Michael

Michael weighed his sword in hand trying to get a feel for it as he waited for the other boys to make space for the spar. Michael was tense, he wanted to make a good impression for his house, so he let his mana flare up inside of him. It had fully recharged since yesterday's training and hummed warmly in his chest.

Zenial looked confident, probably underestimating Michael, but he was fine with it, it only gave him an advantage. He thought about how he should approach this fight, Zenial was small for his age so the physical difference probably wasn't too big, but Michael had no idea how large his mana reserves were.

He chose to take an aggressive approach like Eydis had shown him the last days, he was concerned that he had very little experience with it and didn't want to make a fool of himself in front of the prince, but it was easy to overwhelm someone with a fighting style they are not familiar with. Michael had to learn that the painful way with Eydis. So, it was probably worth the risk.

Theodore stepped forward and announced in an overdramatic voice, "This spar goes until one participant lands a good hit, augmenting is allowed but no magic. Try not to injure each other. Anything else?" After they both shook their head, Theodore continued, "Alright, then ready, BEGIN!"

Michael moved first, he wanted to get the initiative and throw the prince off balance as fast as he could. With mana strengthening his legs he crossed the small distance between them in a second and swung his sword against his opponent's hands.

He could feel the rising mana in the air as Zenial also began to burn mana and he pulled back his hands in time to dodge the strike, at the same time raising his arms for a fast strike from above. He was way faster now with the added mana, but it seemed like he wasn't using as much mana as Michael because they were pretty even. He was probably trying to make this fight fairer, or perhaps he had a small mana well.

Michael didn't ponder on it long, as Eydis had said there is no fair or unfair in a fight just a winner and loser.

Michael let his mana surge in his arms for a moment to smash Zenial's strike away and followed it up with a stab at his shoulder. The prince jumped back too fast though and avoided it, shock written on his face at the show of strength.

Michael didn't want to let him get back into the fight and swung his sword in an upward arc at him, encouraging him to lean back to dodge and lose his balance. He did exactly that, dodging Michael's sword by a few millimeters. Michael stepped forward before his swing was complete and shoulder-checked the prince with his right shoulder. In his unbalanced stance, he couldn't prevent stumbling from this even from someone smaller than him.

The prince tried to regain his bearings, but Michael gave him no chance, following the sequence up with a backhand swing of his sword. He could sense an eruption in mana as the prince pushed as much mana as he could into his body to dodge the strike. He did manage it but by doing that leaned so far back that he couldn't prevent falling.

He landed on his behind and saw Michael standing in front of him, his sword pointed down at his chest.

"Michael wins," Theodore's voice sounded more like a question than a statement. The boys were staring at Michael and the prince waiting for his reaction. The fight had not even taken a minute to conclude and Zenial looked like he didn't understand what just happened.

They stood there for a moment when Michael heard his mother's voice from behind, "MICHAEL ROWAN, what are you doing!"

He turned around and could see her hurry through the training yard, an out-of-breath servant running after her. "Help him up," she said and pointed at Prince Zenial, who looked completely lost in this situation. Michael gave the prince a hand and pulled him back to his feet with a little mana support.

His mother bowed deeply and said, "I apologize for my son's behavior, please forgive him for his transgressions."

"What," Michael blurted out not understanding what his mother was even talking about.

She looked at him accusingly, "Where did you learn that beating up your superiors is an okay thing to do?"

Michael blinked at her for a moment then said, "Mother this was a spar!"

"First you run away and then you pick a fight with the ... a spar?"

"Yes, he asked me to spar with him because he knows about Father," Michael answered with a raised eyebrow.

She looked over to the prince who nodded, too confused to say anything. She got red in her face at this and quickly bowed to the prince and grabbed Michael's wrist, "Oh then everything is fine. It was an honor to meet you, your Highness. Come on Michael, we have to get going." There was no way that she could have hidden her embarrassment worse as she dragged Michael away smiling a broad and forced smile.

Even though he loved his mother sometimes Michael wondered how they were related.

The boys just stood there stunned, watching them leave without a single word and Michael called, "Thanks for the spar, it was fun," before he was dragged through the door he came from.

- two hours later -

Michael was sitting with his sisters at the table in their common room. He and Lira were playing cards while Luciel rubbed the nap she had out of her eyes. Lira slammed down an Idas 8 card and said, "Tough luck, little brother." Michael stared at it in disbelief, "How? How is it possible that you always draw exactly the card you need? Are you cheating again?"

She held her hands up in an innocent gesture and said with played offense in her voice, "I have never in my life cheated on anything. I am just blessed with superb luck."

"Never cheated," Luciel said with a yawn, "Well at least you have no problem with lying." Lira looked at her older sister, "Hey, don't pick sides, you are supposed to be impartial in younger sibling arguments."

"Oh, I most certainly am," she laughed with her clear voice.

"Another one, all or nothing, I will get you this time," Michael said with determination at which Lira laughed. "We are not playing for anything; you can't call all or nothing." She started to mix the cards nonetheless and looked at Luciel, "You in?"

"Oh no, you know how competitive I get, and I have to deal with you people for the next couple of weeks," she shook her head. This made Michael smile as he remembered that the last time they played Luciel threw her shoe at Lira, accusing her of cheating. To be honest, everyone accused Lira of cheating, but no one ever could tell how or where exactly.

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They played a couple more sets when their father entered the room, looking somewhat confused and amused at the same time. "Michael, what is with your mother? She said she is too embarrassed to leave the room, and something about you beating up Prince Zenial?"

Michael scratched his head and laughed awkwardly, "I did not beat him up, I want to make sure that that is noted. I did beat him in a spar, but I never touched a hair on his head while doing that." His father looked at him until he continued. "Mother found me the moment the prince was sitting on the ground defeated and assumed that I beat him up, so she yelled at me and apologized for my bad manners."

Lord Rowan stared at him for a moment, and Michael began to worry that he had done something wrong after all, but then his father burst out into laughter. "Haha, so that's what happened, I guess I understand why your mother is embarrassed. This actually takes me back to my time as a youngster. Well, much older than you are now but still young." He sat down and grabbed the deck of cards shuffling it and dealing cards. Michael looked at his siblings, confused by his father’s mannerisms.

"The king and I actually meet on similar circumstances."

- 19 years ago -

Cedric stretched his arms and yawned. He left his tent and joined the other hunters at the campfire. Before he reached it, his little brother Duncan tried to walk past him, but Cedric grabbed his arm and spun him around. "What happened there," he asked him and pointed at his black eye. "I was just too slow in training," Duncan mumbled and tried to keep walking. "Hey," Cedric stopped him again. "You mentioned the drinking again, didn't you? How many times do I have to tell you not to do that?" Duncan ripped his arm free and walked away, mumbling to himself, "Yeah whatever, one day I will kick that drunk's ass."

Cedric shook his head and continued to the campfire where he found the old drunk. "How is it, can we start the hunt?" His father shook his head and said with a rough voice, "The duke's son, Johann Merland, wants to join us to get some hunting experience so we are waiting until he gets here."

Cedric sighed annoyed, "Great, babysitting for a sheltered noble boy, this is going to be so much fun." His father looked at him strictly, "This escort will give us more money than our hunts of the last two months, boy. So, I expect you to be on your best behavior and do your goddamn job."

Cedric rolled his eyes when his father couldn't see it and looked at the clay bottle at his feet, from how it was lying he guessed it was pretty much empty again. He got up to check his equipment when he heard horses approach. He turned around and saw a young blond man, maybe a year or two older than him, clad in brightly colored leather armor with a silver cape and on a white horse, followed by a knight of House Merland. He had to hold back hard to not start laughing at this display of fanciness of the noble. His outfit virtually screamed that he had no clue what he was doing.

He sat on his horse until someone grabbed the horse's bridle and then got off it, walking over to Cedric's father. "Good morning, Mister Beor. So, this is your hunting party." He let his gaze wander around looking not very impressed as it finally landed on the fourteen years old Duncan. "I hope he is not part of the hunt, wouldn't want to babysit a child the whole trip."

Cedric narrowed his eyes and said, "Duncan is part of our crew and he is a trained part of the hunt, unlike you."

"Cedric," Beor snapped at him but the noble seemed to ignore it. "If you say so, boy," he said while strutting around like a peacock.

"Boy?" Cedric's temper started to boil over, "What are you 19? 20? And I bet with not a minute of combat experience."

"CEDRIC, THAT IS ENOUGH," Beor roared at him. "SHOW SOME RESPECT, BOY!"

Johann raised his hand with a smile and said, "Why don't you show me the worth of this hunting party in a duel."

- In the present -

Lord Rowan scratched his head, "So yeah I had a bad temper, and the king was a pretentious little shit."

Michael looked at him with interest and asked, "And did the duel change your mind?"

"Oh, no. I wiped the floor with him. It was over in like three seconds," Lord Rowan said with a reminiscing smile. "The changing my mind thing came later when we hunted with him, and he saved Duncan's life from an iron boar that came out of nowhere and nearly killed him."

"And you kept hanging around after or how did that friendship evolve out of beating him up," Lira asked while laying out a triplet, soliciting a groan from Michael. Their father went quiet for a moment, looking at his cards intently but seemingly not really seeing them. "My father died shortly after, stabbed in his back by his brother over an artifact we found. Had to find a new source of income and Johann wanted to create his own adventuring party, he paid much better than what I could make so I accepted."

"Oh, I am sorry. I didn't know that about grandfather," Lira said with a low voice. They had never really heard anything about their grandparents from their father's side. "You don't need to call him grandfather, I never really called him my father out of my own will either. He was a real bastard and deserved what happened to him." He was playing with his cards in hand when he looked up and saw the shocked faces of his children. "Oh, sorry kids. Shouldn't use such language in front of you, those were just some dark times back then. There is a reason I normally don't talk about it." He smiled at them but couldn't alleviate the pity his children felt. They never knew how hard he had it been when he was their age and even now, they only scratched at the surface.

They finished their current game in silence when Lady Rowan walked into the room, determination on her face. Lord Rowan turned around and smirked at her. He then jumped up and put his hands up, "Darling calm down, we are only playing a game, even though Lira is beating our ass. It is only a game."

Michael nearly choked on nothing, and the others got big eyes and looked over to see her reaction. Her mouth was open, her eyes wide and she stood frozen in her spot before a hint of a smirk came on her face. She walked the last meter and hit her husband on the chest, saying, "You are a scoundrel, Cedric Rowan and I have no idea why I ever married you!" She then pouted with a certain glimmer in her eyes. Their father just grinned at her with a dumb expression but said nothing.

Michael and his siblings exchanged more glances, they had never seen their parents like this. Is it because we are away from Reen, he pondered.

She finally shook her head and changed the subject, "Where are the twins, I want to discuss the plan for the next three days."

Luciel answered, "They went out a while ago, and said something about exploring the palace."

Her stepmother shrugged, "Whatever just gotta tell them later, I guess. So, the festival will go three days and the most stressful will be tomorrow. In the morning we will attend church, after that will be a party in the gardens of the palace, and approaching evening is the feast in the great hall. The following day will only be a feast in the evening and on the third day we will have the great bonfire and a feast to finish off the festivities." She explained it like Michael had seen Commander Johnson explain the raid like a battle plan and this made him chuckle.

"Of course, I have prepared outfits for all of us because frankly, the fashion sense of all of you except Luciel is absolutely atrocious." Luciel smiled at the compliment and Michael saw his father get pale and say to himself, "Oh no."

Lady Rowan continued, "Our goal is to go with simple elegance, we are not walking decoration like other people seem to think looks good, we will actually look good. For the church I have ordered white with golden details and a hint of our family colors black and red, and no you can't wear chain mail under it. This will honor Idas and show our dedication. Once we return from the sermon, we will change into simpler clothes suitable for a garden party, as it is still spring, they will be a little thicker. And for the end of the day, we will go with a dominant black with red details for the boys and red with black details for the girls." She had a very proud expression on her face and looked into the group to see their surely overjoyed reaction.

Lord Rowan was rubbing his temple as he began to speak, "I really don't want to ask, Mylia. What did this cost?"

"It is the price of good politics, my dear. I know you don't like it but making a good impression with our appearance is already half the fight. And because I know that you don't like this whole talking with people and connecting, it's the least you can do to stand beside me looking the part while I take care of our reputation and what is expected of us." Lady Rowan had raised a finger and looked at her despairing husband.

"Well, if that prevents me from having to deal too much with the nobles, I guess it is worth the cost," Lord Rowan said while shaking his head.

Lady Rowan clapped in her hands happily and said to the children, "Alright kids, go to bed early, the tailor will be here early to do some last-minute changes if you are not up you will have to deal with it if the clothes don't fit."

Michael sighed, as much as he wasn't like his father in appearance, he did share his dislike of parties and gatherings. The next days would be so stressful, and he was already exhausted.