AN: This story is written to fit into a world of my creation, but is completely free standing.

Threeterms: lar: a long-eared humanoid. yalao: a word for a younger/less experienced individual. galao: a word for an older/more experienced individual.

“Hey, yalao, get over here.”

The young lar’s ears twitched as she was addressed, the chain on her left ear clicking against her other piercings; the newest trend of the fashionable young women. She hurriedly stood up from her meditative position and stumbled over to senior galae officer. She saluted with a smart flick of the ears, the one graceful motion out of it all.

The senior galae managed to hide her smile and stifle her laughter, the results of years of newbie initiation, dealing with the gangly young lar women.

“Very good, yalao. Do you know why you’re here?”

Admittedly, she did not. The young woman did not know why she had been called into the oak-paneled room in Haldena province’s capitol, Oraen. Though she did not know, she hoped. She hoped to the spirits that it was finally time for her Oath, as so many of her class had already been sworn in. She was beginning to feel the shame of a late bloomer.

The senior let herself smirk, not cruelly, at the youngster’s obvious distress. In all two hundred years of life – long, hard decades they were, leaving the once beautiful woman scarred and going silver – that look of a foolish young hopeful never ceased to amuse her.

“Don’t get a cramp in your ears, calm down. So you don’t know why you’re here. But I bet we both know why you want to be here.”

The young woman tried a silly, timid smile. “Y-yes, galao.”

No other safe answer to a senior.

“Yes, we do. Let me be the first to tell you, then, that it’s time.”

The woman’s ears dipped down, her eyes widened, and her mouth gaped. If only the humans saw you, the senior couldn’t help but think. What dignity would we have left, at the sight of such a woman?

“Back stiff, you!” she snapped gruffly, and the youngster stood back at attention, ears at the proper forty-five degree angle. Good. She could be reminded to be presentable.

“Now,” she started again, “Do you know what I’m talking about?”

The young woman blinked once, slowly, then nodded her head equally slowly. “Yes, galao.”

“In that case,” she said with a grin, taking in the loose, robe-like top and trousers, “I think you need a new uniform.”

The young woman couldn’t believe her abnormally-long-for-a-lar ears. She’d done it! She’d finally earned her Oath! She was going to get a new uniform, new tattoos, real weapons instead of the weighted wooden ones the pre-Sworn trained with – she was going to be a new lar! She could hardly wait. But she had to – a whole week before her Oath-taking, she had to wait. The young woman knew she could do it; she was going in for her uniform now.

The galao that had informed her of her initiation was now leading her down a hall from the oak-paneled room with the long, assured steps of a senior officer, veteran of battles untold.

Looking at her from behind, she noticed the grizzled lar’s ears were not even – one had seemingly been cut short. Yes, she thought, looking at the officer with respect and awe, this is quite a warrior. If only it were night, and she could see the tattoos of glory this woman undoubtedly wore! She guessed the officer to be late in her lifetime, in her two-hundreds. No doubt she had been born into the middle of Cleansing.

Cleansing was what the lar called the series of battles against the Wilds Ones, the time that would later come to be known as the Wild Wars. Before the young initiate, or anyone else excepting the Queens (for no one quite knew how much the Queens knew) had even thought that the strange lar-like people to the south would form great countries and expand across Grel’op’Gesh, they had their own problems. The Wild Ones, as the young initiate understood it, were lar, only without civilization gentility. They were wild, danced around fires, even still celebrated the Festival of the Crows. They ate their own kind, for Alder’s sake! The initiate did not understand them, and did not want to. She only wished that they would die or become like the rest.

And that was how the land lay.

The senior opened a door. Two women inside looked up from a swath of fabric, one with brass shears poised in her hand. Neither wore the mountain-and-moon patch of the Legion, which made sense. Galae knew nothing of cutting and patterns and dying and sewing beyond mending the tears in their clothing.

The senior told them in rapid lari to get the loaner gear for her charge. One of the women went to do this. The senior turned her attention to the young woman behind her.

She grinned. “They’ll get you plenty fixed up. Just to what they tell you, answer what they ask you, and don’t give them any trouble. You’ll make a fine galae yet, yalao.”

She bobbed her head out of courtesy as she left, which was returned by the youngster.

“Well, get over here, then. We’ve got little time to waste on you.”

The would-be galae obediently stepped forward and allowed herself to be measured with knotted twine.

“Four and a half knots,” the one woman read mechanically to the other in measuring her shoulder. Next, the twine went around her breasts; somehow there were three measurements in that. After that, the twine wrapped around her waist, then her hips; two more measurements. The last measurements were from her armpit to hip and foot length.

“Got all that? The measuring woman asked of the note-taking woman.

“Yes.”

She went off into an adjoining room, was gone for five minutes. The measuring woman bustled about the room, folding up fabrics and patches of leather. The brass shears glinted as she moved them.

The note woman came back with an armful of fabric, metal, and leather. The measuring woman went to help her set up the objects on the table, leaving the young newbie to look on in wonder. What they were lining up was just the loaner gear – she could only imagine what her new gear would be like.

The note woman snapped at her to disrobe. Suddenly shaky, she did, fumbling with the ties to her top and awkwardly kicking off her shoes.

No sooner had she finished slipping out of her trousers, standing bare and shivering in the drafty room, than the note-woman approached her with a cream-colored long sleeved shirt.

“This is yours. It’s new,” she said, ordering her to put it on.

Next came clean, soft doeskin breeches of the same color as the shirt, also new and hers to keep. Slipping skinny legs into them, the young woman began to wonder if they were too nice to wear into battle.

The black boots she received were slightly too big – new ones would have to be ordered – but she could move in them. A little warmer and no longer naked, her shivering subsided. She looked at the wool padding held by the approaching measure woman with interest.

It was like a small blanket, to be wrapped around her torso and buttoned up in the back. It was itchy, but otherwise warm and bearable.

Last came the breastplate.

It was a hinged affair, a strange contraption made of steel and covered with leather. It also looked too small with its rolling curves. She didn’t think she could possibly get into it.

“I don’t think you have the right size-” she started.

“We have the right size,” the note woman snapped, seemingly offended.

“Lift your arms,” the measure woman ordered.

She did so, and the plate was clapped snugly around her torso. When the leather ties along her right side were all secured, she felt the full effect of the breastplate. She stood some inches taller, the way the thing curved her back like a corset. It was an effective tool to make its wearer uphold a military bearing at all times.

She looked down at her cloth and wool covered breasts, at the last aspect of the curious hinged breastplate. There were two plates there, curved, with leather ties facing inward.

One of the women, she didn’t discern which, ordered her to tie the plates together, tight as she could. She obediently did this, discovering buttons along the outer edges of the two plates as she did so.

“What are these for?”

“You’ll see,” answered the measuring woman.

The note woman brought out a vaguely rectangular-shaped piece of stiff padded leather, buttonholes cut into its edges. The logic of the thing seemed to come together in the youngster’s head.

The leather was buttoned over the hinged plates. The note woman punched her soundly in the area.

“Feel anything?” she asked levelly.

“No,” she remarked with some small wonder. Between the layers of cloth, leather, and metal, she felt nothing but pressure.

“Good.”

Handing her the pile of pre-Sworn clothing, the women ushered her out and told her to be good.

“General’s eyes, I never thought you’d get your Oath!”

Dalmaen, one of the young woman’s friends, was glowing as she looked at the newly clothed woman. “I’m so proud of you! Come; let me tell you what you’re in for.”

Dalmaen, the initiate, and several other full-fledged galae from the East barracks gathered around in a circle. Everyone was chatting excitedly – they were young women, after all – and the initiate didn’t catch much of anything from their experiences. She settled by smiling nervously, nodding her head every so often to make as if she understood what was said.

“…the drilling is tough…”

“…No way! They say Sjiil…”

“The humans? No, I think…”

Above the noise in the room, there was a quite audible gasp. Instantly, everyone went silent, and turned to look as one at the door, all ears quivering at the sound of a male voice.

The gangly lar male flushed somewhat, looking embarrassed. “Oh, I’m sorry…I…Leaving.”

The man quickly fled from the doorway, on to some other part of the city.

The women watched him, some with hostile glares, some with longing, and some with plain indifference.

Dalmaen was the first to speak, and that with a sigh. She turned to her initiate friend. “I tell you, I could have loved that one, but damned I’ll be if I leave the Legion for him. Right, girls?”

Most of the women who heard her agreed lustily. Rather chaste and glorified and with a handsome lover and just another woman, most decided.

The young woman took on her nervous expression again, agreeing mostly because the others did. She too, could have loved men, and wasn’t sure she still didn’t want to. But those were not the thoughts of a woman about to be Sworn and taken into the Legion.

“Hey! Where’s my yalao?”

The women looked once again to the doorway, the initiate to see the old officer that had attended her that morning.

With a stony officer’s expression, the warrior beckoned to the woman with a flick of her left ear, and turned from the doorway. The youth hastened to stand and follow, accepting a soft farewell from Dalmaen.

“Here,” the old warrior said, handing the initiate a scrap of parchment when she caught up to her superior. “You’re going to need this.”

The initiate took the parchment, scanning it with her eyes. Then, they went wide. “Galao, this is-”

“Yes,” said the older woman, grinning at the awe on her underling’s face. “You don’t plan to take an Oath that you don’t know, do you? Read it and memorize it for your Swearing a week from today.”

The woman quivered with excitement and read the verse carefully:

Never will I run,

Never will I cower,

Never will I shame the Legion

That took me in its ranks.

My heart is for my sisters alone,

My body for the Glory and Honor

Of my officers,

Of my Queen, and

Of my sisters.

I hold no Title;

I hold no Home;

I am new.

I am

The initiate frowned. “There is a blank-”

“That is for your name.” the officer answered simply.

“Oh,” she said, “Then I am-”

“Hush that now,” the officer snapped sharply, looking around, distracted. “You will not be known as the name you have now…”

Other people in the street were doing a similar thing, their ears perked and wavering, trying to hear something. The initiate did the same.

At first she heard nothing, only the silencing sounds of the rest of the city quieting, as ordered by Watchmen and galae.

Then, she heard a screeching cry.

“A Frozen Infernios!” cursed the grizzled officer, suddenly turning and running back to the East barracks.

“What?” questioned the initiate, running up behind her.

The warrior skidded inside the building, taking in the stunned looking galae inside. With two words, she managed to put a room of fifty some lar into chaos: “To Arms!”

Women rushed throughout the room, shouting for arms and armor, some tripping others. The initiate, looking at them, couldn’t suppress a grimace – all the same, she didn’t blame them. They were all young, inexperienced, and afraid. Nothing in the Oath forbade fear.

The officer disappeared for a moment into the crowd. When she reappeared, there was a sword in her hand.

“Here,” she said, offering the underling the scimitar.

The initiate’s eyes went wide and she took the thing.

The officer smirked. “You’re going to have to stop doing that. It’s unbecoming.”

The woman instantly wiped the look from her face, took the sheathed blade, and bowed.

“Now,” said the warrior, gazing out over the slowly organizing masses, “Let’s see what we’re up against.”

As the most senior officer in sight, it fell to the old warrior to lead her fifty odd galae into battle. Sworn and pre-Sworn (only the latter if they wished) formed a column outside the barracks, the old warrior at the head. The initiate, thinking it would be a good start to her career to join them, was placed in the front lines.

The officer barked orders, and they were off. In those days, the galae was not a mounted unit, so they were all on foot; it wasn’t until the three kingdoms of men were created that horses would be cultivated so.

Oraen was a relatively small city, so the little unit reached the wall quickly. They heard the orders of the Watchmen on the catwalks as they neared the gates. The old warrior commanded a halt.

“Garlion!” The galae officer called in a surprisingly deep, commanding voice.

A man up above turned his head at this, and the initiate discerned a grin on his face.

“Faaden, you old willow, come to watch us fight?”

The officer’s mouth twisted into what seemed to the young woman a strange sign of mirth. “What are we fighting, man?”

The reply chilled the column of gale to their bones. “Wild.”

There was only one further gruff pleasantry exchanged by Faaden and Garlion, and then the column was moving again. The gates to the city groaned as they were pushed open, the wood creaking ominously.

The young woman was beginning to feel her stomach clench. A cry of pain from above on the walls did not help that feeling subside. She was realizing that she really could be living out her last moments – and she had volunteered to go! The pre-Sworn, by the very nature of not having taken the Oath, were not officially part of the Legion. They could not be ordered to fight on behalf of the Legion until they put their name to the Oath.

The gates were only opened wide enough for the galae to march through three abreast. In minutes that went by like seconds to the young initiate, the last of the column were through, and the gates were groaning shut. Well, that was it. They were committed now.

The other galae were clearly beginning to feel the anxiety of waiting to die. The initiate looked back, took in Dalmaen’s worried face. The other woman gave her a nervous smile and pricked her ears up for a confidence boost, but the gesture died. They both were feeling the pressure.

“Listen up,” Faaden started gruffly, drawing her sword and pacing in front of the column. “You know this beast. Remember that they are like you and I; they bleed, they feel pain, and they die. We are not fighting dragons, we are fighting lar. They are desperate, and will throw their lives away needlessly. Do not make the same mistake.”

Words to live by – or die by, whatever the case should prove to be. The young woman was still worried.

There was a hissing sound; a cry of surprise more than pain, and a galae fell.

“Line up!” growled Faaden. Then: “Charge!”

Never will I run,

Never will I cower,

The young woman’s feet pounded the damp dust of the road; the enemy came into view. Another two arrows were fire, but no galae fell. They charged on, screaming the ghostly battle cries that would come to drive mere human men mad.

Never will I shame the Legion

That took me in its ranks.

The enemy came closer. She could see their grouping. She could count them. She could see their blades. She could see the whites of their eyes-

A fist slammed into the side of her head. Her aching skull exploded in stars, and she stumbled. She was bowled forward from behind, but then they parted to either side of her like a river. A hand snatched her up.

“Don’t fall now, friend. We have to take some with us first.”

Dalmaen offered her strength in pulling the initiate to her senses. She shook her head to clear it, and was suddenly aware of the noise.

There were cries all around them now, of pain and triumph both. The ringing and clashing of steel on steels was like some strange symphony of terror, rending the ears as it rended the heart. She had to keep telling herself that fear was permitted by the Oath because it could be overcome. That was courage.

Dalmaen and the young woman ran forward together to engage the Wild. So close, the initiate could see their practically bare bodies, no armor and little clothing. It seemed a miracle that they carried weapons at all.

Their hair was unkept, strung with feathers and leaves and twigs. Their faces were streaked with mud – war paint of some kind, she surmised.

One of the Wild men darted suddenly into her sight. She let loose a strangled cry and launched herself at him, scared out of her mind even as she did so. None of her weapons training was coming to mind.

The man saw her, echoed her cry, and ran to greet her with steel.

Her training came back in a wave.

They met in a clash. The woman never stopped screaming, not knowing what she was saying, if it was even coherent. They traded blow for blow; his blade landed against her new breastplate, and her body shuddered with the force. She misstepped, and the man swung out for a killer blow. She kicked for his knee, heard a painful crack. Wailing in agony, the man fell, and she stepped in robotically to cut his throat and end his pain.

She would not dare to think it cruel.

She engaged another Wild, a woman. She was different from the others, her coloring lighter. Her hair was so blond as to be white, like the other strung through with a multitude of feathers, and her skin was fair beneath the mud paint. Fighting her, the initiate could tell that she was more skilled than the last she fought.

She had briefly beaten off her opponent when the hair on the nape of her neck prickled. She whipped around in time to ward off a Wild’s blade, but failed to notice a third attacker.

The blow hit her hard, and she stumbled back again. Purely by luck had she thrown up her sword arm in time for the new enemy to run right into her blade.

Battles were not for hesitation; she leapt up and shoved the body from her sword.

“Behind you!”

The young initiate turned again, back to where her original attacker had been, and saw the strange Wild’s blade slice across Dalmaen’s neck in a fine red arc.

My heart is for my sisters alone,

“Dal!” she screamed, her friend’s lifeblood filling her eyesight with the red of anger and bloodlust. The young woman charged her opponent, screaming murder.

My body for the Glory and Honor

Of my officers,

Of my Queen, and

Of my sisters.

The two fought, the initiate with blinding fury, the Wild with a calm and collected countenance not shared by her fellow Wild. One of the first rules of engagement was not to attack when angry. The young initiate had broken this, but still managed to hold her own against her opponent. The image of Dalmaen’s lifeblood staining the air kept her focused.

The human-forged iron sword the Wild used was not standing up well to galae steel, which was the harder metal. The young woman wanted to think she could win, but she was getting very tired, searching and searching for an opening as she was.

Neither combatant noticed, but their respective troops were pulling away from where they fought, the galae pushing the Wild further and further from Oraen.

For the briefest moment, the initiate saw the Wild’s footing destabilized; she took her chance. She let out another cry and dropped to the ground, sweeping out a leg to trip the Wild woman. With wide-eyed surprise she fell, landing hard on the bloody earth.

The initiate screamed again, eyes watery and red and thrust her sword at her fallen foe.

The blade bit deeply into the Wild’s side, whereas the woman had been aiming for her heart.

The Wild woman cried out of her own pain and aimed a kick at the initiate, and the galae stumbled back.

The Wild stood, shaking on her legs, one hand covering the likely fatal wound. She did not step forward, only stood in her uneasy fashion.

The initiate did not move either. She stood back, regarding her enemy through teary eyes. She had not known she’d been crying.

“Why?” she yelled. “Why did you kill her?”

It was a silly question, and useless.

The Wild said nothing, only kept gazing at her with narrowed, yet calm eyes. She brought her blade to the ready, body still wracked and shuddering with pain. She could barely stand.

“Why do you keep fighting?” the young woman screamed again at the Wild, all want for battle gone.

The woman said something softly, something the initiate didn’t catch. Then: “Because I must.”

The young initiate shook her head, unbelievably tired. “But you don’t! You can surrender, and come live under the Queen-”

“I do not want that,” she interrupted coolly. “I want to live free.”

She did not understand it. For the life of her, the would-be galae did not understand this Wild’s sentiments. The offer was for all Wild to come and live among the civilized lar, swear fealty to one of the Queen sisters. It seemed better than fighting all their short lives and living in hiding and poverty.

“You do not understand,” the Wild said. She coughed up blood into her palm, letting her blade fall to the ground.

“Damn right I don’t,” the initiate answered.

The Wild was beautiful, she suddenly noticed. Maybe it was the solid belief she held that she was doing the right thing, or maybe it was the knowledge that she would soon die, but the Wild was beautiful.

“Why do you fight?” the Wild put to her in broken words.

The tip of the galae’s blade fell. Her anger was long since used up. Now she was only tired and sad. She thought again of Dalmaen, and then of Faaden, and of the other lar in the column that were no longer present. They were alone on the field of battle.

She sighed. She was so tired.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. It hurt to think so, but she really had no idea why.

They were all told that the Wild were uncivilized cannibals. But the dying woman before her seemed unlikely to eat another lar, and also seemed too intelligent to be uncivilized. Did uncivilized creatures believe? Did they believe so hard that they would fight to the last breath, not necessarily for themselves, but for others? What was the mark of civilization?

“Who are you?” she suddenly asked of the beautiful Wild.

I hold no Title;

I hold no Home;

The light was fast fading from the Wild woman’s eyes. She tried thrice to open her mouth and speak, succeeding only in opening her mouth. On the four try she produced a name.

I am new.

Faaden stood by in her fine ceremonial leather and fur, silent. Inside, she was welling with pride and even joy that this youngster had survived the battle to live to her Swearing.

An officer of higher rank than the old warrior stood in flowing robes of white, purple, red, and black. Kneeling down upon one knee before this officiate was the initiate, about to be Sworn.

“State your name, yalao,” ordered the officiate, hands holding a galae’s blade poised before her, ready to award to the young woman once she finished the Oath.

I am

“Sephelae.”