Aerys of Lunamorn

3 - Acknowledging War

For being my friend. (:

III. Aerys

     The training ground at the palace was almost never empty, especially when training fresh recruits. Aerys picked her way through the sweaty bodies. The men and women on the training grounds didn’t call out a greeting to the Princess—it was a belief instilled by Volgaris, the newly-dead king, that a soldier is the equal of his liege on the battlefield—and also on the training ground.
     Aerys had taken her new sword, which her brother Astrael had given her last Yule. She hadn’t named it yet, but it was a beautiful sword, and she was aching to give it a swing.
     “Beautiful blade, is it not?”
     Quentin Quarren stood in front of her. Quentin was a Cerian swordsmaster who was in charge of Aerys’ training when she was young. Quentin didn’t believe in using large weapons to ensure a victor, making him a building block of fighting women’s units in Lunamorn. Volgaris had reinstated the traditional customs of women fighting with men in hand-to-hand combat, not as mounted archers or snipers. Quentin taught the smiths in the palace to create lighter weapons like rapiers—light but needle-sharp. Lunamorn was, after all, a “barbaric” country, something Volgaris himself had said. It was necessary to break away from tradition and to have other options open in regards to weapons and fighting methods. Aerys felt overwhelmed by the memories of her father that were rushing in.
     “Princess?”
     Aerys smiled wryly, shaking her head a bit to clear it. Quentin, having come from a relatively “civilized” Ceria, had never gotten used to the informality of life at the Lunamorn court.
     “Yes it is, Quentin,” Aerys said as Quentin eyed her blade speculatively.
     “A bout to clear the cobwebs from your head, yes?” Quentin looked sternly at her, and Aerys felt the wild desire to giggle. Hysteria, she supposed. Trust Quentin to know just what she needed to recover from the meeting with Volgaris’ advisers. <i>My advisers now,</i> she thought ruefully. 
     “If you insist.” Aerys flexed her arm and took a deep breath in. Detachment from one’s emotions was a thing Volgaris had told Aerys that she needed to have, whether in battle or in a diplomatic situation.

     As Quentin bowed to her, Aerys bowed back. That was another uncommon thing about Quentin—he taught Aerys to respect her enemy. She had argued that in the heat of war, no one was going to be bowing. She had been seven then, intent on killing and maiming every enemy of Lunamorn that would come along her path.
     “Princess, every man or woman is the Goddess’ child, are they not? War is not the game you think it is… and so we respect every man we meet on the battlefield for his courage, for his gumption in fighting for those he loves.”
     How young she had been then! As Quentin and Aerys circled each other, feet careful on the ground (no fancy footwork for any of them!), Aerys thought that it was nigh impossible to think that her enemies worshipped the Goddess, too, and were under her rule. 
     In an outpouring of rage, she did one thing Quentin had thought he had cured of her.She made the first move. “Lunamorn!” Aerys stabbed at Quentin’s right side—as a left-handed person, she was forever searching for an opponent’s weak side. In this particular fight, Quentin had left his right side unguarded.
     Or so she thought. Quentin deftly parried her stroke away from him, steel ringing against steel, the song of their swords singing out as if in chorus with the noise of the training ground.
     “I know, Quentin,” Aerys muttered irritably in a voice that failed to escape the Cerian’s sharp hearing. “Never make the first move.”
     Quentin just smiled his enigmatic smile and continued circling around her. Aerys gritted her teeth. Curse smug, middle-aged Cerians who never make the first move in sword fights! She steamed in frustration, waiting for that accursed old man to—
     And suddenly, quick as a viper, Quentin, with a mere flick of his wrist, sent Aerys’ new sword skittering through the training ground floor, narrowly missing a few legs in its sojourn.
     Aerys glanced at the sword, and then stormed off to the stables.
     Quentin sighed and went after the sword.
     “Sometimes I wonder whether I’m the lass’ nursemaid, picking her weapons up and letting her vent her anger out in a single swordfight.” He sighed again, an expansive one that was more sad than exasperated, as his first sigh was.
     “Though I wonder whether even the Goddess can stop— " But he quelled this treacherous thought. The Goddess was all-knowing.
     Quentin just wished the Goddess would guide a scared teenager defending a country on her own.

     Aerys stormed off to the stables, trying not to let her emotions show. Rage at losing. Frustration at her current situation.
     Why won’t they let her call back the army from fighting with the Nomads! The advisers—all seven of them—refused to even consider the fact that the Nomads were just a test of Lunamorn’s strength. One adviser, Kilden, had even said that withdrawing the troops would be a show of weakness!
     Weakness! Aerys kicked bad-temperedly at a bucket of slops at the entrance of the stables. The stable hands moved away from her. Even Volgaris had had such fits of temper, and with her dark hair and blazing eyes, Aerys looked like an avenging figure out to kick everyone in her way (as the bucket by the entrance attested to).
     She made her way to her favorite charger, Tenet, took up a brush, and calmed herself by brushing the stallion’s coat.
     “I wish Astrael were here right now, Tenet.” Her hand stopped in its motions, and then resumed again. “Aviniel, too.”
     Aerys winced a little. “Why am I always leaving Aviniel out?” she wondered as Tenet whickered softly, urging her to continue her brushing. “All right, you greedy horse,” she said, grinning a bit.
     At the thought of Aviniel, Aerys had to shudder a bit. Her dark, brooding brother wasn’t a warrior, but she was pretty sure he practiced the dark arts in his rooms. Of course, it wasn’t a spoken fact…but it was known that the second prince was a litte odd, to say the least. 
     Aerys sighed, and then laughed, springing up. “I’m sighing like an addled swain here, Tenet! Let’s go for a run.” She swung up on Tenet, bareback, clinging to his mane.
     She needed to clear her mind.
     And she needed to show her advisers just who exactly is the Princess of Lunamorn right now.

     Battencove, senior wizard, looked at Aerys’ pale face and decided, for the sake of diplomacy, to say nothing. Aerys was high-strung, to say the least, and nothing boded well for anyone who decided to contradict her.
     Especially just after reading a letter that Prince Aviniel was to be wed to the Princess Vaida of the Imperious.
     “He—he must be mad.” Aerys finally spoke, fists clenching at her sides.
     The other advisers just looked infuriatingly at her. We told you so, their expressions were saying. The League is too strong for us to fight.
     “The prince made the right decision, allying us to the League.”
     Aerys felt fury rising up in her, blinding, choking. Quentin held her gaze and she calmed down…a little.
     “My brother is not doing anything of the sort.”
     The advisers stared at her in open shock, and Aerys wondered why her father had even bothered with these weak, impotent old men to give advice.
     “I am calling back the troops from the Northern Borders and having them defend the capital.” She ignored the collective gasp of dismay that rose from the advisers. “I am also giving the call to arms to every unit in the Southern and Western Riding. Every man or woman capable of fighting is to be trained and gathered for city’s defense. Have the smaller cities' fighting units mobilized, too, and the Others notified.” She saw Quentin smile, and felt her spirits rise.
     Battencove spoke. “Are we getting ready for war, m’lady?”
     Aerys looked down on the four-foot-tall wizard. “We bloody well are.”
     Battencove bowed. “Then I must summon all the covens to attention—also the warlock clans…” And he walked out the room, muttering the names of the Others' clans and leaders. 
     Aerys quelled the splutters of dismay coming from the advisers with a pound of her fist on the table. In the silence that ensued, she rose and smiled sweetly.
     “And all of you—“ she indicated her advisers, “—Are dismissed from your positions. Battencove, who isn’t present here, will become my one and only adviser.”
     She walked out after Battencove, followed by a smiling Quentin and a gaggle of indignant former advisers.