So Camilla set out on her trial with speed in mind, which she didn’t succeed at, mind you, because she took nearly the full six months. But she still considers it a victory, given that she accomplished what no Nohrian knight has ever done before— brought back a live wyvern.
She’d already spent four of the six months on the harsh surface, hunting smaller game and searing it in the short hours of the brutal Nohrian sun. She was further away from Windmire than she’d ever been, and though she could find her way back within the month, time was running out. She could’ve taken the easy way out and brought back the carcass of one of the animals she’d killed for food, but Camilla, especially younger Camilla, was not known for taking the easy way out. There was a trial to complete, and she would damn well complete it right— but time was running out, and even if she returned after her six-month limit (out of one tire fire and into another, better-dressed tire fire), her pride refused to let her surrender.
When the beast appeared, Camilla saw it as a blessing.
Most people would see it as impending doom, but Camilla is not most people. So when she wandered, exhausted and hungry and weather-beaten, into the lair of a fully-grown Nohrian feral wyvern, Camilla did not do the sensible thing and back away— no, she drew her trusty dagger and she charged.
It was a very near battle, stretching hours and across miles of wasteland. Neither hunter nor hunted would surrender. Often the hunter became the hunted, until one of them turned the tables. Days passed, beast and warrior locked in a stalemate. A week into the battle, Camilla’s dagger met its end on the wyvern’s hide. Although this would be when even the stubbornest warrior gave up, Camilla didn’t.
From there, she wrestled the beast— using only her wits and her own raw strength and determination, she matched that feral wyvern and, in true pursuit predator fashion, wrestled the beast into growling submission.
She could’ve killed it— found something sharp enough to penetrate that soft spot on a wyvern’s neck, or simply waited for it to die. But Camilla saw an opportunity to do something that no other Nohrian knight has ever done, and decided to bring it back alive.
The wyvern knew that she had been bested. A blow to her draconic pride, no doubt, but it was a battle that the human had won. Wyverns, in general, were not quite as smart as humans, but they were intelligent animals— and this wyvern intelligent even for her species. When Camilla, the mighty hunter, split half her kill with the wyvern she’d captured, the wyvern knew this was not the end.
It was a long walk back to Windmire. Camilla had intended to fashion a rope out of tough vines, lead the wyvern back to the city instead of carrying it— which even she couldn’t do— but as she fed her captured beast, she noticed strange behavior. No longer was the wyvern screeching and attacking. Now it seemed almost deferent, as if it’d accepted its defeat. It was then Camilla realized that she had become this wyvern’s master; she had tamed it, and thus proven herself worthy of its compliance.
Camilla took a moment to muse upon this title. Dame Camilla of Windmire— warrior of Nohr, slayer of monsters, tamer of beasts. That’d be a nice thing to have engraved in her axe haft when she got home.
Camilla used the next month to train her new bond with her new wyvern— for whom she had yet to settle on a name. As she did so, their bond deepened, until eventually they were hunting together and prepared to take on the world.
Camilla’s six months, by then, had run out. Her funeral had come and gone. They’d burned her empty shroud, left her belongings in her chambers to collect dust. Her family mourned, but ultimately Camilla was merely another sibling lost— this one to deadly pride and national customs. They had almost sunk back into routine when Camilla returned.
Knights had returned after the customary six months before, of course, but most knights did not. And even when they did, most knights returned by walking. Though don’t we know by now that Camilla isn’t most knights?
Camilla did not walk back into Windmire. No, she flew— circling over the rooftops of the sunken city, sending the people into a panic until they caught sight, through the grime and dried wyvern blood, of their princess. The one useful thing her mother had taught her was that it was always good to make an entrance— and what an entrance hers was!
From then on, Camilla and her wyvern were an inseparable duo, as noteworthy as any of her siblings. And Camilla named her new partner Marzia, a warrior’s name, fit for a warrior’s mount. She thought it suited, anyway.