I wake up refreshed. The sun brightly shines into my eyes and I groan. Oh right, this is my new life. Life of daylight. I am not quite pleased with it, but I think I might flip it around eventually. Just gotta give the Lord a few days to get used to my presence and then I can start trading in favors.
I stretch and do some exercises - mostly wings related. I can't let them get too stiff - it'd be painful. I might not be able to fly because of a combination of my nature and Lapis, but they'd still bother me when running. I groan and growl and hiss as I shake and stretch them.
Allure knocks on my doors.
"Yeah?" I yell.
She enters, a bit frightened.
"Snap!" I snap my teeth at her and she squeaks and moves back.
"I'm just kidding." I laugh. "I won't eat you. Do you seriously believe that?"
She just bites her lip, worried. I take a better look at her. She is another Leptira, her wings white and long. I know that Sylphs have caste system based on wings, but I never found out if Leptirae have the same thing, concerning colors and tones. Who knows. I noticed the Lord and his daughter both have colorful wings, pink and decorated with yellows and greens.
Mine are void of color.
She's wearing a simple outfit, a silk-made dress. As fitting for a maid. Well I could stand to be nicer to a working comrade, but seriously? Screw that. I am at the Court now, and I plan to make it count.
"So?" I burp a bit from the heavy dinner last night. I am immediately hungry too. "…I hope there's breakfast."
"Ahem, yes…" She nods. "Yes, indeed. I have brought you some temporary clothes too." She places a bundle of fabric on the bed and immediately steps back, as if scared.
"I told you already, I won't bite you!"
She doesn't look convinced.
"Mistress Biela has instructed me to take you to the seamstress later." She bows a bit and flutters her wing.
Oh I forgot about that. I do the same. She looks scandalized.
"You are- aren't supposed to do that to me, a maid!" She quickly shushes me. "You are a guard now… there is a different type of etiquette for you." She's flustered. I can immediately see that this matters to her a great deal.
"Yeah? What is it?"
"Well, you have to bow this way…" she shows me and then salutes with her hand and claps her wing back.
I can see she's having fun.
"Oh, well versed in the guard etiquette?"
She blushes and looks away. "I have to be. It's my duty."
When I take a better look at her, I can see muscle under her silk gown sleeves. Ah, so, she has been training.
"That's cool," is all I say. I don't have time to go around helping maids become knights.
There is a bit of awkward silence between us.
"So. Breakfast?"
Biela is somewhere out there having a heart attack seeing how much food their new guard can eat.
"Oh, and," Allure sheepishly says, "Master Aspen requires your presence at the training grounds."
"Yeah yeah."
***
The training grounds are located outside. I never got a proper education in athletics or sword fighting - I just kinda picked up my skills from all the different fae I've seen battle in my bandit- I mean adventurer days. Lots of useful things. The guards who are trained in chivalry just cannot compete with the quick and dirty fight styles of common fae.
The Lord may not even know he got more than he bargained for. After all, all those competitors for the position were from good families. Oops. It was not exactly supposed to be a battle to death, but I didn't want to risk anyone taking my spot for being 'of the right birth'. These lords and ladies may feel safe in their fortresses, but what about us?
Luckily, or perhaps unluckily for the other commoner fae, I don't plan on raising revolutions or anything. I am more occupied with my own issues.
I step on the training grounds and squint my eyes at the sun. It's risen high - too high for my tastes, and it's only 10 am. It's the end of summer, almost autumn - and dammit, I am glad that it is. I can't stand the sun.
I stand the heat better than the cold though. Another perks of traveling at night during summer days - you get the lovely embrace of the heat without any sun radiation. My skin is not made for it. It's paper-thin, suspectable to cuts. I had to learn to dodge well and dodge quickly to protect myself. Cuts can take days to heal, and I'd rather not deal with that.
"There," Zaria, a Dryad, smiles at me as she bandages my hand. "You'll be fine now, Nyx."
"Sure. Thanks."
I wish I could thank her properly. But I can't.
I can feel him before I see him. Suddenly there is a presence behind me, a sharp shadow. Two blades immediately manifest in my hands and I turn around and parry the spear aiming for my neck. I block the attack and the spear gets caught in the hook of my weapons - I spin and try to wrestle it out of the attacker's grasp.
The fae flies forward. He is fast. I prepare for another attack and sure it comes - he charges at me with his spear, his black wings just a shadow as he flies at high speed towards me. I keep my blades down, before I rise them when everyone thinks it's too late.
I try to cut the spear in half, but it doesn't budge - it's made of metal. I thought it was gold from the way it shined, but it's not. Dammit, must be fake gold from Kobolds.
Their motto is, after all, 'gold in peace, steel in war'. Seems it's also gold in war as well.
But the fae attacking me isn't a Kobold. I can't pinpoint him either - he is just a flying smudge. I can sense his attack from behind - and instead of turning, I throw my blade down and then kick it with my leg behind - together with sand.
He flies up. Laughter erupts from him.
There are claps. The danger has passed. The fae lands before me, spinning his spear. I brace myself for another battle and frown.
"Oh don't worry. What's done is done," he chuckles.
He's young. Older than me for sure, though. Maybe somewhere in his twenties. Middle twenties, if I had to guess. His dark, black, curly hair encompasses his face. It's kept short.
Good choice for a guard. That's part of a reason why I keep mine like that as well. It doesn't get in the eyes. Nobody can pull it either.
His wings are black and meaty, accompanied with a lower part.
I quirk my brow.
"Good job, rookie." He leans on his spear and smiles. "Just wanted to see what you were like."
"Didn't watch the tournament? How irresponsible for the leader of Lord's guards."
He winks.
"I did."
"Didn't see ya."
"No?"
I frown. Why didn't I see him?
Finally, I notice the rattles on his lower wings. "You're a Zmia. A form of Dryad. You were probably slithering around somewhere in your snake form."
Seems like I wasn't the only cursed one here.
He laughs. "Sharp eye. The name is Aspen." Fae don't handshake. Instead he flutters his wings in a cheery and friendly manner. I don't flutter mine - partially because it hurts, partially because his open demeanor annoys me. Right from the start.
"This is the rest of the lot. Eh?" He smirks at the rest of the guards. Most of them are Leptirae though I see some other types as well. I wonder how they got here. It's unusual for fae to mix. The Courts are quite strictly separated. Some more than the others.
There is an eternal fight for the power. The Seelie Court, the one that oversees everything, where the fae King and Queen reside, is separated from the realm. It's possible to access it via a portal in the Court of Stars and Moons, where the lunarie live. They are a type of celestial fae and very annoying know-it-alls with their telescopes and books and the knowledge they hoard. I wish to tell them that the Earthlings have surpassed them by light years, but there is no much use - the stars on Earth and Vilaria are completely different. Two separate realms.
And the Seelie realm beyond both of the reaches.
I just cross my arms and look at them. None of them impress me.
"So, how about we see some of those skills of yours?" Aspen leans on his spear. I know he thinks he is so cool with that chest cut where his bronze skin shows. Well, those charms don't work on me.
"Oro! Kora! Your turn!" He spins his spear and immediately flies into the sky.
I don't even get to react before two guards launch at me.