"A daring man. Half-death, in my hand. But still, a man nonetheless," the baron said, thrusting his scimitar in the ground. A sign of peace.
"Pardon, m-my lord," Hubert replied, his hand slowly slithering off the handle of his sword, but not yet fully.
"We need to talk, young man," his eyes of topaz glanced over Hubert's hand, "First, hands off your sword. That weapon would be worthless if we ever come to a fight,"
"There," he pointed to the ground with his gloved finger of brown scaled leather armor while his head remained unchanged.
Hubert turned to see what the baron was pointing at, an open ground, a small patch of thinly growing grass.
"A place befitting of your detached and scum of a head if I ever swung at you. With, or without my scimitar," the baron said calmly, almost like a threat.
"Fo-forgive me, my lord," Hubert responded, lowering his gaze.
"Hubert. Hubert. Just what is befitting of your punishment," the baron said, turning toward the stream of water that flowed downward, to a group of students playing in the distance.
There, Hubert saw a chance.
"I did what I must, my lord. Aadish, as the brilliance of a man he is, attacked me and my friend. You will come to know of the truth in this place, I assure you," Hubert placed his hand, clenched into a fist, onto his chest, swearing.
"As the brilliance of a man he is?" the baron chuckled, "Lies. Lies come out of your mouth. I'm giving you a chance here, then you told me my son's words couldn't be trusted,"
"I swear, my lord, by my sword that what I did was of self defense," Hubert reasoned, his hand once again slipping to the sword's handle.
"I have no need for your sword. No matter what, I've turned blind eyes to what happened, once. I will not do so again, even if you're a green youngling," the baron said, as his eyes glanced over at Hubert's movement,
"Aadish had paid what he deserved for,"
"What he deserved for?" Hubert asked, his brows curving inward, unaware of what the baron meant.
"Yes. Floggings. Harming a human's life, much less one that is protected under the rule of this sacred ground, is a grave sin," the baron looked at Hubert then.
"I-I apologize my lord, but I have never heard of such floggings taking place. Not then and not after his punishment had ended," Hubert said, remembering Aadish's punishment in the hearing back then.
A hundred hours of community services and a week of seclusion training.
"Such lies!" the baron's face turned red, and a layer of aura of yellow gathered around his left palm. He then pulled the palm, aiming for Hubert's fragile neck.
Swoosh!
Hubert unsheathed his sword and kneeled down to the man, his hand holding the sword, like a stand.
"Yo-you!" the baron's aura dissipated and dispersed, slowly returning to its normal dark brown and glistening skin of his.
"Take my sword if you don't believe me, my lord. Whatever you suggest of me, if you don't believe me now, then it will be a disgrace to my name to tell you lies. Take my sword then, and I will serve you until I perish," Hubert muttered as he stared into the baron's eyes, intimidating but slowly realizing.
"I've sent a knight here to oversee Aadish's hearing. If what you said is false, then you've tainted a knight's honor. But if those words that came out of your mouth turned out to be true, then I'll be forever in your debt, and that knight will owe me his head," the baron said, remnants of his wrath remained in him.
"I assure you, my lord. In my honor as a student of this academy, there will be no words that came out of me today that I'm not responsible for," Hubert bowed as he stood up, his sword untaken.
The baron walked to his scimitar. He wrapped his fingers around the handle and pulled the scimitar out of the ground. Reflecting its glint of the last ray of dusk.
"Leave, now. I have had enough of this audience with you. You'll hear from me soon," the baron ordered as he sheathed his scimitar into the scabbard.
Hubert nodded, sheathing too his sword.
"If you allow, my lord," Hubert bid as he walked away.
Hubert then left the place and made his way to the academy's ground, now blanketed over the darkness that was called night.
"First hall master," Hubert greeted as he had just arrived at the training ground.
"How did it go?" Veronica welcomed.
"Good… I guess," Hubert answered, in doubt of just how many times his neck was almost cut off over a simple talk.
"And?" Veronica questioned as she suspended herself from inhaling from the pipe again.
"And what?" Hubert asked, unsure.
"What troubles you, Hubert. That's what the "and" are for," Veronica said, then inhaled the lit tobacco from her smoking pipe.
"Nothing," Hubert said.
Remembering the baron's expression upon hearing the truth.
The once powerful and intimidating man turned into a completely different presence. Eyes of topaz that were once emanating, turned to those of a cheap stone found by the side of the road, tired, exhausted. Lips that were as if forever frowning, saddened, and curved even more.
A detail that made his fingers shake, as it was something that hadn't come across his mind back there. Only his life mattered.
Phew.
She exhaled from her bright red lips, a glittering and large cloud of smoke.
"Hall master," Hubert called then.
She chuckled, knowing of what Hubert was going to say.
"Thank you, right? You're welcome. Of course the oldest trick in the book would work, as I told you, it would,"
"No. I mean, yes, but… no. Really, first hall master, if only not for what you gave me, I would not live to see another light," Hubert said, appreciating.
"Ha…" she sighed, turning her gaze to the training yard, "Knights and Honor. Bravery and Justice. The south is not that different after all, it seems,"
"Let's start today's training then," Hubert unsheathed his iron sword, recently sharpened by himself. His eyes turned toward the dummies awaiting for the kiss of his sword as he stepped to them.
A smile appeared on Veronica's seductive red lips.
"We'll enhance your form today," she said, following Hubert into the field.
The night was young and long. Sounds of iron meeting the ragged training dummies echoed through the yard. Over and over, a slash by a slash, a thrust by a thrust and a lunge by a lunge.
Where his form was once messy, unnatural. Now like an adept swordsman, with tendons and joints that stretched and twisted habitually. Muscles that contracted and relaxed as an attack needed, and a sword of sharp iron, a tool of Hubert's crime against the dummies.
Even after a few hours of striking the dummy down, the blaze in his eyes lit up even brighter. Not a single gasp of air was heard, but a quick, calm, and relaxed breathing, followed by another strike then.
Though the night's end came soon, when dawn, sunlight arrived at last, and their session was cut short, and Hubert returned to his hiding once again.
"Hubert!" a voice echoed against the cave's wall, awaking him from his respite, a deep slumber.
The dusk's last ray of light shone from the curtain of water, greeting as it peered straight into his eyes.
"I'm coming," he replied to the voice, almost inaudibly, while scratching his barely opened and swollen eyelids. His steps were unclear, almost tumbling over as he made his way to the cave's entrance.
Through the still blurry gaze of his, he made sense of what he was seeing in front of him. A figure with a long, dark red ponytail and a slender stature that blocked the cave's entrance.
"Dareon?" he called, a voice hoarse that came from dried lips.
"Ugh, you're a mess," Dareon replied. His familiar, energized, though mocking, attitude, distinct from himself only, was what identified him as Dareon.
"You were once more of a mess than me," Hubert responded as his vision became clearer, revealing the current dark sky to him.
"You were defeated by me, twice. Alright, but seriously though, I'm not here to exchange mockings," Dareon gave a straight look into Hubert's eyes.
"What is it then?" Hubert asked, his facial muscles relaxed, as was his whole body almost limping.
"You should see for yourself, it's a show that you wouldn't want to miss after all," Dareon explained with a smirk etched onto his face and eyes so lit up that they were glowing red.
"Really? You promise this is not a joke?" Hubert questioned, seemingly unbelieving of Dareon's words.
"Shh!" Dareon hushed.
Tah!
A high pitched sound echoed through the secluded clearing deep in the woods as the two arrived at the place.
"Argh!" a gut wrenching scream soon followed the sound.
Lit up by flickering flaming torches, held by knights that stood forming a circle around the center. The main attraction was in the middle of them, as they all watched with emotionless faces.
While the baron watched with eyes filled with disappointment at the edge of the clearing. With a saddened frown painted on his face as he sat on the wooden chair.
"Father! Ple-please!" Aadish pleaded, standing suspended and tied to a wooden pole in the middle of the clearing, shirtless.
With backs covered with leakage of blood and beads of sweat that mingled with powder of dust that flew with each flog.