One can not engage in debate without first understanding your opponent's exact position.

- A Quassian Aphorism.

The woman who looked back at her through the glass was not the same girl who had left for the Grieving Lands months ago. It felt like centuries to her. They said that time did not touch the First Children, but they, of course, were lying. It was in her eyes, she noted, a shadow within that held the signs of the passage of the years. The truth of time's toll was etched deep within her gaze, a haunted hollow that no sunny day or joyful song could truly fill. Nor could wine for that matter, she mused with a bitter twist of her lips as she put down a goblet encrusted with fine opal.

She toyed with a blonde curl, twirling it absently around her finger, as her handmaidens fussed over her. It was a nervous habit from her childhood that she could never quite grow out of. Her thoughts were snared by what was to come. She had been summoned to stand before the throne, and a summon in the wake of failure could mean only one thing. Punishment.

Lady Arimea of the ancient house of Lostariot was worried. Very worried, indeed.

Arimea entertained the idea of fleeing to the far and deep woods, to truly live with the trees, as her more rustic cousins had a penchant for doing. After all, she could hear the song of Mana. How different could it be from hearing the voice of Wood, the tune of sap and sunlight? Not too different, if her reading of the old texts was correct. But there was a shadow, a long and terrible shadow, that cast itself on such a choice. For if she chose such a path, the Immortals of the Eternal Court, the king’s personal guard and faithful hounds, would pursue her. And should they ever catch her, her end would be a grim one, indeed.

No, fleeing was not an option. As with many of life's quandaries, the solution lay not in running away. Her pride and dignity would not allow her to.

She stood up and spread her arms to allow her ladies to apply the last adjustments to her formal dress. When she saw that they were finished, she shooed them off. The next part was something she wanted to do for herself.

The young elven woman, youthful at least by the standards of her race, took up a finely made sword sheathed in Sea Serpent leather scabbard. She drew it, taking a moment to appreciate the wavey forms that ran along the curved blade. A single-edged blade that ended in a deadly, razor-sharp tip.

Among the lesser races of the world, the art of sword adornment varied greatly. A gold-adorned hilt, a finely decorated scabbard, or the splendor of a jeweled pommel were, more often than not, the most common embellishments. Conversely, the elven artisans devoted their mastery to the blade's inherent beauty. Although held perfectly still in her hand, the blade looked as if it was the perfect metaphor for flow, the temper lines mirroring the waves of a cutting sea.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Arimea never had an affinity for the sword, and the weapon was merely part of her social costume. For most of her life, its solid weight at her hip was nothing more than a reassurance. What use had she of learning how to fight with long bits of sharp metal?

However, she had been taught a lesson in the foreign lands.

“Perhaps I should do the weapon the honor of learning its use someday?” she whispered to herself, hoisting the baldric over her shoulder. In honor of the craftsman’s efforts, if nothing else.

Also, if truth be told, she enjoyed the idle titters it caused at court, the martial statement it made at her hip was a contrast to her otherwise very feminine and proper appearance.

Arimea made the last adjustments, tightening a few straps and buckles in the way that Lorsan had taught her years ago.

She had witnessed swordmasters in combat, their movements more akin to a dance than a true battle. The bearers of the Mantis Mark, the mark of one who had truly mastered his weapon, were rare, and to observe two such masters of their craft in a duel was a rarer event still. She had seen Lorsan test a challenger for the Mark once, clashing blades with one of the new generation to see if he was worthy. Even to her, the her who had once looked down at such martial displays, it had been a thing of grace and beauty.

Arima had come back from the Grieving Lands wreathed in shame and failure, for she had been unable to fulfill her holy mission to end the life of an accursed half-blood child. The child’s very existence was an insult to her people, and the prophecies of old and elven society demanded her death. Still, it was a simple quest. How difficult could it be to take the life of a child?

The unexpected had happened. The abomination had had a guardian, a protector of sublime skill and ancient power. Even though she was a mongrel, the Hero had taken the half-blood under his protection.

She had been made to realize that the test for the Mantis Mark had been nothing more than the playfighting of children aping adults. The old Alchemist Hamsa had taught her such. Of the entourage that had journeyed with her to the Grieving Lands, only Lorsan remained. Humility, ever a bitter draught, had become all the more unpalatable when poured by the hands of one's foes.

Even in this age, the humans, the pitiable day spawn, as they were called by the true elves, still had the foolish habit of spending what little time they were allotted on frustrating her people.

Still, in the end, it was she who had slain the champion of the day spawn, the ancient enemy of her kind. To her knowledge, only he, the sum of all men, had overcome death’s shadow. For him, and him alone, that dark spectre was nothing more than interlude. He was an existence that would come back again and again, like some persistent, loathsome mold. A soul that refused to pass across the Shallow River and into the Long Dream.

It was a feat that none of the First Children had been able to replicate.

To all intents and purposes, it had been the crowning triumph of her life, marred only by her failure to kill the half-blood. She had called to the spirits and they had answered her. She had formed the spirit of winter into a spear of ice, smashing through his frail heart and ending the day spawn’s life. Almost as if answering a terrible blasphemy, the Alchemist's shop erupted in a massive explosion that blasted her off her feet.