Closing the door behind her, she could hear Sulakma laughing from against the wall on which she was lounging. "Finally, sleepy-head! What took you so long this time? Not even you need that much time for be beautiful for the guys here!" Slapping Lyka in the back, she led her down the halls to the mess hall. Lyka simply nodded her head: her friend was the exact opposite of her. While she herself was an introverted focused student, Sulakma Falfel of the pale skin, sea green eyes, and golden hair was extroverted and day-dreaming almost all the time, sometimes even skipping her classes to wander the markets on the bustling streets outside of the university.
Students gathered in the communal mess hall, some for their morning meals, other for conversations with friends and catching up on their homework. It was often here that Lyka spent her time breathing away her emotions until she was like the surface of a calm lake once more.
Darien Gusfat waved them over to their usual table; she was a third-year student trying to complete her second attempt at a philosophy major. She had a massive appetite for both food and debates. However, you could not tell that right away from her appearances: she kept her hands manicured, her hair tied back without a strand out of place, and her face and eyes lit with happiness constantly.
Before heading over to join in their conversation, Lyka picked up a glass of weak green tea and a plate of fruit and toast for her breakfast. She always ate big meals in the morning because she would not eat again until dinner that night. Today however, she was just not hungry. Nonetheless, she still picked up something to nibble on in order to halt her friend's possible reprimand of not eating. It got tedious after awhile listening to the constant lectures, even if they both meant well.
"Faith, that is what all this comes down to, isn't it Sulakma?" Chewing off a piece of ruby-red pomegranate, Darien began this morning's debate; the topics varied from day to day, but they had been discussing faith for the last week. Lyka knelt down to the ground in one easy motion, placing her small plate of food before her.
"All of what, Darien?" Chin deep in a slice of buttered bread, Sulakma tilted her head to the side.
"All of this. Life itself…" Lifting her manicured hand to the ceiling, Darien's silver eyes glinted with passion.
"But if life is about faith, then what is death, Darien?" Lyka sipped at her tea with a gentle slurp.
"Lyka, Lyka, Lyka… Death is also a part of life, isn't it?" Wagging the half-eaten piece of fruit at her, Darien spat out a couple of seeds to emphasize her point. 'Isn't that what they taught you on New Mecca?"
Lyka held her breath. To avoid being even more of an outsider, she had kept yet another promise to her mother and told her classmates that she was from the Islam quarter on Helion Prime, it being the closest planet that was on a normal orbit. Still, this caused her to feel yet again ashamed over the secrecy of her real heritage. She was an alpha Furyan; she should not have to hide who she was. On this planet, no one understood the inexplicable ways of Furyans and the effect of the sporadic orbit that caused it to appear at random times, so she pretended to be something more accepted to avoid becoming a pariah from her culture. However, the result was that she was slowly becoming a pariah from her very emotions.
"I may have lived in New Mecca, Darien, but my faith was not of the neo-Islamic people around me." Lowering her cup, she reached for a sliced blood orange on her plate to chew on.
"Here we go again," Sulakma chuckled as she slurped loudly at her water, slopping some over the edge of the glass.
She sighed at the side comments of her friend, putting the uneaten blood orange back on her plate. "Listen: if this life was a mistake, an error in evolution, then death could be the answer, the gateway into the life where we will all be cherished and loved. I mean, think about it. If we waste this life, what's left for us to do but begin again after death? I mean, think of the possibilities if one could have a second chance to live again? Death is not part of life, Darien: it is the gateway to the beginning of life."
Both of them began to laugh at her proclamation; Sulakma fell on the ground, clutching her sides from the laughter. "By the ground below, Lyka, you gonna kill me one of these days! Death as the real life!"
Lyka was used to the laughing and the mocking of her friends. The words that she spoke were the basis of her personal faith. When she was sent off-planet, a part of her died as a child. In that moment, she realized that to lose a part of yourself, to die, was to truly live; what other reason could there be for her to still be here on Aquila Major, to have to listen to her friends mock her ideals.
"But really, Lyka," Darien wiped the tears from her eyes with her sleeve. "If death is truly the beginning of life, then what has that done for the Furyans who were massacred all those years ago? What about the slaughter of the men and women who go to any of the countless wars for the protection of others they don't even know? Did they find their life renewed when they died?" A dribble of pomegranate juice ran down her chin from the corner of her mouth; it looked as if blood was running down her chin.
At the remark about Furyans, Lyka's face drew together and calmed into a mask of serenity as she took the blooming anger and tucked it deep within her black box. The comment, made so casually in the midst of friends, cut her to the deepest part of her core. To avoid lashing out at her friend with her fists, she picked up her bag and got up from the ground and walked away from the laughter. How could she answer that question, if her people who were butchered for no reason were happy in their afterlife? Taking a deep breath, she walked away.
Shaking her head, Lyka gathered herself and went to her first of her two classes of the day. Darien tried to call her back to the table in her laughing way, but Lyka simply walked away. Her fists, curled until her knuckles were white, were stuffed into the pockets of her tunic.
It had been thirty long years for her since the planet-wide slaughter of the males of Furya, thirty long years since the sure murder of her mother, father, and brother. Nothing would assuage the guilt of the failure of her oath, the same oath that her mother made her take before she was shipped off Furya.
Five minutes, she walked among the endless nattering of the other students. As she leaned against a column that lined the corridor, Lyka felt the dizziness of a vision begin to overtake her. "No, no, no!" Her visions had not come to her in over two years, but the dreams had taken their place for that duration of time. Almost always, her visions were dark and macabre: something terrible was happening and she was powerless to stop them. She felt herself collapse against the column, feeling herself float into the dream world that called her.
Meaningless pictures flooded her psyche. A man dressed in a massive white bearskin running along an icy canyon. Welding goggles covering eyes embedded in a darkly tanned face. A man in armour, four faces on a helmet. Armies desecrating worlds. Screams of women and children as they ran. Blood, streams of blood flowing through streets.
Suddenly, she was released from its thrall. Her head was splitting in two as she cradled it. It was as if she had had too much pomegranate juice and it gave her a massive headache. She waited a moment or two for the last tendrils of the vision to recede before standing up. The visions always left her tired, but she had classes to attend. She trundled her feet down the hall, not paying attention to which way she was going.
Lyka let her feet lead her to the entrance of the school's smithy. This, along with her private quarters, was her sanctuary from the world. The teacher here understood her need for solitude, her need to make weapons. It was another impulse of her people to collect weapons and learn to use them with the utmost skill. This class was the perfect outlet for her ever-growing frustration.
"You're early today, girlie. Class doesn't start for another hour. Something's on your mind again?" The sword-making mentor, Willai, stood over her as she tied her apron around her waist and shoulders and pushed her sleeves up to her shoulders.
Although he was a man of sixty-some years old, his black-skinned muscles were taut from years of producing blades; his arms were burned silvery in some places from the heat of his forge and the red-hot of the blades as he tested them against his own skin. Bare from the waist up, this man never sweated; his skin only glistened from the remnants of the water that he splashed on himself to cool down.
"Nothing's wrong this time, Willai." Lyka reached to the shelf for her latest work-in-progress. It was a forearm-and-half hip sword for her collection and for her final grade; she had poured the molten steel into a mould in order to get a good balance. The blade itself led into a rough steel hand-and-half cruciform hilt. After a week of non-stop hammering, straightening, and tapering the edges, it now shone with the blue-grey of tampered steel. All that was left was to sharpen the edges, fashion a scabbard, and add some decoration to the once polished and smoothed hilt, pommel, and guard.
Gathering up a whetstone among the tools at her disposal, she dipped the stone in water and ran it along the edges of the blade back and forward, back and forward. Out of the five hours she had allotted herself until the end of the class to finish the blade, this alone would take half an hour of non-stop motion. When she was satisfied with the angle of the blade, the edges cut a piece of leather with a single motion and no hesitation or resistance.
Lyka now had four and a half hours left; that was more then enough time for her to complete the commission. Grabbing a file and coarse file-paper, she rubbed them up and down the hilt and guard for an hour until they were smooth to the touch and not able to leave metal shavings in the hands of its users. Taking a small hammer, she added a little bronze leaf design on the guard, a little sunburst to mimic the decoration that she was planning to add as the pommel. By now, other students in the class were filing in to complete their final blades.
"Well, what are you gawking at, boys?" Willai blocked Lyka from view as her classmates stared at her in confusion. "Class began an hour ago, and you'd all better have decent blades for me to grade!" At the words 'an hour ago', the boys rushed to the shelves and pulled out their work. Soon the forge was filling with the sound of hammers pounding against anvils, swords against whetstones, and grinding of the files against the raw or finished steel.
Willai always looked out for her. Ever since she came to the university, the master of sword-making took her under his wings. For the first two years of her stay, she locked herself in her room after her lessons, barely eating and only when forced to do so. It was he who first harnessed her interest in swords and weaponry, coaxing her to come out of her shell. In his spare time, he taught her the difference of the weaponry in societies: how the New Meccan men wore a ceremonial dagger given by their fathers at their side when they came of age; how the men of Aquila Major always learn sword-fighting till the age of twelve.
When she expressed interest in making her own blades, Willai set her up in a class; despite his best interest, it served to separate her further from her peers since she was the only girl in a class of male teenagers and young adults. Regardless of the massive difference of the genders in the class, it was from there that he watched her blossom. It seemed to her that this was one of the few things that made her genuinely smile.
Willai also got her access to the school's martial arts facility. His friend and fellow teacher, Master Feng, worked her to the bone to sharpen her skills. He constantly enforced the idea that her body was a weapon as well, and that it too needed to hone its abilities. Lyka was so enthralled by his casual after-school sessions that she had signed on for one-on-one training until she became the highest-ranking student in her graduating class. He had taught her in the style of plains animals: striking quickly with both feet and hands, using all her force behind every blow, increasing her stamina and endurance until she was able to practice to the fullest of her being for an entire day without stopping for a rest. Master Feng had a habit of never smiling, but he always hinted to her in little gestures that he was immensely proud of her accomplishments that grew under his tutelage.
Lyka shrugged off the memories and the noises of the classmates, all of whom were now frantically trying to finish their blades; most of them had not even started working on the scabbard to hold it. She picked up a stack of five leather hides that were stretched thin and cut one of them to the right size for her short-sword. Afterwards, she sewn them together with the waxed hair of horses into a shape that would fit the sword snugly; this way, her tight stitches would not come undone in rain or the very rare snowfall. The scabbard itself she coated inside and out with a thin layer of resin; this would further protect the scabbard from the motions of drawing the sword constantly. At the very end of the scabbard was a steel tip to protect it from the point of the sword.
Next, she braided rawhide where the sword would meet the scabbard to add supplementary protection. As an additional piece of decoration, Lyka sewed a small sunburst-and-fire sigil at the point of the scabbard where the braiding met with the sword; she also sewed a tiny arabesque design of yellow, red, and gold threads that followed the lining of the stitches.
Now that a half hour were left in class, Lyka was the only one with a sword and scabbard ready to be marked; however, she was not completely finished just yet. She soldered a small bronze embellishment to the hilt's end: an ornate sun, its rays at once extending outwards and curving inwards. Taking up a piece of shark-skin, she carefully cut it to the size of the hilt and wrapped it around the bare metal; she favoured this particular material for the grip of the hilt because it was able to ensure a non-slip grip for all of the users. Satisfied with the near-finished product, the last thing that she needed to do was braid and weave gold and silver wire to secure the grip, cover the tang, and add some level of comfort to the hilt.
At that, her commissioned project was finished with fifteen minutes left to spare. Lyka slid the short sword into the scabbard with one clean motion. Wrapping the entirety in a piece of white fabric, she handed it over to Willai for grading.
Willai was not like other teachers in the university. He didn't take weeks to mark a single project; it took him about five minutes to examine both the sword and the scabbard. Withdrawing the short-sword from the scabbard, he inspected the ripples of the constant hammering and drawing into the water that Lyka performed to strengthen the blade. He whacked the flat of the sword against the anvil next to him; it produced a clear chiming ring throughout the forge that caused all of the students to stare at her. To complete the examination of the sword, he maneuvered the sword in the air until it sliced through the heady steam of the forge with a crystal chime.
The next and final step of the process of marking was the scabbard. Grunting at the quality of the leather, he felt the resin protecting the sword to be solid and dry. Running his fingers along the stitches, he noted the minute swirling of the threads and its echoing effect on the handle. He took in the braiding and tip with a nodding glance.
"Hundred percent, Lyka." He handed the sword back to her, its hilt over his wrist and the bare metal of the blade in a loose grip. Sticking the scabbard in her rope belt, Lyka bowed to him before leaving the rest of the class to give up a piece of slipshod work to try and impress Willai and his extraordinarily high standards.
Back inside of her room after a brief shower, Lyka changed out of her work clothes and into another identical set with a rare smile on her face. The hot sweat from the forge had purged the darker thoughts of the dream and vision from her consciousness. For once, there was nothing but the present, and right now, she was hungry. Five hours pounding on a sword and sweating amongst a horde of young men can do that to a person, especially if the breakfast was not satisfactory to begin with.
Running down to the mess hall with the new forearm-and-half sword slapping against her thigh, Lyka filled her plate with a bowl of hearty pork and bean soup and a warm bun. Placing her tray in the window seat, she pulled out her newly-made sword to inspect it in the light. It shone with the brilliance of the mid-day sun, the polished edges splitting up the sunbeams into a prism of colors on contact. It was a thing of beauty, and she had made it on her own.
Without a second thought, she claimed the blade for herself. Feeling the sharpened edges with the pads of her fingers, she cut her palm deep enough to bleed over the sword. When the blood ran down the edge of the sword, it was christened to be hers. Working quickly before any of the few students still in the mess hall were given cause to feel frightened, she wrapped her hand in a spare piece of cotton. Taking out another piece, she wiped down the blade prior to sliding it back into the scabbard at her hip.
Lyka drew out from her satchel the notes for her next class: herbology and its applications. After the four months that she had left for her stay at the university, she wanted to go to become a naturopath, a healer of natural methods. Her other classes included anatomy, chemistry, natural biology, philosophy, and botany; all of her teachers, Willai and Master Feng included, were ready to give her a letter of reference when she graduated to help her on her way to becoming the successful doctor that they all knew that she could be.
Just thinking of her teachers and their constant flow of praise made her heart swell with pride beneath the controlled expression of her face. Maybe through this career path, she could begin to heal the aches of her own soul.