“You heard me fencing boy, we’re starting now.”

“But we don’t even have any equipment to train with.”

“Oh, I’m SURE there’s something we can use in this palace,” Cressia hollered at the two guards on duty, “Scrounge up some Fencing equipment from the palace basement, would you?”

They left and they came back, and soon the pair were jostled up in the best fencing gear the kingdom had to offer, albeit one that was filled with cobwebs, dust and all other sorts of strange residue from decades of being stranded in a basement.

Cressia’s suit was a perfect fit, but Alvin seemed befuddled and uneasy within the confines of the blemished heavyset gear. He would be such an easy target for the torrent of spirits that seemed to be hidden in every nook and cranny of Zantzar, before being as mincemeat for the ogres that were deep in their servitude.

"Do you have any fighting experience at all, Alvin?” Cressia asked, withholding the prince title once again.

"Aside from being roughhoused by my sister,” He meekly answered, “No, none whatsoever."

She wouldn't have needed the confirmation - he had broken every fencing convetion

His fencing stance was as squared as a penguin! His sabre was raised like an old Venada samurai! He lifted his neck so high in the air that it would’ve been a clean cut for even the most self harming of fencers.

Cressia smiled. Forget mincemeat - he would've been turned into squash with a side helping of onions.

"All sword fighting begins with the simplest of movements,” Cressia began, “We’ll start with some basic footwork.”

Ste stepped in to move closer to him, and this caused much befuddling and confusing on his part that he almost tripped going backwards from her. She smiled, and after some reassurances that she wasn’t going to harm him (yet), she could see through the faint mesh shell that she had his attention.

“Repeat after me," Cressia continued, "Step in and step out."

Cressia moved forward and back without even a sound being stretched out. Her form was perfect, her steps like a skilled and tenacious pugilist, a synthesis that only emerged from years spent honing her craft the guidance of the Zantzar Blades.

Years that were spent, after her initial service, repeating the same warmups, the same techniques, the same fencing positions, the same secrets she’d learned from Swordmistress Helena that she’d passed onto the children of the boroughs.

This blade had once been her life, and though it had been a long time since she’d been in a War zone, she still that same life or death principle when she fenced.

Alvin could only struggle in comparison, the weight of the fencing gear almost tipping him face down as he slid in and slid out. There was none of the grace that Cressia had - more like the shuffling steps of a Necromancer’s pet project that was ready to give up on life at any moment.

“Next, the feinting body stab.”

Cressia was precise as she stepped in with a feint, the tip of the sabre reaching perilously close to his neck, before she squatted and landed a quick flicker jab into his abdomen.

“So many tournaments have been won by this neat little trick, but I digress.”

“You mean, you’ve won tournaments with this?”

“Mhmm, and the children I teach in the boroughs as well,” Cressia replied, “Some of them can not even even read, and yet they have it down to a tee.”

She did not mean it so, but that last comment seemed to have prickled the skin of the sensitive Prince. He rushed forward, but the instructions he’d received were all over the place while his anger blinded him. He squatted first, feinted to the body and then shot up only for the blade to graze past Cressia as he crashed directly into her, before she caught him and pressed her shell head deep into his head to prevent her from falling over.

Not even the youngest of Cressia’s students had even been this dreadful!

“Practice makes perfect, Alvin.” Cressia whispered forcefully into his ear, “Now try again.”

She was not going to get angry at him, or tell him that his performance was as horrible as it gets - that would destroy his interest in sword fighting just as it had only begun. She could not bring herself to do that to anyone, even a softy prince who had chickened out of from doing character building all his life.

He was frustrated and startled but yet he persisted. She watched as the samurai stance and flat footed penguin movements began to disappear - he was now mimicking her right down to the way her slender elven fingertips wrapped around the hilt.

His second attempt was much more in line with what she expected of her students, albeit like a coarse golem learning he could be very flexible when he actually tried. There was more vigour, more life, as he moved through the motions, going back and forth and then feinting a stabbing stab before landing a critical one against an imaginary opponent

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“Are you ready?” Cressia asked, who was actually going to answer back. She wanted to put everything together before they concluded today’s session. Of course, they’d only been at it for a few minutes, and a brief jog compared to what the Zantzar Blades usually put her through, but she had wanted to know if there was still some potential there within the royal bones of his.

At his advanced age, there might only be a little space left to train the skills and dexterity needed to be good at this. For many of her older students, there was no space left at all to become even a middling fencer. She would not waste him time with him if that were true, even if was a Prince who’d offered her the world to fix every mistake he’d make along the way.

Alvin nodded, and they quickly took their places within their self made fencing perimeter. Like a children's goal box marked out by coats or furry hats, the two had drawn it down using whatever clothes they couldn’t fit into the fencing suit. She stood in front of Alvin’s furry wolf coat, and her white beret was behind him.

He stepped, not moved, first, his hands shaky with a bundle or nerves and insecurities that would’ve been used against him if Cressia had been anything less than the compassionate old soul that she was.

She took her first few steps to meet with him in the middle, and the grip on his sabre began to grow more unsteady with each passing breath between them. Whatever he would bring to her, she would find herself countering, playing with him like a kitten digging at a string until eventually she had enough.

Then there was the sudden motion of movement, not a stab or a thrust, but a sudden whip from the side which Cressia ducked under like it was a broomstick being hurled at her by an angry servant.

Alvin tried again from the left, breaking every dearly held convention that Fencers everywhere held in their hearts, and soon he was beginning to stumble away from this elven woman who began to pepper him with stinging fencing hits from the crook of his neck to the ends of his legs. She pushed him back and back until she saw him stumbling dangerously close to her blanc beret, and then grabbed him by his free arm and put him through the most gentle takedown she could think of on the spot.

For him, it was unexpected, and not gentle whatsoever. Alvin crumbled under the sudden explosion of power that had come from her, crashing head first into some spare lilacs and gooseberries he’d intended to plant earlier that morning.

“Perhaps next time I should explain the rules and etiquette when it comes to fencing first.” Cressia said, her own mesh shell hiding her a strange, wholesome smile. The first session was complete: She had decided she was to take Prince Alvin on as her Fencing Apprentice.

Once Alvin had cleared himself from the gardening dirt, the rest of their afternoon was spent finalising all the little details that was to govern the terms of Cressia’s fencing mentorship of Alvin.

She would be given a room within the royal palace, several warm meals a day and use of both the kitchen and the servants for the duration of her stay. She could also ask for anything, and, with reasonable

Alvin would be obliged to train twice a day for 6 days a week, and he was also to spend time watching sword fighters of old with a Soothsayer called Lyn, who hailed from the nation of Yan-Bón-Mor.

Aeryn, Alvin’s sister, had once employed her to get her usual teenage girl fix of the occult, but now she had a new purpose which would be replaying old fencing matches for Alvin to study with the help of her Flames and her Wicker.

There was also another gentleman’s agreement between them - Cressia would agree to accompany Alvin deep within the central forest, and learn whether or not Spirits really had a hand in the disappearances of large swathes of the Zantzar army.

"Is that your whole reason for learning to fight?" Cressia asked later on the night, as he walked her to her room in the north western halls.

It was usually reserved for nobility from the other kingdoms, but the blue bloods elsewhere sensed Zantzar's weakness, and steadily cut off contact and isolated the once prosperous nation to deal with the Orc and Spirit threats alone.

Cressia would have the entire suit of lavishly decorated rooms all by herself. The more mischeivous side to her was debating whetever or not to organzie a pillow fight with the rest of the servants nestled within the palace once Alvin had gone to sleep.

"Yes, it is." He remarked candidly, "The troops are low in morale, so I need to be there to rally them.

Well, of course they’d be low in morale if their soldiers seemingly disappeared, Cressia mused to herself.

“I expect you to be awake before dawn then for a 10KM run, if you want me to keep training you, that is."

“Surely, you jest.” A more rational part was still taken aback

"Well, I look forward to seeing the prince sweating it up in Velcro for my amusement tomorrow."

"I am not, and if you aren't as red in the face on the trackfield tomorrow as you were earlier, well..."

"I understand, it is all to make me the best fencer possible, isn't it?"

"Yes, and perhaps also to squeeze some extra sweat out of a soft and tender prince dressed in Velcro."

He began to redden at

"Maybe there is still some of the anti-royalty sentiment somewhere within you, Cressia."

She could only muster a few giggles in response.

"Perhaps."

"Well, good night."

"Goodnight, King Alvin."

It wasn’t a slip of the tongue on her part, but a silly jab that was just as carefully placed as the multitude that she'd delivered to his abdomen earlier on.

There was silence for a moment, a stifling long silence that went on until they shared an awkwardly placed smiled, and then she watched her very awkward Prince walking down the hallway like an Ostrich without a sense of direction.

She shook her head, and then closed the door behind her, still quite uncertain about the direction her life had taken her all of a sudden. In fact, she didn’t want to deal with the uncertainty, she would wait until morning and then her head would be cleared of any linger notions that this was some strange dreamlike state from her infancy that she’d entered.

The royal bed, wide enough to fit 10 Cressia’s seemed warm and inviting, and soon she found herself running to be deep within the covers. She hadn’t slept in something as comfortable as this since, well, forever. She’d been cramped into a small mud hut with the rest of her family, and she was forced to forgo pleasantries for art when she she slept on the cold hard floor of the the dim cottage in the boroughs.

Sleep came calling not long after she'd pulled the blankets over her ears, which were still, as always, carefully attuned to any humans that might come knocking on her door in the dead of night.