|
|
| (26 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown) |
| Line 1: |
Line 1: |
| ===Extra - Serenity and Nobility===
| |
|
| |
|
| (This scene takes place in the middle of Volume 3, hours before meeting Cecylia during Chapter 10)
| |
|
| |
| Standing one hundred paces from the straw practice dummy, Kaede placed her footing with her left side facing the target. She then straightened her body into the proper form -- pelvis and shoulders in parallel, back straight from neck to feet.
| |
|
| |
| She held her spring-steel greatbow vertically in hand, before gripping the bow string with her right glove. A grooved piece of horn sewn into the thumb's crouch in her three-fingered archery glove caught onto the metallic string. Meanwhile her left hand shifted to position itself on the bow's grip.
| |
|
| |
| Kyūdō archery wasn't just a sport. It was also a ritual, a contemplative prayer to the perfection of form.
| |
|
| |
| ''Ashibumi'', ''Dozukuri'', ''Torikake'', ''Tenouchi'', and now... as Kaede turned her eyes to face the target -- ''Monomi''.
| |
|
| |
| A cold, morning breeze swept through the grassy meadow where she stood, but Kaede hardly even felt the chill as her mind zoned out everything else in the world. She raised the greatbow above her head, paused, then pulled it back down, drawing away the metallic string while pushing her bow away at the same time.
| |
|
| |
| It shouldn't have been possible under normal circumstances. Kaede's ''Yumi-Daikyū'' wasn't made of laminated wood but far stronger spring-steel. Her meager strength should have left her hand shaking just trying to pull back the stress-laden bowstring. But Pascal had grown tired of refilling her spell-holding runes with ''Elemental Body of Earth'' every day after practice. He enchanted her gloves weeks ago with... not strength, but the cancellation of reactionary forces for a steady draw.
| |
|
| |
| It was magic that violated Newton's Laws, so much that Kaede still couldn't fully wrap her head around it.
| |
|
| |
| Not that it mattered as Kaede's posture reached ''Kai'' -- the full draw.
| |
|
| |
| Her mind melded into the arrowhead to form one entity. Her eyes saw nothing but the target itself. Her thumb and fingers then released the string, hurling out the arrow across the open air.
| |
|
| |
| ...Straight into the straw dummy.
| |
|
| |
| Lowering her bow, Kaede's concentration returned from her intense focus. It had felt good to leave the world behind, to put aside all of her worries and consider only the absolute truth:
| |
|
| |
| Her arrow was fated to pierce the straw man's face.
| |
|
| |
| She heard a spattering of applause. "Dead center!" One of the nearby Lotharins cried.
| |
|
| |
| "Not bad at all for a girl your age," even a relaxed veteran ranger appraised.
| |
|
| |
| "Thanks," Kaede beamed back, before noticing two familiar faces from the half dozen audience.
| |
|
| |
| "Ariadne!" She took a limped step, her legs still sore from the Princess' punishment two days ago.
| |
|
| |
| "Good morning, Kaede," the serene lady seemed to bewitch the bystanders as she strode across the grass, her pink tresses billowing in the morning breeze as she led over her pristine white pegasus.
| |
|
| |
| Flanking her was not her fiancé but a tall, broad shouldered young man with gray eyes, chiseled chin, and a full mustache.
| |
|
| |
| "Sergeant... Steinmetz, was it?" Kaede greeted with a smile as she remembered the section leader from Captain von Lichnowsky's company, who had drank with her after the Battle of Nordkapp.
| |
|
| |
| "Sir and Lieutenant now," the yeoman thrust his muscular chest forth with pride, a shiny new Knight's Cross decorating his collar. "But you can just me Eckhart."
| |
|
| |
| "Congratulations," Kaede eagerly shook his massive hand, also noticing the difference in uniform -- he now wore the black-on-burning-red of a Knight Phantom.
| |
|
| |
| "Pascal and Colonel von Hammerstein recruited him for the ''Ghost Riders'' while his company was being reorganized in Nordkreuz," Ariadne explained as she noticed Kaede's gaze. "He's still learning to conjure the ''Phantom Steed'' as quickly. But we're certainly glad to have a decorated veteran like him with us."
| |
|
| |
| "I serve as Captain Gerd Kessler's new second-in-command."
| |
|
| |
| It was almost shocking how quickly everyone's rank rose after the ''White Typhoon'' campaign. The ''Ghost Riders'' had paid in blood during the Air Battle of Nordkreuz. But in exchange, the survivors received the honor of becoming the 6th, fully-fledged Knight Phantom formation in Weichsel's armed forces.
| |
|
| |
| "I can't think of anyone more deserving," Kaede grinned from ear to ear. "Are the two of you out for a stroll?"
| |
|
| |
| Ariadne nodded with her elegant smile.
| |
|
| |
| "I was giving him another lesson on some of our aerial maneuver tactics. Gerd is a good leader in the field, but he's not the best at explaining details."
| |
|
| |
| ''Leadership really is half mentoring,'' Kaede nodded.
| |
|
| |
| "I noticed back at Nordkapp," Eckhart added as he stared at Kaede's weapon. "But your bow is really unusual. There aren't many archers in Weichsel. But now that we're in Rhin-Lotharingie, it's obvious that your archery style is odd too."
| |
|
| |
| "I do come from a fabled land," the Samaran girl glowed with a mysterious smile. "The Lotharins use the three-fingered 'Inner Sea draw'." -- Kaede noticed as 'Mediterranean' translated into its Hyperion equivalent as soon as her lips formed the words -- "But I come from the Far East, where we use a variant of the superior 'thumb draw' common seen among nomadic societies."
| |
|
| |
| "Why's it better?"
| |
|
| |
| Presenting her bow, Kaede curled her right thumb around the bowstring and pulled on it, before wrapping the index and middle finger around in a tight grip.
| |
|
| |
| "The nomads use a thumb-ring instead of a glove, but the idea is similar. The advantage is a narrower grip on the bowstring that pulls harder, longer, and never suffers an uneven release -- unlike the three-finger draw which must stay coordinated even as the fingers tire to not foul the shot."
| |
|
| |
| Ariadne looked up, her eyes impressed:
| |
|
| |
| "How long have you been practicing archery?"
| |
|
| |
| "Since I was... nine?" Kaede tilted her head to ponder. "Pa took me to Mongolia -- region in the east -- for a trip, and I was fascinated when we watched a tournament. My style has changed some since then, but I've been shooting for a good seven-eight years now."
| |
|
| |
| She then shivered as a new breeze blew across the clearing, while Ariadne's pegasus neighed in the chill.
| |
|
| |
| "What did you name your new pegasus?"
| |
|
| |
| Kaede still remembered that moment atop the skywhale, when a Northmen berserker hacked into Ariadne's first familiar and mount. The lady had been thrown off and almost killed, before Kaede saved her with a miraculous, last second arrow.
| |
|
| |
| "Edelweiss."
| |
|
| |
| A shadow of guilt ran through Ariadne's cyan gaze as her gloved fingers combed through the pegasus' mane with adoration.
| |
|
| |
| It was the exact same name she had given to her first familiar.
| |
|
| |
| The Samaran girl's stomach flipped. If she had died in battle, would Pascal just summon another girl and call her 'Kaede'?
| |
|
| |
| "That name is really special to you, isn't it?" She forced a smile towards the lady, trying to bring her thoughts back to something pleasant.
| |
|
| |
| For a moment Ariadne said nothing, not even as a nostalgic smile began to form. Then:
| |
|
| |
| "It's the flower Parzifal gave me when he first courted me to a dance."
| |
|
| |
| Kaede's eyebrows shot up at that. The Edelweiss had been enshrined in Swiss and Austrian culture because of its rarity, for the flower only grew on high, rocky passes and symbolized the untarnished beauty of the mountains. Since the translation magic rarely matched terms without equivalence in the meanings beneath them, she expected that the Hyperion flower had a similar background.
| |
|
| |
| "He retrieved one himself?" Eckhart's eyes swelled. "Our healer is a brave man."
| |
|
| |
| "Where do they grow in Weichsel?" Kaede asked the Lieutenant.
| |
|
| |
| "They don't. They only grow on the mountains -- the ''Dead Mountains''. The Edelweiss is the only flower that could survive in those forsaken lands."
| |
|
| |
| The legacy of the extinct vampire clans continue there to this day, as the gray, poisonous mist that covered those rocky, steep slopes could kill an unwarded man within minutes. Even for a mage, this was a challenge that would tax his ether endurance, not to mention the courage it took to brave treacherous mountains with zero visibility.
| |
|
| |
| "He did admit to me later that he had help from Gerd -- who mountaineered for a ''hobby''," Ariadne accentuated as though she clearly thought Gerd was crazy. "Though He did pick the flower himself. But the most important part was what he said to me, even back then when he was all shy and embarrassed and insecure."
| |
|
| |
| With an angelic smile blossoming across her cherry lips, Ariadne recounted the scene that had began the love of her life:
| |
|
| |
| "He said I should never be without my ''noble purity'', for I was his beacon of guidance in this world."
| |