She pulled the dagger out, pushing the blade sideways out of the monster’s neck and towards her sword arm. The monster’s corpse faded away into light, floating into the air around the Initiate. The petite teenage girl let out a not so fierce roar, but it did help the intimidation factor a little that she was covered in gore that was fading into motes of light around her. After a few moments to collect herself, she stood and sheathed her now clean weapons. Turning to the Lady Forrester, she let out a beaming smile and kneeled again with her face to the ground.

“Initiate Nelia, requesting ascension to your ranks!” She yelled at the dirt and stone beneath her.

“Normally it is the Vice-Captain that performs this duty, but as I am here and I witnessed your Trial, I shall give you your evaluation. Initiate Nelia, you very nearly lost your life from your inattention. When a monster is before you, you do not have the luxury of, ahem, ‘spacing out’... Fortunately you recovered yourself. If a fellow Warden had needed to step in and shield you from harm, you would have certainly failed.” The Lady stopped her judgement at that time, waiting for the information to sink in.

The freshly minted Warden of the Woods, Nelia, couldn’t help but pump her fist with her head still facing downward, to the amusement of most of the surrounding Knights and fellow Wardens.

The Lady Forrester nudged her son in his cart, asking him softly if he wanted to say anything as the future Grand Duke. He looked at her like she was insane, but shook his head and turned to face Nelia.

“Warden Nelia, was it? Please lift your head. No, stand. Please stand.” He waited for her to comply, though she didn’t seem to want to at first.

Syron gave his winningest smile and lifted his hand into a thumbs up. “Great job!” Naturally, he felt like a complete idiot.

Way to inspire, doofus.

Even Marigold stifled a laugh, but quickly focused her face back to impassive. His mother just sighed softly and pat his shoulder consolingly as though to say “There there… you will not suck at this forever.” Only Nelia seemed to take his words seriously, perhaps given that she had in fact done a great job and today was her day to shine. It was auspicious after all.

As Merigold turned the cart to head back to the carriage, Nelia called out.

“Ah, and thank you for yelling at me to ‘Look out!’, Young Master! You really saved me; I nearly got brained!” Both Syron and the Lady stiffened at this, though the Lady had the poise to turn back and respond.

“He was quite loud, wasn’t he?” A few of the Knights and Wardens laughed at the not-a-joke, thinking that they didn’t hear him yell out personally. To be fair, there was definitely a lot of yelling going on at the time. Perhaps his voice stuck out because it was male? Though, boy’s voices before puberty weren’t exactly masculine. A few of them thought that Nelia was just trying to open a dialogue with the Young Master as a way to get ahead, given that everyone in the fort was yelling at her to get her head out of her butt and there was no way she heard any specific voice. Especially not the temporarily crippled kid sitting furthest away from the violence. Not that they blamed her… he was quite eligible and they were all women here. Once the Lady Forrester had a chance to work more of her magic, he’d be healthy and hail again in no time, they were sure of it.

Syron, his mother, and Marigold made it back to the carriage and once again carefully placed Syron inside before the Lady stopped Marigold from entering.

“Mari, I would like a few words in private with my son. Ride up front, please.” The Lady said. Marigold didn’t react in any way other than to climb aboard the front bench. The Lady stepped inside the carriage and pulled the door shut as she did. She sat down across from her son, smiling.

The trip was awkward as they rode back to Rowan Keep. Mostly because she had said she wanted a few ‘words’ with him to Marigold, but so far she had only stared at him silently smiling. He smiled back at her, not understanding what her deal was. Having enough, he finally broke the silence.

“Mother… was there something you wished to say to me?”

“I find it funny how Warden Nelia could hear you over all that noise. Truth be told, I was sitting next to you, but I could barely hear you at all. Perhaps the sound just behaves strangely in the fort.”

Okay… is she mad at me or something? What’s with the passive aggressiveness? She talking to me like I’m a cheating husband or something.

“Yeah… weird alright.” Syron responded, not sure how to engage in his mother’s mood shift.

“Is that so…” She said, her voice sounding disappointed in him somehow. “If that is the case, I suppose I have nothing further to discuss with you for now. We have arrived, so I shall be taking my leave to get some work done. If you need anything, just send a maid for me.” The carriage had stopped moving for approximately half a second before his mother stepped out, walking purposefully up the steps.

Though not as weird as that conversation…

Shrugging mentally, Syron was unloaded from the carriage and carried up the steps and back to his room. With a sigh, he continued to cycle his Magic Soul, just as he had been all morning.