To be done...
'8 Yrs sounds good but didn't we say that the last year was often pue field work... ie: what we have is lying by omission rather than wrong' 'yeah, but the field work is done under the school's name and there are several sign in points through out the year that they must complete... i see your point.
The top writing is for context.
However, Eshú waited until Mikael’s steam had passed, before asking, “Why do you want to be a swordsman?”
“What?” Mikael asked in confusion.
“You heard. What makes you want to do it? What makes you want to do it? Be good at it? Why swordsmanship rather than anything else?”
Eshú’s question stopped Mikael for that moment, made him stop and think inside of himself, into a place where he would not usually have gone. He looked at Eshú with narrowed eyes, while Eshú only looked back at him expectantly.
“Well?” he said, nudging him further.
“I need to be,” Mikael told him, “Good at it, I mean. I’m drawn to it, but more than that, if I failed at this, if I could never go anywhere with this dream, I would…Come on Eshú, this is so stupid!”
“No it’s not. Answer the question, Mikael,” Eshú said persistently, “Why swordsmanship? Why not…I don’t know, magery even?”
Mikael scoffed at this.
“Come on, Eshú! Magery? Now I know you’re just fooling around! I mean, of course I can see how it could become of use, but magery being the thing that draws you? Don’t be ridiculous!”
A subtle rising of the eyebrows informed Mikael that Eshú was not trying to be funny or ridiculous, but was in fact, being quite serious.
His laughter quickly dying away, Mikael again attempted to answer Eshú’s questions.
“I guess it’s because it’s all I’ve ever known. I mean, my father was a warrior…not that I wanna be anything like him, or that I’m doing this for him or because of him or anything like that!” Mikael hastened to explain to him, “It’s just, I guess it seems right to me. I’ve never wanted to do anything else.”
“And so are you prepared to just give up on all of that just because you lost one fight? All of that passion, passion which drives you to such an extent that you would physically and emotionally butcher yourself in such a way after a lost fight? For that’s all it was, Mikael, a lost spar, and nothing more. These are your dreams we’re talking about. I know I would never give up on mine so easily.”
“I’m not giving up on them!” Mikael retorted hotly.
“Aren’t you?”
The soft question asked of him caused Mikael pause for a few moments, as he struggled to find within himself the truest answer to this question.
“Well of course I’m not!” Mikael reinstated, “It’s just that…I don’t know. I came here with such high hopes, you know, that I’d come here and I’d be the best, pick up everything that was taught to me first, become the highest in all of my classes…I guess it’s just off putting to find out that I’m not. That it isn’t going to be so simple as I’d planned it all in my head.”
“Mikael, think about it. If it really were as simple as you described, how on earth could you ever value it? You could certainly never stand up to say that you had worked for it, cause you wouldn’t have. It would have been merely handed up to you on a silver platter. Easy has its merits, Mikael, but attaining your true dreams will always be attached to some form of struggle to get there.” Eshu regarded Mikael straight facedly to express that his words here were meant quite seriously.
“Does it have to be?” Mikael asked in appeal, turning a half joking face to Eshu, before backing down enough to say, “Okay, I know. I know it’s true, you happy now?” At Eshu’s continued stoic expression, Mikael sighed.
“Look, I don’t want to give up on my dreams, believe that if nothing else. Too much is at stake for me to do otherwise.” At the slight tilting of Eshu’s head that betrayed the smallest amount of his confusion, Mikael waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t bother. It’s unimportant anyway. Just know that it is enough for me to continue on this path.”
Before Eshu could be given the chance to say any further on the subject, Mikael took a last glance around him for the peace that he had found within this place, before turning back to Eshu to say, “Come on. Let’s go from here now. We’ve been gone long enough.”
With a nod of agreement, Eshu fell into step with Mikael as they walked back to the buildings of the training institution.
(the reason it was formerly thought that he might be giving up was after the Peron/him fight, but now, since that has not yet happened, it is because Mikael is slacking off in his studies. This conversation with Eshu is a big reason why he begins to change back and remember why he wanted to come here in the first place. No more fucking around, so to speak. Maybe have a scene where Mikael reflects on this new resolve before putting it into action?)
After he finds the 'spy room' you have a note saying:
(remember that Sir Andrei comes back really soon)
If that means anything...
Grrr! this is becoming nothing again... too much basic stuff undone.... ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* * * * *
“Hey, those are mine! Get your own quiver.”
Mikael and Eshú looked up from their own exercises upon hearing the younger boy’s objections. In retribution for his outburst against the other boys, the two of them watched as the young boy received a hearty shove to the ground, and the two bigger boys once again took his arrows away from him.
“Learn to respect your elders, boy!” the taller of the two spoke down to the boy now on the ground.
“We really appreciate your contribution to our own exercises, though,” the other said with a laugh, “However unwilling!”
“Stuff you both!” the boy said with spirit.
“Are we going to take that Peron?” the other boy asked with a sneaky edge.
“I think this boy needs to be taught a lesson!” Peron replied.
“Oh, come on, are you both so immature that you must find your fun by picking on those weaker than you?” Mikael asked with disgust, having come up to them, and was now in the process of taking the arrows to return them to the boy on the ground, offering to help him up as he did so.
“Mind your own business, why don’t you?” Peron’s friend said with a curled lip.
“Yeah, come on Mikael,” Eshú said, coming up behind him, and saying softly to him, “They’re from our dorm. No point in making trouble with them!”
“You’d just stand by and watch them bully around to their own way?” Mikael asked, shooting a derogatory look to both the boys he now recognised from their dorm as the one with the beady eyes and the son of the man who had spoken up so rudely. It seemed as though there we definite similarities between father and son!
“You see that you’re gonna be able to do a lot about it?” Peron asked showing an insulting amount of doubt at this idea.
“You want me to show you just how much I do plan to do?” Mikael asked, standing right up into his face with much bravado.
“Alright, you’re on!” Peron said, then turning to his friend, “Meldrew, hand me that sword over there. Pick up your sword, pretty boy!”
“Eshú?” Mikael asked, turning to him with pleading eyes, asking him with his eyes to back him up here.
With a sigh, Eshú turned to fetch a sword fitted to Mikael’s size and weight, before handing it over to Mikael, saying to him in a last attempt, “You know, you don’t have to go through with this.”
Mikael looked deep into Eshú’s eyes, and for a time, they shared a kind of silent communication and form of understanding of each other. It was completed with a final nod from Eshú, as he stood back to allow Mikael some space, and Mikael turned back also, to come to face Peron.
“You ready, pretty boy?” Peron taunted.
“I’m always ready to show scum like you a lesson!” Mikael said forcefully.
“We’ll see!” Peron scoffed, shifting his weight quickly to make the initial thrust.
Mikael quickly came to see that Peron was quite a bit more advanced than he had expected him to be. Concentrating all of his knowledge towards this fight, Mikael knew that it would be quite a bit more challenging for him, than for Peron. No wonder he had exhibited such bravado. Mikael only hoped that he would be able to show him that not everyone was prepared to stand back just because of his shows of superior strength.
It came to pass that Mikael showed Peron nothing more than how to better crow his triumph over another person. After opening a shallow cut on Mikael’s upper arm, Peron had caught him unawares and was able to use the upper hand to hold Mikael’s sword down under his own.
“Give?” Peron had asked, a cruel smile slashing across his face.
“Never!” Mikael had forcefully stated.
Peron had exerted more pressure down over Mikael’s blade, causing his grip to slacken and Mikael to curse under his breath and grit his teeth against the force.
“Give?” Peron had asked once again, smugly.
“You first!” Mikael had declared tightly, from behind clenched teeth.
“Don’t think so,” Peron said, pressing down once more in such a way that Mikael’s arm was tilted to an awkward angle. He cried out sharply.
“Give!” Peron cried out, alerting others around them, who hadn’t formally been able to see over the taller boys in front, as to who was winning this spar.
Mikael had begun taking his breath in great heaves as his eyes had locked into Peron’s stubbornly. Suddenly, finally realising the fight to be futile, Mikael had let go of his blade, turning away from the fight.
An immediate crow had started up. Mikael had barely been able to face the other boys crowded around him. Without picking up eye contact with any of them, Mikael had bent over once more to pick up his sword, red faced, before fleeing the area, the laughing faces, derogatory comments, ignoring utterly the younger boys, among who was the one whom he had attempted to stand up for. He ran away from it all, leaving it all behind him in favor of the peaceful tranquillity of the nearby woods Mikael had recently discovered.
Walking over the hill, a brilliant scenery of greens and blues, oranges and yellow, reds and purples of every colorful shade within nature was laid out for Mikael alone to find, untouched by man or the school, which considered it just out of the boundaries. The sound of a trickling creek bed nearby could be heard from where he stood on that hill, accompanied by the sounds of whistling birds, oblivious to the trials of mankind and other animals as they went on about their daily lives, ever below them.
(more needed to end this, something to lead to all the other times he comes back to this spot.) * * * * *
* * * * *
If Adele was surprised at Mikael’s presence in front of her, she gave no sign of it. She stood steadily in this place where there was only him and there was only her. All around them drifted swirls of nothing. But through it all, everything seemed somehow more refined; ideas were exchanged and understood in the place were words would usually be employed.
“You will be strong…” Adele informed. “With time… ability through learning… training…” The ideas drifted off. Her contact here was tenuous at best, but still she instinctively attempted to ease her son.
“Not soon enough… Not over everyone…!” Mikael’s thoughts came through the Dream contact with clarity. Adele put the skill down to the obvious discomfiture that she could feel emanating from him.
“There is… someone… in particular?” Adele wondered. She was already feeling the difficulty stemming from years without practice in this type of communication with another. She wondered if Mikael was consciously aware of this contact that he had apparently established between them.
“Doesn’t matter…” Petulance. Adele could feel the natural shields of Mikael’s mind closing against her.
“Mikael…”
“Does not matter!” This time the thought was far more forceful, and the strength behind it had the effect of terminating their contact. Adele’s mind reeled in shock. Tentatively, she attempted to reach him once more, but the link was well and truly severed. Mikael had fully withdrawn back into himself.
She too allowed herself to sink back into herself. Although she was glad for the ability he showed to maintain contact between them, her mind worried over what he was facing inside of the warrior facility.
Mikael woke up with a start, conscious of the feeling that he had somehow traveled during the night, although he knew that to be impossible. His mind was pushing forward a strong sense of Adele. The ideas of working towards want you wanted and giving it time flashed into his mind.
Of course, that was exactly what his mother would have wanted of him.
He exited the dorm with a spring in his step. He show them all; train harder than any of them and the next time they tried to face him down, it would be down his sword that he looked at them.
He joined the mess hall in mind of this. The mood held with him all the way into his morning class. Although he shared it with Peron, he was careful to sit next to Erik.
“What on earth did you do?” Erik whispered once Mikael had sat down. “Peron is having a hissy fit over it. I think you’ve really been engraved into his bad books now.”
“Let it happen,” Mikael said carelessly. “Just goes to prove that he wasn’t worth it in the first place.”
“Oh Mikael, don’t speak like that,” Erik implored, “Don’t you remember what it was like at the start?”
“Things have changed since then, Erik,” Mikael said. “Both for him and for me.” He glanced scornfully across the room at where Peron was sitting with Meldrew. “He’s made his choices too, you know.”
“But you don’t understand,” Erik said, worried. “How can I be friends with both of you now?”
“If you decide that you would rather be his friend, then I understand,” Mikael said. The class started, and for then, no more was said on the subject.
However, the peace was not kept long. Mikael was heading to the training yards when Peron and Meldrew accosted him. At first Mikael tried to ignore them, but they were not to be ignored.
“Planning on giving us another exciting show of your swords skills today?” Peron taunted. “I was overwhelmed by the lessons you taught me yesterday. Before that, I had not thought that there was a way for one to run away with so little dignity left. But, you showed me otherwise.”
Silence.
“I guess he can’t help it if his father never taught him like a real man. I mean, look at him. Would you waste your time with him? And I heard that he’s from a family of farmers. He probably learnt everything he knows from his mother.”
“Do you know how to cook and clean, Mikael? Maybe you’d be better off in the kitchen of the mess hall. At least then you’d be of use!”
“Run along, Peron. Isn’t it more your style to find some little kids to pick on?”
Mikael glanced up to see Eshu coming to his defence.
“Who called you to come out of your hole?” Peron asked derogatively.
“Obviously the one who told you to stay in yours,” Eshu replied coolly. “Come, Mikael. We have a class to go to.”
“Yes, Mikael. We must be told everything if we are to do anything. If not your mum, then any of friend will do, right Mikael?”
“No wonder he can’t fight if he was always hanging onto his mother’s drawstrings!”
(leads to the phases of Mikael’s idolism of his father, which passes, as well as his neglect of regard towards Adele, as boys growing up do. This doesn’t pass until she dies, at which point it becomes a driving force burying feelings of guilt.)
Everything here is notes really
MIKAEL THREW HIMSELF INTO THE AWAITING SPACE AT THE LONG BENCH, HIS ARMS aching and sore, his legs like jelly. The smell of food was killing him,
“I’m soooo hungry!” his stomach groaned loudly to punctuate the statement and there was a round of agreeable laughter. Tearing himself away from the sight of the platters of breads and meat lying on the table he took a quick glance around to try to find Eshύ who was nowhere to be seen. A brief flash of concern passed through him before he realised that people had started to eat and he applied himself to the consuming of food with vigour.
His body convulsed forward again, dry retching. Eshú hadn’t eaten much for days now and there was nothing for his stomach to throw up. He hoped no one would find him, not like this.
(Something happens to Eshú so that he has to go for a while…magical symptoms center or something and sometime during this Mikael goes to a portside town, doesn’t like it… Harvest Moon holiday – more people are needed to help with chores. Masters organize it that third year students are given the chance to just go out and live, rather than fight exclusively. This gives the view of a realistic future. They are to work and live inside of and as a community with duties/training/learning all at once. This makes many unhappy as it is seen as too much all at once.
Mikael’s ‘group’ go to spend time in a keep as a training like thing, not really training but they have to train while there, not that many of them, only around 50ish over the year levels, I don’t know why yet. First time that Mikael sees a keep and the life of one, they have to train as well as do their duty around the keep. Some look down on the work and living conditions which gives a bad light to all of them. Has to live in a very diff way than in dorms and they have a problem working out the sleeping arrangements as there are four to a room and two beds, with furs on the floor for the other two to sleep on.
Other groups don’t have a problem but Mikaels does. – Snobbish group, thought of sleeping on the floor is not welcomed. Idea is meant to be to share around who sleeps on the floor in turns through luck of straws or other fair means. Mikael gets cheated as he is not of the same ilk.
I just figured out what the below scene is about...
She talks to the dead, they are aware that Adele's death is soon coming, she is resigned to the fact and when she see's Mikael she tries to tell him but isn't able to as every one tries to lock her up saying she's a crazy old witch, lunatic etc.
On the way back from the Keep they stay near a fishing village, there is a problem in the town and a team of students stay behind, Mikael is one of them. {surprise!} He has to walk through mud in the early hours of the morning with a bucket carrying water and stuff, he is not pleased.)
“It isn’t that she can’t, it’s that she won’t…”
Adele caught drift of Mikael’s regard towards her.
“…I may not know what happens now, but I can remember what happened then. And I don’t think any of it will have changed.”
A lone tear started its way down Adele’s cheek.
“You shouldn’t talk about matters that you don’t understand. Back then, it was hell for me!”
just before the transition out of third year, the masters take the students that win a inter year level competition like thing to the yearly festival at a town nearby the training facility-(Mikael finds out about the town from a friend he made in the servants quarters who goes to collect the supplies from the town)-obviously Mikael’s group win and they all go for the first day(the best day)- This means that Mikael does not go back to Adele again for the second year in a row. The festival is one of the biggest in the province and they go for a day and night only although it runs for three days(the other two groups go on the other days), when they are there they accidentally stumble across a student who had snuck out to the festival. While there Mikael meets an old guy who is an insane beggar who babbles and yells at everyone until he sees Mikael and then he goes clear for a bit and talks to Mikael about Danae without talking about Danae, a meeting which Mikael forgets but he meets the guy again later-possibly in the danae book, or maybe Danae meets him…????
Okay, the Old Ones have just come and tried to attack Lia who has been holding her own with a staff that she’d been instructed in use of by her parents since an early age. This scene is set just after the renegades, including Sian, come by to help.
Lia’s head snapped up as the threat of the man in front of her disappeared, leaving in its place a tall standing, proud woman with short cropped brown hair and these strange green-brown eyes. Narrowing her own for a moment, Lia fancied that she recognized the woman, before brushing the thought aside as impossibility. There was no possible way for them to have met before this. Even the fact that they were meeting now, in this way, was quite incredulous.
It was the brunette who dropped her gaze first, concentrating instead on another of the ones attacking. Lia still had no idea where they had come from. One minute she had just been walking, albeit alone and out of the boundaries of her parents’ land, but surely that was no invitation to be attacked in such a fashion! It was a good use that her parents had taught her the art of a staff. She ever carried it with her, passing it off most times as a mere walking pole. Nobody questioned it, that was until one tried to accost her and got it in their gut. But then, they weren’t usually in a shape to question it around then either, Lia mused silently, turning around the fend off another attack from behind.
As the opposing numbers grew less and less, Lia became more and more aware that the strange eyed brunette was not the only one who had come to her aid here. When all of her attackers were either convulsing on the ground or run off, Lia turned to confront her would-be saviors.
“What was all that about?” she asked, choosing to direct the brunette first as she was the only one she’d had direct contact with.
“Surely you wouldn’t have rathered they split you up into bite sized pieces on your own, would you?” the brunette replied haughtily.
“That’s enough, Sian,” a more weathered man said, stepping forward.
For all of his age, Lia could immediately see the wealth of power sitting in this man’s eyes. He was not one to be trifled with, but then, she had not asked to be trifled with either!
“And you are?” she demanded.
“The one who has commanded this save of your life. And we are going to continue doing so. Come with us now.” His tone brooked no argument, but Lia found herself rebelling from it in an instant.
“Come with you now? I do not even know who you are; what you will do with me even if I do come! No, I much prefer going back to my house and my family and forgetting all this, and you, never happened.”
Lia raised her chin in defiance, almost daring the older man to oppose her. He merely regarded her without a change in his facial expression.
“Do you really think that will be the end of it? There were more than a few who escaped from this. They will come back with others to find you, and if they find you with your parents, then you will have put them in unnecessary danger as well.”
The man paused so as to give her time to think and react. Lia found her eyes drawn to Sian, who was still standing just behind him. Others stood silent around them on this dirt road that was seemingly in the middle of nowhere.
“Why would they come back? What could they possibly have to gain? I am nothing to them.”
“You are someone they came up against who lives to tell the tale. So too are we. Therefore it is only the smart thing that we link up together. I couldn’t help but notice your skill with the staff there.”
“My skill with the staff is due to my parents’ teaching,” Lia told the man pointedly.
“Then no doubt you would be feeling grateful to them around now. Certainly not wishing to put them into unnecessary dangers…”
As the man drifted off with one raised eyebrow, Lia only barely held back the full extent of her feelings of scorn, knowing that he had her there. There was no way that she would willingly put her parents in any sort of danger. So where then did that leave her now, if she could even suppose to believe in this group?
“Say that I do come with you,” Lia started. “Not that I must, but that I choose to. What would you expect of me?”
The man inclined his head, obviously having expected this question from her.
“Your fighting skills used in our defense should we come up against any danger that you are present for will be expected. Unswerving loyalty to our kind. We do not accept traitors among us. It is best that you understand this immediately.”
“Among your kind?” Lia questioned. “Exactly what kind do you claim to be?”
“We,” the leader gestured towards the whole company there assembled, “Are the group of the best Renegades to be found within the borders of the First House. Now come; we have wasted enough time here, and I do not relish another confrontation between us and them so soon after the first one.”
“Who are ‘them’?” Lia questioned, falling into step after them without any real conscious thought of doing so. The one named Sian looked across at her curiously.
“Them are the Old Ones,” Sian answered under her leader’s watchful gaze. “Magical users from a time long passed. Their spirits brought back and forced into the bodies of men belonging to this time. Our enemy. They must all be sent back to where they came from; for good this time!”
Lia blinked at the passion of those words out of Sian’s mouth. The leader looked on approvingly before turning his gaze to address a question asked by one of the other ‘Renegades’. Walking among them, Lia only realized later that she had very little time to think of what her life was to become now.
'Ok, Lia. It's in his third year that they meet, 1 year after, the year Mikael's mother dies is the year Li and Sai admit love, after two years of being together they decide to leave the renegades, two years after that Li stuffs up her bit the year after Mikael finishes 'cause Sai dies...
Not a very good first try, but it needed to be written so… it happens after the first part of the last chapter in class, but long before they go on that fourth year trip. Again, poor, poor quality.
Not long after class, Eshu and Mikael moved out and in search of their friend, Brydn. Catching sight of him almost immediately in the mess hall, waiting in line for his food, Mikael called out to get his attention.
When at first he received no answer, he tried again without thinking about it. After the first few attempts, however, his head turned around to look at Eshu in confusion, but all he saw there was confusion echoed back at him.
“Surely he can hear me,” Mikael said. “Brydn, you dunce, over here!”
Eshu kept his eyes trained on their friend in speculation, until they came up so close that Mikael tapped him on the shoulder to turn him around.
“Hey, what was that?” he asked semi moodily. “You don’t just ignore your friends like that, you know.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Brydn replied. “I didn’t hear you.”
Something about the way that their friend turned their head away again almost immediately and continued to ignore them sent sparks of suspicion through Eshu. Meanwhile, Mikael was still attempting to force his way into understanding.
“Not hear me? How could you not hear me? We were just over…”
As Mikael pointed back a couple of people, those couple of people and more started piping up in objection to he and Eshu appearing to jump the line.
“Mikael, we’ve got to back up. Let’s do this another time,” Eshu said pointedly, although his eyes quested for Brydn’s in one last silently searching attempt that was not responded to at all by their friend.
In the end, more than a little put out, Mikael waved his hands and acceded to Eshu’s wishes.
“Fine then. If that’s the way he wants it…” he said, before stalking off and trying to engage Eshu in some form of conversation that deliberately omitted anything to do with Brydn.
However, it was not long after Mikael and Eshu sat down to eat that someone came up to them with their own mid’meal in hand and asked if he might sit with them a while. Eshu merely waved his hand in acceptance. Mikael raised his eyebrows questioningly as he shoveled another mouthful into his mouth.
“Excuse me, but I couldn’t help noticing you calling out for your friend before,” he started.
“I don’t think anybody could help noticing,” Mikael said sourly without looking directly at their visitor. “Anybody except for Brydn, of course.”
Eshu looked up in exasperation, before indicating for the other student to go on.
“You see, there are some religions where it is mandatory, once you get to a certain age and you are considered a man, to let go of your child’s name, and embrace a new one.” The student looked sheepish. “I’m set up for doing it come the end of this year… from what I know of your friend, he is of my religion. That could be why he did not respond to the name you called him by. Have you talked to him yet this term?”
Mikael’s brow furrowed in confusion. Eshu instead was looking as though he had missed something incredibly obvious and could not believe it had escaped his notice.
“Of course,” he muttered. “The De’can-tre. Thank you. I should have thought of it sooner.”
The other student smiled.
“Don’t be too hard with him. It can be embarrassing to explain to those who do not share your same religion,” were the last words he spoke, before presumably moving off to join his usual table friends.
“Again, your temper, Mikael,” Eshu murmured chidingly. “There was a good explanation for it after all.”
Mikael ate his food mutely
They find out that being compatible in an intense situation is not the same as normal life and classes….
“What do you mean it wasn’t you? Who else could it have been?” (don’t ask me what…I don’t know)
- Mikael to Eshu about something magical, ends up being some outlash of Old Ones’ and Lothan’s magic?
Don't ask me what that's about....
A few months after their first training mission another was called, this time they knew what to expect…it is fairly boring - now Mikael gets settled into the pattern of real life training, not just theory and drills..
In these months he also accompanies a master on a visit to the town, he is chosen because he has been there before and everyone who could go is busy. This is just before, and on the way, back to his home where he is finally about to visit Adele again for the first time in 3 years.