The Seventh Clan (First Draft)

Aalish - Chapter 3

I turned in place, spinning from facing North to facing South, and bowed towards my leader, sliding my sword from its sheath while lowering myself down to my knee, gently holding my sword in front of me. It was a thoughtless maneuver, one performed with precision and speed, drilled into me after fourteen years of practise. I bowed my head and lifted the sword higher, feeling 1900 pairs of eyes watching me as I did so. I felt the shadow in front of me move, leaning towards me as I kept the sword elevated.
"My lord, your sword." I spoke clearly, ensuring that my voice was kept steady and emotionless, the same as my face.
"Thank you Aalish, you may rise." I heard an audible gasp from some of the newer members when Lord Ignis spoke my name, as there were only a handful of initiums who were known by name. I stood up, keeping my head bowed and arms outstretched, ignoring the pins and needles in my fingertips. I tuned out the sharp cries as the Initiums who had gasped were dragged away, remembering when I had done that same thing.
"Aalish, you may look at me. In fact, I order you to look at me, at my face." I nodded simply, keeping my response short. "Yes sir." I raised my head first, my eyes reluctantly following, until I was staring into his eyes. At first glance there was no colour in his eyes, they were just holes that seemed to go on forever; staring at them was inevitable once you saw them for a second, and you need someone else to pull you from their depths. I looked deep into these pits, watching over and over as the colours swifted and swirled, eventually forming a picture, myself, kneeling over my best friend's body, blood swirling around us, forming into pools that soaked through my clothes. I felt, however distantly, someone approaching my left side. My mind curled into itself, looking for the fire within myself, and I reached out, grabbing at the fire, until I had collected enough strength to pull myself out of it. I flinched, straightened my back, and apologized.
"I'm sorry sir, that was not meant to happen." But Ignis didn't seem to care, instead he just looked at me curiously, before murmuring, "I've always wondered how you do that... you are the only one I've met who is capable of escaping me alone..."
"I'm not sure, sir." I responded stiffly. "Your sword sir?" I offered the sword again, raising it back to hip height and keeping my eyes just slightly downturned, staring at the bridge of my lord's nose rather than into his eyes as I had before.
After the ceremony I ventured to my old home, drawing my sword as I entered, having sensed that something was out of place. My grip on my sword was firm, and I swung it gently as I stepped into my room. At first glance I couldn't see anything out of place, but I still could tell something was off. I relaxed my muscles, reaching out with my mind rather than my body, searching the room. As I began I felt something move behind me, and I swung around and bashed the creature into the wall, my left arm going across it's chest, my right holding my weapon to its throat.
"Who are you?" I roared, "Who sent you?"
"I, I, I'm no one, no one at all, I have no name..." The creature trailed off, looking terrified, and I examined it closer. This 'creature' wasn't a creature, but a person. It was obviously a slave, and by the looks of it, one captured from the animal people. I softened my hold a bit, and retracted my sword, sliding it back into its sheath across my back. "Who sent you?" I asked again, lowering my voice. "It's okay, if you tell me the truth I won't hurt you." I kept my voice silky smooth, but allowed a small bit of malice to sneak through.
"Lo, lo, Lord Ignis, ma'am. He wanted me to find out how you can escape him." The small person stuttered at first, but seemed to grow less scared when I didn't strike it after it finished talking. I surveyed the small person, and wondered what to do about it. "It's not in my nature to leave such a pitiful thing," I murmured to myself "but I can't exactly kill something that Lord Ignis sent either... I suppose I'll just try to play nice and see if I can get any more information than what I did from the intimidation technique." Unfortunately for me, I'm not very good at playing nice. But then again, I've been raised my whole life to put on a show and act either without feeling or with a different feeling than what I'm actually feeling, so really this shouldn't be difficult at all. I finished my thought in my head, concerned that the rumours of the animal people having extremely good hearing are true. I turned to the slave and asked, in the sweetest voice I could muster,
"I'm sorry for earlier, I was being a bit paranoid wasn't I?'' And then forced myself to let out a short giggle. Oh god that was awful. "Can we start over?" I continued, "I'm Aalish, Initium to the Lord Ignis and a proud member of the Fire clan. And who are you?" The tiny animal clan member looked at me strangely before answering.
"I don't have a name, I'm sorry Ma'am. All that I am is slave to Lord Ignis Ma'am '' I smiled sadly at the person, this time letting a bit of my real emotions shine through. "I'm sure that you used to have a name? Before this lifestyle was, placed upon you?'' The young boy shook his head as I talked, obviously concerned with my intentions. I mean, fair enough, I do have a bit of reputation with how I treat spies and slaves. "Sir?" I asked, which sounded strange while I addressed a slave, but oh well. You do what you have to do. "Sir? Why won't you tell me your name?" The person looked perplexed at being called sir, and stared at me with an open mouth before answering.
"N, no one cares about the earlier life of a simple slave Ma'am, I'm not sure why you do." I shrugged my shoulders a bit before realizing what I was doing and stopping. "Because, I feel like you weren't always a slave, and I'm interested to know more about you. You know my name and information about me, why can't I expect the same from you?" The slave looked at me, and then down at the ground as if considering what I said. It took a long moment before he finally responded with, "Eaglet Ma'am, my name was Eaglet." I smiled at him, and allowed a small conversation to strike up between us. He explained that he was 11 now, and was about 4 when he was taken from his home. His parents had died trying to protect him and his siblings, which he knew nothing about the whereabouts of. We chatted for a while, with myself answering his questions about me with more questions about him, or just giving really vague, general answers that most people already knew. After an hour or two of talking I looked out the window and realized that curfew was drawing close. I knew that I could make it back to my dorm in the barracks with no trouble, but I also had to get Eaglet home. It's always good having a direct slave of the Lord to get information from. And so I picked up Eaglet, with one arm under his knees and the other under his armpits and ran.
"Oi! Put me down!" Eaglet wailed.
"Shhhh Eaglet it's okay, curfew is almost here and I'm trying to get you back to the castle in time so you don't get punished. Just calm down okay?"
"Alright Aalish, but please don't drop me!" I flinched at the fact that a slave had just called me by name in such a casual way, but that was exactly what I'd been hoping for, a slave that thought of me as a friend instead of a master. I sprinted towards the castle as fast as I could go while also carrying someone, and dropped the boy down on his feet just outside of a servants entrance. "I'm going to have to leave you here alright? Be safe." Even as I finished saying the last words I was turning on my heel and beginning to dash away. I now had only a few minutes left to run around half of the castle's walls, sneak over the wall and get into my dorm. I could feel adrenaline coursing through my veins, offering me extra speed and energy. I pumped my arms harder and ran faster than I had outside of training for a while, and launched myself at the castle's exterior wall. I leaped as high upwards as possible, and wrapped my fingers around the smooth, slightly rounded bricks. I smashed my toes into the wall as well, before beginning to climb. I trusted my body to get me to the top, and trusted my instincts on which rocks to grab. As soon as I could reach over the top ledge of the wall with my left hand, I grabbed hold and yanked myself upwards, over the wall. I landed nimbly on my feet and glanced around me, checking for guards. Upon seeing none I took three running steps and ran off the other end of the wall, landing on top of the barracks. I rolled to stop myself from hurting my legs, and allowed myself to slide down the roof onto the ground in the courtyard, where I performed a front handspring and launched myself through the open window and onto my waiting straw mattress. I flinched slightly as I hit the pallet beneath the mattress, but pulled myself up and closed the window anyways. I went and sat down at my desk, where I grabbed a glass of water and chugged it. I was lucky that I had my own dorm, or I wouldn't have been able to get away with that.