Sterling: Knight Quests

WC: 445

I began my knight training when I molted my last baby plumage, as is good and proper, and not a moment sooner.

My guardians at the outpost I had grown up in took a good look at me as I ran in, thrilled to finally join those who had raised me. I held the feather up and stared impatiently as they circled, checking my plumage themselves, before finally smiling fondly at me and then themselves, in silent conversation with one another, overjoyed to have found me all those years ago, and to have me now-! A capable Eider, ready to join the next group of volunteers that will be dispatched to our outpost.

Unlike the other elvyian's that would soon be joining my drift, (and how exciting to think, that I would be part of a drift!), I will not be making the perilous journey from Velorouse- or one of the other smaller but still established towns on the city outskirts- to our small but proud outpost far, far into Brouzet. I have lived here my whole life.

While still along the Glass River, optimistically stationed to rescue any plumes that are born our way, our outpost is so far from Velorouse that it is very, very rare for any plumes to be born here, and rarer still for them to survive long enough to be rescued by a scouting group. I am told that I was an unusual case: my feathers and fur soggy from the river whipped around me, my eyes shut tight, as I had somehow created my own tiny cyclone in which I was encased, safe from the dangers of the desert.

I was brought back to the station, where I was raised communally by the knights that lived there. I loved to watch the scouts leave on their patrols, see the knights triumphantly drop a fugulisk head by the camp, and watch all manner of elvyian step into the sparring ring to train and fight. I would watch starry-eyed as they attempted to best each other in physical combat, and begged for my turn.

I was always, of course, gently told no- not until I was an Eider. The only knight training I was permitted before I came of age was to sit with a scout (normally gentle Pip, who had played a large part in raising me), cosy in front of the fireplace that fended off the cold desert nights, and memorise maps, having a pawed or clawed hand cover the different mountain range and city routes and quizzing me on them, until I knew the rivers of the Brouzet desert like I know the claws on my paw.