❛ 𝐆𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐋𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ❜ — Elice & Marth.
aumhearted:
Who knew how long it had been since Elice and Marth truly had a moment of time to spend together? The recent years had been full of war and transition as Marth prepared to take on the throne. And before that, they’d been separated for far too long while Marth hid in Talys.
The safe walls of Garreg Mach brought the two siblings back together. And though they were to continue their studies, Elice treasured every moment she received with her brother. She’d gladly accepted his request to study together, a sense of overwhelming joy filling her heart when she’d seen how excited his eyes looked. Though Elice was not much of a fighter, her brother reasoned that she could potentially lift Falchion if she were to learn the ways of the sword. And so, out of curiosity, she had agreed to train with him.
At his gentle corrections, she adjusted her posture and stance and held the wooden sword in a low guard position. Elice realized in that moment that a dress and slippers were not an ideal attire for swinging around a sword (though in her defense, she never sparred, so she didn’t own the appropriate attire for fencing). “Wood to iron, iron to steel… it is very much like how magic transitions from fire to elfire, from elfire to arcfire, and so on,” she commented.
With his prompting, she turned to the dummy and prepared to strike….
…
…However, Elice didn’t seem to quite understand how sword-fighting worked. Rather than delivering a wide swing–as beginners often did–she barely lifted the sword and poked the dummy in its shoulder. Due to the underwhelming attack, the dummy was unaffected and remained upright and sagging. And so, Elice raised a hand and blasted the dummy with a rush of ice and wind. Said dummy flew backwards into a wall before dropping to the floor.
Back when they still held claim to the lives of their lady mother and lord father, it was during this distant time that Marth sometimes fancied his daydreams. Including the ones of a diverging future. Those with both Marth and Elice present, of course, as the royal siblings were on unfailingly amicable terms for much if not all of their early lives, but set apart by a swap of hands. What sort of outcome would transpire with him unbound to Falchion’s legacy—what if Elice took up his functions instead, sword and all?
Jagen would have allowed him to skip the tedious lessons of world history, swordmanship, and court decorum altogether, had begun his gleeful guesswork. He’d have been permitted the freedom to do many things he couldn’t; to eat as many sweets as he wanted and sleep late into the noon as the castle animals did. To fashion a compass of his most mundane desires in the pursuit of their every direction! In reality, such fond hypotheses did not ever fly far beyond the limited reach of a dutiful princeling’s imagination and the firmer reality of his crown to-be. So Marth did not dwell on it beyond boyhood. But watching now the shift of her hands and feet, accommodating a position more suitable for swordplay, he was reminded of those simpler days. By their virtue came the second reminder. He never did speak one word of these silly deliberations.
Marth hummed his agreement with the observation. His eyes continued to dutifully trail Elice’s movements, ensuring that good posture was sustained as she prepared to strike. “ The comparison is certainly there, now that you mention it. Perhaps I’d have made it just as quickly if I paid more mind to magic like you and Merric. “ The words were succeeded by a chuckle; the light of his eyes softened, warm and bleary, as if cast in a resin of nostalgia. “ You know, I don’t wonder it anymore but I did. What might have ensued if it was you that inherited the Falchio— “
The words crashed to a violent halt, not dissimilar to the training dummy colliding with the wall by a joint conjuration of wind and ice. Were poise and reserve not the Hero-King’s consistent bedfellows by this juncture, he’d have no doubt let his jaw drop to the floor. “ Elice…! What happened? “ he exclaimed, stepping forward to take her by the shoulders. Naturally, he knew what happened; he had seen it with his own eyes! The princess of Altea—delicate, gentle, and kind Elice—had foregone the sword after its failure to fell her inanimate enemy and chosen violence. The realization served to drive a fork in the younger’s reaction; one side of fading shock and another of potent amusement. “ Sister, you cannot resort to magic if you hope to learn swordplay. Magic, and grudges against the training paraphernalia, are outlawed from this point forward! “
Elice raised a hand to her mouth in an attempt to hide a playful and amused smile. She knew very well that magic would be off-limits for her training since the whole point was to learn how to use a sword. But she couldn’t resist messing with her brother a little.
As she looked into his eyes, she couldn’t hold her composure much longer and burst into giggles. “Ahahaha.... Marth, hon, I apologize. ‘Twas merely a joke on my part. No grudge against our faithful training friend here! Hehe~!” She carefully set the wooden sword down on a table. “Here... I shall go collect the training dummy for a second attempt.”
The blue-haired princess marched over to the stick-like figure and proceeded to draw a face in the snow piled on its “head.” She took a step back and presented it to her brother. “Look, I made a snowman!” Elice did realize, however, that she was taking this less seriously than Marth was. She didn’t want to upset him, so she decided to continue with their training in a more serious manner.
She brushed the snow off the dummy and set it up in the center of the room once again. Then, she picked up her sword and faced her inanimate opponent. “Now, then... um... how should I proceed with striking it? I am not the most familiar with different sword techniques, so... I’m not so sure what to lead with.”
