Role

Chapter 5

Apsalareia's feet carried her away from the shrine of the Jaguar, but it did not feel that way, truly. It did not feel like a departure.
Where once a subtle ache lingered behind her resolve, the residual hurt of being cast out without family, now she felt the Lady at her side wheresoever she went.
It was a comfort and a bolster in her confidence, and the elf walked with chin high and eyes alert. Now began her true journey, to be the sharpest spear in the Lady's arsenal.

Sweat poured down Apsalareia's face, slicked her limbs and caused her tunic to cling close to her skin. She did not relent, continuing to move in a whirlwind of graceful blows, the thud of her fists filling the Hall of Fire.
As soon as she had returned to the Fortress carrying countless bulging sacks of sand, she had received several strange looks, though the kindness of her comrades had prevented any commentary.
Grunting beneath the load, she heaved her burden into the Hall of Fire, unwinding the coil of rope she had gathered and utilizing it to hang each sack at varying heights and distances from a central point.
Then she began. Slowly at first, a lithe shadow dancing against a single sack. Soon a second was added, and then a third, the weighted containers rebounding from her strikes to come back at her in crushing arcs. A fourth, a fifth.
A crushing impact to the back of her head sent the slender woman sprawling to the floor, the bag that had slammed her continuing an arc above to collide with several of its fellows. For several moments she simply laid there, stunned.

Slowly, shakily, Apsalareia pushed herself to her feet. Elven grace and speed had only served her so well. Though she saw nothing visible, the elf extended one pale hand to her side.
Somewhere betwixt a soothing hearth and a roaring inferno, divine radiance gathered about her hand, the certainty of another, greater presence married to her own suffusing her limbs and soul.
When she began again, it was not with simple quickness, it was with the certainty that so long as she walked by Her Lady's side, she would simply not be hit. She would be, or not be, exactly where she needed to.
Speckled with her own blood, Apsalareia and Baerinika danced as one within the pummeling circle of ten heavy bags. It was the start of something beautiful. It was the start of something fierce.