Sorrow of the Wind

[Summerstream]

“...Hiya..!”

A flash reflected from the dawn sun on the steel of the blade. The follow through was smooth, and the blade ended parallel to the ground, near the face of Summerstream. She did more swings, the very tip of her sword just skimming the melting snow in Moscovia and leaving thin marks when it did touch. She clenched her blade in her hand and rolled it over the back of her hand to change her grip on the handle before she brought the blade down again. Sweat trickled down her face, and she took a moment to hold the blade in front of her to breathe heavily.

Her muscles hurt, and ached. Her side felt like it was on fire. But still, she kept the blade raised, and she stared at the weight she applied to the blade. Then, she closed her eyes and let the blade lower to the ground as she tilted her head up and opened her eyes to look at the sky above. She noted how the cool wind felt on her face as she relaxed and felt her side. The half-fae paladin had been dismounted in the past from her peco, but every prior time was before she had been injured. Summerstream raised her free left hand into the air over her face, and clenched it into a fist.

“Hum. I'm healing well. A bit fast, but I'm healing.” She muttered, then stretched her neck, and looked at the building nearby. She wondered if Ezekiel was awake. Summerstream shook her head and raised her sword again. “Nah, it's not important. Hell; we've both been through a lot, lately.” She started to go through her personal drills again as her thoughts wandered.

She had been part of the team who ventured into Yggdrasil to stop the Golemancer, Kushiel. They had encountered him as they approached the beginning of the maze through the root-- the part of the path where it was all too easy to get lost. Her grip tightened on her sword as she swung a few times erratically. Then, she breathed in to calm herself down and focus. It was too easy to say that the professor had gone insane. But, the words he had said before his appearance changed troubled her.

“Who could be the one manipulating us all.” She enquired aloud, swinging parallel to the ground once more, and bringing the sword up to the side of her face again with the flat facing the ground. Summerstream held that position for a moment. Before she crouched before pushing off the ground with a combination of wind pressure and her wings to back flip in the air. She landed on one foot and swung her weighted blade up before placing both feet on the ground once more.

“Kushiel seems to think that it was the gods. But, that could have just been the fragment of Ymir's Heart showing him illusions. The fragment he stole was one that was manufactured.... Not the true fragment.” Summerstream muttered as she thrust her weapon forward. “He seemed pretty convinced about it, though.” She narrowed her eyes. She could hear Kushiel's last words clearly in her mind still, and how she responded to him.

“Yggdrasil... Take me...”

“You don't deserve Yggdrasil's mercy.”

Summerstream shook her head again, and narrowed her eyes as she swung her sword before returning to a neutral position. This time, she held the blade with two hands. Her mind drifted to Ezekiel and recalled what he told her about Odin warning him. She stared at the sword point and stood motionless for a while, listening to the sound of the wind, her rapidly beating heart, and her heavy breathing. They had saved Lucretia, but Kushiel had been beyond saving. She shook her head once more and began her two handed drills, her cuts too heavy, and her movements too fast for her current condition. There was a sharp pain from her side, and she hissed, almost dropping her sword. After a few moments to force herself to relax, she resumed only to use less force in her swings. Her side continued pain her, so she stopped swinging her sword around and sat in the snow to catch her breath and clutch her side. She breathed out sharply. Before the fight with Kushiel's Duneyrr-like form, she had taken one of her Yggdrasil seeds out of their pouch on her belt and put it in her mouth. If she did not, being vaulted from her grand peco's back with the scythe that was wielded would have most certainly killed her. She knew this, the fact her deepest injury was there told her as much. Summerstream closed her eyes before she stood to gently stretch.

“I should really be resting, huh, dad?” Summerstream mused with a gentle smile. “From all those stories that Earl told me about what the four of you did though, you'd want me to stay in the best condition possible. Same with mother...” She partially closed her eyes at the thought. Were her long-departed parents proud of what she's accomplished? Proud of what she endured? Summerstream picked up her sword again and removed the weight before she started swinging it around again.

“I wish I at least had the chance to speak to you two before you died.” She twisted her grip and looked at her bandages. She blinked several times before she shook her head and sheathed her sword. “...Right I need to change the bandages.” With a sharp intake of breath the injured paladin walked inside and put her sword down on the couch before she walked off towards the bathroom.

The warm water felt nice once she was sitting down in the tub. She had wiped her body down to clean herself before she actually got into the water out of habit, and stood before a mirror and looked at her body in the reflection. Her body was covered in bruises and scrapes of various sizes, and on her right side was a long, deep wound. Everything else would heal okay, but she was worried about that one wound in particular. It was too close to the disfiguring scar across her stomach that had a neat row of stitching that had healed. Summerstream looked down to her bare feet and closed her eyes to fight back tears.

“If I didn't take that sword, then I would not be in this state... I bet.” She had whispered to the empty room. She turned away from the mirror with half-closed eyes and clenched fists.

Summerstream had been sitting there for a quarter of an hour by now, just letting the warm water soak into her battered body. She sunk down so the water covered her upper lip, and breathed through her nose. The water stung her side, and she grit her teeth against it as she bubbled the water. Carefully, she washed before she got out of the water and patted herself dry with a towel. Then, she redressed her more severe injuries and wrapped herself with the towel she had used.

She stood for a while fiddling with the edge of the towel before she changed. Her hand bumped a small bottle that was tucked safely inside her bag of belongings, and she pulled it out to look at it. It was a translucent gold liquid. Summerstream let her gaze soften as she cradled the bottle in her hands.

“...Do you hate me, Yggdrasil? For taking a little your precious sap- a little of your life- to heal my fragile body...” Summerstream whispered as she watched the air bubbles inside the liquid slowly move, “Do you hate me for being selfish...” She gingerly transferred the bottle to a single hand and kissed the lip of the bottle, before putting it back inside her bag. She gritted her teeth and closed her eyes.

She had taken the sap during the pursuit of Kushiel through the roots of Yggdrasil. If she closed her eyes, she could still hear her adoptive father's words in her mind.

“Listen, Summerstream,” the old battle monk bade her, “We both know what will heal your wound, don't we? Then, why don't you? Sophie had gotten the berries herself. Its a powerful healer, but the berries and seeds alone won't heal you. You're one of the closest people to Yggdrasil, Summerstream.”

“Because... Because it doesn't feel right, Earl. Yggdrasil is sacred, and it's wounded, too. I can't bring myself to draw the sap for my own stupid, selfish reasons. I would only draw the sap to stop a war. Or try to stop one.” Summerstream recalled herself responding.

“What if your injury prevents you from stopping that war?” Earl challenged, and took her hand. “What do you think hurts Yggdrasil more, having to consume the berries of the tree for the rest of your life, or taking some of the sap for yourself once? Think about it; when the berries decay, they return to the ground where Yggdrasil's roots are. The tree takes the nutrients from these berries to grow stronger. So, what do you think hurts the tree you strive to protect more, Summerstream? Taking the berries for you entire life, or consuming a little sap once?”

Earl always asked good questions. He often was the one who opened her eyes to a different perspective. Summerstream opened her eyes and organized her bag better. Her mind wandered again.

“But, that's always like you Earl. You seem to know what I'm always thinking before I do.” She took out her well-loved copy of the Prose Edda and opened it before she removed the old image of four people that had been safely tucked between the pages of the book. Her lip trembled at the sepia toned image, and she swallowed roughly.

“...Em... Earl... Mum... Dad...” Summerstream whimpered, and touched each face as she said their name; a gypsy with a determined and fiery expression, a kind looking bearded champion with bandaged fists, a female lord knight with wings holding her large stomach with one hand and holding a longsword with it's blade towards the ground with the other, and a male lord knight, confident looking with a scar across his face holding a claymore with the flat of the blade on his shoulder. Everyone in the image held a single white lotus flower. She closed her eyes and clenched her free hand by her side. “I'm in mum's belly in this picture.” Summerstream whispered, and she opened her eyes before she tucked the image inside the Prose Edda again. How ironic it was that the book that told her of the legends of the gods, the book that foretold the end of the world, and the book that taught her about Yggdrasil, was the container holding the things the paladin considered precious. She hugged the book to her chest and stood like that for some time, her eyes closed as she listened to her breathing and heartbeat.

“Why does my chest hurt so much? Why can't I look at my reflection in the mirror without crying...”

She opened her eyes partially and put her Edda back into her bag before she stepped outside. Then, she turned her gaze to the heavens and closed her eyes. A stiff wind blew then, and Summerstream staggered slightly, then looked around. She brushed some of her unbound hair out of her face and looked to the snow-covered marble path, then to the sky. Her eyes were wide, and she rubbed her arms.

The wind blew again, taking her hair with it. “The wind makes me feel so... uneasy.” Summerstream whispered, closing her eyes as she rubbed her arms. She turned her gaze to the heavens as she leaned against a wide tree, then shook her head in a futile attempt to clear her thoughts.

“No. I'm just feeling uneasy because Kushiel did something to Yggdrasil. That must be it.” Summerstream concluded, and narrowed her eyes, before closing them fully and sighing heavily. “It has to be...”

She heard a door close nearby, drawing her attention for a moment. “Huh?” Summerstream blinked as she stood in the shelter of the tree.

Had Ezekiel been gone the entire time? It was certainly something that she did not notice until now. The Moscovia house had been quite quiet the past few days, which was nice as it allowed her to recover in peace. But, it had also been difficult to move around on her own for the first days after fighting and defeating Kushiel. Even now, almost a week after the fact, the wound she received to her side was still raw and sore. The first few days had often left her laying down for a large portion of the day because of how much the injury hurt. But, the important fact was that she was healing. She rubbed her side gently, feeling the bandages under her clothes. They were uncomfortable, but there was nothing the paladin could do about it.

A cold wind stirred her from her thoughts, and she shivered, holding her arms after. The wind made her feel uneasy again. Summerstream rubbed the side of her head with her fingers with half-closed eyes before she went back inside, murmuring, “I should be resting.” She closed the door behind her and unfolded the blanket she had been using, and wrapped it around her, before leaning against one of the walls of the room. She breathed out slowly and kept her gaze on the scene beyond the window. Then, her gaze shifted to her bag again, and she walked over to take out the bottle of sap, and sit down on the couch.

What would happen if she were to drink it here? She turned the bottle in her hands and watched the air bubbles rise with a tilted head.

She did not know what would happen to her if she consumed the sap. Summerstream closed her hands around the small bottle, then looked to the Prose Edda, then returned her gaze to her closed hands. Her gaze softened, and she breathed out in a quiet sigh, before she unclasped her hands and rubbed the back of her scarred neck.

“I need to check on Sophie anyways, so why not.” Summerstream murmured quietly. “At least that way if something happens... I'll be... Close to people that I know... And the people who raised me.”