The good news was, there were not, actually a thousand different individual movements. It was more a philosophical thing as Ulric learned when he inquired of Idra. The bad news was that, he was going to be oafing his way through the movements for a good while, if Idra'se's constant corrections were any indication.
They had just finished the set of essential basics when the pavilion began to fill. Someone had brought in racks of wooden weapons and warriors busied themselves stretching, hopping, and, generally, limbering up. Casual warmups included standing back flips and front aerials, apparently.
Ulric was starting to feel a little badly for Geyrt by this point. She had stood quietly for the last hour as Idra instructed, doing little other than silently judge Ulric's inability to distinguish between a foot placed at a twenty-two degree angle and a twenty-five degree angle. Her casual attitude probably belied a fierce desire to join in, he couldn't imagine she would enjoy watching others do when she could not. He wasn't able to focus on her problems though, he was having plenty of his own.
"Idra'se, I have to know: are there really one thousand steps in your Dance of a thousand steps? Because, if there are, know that I will die of age long, long before we get to that point." Ulric said, only half in jest.
The scarred cheek pulled up hideously when he smiled, although it was becoming something that blurred into the background of the elf for Ulric. Like somebody having a mole under their eye, you just stop really seeing it.
"No Glade Chief, there are not one thousand different stances to the Dance. It is a mindset, more than anything else. Two warriors, of equal skill, should be able to fight a duel and end it in a draw within the thousand steps. A warrior fighting a battle should be able to kill all his enemies in the thousand steps. A general should be able to win a war within the thousand steps. The Dance is a way of considering how to attack a problem, to find incremental advantage, even against overwhelming odds, and, efficiently, meticulously, break the enemy down to find victory. Every movement leads to victory. Perhaps not within the first dozen movements, perhaps not in eight hundred. But by the thousandth you will have assured total defeat of your enemy. The greater the difference in skill between the opponents, the fewer steps are needed, normally." Idra explained.
His brief smile faded into utter seriousness.
"Practically speaking, you should keep in mind that what you do now, learning to place your feet just so, turning your shoulders with your hips as I have done you, all of this is the first step in your own Dance to mastery of yourself. Some grow impatient, they neglect the fundamentals in favor of other things. They waste their time, and, eventually, their lives. It is a thing of sadness to see a young warrior with talent fall to a blade they could have evaded had they only placed their feet correctly. I do not like being sad, and so I train the ones under my watch as I would my own children. But I will not suffer them to fall because they don't have the patience to learn properly. Better to let them go their own way, to eventually learn the right of things, or to die, before they do." The veteran continued with no small sadness in his voice and giving Geyrt a pointed look.
Ah he would wouldn't he. She was counted among the dead now, until her time as a Shadow was at an end. She knew that the message was intended for her as well as she couldn't meet her former mentor's eyes. Her loss was almost entirely due to her having thrown aside her training in a hate fueled fury. Idra himself took it as a personal failing, if his demeanor was any indication.
How many comrades had he lost? Ulric wondered. Probably more than a few. Certainly enough, by the look on his stony face. It was a stark reminder of the stakes. Ulric had lived for months the life of a primitive, a hunter in the glade. It was a harsh life and mistakes were punished on Varda. Always punished. Here, in the midst of the hospitality of these fine folk, he had nearly forgotten why it was he needed to learn these things. To survive. To live. To not die, even when he probably should. Ulric was here to reforge himself into a being that could determine his own destiny. And that started with learning how to place his goddamn feet.
Seeing that his message was made clear Idra set Ulric to practice what he had learned. With a brief instruction to Geyrt to "see he does not trip in front of the others" he set off to roam the pavilion and set his fellow guards to betterment.
Geyrt, finally given free rein to pursue her true purpose in life, making Ulric miserable, began to criticize and correct Ulric's positioning as he worked through the basics. She would demonstrate a movement and assign Ulric to repeat it. Then she would dissect him like a major league pitching coach, pushing a hip here, tugging a shoulder there, knee back, no too far, there, and so on. It went on for a long hour, at the end of which Ulric actually felt significant depletion of his will to live. At last, though, it came to an end.
"You are done for the day Ulric Glade Chief." decreed his Shadow.
"Your movements grow worse, not better. This is a normal thing, especially in the first few months. You need to stretch and move your body and to give your mind time to soak in what you have gained from this experience." She said with certainty.
Music to his ears. His legs weren't tired, per se, but he definitely felt the need to do something that wasn't anything related to what he'd been doing the past two or so hours. He actually kind of wanted to run. It was no small amount of pleasure he had enjoyed with Brighteyes in their races through the glade and the surrounding ancient grove. Those mad scrambles through the woods felt like they'd happened a year ago.
"Agreed, and thank you for your help Geyrt." Ulric told her.
The woman's ears twitched, for some reason. It was hard to tell with her. In any case he was prevented from further consideration because Idra had noticed the cessation of their training. He had his command arrayed fully in front of him in a grid, each warrior standing about two meters from the nearest neighbor. In a voice that carried without shouting he declared to the pavilion
"Iriel'en, we have a guest for the day, as you no doubt have noticed. The man who returned us our Heir Lumyt'seit has joined us for training and been diligent in his practice. Before he leaves us to attend other duties, let us show him the fruits that await further down his path. SET."
At the command, the entire pavilion entered Undan ready simultaneously. Even graceful as they were, the sound of fifty feet gently hitting the wood simultaneously was heard as a deep "Thump".
"AUTUMN'S HARVEST" the scarred warrior called and the Elves flowed through a shifting series of movements, some of them familiar others distinctly not. Half steps, staccatos, lunges so deep their chests lay flat on the ground, sudden jumps, twists, jukes, they moved seamlessly from one to the next. They did it in perfect unison. So perfect each step sounded a drum beat on the pavilion. Now Ulric could see why it was called a dance. Grace incarnate, gentleness born of control, the weaving movements still suggested a hidden violence. Hands spun remembered weapons, a lunging step was accompanied by cuts, thrusts, parries, and guards or any number of techniques according to the individual. The eclectic combat dance was myriad in its variety, each elf seemingly wielding a weapon of their own, but, all the while, their feet, their bodies, reflected complete harmony.
Ulric would remember for all time that timeless demonstration of kinetic artistry, accompanied by the drumming music of its own practice. They came to rest suddenly, returned to the Undan ready as if they had never started. Ulric stood in awe.
"EASE. Go to your practice, comrades, I am well satisfied." Spoke the man who sought perfection in all things martial.
The group broke up into individual activities. Ulric saw none of it, the memory of their majestic display still locked into his mind. Otherworldly. Alien. Inhuman. This was a thing not of mankind, this level of dexterous agility, timing, and refinement. It was beyond the life of a mere human to cultivate that level of coordination. The experience drove home the reality of the Elves. They weren't pointy eared, pretty humans. They were completely different. Not a different race, a different species. You might as well compare a blue jay to a peregrine falcon.
He was broken from his trance by Geyrt's call of his name. Not the first call either by his Shadow's frown. She wasn't angry though. Hard to be upset with someone who was absolutely enthralled by the artistry of your people. Tossing her braid back over her shoulder she repeated herself.
"Ulric Glade Chief, we should go now. It would be well to stretch, to take food, and to bathe before the evening lesson. The Mothers will be unpleased if they must wait and it would be rude to appear before them soiled from the day's exertions."
Shaking himself slightly to break the spell Ulric allowed himself to be led away after gathering up his armor. He gave a waving goodbye to Idra'se who acknowledged his wave with a gesture before turning back to correct a wayward thrust, whose guard was opened a centimeter higher than it should have been.
Away from the pavilion where the royal guard drilled, Ulric decided he would have that run after all, but first, he reequipped his Armor. Taking off at a trot he began to retrace their steps through the gusty storm boding citadel. Still there was a strange absence of people in the streets. The place had fairly well bustled the previous day but none of that was to be found today. Probably something to do with the weather, maybe related to the festival that Brighteyes had spoken of with such anticipation. Either way, it left the causeways open for Ulric to expand his stride into a full run, trusting that his Shadow would have no trouble keeping up. The stiffness of the stances fell away, replaced by a pleasing burn of exertion. Three minutes run saw him to the stairs, where he waited only briefly to be joined by Geyrt, who was unphased by the activity, maybe even relieved to get a little exercise.
The two of them descended sedately to the tenth level where their apartments were located. At the bottom of the stair Ulric took off again, this time at his fastest sprint, determined to work out the kinks in his legs. Wind gusts pushed, prodded, shoved at his body forcing him to adjust his balance on the fly. It felt good, his body had that light, airy excitation of a hard run and he found himself in front of the apartments granted as part of the Elves' hospitality all too soon. Breathing deep controlled breaths he slowed his heart intentionally while he awaited Geyrt. It wasn't a long wait, five, maybe ten seconds at most.
Around the corner she came, eyeballing him. Deep breathes did wonders for her chest, even hidden as it was under her Hunter's gear. Ulric broke his gaze before it could be more than a casual glance and opened the door, gesturing "after you" to the apartment's interior. He thought she might decline, just for the sake of being contrary, but she entered without hesitation. Ulric followed and closed the door before going to the fruit jug, which had been refilled with water at some point. The citadel staff were efficient ghosts, he saw them only rarely but they kept a tight grip on the status of the place, a homeostatic engine that froze the entire structure into ordered comfort.
After pouring both wooden mugs he offered one to his Shadow and they both drank deeply. It had been a rigorous couple of hours. Ulric was surprised at how much he'd enjoyed it. He'd never been much of a health nut, back in the Before. His crippling had taken nearly all physical exertion from him in his thirties, and with it, his backpacking and hunting hobbies. He nearly craved activity now.
"My father was right, you are not a Human. How did you make the All-Knowledge lie?" Geyrt said suddenly, an accusing tone on her tongue.
Ulric was a little caught off guard. Wasn't every day you get charged for cheating the universe. As usual, the only response he could muster for this ever-sober woman was sincerity mixed with humor at her expense.
"You scanned me, remember? It's not my fault you didn't read the fine print on my status. There is clearly an asterisk there, what more did you want the Watcher to do, scream down from the heavens that I'm a freak?" Ulric teased.
"That’s…how was anyone supposed to know what that meant? I have never seen this symbol in a status. And you have strange traits. How are you running faster than a scalded [Bolt Deer] after two hours of stance work?" She sputtered.
"The world is wide, dear Taipan, and your lovely forest is but a sliver of it. Don't blame me if your experience is too shallow to see the top of my glory." He grinned as he said mimicking Idra's somber advising.
"Don't call me Taipan, I am no serpent. Bad enough I must be a nameless Shadow in public. At least in private I would wear my own name." Geyrt groused.
"And who are you to know my experience? I have lived one hundred thirty-five years, where you are barely not even an adult in the reckoning of my people." She continued becoming increasingly irritated
"Not to offend Geyrt, but exactly how much of this world have you seen? What is the farthest journey you've taken from your deep wood home?" Ulric asked, genuinely curious, but also diffusing.
The question seemed to take her aback, she wasn't ready to be challenged on this front. Even so, she had no doubt that this human of such tender years had nothing close to her breadth of experience. With pride she exclaimed
"I have journeyed all the way to the great inland sea Vatyn, to the territories of all the Orlethrem, and to the southern sea."
Ulric didn't have much geographical sense, he'd never even laid eyes on a map, so Geyrt's claim was neither impressive nor insignificant. Following up here would not only give him a chance to drop his Shadow down a peg in the Great Elven Arrogance department but also would enlighten him to the scale of the world and its features.
"Exactly how far are these places, my Shadow? You must remember I have only spent my time on this plane for a scant half year, my paltry forty years were spent living on a different world." Ulric reminded gently, while squeezing in his question.
Frowning, since his ignorance had prevented him from being properly cowed by the breadth of her travel she was quick to reply.
"Vatyn is over a hundred leagues to the North, following the Zelus. The southern sea is eighty leagues South. I have been to all of the Elfhomes of Orlethrem worth noting in all the lands between." She boasted smugly.
"Oh? Only so far in an entire century?" Ulric asked, not entirely surprised.
She had never left the shores of her own lands. Had probably never spent any extended time outside of the lands dominated by her own Elven kin. In other words, it was as the old days on his home world where people only rarely traveled outside the lands of their birth. In comparison to the other peoples of this land, she was no doubt a globetrotter. It hammered home the vastness in difference between their lives.
"On my home world I have traveled around the entire globe, all forty thousand kilometers of it, many thousands of your leagues, from flying transport vehicles in the skies. Twice. I have visited all of its continents but the one that lies half frozen year round at the southern pole. Through observation devices I have witnessed the creatures that swim the bottoms of the oceans of my world, the fires of the far stars, the storms and volcanos of the worlds that circle with my own around its star, and all the great monuments that have been built in the entire seven thousand years in which my species have been advanced enough to keep written records. And, speaking of advancement, your people live as mine did about two thousand years before my own birth, a time we refer to as the Dark ages. Most of the things your kin do by hand we long ago created machines and devices to do for us at a hundred times the speed and precision of a mortal human.” Ulric said calmly, remembering the marvels of his old life, and their cost to the world.
He briefly looked around himself, at this room with its subtle, elegant, simplicity. Its comfort wrought of meticulous care, magic, and craft.
“Most of my kind would think that your people live in savagery. They would be wrong, your people live in a oneness with the land that they have long since carved out of their own souls. But they would think this life one of barbaric primitiveness none the less." Ulric told her, without rancor.
Ulric watched as his Shadow went from skepticism to outright disbelief to open anger.
"Why would you lie to me like this? What you say is impossible. Flying transports? Seeing the outer worlds? Traveling tens of thousands of kilometers, you could not live long enough to do such things, even if I did believe you. And no human peoples have created anything like what you describe." She said, incredulous.
Ulric sighed. He should have known. Absent magic to just will things to happen, his species had been forced to grind progress out of the dirt. To suffer in misery until they had conquered the planet with mastery of knowledge that had never been necessary on this world. Why bother with learning anatomy when you could just heal disease with the wave of a hand? What need for the engine when you could move things with your own will? This Elven girl, so closeted in her experience, had no way to even conceive the things he described. He briefly considered, was there anything he could do to convince her? Probably not. That rankled though. He was not a liar and he wasn't inclined to have this woman accuse him of such.
"First of all, we didn't walk to get anywhere. We operated personal transport devices that easily traveled a hundred kilometers an hour, carts driven by engines. Chains of massive carts, dozens of meters in length along metal tracks. It was nothing to make a trip of hundreds of kilometers. Planes, air transports, made that ocean trip in about eight hours, the global tour in a day. Some people did it for a career, circled the planet thousands of times on business trips between continents." He paused, to let that sink in for a moment.
Geyrt's face showed her consternation, her trouble grasping the scales of which he spoke, her disbelief warring with the pure sincerity of his voice.
"Secondly, what makes you think I'd waste my time lying to you? I understand that you have a high opinion of your kin, they're great, but do not think that just because you are ignorant that you are also correct. I have already demonstrated this reality to you with my use of Ceraun. This and a thousand other things your people have no knowledge of are considered commonplace on my home world. I haven't even mentioned computers and the miracles of organic synthesizers." Ulric replied, temper tightly reigned in.
That caught her up. Geyrt had indeed witnessed a use of magic that was supposed to be impossible. Was supposed to be lethal to even attempt. No mage held Ceraun inside their bodies, it would burn them out in its wildness. There was also the fact that Ulric had, not a single time, said any word that was not true. He exaggerated some things, mostly in his poor attempts at humor, but he had never outright said a thing that was dishonest. In fact, he was almost too sincere and made himself easy to read. A weakness that an enemy would use against him. Anger, Hatred, and Pride had already cost her defeat against a lesser opponent, had cost her an honored place amongst her own people; how many times would she ignore her parent's and Idra'se's lessons? Why did this not so human so easily drive her to loss of control?
Geyrt wrestled her disbelieving hostility under control. Her father had scolded her often for allowing her peace to be too easily disturbed, to be quickest to anger and slowest to calm. He had told her that her rage would be a rein that turned her to make the mistakes that he had already suffered in his own youth. Bald'rt Iriel had once been a towering thunderhead, eager to release the lightnings of wrath. At some point he had mastered his emotions. Some said it was the death of his son that did it, that loss having been a catalyst to discover mastery over himself. After he'd burned out his rage in a massacre that left most of Prosper's citizens in ruin, something which he whispered, in his private moments, that he deeply regretted.
After a promise to herself not to fall prey to the same regrets and she now found herself penalized by those same mistakes anyway. To make matters worse, her favored brother had reason for grievance against her and had not spoken to her since their arrival in Irielhos. Loss of status was a stinging blow, but only a minor one, her heart was for the deep woods, the wilds. Geyrt cared little for the trappings of high society, and less than a little for the games of the Houses that accompanied them. What truly pained her was that she'd lost the respect of her little Flashing Gaze.
Ulric watched his Shadow's expression flicker between emotions rapidly while she calmed. He wouldn't have thought someone so old would be so volatile. He'd been an irritable prick in his own youth but had mellowed substantially as he'd aged. Now he was just a prick, minus most of the irritability. Soon enough she managed to get herself under control and her expression returned to its unreadable scrutiny. Once again Ulric considered finding some way cut her loose and send her on her way; his life would be far simpler if he didn't have to worry about brushing against this cactus woman at every turn.
Then again, weren't they getting along a little better? Maybe? Meh. Whatever. Ulric was a slow burn, it might be months before he was truly comfortable. In the meantime it would be enough if he could carve out an established mutual respect. Briefly, he pondered if he might try to build that steam engine after all. If he made a Sterling engine that could power a set of room lights, or drive a lathe or something, perhaps she'd believe him about the rest. The trick would be precision fittings and tolerances. Also metal. Elves didn’t seem to use very much of it, that he had seen. Ulric moved on from those thoughts however and placed his cup back on the table.
"What suddenly brought this on, if you do not mind me asking?" Ulric inquired.
Geyrt said nothing for a few moments, studying him silently. Just about the time he got really uncomfortable, she decided to simply blurt out
"You're almost faster than me. A bare handful of my kin can pace me, and you, a supposed human, can leave me behind, at times. No human is faster than an elf Hunter, not even their strongest warriors can outpace ours."
Shaking her head slowly she continued her disbelieving soft rant
"I knew something was wrong with you when you did not die of the [Striped Bark Snake] poison. That arrow was freshly coated, your heart should have stopped within minutes. Even with the antidote you should have been on your back for days with that kind of poisoning. Your core is deceitful as well. It has the status of a core newly woken to channeling mana, but also has traits of a fully mature core, as if it had been trained as a mage for years. You have not even awoken to a resonance yet. It was a fool's errand to try to kill a reforged." Geyrt lamented, entirely serious and unselfconscious about her failure to murder him.
In the same aggrieved tone she continued to bemoan her fate, "I will lay odds that you live much longer than a regular human, if you do not kill yourself in ignorance first, and my punishment will last forever."
Ulric couldn't help the grin that came to his face. The woman who attempted to assassinate him from the trees with poisoned arrows was complaining about fairness? Now that was rich. Time to rub it in a little.
"I will see to it that we both live to regret your mistakes for a very long time." He told her in mock solemnity.
The good news was, there were not, actually a thousand different individual movements. It was more a philosophical thing as Ulric learned when he inquired of Idra. The bad news was that, he was going to be oafing his way through the movements for a good while, if Idra'se's constant corrections were any indication.
They had just finished the set of essential basics when the pavilion began to fill. Someone had brought in racks of wooden weapons and warriors busied themselves stretching, hopping, and, generally, limbering up. Casual warmups included standing back flips and front aerials, apparently.
Ulric was starting to feel a little badly for Geyrt by this point. She had stood quietly for the last hour as Idra instructed, doing little other than silently judge Ulric's inability to distinguish between a foot placed at a twenty-two degree angle and a twenty-five degree angle. Her casual attitude probably belied a fierce desire to join in, he couldn't imagine she would enjoy watching others do when she could not. He wasn't able to focus on her problems though, he was having plenty of his own.
"Idra'se, I have to know: are there really one thousand steps in your Dance of a thousand steps? Because, if there are, know that I will die of age long, long before we get to that point." Ulric said, only half in jest.
The scarred cheek pulled up hideously when he smiled, although it was becoming something that blurred into the background of the elf for Ulric. Like somebody having a mole under their eye, you just stop really seeing it.
"No Glade Chief, there are not one thousand different stances to the Dance. It is a mindset, more than anything else. Two warriors, of equal skill, should be able to fight a duel and end it in a draw within the thousand steps. A warrior fighting a battle should be able to kill all his enemies in the thousand steps. A general should be able to win a war within the thousand steps. The Dance is a way of considering how to attack a problem, to find incremental advantage, even against overwhelming odds, and, efficiently, meticulously, break the enemy down to find victory. Every movement leads to victory. Perhaps not within the first dozen movements, perhaps not in eight hundred. But by the thousandth you will have assured total defeat of your enemy. The greater the difference in skill between the opponents, the fewer steps are needed, normally." Idra explained.
His brief smile faded into utter seriousness.
"Practically speaking, you should keep in mind that what you do now, learning to place your feet just so, turning your shoulders with your hips as I have done you, all of this is the first step in your own Dance to mastery of yourself. Some grow impatient, they neglect the fundamentals in favor of other things. They waste their time, and, eventually, their lives. It is a thing of sadness to see a young warrior with talent fall to a blade they could have evaded had they only placed their feet correctly. I do not like being sad, and so I train the ones under my watch as I would my own children. But I will not suffer them to fall because they don't have the patience to learn properly. Better to let them go their own way, to eventually learn the right of things, or to die, before they do." The veteran continued with no small sadness in his voice and giving Geyrt a pointed look.
Ah he would wouldn't he. She was counted among the dead now, until her time as a Shadow was at an end. She knew that the message was intended for her as well as she couldn't meet her former mentor's eyes. Her loss was almost entirely due to her having thrown aside her training in a hate fueled fury. Idra himself took it as a personal failing, if his demeanor was any indication.
How many comrades had he lost? Ulric wondered. Probably more than a few. Certainly enough, by the look on his stony face. It was a stark reminder of the stakes. Ulric had lived for months the life of a primitive, a hunter in the glade. It was a harsh life and mistakes were punished on Varda. Always punished. Here, in the midst of the hospitality of these fine folk, he had nearly forgotten why it was he needed to learn these things. To survive. To live. To not die, even when he probably should. Ulric was here to reforge himself into a being that could determine his own destiny. And that started with learning how to place his goddamn feet.
Seeing that his message was made clear Idra set Ulric to practice what he had learned. With a brief instruction to Geyrt to "see he does not trip in front of the others" he set off to roam the pavilion and set his fellow guards to betterment.
Geyrt, finally given free rein to pursue her true purpose in life, making Ulric miserable, began to criticize and correct Ulric's positioning as he worked through the basics. She would demonstrate a movement and assign Ulric to repeat it. Then she would dissect him like a major league pitching coach, pushing a hip here, tugging a shoulder there, knee back, no too far, there, and so on. It went on for a long hour, at the end of which Ulric actually felt significant depletion of his will to live. At last, though, it came to an end.
"You are done for the day Ulric Glade Chief." decreed his Shadow.
"Your movements grow worse, not better. This is a normal thing, especially in the first few months. You need to stretch and move your body and to give your mind time to soak in what you have gained from this experience." She said with certainty.
Music to his ears. His legs weren't tired, per se, but he definitely felt the need to do something that wasn't anything related to what he'd been doing the past two or so hours. He actually kind of wanted to run. It was no small amount of pleasure he had enjoyed with Brighteyes in their races through the glade and the surrounding ancient grove. Those mad scrambles through the woods felt like they'd happened a year ago.
"Agreed, and thank you for your help Geyrt." Ulric told her.
The woman's ears twitched, for some reason. It was hard to tell with her. In any case he was prevented from further consideration because Idra had noticed the cessation of their training. He had his command arrayed fully in front of him in a grid, each warrior standing about two meters from the nearest neighbor. In a voice that carried without shouting he declared to the pavilion
"Iriel'en, we have a guest for the day, as you no doubt have noticed. The man who returned us our Heir Lumyt'seit has joined us for training and been diligent in his practice. Before he leaves us to attend other duties, let us show him the fruits that await further down his path. SET."
At the command, the entire pavilion entered Undan ready simultaneously. Even graceful as they were, the sound of fifty feet gently hitting the wood simultaneously was heard as a deep "Thump".
"AUTUMN'S HARVEST" the scarred warrior called and the Elves flowed through a shifting series of movements, some of them familiar others distinctly not. Half steps, staccatos, lunges so deep their chests lay flat on the ground, sudden jumps, twists, jukes, they moved seamlessly from one to the next. They did it in perfect unison. So perfect each step sounded a drum beat on the pavilion. Now Ulric could see why it was called a dance. Grace incarnate, gentleness born of control, the weaving movements still suggested a hidden violence. Hands spun remembered weapons, a lunging step was accompanied by cuts, thrusts, parries, and guards or any number of techniques according to the individual. The eclectic combat dance was myriad in its variety, each elf seemingly wielding a weapon of their own, but, all the while, their feet, their bodies, reflected complete harmony.
Ulric would remember for all time that timeless demonstration of kinetic artistry, accompanied by the drumming music of its own practice. They came to rest suddenly, returned to the Undan ready as if they had never started. Ulric stood in awe.
"EASE. Go to your practice, comrades, I am well satisfied." Spoke the man who sought perfection in all things martial.
The group broke up into individual activities. Ulric saw none of it, the memory of their majestic display still locked into his mind. Otherworldly. Alien. Inhuman. This was a thing not of mankind, this level of dexterous agility, timing, and refinement. It was beyond the life of a mere human to cultivate that level of coordination. The experience drove home the reality of the Elves. They weren't pointy eared, pretty humans. They were completely different. Not a different race, a different species. You might as well compare a blue jay to a peregrine falcon.
He was broken from his trance by Geyrt's call of his name. Not the first call either by his Shadow's frown. She wasn't angry though. Hard to be upset with someone who was absolutely enthralled by the artistry of your people. Tossing her braid back over her shoulder she repeated herself.
"Ulric Glade Chief, we should go now. It would be well to stretch, to take food, and to bathe before the evening lesson. The Mothers will be unpleased if they must wait and it would be rude to appear before them soiled from the day's exertions."
Shaking himself slightly to break the spell Ulric allowed himself to be led away after gathering up his armor. He gave a waving goodbye to Idra'se who acknowledged his wave with a gesture before turning back to correct a wayward thrust, whose guard was opened a centimeter higher than it should have been.
Away from the pavilion where the royal guard drilled, Ulric decided he would have that run after all, but first, he reequipped his Armor. Taking off at a trot he began to retrace their steps through the gusty storm boding citadel. Still there was a strange absence of people in the streets. The place had fairly well bustled the previous day but none of that was to be found today. Probably something to do with the weather, maybe related to the festival that Brighteyes had spoken of with such anticipation. Either way, it left the causeways open for Ulric to expand his stride into a full run, trusting that his Shadow would have no trouble keeping up. The stiffness of the stances fell away, replaced by a pleasing burn of exertion. Three minutes run saw him to the stairs, where he waited only briefly to be joined by Geyrt, who was unphased by the activity, maybe even relieved to get a little exercise.
The two of them descended sedately to the tenth level where their apartments were located. At the bottom of the stair Ulric took off again, this time at his fastest sprint, determined to work out the kinks in his legs. Wind gusts pushed, prodded, shoved at his body forcing him to adjust his balance on the fly. It felt good, his body had that light, airy excitation of a hard run and he found himself in front of the apartments granted as part of the Elves' hospitality all too soon. Breathing deep controlled breaths he slowed his heart intentionally while he awaited Geyrt. It wasn't a long wait, five, maybe ten seconds at most.
Around the corner she came, eyeballing him. Deep breathes did wonders for her chest, even hidden as it was under her Hunter's gear. Ulric broke his gaze before it could be more than a casual glance and opened the door, gesturing "after you" to the apartment's interior. He thought she might decline, just for the sake of being contrary, but she entered without hesitation. Ulric followed and closed the door before going to the fruit jug, which had been refilled with water at some point. The citadel staff were efficient ghosts, he saw them only rarely but they kept a tight grip on the status of the place, a homeostatic engine that froze the entire structure into ordered comfort.
After pouring both wooden mugs he offered one to his Shadow and they both drank deeply. It had been a rigorous couple of hours. Ulric was surprised at how much he'd enjoyed it. He'd never been much of a health nut, back in the Before. His crippling had taken nearly all physical exertion from him in his thirties, and with it, his backpacking and hunting hobbies. He nearly craved activity now.
"My father was right, you are not a Human. How did you make the All-Knowledge lie?" Geyrt said suddenly, an accusing tone on her tongue.
Ulric was a little caught off guard. Wasn't every day you get charged for cheating the universe. As usual, the only response he could muster for this ever-sober woman was sincerity mixed with humor at her expense.
"You scanned me, remember? It's not my fault you didn't read the fine print on my status. There is clearly an asterisk there, what more did you want the Watcher to do, scream down from the heavens that I'm a freak?" Ulric teased.
"That’s…how was anyone supposed to know what that meant? I have never seen this symbol in a status. And you have strange traits. How are you running faster than a scalded [Bolt Deer] after two hours of stance work?" She sputtered.
"The world is wide, dear Taipan, and your lovely forest is but a sliver of it. Don't blame me if your experience is too shallow to see the top of my glory." He grinned as he said mimicking Idra's somber advising.
"Don't call me Taipan, I am no serpent. Bad enough I must be a nameless Shadow in public. At least in private I would wear my own name." Geyrt groused.
"And who are you to know my experience? I have lived one hundred thirty-five years, where you are barely not even an adult in the reckoning of my people." She continued becoming increasingly irritated
"Not to offend Geyrt, but exactly how much of this world have you seen? What is the farthest journey you've taken from your deep wood home?" Ulric asked, genuinely curious, but also diffusing.
The question seemed to take her aback, she wasn't ready to be challenged on this front. Even so, she had no doubt that this human of such tender years had nothing close to her breadth of experience. With pride she exclaimed
"I have journeyed all the way to the great inland sea Vatyn, to the territories of all the Orlethrem, and to the southern sea."
Ulric didn't have much geographical sense, he'd never even laid eyes on a map, so Geyrt's claim was neither impressive nor insignificant. Following up here would not only give him a chance to drop his Shadow down a peg in the Great Elven Arrogance department but also would enlighten him to the scale of the world and its features.
"Exactly how far are these places, my Shadow? You must remember I have only spent my time on this plane for a scant half year, my paltry forty years were spent living on a different world." Ulric reminded gently, while squeezing in his question.
Frowning, since his ignorance had prevented him from being properly cowed by the breadth of her travel she was quick to reply.
"Vatyn is over a hundred leagues to the North, following the Zelus. The southern sea is eighty leagues South. I have been to all of the Elfhomes of Orlethrem worth noting in all the lands between." She boasted smugly.
"Oh? Only so far in an entire century?" Ulric asked, not entirely surprised.
She had never left the shores of her own lands. Had probably never spent any extended time outside of the lands dominated by her own Elven kin. In other words, it was as the old days on his home world where people only rarely traveled outside the lands of their birth. In comparison to the other peoples of this land, she was no doubt a globetrotter. It hammered home the vastness in difference between their lives.
"On my home world I have traveled around the entire globe, all forty thousand kilometers of it, many thousands of your leagues, from flying transport vehicles in the skies. Twice. I have visited all of its continents but the one that lies half frozen year round at the southern pole. Through observation devices I have witnessed the creatures that swim the bottoms of the oceans of my world, the fires of the far stars, the storms and volcanos of the worlds that circle with my own around its star, and all the great monuments that have been built in the entire seven thousand years in which my species have been advanced enough to keep written records. And, speaking of advancement, your people live as mine did about two thousand years before my own birth, a time we refer to as the Dark ages. Most of the things your kin do by hand we long ago created machines and devices to do for us at a hundred times the speed and precision of a mortal human.” Ulric said calmly, remembering the marvels of his old life, and their cost to the world.
He briefly looked around himself, at this room with its subtle, elegant, simplicity. Its comfort wrought of meticulous care, magic, and craft.
“Most of my kind would think that your people live in savagery. They would be wrong, your people live in a oneness with the land that they have long since carved out of their own souls. But they would think this life one of barbaric primitiveness none the less." Ulric told her, without rancor.
Ulric watched as his Shadow went from skepticism to outright disbelief to open anger.
"Why would you lie to me like this? What you say is impossible. Flying transports? Seeing the outer worlds? Traveling tens of thousands of kilometers, you could not live long enough to do such things, even if I did believe you. And no human peoples have created anything like what you describe." She said, incredulous.
Ulric sighed. He should have known. Absent magic to just will things to happen, his species had been forced to grind progress out of the dirt. To suffer in misery until they had conquered the planet with mastery of knowledge that had never been necessary on this world. Why bother with learning anatomy when you could just heal disease with the wave of a hand? What need for the engine when you could move things with your own will? This Elven girl, so closeted in her experience, had no way to even conceive the things he described. He briefly considered, was there anything he could do to convince her? Probably not. That rankled though. He was not a liar and he wasn't inclined to have this woman accuse him of such.
"First of all, we didn't walk to get anywhere. We operated personal transport devices that easily traveled a hundred kilometers an hour, carts driven by engines. Chains of massive carts, dozens of meters in length along metal tracks. It was nothing to make a trip of hundreds of kilometers. Planes, air transports, made that ocean trip in about eight hours, the global tour in a day. Some people did it for a career, circled the planet thousands of times on business trips between continents." He paused, to let that sink in for a moment.
Geyrt's face showed her consternation, her trouble grasping the scales of which he spoke, her disbelief warring with the pure sincerity of his voice.
"Secondly, what makes you think I'd waste my time lying to you? I understand that you have a high opinion of your kin, they're great, but do not think that just because you are ignorant that you are also correct. I have already demonstrated this reality to you with my use of Ceraun. This and a thousand other things your people have no knowledge of are considered commonplace on my home world. I haven't even mentioned computers and the miracles of organic synthesizers." Ulric replied, temper tightly reigned in.
That caught her up. Geyrt had indeed witnessed a use of magic that was supposed to be impossible. Was supposed to be lethal to even attempt. No mage held Ceraun inside their bodies, it would burn them out in its wildness. There was also the fact that Ulric had, not a single time, said any word that was not true. He exaggerated some things, mostly in his poor attempts at humor, but he had never outright said a thing that was dishonest. In fact, he was almost too sincere and made himself easy to read. A weakness that an enemy would use against him. Anger, Hatred, and Pride had already cost her defeat against a lesser opponent, had cost her an honored place amongst her own people; how many times would she ignore her parent's and Idra'se's lessons? Why did this not so human so easily drive her to loss of control?
Geyrt wrestled her disbelieving hostility under control. Her father had scolded her often for allowing her peace to be too easily disturbed, to be quickest to anger and slowest to calm. He had told her that her rage would be a rein that turned her to make the mistakes that he had already suffered in his own youth. Bald'rt Iriel had once been a towering thunderhead, eager to release the lightnings of wrath. At some point he had mastered his emotions. Some said it was the death of his son that did it, that loss having been a catalyst to discover mastery over himself. After he'd burned out his rage in a massacre that left most of Prosper's citizens in ruin, something which he whispered, in his private moments, that he deeply regretted.
After a promise to herself not to fall prey to the same regrets and she now found herself penalized by those same mistakes anyway. To make matters worse, her favored brother had reason for grievance against her and had not spoken to her since their arrival in Irielhos. Loss of status was a stinging blow, but only a minor one, her heart was for the deep woods, the wilds. Geyrt cared little for the trappings of high society, and less than a little for the games of the Houses that accompanied them. What truly pained her was that she'd lost the respect of her little Flashing Gaze.
Ulric watched his Shadow's expression flicker between emotions rapidly while she calmed. He wouldn't have thought someone so old would be so volatile. He'd been an irritable prick in his own youth but had mellowed substantially as he'd aged. Now he was just a prick, minus most of the irritability. Soon enough she managed to get herself under control and her expression returned to its unreadable scrutiny. Once again Ulric considered finding some way cut her loose and send her on her way; his life would be far simpler if he didn't have to worry about brushing against this cactus woman at every turn.
Then again, weren't they getting along a little better? Maybe? Meh. Whatever. Ulric was a slow burn, it might be months before he was truly comfortable. In the meantime it would be enough if he could carve out an established mutual respect. Briefly, he pondered if he might try to build that steam engine after all. If he made a Sterling engine that could power a set of room lights, or drive a lathe or something, perhaps she'd believe him about the rest. The trick would be precision fittings and tolerances. Also metal. Elves didn’t seem to use very much of it, that he had seen. Ulric moved on from those thoughts however and placed his cup back on the table.
"What suddenly brought this on, if you do not mind me asking?" Ulric inquired.
Geyrt said nothing for a few moments, studying him silently. Just about the time he got really uncomfortable, she decided to simply blurt out
"You're almost faster than me. A bare handful of my kin can pace me, and you, a supposed human, can leave me behind, at times. No human is faster than an elf Hunter, not even their strongest warriors can outpace ours."
Shaking her head slowly she continued her disbelieving soft rant
"I knew something was wrong with you when you did not die of the [Striped Bark Snake] poison. That arrow was freshly coated, your heart should have stopped within minutes. Even with the antidote you should have been on your back for days with that kind of poisoning. Your core is deceitful as well. It has the status of a core newly woken to channeling mana, but also has traits of a fully mature core, as if it had been trained as a mage for years. You have not even awoken to a resonance yet. It was a fool's errand to try to kill a reforged." Geyrt lamented, entirely serious and unselfconscious about her failure to murder him.
In the same aggrieved tone she continued to bemoan her fate, "I will lay odds that you live much longer than a regular human, if you do not kill yourself in ignorance first, and my punishment will last forever."
Ulric couldn't help the grin that came to his face. The woman who attempted to assassinate him from the trees with poisoned arrows was complaining about fairness? Now that was rich. Time to rub it in a little.
"I will see to it that we both live to regret your mistakes for a very long time." He told her in mock solemnity.
