#anyway ent finale die by my sword as always

[fluorescentbrains]

I’d love to be able to play in the space of archer/shran/jhamel post-canon (and possibly a fourth to make it a traditional andorian marriage) but shran/jhamel gives me flashbacks to garak/ziyal in so many respects 💀💀💀💀

[alarawriting]

Inktober 2020 #5/Writeober 2020 #1: Blade

I have a feeling this might be based on a Tumblr prompt but I can’t remember where or when...

***

Aster finished haggling with the merchant for tomatoes, and turned, certain that someone was watching her. There was an old woman standing in the center of the market way, looking directly at Aster, and there was something strange about her – aside from the gray braid that went down to her knees, given that the old women Aster knew cut their hair short to make it easier to keep it, since they were going to put a kerchief over it anyway. After a moment, Aster isolated it – no one was looking at the woman. No one was looking away from her either. It was as if no one in the market could see her, aside from Aster.

She went on to the merchant selling cauliflower, broccoli and beans. The old woman followed her, and now she was closer. There was still no one else looking at the woman, but they all stepped out of her way, casually, as if they just felt like bending their path slightly.

Finally, Aster went to a tree on the side of the market, and waited. The old woman strolled over to her. “You’re Aster Sennadotter? Daughter of Canlon the Eater of Fire?”

“Who wants to know?” Aster asked. Mom and Dad had been heroes, once upon a time. Some of those who’d know that Dad was the legendary Fire-Eater were those who’d have nothing but praise for him and his deeds. Some… were not.

“I’m an old friend of your father’s. Has he never told you of the wizard Enteleki?”

Aster’s eyes went wide. “That’s you?” She looked the tiny, ancient woman up and down. “I thought you’d be taller.”

“Many say that. Tell me, has your father trained you in the blade?”

The phrasing was a little weird; it took Aster a moment to realize that Enteleki meant trained her to use blades, in general. “Mom taught me some dagger work. Throwing, mostly, but some up close, for self defense. Dad hasn’t taught me anything.” She abruptly realized how that sounded. “Anything like that. I mean, he taught me how to fish and ride a horse and identify weeds and things like that. But nothing about blades.”

“So you’ve never learned to use the Sword of the Eater?”

“Are you kidding?” Aster laughed disbelievingly. “I’ve never even seen it. Dad said it was lost after he defeated the last of the Servants of the Phoenix.”

“It wasn’t,” Enteleki said. “He’s still got it. He must have hidden it from you.”

Aster shrugged. “He probably had good reasons. He’s done adventuring, he says. He just wants to live on the farm and grow our crops in peace.”

Enteleki shook her head. “Short-sighted. Of course, he’s done adventuring, no one would expect a man his age, with a family and a farm, to go on a quest. But the thought never entered his mind that the world might need you, did it?”

“Why would the world need me? My mom and dad may have been heroes, but I’m just a farm girl.”

“Your father was a farm boy before he was a hero. Your mother, the granddaughter of the village wisewoman. They were nothing special, before destiny called them.” She leaned heavily on her staff. “Just as it’s calling you now.”

“Why me?”

“You’ll figure it out. Just know for now that you are your father’s daughter. Ask him for the sword and prepare to leave. Or the Lady of Light will destroy everything – including your town, including your farm.”

Aster scowled. “I’ve never heard of her, but, generally speaking, why would someone named the Lady of Light be evil?”

Enteleki looked up into her eyes, and it felt like the old woman was a hawk, sizing Aster up as prey. “Phoenixes are creatures associated with life and rebirth; why would evil people call themselves the Servants of the Phoenix? Evil people lie, Aster. And they lie to themselves, and tell themselves they are good, perhaps that they are the only good ones in the world. Battles are never between good and evil. They are between those who seek to cause harm, even though they may think they are doing what is best for everyone, and those who seek to mitigate or stop the harm, or to make something that helps come to pass.”

“Okay, but… if evil people think they’re doing what’s best, and good people think they’re doing what’s best… how do you tell which is which?”

Enteleki barked laughter, sharp and hard. “How indeed. But the Servants of the Phoenix were burning the wisewomen, claiming that those who followed the ways of the Phoenix would have eternal life, and wouldn’t need wisewomen to heal them, and therefore wisewomen were evil because they tempted people away from the righteous path of the Phoenix. Tell me, was anyone ever good because they burned healers to death?”

“No,” Aster said firmly. Her own mother was a wisewoman, just as her great-grandmother had been. “All of that sounds wrong. I mean… why would you have to worship the Phoenix? What if you have a different god? And even if you did worship the Phoenix… no one ever said the worshippers of the Phoenix come back to life, only the Phoenix itself. And even if you were going to come back to life, why would you not want willowbark for a headache, or a poultice if you get injured? Phoenixes come back to life by dying in fire first. You’re not going to set yourself on fire if you strained your leg.”

“And that is why your father had to defeat them, with the help of your mother and their friends. The Lady of Light claims that she will drive out the darkness, and bring enlightenment. But her idea of ‘darkness’ includes men drinking in pubs and tossing dice, women brewing beer, people telling stories where anything happens that involves an evil act even if the evil act is done by the villain of the piece, men and women who love their own sex, and people who join in love before marriage even if they’re betrothed. As well as many other things. She sees our land as steeped in sin, and she wants to conquer us and burn out the ‘sins’ of the people… by setting fire to their homes and farms, if necessary, and for some reason she always finds it necessary.”

“Okay… yeah, that does sound pretty evil. But how do I know you’re telling the truth? Maybe you’re an evil wizard and this Lady of Light person is actually great and you’re lying to me.”

Enteleki smiled. “Your parents taught you to question. That’s very good. A skill that will serve you, in life. But the answer is, firstly, your parents know me, so you can ask them if I am trustworthy in the things I say. Secondly, you can go deeper into town and give the crier a coin and ask them to tell you everything they know about the Lady of Light, and my suspicion is, they’ll back up what I’ve said, because there aren’t many of her followers around here – which is why she wants to burn it all. Ask a few women at the washer-well what they’ve heard. Ask your parents if they know anything about it. And then take everything you’ve heard, and use your own judgement to decide who’s right.”

“All right,” Aster said. “I will.”

Beginning with telling Mom and Dad all about this.

***

Canlon Shreveson, called by some the Fire-Eater, stormed out of his house in a fury, grabbed his horse, and rode down the dirt path outside his property far enough that he knew neither his daughter nor his wife would see or hear any of it. He dismounted, and yelled, “Enteleki!”

There was no guarantee she would come just because he’d said her name. Wizards weren’t summonable. They showed up when they wanted to. But he suspected Enteleki would want to, and he was not disappointed. One moment there was nothing at the edge of the forest, and in the next, there was an old woman wrapped in a cloak.

She hadn’t changed at all. Most old women, if they didn’t die between the time you first became a man and the time you were settled with a farm and a wife and a teenage daughter, became frailer, more wrinkled. Thinner, usually. Sometimes smaller. Enteleki looked exactly the same as when he’d last seen her, nearly twenty years ago.

“What in seven hells are you trying to do with my daughter?”

“I’d think it’d be obvious,” Enteleki said. “You’re in no shape to go kill the Lady of Light, or even stop her, and you’re not the right one for the job anyway. Your daughter is.”

“My daughter is the Chosen One for some new damned quest to stop some other monstrous person from causing death and chaos. Am I hearing this correctly?”

“Yes.”

“No,” Canlon said, almost roaring it, in the tiny woman’s face. “NO! Aster is fifteen. Fifteen, damn you! She’s not even old enough to get married!”

“Senna was sixteen.”

“Senna was our healer. We tried to keep her out of the fighting as best as we could. And I don’t know what you told her grandmother to let her come with us, but whatever it was, I suspect she cursed you to have the eternal crows pick your bones when she realized what you’d sent a child into. I was too young then to realize how wrong it was for Senna to go with us… and Senna was a year older than Aster is now.”

“Do you think I do this for fun?” Enteleki glared up at him. “Do you think I send children into battle out of love for their parents’ distress? Just once I would like to find that the Chosen One is twenty-six and an experienced mercenary, thank you. But no. You were eighteen when the bones and the ashes told me you were the one. And forty years before you were born, it was a girl of thirteen years, and I did my best to protect her as best I could, but she wasn’t as fortunate as you. She lived, but there was darkness behind her eyes all her life, and she took it finally, three years after you were born. And before her, there was Melen the Rogue, who was seventeen then. I don’t know why it’s always children. I don’t know why we need to have heroes at all – why can’t ordinary people taking up arms do what must be done? But it’s always the same – so much more war, so much more death, if the child heroes don’t go up against the evil of the day. Maybe the world would eventually prevail and become a bright and loving place again, but there would be so many dead, so many made displaced refugees.”

Enteleki had never spoken to Canlon this way before. She’d seemed so encouraging, so strong, when he was young. It had honestly never occurred to him that any part of what she did might bother her. “And so you need to sacrifice my daughter so that hundreds can live in peace.”

“Yes.”

“No! Not my daughter. Not this time.”

Enteleki’s eyes narrowed. “You know well that if the Lady of Light isn’t stopped, this whole land will burn. Your farm as well, and your neighbors’. You know that if the duke musters an army against her in time, which is unlikely in itself, your farm may be burned by your own countrymen so that the Army of Light can’t resupply here. Are those good fates for your daughter?”

“No. But she shouldn’t be the one.” Canlon took a deep breath. “I’m experienced. I know how to wield the Blade of the Eater. She’s never held a sword in her hands before. I’ve done this before and I can do it again. I’ll be the one to fight the Lady of Light, so that Aster can stay safe.”

Enteleki shook her head sadly. “You’re not the one. You’ll fail. Aster’s the one who can succeed.”

“My daughter is not taking up my blade – that she has no idea how to use – and going to war. End of story. I’ll go. And if I fall, at least I’ll fall knowing I was protecting my daughter.”

“Which will reassure her greatly when she becomes an orphan.”

“You can’t stop me, Enteleki. I know you. You can’t take my sword from me; I’d have to give it to you for you to give it to Aster, and I won’t. I’ll take it with me to challenge the Lady of Light. Now you can fight by my side and maybe make it less likely that I’ll fall, or you can get out of my way.”

“I won’t stand in your way,” Enteleki said, almost sadly. “And I’ll do what I can to help you. But it won’t be enough. You will fall, and then either Aster will take up your blade, or this land will burn.”

“We’ll see about that,” Canlon said.