Chapter Text
“And though I bear scars beyond counting, nothing
Can break me except Your absence.” - From the Canticle of Trials 1
“A Templar is always ready to fight for Andraste and the Chantry, whether they are have a sword or not. Your body is a weapon of Divine Judgement, and you will learn how to use it, even if I have to break you to make the lesson stick.” Knight Lieutenant Demorra’s words from my first day of unarmed combat training ring in my ears, even now.
Even as the shem recruit in front of me throws a vicious hook that connects with my right temple that would send me crashing to the arena floor if he wasn’t introducing my nose to his knee on the way down.
Stars explode in my vision and pain lances through my face, so sharp I can taste metal. My ears are ringing as I hit the sand.
“Stay down, you knife eared bitch.” Recruit Donovan spits out.
My head is swimming, and vision is awash with stars and black spots. The split I think my nose is broken, my lip is split, and I’m fairly certain they’ve busted open a split in my head again. That’s ignoring all the bruises I can already feel forming pretty much everywhere else.
Knight Corporal Evune’s words echo in my head, cutting through the ringing and the pain. “You don’t let the shem make you quit, Tiriel. Don’t you fucking dare.”
Getting up is madness, but I won’t give the shem bastards an inch. Andraste and the Maker know my faith, and I’ll show these fuckers. I will not break, not for any of them. They tap, or they knock me out. That’s the only way this ends.
Even with the pain that the movement brings, I do it anyway. I form my hands into fists, and slowly, push myself up to my knees. The sand of the training pit is already stained with my blood, but at least Donovan’s in here too. Shem and Elf together in one thing at least.
I struggle to my feet, wiping the blood streaming from my nose. Fuck it, hurts, and still I take a ready stance again, spitting out a gobbet of blood, and glare at him, even as I can feel my left eye swelling shut. As my head still swims and the world still rocks.
“Not on your life, shem.”
Donovan starts moving in, I watch him, and try to move with him. My traitorous leg half gives out under me as I do so, and I stumble.
“Enough!” Knight Corporal Tadgh’s voice cuts off Donovan before he can strike to exploit my weakness.
“Recruit Donovan, well done. You’re done for the day. Go get yourself cleaned up.”
Donovan salutes our training corporal and heads, then turns, spits a gobbet of bloody phlegm at my feet and heads off to the showers. Knight Corporal Tadgh turns to me, irritation in his ice-like eyes.
“Recruit Tiriel, you should have yielded the first time he knocked you down. You will sweep this arena, and put away the remaining training equipment. Then you will report to the infirmary.”
I salute him as best I can. He rolls his eyes, and walks away. I can’t tell if he’s talking to himself or intends for me to hear him but I catch what he says anywhere.
“Fucking knife eared whore should never have been allowed to join up.”
I know he hates me. I know most of them do. I have to fight twice as hard and learn twice as much to even be acknowledged as passable. If I was a shem, it would have been Donovan cleaning up the arena for breaking my nose and making me go to the infirmary.
“It’s just training, Recruit Donovan. What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Recruit Donavan?”
I’ve heard instructors give similar lectures to other recruits when they harm a human recruit dozens of times… but me? Nothing. As long as I’m not too broken, Tadgh and the others couldn’t give less of a shit.
I stumble to the edge of the arena and grab the rake, using it to steady myself for a moment before I start to rake it in. I won’t let them break me. The Maker’s Bride knows the shape of my soul, and the strength of my Courage.
I promised Mum… Fade, I promised Meri, even though she wasn’t there to hear it. They won’t break me. I won’t fail them again.