I surprised myself with my words, but I knew them to be true. I hated that man. I feared him too, but now that I was free, the fear had faded into the background. The man that had stolen my mother, my happiness, my entire life. I’d lived in fear because of him for so long. More so, there was Albrecht. He was a vile and vicious man, but he listened to my father. My father allowed him to torment me all those years.
“Good, feel that,” Estra asserted, "there is nothing wrong with feeling negative emotions. You're allowed to be angry. You're allowed to hate someone like him."
Estra’s words comforted me quite a bit. There was a part of me that felt guilty for hating him. I knew it was illogical, but he was my father. Even if he was despicable, wasn’t it wrong to hate my own father?
"Part of overcoming trauma is acknowledging that you've been wronged and that it wasn't your fault," Estra continued, "what else? How did he make you feel when you were with him?"
“Angry. Afraid…” I trailed off and thought for a moment. “Sad.”
“Very good,” he said, “so you hate him because he makes you feel angry, afraid and sad. Those are good reasons. Do you think you can tell me more?”
His questions kept coming for some time. It was hard to express myself, limited both by my speech and my own stunted emotions. I understood better why he said I needed additional treatment. The more we talked, the more agitated I became, frustrated by my limitations and upset from thinking too hard about my father. Estra eventually decided that we’d talked enough, but the process had left me both mentally and magically drained.
Using our magics to connect us was useful to Estra, who could observe the flow of my energy to guide the conversation in the right direction, but it was difficult for me, who had minimal magical energy to use. The effort it took to keep my so-called third eye open for that long had pushed me to my limits. Talking about my father was both harrowing and liberating. Sometimes I felt like I was doing something wrong and that maybe he’d be waiting outside the tent to punish me for speaking ill of him. I was still partially convinced that if Estra knew the full truth of how I’d lived, he’d be disgusted by how pathetic I was. Then he’d tell Andrian and Andrian wouldn’t want me anymore. Estra said it wasn’t my fault and that I was allowed to hate my father… but wouldn’t he ask why I never stood up for myself, why I never ran away? I wondered if he’d say it was all my fault because I wasn’t strong enough. But I couldn’t voice any of that, nor did I want to. I tried to tuck those thoughts away and hide them so Estra wouldn’t find out.
I went back to my tent and found Andrian waiting for me on top of his sleeping bag. As soon as I saw him, most of my anxiety melted away. Andrian loves me. He’s cared about me and wanted me since we were young. He won’t just discard me because of what I’ve been through… Seeing him in front of me, I was reminded that he was the one person who never gave up on me. He was the safe place I’d been longing for.
Concern was written all over his face when he saw my haggard appearance. I flung myself at him without thinking, seeking solace in his warmth. He hugged me tightly without saying a word and I started unabashedly sobbing into his chest. The build up of emotions from my time with Estra overflowed from my eyes and I cried for a long time.
Andrian let me get it all out of my system before asking me, “Did something happen?”
“Just too much,” I responded as I tried to calm my breaths and regain my composure.
“Am I allowed to ask more?” Andrian inquired cautiously.
“You… can ask,” I told him, “Might not say.” It was the best I could give him at the time. There was a part of me that wanted to tell him everything, to pour out my heart and be laid bare in all my damaged glory. But that was a small part of me compared to the part of me that was ashamed of who I was. When I thought of my father, who could only see me as a disappointment and undeserving of love, I felt like I wasn’t good enough for Andrian.
"Then... Honestly, I don't even know what to ask you. There's so much I want to know, but I don't know where to start or how to ask you," Andrian paused for a moment and then said, "I guess I want to know everything. I want to know what it is that you've been going through these past ten years. I already have an idea, and I know it won't be easy to talk about it, but... I want to know all of you. But for now, can you tell me why you were crying like that?
I thought about it for a moment before answering, “Talked about father… bad but… Fe-” My words were cut off for a moment by my coughing. I’d used my voice a lot throughout the day and my throat felt dry and sore. At that point, it even hurt to breathe. Andrian offered me a waterskin and I drank deeply. After a time, I felt like I could continue. “Felt… safe here. Safe to cry.”
Andrian grabbed me impulsively and pulled me into a bone-crushing hug. "I'm glad you feel safe with me," he whispered hoarsely into my hair, "if you need to cry or scream or anything, you can do it with me."
“Father… hated… me…” I spoke carefully to avoid triggering another coughing fit. My voice came out raspy and rough. “We… talked… that…”
Andrian nodded and said, “I understand. You don’t have to say any more. One day, I’m going to make that piece of shit pay for everything he’s done.” Andrian finally released me from his tight embrace and I could breathe again. He touched my cheek gently and looked at me tenderly. "I'll never let him or anyone else hurt you again."
“Andri… I… want… be strong…” I responded honestly, “Not… be protect… Protect self…”
Andrian considered my words for a moment and replied, "If that's what you want. I admit, I like the idea of taking care of you for the rest of our lives... but if you'd rather, I can show you how to protect yourself instead."
"Yes!-" I replied a little too enthusiastically, triggering another coughing fit that left me gasping for air. This one was more violent than the previous one and lasted until I thought I might pass out. With every cough and gasp, my throat burned and ached. I knew it was a sign I needed to stop trying to talk. I gestured to my neck and shook my head.
"We should get some sleep anyway," Andrian said, understanding my meaning, "If you want, you can get up with me for the watch and I'll start showing you the basics of using a sword. But be warned, it's going to be really boring and I won't go easy on you. We'll have to start with the beginner basics, so it's going to be a lot of things to do with stance, posture, and how to actually hold the sword".
I was delighted by his offer. When we were first reunited in the Palace, he held me on his lap like a small child and coddled me quite a bit. At the time, those protective instincts made me feel safer than I had in a long time, but I didn't want to be dependent on someone for the rest of my life. I’d thought I’d have to wait until after the joining ceremony to start learning, so this was an unexpected head start. I was glad that Andrian offered to help me rather than trying to talk me out of it.
We wrapped ourselves in a single sleeping bag, more than large enough to accommodate both of us if we cuddled, and we lay down for the night. Once I was wrapped in his arms with my eyes closed, a wave of fatigue washed over me. I was completely exhausted from the day’s events. Sleep almost immediately claimed me and I knew no more until I was shaken awake by Andrian to join him for his watch.
It was predawn when we got up and I struggled to open my eyes. Naturally, Andrian offered to let me sleep, but I declined and forced myself to awaken from my slumber. The sky was still dark and I could hear rustling coming from the nearby undergrowth and howling off in the distance. We set ourselves up by the fire that had been tended by the watches before us. Shidah, who was on his way to his tent to get some more sleep, was surprised to see me up, but didn’t comment or ask any questions.
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That morning I received my first lesson in swordsmanship. He was right that it was very boring and he definitely didn't go easy on me. I was shown stances and basic movements then instructed to repeat them over and over again until my muscles were burning from the effort. Gone was my kind and gentle Andrian, and in his place was a stern and demanding war general who left no margin for error. The gap between General Andrian and my Andri was intense. This was the first time I’d seen that side of him, but I was grateful for it. The change in his demeanor assured me that he was taking this seriously and wasn't just humoring me.
To my disappointment, I didn't even get to touch a sword. He gave me a stick to practice with, citing that I hadn't earned the honor of holding a sword yet. First I had to train my body and mind and learn how to take care of a sword. He said that if I did well, he'd get me a sword once we were settled, a couple weeks after the joining ceremony. It seemed unfair that I had to wait for weeks just to practice with a real sword, but he was adamant that we shouldn't rush the process.
As the sun began to rise, I flopped down by the fire, sweaty and sore. Our games at the old playground hadn't left me nearly as tired as the last couple hours did. At first, the movements felt light and easy, but after hours of maintaining a rigid posture and repeating those movements over and over, I felt like I couldn’t even lift my arms properly.
Andrian told me to rest a bit and went to wake up the others. Everyone emerged from their tents yawning. Estra, who had taken the first watch and otherwise had a good night's sleep, looked the brightest of the group, but Luxania and Shidah both had dark circles under their eyes from getting up in the middle of the night. Seeing how miserable they both looked, I felt too guilty to stay planted on the ground and watch them work. I got up and began to help prepare our breakfast. While I was boiling oats in a pot of water, Shidah gathered giant handfuls of berries and threw them directly into the pot, along with more honey than I thought was necessary. However, when I tasted the berry porridge, I realized that the berries were on the bitter side, and the honey balanced it out nicely. We started a second pot to boil water for a more basic version of the coffee I was now very fond of. Just crushed coffee beans, vanilla beans, and honey, since milk was cumbersome to travel with, even if it could be magically preserved. The hot drink soothed my throat.
We packed and left as soon as breakfast was finished. Riding was painful for me, my overused muscles ached and I winced in pain as my horse trotted lightly down the road. I gritted my teeth and didn’t complain. In as few words as possible, I asked to be left in silence for the day, and Andrian explained on my behalf about the coughing fits and how bad my voice sounded last night. There wasn’t a single part of me that didn’t hurt in some way.
The others kept up a steady stream of chatter throughout the morning, asking me questions that I could answer with a nod or a shake to keep me in the conversation. We stopped for lunch at a lake right as the sun reached its highest point in the sky. Getting off my horse was a relief and I flopped down on a pile of soft long grass to give my muscles some reprieve. By this time everyone knew that I'd gotten up with Andrian to start training. They all expressed their sympathy for me, who was learning from Andrian, who was known to be brutal in training his soldiers. They left me to rest and prepared our lunch after leading the horses to the water.
They took the time to build a small fire and make some flatbread. Luxania pulled out some cheese and dried meat strips, as well as honey and fruit jam for the flatbread. After lunch, it was agreed we’d stay long enough for everyone to bathe properly in the lake. That evening we would be arriving in the lion village, where we could spend the night in a proper inn instead of tents. Over lunch, I received a geography lesson regarding the areas we would pass through. The southwest was mostly lion territory, further to the south was the tigers, and to the north of us were the other cat species. Each species had a collection of smaller villages, with a larger village somewhere in the territory. The outskirts of the territory was where the rangers resided. The rest of the army passed through the main town of the cat territory, which was a large city by Vraynian standards, a day's ride north of where we were traveling.
When we were done eating, the beastmen shocked me by stripping off their clothes and jumping naked into the lake. Andrian seemed unsurprised, but to me, their behavior was borderline scandalous. In Vrayna, one was expected to keep their whole body covered at all times, and women would never undress in front of men. Thus, Luxania became the first woman whose body I had seen. Slighter but more rounded than a man, I couldn’t help but stare at the swell of her hips, the sway of her breasts, and how she was very much not a man. I knew women were different of course, but it had never occurred to me just how different they were. Once I realized how intently I was looking, I hurried to look away, but Andrian had already caught me. I flushed red, terrified he would misunderstand my reaction, but he just laughed at my obvious embarrassment.
"You don't allow your males and females to be undressed together, do you?" Andrian asked me to confirm. I shook my head with wide eyes and he laughed. “When we take on our beast forms, we are naked anyways, so we don’t see the point in being worried about showing our human forms to each other.”
I watched as Luxania dove into the water alongside Estra and Shidah, none of them showing any concerns about each other’s nudity. It was hard to comprehend how free the beastmen were with such things. A man could disrobe in front of other men to bathe, yes, but if a woman showed her body like that, then she would have no recourse if the men accepted what she offered. But Estra and Shidah showed no interest at all in Luxania’s body.
“Think about it this way,” Andrian explained, “Shidah and Estra both have no interest in Luxie as a potential mate, so clothed or unclothed doesn’t matter because they don’t think of her in that way. Her being naked doesn’t change that. Did it change how you feel about her?”
I shook my head no, and considered what he had said. He was right that I felt no different having seen her body, but I thought men simply couldn’t control their urges in situations like this. Everything I had been taught up until now told me that.
“Humans associate nudity exclusively with sexual relations, but beastmen do not. Our beast halves are always naked, so it doesn’t mean anything if our human halves are too. Even if sexual desire is present, we don’t feel the object of that desire should have to change their behaviour to accommodate that,” Andrian looked out toward our three friends in the lake and added, “But if you don’t feel comfortable, you and I can go further down the shore to bathe.”
What he was saying made sense. I felt no urges at all when I looked at Luxania’s naked human form, only curiosity about something I’d never seen before. Besides, I’d experienced enough by now to know that a man certainly could control his sexual impulses if he wanted to. In Vrayna, if a woman was assaulted by a man, it was up to her to prove she didn’t seduce him before Royal authorities would do anything at all. Most of the time it would be deemed the woman’s fault regardless, as men can’t control such things and the woman should know better. It was up to the woman to ensure she didn’t have her chastity taken and, if it was, she would be considered tainted and dirty. The only thing I’d feared as much as Albrecht’s attentions was the idea that I could one day become like him. Because in Vrayna, rape was considered something men couldn’t help but do. Yet in the Beastlands, a woman was entitled to autonomy over her body, even if she was completely naked in front of a man. It was a strange concept to me, but I was beginning to understand that Vraynian values were more twisted than I originally knew.
I thought for a moment and answered him honestly, “Not uncomfortable… hard to explain… Vrayna different… but this good… woman owns body, not man…” Having rested my voice, I was able to express myself better than I’d hoped. Softly and slowly, I continued, “In Vrayna… man forces woman… her fault…” I looked down, struggling with how to continue. I thought of my mother, who was called a whore because my father had impregnated her by force. Her death was so brutal that even by Vraynian standards she could only be called a victim, but what my father did to her would have been considered justified. “Father forced mother… made me… her fault… my fault too…” I’d been told so many times that all my mother’s suffering was because she was a whore who was unlucky enough to give birth to me.
As comprehension and horror intermingled on his face, Andrian exclaimed, “No! Is that the kind of stuff they were telling you? The person at fault is the person who did something wrong, not the person they hurt. You know that, right?”
“Know, yes… believe, no,” I admitted, finding myself answering Andrian with greater ease than when I’d talked to Estra the night before. Estra was knowledgeable and had a genuine desire to ‘fix’ me, but that wasn’t enough to make me feel comfortable sharing my inner thoughts with him. “Heard so often… Know he wrong… but…”
What would have followed was simply too much for me to try to explain. The stark contrast between what I knew in my heart and what I'd been conditioned to believe. The impact of recovering everything I’d partitioned off was drastic, but it couldn’t undo the last ten years. I’d had it beaten into me over and over again that both I and my mother deserved what happened to us. There was a part of me that still believed it might be true. That part became a little smaller when Andrian cupped my face and said, “You’ve done nothing wrong. Your father is at fault for everything and you don’t share even the slightest bit of blame. I’ll remind you of that anytime you need to hear it, okay?”
Despite everything, I couldn’t help but feel lighter knowing that Andrian believed that.