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“What's wrong with you? Swing like this, I said.” Ser Mettin, Knight-Instructor to Princess Freya, swings his weapon at her again. It's a training tool, the weakest available, so the blade is made of dim red light rather than the hyper intense blue of real swords. When it collides with flesh, it causes sharp stinging rather than agonising searing. But when it hits the princess, she yelps and drops both her shield - a thing made of gossamer - and her sword. The latter lands on the knight's boot, instantly discolouring the metal. He kicks it off and delivers a look of condescension to his little charge.
And little she is, reaching his elbow only, and slender as a strand of spider silk. Pale as silk too, her skin of purest alabaster, her hair of icy glitter, her pupilless eyes washed with the lightest shade of duck egg blue. The most colour she displays is in her rosy lips, and in her pearlescent wings. Being a race of spacefaring Fae, most of her family are just as delicate as she. Quite the opposite of her mentor, who is large, ginger, and ruddy. The King hiring a mortal knight to be his daughter's tutor occurred because she told him she wanted to learn to fight the way humans do, with weapons rather than tricks. But humans detest stepping foot on fairy ships, let alone in fairy kingdoms, so his pool of possible hires was shallow, limited to exiles, idiots, and maniacs. Which category he went for is debatable.
Some said this novelty was foolish indulgence on the King’s part, one bound to lead to trouble, and Ser Mettin is inclined to agree, as his student has trouble even holding a sword let alone wielding it. Rather truculent in personality, he adds a sneer to his condescension. “What am I going to do with you, princess? Fairies? pfft. Does the grip hurt your fair hands? It’s silk, not iron.” He picks the thing up, jutting the pommel at the girl. Without the blade engaged, it's just a hilt, easily mistaken for a broken sword.
But Freya only blinks at him, her milky eyelashes sweeping the swell of her cheeks, leaving a faint dusting of glitter behind. Very rarely does she speak, at least to him, though she hears and understands all he says, proving it by little shows of defiance, little moments when he catches her studying him out of the corners of her eyes.
Suddenly disgusted with the heavy meatiness of his body, he jerks his gaze away from the vision of feminine loveliness in order to rest it on the splendour of his surroundings. Even the training yard is an unearthly dream, floored with dewy grass and wild flowers, lined with marble columns embraced by blue and silver roses, stocked with dummies of cloth of gold stuffed with unicorn hair. Guards stand alert at their posts, and servants rush to and fro, bearing platters of the sweet treats adored by the Fair Folk. Mettin, of course, must be careful never to eat fairy food, but apart from that, and the annoyance inherent in teaching, it's a good job. No fairies molest him, by the King's order.
While he's distracted, Freya attacks, striking the way he taught her. The blow is weak, the blade insipid, but she achieves the required form, and also discolours his breastplate, leaving a long bronze strip down the shimmering white metal. In response he thrusts his sword into the earth at his feet -where it proceeds to burn the roots of the grass before tipping over- so he can place his right hand on top of the girl's head. Very few people have that right, and certainly no other servant. Freya doesn't shake off the hand, though if she chose she could burn him with her touch as easily as any energy weapon can.
“Well done, my lady. You finally succeeded. Now practise that move a thousand times and you'll be done for the day.” Ser Mettin snorts and stomps off, clanking steps heavy. Being human, he attempts to make it appear like he's not extremely anxious about the state of his armour. Behind his back, the fairy princess smiles a slanted smile.
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Restoring his precious armour to its original state is going to involve effort and expensive grease, the combination of which will make you wish you had simply forgone the armour and taken the hit directly. Being human, his armour is made of steel, not airy fairy gossamer or leaves or dandelion fluff or whatever else the Fae concoct. If he were using his real sword, the princess would set alight before it even touched her. That sword stands propped against a small marble desk in his small marble room, sheathed like the swords of old. Unlike the blade made for the princess, its hilt is of steel, its pommel and crossguard fashioned in the form of a sinuous dragon. Steel - the Fae hate it almost as much as they hate iron, and he suspects his ill-matched protege damaged his armour on purpose as a result. Removing it is an exercise in vulnerability, but it must be done if he's going to buff the scars off. Besides, his hosts can simply curse him if they so please, armour or no armour. His anti-magic techniques stand no chance against an entire castle, and he hasn't the gold for rune protected items. Plus, no fae would hire him if he arrived at an interview armed to the teeth with anti-fae wards.
Halfway through the onerous task he takes a break, sitting down at the table and pulling an e-reader towards himself. On its crisp, slightly rough screen is the latest issue of his favourite magazine, no, journal, a journal for a very special Order of warriors. Liberty blue with a title picked out in albino blackletter script, it's calming, both to look at and to read.
The 11th Century Knight
A Journal for Nobility
☆Chivalry When It's Difficult
☆Fair Maidens & Their Favours
☆Protecting the Ungrateful
☆How to Handle Peasants, Part 13
☆Battlefield Etiquette (Have YOU Been Uncouth?)
Being a young man chock-full of hot blood, he turns to the article about maidens first. No lady, maiden or otherwise, has ever willingly gifted him a favour, although he's participated in plenty of tourneys as well as real life duels to the death. This neglect does not mean that no woman has ever been in love with him, only that no woman he considers worthy of himself has ever been in love with him. At thirty-four years old, this state of affairs is becoming an acute problem for him, a problem intensified by his hosts engaging in ideal, intense, publicly affectionate relationships in which there never seems to occur a hitch.
While he's mulling over his involuntary celibacy, a colossal din gradually sneaks upon his ears. Sounds are strange where fairies gather, and over the months he's learnt to tune out odd echoes and almost underwater vibrations.
But then the door to his room booms and shakes, the body that fell into it carrying on down the corridor, echoes resolving themselves into footsteps. Rushing footsteps, and ringing shouts. Leaping to his feet, Ser Mettin hastily slaps his armour back on, grabs his shield and sword, and dashes after the noise.
🦋
Outside his room there are fae bodies. Slashed to pieces and strewn about the marble floor like tufts of wool or chunks of torn marshmallow, silver blood enhancing the gleaming beauty of the tiles. True born fairies possess no bones, they cannot go to war like mortals. That they are in this state can only mean that humans or other meat based beings with strong magical defences are rampaging through the castle. It happens sometimes, typically adventurers looking for fairy gold, victims looking for revenge, or mercenaries sent by foes. As a teacher, Ser Mettin has no official defensive position to take up, so instead he sprints for the princess’ suite. The King, as is typical for him, is not in residence, therefore protecting the girl is the only logical option.
A humanoid in runic steel has just finished kicking in the golden doors of Freya’s suite when the knight arrives, the deep black grooves in the invader's armour surging with scarlet every time they encounter, and destroy, an invisible lattice of magic. Without spells protecting them, kicking in the doors is brutally easy, since they're made of twigs wonderfully woven together. Ser Mettin asks no questions, but pulls his sword from its sheath, igniting it as his foe turns, then thrusting the heavenly blue blade into the man’s unprotected armpit. The already wide eyes behind the enemy helmet widen further as blood splashes the inside of the visor. Ser Mettin knocks his opponent down with a blow of his shield, leaping over the body into the room, spinning in preparation to repel further invasion, his moss green gaze furious.
Behind him an ivory cupboard door opens with a whisper, a tiny foot clad in nothing but luminescent skin emerging. A flutter of wings as wispy as mist brings the princess over to the knight, who reacts with a snarl. “Get back in there! They-”
More humans arrive before he can finish. Mercenaries without insignia. They're momentarily stymied by the body lying across the threshold, a moment Ser Mettin does not let go to waste. The unique brand of magic he wields is not subject to diffusion by runes, and neither are the antimatter grenades kept in a pouch at his waist. The latter are a problem when there's a frustrating spun silk waif floating about, so he sticks to magic, generating a wall of white fire which throws the invaders off their feet, leaving their armour scarred by rainbows. Ordinary soldiers are no match for him, and he dispatches the floundering men ruthlessly. One, however, a rogue out of the same Order as he, casts a silence spell, preventing him from conjuring any more divine fire.
It's down to classic shield and sword combat, blades clashing and sparking, hitting shields and leaving pastel stripes across them. Hitting marble and cracking it. Hitting natural decor and generating ugly black marks. The stench of burning fills the heated air. The goal is to drive one's blade through a chink, or simply wear down the other person's armour till it shatters, melts, or ceases to function properly. It is the former the grumpy mentor achieves when, after losing the plates protecting his hips, he reacts just fast enough to outpace his opponent's guard, thrusting the searing tip of his sword through the narrow eye slit of his foe's helmet. Horrible screaming fills the beautiful corridors of Elfland, foreign red blood defiling exquisite tapestries.
With job not yet done, Mettin turns, grabs hold of his charge’s slender wrist, and drags her away, towards the kitchens, where there is a passageway down to the crystalline beach below.
On diamond sand softly lapped at by an aquamarine ocean, the exhausted knight, spotting more foes in the distance, takes another chance, a great liberty, kissing his princess on her soft, soft lips before stashing her in a crack in the pink quartz rocks. Since he isn't instantly cursed to dance himself to death, he imagines all is well and he can die happyish.
No such luck, changeling reinforcements arrive to help repel the assailants, and he's soon summoned to his reward by a newly present King. Fairies know nothing of gratitude, but everything of insult.
“You saved my only child from certain doom.” intones the King, a small and unnaturally handsome male who appears no older than his progeny.
Yes I did, thinks Mettin.
“Foolish mortal, the kitchen boy saw you steal a kiss, so now you die.”
What?!, thinks Mettin.
He's about to be cursed in the most hideous fashion, when his student smiles her crooked smile. “Wait, Daddy, I have a more amusing punishment in mind. Make him my bodyguard. Give him to me.”