Adeline had a soft spot for a certain type of girl. An easily exploitable soft spot, at that.

A small, frail girl who blushed like a maiden only a minute after blowing a hole open in a deer’s head? To put it simply, Adeline found it unfair. She’d been hopelessly infatuated with Sybil, and she wasn’t sure if it was her potential, her looks, her demeanor, or her having been saved by Sybil that caused that feeling. Thus Adeline had settled upon the conclusion that it must have been a mix of all of those things.

Every time that her face went bright red, every time she stumbled out a few words, trying to draw attention away from it, Adeline’s chest was filled with an odd feeling. Something that made her begin to understand that ‘butterflies in your stomach’ wasn’t just some colorful language, but the reality of the feeling.

Even as she was digging her hunting knife into the deer’s throat, making cuts through its arteries to allow its blood to drain faster, Adeline couldn’t stop herself from ruminating on the feeling locked away in her gut.

In truth, Adeline had Sybil shoot towards the deer’s head on a whim. To truly kill it, she would have to destroy its brain. Anything else would have it stumbling off as fast as it could, or dying on the grass. If she wanted a more guaranteed kill, it would have been better to have Sybil aim for its heart or lungs. But Sybil had, by some miracle, landed a perfect strike through its brain.

Was she in love? Adeline didn’t think so. It may have been something growing within shooting distance of “love”, but she saw it more as a crush than anything else. A more adolescent version of love. That didn’t mean that she took it less seriously, though. If anything, she relished the feeling she got from Sybil. It was a comfortable distraction from the fact that she had abandoned her home and made herself into an enemy to her kingdom.

Adeline hefted the deer over her shoulder, its head and neck at the lowest points, blood dripping out behind her back. She was happy to see Sybil was still lost in thought, though she was still conflicted. She wasn’t sure if that blushing was from Sybil being shy around strangers, or if she really did hold feelings for her.

She sighed, putting a hand up to her head. The other was holding tightly onto the deer’s hind legs. Fighting was easy: you simply look for your opponent’s weakness and then exploit it until they fall or die, depending on the severity of the fight. But love? Or even a crush, for that matter. Sybil wasn’t an opponent, and as for weaknesses..

As satisfying as it sounded to make Sybil blush until she melted in front of her, Adeline didn’t think being so forward was proper. But she had a feeling the girl wouldn’t be quick to admit any feelings she may have, without being pushed to do so. So, Adeline was at an impasse. This was far too complicated. And though she had slight brushes with crushes and teenage love, she quickly abandoned those things after awakening. It wasn’t her field of expertise, and that frustrated her to no end.

Adeline just knew, quite firmly at this point, that she wanted to keep being with Sybil. Not just as traveling companions, but as something more. She longed to see what kind of reaction the mage would have from Adeline wrapping her arms around her and-

She let out a breath, and kept walking.

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After a couple of miles more of journeying, the pair stopped for the night. Adeline decided that, all things considered, the two would pass on sparring for the night. They had gotten their physical activity from hunting. Besides, Grymgate was one day away, and they would need their energy in the worst case scenario.

She set the carcass down on a long, wide rock, and set off to work.

She had skinned dozens and dozens of deer in her life, and so this small one made for quick work. Though they had chefs who prepared food for them each and every day, her father thought that teaching her how to hunt would be a good foundation for the profession of killing. The people of Hyperion saw House Cirix as a band of loyal and just knights, but after boiling it down it was still the same: killers.

Adeline wasn’t naive enough to believe that was a bad thing, at that. After making countless little cuts and slices, Adeline finally pulled the hide fully free from the carcass in one clean piece, laying it down in the grass with the outer side facing down. Killers were necessary. At least, the ones who existed as tools of something other than evil. Those who kill animals, those who kill monsters, and those who kill powerful forces of evil.

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At the end of the day, House Cirix were simple, albeit efficient killers. Hunting dogs happily kept on a chain by Hyperion. But even if a monarch was surrounded on all sides by competent advisors, they could still be wrong. Or at least, that’s what Adeline believed. Elis Hyperion was no different. Raised in a world just after the rise of awakening, the King sought to wield them like a cudgel to keep the people in line.

Even Sybil had been affected by that mandate. She bit the inside of her cheek as her temper began to flare up. Good people were being held from their destinies by a man who believed he knew better.

She began running her knife along the deer’s chest, opening it delicately, especially careful not to puncture any organs along the way.

Adeline was more than willing to admit that she had made a few mistakes recently. Particularly with the Grivash boy. Had she simply bitten her tongue…

Her father was pressured into arranging a marriage by the elders of Cirix, between herself and Duke Grivash’s fourth son. The two houses had been on bad terms for quite some time, but their relations were beginning to mend. The families sought to seal the deal with a marriage between the two. Adeline was not pleased with the plan.

She demanded a duel, stating that she would happily marry him if he bested her. Everyone else objected, save for the Duke’s son. He, quite confidently, agreed to her terms, assuring his family that he would be victorious.

The families only truly agreed when one condition was stated: the two would use wooden swords. This fight was to be on the same level as a spar, not a fight to the death.

Adeline reached her hand into the deer’s chest cavity, pulling out its organs carefully, one at a time, tossing them into the grass for the animals to eventually pick at.

She remembered that day quite well. His movements were slow, and lacking. Something about the way he fought deeply agitated her. As if swordsmanship was a show to him. A display or spectacle for others to witness. To Adeline, swordsmanship meant preparing yourself to stake your life on something. His blade lacked commitment, it acted purely for the pride of its wielder.

Adeline didn’t want to simply strike him and end it. She wanted to dismantle his attempts for everybody to see. Adeline Cirix was not some political pawn, she was a woman who would shake the world, whose name would be spoken in the same breath as famed heroes and the Pioneers themselves.

With each wide swing the boy threw out, she would smack his sword to the side. Her eyes were constantly locked onto his, venom practically seeping from her glare. He grew more and more agitated, more frustrated. Every swing of his sword became heavier, but with less direction than before.

Eventually, after five excruciating minutes of toying with him, she struck his wrist under the gaze of both families. He was forced to drop his sword from the pain alone. The scowl on his face was something Adeline would prize for the rest of her days. But she hadn’t been prepared for what breaking the man apart would do.

He began shouting, losing any shred of noble demeanor he may have had before. Adeline clenched her teeth as he barraged her with foul language. “If this had been a battle with aura, we all know how she would have fared against me!” He stared around at the gathering of Cirix and Grivash, not taking notice of the fact that they were all simply looking on in silent horror. “This.. This wild bitch wouldn’t have made for a wife worthy of Grivash, regardless!” There was something stirring deep in her heart. Something telling her, commanding her.

Kill him. Her pride demanded at least that much. The price could only be paid in blood.

“A wife worthy of anyone for that ma-” She looked into his eyes, her wooden sword hanging firmly at her right side, still held in her hand. Gripped in her hand, so tightly that it shook a bit. Hate, anger, and the raw intent to kill oozed from the very fabric of her soul. It was something almost tangible, a feeling in the air that anyone even slightly trained in the arts of combat could notice.

The son of Grivash stopped speaking, freezing in place.

“You mentioned a battle of aura?” Adeline stepped closer, gripping her sword more firmly. “Allow me to show you mine, then.” She barely made out her father’s voice, cutting through the roaring tempest in her head. “Adeline, you must not continue!”

Before the boy could even react, she flicked her sword up, the wooden blade cutting cleanly through his shoulder, removing his arm from his torso, and allowing it to fall to the ground with an anticlimactic thump.

She tossed the wooden sword to the ground, letting it burn up from the fire stemming from her aura.

Adeline threw aside the last organ from inside the deer, its bladder.

If she were smarter, she would have let it all go. But she simply couldn’t. In spite of how much she hated the man, or perhaps because of it, his words rang true. Even Adeline Cirix was not immune to the fear of never finding someone with whom she could be happy.

“Alright, Sybil! It’s ready for the next step, now.”

But perhaps, despite it all, she need not hold onto that fear any longer.