“A Knight’s promise is never to be taken lightly. Those who break their words given in a pledge are no longer worthy of the title.” - Old Posuin saying.
“Just who are you, really?” asked a somewhat baffled Solenia Utghwes as her maids helped remove her plate armor, while Aideen hovered around her and checked her for injuries. Her bruises and wounds had all vanished after a quick treatment from Aideen, who was merely checking once more to make certain she had not missed an injury. “No random traveling healer fights anywhere near as good as that!”
“Well, there’s one now, right in front of you,” Aideen muttered as she checked over the girl’s abdomen area, where the remnants of an old scar showed itself. She had healed the damaged muscles underneath it, but kept the scar around, since such cosmetic scar removals were far easier than actually repairing the damage beneath, which meant the girl could have had it removed anytime were she inclined to do so. “Learn to live with it, I guess.”
To be fair, Solenia’s question was a warranted one. Most healers who grew to Aideen’s level of capabilities usually focused their whole lives on the craft and other related knowledge, and most likely had little time to learn other things, like the arts martial for instance. Aideen was not only born with talent and prodigious mana capacity, but she has by now outlived the oldest known humans - and since Solenia came from a human-only country, likely all she ever knew - twice over.
Two centuries’ worth of experiences and actual practice on the field had honed her healing skills to levels unseen outside the few, greatly prized healer-archmages. That she managed to hone her skills to such a level was partly due to the amount of practice she had done during her wanderings, as she had always freely dispensed her gift to those in need.
And yet, Aideen practically never failed to keep up her own martial training regimen outside the times where she intended to hide her skills, like during this journey. The dedication she placed on honing her skills with the weapon showed its worth, even if she generally preferred to avoid violence… where possible, which was sadly rarely the case.
“Leave it be, Young Lady,” said Knight-Captain Graciela, who came to them with another two young women behind her. Aideen recognized them as the maid who she saved from a painful death by disembowelment and the knight who had lost her arm in the fight earlier. That neither woman showed any signs of ever having been injured - other than blood specks left on their clothes - was testament to her healing skills. “I believe that the Lady Aideen must have her own reasons. Besides, if she intended anything untowards for us, we would all be dead already anyway.”
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“Pretty much. Ginnie-” Aideen noticed the questioning looks on the faces of the knights when she used Ginnie’s more familiar name, and quickly corrected herself. “That is, Markgraf Eugenia Stahlfaust asked me to accompany her home and pass a letter to the Duke. Keeping her safe is an incidental part of it, is all.”
“I had my suspicions. That said, I thought you were just a really good healer for your age… until today that is,” admitted the Knight-Captain. “I really want to ask how someone your age gets anywhere near that good in two very different things, but I assume that is a question I should not ask.”
“Oh, not really, Knight-Captain,” said Aideen with a smile. From what she heard, the treatment for the unliving in Posuin was mostly on the worse side as the people had a hard time accepting them, especially their own families, but they had not persecuted them either, and let them move away should they so desire. “Tell me, how old do you think I am?”
“Somewhere in your twenties would be my first guess, but considering your skill, probably up that by a decade?”
“I’m two hundred and one,” replied Aideen with a smirk. The surprise and disbelief on the faces of the knights and maids was somewhat amusing to witness up close like this. “I’m an unliving. One of the very first ones, in fact.”
“Well… that certainly answered some of my questions then,” said the Knight Captain after she pondered for a moment. “Either way, I offer my deepest gratitude for your aid, Lady Aideen, for saving all our lives, and especially my two daughters.”
“Oh, they’re your kids?” asked Aideen as she looked at the two young women. Both Solenia and Graciela nodded in answer to her question. “Had thought they sorta looked like you. Guess serving the ducal family is a family business, huh?”
“My mother served the Young Lady’s grandmother, as I served her mother. My children naturally carried on our work to the next generation,” replied the Knight-Captain with some obvious pride in her voice. “Should there be anything I can do to repay the favor one day, please let me know. I am willing to do anything so long as it does not go against my Oaths as a knight.”
“I’ll consider it then, thanks.”
As Aideen walked away and helped check their steeds to ensure that they were in good health, she caught some snippets of conversation from the group she left behind, where the Knight-Captain, her daughters, and Solenia were discussing about her.
“Dame Graciela, in your opinion, just how good is the Lady Aideen as a fighter?” asked Solenia with a somewhat subdued tone. “I couldn’t even see her fight clearly. All I saw was the result, and all the dead bodies she left behind.”
“In all honesty young lady?” replied the Knight-Captain with a serious tone. “I believe that she could very well kill all of us with ease if she desired to, unliving or not. She had dived right into the midst of these raiders, thrice, and had walked out without even a scratch on her.”
“I do not know any master of arms in the kingdom who could even plausibly replicate that feat, much less take her on in a fight,” continued the older woman. “As it is? The first thing that came to mind is the odd weapon she used. Can you imagine how you would fight it? Or even the many possible ways she could use it?”
“Fair point…”