Welcome to Gaia! ::

Stifling a wince and ignoring the strain on his muscles, Malikai nodded without a peep of complaint and forced himself over, lifting his blade and drawing it up before him. In the aftermath of his trip to Ayr, Laesara, too, had noted that he was in severe need of some semblance of weapon’s training. His brother, while in the area, had taken it upon himself to provide Malik with some rudimentary training, and now, Laesara joined that effort.

They were in the armory of her father’s estate. Now that he was officially her ‘squire’ — or, at least a squire in training — he answered directly to their house and spent a good portion of his days there in his efforts to serve her. Both of them had been going back and forth, ‘trading’ blows — though the gross majority of it, honestly, was her giving them to him for safe keeping — until every portion of his body felt it had something to complain about. He ignored it, and pushed on. So it went, for what felt like an eternity, but couldn’t have been that much before eventually, Laesara was forced to depart for a tutoring session. If she looked aghast, Malikai worked to convince himself that either a.) that wasn’t the case or b.) it didn’t directly have to do with him — with limited success.

Once she had departed, having left him with an open-ended suggestion that he rest, Malik worked on his own, settling himself with the blade and practicing the strokes she had taught him. Again, and again, and again. Until his arm felt ready to fall from his shoulder with the repetition. Then, he worked those taught to him by his brother. Though panting already when she departed, he left himself positively exhausted in her absence, working ‘til his limbs refused to cooperate no matter how he urged them.

At that point, he breaked. Wincing and rolling his shoulders, his attention shifted around to actually observe the room he was in, high-ceilinged and packed with a sweeping selection of weaponry, most of the origins of which he could only guess wildly at. Useless for anything else at that point, he took up a hesitant exploration of the room, examining the impressive display in more detail. Vicious axes. Bows both massive and minute of all levels of intricacy. Great staves and tiny wands, some inlaid with intense detail and precious stones, others plain as could be.

But the swords. The swords held his attention like nothing else. There were smaller blades, too — throwing knives, piercing needle-like instruments, and wicked daggers — but it was the swords in particular that kept his focus rooted. Sweeping, curved ones like those of swashbucklers and vagabonds. Long and narrow ones designed for piercing through a body like butter. Hefty ones and light ones. Silver, white, and even black blades.

In retrospect, part of him knew well — even at the time — that he oughtn’t touch. He was on shaky enough ground with Lord Baelen Wymrith as it was and needed no extra excuses for the man to dislike him. But that thought was not most prominent in his mind when his attention caught on a blade, deceptively simple: solid in the hilt, unassuming etched handle, and sturdy in the blade. He reached out without thinking, brushing his fingers over the grip of it and barely registering the ripple of energy that excited his senses in that moment. The hairs of his tired arm prickled to attention, as though suddenly keen on this interaction and alert. His fingers clasped on instinct and he swallowed, frowning with puzzlement as he drew it off of the wall and stared at it. He had taken it off the wall. Why was he taking it? It wasn’t his.

He knew this. Knew it with certainty, even, from a rational standpoint, and yet, he also felt something as he held it. A peculiar winding of energy and attachment. An enveloping sense of defensiveness, protectiveness, heroism, even. He felt in that moment — however irrationally — that the weapon was his, and his cheeks heated at the thought, immediately uncertain because it couldn’t and shouldn’t be, but at the same time, he couldn’t set it aside…

“I—I oughtn’t ‘ave touched it, ‘m sorry,” Malikai quickly blurted, tripping into an uneven babble of words. “I just saw it an’ it wouldn’ let me not touch it, an’ then somethin’ ‘appened an’ there was this feelin’ with…with energy an’ I dunno what but I didn’ mean to an’ now it—I—it…it was just on th’ wall with th’ others…”

In the end, Malikai had only to conclude that he was very lucky it was Laesara facing off against him over the issue rather than her father or any of the other nobles in the house, and when it became evident that he had not simply experienced a strange and random ‘energy’ from the blade, but imprinted to it — making him finally, officially, a warrior in the eyes of their people — she worked with him on that. He was permitted to take the blade home.

It — she — was his.

The Lady, as he would come to call her in time, was — for all her surface simplicity — the finest blade, and altogether the finest thing of any sort that Malikai had ever had the privilege of calling his own. He promised himself that one day, he would make himself worthy of fighting with her as his instrument. He would learn, and together, one day, they would be great.