Rilien lightly sidestepped, his feet making no more noise over grass and stone than they did over carpet or a paved walkway. Not even when he didnât much care whether he did or not, as now. The motion was smooth, with none of the abruptness of the lunge that had prompted it. The wooden sword whistled by into the space he had occupied, the disturbance of air fluttering the long hair beside his cheek, and when she stumbled forward in overcompensation, his own practice implement slammed with punishing force into her back, carrying her face-first into the dirt. A few small pieces of debris fluffed into the air at the impact, settling immediately afterwards atop her clothing.
Pivoting on his heel so as to face her, at least in some sense of the word, he blinked slowly down at her. "Again.â It was not the first time he had given the command, and he knew quite well that it would not be the last.
When Lucien had asked him to teach Estella, he had known he was beginning essentially from nothing. As a mage, she had no reason to have any experience with martial implements, and indeed she did not. He himself had been much the same upon first receiving his Bard training. He did not remember it being quite this difficult to advance these skills beyond the rudimentary, but he could not say that she was giving the matter insufficient effort. He knew she practiced, more diligently than he ever had, and for a number of hours each day that would long ago have frustrated someone with an ordinary degree of willpower and patience. It certainly showed in her physical form, but not as much as it should in other ways.
Because for the amount that she worked, Estella seemed to gain very little in return. She was competent, now, more than a year since they had begun, but she was not yet what one would call adept. She was not as skilled in her areas of specialization as her fellow mercenaries were, not even the ones that were likewise heretofore young and inexperienced. And with as much as she worked, she should be. Rilien knew what the causes of this hindrance were, though he did not believe it would be helpful at this juncture for him to explain them to her. She was unlikely to believe him, for one. And even if overcoming those hindrances would help, so would continuing as they had been, albeit less efficiently.
Rilien despised inefficiency, insofar as he could despise anything, but in this instance, he chose it over the risk of making things worse. He took his role as her teacher seriously, and though his personality may not be suited for it, he was helping, and had decided quite some time ago that he would continue to do so for as long as was required. It was Estella herself who had convinced him, but she did not know that, and he did not tell her.
Estella herself was taking the moment to catch her breath. Rilien was not merciful by any stretch of the imagination, and that last hit was going to leave a large welt across her back, one that would probably become an ugly bruise no matter what Idris did to it. In some sense, she even wanted that. She felt like she needed the reminder. Groaning and turning her face to the side, she breathed in and out a few shallow breaths, trying to wait until it was comfortable to pull a full lot of air into her lungs again. The blades of grass near her mouth bent over under the shallow little pants, and she realized that she felt sore everywhere.
Theyâd been at this for three hours already, though of course Rilien hadnât even broken a sweat. He was so perfectly composed, all the time. Part of it was just because he was a Tranquil, and she knew that. But sheâd known enough Tranquil, if not well, and known him for long enough now too, that she understood he wasnât exactly the same. Even other Tranquil probably would have stopped instructing her by now, because they tended to do things that made them think they had purpose, that their talents were being put to good use. Training a complete incompetent like her was assuredly a waste of Rilienâs timeâhe was an immensely talented person in a number of ways, and she was pretty much the opposite. Why he continued to do it, then, was quite a mystery to her.
âI canât.â The admission was delivered with the same flat tone as his injunction, and even despite saying it, she was making her best effort to push herself up onto her feet again. Because she could, really. She could do the little things, the things that involved getting up after every subsequent defeat and trying again. She could persevere for a very long time. She could certainly fail more persistently than anyone else she knew. She didnât ask for breaks or reprieves or easier exercises or for Rilien to gentle anything about his approach. She didnât ask to be coddled or looked after or even healed, unless the injury might do her some permanent damage. Idris had to hunt her down if he wanted to apply his tinctures, and she never went to Nostariel unless she was dragged there, usually by Idris or Cor or Tessa.
But the other half of that was supposed to be that her persistence would mean her success. That eventually, if she got up enough times after falling down, practiced her swings and did balance exercises for enough hours, she would get it. The skills would⊠develop, or click into place, or whatever other metaphor people tended to use for this sort of thing.
Estella had been waiting for a moment like that her entire life. She still didnât know what one felt like.
Dusting herself off as well as she could, she shook her hairâlong pulled loose from its bunâout of her dirt-smeared face, trying to ignore the sheen of sweat she could feel sticking her shirt to her body. She leveled her sword again. âI⊠I mean it, Rilien. I really canât get any better than this. You probablyââ She found the words stuck in her throat, because part of her didnât really want to say them. She liked this, in some strange way, this period of time every day when she would come out here, to the side of Sundermont, and they would practice in a flat portion of land he told her had recently been occupied by a Dalish camp. She liked the way it made her feel, that someone wasnât giving up on her. Many someones, really, if she counted Lucien and the other mercenaries. So few people in her life had ever believed she could achieve anything, and the ones that had were family. Obligated, in some sense.
And⊠she liked him. Rilien was a strange man, and she doubted she would ever fully understand him, but his hints of dry humor made her laugh, and she liked the way he didnât try to keep the truth from her. If she was lacking in some way, he just told her, and so she didnât have to worry that he was withholding some disdainful opinion of her. He was honest, always, and it made it easier for her to believe what he said. She could, to some extent, be at ease around him. She wondered if it was normal, to feel at her most relaxed around a Tranquil. They were supposed to make mages uneasy, werenât they? Slowly, Estella lowered her sword again, neglecting to rush him like heâd been trying to teach her to. It really did seem a waste, when she thought about things this way.
âYou probably have better ways to spend your time.â She swallowed thickly.
"No, I do not.â Rilien did not relax his posture, as that was unnecessaryâhe was already quite loose in the way he held himself. Something he had been trying to impart onto Estella, to as yet a limited amount of success. She concerned herself too much with doing everything exactly the correct way. It was not an inclination he condemned, but taken to an extreme, it could be detrimental. There seemed to be very little about her that did not qualify as extreme in some way, though not often the usual one. "I am here because I have decided to be. If you would like me to cease, you need only say so.â His eyes narrowed, just a little, and he tilted his head a bit to the left, the scrutiny in his expression quite obvious despite its subtlety.
âN-no, IâŠâ She didn't know how to say it. A frustrated sigh gusted from her, her shoulders slumping faintly. âI donât want you to stop teaching me, I justâŠâ She felt the heat on her face and knew she was turning more than a little pink. Traditionally, she wasnât much better at expressing her feelings than she was at anything else. Her tone grew very soft. âI just donât want to disappoint you.â
She hadnât worried about that, at first. He was Tranquil, after all; he couldnât feel disappointment. But she knew differently now. No matter how little it was, he did feel things. And she couldnât stand the thought of disappointing someone who had worked this hard and this long to make her better at something. It would be like telling him that it was all for nothing. But there was no other choice, with how she was. Either she did this now, or she did it later, when heâd put even more effort into it and nothing had changed.
Well, that was interesting. He had not fully accounted for the possibility that part of what was in her way was actually him. Via emotional connections that he hardly understood anymore, of course, but a fear of this kind was not too difficult to track, now that he knew to look for it. Rilien stared her down for close to a full minute, but as ever, she remained impervious, or at least resistant, to the discomfort this would have caused someone else. Or perhaps she felt it, but simply did not allow it to cow her. It was difficult, to comprehend how someone could at once be so utterly stubborn and so very ready to give up. He had the sense that something important rested on what he did here, as though this girl, his student, walked on a thin edge, and his words, ineffectual as they so often proved to be for influencing others, would be the very thing that pushed her over one side or the other.
It was not unfamiliar knowledge. When playing the Game, people with the advantage and the acumen could do the same things with lords and ladies, in rare cases empires. Rilien knew how to choose his words carefully, to achieve just the end he wanted. All of the good Bards did. But⊠what was the end he wanted? He wasnât a being completely without preferences. Not even full Tranquil were that way, but his desires did extend beyond the simple knowledge that he had a use to someone. That did not mean they were always easy to discover or understand.
"Then try again.â He did not bother to tell her he could not feel disappointmentâshe would not believe him, and she would be correct, to an extent. But as far as he could tell, the only thing that would make him feel something like that was if she came so far only to stop, to decide she was done. Because he wasnât. She would be a good combatant yet. Perhaps even a great one, because while talent was useful for mastery of anything, it was neither necessary nor sufficient. Persistence was certainly necessary, at least.
For a moment, Estella just looked back at him, and she imagined she must look like a fish. A dumbstruck fishâmouth slightly ajar, eyes wide, frozen to the spot. That was⊠not what she was expecting, at all. Was that really all it took? She just had to keep trying, and he was giving her a blanket permission to fail as many times as she could stand? She found it difficult to imagine that anyone, Tranquil or not, could be that patient, and for a tilting moment, she wondered if there was some angle here that she had missed, all her old suspicions roaring back full force and threatening to knock her over just as easily as Rilien always did.
But after a year and a half in Kirkwall, here, with these crazy people who didnât seem to care where sheâd come from or how sheâd ended up there, her doubts found little purchase, like trying to cling to a smooth surface with desperate fingers, and they slid back again. She would always be suspicious of peopleâs goodwill, perhaps, but he wasnât people anymore. He was Rilien, and she could think of no reason for him to lead her astray with this.
If he really just wanted her to keep trying, then⊠maybe she could oblige.
âI⊠all right.â Nodding slightly, she set her feet the way they were supposed to go, glancing down to check them, then leveled her sword outwards. Trying, she could do. Taking a deep breath, Estella sprang forward suddenly, attempting to minimize the telegraphing of her muscles and her eyes, to make herself less predictable.
Of course, she wound up hitting the dirt again, this time on her back, with the wind knocked out of her and staring up at the sky, but if he said that was okay, then she believed him. This time, when she regained her feet, she didnât even wait for him to tell herâshe just reset her posture and waited for whatever instruction she was to be given next. She was still sore, she still doubted her ability to ever get this right, and she still had no idea why he was bothering, but⊠it seemed to matter less. She wasnât going to let herself be a disappointment again, and for once, the way to avoid that was really within her control, her reach. She could do what she had been asked, and she was almost giddy with the lightness of that knowledge. Was this what other people felt like all the time?
Rilien nodded, just slightly, but it was as much an indication of his satisfaction with the answer as any. She was still shifting her weight too earlyâhe always knew from what angle she was approaching by checking her feet. It was not difficult to down her again, but this time she did not hesitate to stand back up. That was more progress than the mastery of any specific maneuver he could teach her. He held up a hand, halting her from another attempt, and stepped backwards a few paces, before he turned and leaned down to access the bundle of items heâd brought with him. Normally, it just contained practice weapons and a few not-so-practice ones, in case he gave her exercises with live steel.
Today was more or less the same, save that, while he usually had her practice with an ordinary shortsword, as it was most suited for someone of her size and physical attributes, this time he had something a little different. The sheath was curved, the blade itself the same, made of silverite and for that reason much lighter than another weapon of the type would be. The hilt had no guard, which allowed room for it to be gripped several different ways, in one hand or two, without the extra heft of an actual hand-and-a-half. The sword was single-edged, save that the last third of it also had a blade on the back side, for stabbing. It was a very versatile weapon, overall, and would serve in as many situations as any other weapon, more than some.
Returning to stand in front of Estella, Rilien held it out for her to take. "This will serve. Certainly better than the scrap metal you are using now.â Actually, her current armament was not bad; Lucien would never let his people walk around with anything that would not stand up to abuse, but the Lions were yet a new company, and they did not have the funds for silverite, to be sure. He did. And so he had used it to make her this.
She looked like a fish again, she was sure.
Reverently, Estella reached out for what Rilien was holding, and, when she had a grip on it, she drew the blade a few inches from the sheath, blinking when it proved to be almost impossibly bright. It was clearly enchanted, and if he was giving it to her, she could only assume heâd done the work himself. Sheâd seen his workshopâit wasnât a full smithy, but he was capable of forging. Given the unique character of the implement, it was unlikely anyone but Rilien himself had forged it, shaped it from ore to sword. The hilt was silver, too, wrapped in dark blue leather for grip. It was probably worth more than anything else sheâd ever held, and he was just giving it to her.
Her lower lip trembled. She didnât deserve it. She knew she didnât, just like she knew he was serious about giving it to her anyway. Estella knew she shouldnât accept it. Charity was wasted on her, honestly, and there were other people who could benefit from such a fine piece of work much more than she. But⊠she thought about how long it must have taken to make. How much of his own work and effort Rilien must have placed into it, and how that whole time, heâd been doing all that for her. It was evident in every detail, from the form to the weight to the leatherworked details on the sheath. Constellations, if she looked closely. Stars.
Carefully, she slid the blade fully back into the sheath. With shaking hands, she slid the whole thing into her belt, then lifted her admittedly-moist eyes to regard him steadily for a moment. She wasnât sure what to say, but it occurred to her that she didnât have to use words at all.
As suddenly as sheâd been taught to lungeâand with no telegraphing, at thatâshe moved forward, attaching herself to him with exactly the amount of grace and dignity one would expect of a nug, which was to say none. Twining her arms around his ribcage, she tucked her head under his chin.
âThank you.â
It wasnât just the sword itself, though that was clearly an extraordinary gift. More than this, though, it was for the chance heâd given her to be something more than she was. The chance theyâd given herâLucien and Nostariel and the Lionsâto live here, with them. It wasnât lost on her that Kirkwall was far from the nicest of places, but as far as she could tell, it had the best of people.
Rilien, for obvious reasons, was not often hugged. Sheâd more successfully caught him off-guard with this maneuver than sheâd managed in hundreds of attack repetitions. Which one of them that said more about, he was not sure. His relative lack of experience in such matters did not, however, mean that he was uncertain of how he was supposed to respond, and so he brought a hand up to rest gently on the back of her head. Whatever her life had been before was no business of his, but if he were to guess, he would suppose that in many respects, it had been unpleasant. One did not become so convinced of oneâs uselessness when surrounded by people who properly understood and bolstered oneself. His hand smoothed down her hair to rest at her shoulderblades.
He didnât understand that. As far as Rilien could tell, Estella was⊠he didnât know the word anymore. His Tranquility prevented him from feeling it the way he should, as well, and that stirred a faint unease, one that seemed to dissipate when her arms tightened fractionally around him. He didnât need to feel any more than he already did. He didnât need to be anything other than he was. She wasnât thanking some other person for this, for what they had done to help her. She was thanking him. He was enough, even like this. What a strange piece of knowledge.
Rilien let his eyes fall closed for just a moment, the corner of his mouth twitching faintly upwards.
"You are welcome, Estella.â
Pivoting on his heel so as to face her, at least in some sense of the word, he blinked slowly down at her. "Again.â It was not the first time he had given the command, and he knew quite well that it would not be the last.
When Lucien had asked him to teach Estella, he had known he was beginning essentially from nothing. As a mage, she had no reason to have any experience with martial implements, and indeed she did not. He himself had been much the same upon first receiving his Bard training. He did not remember it being quite this difficult to advance these skills beyond the rudimentary, but he could not say that she was giving the matter insufficient effort. He knew she practiced, more diligently than he ever had, and for a number of hours each day that would long ago have frustrated someone with an ordinary degree of willpower and patience. It certainly showed in her physical form, but not as much as it should in other ways.
Because for the amount that she worked, Estella seemed to gain very little in return. She was competent, now, more than a year since they had begun, but she was not yet what one would call adept. She was not as skilled in her areas of specialization as her fellow mercenaries were, not even the ones that were likewise heretofore young and inexperienced. And with as much as she worked, she should be. Rilien knew what the causes of this hindrance were, though he did not believe it would be helpful at this juncture for him to explain them to her. She was unlikely to believe him, for one. And even if overcoming those hindrances would help, so would continuing as they had been, albeit less efficiently.
Rilien despised inefficiency, insofar as he could despise anything, but in this instance, he chose it over the risk of making things worse. He took his role as her teacher seriously, and though his personality may not be suited for it, he was helping, and had decided quite some time ago that he would continue to do so for as long as was required. It was Estella herself who had convinced him, but she did not know that, and he did not tell her.
Estella herself was taking the moment to catch her breath. Rilien was not merciful by any stretch of the imagination, and that last hit was going to leave a large welt across her back, one that would probably become an ugly bruise no matter what Idris did to it. In some sense, she even wanted that. She felt like she needed the reminder. Groaning and turning her face to the side, she breathed in and out a few shallow breaths, trying to wait until it was comfortable to pull a full lot of air into her lungs again. The blades of grass near her mouth bent over under the shallow little pants, and she realized that she felt sore everywhere.
Theyâd been at this for three hours already, though of course Rilien hadnât even broken a sweat. He was so perfectly composed, all the time. Part of it was just because he was a Tranquil, and she knew that. But sheâd known enough Tranquil, if not well, and known him for long enough now too, that she understood he wasnât exactly the same. Even other Tranquil probably would have stopped instructing her by now, because they tended to do things that made them think they had purpose, that their talents were being put to good use. Training a complete incompetent like her was assuredly a waste of Rilienâs timeâhe was an immensely talented person in a number of ways, and she was pretty much the opposite. Why he continued to do it, then, was quite a mystery to her.
âI canât.â The admission was delivered with the same flat tone as his injunction, and even despite saying it, she was making her best effort to push herself up onto her feet again. Because she could, really. She could do the little things, the things that involved getting up after every subsequent defeat and trying again. She could persevere for a very long time. She could certainly fail more persistently than anyone else she knew. She didnât ask for breaks or reprieves or easier exercises or for Rilien to gentle anything about his approach. She didnât ask to be coddled or looked after or even healed, unless the injury might do her some permanent damage. Idris had to hunt her down if he wanted to apply his tinctures, and she never went to Nostariel unless she was dragged there, usually by Idris or Cor or Tessa.
But the other half of that was supposed to be that her persistence would mean her success. That eventually, if she got up enough times after falling down, practiced her swings and did balance exercises for enough hours, she would get it. The skills would⊠develop, or click into place, or whatever other metaphor people tended to use for this sort of thing.
Estella had been waiting for a moment like that her entire life. She still didnât know what one felt like.
Dusting herself off as well as she could, she shook her hairâlong pulled loose from its bunâout of her dirt-smeared face, trying to ignore the sheen of sweat she could feel sticking her shirt to her body. She leveled her sword again. âI⊠I mean it, Rilien. I really canât get any better than this. You probablyââ She found the words stuck in her throat, because part of her didnât really want to say them. She liked this, in some strange way, this period of time every day when she would come out here, to the side of Sundermont, and they would practice in a flat portion of land he told her had recently been occupied by a Dalish camp. She liked the way it made her feel, that someone wasnât giving up on her. Many someones, really, if she counted Lucien and the other mercenaries. So few people in her life had ever believed she could achieve anything, and the ones that had were family. Obligated, in some sense.
And⊠she liked him. Rilien was a strange man, and she doubted she would ever fully understand him, but his hints of dry humor made her laugh, and she liked the way he didnât try to keep the truth from her. If she was lacking in some way, he just told her, and so she didnât have to worry that he was withholding some disdainful opinion of her. He was honest, always, and it made it easier for her to believe what he said. She could, to some extent, be at ease around him. She wondered if it was normal, to feel at her most relaxed around a Tranquil. They were supposed to make mages uneasy, werenât they? Slowly, Estella lowered her sword again, neglecting to rush him like heâd been trying to teach her to. It really did seem a waste, when she thought about things this way.
âYou probably have better ways to spend your time.â She swallowed thickly.
"No, I do not.â Rilien did not relax his posture, as that was unnecessaryâhe was already quite loose in the way he held himself. Something he had been trying to impart onto Estella, to as yet a limited amount of success. She concerned herself too much with doing everything exactly the correct way. It was not an inclination he condemned, but taken to an extreme, it could be detrimental. There seemed to be very little about her that did not qualify as extreme in some way, though not often the usual one. "I am here because I have decided to be. If you would like me to cease, you need only say so.â His eyes narrowed, just a little, and he tilted his head a bit to the left, the scrutiny in his expression quite obvious despite its subtlety.
âN-no, IâŠâ She didn't know how to say it. A frustrated sigh gusted from her, her shoulders slumping faintly. âI donât want you to stop teaching me, I justâŠâ She felt the heat on her face and knew she was turning more than a little pink. Traditionally, she wasnât much better at expressing her feelings than she was at anything else. Her tone grew very soft. âI just donât want to disappoint you.â
She hadnât worried about that, at first. He was Tranquil, after all; he couldnât feel disappointment. But she knew differently now. No matter how little it was, he did feel things. And she couldnât stand the thought of disappointing someone who had worked this hard and this long to make her better at something. It would be like telling him that it was all for nothing. But there was no other choice, with how she was. Either she did this now, or she did it later, when heâd put even more effort into it and nothing had changed.
Well, that was interesting. He had not fully accounted for the possibility that part of what was in her way was actually him. Via emotional connections that he hardly understood anymore, of course, but a fear of this kind was not too difficult to track, now that he knew to look for it. Rilien stared her down for close to a full minute, but as ever, she remained impervious, or at least resistant, to the discomfort this would have caused someone else. Or perhaps she felt it, but simply did not allow it to cow her. It was difficult, to comprehend how someone could at once be so utterly stubborn and so very ready to give up. He had the sense that something important rested on what he did here, as though this girl, his student, walked on a thin edge, and his words, ineffectual as they so often proved to be for influencing others, would be the very thing that pushed her over one side or the other.
It was not unfamiliar knowledge. When playing the Game, people with the advantage and the acumen could do the same things with lords and ladies, in rare cases empires. Rilien knew how to choose his words carefully, to achieve just the end he wanted. All of the good Bards did. But⊠what was the end he wanted? He wasnât a being completely without preferences. Not even full Tranquil were that way, but his desires did extend beyond the simple knowledge that he had a use to someone. That did not mean they were always easy to discover or understand.
"Then try again.â He did not bother to tell her he could not feel disappointmentâshe would not believe him, and she would be correct, to an extent. But as far as he could tell, the only thing that would make him feel something like that was if she came so far only to stop, to decide she was done. Because he wasnât. She would be a good combatant yet. Perhaps even a great one, because while talent was useful for mastery of anything, it was neither necessary nor sufficient. Persistence was certainly necessary, at least.
For a moment, Estella just looked back at him, and she imagined she must look like a fish. A dumbstruck fishâmouth slightly ajar, eyes wide, frozen to the spot. That was⊠not what she was expecting, at all. Was that really all it took? She just had to keep trying, and he was giving her a blanket permission to fail as many times as she could stand? She found it difficult to imagine that anyone, Tranquil or not, could be that patient, and for a tilting moment, she wondered if there was some angle here that she had missed, all her old suspicions roaring back full force and threatening to knock her over just as easily as Rilien always did.
But after a year and a half in Kirkwall, here, with these crazy people who didnât seem to care where sheâd come from or how sheâd ended up there, her doubts found little purchase, like trying to cling to a smooth surface with desperate fingers, and they slid back again. She would always be suspicious of peopleâs goodwill, perhaps, but he wasnât people anymore. He was Rilien, and she could think of no reason for him to lead her astray with this.
If he really just wanted her to keep trying, then⊠maybe she could oblige.
âI⊠all right.â Nodding slightly, she set her feet the way they were supposed to go, glancing down to check them, then leveled her sword outwards. Trying, she could do. Taking a deep breath, Estella sprang forward suddenly, attempting to minimize the telegraphing of her muscles and her eyes, to make herself less predictable.
Of course, she wound up hitting the dirt again, this time on her back, with the wind knocked out of her and staring up at the sky, but if he said that was okay, then she believed him. This time, when she regained her feet, she didnât even wait for him to tell herâshe just reset her posture and waited for whatever instruction she was to be given next. She was still sore, she still doubted her ability to ever get this right, and she still had no idea why he was bothering, but⊠it seemed to matter less. She wasnât going to let herself be a disappointment again, and for once, the way to avoid that was really within her control, her reach. She could do what she had been asked, and she was almost giddy with the lightness of that knowledge. Was this what other people felt like all the time?
Rilien nodded, just slightly, but it was as much an indication of his satisfaction with the answer as any. She was still shifting her weight too earlyâhe always knew from what angle she was approaching by checking her feet. It was not difficult to down her again, but this time she did not hesitate to stand back up. That was more progress than the mastery of any specific maneuver he could teach her. He held up a hand, halting her from another attempt, and stepped backwards a few paces, before he turned and leaned down to access the bundle of items heâd brought with him. Normally, it just contained practice weapons and a few not-so-practice ones, in case he gave her exercises with live steel.
Today was more or less the same, save that, while he usually had her practice with an ordinary shortsword, as it was most suited for someone of her size and physical attributes, this time he had something a little different. The sheath was curved, the blade itself the same, made of silverite and for that reason much lighter than another weapon of the type would be. The hilt had no guard, which allowed room for it to be gripped several different ways, in one hand or two, without the extra heft of an actual hand-and-a-half. The sword was single-edged, save that the last third of it also had a blade on the back side, for stabbing. It was a very versatile weapon, overall, and would serve in as many situations as any other weapon, more than some.
Returning to stand in front of Estella, Rilien held it out for her to take. "This will serve. Certainly better than the scrap metal you are using now.â Actually, her current armament was not bad; Lucien would never let his people walk around with anything that would not stand up to abuse, but the Lions were yet a new company, and they did not have the funds for silverite, to be sure. He did. And so he had used it to make her this.
She looked like a fish again, she was sure.
Reverently, Estella reached out for what Rilien was holding, and, when she had a grip on it, she drew the blade a few inches from the sheath, blinking when it proved to be almost impossibly bright. It was clearly enchanted, and if he was giving it to her, she could only assume heâd done the work himself. Sheâd seen his workshopâit wasnât a full smithy, but he was capable of forging. Given the unique character of the implement, it was unlikely anyone but Rilien himself had forged it, shaped it from ore to sword. The hilt was silver, too, wrapped in dark blue leather for grip. It was probably worth more than anything else sheâd ever held, and he was just giving it to her.
Her lower lip trembled. She didnât deserve it. She knew she didnât, just like she knew he was serious about giving it to her anyway. Estella knew she shouldnât accept it. Charity was wasted on her, honestly, and there were other people who could benefit from such a fine piece of work much more than she. But⊠she thought about how long it must have taken to make. How much of his own work and effort Rilien must have placed into it, and how that whole time, heâd been doing all that for her. It was evident in every detail, from the form to the weight to the leatherworked details on the sheath. Constellations, if she looked closely. Stars.
Carefully, she slid the blade fully back into the sheath. With shaking hands, she slid the whole thing into her belt, then lifted her admittedly-moist eyes to regard him steadily for a moment. She wasnât sure what to say, but it occurred to her that she didnât have to use words at all.
As suddenly as sheâd been taught to lungeâand with no telegraphing, at thatâshe moved forward, attaching herself to him with exactly the amount of grace and dignity one would expect of a nug, which was to say none. Twining her arms around his ribcage, she tucked her head under his chin.
âThank you.â
It wasnât just the sword itself, though that was clearly an extraordinary gift. More than this, though, it was for the chance heâd given her to be something more than she was. The chance theyâd given herâLucien and Nostariel and the Lionsâto live here, with them. It wasnât lost on her that Kirkwall was far from the nicest of places, but as far as she could tell, it had the best of people.
Rilien, for obvious reasons, was not often hugged. Sheâd more successfully caught him off-guard with this maneuver than sheâd managed in hundreds of attack repetitions. Which one of them that said more about, he was not sure. His relative lack of experience in such matters did not, however, mean that he was uncertain of how he was supposed to respond, and so he brought a hand up to rest gently on the back of her head. Whatever her life had been before was no business of his, but if he were to guess, he would suppose that in many respects, it had been unpleasant. One did not become so convinced of oneâs uselessness when surrounded by people who properly understood and bolstered oneself. His hand smoothed down her hair to rest at her shoulderblades.
He didnât understand that. As far as Rilien could tell, Estella was⊠he didnât know the word anymore. His Tranquility prevented him from feeling it the way he should, as well, and that stirred a faint unease, one that seemed to dissipate when her arms tightened fractionally around him. He didnât need to feel any more than he already did. He didnât need to be anything other than he was. She wasnât thanking some other person for this, for what they had done to help her. She was thanking him. He was enough, even like this. What a strange piece of knowledge.
Rilien let his eyes fall closed for just a moment, the corner of his mouth twitching faintly upwards.
"You are welcome, Estella.â