I wake up in a cold sweat, and look outside the small window beside my bed, my sheets are curled up all over, and my blanket is laying on the ground. I wipe the sweat off my forehead. Rito is still sleeping and the sun is just beginning to rise. I hear no noise from outside the hall, I seem to be the first to wake up. I try to lay down again, but I can’t sleep. I just look up into the wooden ceiling, how long must this have taken to carve out and build, shit, I can’t keep myself up like this, just something to cancel out my thoughts for two seconds would be miraculous right now. I give up on sleeping and I go to the slightly dirty mirror on the wall, my gray hair is completely messed up, what wouldn’t I give for a brush right now. I try my best to set my hair up in a style fitting of a sigil, but all I could come up with was a slightly different version of my normal hair. I look closer into the mirror, wiping off the dust. I stare into my violet eyes, they simply stay still, completely immovable.
“Mhm, hey Judari, could you please go to bed again, there is still a good amount of time before we start the day.” Rito mumbels.
“Sorry man, I’m gonna go lay down now then, you gotta get your beauty rest.” I say jokingly. Rito just mumbles and I hear snoring right after. I turn away from the mirror to see Rito sleeping with his mouth wide open, as he snores loudly. His sea-blue skin shines in the lantern's light, as his untied hair flows down the side of the bed. I walk over to my bed again and I try my best to get comfortable. My mind is racing with thoughts, feeling like storms in my head. But as all the noise cancels eachother out, I slowly start to fall asleep.
“Brrrpp brrd brrrrrrrp!!!” A trumpet wailes throughout the halls.
“ALRIGHT SOLDIERS, EVERYONE UP AND GET READY FOR THE DAY! WE START YOUR INTRODUCTION TO THE ORDER IN 30 MINUTES, BE READY!” We hear yelled out. My eyes jitter open as Rito is taking his new set of armor on.
“Judari, we have to get ready now! There is a suit of armor hanging on the wall, just quickly put it on, I’ll meet you outside our room.” Rito says as he is sprinting out of our room. I slowly tilt out of bed, and look at the armor that is hanging on the wall, I swing my legs from the end of the bed down to the ground, and I slowly stand up. I hear the birds outside chirping, it’s clearly still early, but that’s just the life of a sigil knight I guess, I begin taking the armor on slowly, and as I have the breastplate on, I look in the mirror, I look good in this, like a real sigil knight. I finish putting on my armor and I walk out the room to see a line of people getting ready to travel into a small room. I walk closer to the line as I hear.
“Hey, Hey Judari! Over here, I saved you a spot in line.” I hear Rito yell, he was standing in the middle of the line. I try to make my way through the crowd of people, but as I am nearly at Rito.
“Hey bud, you can’t skip in line y’know, get back now.” I hear from a guy to the right of me. “Oh sorry, I’m just trying to get over to my friend.” I say to the annoyed stranger.
“Didn’t you hear me, back in the line.” The stranger hisses.
“I’m sorry but I just want to stand in line with my friend.” I say.
“Huh ok ok, Do you know who I am?” Stranger says.
“I don’t think so?” I say with a puzzled expression. “I am Siegfred, son of Jaegen, or are you also stupid enough to not know who Jaegen is?” Siegfred snorts.
“I’m just gonna go, sorry to bother you, Siegfred.” I say while trying to walk away.
“Yeah whatever, peasant.” He snarls as I walk away, I clench my fist as I position myself next to Rito.
“You alright, didn’t seem like the nicest conversation ever.” Rito says.
“It's nothing, let’s just move forward.” I hastily say. Rito nods, as we slowly approach the small room, we can finally see inside and it ends, there isn’t any more hall, or anything. But above us we can hear the faint sounds of wires and cogs turning, suddenly a small platform lowers down to the ground, connected with four metal cables connected to it, four people step on the platform, suddenly cranks could be heard and they are slowly lifted up. After about a minute the platform lowered again and the two people in front of us stepped on, and so did we. And just as I turn around I can feel the platform slowly raising. And as the entrance to the elevator fades away, I look up to see light flooding in from somewhere. We are raising closer and closer, and we can begin to hear chattering from the people above, and just as we can begin to peek above the floor, the massive hall shines. People are standing in long rows, ready to be trained, a massive window was placed on the back wall, while the sun shines through the window-panes, straight through the hall, and in between the rows of people. Me and Rito walk into the hall, and we try to find a place to stand, we end up settling next to one of the first rows. I look around to see training dummies, books and mats to duel on. Multiple swords lay around the training areas, most are made of either steel or bronze. We wait for another twenty minutes when suddenly we hear yelled out.
“WELCOME!” Burst through the room. Frey had taken stance on a small pedestal.
“TODAY STARTS Y’ALL DAY AS SIGIL KNIGHTS! FIRST OF ALL, YOU WILL ALL BE SPLIT UP INTO FOUR DIFFERENT GROUPS, THESE GROUPS WILL CYCLE THROUGH DIFFERENT SORTS OF TRAININGS EVERY TWO WEEKS. MY ASSISTANT HERE WILL BEGIN PUTTING Y’ALL INTO GROUPS, OTHERWISE, GOOD TRAINING EVERYONE, AND LONG LIVE SOLAN!” Frey yells out, suddenly Long live Solan is being repeated by everyone in the room, me and Rito join in on the roaring.
The assistant starts walking through the crowds and giving them a number, and pointing to where people have to go, the assistant comes closer and closer when suddenly.
“You are in group two, please walk toward the sparring area.” The assistant says to me. I try to look for the mats I saw earlier, when I spot people already jabbing swords at each other, I slowly approach the people at the sparring area.
“Hey stump, seems you’ll be dueling for a couple weeks with me, huh?” I hear as I get a slap on my back from a large man with silver armor and black torn clothing around his arms and waist. His hair is also screaming red and long.
“Names Eliwood, and I’ll be teaching you ‘freshies’ how a real warrior fights!” Eliwood yells out. Suddenly the assistant scurries over to Eliwood to whisper something in his ear.
“Oh uh, uh huh, ok fine, ugh alright alright. Ok so Mrs. know it all, says I won’t be teaching warrior training, but instead how to uh, properly use stances, and counter enemies with your sword! That enough for ya?” The assistant nods slightly and walks away in a strut to the people who are still standing in rows.
I look at the people around me, most are a race of people called Haseldan, they are known as fierce warriors and having wills as strong as iron. Some other people were a race called Ashiin, they are usually known for being perfectionists, in martial arts, in anything really. But as I see all these people, I see no one like me, I kinda forget that me and Rito aren’t that much of a common sight. And of what I can see I’ll feel this way for the rest of the day because Rito is currently talking with the people he was grouped up with.
“Alright! Everyone, shoulder to shoulder!” Eliwood yells, everyone starts forming a line, I quickly jump in. We are all standing in a straight line, shoulder to shoulder, on the mats. I notice that the mats are made of some sort of yellow-ish gravel.
“-And that's what we are gonna do today!” Eliwood yells out.
“Everyone out to the side!” Everyone quickly steps out to the rim of the mat, I quickly follow with them as if I’ve been paying attention.
“Hm, you in the front! Vind kid. Get over here.” Eliwood yells out, at me. I walk over to, as he takes his sword out.
“Ok kid, what’s your name?” Eliwood asks.
“My name is Judari sir.” I try to say with the straightest face possible.
“Are you ready to duel?” Eliwood asks. “Yes sir!” I reply.
“Ok good, hm now you, The Scroom right there, you may step forward!” Eliwood yells at a peculiar person, completely bleached skin, and a… Mushroom for a head? I think I’ve read about this race of people, they are known as Scrooms, they act a lot like a sort of mushroom, but fully living like a person, they have their own language of sorts and are naturally attuned to nature, but I also read that, most are evil… I don’t fully know if I trust this guy, but it’s just a duel. Let’s hope it won’t chop my arm off.
“Both take your stances! Spar!” I quickly take stance, as the Scroom rushes towards me, I quickly block but the Scroom swings out his blade in a weird way, and just as his blade hits mine, I feel my wrist loosening up, and my blade flies to the ground. I fall down, and the Scroom points its sword at me.
“And that’s the fight, thank you Fungbert for the demonstration of Disarming Strike, Judari, sorry I had to put you through that, this is my apprentice Fungbert, and to everyone in the side lines, this is what we will be learning for the first week, second week I’ll teach y’all how to swing your blade in a more effective way, and how to counter enemies. Now everyone space yourself away, and we will begin the lesson!” Eliwood says as he starts instructing guys how to disarm. We spend the rest of the day on it and we finally finish up. I can see it's getting dark outside, and Eliwood then tells us we are done for today. We all say our thanks for the lesson, as everyone in the hall heads to the elevator. I can’t seem to find Rito.
I hurry out of the elevator, around in the halls, I look in the cafeteria, in the library, he is nowhere to be found. I give up and I head to my room. I enter through the door, and I see Rito on his bed, he is bent on his knees and sobbing, I quickly hurry over to him.
“Rito, hey hey, are you alright man?” I ask Rito as he covers his face and wipes his tears away.
“It’s nothing, don't worry.” He tries to grab his pillow, I quickly stop him.
“Hey come on, you can tell me anything, I can see you’ve been down in the dumps lately, so tell me what's up, please.” I ask Rito, as he lays the pillow to the side. He takes a deep breath. “Alright… alright I’ll tell you. I don’t know if you remember the day I came to the sanctuary.” Rito says. “Of course I do, how could I ever forget that day…” I reply.
“Well… The village that got raided, or where I’m from, is.. Alana.” Rito says, trying not to cry.
“Oh that’s why you were so tense about being there, but is that why you’re still sad?” I ask Rito.
“N-no. Well you see, it got raided by Wraith Knights… and I was about to die…” Rito says. I can’t come up with a response, so I let Rito speak more.
“But… That’s not what I’m thinking about, It’s about the person who saved me, just as I was about to be cut down… A sigil saved me… It was your mother Judari… She saved me, but… but it got her killed.” I sit frozen, as Rito starts completely breaking down.
“I’m sorry Judari, I, I’m sorry, I-I'm the cause of your mom's death, I’m so angry with myself, If- If only I could have been stronger, if anything, why couldn’t she just have not tried to save me..” Rito cries his eyes out as I sit still. I don’t know what to say to him, I really don’t. I can try my best.
“L-look Rito, I don’t think it’s your fault ok, I don’t blame you, I’m just happy you told me, ok?” I say to Rito, he finally calms down a bit.
“Are you sure?” He asks.
“Yeah.. Look I’ll go to bed now, we’ll talk about this tomorrow, alright.” I say, Rito wipes off the snot and tears coming out of his nose and eyes.
“Okay.” He pauses. “Goodnight then Judari..” Rito says as he tucks himself under his sheets. I walk over to my bed, I slunk down and I just sit… I’m just gonna sleep this off.
