[P] Singing Blades

[Cordelia]

 

When you make a mistake with metal, 
you can melt things down and start anew

 

---

 

Iron always smelled like home. Even when it was mixed with all the dust and sweat of the proud Solterran heat. The clashing of bodies was a symphony unlike any other, as she set down the crown she often wrapped around her skull. She drew the cloak and hung it on a worn rack in exchange for a blade that was not her own. It belonged to a friend of hers who frequented her shop. Her skill was only slightly rusty, unlike the base of the once proud metal sword. The hilt was worn, and flakes of gold had begun to slough off. It floated away like her memories so often did. Cordelia's small frame emerged from the darkened halls of the colosseum. 

She squinted as the bright light of day assaulted her eyes and began to glimmer from the blade of the sword. The bodies of soldiers in training clashed, and created a heartbeat that sounded along with the clang of armor and blades. This was home to her. The crimson ground did not perturb the small, unassuming adventurer. Cordelia began to warm herself up. Each movement fluid, as though the blade were both an extension of her, and her partner of a dance. Each movement was detailed and precise, even when the body of another drew close to her, she was in complete control of the old, rusted blade.

"I didn't see you there." She commented, as though she were anything but in complete control of this dangerous weapon. An apologetic smile crept across her face, and her eyes softened as they tried to adjust her focus from her practice to the equine near her.


@Sabrina

<3

[Sabrina]

this is a world where there are monsters

@Cordelia | "Speech." | sorry she's a bitch

Sabrina liked to think of herself as uncomplicated. She had basic needs which she pretended were met. She ate just enough to get by, drank more than she ate, and moved forward on the singular mission of finding her sister, like one of those fuzzy worm on a string toys. A simple girl of simple tastes: whiskey, bar snacks, advancing progress. Except, since coming to Novus, she’d hit a wall seemingly made out of bedrock. Delphine’s trail had simply disappeared, which either meant she was so close the clues were minuscule, or she was further away than she’d ever been-- further, still, than the alley where Puck’s dusty ashes surely still swirled in little gutter-trash storms.

It was a frustrating thought, and Sabrina didn’t deal with frustration well. She got angry. When she got angry, she got punchy. And when she got punchy, people got hurt. People getting hurt tended to get the law involved.

Community service, the warden said. Conscription. A year.

“For a bar fight?” Sabrina’d howled, rage palpable in the air. Gripped on her shoulders by strong hands bearing swords. They’d called in extra guards.

Over a thousand signos in damage and medical bills. A pause. And screaming at the warden.

So here she was, prancing in the sand like some shitty ass winter soldier, clad in piss-poor padded armor and swinging a sword with more rust than a shipwreck’s hull and duller than the nameless warden she was currently pretending to wail the shit out of. Sabrina was good with a blade-- great with a blade-- but she was simply too angry to consider anything other than using the weapon as a hammer.

She reared up on her hind legs with a ferocious downward stroke of her wings to give her more oomph-- magic sizzled its way through her veins, clouding her already murky mind-- and brought the training sword down in a vicious, pulverizing blow that would have done some serious harm despite it being a training weapon. As it was, the blade lodged in the wooden shield her hapless opponent was hiding behind, an inch from cleaving it in half. With a powerful roar, Sabrina jerked the sword with such force the impetus carried her backwards, stumbling in the sand. She almost went careening into some tiny, golden thing, who apologized sweetly and batted her lovely blue eyes into the sunlight.

Sabrina wanted to vomit. She was coated in sweat despite the winter air and sizzling with stolen magic and her own personal brand of rage. Spitting into the sand, she wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, and brandished the now almost-broken training sword. “Are you blind?!” she snapped, shaking the useless thing-- it was an aggressive motion, but not necessarily one of attack. Just shaking whatever she happened to be holding, and it happened to be a useless, gnarled sword. “I’m a giant cow-colored shit-stack with big ugly ass wings! How could you not see me?”

She was mad. She was mad at Solterra and all the golden, whingy, pretty things walking around with their delicate gilded skin and their delicate blue eyes, so soft and so pretty. She was mad at law and order.

She was, mostly, mad at herself.  

⚔

[Cordelia]

 

When you make a mistake with metal, 
you can melt things down and start anew

 

---

 

Fury poured from every inch of the large, winged mare before her. Fury was as ravenous and often as uncontrollable as a wildfire. Her words intended to burn rifts of ire in Cordelia's skin. The smaller mare does not flinch as the beast bellows unto her, lathering part of her face with saliva. It mingles with the sweat on her pale golden brow. Cordelia's smile remains in place as the mare unloads on her, brandishing a sword tottering near the hilt. It is a poor, broken thing. She doesn't respond to the mare's anger. Cordelia knows the heat and frustration that boils in the blood of all good warriors. She knows the stagnant taste of disappointment in oneself as much as she knows the taste when it comes from others.

"That poor sword of yours, don't they give you better weapons to train with?" Cordelia ignores the white-hot fury this mare brandishes as expertly as the old adventurer brandishes a blade.

"Give that to me, and take my blade instead. You soldiers deserve better than these old things." She dotes on the stranger. As if she is deserving of any display of kindness or compassion. Cordelia sees no need to chastise the blade-wielding mare.

All youth learn these harsh lessons. Time shapes their reality as much as a lathe crafts wood. Cordelia does not wait for permission. Patience has never suited her. She is not delicate. 

She extends herself upwards onto her hind daggers. She moves to pry the tattered sword from the grip of the "shit-stacked" sky-bird in exchange for her blade that is in much better condition.

Her friend will understand her desire to make this right.


@Sabrina

<3