Princess of O'Khasis (OFFICIALLY DISCONTINUED)

Training

The blonde girl raced down the field as the crowd followed her. She was fast, but coming up in front of her was a large stone wall, blocking her path. But the girl seemed to not take notice, she kept running at full sprint away from the mob that chased after her. As the girl advanced on the wall, she did not slow down, rather, she sped up. Pumping her arms, trying to keep her breathing steady, the girl waited until the wall was only a couple feet away from her when she pushed off the ground with one foot, literally stepping up the wall, horizontally. Keeping her momentum, the girl ran up the wall a few steps before pushing off of it, twisting in the air so that she landed behind the crowd, facing them.

"And that is how you get out of being chased into a dead end." Melody said to them, taking in the impressed faces that stared back at her. Melody had taken the day to train some of the newer thieves, showing them how to defend themselves and get out of sticky situations. They were doing well, and showed promise. However before Melody showed them nay fighting technique, she taught them the thieves code. The thieves code was something Melody had though up when she witnessed one of her recruits using their training to harass some of the Nahakra village guards. She had immediately cut off the boys training and punished him as she saw fit, Melody did not believe in unnecessary cruelty. It would have been easy to succumb to the temptation to take her anger at Caleb out on the village, but it wasn't the village that had wronged her, it was the lords son. Her thieves stole what they needed, and occasionally some luxuries that may or may not have been going to the lords family. Thats where the thieves code came in. Every new recruit that came in would first speak to Melody before they even saw the camp. She would talk with them, find out their intentions and wants, their home life, and ultimately decide of they would be let in. If they were, they would swear by the thieves code, then, and only then, would they be allowed to enter. The code went like this,

"I vow on my life that I will do no unnecessary harm to those who are innocent, I will take what I need and only what I need, and I will never expose the location of the guild to any who are not a member."

Melody was strict with her rules, any violation of the code could mean immediate banishment, depending on how extreme the violation was. Many of the recruits were surprised at how strongly Melody felt about the code, and she could see why. A thief is a stereotypical word, people usually think of them as low-lifes, who enjoy taking everything a person has and leaving them with nothing, sometimes causing bodily harm to them in the process. But Melody, like her brother Garroth, had never believed in hurting the innocent, protecting them instead. Thinking of her twin brother, she realized that if he were to see her now, he would probably be disgusted with her, stealing from villagers and teaching children how to fight. But this was the life she led, and if Garroth didn't like it, he could leave...just like he did when they were kids.

'He would have no right to be disappointed in me, if he hadn't left, perhaps I would be here right now. Maybe I would be back in O'khasis with Vylad and Zane, maybe- But she was jerked back into reality when one of the kids said to her,

"Miss Melody? Could you show us that pick-pocketing thing again?"

~One pick-pocketing lesson later~

Melody dismissed the kids for the day, leading them back to the hill where the base was located. She made her way to her office, deciding to take another look at the book on Esmund that she had taken from that librarian. Thinking about it, Melody felt a twinge of guilt. She hadn't technically needed the book, but at the time, she had in fact felt that way. So Melody made up her mind-after she was done reading it, she would just sneak back into the library and put it back in that little secret room. But for now, Melody poured over the entry,

Day 27,

I believe that I have found the place where Esmund the Protector lived during his childhood, his home town! The reason I believe this is because;

1, The village is suspended above water, the element that Esmund is widely associated with.

2, The village has long been abandoned, for unknown reasons

3, The village has a defined energy, a feeling, if you will. A feeling of safety, as if I am protected.

4, It is common knowledge that Esmund wore a distinct blue cloak, and I have found one such cloak in the rubble or one of the houses, it looks exactly like the one in the sketches of him.

There is no further evidence that Esmund grew up in this place, however it is enough to convince me that he, in fact, did live here at some point.

Growing bored of this entry, Melody flipped to a different page,

Day 54,

Thanks to the newfound knowledge from previous days, I have a theory on Esmunds temporary absence from the divine warriors.

As a child, it is believed by some scholars that Esmund actually had an elder sister, however she ran away from home while he was very young, changing him forever. It is my belief that this made him slightly mentally unstable, the beginning of what some call, his insanity. Esmunds role as a divine warrior was a protector, he was a protector of the innocent. At first his role went smoothly, he didn't question it, after all, he was doing whats right. But then he began to question who was really innocent  or guilty. If a commoner tries to steal food from a greedy lord to feed themselves, who is in the wrong, the hungry thief or the lord who withheld the food in the first place? Esmund didn't know, and the more he punished a thief, or pointed his sword at a criminal, he slowly descended into madness. It came to the point where he could no longer tell right from wrong, and he didn't know who to protect or punish. It was at this point that the other warriors noticed his mental unstableness, and attempted to stop him from going in public until he could regain his health. However in his madness, he rejected that, and instead fled to be alone. Esmund took sanctuary in a cave in the side of a mountain, and it was there that he took up meditation, and attempted to nurse himself back to health. Without people or conflict around him, he calmed the internal storm, and though he found peace. Once he was sure that he had figured out right from wrong, he rejoined the warriors, who welcomed him, if a little unsurely. Esmund never fully went mad again, as far as my knowledge goes, however he was never truly himself. People rescued by him passed down stories that he had a blank look, as if he was in another world, sometimes muttering to himself. However the story does not end there. Esmund himself never had any children, but it is believed that his sister did, and if one looks at the family tree, they will find that the majority of her direct descendants had some type of metal illness. Some went insane, others committed suicide, it is believed that the lord of falcon claw was such a descendant,  causing him to slay his entire village. 

This entry was particularly interesting for Melody, being that she too, had a sibling leave her at a young age, and it was her suspicion that she witnessed the day that the lord of falcon claw killed his entire village, the day she ran away. Not wanting to reflect on her past, Melody closed the book, and called it a night.