Apsalareia the Champion of the Virtues, Initiate of the Jaguar

Role

Chapter 7

Apsalareia gasped for breath, her knees protesting where they met the unforgiving ice of the mountaintop.
She could feel the slow trickle of blood from her myriad wounds, but she did not move to tend them. Not yet.
Before her lay the corpse of the ancient white dragon, a malign reptile of enormous size, now dead by her hand. A hard fought battle, and a nailbiting victory.
Now as with each battle, she prayed. Head bowed and pale locks hanging in sheets about her downturned visage, she spoke soft and true to her truest companion.
"Lady Jaguar, grant me insight. Lady Jaguar, grant me strength. Lady Jaguar, let this battle and the insight to follow be worthy of Your holy name."

Lips stilled, but blood did not. Crimson continued to fall hissing into the snow as she remained unmoved, mind adrift to the fight which transpired.
Sweeping arcs and gnashing fangs filled her head and danced before her eyes, each and every blow painted in unrelenting strokes. Each wound taken in her memory was a mistake measured, each blow dealt by her hand a point for improvement.
At last she came to the part she cherished and dreaded most. She had felt the thrill of the hunt, the exhiliration of a battle given and a victory seized. She loved the hunt. But was it righteous?
With this situation it was simple, yes. She had slain this evil beast which terrorized and plundered. It was not always so easy to answer, nor would it be in the future, she suspected.

It frightened her how much she enjoyed the means as well as the end. The testing of her body, her mind and her soul. Her faith in herself and in the Lady against the wicked dark.
She loved these things just as much as the wrong righted, as the rot excised. She always took the time to consider this, after every battle. When she could no longer answer, she knew she would be beyond redemption.
Alongside this came her greatest fear of all. She had heard many speak of peace, the euphoric paradise of Light's victory. Where they smiled, she quailed. Was there a place for her in such a world?
More frightening perhaps, what would someone like her do, if there were no more hunts, no more wars, no more... Struggle. Her heart clenched in her breast as the thought niggled at her, unrelenting.
The feeling did not abate as she stood and offered the corpse of the ancient white to her Lady. It did not falter as she trudged back down the mountainside. It ate at her like a worm in the heart.
What sort of Maran was she, to fear paradise? She suspected, not a very good one.

Role

Chapter 6

Apsalareia sat, cross-legged and back straight, within the Hall of Fire. All about her the Fortress bustled, but here was quiet, the perfect medium for her ruminations.
The bags of sand with which she trained hung silent sentinel all about her, some now burned or rimed in ice, others aglow with residual light from her fists.
Truly the blessing the Lady had gifted her was a beautiful thing. After each time she trained her body and spirit she simply sat here, running the exercise through her mind.
There was no attempt to deceive herself in these musings. Each and every mistake was turned over and over, poked and prodded from all angles until a solution came. Even as one was solved, she knew next time would bring more.
As the Lady had said, perfection was not for mortals. She thought, though, that each time something new clicked into place, at least she was one step closer.

One could only train for so long though, before the best training became the world outside the sparring chambers, with its harsh edges and brutal falls. Those, she knew, would be the next steps in her learning, each a painful lesson.
Muscles protested as she stood and stepped lightly through the corridors and roads, making her way to Galadon. This first test took her deep into the bowels of the blighted mausoleum, face to face with a great evil mentioned only in whispers.
The dracolich struck at her as soon as she entered, bone claws and a rictus of malign teeth crashing down from all sides. Her mind was calm, her faith sure, and the blazing light of her fists struck with the force of falling mountains.

Her journey thereafter carried her deep into the realms of dreaming, to a cavern black as sin and foul as a slow death. A thing of nightmares loomed before her, descending in a landslide of bestial fury to devour her whole.
This battle was longer, and soon Apsalareia bled freely, the vibrancy of elven blood splashing upon the stone. The dragon did much to turn the tables, to make her no longer the predator, but the prey.
When it finally lay dead at her feet, she fell heavily to her knees, held up only by the certainty of her faith and the Lady at her side, and with that certainty came the knitting of her flesh.
In that cave, surrounded by blood and darkness, she turned the fight over and over in her mind. She had made mistakes, true. She had bled for them.
These were lessons she would learn well. Wheresoever evil tread, she would follow. One day, she would be the huntress, and darkness would forever be the prey.

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.

Role

Chapter 4

Apsalareia sat on her hard, unforgiving cot, gazing at the single candle ensconced within her room's lantern. All around her, the monastery was quiet.
It had been months and months, perhaps a year, since she was sent here. The discomforts of transitioning from noble life to monastic reality still needled her, but it had begun to fade.
Each and every day was the same. Lessons, and meditation. Lessons and meditation.
In truth, she very rarely focused on the lessons. The small journal of Baerinika's teachings was now dog-eared and rumpled from her constant perusal, held out of sight during such lectures.

Her every day was a monotony. Peace and tranquility, these were the teachings imparted to her, always in soft voices, always with a smile, but insistent. Her questions were stifled, as if they were worries and not inquiries.
Her requests to leave were kindly, but firmly, rebuffed. She was under their care, they said, and it would be a true failing if she ventured back into the world without the blessing of peaceful repose.
In truth, it was maddening. Infuriating. In her most uncharitable times, she thought harshly of them as secluded old men, avoiding the world at the top of their mountain.

This was her favorite part of the day, when the rest of the monastery slept, and she was alone. The journal balanced firmly on her knee, and her eyes unwavering upon that golden flame.
Was this how she would pass her life, hundreds and hundreds of years, without a place? Neither a noble, nor a monk, simply languishing inbetween? Doing nothing?
The spark in her chest flared at this, a rejection hot and bright and defiant. She would be just as passive then, as if she had remained with her mother.
Her dreams were haunted with the scenes she had seen on the way here, of evils done and darkness brushing a hand across the land. As she delved deep into the flame, she knew she would never answer those violations here, or in Darsylon.

"No. I will be the hunter," she murmured, and a shiver went through her, as if the words held more weight than the air that conjured them. "I will be the hunter, and I will be the flame."
Her mind made up, she lifted her treasured journal in one hand, and the candle in the other. She took neither gown nor robe, for neither was who she was.
It was time she found the Jaguar in truth. Peace was behind her. Ahead lay a hunt, an excision. She was no blade now, no flame. But as she crept away, she vowed she would be.

Role

Chapter 3

It was hours later when Apsalareia gasped awake, shooting upright in her seat and glancing around. She had been sleeping face-down on the table, hardly the pose of a lady, but thankfully the room remained empty.
Yet that was not what caught her notice. As her lids lifted and her vision became clear, she was gazing unerringly at one particular book, a book she had never seen before.
Worn and battered, it was a small tome, a handbook or journal easily stored and showing the marks of travel. Upon the cover, a single image held pride of place, a sleek jaguar in mid-pounce.
It was as if it was another's hand that reached out and took up that book, a motion Apsalareia did not register as her own until she held it in her palms. As she began to read, that spark within her chest sang, a string plucked to accord.

When they found her, she was deep into her second reading, the tenets and ideals of Baerinika Jaguar spinning through her mind. "Lady Apsalareia."
A male voice, one of the personal guardsmen of her mother. "Lady Apsalareia. Your carriage is waiting."
"My carriage? Verily, what could you mean," she asked, perplexed and, she had to admit, a tad annoyed at the interruption.
"At your mother's will, your belongings are packed and your carriage awaits, to take you unto the Monastery of Moudrilar. A penned missive awaits you within."
As her mouth fell open, the guardsmen helped her to her feet with a grip that was gentle, but firm. There was no pomp, no ceremony. The Lady Apsalareia was hustled through a side door, away from prying eyes.
As the nondescript carriage rolled away from the palace, she found she was still clutching the weathered journal in her hands, the eyes of that fierce, unbowed jaguar looking up at her.

The trip to this... monastery, was a long one. She was not a prisoner, per se, but it certainly felt that way.
Day after day passed, with little to do beyond stare out the windows. Or recite her mother's missive in her head over and over.
Passages kept coming back at her, like thrown spears when she least expected. "Unbecoming behavior." "Lack of dignity."
"Gain perspective." "Learn the way of peace." It had been one long condemnation, and an ultimatum.
She would be allowed to return when she had learned the lessons of Moudrilar well.

So it was that as they halted at the foot of a mountain pass and were met by a monk in simple robes, she boiled with frustration.
The man seemed pleasant enough, and the smile he offered her was gentle, but nevertheless she clasped her jaguar journal like a talisman.
She had seen evidence of violence along the way here, bodies left along the road, looted wagons and scattered belongings.
It was not tranquility that suffused her as she followed the monk upwards into seclusion. Each and every step felt like a betrayal.
It felt, very much, like a cage.

Role

Chapter 2

Over the next several weeks, Lady Cordasia's eyes began to take on a new cast, one that reflected frustration and a sense of being hunted in equal measure.
Not a day went by where Apsalareia did not inquire about the death she had seen. In her chest, that spark de manded an answer, fuel for a fire that had yet to fully mature.
Always those pursed lips, always that avoidance of the topic, as if it were a viper. It was no business for princesses, delivered in a chastising tone.

It was perhaps the thirty-ninth time that she finally received her answer, though not as she had expected.
"Lady Cordasia, why did you call them fools?" The question was delivered smoothly into the silence as they sat before twinned mirrors, constructing appearances for a day at court.
The sound of glass shattering was shocking, and Apsalareia turned sharply to see her mother's hairbrush tumbling to the ground amidst a shower of glass shards.
Lady Cordasia's lips were not pursed now, they were thin, and her perfect nostrils flared with anger. "They were fools for abandoning our gift," her mother veritably shrieked.
"They are fools for leaving. All we must do to achieve victory over the dark is stay safe! We will outlive them all, do you not understand?! We must simply outlive them, and so little elven blood will be spilled! They waste what we were given!"
Apsalareia was stunned, but felt her mouth move, almost of its own accord. "I don't think that's foolish," she began, but her mother cut her off before she could finish the thought. "OUT! OUT!"

She moved in a daze throughout the palace halls, her manners alone keeping inquiries at bay as she returned nods and curtseys with absentminded grace. She had never been banished from her mother's presence before...
When Apsalareia blinked to focus once more, she found her wanderings had left her before the great doors of the palace library, a place she knew well from her studies of history and poetry.
Slipping between the doors, the young noble moved silently through the towering shelves, settling at last at a table with a single lamp. Rather than read, she simply planted her elbows on the surface, and let her face rest in her hands.
Undoubtedly it was smearing her cosmetics, ruining them entirely, but her mind was awhirl, her heart aflutter, and her stomach rolling uncertainly. Propriety, for the moment, evaded her.

Role

Chapter 1

"Why are they covered like that, Lady Cordasia? Won't they have trouble breathing?"
When she didn't receive a reply right away, Lady Apsalareia Anaenya reached up, tugging at the skirt of her mother's gown. It was a calculated move, and Lady Cordasia did not disappoint.
Eyes of sky blue snapped down to her, and the ines of a fine frown marred the older elf's perfect visage.
"You do not grab and tug like some ruffian at play, Lady Apsalareia," she chastised in a hissed whisper. "You are a princess, it is your duty to behave as one."

Lady Apsalareia Anaenya was not, really, a princess. Second cousin to the Darsylon line, she was, at most, a Lady. This never seemed to register with her mother.
Apsalareia's eyes skipped from the procession before them, flitting across the nobility gathered to witness. If anything, she and her mother were dressed the most lavishly here, to the point where Apsalareia wished she could simply disappear.
It was always this way, even if all they had scheduled of a day was rest in their suites. Gowns without creases, hair without curls, jewels and tiara firmly in place. Impeccable.
She hated it, she truly did, but this was a low-burning hatred, one that had plenty of time to be crushed beneath forces such as upbringing and training. Now, it was simply habit, a mechanism on which her life turned.

When Apsalareia gave voice to her question again, it was with much more care. "Praytell, why are they covered so, Lady Cordasia? Verily they shall suffer the loss of breath?"
A sharp sigh slipped past her parent's lips, though she did answer. "They are slain, Lady Apsalareia, cut down by orcs or suchlike."
"Orcs, Lady Cordasia? I've never seen orcs within Darsylon, are you certain?"
Her mother pursed her lips. Apsalareia knew this to be the expression she wore when she disapproved most heavily. "They were fools and journeyed forth from our fair kingdom," she murmured. "Fools indeed, and look where it has taken them."

Over the following months, Apsalareia could not shake the image of those covered bodies from her head, the word fools echoing time and time again around her skull. "Why were they fools, Lady Cordasia?"
The question escaped her on a bright and sunny day, as they sat upon one of the palace's many balconies. "Whom are the fools, my princess," her mother asked.
"Why, the slain. Verily, you did call them fools." It was clear that unlike Apsalareia, Lady Cordasia had put the fallen elves out of her mind.
"Why does your mind linger on such things, my princess? It is a tragedy, and yet it is past. Praytell, have you laid eyes upon young Lord Lathuin? Does he please you?"
Apsalareia tilted her head, though within, she seethed at the dismissal. She would have her answers, one way or the other.
That procession, those deaths, had reached within her and found something long buried, and therein, they had kindled a spark. A frail, flickering spark, but a spark nevertheless.

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