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It was a strangely warm day for Haven, and with little to do since her return from the nearby Hinterlands, Leonora had wandered down through the town to the smithy. The sound of Harritt's hammer on iron was almost meditative as she stood considering which spaulder design she should use for the new armour set she was having crafted. Slumped against the stone wall in deep thought, her heart nearly lept through her mouth at the sudden sharp prod to her back. Her wide eyes met even wider ones staring back at her. The little boy looked up at her and grinned as he jabbed at her a second time.
"Wanna fight?"
Leonora's brow knitted a little. "Who are you?"
"I'm Keten," he raised his own eyebrow at her as though his identity should have been obvious. "Do you want to fight?" he repeated, shaking his head a little as he stared up at her increasingly confused face.
"I'm a little busy at the moment, sorry," came her reply. She looked over to her staff where it had fallen after her startled jump. Keten followed her glance and watched stonily as she moved to pick it up.
"Should've known. No one ever wants to." His voice rang louder. "They say I'm too small, but I can fight, I can!"
Leonora's eyes softened as his shoulders slumped and he dragged his stick behind him towards the town gates. She remembered a time when no one would play with her. She was too big, too strong, took games too far, they said. The only one who didn't mind was her brother Tychus, but he was gone now.
"Wait-" The boy spun on his heels to face her as she marched towards him. "You want to play-fight?" she asked.
"No!" He glared at her, offended. "I want to fight! I'm going to be a soldier one day, so I have to learn to fight properly!"
Yes, this was definitely familiar. It could almost be Tychus all over again. Keten's tiny hand was wrapped tightly around the end of the stick as he brandished it all over the place for emphasis. Any minute now it would overbalance slightly and he would have to use both hands - yes, there it went. He was too cute to ignore. Leonora could only smile.
"Okay Keten. Let's fight. But we need space."
His huge eyes looked like they might fall out if he was any more excited. "FOR REAL!?"
"For real. Let's move over there a bit so we're not in the middle of the path." Keten's tiny legs seemed to start moving even before Leo pointed her staff towards the hill near the lake.
--
"You can't go outside this," he informed her solemnly as he dragged a foot behind him to mark out a slightly wonky circle in the dust. He took up a surprisingly good defensive stance and looked suspiciously at Leonora as she held her staff up front with both hands. "You can't use that."
"I can't?" Leo's brow screwed up again. "You want me to fight you without a weapon?"
"You gotta use a sword" The boy pointed hawkishly at a hazel branch further up the hill before his whole body slumped forward in exasperation at Leonora's seemingly willful ignorance.
Leo laid her staff on the ground and jogged up the hill to grab the branch. It was a decent enough size. Not tiny, but not so long that he couldn't get past it to hit her. She nodded curtly at him as she entered their fighting circle. He took up his defensive stance again and barely had she found her own when he rushed at her, sword-stick swinging wildly in an arc over his head. She stepped lightly to the side and smacked him across the back as he stumbled past. He recovered and spun, glaring at her.
She grinned back and turned a little so she was side-on to him. "Try again."
He rushed her again, sword arcing to the side now in an attempt to block her sidestep. She stepped to the other side this time, grinning again as he stumbled forward. He glared at her as he dusted himself off.
"You don't fight fair," he complained. "You're supposed to do stuff, not just walk away." His voice was accusing, and Leonora felt a little guilty for laughing. Puffs of dust rose around them as she kneeled down beside him.
"I am being a bit mean aren't I?" she admitted. He nodded glumly. "But people out there aren't always nice. If you want to be a good soldier you have to be able to fight anyone, even when they don't fight fair."
Keten stared down at the dirt. "But I don't know how."
"Well how about we start here? Whenever I do something tricky, I'll teach you how to stop me doing it and you can practice it."
He nodded slowly. It wouldn't be quite as fun as just hitting her with a stick, but learning how to fight for real probably sounded pretty adult. He scrambled up onto his feet and cocked his head to the side, watching as she simply leaned back onto her toes and bounced up onto her own feet.
"All right. You know when I moved sideways before?"
He poked his tongue out at her. "The first time or the second time?"
"Both. It's called a sidestep. If you watch my legs you can see which way I'm going to go. I'll do it a few times and you can stay there and watch me." He stared intently as she stepped around a little, first one way, and then the other. "Do you see it?"
"I think so!" He sounded excited. "When you're gonna go one way the leg on the other side gets kind of strong-looking." He looked quizically up at her to see if he was right.
"Yup. That's because I have to bounce off that leg to move, so I have to tense it up. So what do you reckon you should do?"
"Um, go to the side you're going to go to?"
"Exactly! Do you want to try it?"
He bounded into his position and gave her a second to take her own, then ran at her, head down as he stared at her legs. She stepped to one side but he stepped the same way and smacked her quickly with his sword. They tried it a few more times, his reactions improving but his focus too obvious. Finally, Leonora made her move, bringing her own sword over the top of his and pushing it down into the ground so he stumbled over into the dirt.
"What was that!?" he shouted, blowing dirt out of his nose.
"Another trick," Leonora laughed, gripping his wrist and pulling him up onto his feet.
"Well yeah! But what did you do?" He smudged more dirt across his face as he rubbed his eyes.
"I pushed your sword down and you fell over."
"You made me fall over it." Keten stared aghast at her, hands on hips.
"I helped you fall over, but you did it yourself really. Have you ever fallen over when you were running?"
He looked sheepish. "No."
"Right. Well I bet you've seen someone fall over when they were running." He looked far more ready to admit to that. "I bet they fell forward, not backwards, right?" He cocked his head to the side as he considered it, then nodded. "Well that's because when something's going forward it wants to keep going forward. Like when I kept sidestepping and you kept going forward."
"So I shouldn't run?"
She considered for a moment, remembering how effective a Charging Bull attack could be. "Running works sometimes, but only if the person you're hitting can't move out of the way in time or can't make you move."
"And that's what you did to me, you made me move?"
"Yup. You couldn't stop going forward and I couldn't get out of the way, so I made your forward a little bit more down so I could move again."
"Huh…" He looked nonplussed as he tried to work out how to combat Leonora's trick.
"If you hold–" she began to explain, but he suddenly cut her off.
"I got it!" He stood on his side of the circle and watched calmly as Leonora took her position. He ran at full-pelt across the yard, swinging his stick around to clash with Leonora's side. As she brought her own stick down over the top of his he shifted his weight slightly and barrelled into her, the pair rolling over in the dust and coming to rest in a patch of elfroot. She dazedly made a mental note to retrieve some later, if it survived their battle.
A small applause sounded from the outer camp and Leonora looked up to see a mixed group of refugees and soldiers clapping, Cullen and Cassandra among them. Keten jumped to his feet and bowed animatedly. Leonora laughed. It wasn't exactly what she was going to teach him, but it was effective nonetheless.
"That was quite the show, young man." Cassandra's normally shadowy voice was tinged with amusement as she leaned to shake the boy's hand. "I'm rather impressed."
"As am I," Cullen added as he sauntered up to the field of battle. "It's not just anyone who can take on the Herald in combat and win."
Keten's eyes goggled as the realisation of his sparring partner's identity dawned on him. He rushed to Leonora and grabbed at her hands, using all of his tiny weight in his desperate attempt to help her up again. She flailed her hands at him and tossed herself dramatically backwards in mock exhaustion, which only served to make him panic more.
"Serrah, I'm sorry!" the dismay apparent in his voice. "I didn't know!"
"It's okay, Keten! I'm fine!" Leo pulled him down beside her and shoved him with her elbow. "That was a great move, by the way. You let me think you were going to hit me with your sword but you weren't, were you?"
"Nope." Somehow he managed to look both proud and sheepish at the same time. "I was going forward and I couldn't stop. But I could make my forward a bit more sideways."
"You will make a very good soldier one day, Keten." Cassandra stood above the pair, wringing her hands to emphasise her point. "How old are you?"
The young boy looked shyly up at the intimidating seeker, then back to Leonora still sitting in the dust. He seemed to brighten at the sight. "I'm ten years, nine months, and fourteen days, Serrah." Cassandra smiled.
Cullen snorted a little, then squatted to meet Keten's eyes. "Do you know, I was not much older than you are now when I joined the Templars." He put his hand out to help Keten up as Cassandra did the same for Leonora. "It was hard work, but I loved it."
"Do you think I could be a Templar too?" He gave Cullen a puppy-dog look and Cullen smiled sadly down at the boy. "The Templars might never truly return, young man, but that doesn't mean you can't train with some. I will teach you if you want to learn, and there are others who might train you too." He looked to Cassandra standing stoic alongside Leonora.
The Seeker raised an eyebrow at the Commander, then glanced over to Lysette and Mattrin arguing outside their tents. "Maker knows some of them could use the distraction," she muttered, acquiescing. "Who are your parents, young man? We must ask their permission before we begin anything," she added, stalking off towards the camp without waiting.
Leonora playfully punched Keten's arm as he ran past her, his little legs moving a mile a minute in his hurry to catch up to the formidable warrior. The smile on his face as he chased after the seeker was priceless. If only Leonora had had the chance to see that smile on Tychus' face.
She glanced over to the pair of sticks, now side-by-side in the dirt and grabbed for one. The wood was different but the feel was the same. Her hands gripped the branch, the bark brittle in her palm, and could almost feel the ocean breeze in her hair and the barley-grass around her knees. Eyes closed, she breathed deeply, then looked out over the lake to the surrounding mountains. To her surprise she found Cullen was doing the same. He leaned forward to grab the other branch and stood, shifting it in his hands as though weighing up a sword, then turned to Leonora.
"It all seems like such fun at that age, doesn't it?"
"Doesn't it just? Simple and neat and noone ever gets hurt."
He smiled ruefully. "The great tragedy of adulthood. That we remember childhood."
The pair walked to the gate, branches in hand, their thoughtful silence punctuated by the sounds of children playing and the clang of Harritt's hammer.