Shackles of Nobility

Hayle

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Karl looked deep into his soul as he had done countless times. It was the same process every time and took him barely an instant. Dipping his thoughts into the well of light within himself, he grasped the threads of power that his spell would require. Force, four threads would do for this, he wasn’t actually having these thoughts as knowing what he needed was instinct by now. The sword coming for his neck was deflected away in a flare of light akin to a flame. The small wall of force he had projected had done its job.


Now came the time for him to retaliate. He thrust his left hand out toward his opponent. A couple more strands of force, enough to make a solid impact. Pressure flew from his hand and knocked the man off balance, nearly knocking him over. He did it wordlessly. Though many mages channeled their spellworks through command words, similar to a kiai, Karl felt no need in this case.


“Whoa! Stars above!”, the swordsman shouted, rocking on one heel. He nearly dropped his sword in shock.


Karl didn’t miss the opportunity, he used another strand of force to drag the man’s legs out from under him. The sword clattered dully to the dirt along with him. Around him, he saw his comrades fighting their hardest, there were no other battle mages on the field. Apparently he had been born lucky as they told him. His father never let him have any kind of normalcy, whatever that would have counted for as a noble. He had spent his entire life under the tutelage of great wizards and master swordsmen.


As the armoured man fell to the dirt, so did his sword, both producing muted clattering thuds.


What kind of life was it exactly that he was living, he had never really had a day to do as he pleased. He was over thirty years old and he could not remember the last time he was not training. He didn’t know exactly what he was training for, the supernatural beings of old were long since slain. The sentient beasts, while a nuisance, were perfectly within the hands of mercenary bands and outer guard posts. The raiders from the west were barely seen as a threat. Einstad, the fat man and lord of his city that he was, was capable of having any attacks repelled. If such a lax leader could simply summon mundane soldiers and turn away the raiding parties of the west, what purpose was there for the extraordinary any more.


He walked up to the man on the ground and offered a hand.


“Want another round?” he asked, putting on a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.


“Heh, I wonder how much more I can teach you Karl.” he grasped the ‘blade’ of the wooden training sword with one hand, and accepted his pupil’s hand with the other.
 

Hayle

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Karl pulled the swordsman to his feet with a solid pull. Then he patted the man on the back and let out a small exasperated sigh.

“Ares, what are we doing here?” he asked.

It took Ares a few moments as if he was struck sideways by the question and had to recover before answering. “Training Karl, we do it every day, what do you mean?”

“I mean- I mean” the words did not come easily from him, “What do you do after you train with me?” he asked

“Well.” he said, his eyes popped a little bit and he seemed to fill his mouth with a breath for a second before spitting out a tsk. “We train for several hours, pretty much the whole day. After that I go to the pub and have a pint and-”

Karl interrupted him mid sentence. “That right there! That’s what I mean. I asked the wrong question, I meant what am I doing here? I do nothing but train, after this I’m not going to the pub, I’m going to the head archmage to continue my training. I know we spent the last few minutes playing around to see how good my control of shields was. Look at me though, I’ve never been beyond these walls, since I was a- a child, I’ve done nothing but train. I don’t live, I feel like I am nothing but a tool for my father. Like I’ll be used as some sort of instrument of his will, but I want to go out at night. I want to do something with my life that doesn’t necessarily have meaning! I want to live dammit!” he finished with a half hearted stomp in the sand.

Heads turned at the sudden outburst, Ares looked uncomfortable, and Karl felt ashamed. Not of his thoughts, but that he had made a scene.
 
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