Stairway to Somewhere (Multicross SI?)
.
Interlude 9. Beginning of Little Sister's Adventure
.
Alleria Windrunner sighed as she sealed and sent off another letter to Mother. She couldn't understand why being the 'General of the East' kept Mother away from home for a decade at a time. It filled her with sorrow.
But as she thought about the letter she just wrote, she found herself becoming more exasperated. Big Brother was such a scatterbrain that he wouldn't even remember to write to Mother every week. Sure, Mother wouldn't be able to get her mail for months at a time, but it was the thought that mattered, wasn't it? Maybe he didn't want to distract her.
He was doing a lot of different things. His friends keep telling her everyday of the new things that Big Brother had done the previous day, and it made Alleria feel as if Big Brother was at two places at once. Surely anything was possible with magic, but something like that must have been exhausting.
She wanted to be here at Windrunner Spire so that Mother and Brother had a place to return to. But Alleria wanted to be out there, helping her Big Brother.
Big Brother was so stupid, he really needed someone to watch his back.
But Alleria…
Alleria wasn't good enough for that. She wasn't as strong as Mother, or as knowledgeable as Brother, or as powerful as Grandfather, or as sneaky as Cousin. She felt suffocated and small in their shadows. No matter what she did, she couldn't be as good as any of them.
When Mother finally started teaching her how to be a ranger decades ago, Alleria thought that was her chance to prove herself. She tried the hardest she could, but she couldn't even measure up to Mother's lieutenant in shooting or tracking or fighting or blending in. The lieutenant laughed at her and told her that she might have been able to become like Mother in a hundred years. Alleria didn't have a hundred years, she didn't even have a hundred days!
When Big Brother became more and more open with the stuff he did, Alleria thought maybe that was her chance to get closer to him. He showed her all the new and strange creatures he brought to their home, and all the magic he was learning. At first, Alleria thought he was learning from some wizened sage, but she soon learned that he was creating that magic himself! By the time she crossed the threshold to becoming a journeyman mage, Big Brother had already lost interest in doing things at home and started studying at the capital. There was no way she could keep up with him…
When Grandfather visited the Spire while Mother and Big Brother were away, Alleria thought maybe she could learn something from the family patriarch so that she could be better than she was. Maybe she could step out of the shadows of the giants whose shoulders she stood upon? Grandfather taught her more about how to draw upon the magic of nature and life, but it felt as easy as breathing and this was just tricks of being a ranger. After she proved herself to be competent to Grandfather, he finally acceded to teaching her more. But the reason why Grandfather was so powerful was because he could use the power of the Sunwell in the air, and connect with the font of power. While Alleria learned how to use arcane magic, she found she could not touch on the Light. It evaded her, like trying to catch water with her hands, and this filled Alleria with frustration.
The House of Windrunner had always been a full one. Alleria had more than twenty cousins, ten uncles and aunts, and six or seven nieces and nephews already. While her line of the family was the main branch, Cousin Zendarin had always been meandering around the village. He could not make someone of himself in the capital or gain a position as a ranger or become a magister. He always seemed to have a new trick to trying to peek into Big Brother's secrets or to steal the main house's fortunes. If it hadn't been for all the helpers that Mother and Big Brother left, Alleria wouldn't even have known how to apologize for her negligence. Still, she learned how to sneak around like he did, and how to wrap the shadows around herself…
… that was when she heard the news.
Big Brother had become betrothed to a lady no older than Alleria!
Why?
Why???
Weren't they supposed to be together forever?
Didn't she belong with Big Brother? Who could get between them? Who would allow this?
But when Alleria inquired further, she found out that it wasn't something she could fight against. King Anasterian was the one who betrothed Big Brother with… with… with That Woman. Alleria wrote to Mother and Grandfather, and they both had no answers. She even asked Cousin, but Cousin just ran away.
Alleria knew she wasn't talented. She wasn't special like Big Brother was. She hadn't honed her physique and will power like Mother had. She didn't have a strong connection with the Light and the Sunwell like Grandfather. She was just a normal girl. She was just Alleria.
How could she compete with a princess of the Sunstrider family? Alleria buried herself in her pillows and cried and cried for days. She didn't have the appetite to eat or go out and play, and she couldn't find the strength to train. Like a wilted flower in a desert, the days passed without caring for what she felt. Everyone was busy with something else.
She had to see That Woman for herself, so Alleria created a portal and sneaked into Silvermoon City herself. It was easy, because Big Brother had left all his notes on how to teleport in his room.
And who cared about Alleria?
This little girl evaded attention like oil evaded water, and she flowed onto the rooftops of the capital without a sound. It wasn't like no one cared. She just met Cousin's skill at sneaking, but that left those who didn't notice her the vast majority… and the ones who could notice her were all too powerful to care.
So what if this was an archmage's tower? So what if there were seven archmages residing in the Academy? So what if there were hundreds of magisters in training? They were all too busy with their own lives to care about a little bug.
When Alleria arrived at last, standing atop of the seventy-story tall tower, she bathed in the moonlight as she stared down at her target.
Lyandra Sunstrider had the clear, smooth skin of all high elves, and her eyes glowed especially teal as an after-effect of staying close to the Sunwell, and she… stumbled on the hem of her robes. She wasn't particularly tall or particularly pretty, she didn't wear any make-up or magical touch-ups, or she might not have even known what those were. She was normal. She wasn't just normal. She was as normal… as Alleria was.
Alleria knelt there, watching Lyandra slinging a book bag full of scrolls over one shoulder while carrying three hardcover tomes in her arms. The slightest breeze could have pushed her over.
Three elven magister apprentices passed her, having just finished their dinner and chattering away about this or that. They were the opposite of Lyandra and Alleria, who wore plain clothes and carried themselves plainly. These apprentices each wore layers of make-up and covered themselves in heavy appearance enchantments. They smelled so sweet and covered in scented oils that Alleria could smell them from atop the tower. One of them was really thin and tall, one of them was buxom and short, and the leader—it seemed—was all filled in and just right. Alleria had heard such talk before from the daughters of merchants and when she was in Tranquillien on the occasion. The three girls buzzed away like bees, but their intents spiked the moment they passed Lyandra.
One of them, the one who seemed to be the leader of the pack, stuck her foot out and tripped the clumsy girl. The other two girls then rushed to accuse Lyandra of being arrogant, of not caring about her peers, and of all sorts of things. It was awful. It was pitiful.
Alleria frowned. She couldn't comprehend what was happening. Didn't they know who that was? Didn't they know the consequences of their actions? That was her Big Brother's fiancee!
Who were these… these… bitches for touching what was her Big Brother's?
She was so furious that she ran down the side of the tower until she was only ten stories from the ground before jumping between the three blathering hornet women and the plain wallflower they were bullying.
Lyandra had fallen on the ground, her books clattering on the stone tiles, and her scrolls spilling out of her bag. She had been pushed and slapped, but she blinked in confusion when someone stepped between her and her abusers. When she looked up and saw Alleria, who stared down at her with disdain, she still looked so confused. It filled Alleria with disgust. "Why are you so useless?"
"… huh?" The girl on the ground stared up at her and blinked her eyes rapidly.
"And you," Alleria turned around, and with a twitch of the tip of her nose, she conjured a portal to the other side of the city behind the three older girls without a sound. "Don't you know who this is?"
"She's nobody. Are you trying to kiss up to her? Don't you know that her name, Sunstrider, has no meaning? She's not even really related to the royal family. It's just a name her gold-seeking commoner of a mother stuck her with before she croaked." The leader of the bullies sneered and crossed her arms. She sounded superior.
Well, Cousin Zendarin also sounded superior before Big Brother slapped him around. And Alleria didn't appreciate these older girls touching someone they shouldn't have been touching. If there was anyone who had the right to hurt and bully this Lyandra Sunstrider, it was her, Alleria, not them! "Hmph! Are you even mages? Blood connection can be proven with magic! But that doesn't answer my question. Why are you acting so weak, Lyandra Sunstrider?"
The girl on the ground, still covered in spilled and unfurled scrolls, blinked owlishly up at her. "Um… this is how I always am? Who… who are you anyway?"
"Yeah!" The skinny and tall bully growled, "who even are you to butt in on—"
Alleria's foot lashed out instinctively. Maybe it was because she hadn't practiced for a week, but her impulse control had eroded in that time. Or maybe it was because was just too excited, in a negative sort of way, to care. Whatever the case, she kicked the older girl through the portal, which spat the older girl out the other side of Silvermoon City and into the ocean. Then Alleria turned back to the two remaining bullies. "Are you two going to walk through that or will I have to force you?"
"Oh, that's it, you're going to be sorry about this!" The leader of the older girls snarled angrily. Her nostrils flared and she gathered the mana in her hands, which rose and started glowing with a bright, orange light that lit especially bright in the evening shade.
Alleria took a step forwards, slapping right and then left. Small pulses of mana shot from her fingertips, a single trick Mother had taught her. To counter witch doctors, the rangers had developed a way to enchant their arrows with a disrupting pulse of ambient mana that they called the 'silencing shot', but Mother had taken that and added it to her hand-to-hand martial skills, developing a sort of 'silencing strike'. Mother didn't allow her to tell anyone, because the Magisters would have been upset if all rangers were known to have an ability that countered mages.
"You—" The rather tubby older girl also rushed up, seeing her friend's hands thrown back.
Giving the third girl a glance, Alleria imitated her Cousin and struck her in the kidney before striking upwards at her ears. It was a trick that Cousin had developed to sneak around the more sensitive of Big Brother's bodyguards, which disoriented by sapping strength and consciousness of his targets for a few moments by striking at the parts of the body that controlled motor functions. Then Alleria pummeled the girl through the portal.
As the sound of a second resounding splash entered their ears and the leader of the older girls reoriented herself from the backlash of having her spell countered and canceled and mana disrupted such that her arms felt like they were burning, she noticed that she was now the only one standing in front of Alleria.
Alleria huffed a snort through her nose grumpily and then raised an eyebrow at the older girl.
With a contrite look, the older girl raised her arms.
That wasn't good enough. Alleria nodded at the portal behind her.
The leader of the bullies nodded slowly, before walking over and then throwing herself through the portal, making a noticeably smaller splash than the previous two had.
"Now that this is taken care of," Alleria turned back to Lyandra Sunstrider. "Why are you still on the ground like that. Are you waiting for some prince to come running over and pick you off your feet?"
The other girl's shoulders slumped. "That would be lovely if that was possible… but no prince would care about me. I'm just… ah, I am Lyandra. Who, uh, who are you, anyway? Not that it's not nice to meet you, but those girls have been like that since I arrived at the Academy. M-Maybe you shouldn't have helped me, because now they're going to cause you trouble too…"
"Why would they do that? I am stronger than they are. How can they cause trouble? By looking for someone to help them? They'd be stupid if they thought I couldn't do the same thing." Alleria reasoned with her hands on her hips, not going over to help the other girl pick up her things. "Have you ever raised lynxes, Lyandra?"
"… no? Why?" She paused in her scramble for her scrolls and looked up in confusion.
"When there's a litter of them, they'll play among themselves. There'll be strong ones and weak ones. The strong ones will eat more and the weak ones will eat less. But if the weak one fights hard enough, none of the strong lynxes will try to fight it for food," She said.
"We aren't lynxes though," the other girl frowned as she began to angrily stuff her scrolls in her bag. Almost as if she knew that Alleria was talking about her when she was talking about the weak lynx. "We aren't animals. That wouldn't work, anyway."
"We're living things, and…" Alleria paused. A lot of the skills that the rangers practiced came from animals, or they came from watching and studying animals. But there was no way to explain it to someone who studied only arcane magic. Even Alleria didn't understand it at first, but she learned the philosophy of the rangers from Mother before she learned magic from Big Brother, and Big Brother's way of understand the arcane was… different. Grandfather said so. Then again, Grandfather also said she needed more friends her age. Alleria sighed and knelt down, and helped Lyandra pick up the thick tomes. They were really heavy. "Alright, well, I'm not scared of them. I want to help you you. I'm Alleria."
"It… it's nice to meet you, Alleria. Now, I have to go, I, um…" The other girl shuffled her feet. She wasn't good at this talking to people thing, was she?
But Alleria felt like a hypocrite. She wasn't good at it either. She looked down at the scrolls. "These are… maps and information about the borderlands? What, are you going to go on an expedition to the border to, I don't know, make yourself stronger or something?"
"… how did you know?!" Lyandra gasped.
"I was joking," Alleria muttered.
Lyandra covered her mouth in surprise, dropping her books again. "Ah! Ah… Well, I already signed up to an adventuring group. It'll be nice to get away from the Academy… from all of, well, what you just saw earlier. Do you really think I can get stronger by adventuring?"
"I don't know about getting stronger," Alleria shrugged. She had never gone on an adventure with a group. Going on an adventure in her 'backyard', as Big Brother called it, didn't really count, did it? "Maybe you can feel better about yourself if you… what's the goal of this group, anyway?"
"The borderlands are being attacked, don't you know? The kingdom is sponsoring anyone who wants to go to help," Lyandra pointed out, "This is because the kingdom can't supply all the food and armor for everyone in the kingdom, so anyone who didn't already become a mage or warrior of the kingdom armies can only be an adventurer. I'd… I'd like it if I could earn enough to pay for my tuition."
"Are you sure you have time for that though?" Didn't she have a wedding to get to?
"What do you mean?" The other girl blinked obliviously at her.
"You don't have any other obligations, being a Sunstrider?" Alleria wondered.
Lyandra laughed in a self-deprecating tone. "That's… funny, Alleria. Really, that is. I am barely a member of the family… the, the other girls weren't wrong. Did you know I have to pay back the tuition for attending the Academy? For all the wealth of the royal family, the best I can get is a loan. And you're right, there are magics that can verify how I am related to the other Sunstriders, but who would dare cast it? The royal family would not allow it. They've already warned me not to 'mess around'. I'd like to just… just get by. I just want to live… I don't want to bother anyone…"
"That's really sad." Alleria muttered and squinted at the other girl while stroking her chin. "It still doesn't change the fact that you're really weak. Let's not talk about trolls, you might even die to a small rat or something."
"Rats are scary though…" the other girl's voice became really soft and silent when she realized she just said.
Did she really not know that she was betrothed to Big Brother? What was really going on? Alleria found more and more intrigued… and she didn't want to ask Grandfather or Mother. They wouldn't solve this, anyway. It seemed that the only one she could count on was herself, and her Brother. But of course, she couldn't bother Big Brother with something this, ah, minor.
No, that would be silly.
Alleria nodded to herself as she set her mind to it. She clapped her arms onto the other girl's shoulders, spooking her enough that she dropped her books again. They needed to work on that… later. She stared into Lyandra's eyes and said, "Alright, that's it. I'm coming on this adventure thing with you and you can't stop me!"View This ThreadUnread Watched Threads
Please do not reply to this email. You must visit Questionable Questing to reply.
This message was sent to you because you opted to watch the thread [NSFW] - Stairway to Somewhere (Multicross SI?) at Questionable Questing with email notification of new replies. You will not receive any further emails about this thread until you have read the new messages.
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you may disable emails from this thread or disable all emails.