The soft fur felt better than even the most luxurious fabrics on his delicate skin. Although Alys had married into the Oldflower family twenty-two years ago and moved from the warm climate of the vast colorful steppes of the lands surrounding Bellgrave, flowers of all colors sprouting from the green. He had never gotten used to the cool temperatures of Redwood, forcing him to dress in multiple layers of clothing so as not to feel like he was freezing to death.

“She’s not trying to spite you, you know,” Alys said, his bare upper body snuggling deeper into the cozy fur laid out on the bed.

“It feels like it,” Ellia replied while putting her messy auburn hair into a neat ponytail.

Alys sighed. “Even if she does, she must have a reason for it. I mean., you had your ulterior motives for marrying me.”

“I married you because I loved you,” Ellia said, turning to her husband with an icy gaze.

“Of course, my love,” Alys said, a smile decorating his beautiful face. “But we both know that your parent’s disapproval gave you joy equivalent to the pleasure of my companionship, maybe even exceeded it. Their only child, the great Ellia Oldflower, comes home after years of traveling the continent, spreading her name throughout all the five kingdoms; secretly married to a small noble of the Maythorne family, only the people living on their small patches of land had probably ever heard of. The shock, the horror they must’ve felt.”

The memories of her parent’s pale faces as she rode through Castle Redwood’s gates with Alys’s slender arms hugging her muscular waistline put a brief smile on her face.

“I told you already. She will find a way to do what she wants, with your approval or without it,” Alys shrugged, his pale grey eyes leaving his wife and wandering to the tent’s ceiling as he got more comfortable in their bed.

“What should I do then? Just let her sneak out of camp, throwing and swinging that damn dagger you gave her around? As I have told you already. I was the exception, not the rule,” Ellia said while putting on the rest of her armor.

“To be precise, Loryn gave her the dagger,” Alys said quietly. Feeling as though the temperature suddenly fell, he didn’t need nor want to direct his gaze toward Ellia, looking at him with eyes that had served most men as the last image they saw before they died. “I know you were the exception, but doesn’t that mean she needs your help even more? Why then don’t you do what your parents didn’t and help her?”

Ellia sighed, her fierce expression turning back into an icy one. After a brief moment of silence, Ellia turned around and stepped out of the tent.

‘Good luck, Lia, ’ Alys thought as he closed his tired eyes.

…

As she stepped out of the tent into the darkness, she walked past the few guards patrolling the camp and towards the guarded carriages carrying the gifts and weapons. Passing the guards bowing to her, she walked straight to a small chest and opened it. Inside was something wrapped in soft red cloth. She picked it up and made her way to her daughter’s tent. Her green eyes, not even looking in the direction of the threat, she suspected to be hidden in the darkness.

Walking up to Lia’s tent, she sent away the two guards guarding it before entering.

Lia hastily put the dagger that she had just been swinging wildly through the air behind her back.

After a brief moment of awkward silence, Ellia said, “Come,” Before stepping back out of her daughter’s tent.

Not knowing that her mother knew that she had the dagger in her position, Lia cursed at herself in her mind after closing her wide-opened eyes and taking a deep breath, calming her racing heart and following after her mother.

Ellia led Lia to a relatively open spot near the steep forest leading up the mountain, a bit off the camp. Lia, all the while, curiously ogled the red cloth under her mother’s arm.

“Show me what you know,” Ellia ordered calmly.

“…What?” Lia replied, genuinely confused.

Ellia sighed impatiently. “Your dagger. Show me what you know about handling a dagger.”

Lia suspiciously looked into her mother’s cold eyes, not wanting to fall into a strange trap.  

“Well, I tried,” Ellia said before turning around and slowly walking back to camp.

“Wait!” Lia yelled before steeling her resolve and showing her mother her skills.

‘She may have gotten my looks, but the combat skills are her father’s,’ Ellia thought as she watched her daughter clumsily jumping around, randomly thrusting and swinging the dagger through the air.

“Enough,” Ellia sighed.

Lia stopped her demonstration pantingly. Her mind already painted pictures of her mother looking at her in awe, praising her for all the unique and mesmerizing techniques she had come up with.

“First of all, a dagger isn’t meant to be used as a primary weapon. Second of all, hand it to me,” Ellia commanded, her tone not leaving room for talking back.

While her mind screamed at her not to, Lia sheepishly walked up to her mother and gave her the dagger.

“You don’t actually fight with this damn thing. It’s just supposed to be decoration,” Ellia said as she put away the beautiful black dagger and unwrapped two sheathed short-swords from the red cloth she had laid on the ground. “This is my old sword. Barin gave it to me when I was a child. I used it until I switched to the great-sword,” She said, unsheathing an old sword full of scratches and marks, telling stories of fierce battles. “And this is your fathers. He told me it was a family heirloom he was supposed to carry into battle. That was before he realized that his talents didn’t lie on the battlefield and his family gave it to me as a wedding gift.” Ellia explained, unsheathing a beautiful sword. The flawless blade had a dark tint to it, standing in stark contrast to the bright silver blade of the other.

At first, Lia wanted to complain about being robbed of her magnificent dagger and given an old one with scratches and marks all over the blade. But at the thought of being gifted not only her mother’s old sword but also her father’s, her heart almost sprung out of her chest, and a bright smile carved itself on her round freckled face.

Ellia couldn’t help but smile, looking at her daughter’s euphoric face. “I planned to give those swords to Will and Loryn. But Will chose to carry a great-sword as I do, and with your other stubborn brother gone, why not give them to you. “Alright, right foot forward and bend your knees.”

Lia instantly followed her mother’s command, firmly gripping the two short-swords in her hands.

“Block,” Ellia said, slowly slashing down with her old sword’s sheathe.

Lia put her right foot forward and put up her mother’s old sword. When her blade met the sheathe, she noticed in panic how she couldn’t block it, even with all her strength and her mother going easy on her.

“You’re neither the Forsaken nor Will or me, Lia. You have to know your strengths and weaknesses. You’re too weak to block an attack head-on; if you don’t want to be cut in two, you will have to use your agility. Deflect my sword while side-stepping with one sword, and cut me with the other while I’m preoccupied.  

Ellia yet again slashed down with her sheathe, and this time Lia did as she was told. She side-stepped before putting her silver sword up at an angle, the hilt directed into the sky, letting the sheathe slide along it. Seeing the success, she quickly wanted to cut with her black sword before she found herself on the ground after being lightly pushed by her tall mother.

“Again,” Ellia said, watching her daughter jump to her feet with a smirk.

Before Lia could block again, she heard something in the woods next to them. She watched as her brother Walked out from behind the trees.

“We’re ready, mother,” Will said, not even acknowledging his little sister.

“Good. Lia, you will follow your brother and do as he says,” Ellia commanded.

And as before, Lia could not stand up or question her mother’s authority and only nodded.

“There’s nothing more to say. You know what to do,” Ellia said to Will

“Yes, mother,” Will answered, turning around and ensuring Lia followed him.

Lia looked at her mother walking back with her new swords to camp before entering the forest.

…

“Ser, I mean no disrespect but is lady Ellia sure we will be attacked tonight,” Tobin asked in a quiet tone.

“…My mother doesn’t do anything without reason,” will answered sternly. “We’ll wait until either Darrik, and his group gives us the sign or the sunlight tells us that we can go to the camp.”

Will and Tobin sat hidden between trees on the outskirts of the forest. Will had escorted Lia, who, the second their mother had left, started to ask dozens of questions up the hill to the other soldiers and ordered some to watch over her, before walking back down with Tobin.

When Ellia told Will that he should take half the men and take another route up the mountain into the forest, he didn’t doubt her even for a second. He went on enough trips with his mother to know that even her great reputation was lacking compared to her leadership and fighting abilities. He and a hundred men camped out in the steep forest, waiting for the Darrik and his team of scouts to either return or signal them when the enemy was coming and how many it were.  

Tobin was somewhat of a friend to Will. They were of the same age, and when his sibling annoyed him too much, Will went to the guards, where they shared stories and drinks. Tobin never had the privilege of seeing the great Ellia Oldflower on the battlefield, but only in passing, when he quickly avoided his gaze so as not to look into the cold green eyes he would’ve sworn could’ve frozen his young soul.

Tobin looked at the sky with conflicted eyes. On the one hand, hoping to see the burning arrow fly into the sky so he and the other soldiers didn’t needlessly pass up on precious sleep. But on the other hand, he also dreaded having to fight those savage mountain people he had heard of as a child.

…

The shocked head rolled before Struggir’s feet, leaving a trail of blood behind it.

“Were those all?” He asked, the blood coloring the grey fur that covered his fat body red.

“I think so,” Erock answered while wiping the blood from his beloved axe, standing between two bodies with a tree engraved on their leather chest plates pierced by arrows.  

“Struggir, Erock!” A young voice called the two. “The others are setting out, come.”

Struggir and Erock looked at each other with ugly smiles after picking up the precious weapons and stripping the bodies of still usable armor. When they were done, they followed the young man jumping and running over the rocks carrying a bow.

Watching the three men leave, Darrik stood up from behind the rocks and frantically searched his comrade’s bodies for a bow he deep down knew the two mountain people had taken with them.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck….” He whispered underneath panicked breaths before sprinting toward Will and the waiting soldiers.