The Founding of Gazo’s and Gracie’s Academy (Part 1):
Prayer and Justice
Year: 25 BGW (Before Great War)
Grace combed her daughter’s hair picking out snags, trying to straighten the brown tangle. Her daughter Gracie was only seven but, even so, she was as thin as a needle and as comely as a sword. Grace found that her daughter’s sharp features always got her noticed. Usually this would be by boys twice her age that had not gone off to war on the Long Pass. Without her husband around Grace had become very good at protecting her daughter.
“Mother.”
“Yes, honey.” Grace picked out the final knot.
“Where is father?”
She turned her daughter around on the wooden stool next to her feather bed. Grace sighed. Even she did not know exactly where Gazo was. The last bird to fly to her house had been months past and carried a note which mentioned the signing of treaties at Pelopon, the capital of the continent Ka’Che. Empor Rydel’s faction had been crushed and her husband, Gazo, had been the tactical and fighting genius during the war. Many said even the Ancients, the very creators of the universe themselves, weren’t as gifted with a blade as he.
The flooring outside her daughter’s room creaked. Grace’s ears perked to the sound, but she never turned around. Her daughter needed reassuring, and Grace had vowed always to be there for her, no matter how little the problem.
She leaned her forehead against her daughter’s and held her cheeks. “He is coming home. I promise.”
“You have promised for months now.” Her daughter pouted, turned around and tore away from her hands.
“And now…” Grace curled her arms around her daughter, locking fingers with her. “I really mean it.”
Arms, hairy and thick with scars, snaked their way around them both. Hands large as melons eclipsed theirs. Lips touched Grace’s hair and pressed their love.
“And now she really means it.”
“Father?”
“Gazo!” Grace spun around, daughter on her lap, to stare into his eyes as deep and green as the fields he warred on. “Ancients be good. Is it really you?” Her hands reached out for the leather padding strapped to his chest. It felt real.
The man in front of her took a knee and her soft hands fell into his, full of roughness and battle and…love. His lips, scarred but as beautiful as before, graced her hand. “Yes, it really is.”
Gracie jumped out of her lap and wrapped her arms around Gazo’s thick neck, hanging from it. “Father. Father. Father.”
As Gazo stood up he hugged and held his daughter gingerly. He squeezed her and kissed her and Gracie envied her daughter. She wanted to be in his arms, she wanted his lips. She could only smile, though, despite it all. Her turn would come soon enough, and now that the war was over he would be her’s forever.
Gazo let her down and looked at her. “You have grown.” He reached behind his back and retrieved the longsword from its scabbard. “Why you’re as tall as Justice now.” He let the tip, stab into the floor and held it to Gracie’s side. Her daughter stood to the ruby-encrusted pommel as red as the blood he drew during war.
Grace couldn’t believe what he said. Justice, was that the sword’s name? Had he named it like a child? Was it now the son that she never had given him? Grace swallowed her sorrow, Gazo was home. She would have many nights to bless him with a real boy, one that could grow to be as stocky and handsome as he was. One that could have a face as square and lean and would have thick hair like a bear of black like her husband had. One that she was allowed to hold, too.
