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The late afternoon sun beats down on Bek‘s back. She‘s sweating and panting like a parched dog, and yet still she toils. The steady thud of the training spear hitting the straw dummy a numbing rhythm in her head.
Her arms are weary and she could use water, but she hasn’t broken the dummy yet, and thus can’t go back inside her family’s estate. The spear, heavy with weights to build strength, tugs down to the ground, as if the world itself were begging her to take a break.
She can hear her parents and older siblings discussing something in the war room. It seems there’s always war with those dirty blues. Bek personally doesn’t see why they can’t exchange brownies and be friends. Brownies fix everything.
The fact that they’re up there makes her work even harder, they could look down from a window and judge her, perhaps make her run an extra lap around the castle tomorrow morning.
The atmosphere is broken by soft cries and quick feet. Bek stops what she’s doing and looks around, barely managing to catch the girl barreling into her.
The poor thing is sniffling, tears running down her fat cheeks and further mottling what is undeniably an ugly face. Bek would’ve instantly retreated, not wanting to embarrass the girl by having a slight of face, had she not heard the jeers coming from the brush the girl had appeared from.
A group of gangly boys emerge, holding sticks and waving a few small, scraggly feathers that look a lot like the feathers on the girl's cheeks, arms, and mixed in her hair.
It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out what was happening, and Bek is very smart, especially for a noble‘s child. Immediately she steps in front of the girl.
“Stop!”
The boys slow to a halt, taunting her, “Aw, poor ugly bird baby has to get a wannabe knight to help her! Everyone knows girls can’t be knights!”
The boys crack their knuckles and leer, obviously trying to scare Bek, but she‘d sized them up, she could take them all in a fight. They didn’t look particularly strong. Just common street bullies.
Bek raises her fists, “I would ask you to leave, you’re trespassing on my family ground. You won’t get in trouble if you just leave.”
The boys glance at each other and laugh, “The only one in trouble here is you, thinking you can take us on!”
They scatter and lunge at the same time, Bek easily dodges two of the boy‘s punches with a sidestep, causing their stray fists to collide with each other, using the opportunity she swings the spear she had held loosely, hitting the kid on her left in the stomach, he flies a couple feet and barfs, clutching his stomach.
With the momentum, she brings it back in an arc, and wacks the other kid on the head with the staff. He topples over with a cry, clutching his head. He crawls away, still sniveling and whining for his Mom.
The last kid, having gone to mess with the poor girl is gripping her arm, one hand raised, obviously having thought his two goons would deal with her, and gone to torment the kid more, but stopped, seeing Bek beat them efficiently.
He lets go and starts backing away warily, but Bek is on the offense now, not like she had to be particularly defensive with the other two, but details are unimportant. She still rams into his stomach causing him to keel over, where she, having anticipated this, knees him in the face, hearing the satisfying crack of a broken nose. He stumbles back blearily as if unsure what just happened to him, before he sprints at her, arms outstretched.
She easily outmaneuvers this, and flips him over herself, slamming his back into the ground. The other kid still here scrambles back up and picks him up, dragging him away and looking back fearfully at Bek.
Bek turns around to see the girl cowering in fear before turning tail and running away. Bek is surprised and immediately runs after her, forgetting about drills.
——
She finds her outside the city walls in a grotto, sniffling while petting a bird. Bek approaches as quietly as she can, but the young page wasn’t built for stealth and she immediately notices her presence. Scrambling backwards, the other girl scares the bird away, and corners herself against a tree.
“D-Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you,” Bek says, creeping closer, holding out a few of the girl‘s stray feathers that had fallen or the boys had dropped in the fray, “I- uh- have your feathers. I don’t know much about avian culture but I’m sure you’ll want these back.”, the young Yamon says, holding out a handful of feathers.
The young swan perks up and walks over hesitantly, grabbing her feathers before hugging Bek happily.
Bek freezes and hesitantly reciprocates the hug, “Are you alright? They didn’t hurt you did they?”
The girl shakes her head, “No, I’m fine. Are you okay? You’re really red and sweaty?”
Bek blushes, “I’ve been training all day, that’s why.”
The orange-haired girl‘s eyes widen almost comically, “All day?! Surely you’ve had breaks!“
Bek shakes her head, “Not really, other than breakfast and and a few bathroom breaks-”
She’s interrupted by the girl huffing and leading her to the river, Bek looks nervously at the opposite side, she’s almost never this close to Blue territory.
The other girl doesn’t seem concerned about it instead reaching out to the water and making it- “How are you doing that?!??!,” Bek exclaims, causing her to startle and drop it.
The swan pouts and glares at her, “My magic, quit making me lose my concentration!”
It takes a bit but the girl manages to lift the water and it drifts over Bek with a nice cooling sensation, she hadn’t even realized she was so hot.
After she’s done she’s a bit wet, but feeling considerably better. The girl however, apologizes, “Sorry, I’m not very good at my magic.”
Bek shakes her head, “No, that was great, amazing! That’s so cool! I feel so much better.”
The girl blushes, “Oh, I wouldn’t say that…My magic‘s so weak-”
Bek shakes her head and interrupts, “Well I can’t do that at all, so you’re already more powerful than me! If you practice and train you‘ll get so much better!”
The girl blushes and nothing more is said for a while, until Bek glances up and stands up suddenly, “Crap! It’s getting late and I haven’t finished! I gotta go-!”
The ginger looks up in surprise but Bek is already running off, pausing, Bek looks back, “I’m Bek, what’s your name?”
The girl smiles, and her face shines, it may not be a pretty face, but it’s a beautiful smile, “I’m Eloise.”
Bek smiles, she can’t wait to see her again.
~{Timeskip, like, 20 years later, idk}~
Ser Bek marches steadily to greet the blues and their new monarch. Ser. Bek doesn't think she’ll ever get used to the title. She’s been distracted today. She has every reason to be, I mean she failed to protect her kingdom, family dead, new red citizen’s, and a meeting with the people sworn against her family’s kingdom, she has every right.
Alas, it is not for those noble and honourable reasons she is absent in the brain. No, a rather foolish, selfish reason, today is the 15th day of the second month of spring. The day she met Eloise. She has not seen the ugly cygnet since that day, but oh she wishes to see her again, that kind smile, oh to see how her magic has most certainly grown. She’s met plenty a mage, grown up with quite a few in fact. But this mage is special. She just hopes Eloise got out before the Blue kingdom attacked, or perhaps is at the mage academy. She had asked around, but no one had even heard of a particularly ugly swan, and there was no mention in castle records.
She startles as her short king stops, and looks around, eyes scanning the blue members from behind her helmet. The queen is abnormally tall and very pretty, unfortunate that she’s a blue. Must be a mage, Bek can sense the aura about her. A few knight’s and rogue’s flank her, nothing out of the ordinary, and she sees two mages further behind, conversing, a pretty man, delicate looking, she’s sure he’ll catch someone’s eye. Just not hers, of course. He doesn't seem too strong, rather timid in fact. The other mage is…why she’s never seen a woman so beautiful. Her silky, long, flowing, ginger hair, her porcelain smooth face, her wings, delicately preened, her lip’s rose and full of life…Bek is suddenly quite very glad of her full face helmet.
The woman is laughing and then turns to her, a small smile on her face. It widens, teeth flashing, upon seeing her for some reason, and oh- oh that’s Eloise. Oh my.
—------------
Eloise ignores the jeers and simply smiles softly at the mysterious knight, proud and serious, standing tall by the short king, Cam was his name? She doesn’t know. She can’t wait to show Bek her power. She can’t wait to see Bek again.