Location: Arbola Forest
Timeline: Sixth Age, 52nd Year, Summer to Fall
The Fifty-Second year of the Sixth Age was a season of sharpening. In the forest of Arbola, the air had turned crisp, carrying the scent of drying needles and the tang of coming frost. It was a peculiar thing about the Amorosi—they saw the transition from Summer to Fall as a slow exhale, a time to steady the spirit before the long sleep of Winter settled over their woods.
But for Nathily, there was no exhale. After recommitting to her training, her spirit burned with a ferocity that defied the cooling woods. She had taken the “Silent Stalker” mission and the Drokka’s warning and forged them into a singular, obsessive purpose. She was a Pupil in name, yet she moved with the lethal economy of a veteran. She was no longer just learning the Way of the Azora; she was becoming it. It was all so…mortal…these petty ‘comittments’ and ‘quests’ – I tire of the meaninglessness of it all, yet alas, I must perform my duties and keep telling you about them…
As any scribe of the heavens can tell you, when a bow is drawn too tight, the wood begins to groan. Nathily was dominating the glade, yes—but she was doing so to drown out the silence of an empty road she dared not tread. It was only a matter of time, before she would snap.
The Battle at The Glade
One afternoon, late in the summer, the sun broke through the canopy in jagged shafts of gold, illuminating the dust kicked up by the sparring match. A circle of Azoras—ranging from wide-eyed Pupils, to seasoned Novitates, to a couple stoic Cavaliers—stood in a wide ring, their collective breath held as they observed an unexpected scene taking place.
In the center of the ring, Nathily was a blur of motion. Her practice saber, weighted to match the exact balance of her diamond-edged Falcone, sang through the air. Across from her, a tall athletic Novitiate twice her age struggled keep his guard. Nathily didn’t just strike; she flowed. She created a new rhythm, based on the Shadow-Stalker principles, as her heartbeats timed to the rustle of the surrounding oaks, making her movements nearly impossible to predict.
Raison, Thalric, and the remaining Azoras in the audience all knew that Sylvaris was a sturdy Amorosi warrior – he’d been a Novitiate for nearly forty years and had seen his share of combat on missions to the west. He was a seasoned fighter, yet still a mid-tier student by the long-reaching measures of the Azora. Even still, Sylvaris was vastly more experienced than Nathily. Yet in spite his tenure and his broader reach, he was simply unable to match the “lightning-release” speed Nathily had been blessed by the gods with.
With a sudden, explosive pivot, Nathily parried the Sylvaris’ heavy downstroke and stepped into his shadow. Before he could recalibrate, the blunt tip of her wooden blade was pressed firmly against the hollow of his throat.
“Yield,” she commanded.
“Yield,” Sylvaris gasped, dropping his weapon.
The ring of spectators remained silent until El-Janus stepped forward from the shade. His eyes were like flint, unreadable. “It would seem that Novitiates can offer you no more challenge, Nathily. You have the speed of the hawk, but do you have the patience of the mountain? Adarius, would you be so kind…”
A collective murmur rippled through the crowd. Adarius was a Cavalier, a warrior who had walked the path for over a century. Second only to El-Janus in experience in Arbola, Adarius had fought in The Last Great War and countless other campaigns. Like the mysstro, Adarius was an Azora teacher. With the exception of El-Janus, Adarius had never been bested by anyone in The Glade.
The circle of trainees widened instinctively as the air grew heavy with the weight of the coming clash. Adarius did not move like a elf preparing for a fight; he moved like the living forest itself—inevitable and effortless. The Great Cavalier walked stoically forward to stand opposite Nathily. He drew a practice katana, his stance relaxed, almost casual.
“Begin,” El-Janus signaled.
Nathily didn’t wait. She lunged, a strike of such blinding speed that several Pupils jumped back. Adarius didn’t move his feet; he simply flicked his wrist, the wood of his blade meeting hers with a sharp clack. Nathily was a storm—she rained blows upon him, transitioning from high slashes to low sweeps with a fluidity that made the Cavaliers lean in with focused interest. She was “making the play” at every turn, her mind a single-minded arrow aimed at his chest. For a moment, it looked as though she might actually find a gap – in fact her saber whistled as it narrowly missed his shoulder.
But Adarius was not another Novitiate.
“Look at his lead foot,” Raison whispered to a cluster of younger Pupils, his eyes narrowed in focus. “He hasn’t barely shifted his weight, yet he’s already closed off every angle of her initial lunge. That’s a century of Moi-Ra at work. He isn’t anticipating her; he’s simply waiting for her to exist where he wants her.”
Sylvaris, still rubbing the phantom sting on his throat where Nathily had bested him moments before, leaned in with a grimace of respect. “She’s going to try that burst again. I felt it when she fought me—it’s like the wind suddenly turns into iron.”
“She’s too fast for him to just stand there,” Thalric argued, his hands gripping the hilt of his own training saber. “Look at her hands. She’s vibrating. I want to see her use that ‘Flicker-Step’ again – that’s what got me!”
“Speed is a gift, but intent is a shackle,” Elowen murmured from the back of the crowd, her voice melodic but sharp. “Nathily is fighting to win. Adarius is just… being. You can see the clutter in her stance. She will lose – and soon.”
Yet for all the commentaries of the crowd, in truth, none knew what to expect and when Nathily lunged, a collective intake of breath hissed through the ring of spectators. The clash that followed was a blur of silver-ash wood and golden hair.
“There!” Raison shouted over the clack of wood. “The three-point feint! She’s actually pushing him! Look at his back foot—he had to reset!”
“She’s inside his guard!” Sylvaris gasped, his eyes wide. “I’ve never seen a Pupil breach a Cavalier’s inner circle. Can she really do it?”
The excitement in the crowd died as quickly as it had ignited. They watched, breathless, as Nathily swarmed for a finishing blow, whilst Adarius stepped slightly to the left—a movement so subtle it was almost invisible. The Cavalier caught her hilt in a bind, twisted his blade with the leverage of a century’s experience, and Nathily’s saber flew from her hand, spinning into the tall grass.
The silence that followed was absolute.
In the same breath, Adarius’s blade came to rest an inch from Nathily’s heart.
“You are fast, Pupil,” Adarius said, his voice calm. “Faster than most was at your age. But you are fighting to prove something, and in the Azora Way, that is a weight that slows the hand. Empty your mind. Just Be.” He bowed and then retired in to the crowd.
Nathily stood frozen, her chest heaving, her blonde ponytail frayed and damp with sweat. She looked at her empty hands, the sting of defeat familiar, yet different. She had pushed a Cavalier to his limits—a feat unheard of for a Pupil—but the “victory” felt hollow.
“She had him,” Thalric whispered, shaking his head. “For a heartbeat, she actually had the opening. But she looked for the victory before she earned it.”
“No,” Elowen corrected softly. “She didn’t look…something else. That’s why she lost.”
All the while El-Janus had watched his star student, his gaze lingering on the way her eyes immediately drifted toward the northern road, perhaps searching for a ghost among the spectators.
“The training is done for today,” the Mysstro announced, his voice heavy with a meaning only Nathily understood. “Return to your kazas. Reflect on the difference between the strength of the arm and the stillness of the soul.”
The Fraying Thread
The end of that summer was like a deception in Arbola. For most it was a season of golden perfection, but for Nathily, that rhythm had become a jagged, screaming discord. I have seen empires crumble and stars go cold, yet there was a specific, quiet tragedy in seeing a soul reach for greatness only to be tethered by a thread of mortal longing. It’s magical to write about it. Nathily had become the talk of the Glade—a Pupil who fought like a Cavalier, a shadow that moved with the precision of a master’s quill. But what nobody knew is that Nathily was counting the days, waiting for something…someone. And as the days on that calendar turned to ash, so did the warrior.
For a time, everything seemed grand. In fact, the weeks following the duel with Adarius were a montage of impossible brilliance for Nathily.
At the training boughs, she was seen performing the “Leap of the High Fir,” a maneuver usually reserved for Novitiates, sticking the landing on a branch no wider than a sword’s blade with silent, liquid grace to the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ of the onlookers.
In the archery pits, she once fired three arrows in a single breath—the first splitting the center of the target, the second splitting the first, and the third pinning a falling maple leaf to the straw. Her fellow trainees, including Raison and Sylvaris, watched with a mixture of awe and envy.
“She is no longer a Pupil,” Raison had muttered as he watched her out-track a pack of forest wolves during a stealth exercise. “She is a storm in buckskin.”
But as the first hints of autumn coppered the edges of the leaves, the “storm” began to lose its center. Altough most were not paying attention, Nathily worried when Emcorae was a week overdue. Then ten days. Then a fortnight.
The amora’s brilliance vanished with a speed that left the Glade reeling. During a routine balance drill, the “fierce girl” simply fell. She didn’t trip; she plummeted from a low branch like a bird with a broken wing, landing in a tangled heap of limbs and bruised pride. In the sparring ring, Sylvaris—whom she had humbled many times over —found himself easily parrying her sluggish strikes. Her feet, once so light they barely disturbed the moss, now thudded heavily, out of sync with the swaying trees.
“What is she doing?” Thalric whispered, as Nathily missed a target so large a child could have hit it. “It’s like she’s forgotten how to breathe with the forest.”
“Look at her hands,” Elowen noted softly, her eyes full of pity. “The Moi-Ra is gone. She is fighting the wood, not wearing it.”
The whispers were like thorns in Nathily’s spirit. She could feel their eyes—the shock of the Novitiates, the disappointment of the Pupils. She was no longer a legend; she was an amora who had forgotten how to be a warrior.
Eventually El-Janus had no choice but to act. He’d tried to let his student figure things out on her own, but soon Nathily’s poor showings became dangerous to herself and others. Finally, one afternoon, when the mysstro found her slumped against a mossy rock after a disastrous tracking session, it was time for action. Nathily looked haggard, her blonde hair matted, her emerald eyes dull and frantic.
“Nathily,” El-Janus said, and for the first time, there was no iron in his voice—only a terrifying, clinical concern. “Stand up.”
The beautiful elfess tried. Her legs shook, and she stumbled, her hand catching the rock to steady herself. As she did, the moss beneath her palm turned a sickly, pale yellow – it was as if the forest was reacting to her touch as if she were a fever.
“Your heart is a lead weight, and it is dragging the forest down with you,” El-Janus reached out, not for her weapon, but to place a hand over her heart. “The Moi-Ra is not just broken, Nathily. It is inverted. You are physically out of harmony. You are not just distracted; you are becoming a blight upon the Harmony of The Glade.”
“I can… I can fix it, Mysstro,” her voice cracking. “I just need to focus.”
“You cannot focus on the Light when you are obsessing over a Shadow,” El-Janus replied, his face grave. “This is no longer a trial, Nathily. It is an intervention. If you stay in the Glade, the dissonance of your spirit will eventually cripple your mind, perhaps permanently. Then your journey along The Way would be over. I must send home again—not as a failure, but as an Amorosi who needs to find her heart before her body gives out.”
The walk back to the village was a gauntlet of shame. The scouts at the gates, who usually greeted her with respectful nods, now looked away as Nathily trudged past, her bow slung haphazardly, her gait uneven.
Inside her family kaza, the atmosphere was thick with a heavy, ancient worry. Her parents had already heard the news before she’d arrived home. When she entered, Rian stood by the hearth, his face etched with a confusion he couldn’t voice. He had seen her full of life when last she left to train, to see her now, trembling and hollow, was a sight that broke his heart.
But it was Fara who met her at the door. She didn’t ask about the training or the Mysstro’s orders. She simply looked at her daughter’s face and saw the candle flame in a gale that she had warned about. She saw the shooting star had finally crashed, and her daughter was standing in the crater.
“The arrow has snapped, hasn’t it?” Fara whispered, reaching out to take Nathily’s trembling hands.
Nathily couldn’t answer. She simply leaned into her mother, the warrior-veneer not just cracked, but shattered. The future of the first female Azora, once so bright it had blinded the Glade, was now a flickering, uncertain ember in the gathering autumn dark.
Such is the fate of so many mortals who try to be something they are not. Here’s a word of advice – leave greatness to the gods – to me!
The Apocrypha of Azazel 