Chapter Text
"How's the kid doing?" A guard shouts as Ioreth and her father pass, his voice loud and spun into a careless slur by wine.
Ioreth can't help but turn and look at him, study his features. He's ugly, she decides. Less from his actual features and more from the expression his thoughts and words have carved his face into. He notices her looking and sneers down at her.
"Bit of a runt, aye?" The man continues.
Ioreth frowns at him, and opens her mouth to snap back at him. She's strong, even at her age. She can make this ugly smelly man swallow his words. She knows she can. But her father clamps his hand down on her shoulder hard, grips it tighter than any blade he has ever lifted, steers her away.
"Enough, Galan." Her father growls over his shoulder. But he does nothing else. Just walks away, his hand weighing her shoulder down.
"Why didn't you fight him?" She asks later.
Her father just looks at her, disappointment clear in his eyes.
She shifts uncomfortably under his gaze, but doesn't back down, and finally he speaks.
"This is the Citadel, Ioreth. I am Guard-Captain. This is no place for wars. I hope I never serve in one, and I most certainly do not start them." But there's some other message woven amongst his words, writ in tone and emotion, but she can't quite decipher it.
"Oh." She says.
She just about moves into the barracks with her father, skips her classes in order to join the other guards in drills, and he doesn't say a word. She can't bring herself to care anymore.
Some of the guards are like Galan, sneering at her, laughing if she drops her sword or stumbles, but most get bored once it becomes clear that nothing they've done has dissuaded her in the slightest.
Others are nicer, fetching a wooden sword for her to practice with, softly correctly her stance when they walk past. Her father barely looks at her when he passes, and bit by bit, Ioreth starts practicing less for him, and more for the guards who have helped her, like Reilan, a man almost too old to still be serving, but who always has a kind word for her, and a hundred stories about the grandson he says she reminds him of.
Reilan promises to buy her an actual sword if she keeps practicing, and so she holds her wooden blade that much tighter, swings it even harder, desperate not for the gift but more for his proud smile when her progress impresses him.
When she sees her father, his mouth is pressed thin. She pretends not to notice.
She is barely past fourteen when Reilan stops visiting her while she's practicing. She tries to ignore how disappointed she feels, squashes the twist in her gut. She just practices by herself for a handful of days, until frustration ruins her form and sends her storming into her father's office, still dirty from practice.
His eyes flick up to her, and a small frown flickers on and off his face almost before she can catch it.
She opens her mouth to speak, what she'll say she doesn't even know yet, but he holds up a hand and stops her before any words can escape her mouth.
"He's dead, Ioreth." He says, blunt as a hammer, his words heavy as one too, slamming down on Ioreth's chest until she cannot breathe.
"What?"
Her father looks down at some papers and shuffles them. She can't quite tell if he's disinterested in the conversation, too emotional, or simply cannot bear to look at her too long. She's not sure she wants to know.
"A patrol went wrong. A panicked robber pushed him down a steep set of stairs, and, well. You can guess the rest. We caught the robber, if you were worried about that."
Nothing feels right. Everything was both too heavy and too light, all at once, and Ioreth can't make her lungs work the way they normally do. She feels like she should cry, shed tears to mourn a man who taught her so much, but nothing comes, and she feels like a traitor to his memory because of it.
Her father glances up at the shock in her face and sighs.
"He was old, Ioreth. It was always going to happen one day."
"Right." She just about spits. And she walks back out.
She's not stupid, she knows her father would rather she just quietly turn up to her lessons, let him forget she even exists. It would be easier in a lot of ways, just letting someone else's desires sweep her off, decide her course.
But there's an angry stubbornness in her belly that resents that. It's a serpent, twisted together from coals and white hot steel, and it keeps her trying. It rests deep in her stomach, only rising to hiss at anyone who dares tell her what she should be doing instead.
So she joins the guards at their practice. Properly this time, duelling the other guards even though she knows she is not yet good enough. She absorbs it all. Takes the humiliation when she is thrown to the ground, when her blade is torn from her grasp, and all she can hear is un-muted laughter, because to everyone around her she is still the crazy little girl, and she learns from it. She learns from every bruise, every scratch from where foreign metal attacks her skin. She learns.
Even when she doesn't fight she is still focused on acquiring more and more knowledge. She pinpoints which guards are the best at what they do, and she analyses them, cuts apart their style, practices it herself.
And it works, eventually. She challenges Galan, the man now considered to be the best swordsman in his division, and he laughs at her, long and hard until he realises that she is serious.
She is seventeen now, and he is at least 8 years older than her, but she doesn't care. He's much taller than she is, stronger too, but even that doesn't dissuade her.
She'd never have gotten this far if she hadn't been stubborn.
Galan’s laughter fades away entirely, and instead he just glares at her, sharp and piercing, like he thinks his eyes are just as sharp as his sword, and he can fight her off with a look before he has to draw his sword.
But she doesn't move. Just stares right back until he relents and agrees to fight her, smirking a little at his friends, nodding them over, inviting them to watch what he obviously experts to be a highly amusing bout.
Here's the thing: he's good. Really good. Ioreth can barely keep up with his speed, can only just deflect his blows, and for ages it looks like she's an inch off taking a dive into the dirt.
But here's the other thing: she doesn't. She's been watching and learning for so long that it finally looks like she's learnt something. It finally looks like she has a chance
And, well, the final thing is this: she's been watching him. Long enough to know he's skilled, long enough to know that if anyone at this base knows what they're doing with a blade, it's him. But, after all, he's good. Not perfect. Never perfect.
She knows he puts too much weight on his left foot when he thrusts his sword, and with a sidestep more graceful than she ever dreamed she could perform she dodges him, moving past only just enough to avoid the stab, close enough that it looks like she's only just fast enough. Only just good enough.
She doesn't mind being underestimated, this time, not when he stumbles past her, not when he doesn't swing around to face her straight away, as if he were too shocked by the fact that she's not awful to bother being so guarded.
She doesn't waste a second being offended, not when her foot is already in the air, slamming onto his back, sending him sprawling on the dusty cobblestones.
She grins a little to herself, and for the first time since their fight began the outside world starts to bleed into notice, and she feels the sun above her, the crowd that has gathered, the breathless silence.
She's distracted. She knows that. But she allows herself to feel it, feel the pride blooming in her chest.
It's a mistake really. Worse than the one her opponent had made, for she doesn't even see him moving until it's far too late, and she is the one sprawling on the ground, only this time red hot pain swells one side of her face, and it's only when she presses her fingers to it and they come off painted crimson that she realises she's been cut.
"This fight is over." Her opponent hisses, turning and stomping away. He holds his head high as he goes, marching stiffly as if he is just daring someone to challenge him, tell him that the fight hadn't gone as well as he seemed determined to pretend it had.
Ioreth doesn't care. Maybe she didn't win, but she still feels as if she had won something else in the process. A couple of the guards nod at her once she makes it to her feet, one even clapping his hand on her shoulder and smiling at her.
She turns to leave, but her focus is stolen by a figure leaning heavily against a doorway, one crafted from stone and lead, and it is only when her movements make it obvious that she's seen him does the figure move, retreating back into the room. She'd have left it at that had she not known exactly who it was, and exactly what he wanted when he sightlessly beckoned for her to follow.
The thrill of victory sinks into the mud and the muck, and she follows meekly, not arguing when her father sinks into his worn chair and motions for her to sit opposite him. She's not quite sure how to react yet, whether she should sit defiant and strong, or slump guiltily, so she just sits.
Her father sighs, and in an instant seems to pick up every year he's lived through, time and age dragging at his skin. It makes everything more pronounced, his posture, still stiff, his entwined hands. His frown.
"Why must you do these things?" His voice is soft, but no less accusing.
"I just wanted to prove myself. That I-"
His hand slams down hard on the table, shocking her into silence.
"Why can you still not see that that doesn't matter?" His voice shifts, still not loud, but all the more deadly because of it. Hissing, a promise of danger, the light scraping of steel on steel. "You do not need to prove yourself. There is nothing to prove!"
She looks at him in disbelief. "But... No one believes I can do this. No one can see that I have what it takes."
Anger burns clear on his face, branding him with its mark. He leans back in his chair, takes a deep breath, and she is almost jealous, for oxygen seems to have abandoned her utterly.
"Ioreth. If this is what all this nonsense is about, let me put it to rest now. You cannot become a guard. No matter what you set out to ‘prove’. It simply is not possible."
"But- I worked so hard I- Why can't I at least get a chance?"
He fixes her with his gaze, cold steel and ice. No trace of familiarity left, no sympathy, just some emotion harder and crueler than simple disappointment.
"This is how the world works, Ioreth." And with that he looks away, already deciding the end to the conversation. And what a conversation it was. Like all too many things, it was focused around him, so much so that there is no space for anyone else.
"Fine." She spits, surging to her feet. "I won't be a guard. I'll join the army-"
"They'll never take you." He says, quietly assured. Almost smug in his tone. She hates it.
"I'll become a Ranger then."
Her father's on his feet now, taking full advantage of every inch of his extra height. "Don't you dare." He growls. "I did not raise you to become some heathen wild woman."
"You barely raised me at all!" She shouts, and her feet are already moving, and she's out the door before her father can manage to dance around his desk.
"Ioreth!" He shouts this time, panic staining his voice.
And she runs. Out the door, out the barracks, into the streets, running on and on until she's almost out of the city. People stare. She can feel the weight of it, surprise and judgement. Still she runs. Down down down. Until the streets barely count as streets. Until she finds the most run down tavern she can. The kind of place you'd find a Ranger, if the unkind rumors are true.
She can see him when she arrives. Picture perfect. Unshaven, unwashed, the only thing clean on him a shining sliver brooch, nursing a mug of ale, looking like he'd been there for days without moving.
She slides in next to him, pays no notice to the glare he treats her with.
"You're a Ranger, yeah?" She asks, instinctively lowering her voice.
"What's it to you?" He growls.
"I want to join them."
He raises an eyebrow, relaxes slightly. "You’re not the usual type for that."
"Don't you take everyone, though?"
He stares at her for a moment, shakes his head. "True enough kid. True enough."
She’d never really left the Citadel before meeting that Ranger in the tavern. Never quite been rebellious enough to figure out a way to leave the city that wouldn’t end with her father’s fury raining down upon her from on high. She’d been outside the walls, sure, but had never strayed far enough from their looming shadow to call it leaving. Even that would have been enough to demand judgement, had he figured it out.
Now though. Now she’d abandoned the last member of her family, abandoned him and the world he had wanted her to confine herself in. She’d just about begged a stranger to recruit her into an organisation few trusted. If she been older, a little more world weary, she might not have taken that risk, might have considered how easy it would be for a slaver to put on a cloak and brood in a bar, waiting for desperate teenagers looking for an escape to join them.
But she gets lucky. The Ranger sits her on the same table as him, buys her a cheap mug of water-thin ale, gestures at her to sit, whispers at her to just drink when she looks confused. He plays the part of an unshaven loner well, easily blending into the background of this nameless bar. She would have believed that’s all he was too, were it not for how many unthinking travellers linger near him spreading their secrets, tongues made smooth by alcohol, and the subtle calculating smile she catches on his face at a particularly interesting story about a lord several townships over, one complete with disappearing citizens and mysterious bribes.
The Ranger stands up a few minutes after that, throws some coin on the table, makes a show of stumbling outside, Ioreth rushing to steady his drunken gait. No eyes follow them. A worn out drunk stumbling onto the streets is nothing surprising, even if he is a Ranger.
A few streets away he straightens up, brushes off his cloak, neatly folds away the drunk persona. He notices her looking and laughs quietly. “Just an act, kid. I poured most of that muck onto the floor.” He notices her mild confusion, smiles craftily. “No one thinks to watch their mouth around the drunk brooding Ranger.”
The Ranger’s name is Aerlholm, it turns out. He’s in the city gathering what information he can find, which, when pressed, he admits is mainly just him sitting in bars playing the part of the washed-out loner, hoping someone there is dumb enough to spill something interesting. Walking through the dead streets, he whispers stories he’s gathered over the last few weeks. Most of them are likely irrelevant to the Rangers, just sordid tales about nobles from their servants, or outlandish stories from seamen, claiming responsibility for this great dead or another. After a while, she’s whispering back some of her own, stories about foolish guardsmen falling into vats of washing and the like.
It’s only when they reach the city gates, and Aerlholm quietly buys an extra mare from the stables, insisting they begin travel immediately, that she realises how long its been since she talked to anyone that didn’t care who she was. Didn’t just see her as the Guard Captain’s delusional daughter.
Not since Reilan died.
It’s nice.