"Mashu!" Katarina cried happily as she threw her hands around her cousin. "Wah, I've missed you! How's are you doing? Have you found any covenants you want to join yet? Ooh, have you written to aunty and everyone back home? What did they say?"

Dame Matthew had the guilty look of someone who'd forgotten to write home as she returned her cousin's hug, her eyes only going wide-eyed in guilty terror behind her cousin's back.

Maria coughed delicately. "Squire," she said, more reminding than chiding.

"Er, um…! Dame Mashu!" Katarina cried, letting her cousin go and bowing a bit too quickly. "Er… Ah, Dame Campbell, I don't think we've done the etiquette lessons for this, right? Right? Or did I forget again?!" That last was said with a note of rising fear and panic.

"No, we have not. You haven't forgotten anything, my Squire(!-!-!)," Maria said. Katarina sighed in relief. "Dame Matthew is here to teach you how to parry."

Katarina blinked. "But I already know how to parry," she said, and Maria was impressed at how quickly her Squire (!-!-!-!) drew, parried and sheathed again.

Still, Maria maintained her dignity as she nodded, even as Dame Matthew smiled wildly and made a gesture of approval at her cousin. "Yes, but Dame Matthew will be teaching you how to parry with a shield," she said, "as well as other elements of shieldcraft."

Katarina tilted her head in confusion. "But don't you just hold your shield up and hide behind it?"

Maria recognized the sudden gleam in Dame Matthew's eye. It was the look of an expert of her field getting to educate the ignorant, with perhaps just a bit too much glee to be entirely without malice. "Not exactly," Dame Matthew said as all the knights who were doing that's day's newbie-watching all wince, knowing where this was going. "In fact, that's a dangerous but common misconception." Maria smartly held her mouth shut. "But don't worry cousin, I'll be sure to teach you ALL about it." Yes, far too much glee. "But first, I brought you something." She bent down and reached into a sack she'd dropped at her feet.

It was a kite shield, its front unornamented save for clear lacquered geisteel.

"Oooh, shiny…" Katarina said, looking at the plain front of the shield.

"It's based on the shields they used in ancient Drangleic," Dame Matthew explained. "A good, serviceable shield. When you become a knight, you can have something painted on the front to represent you. But while you're a squire, it'll have to stay blank."

She bent down against and took something else from the sack.

"Also, for your parry training," Dame Matthew said, smiling beatifically, "I also got you this."

It was a white, vaguely onion-shaped helmet.

Amidst the chuckles of the other knights and Katarina's guileless, happy smile, Maria left them to it.

An Alan Interlude

Alan didn't often meet with his father. Oh, they ate dinner at least once a week as a family, and sometimes their father would disguise himself as a butler while their mother dressed as a lesser lady to attend one of his recitals in public, but they weren't exactly close. Still, there was no resentment on his part. After all, the king was a busy man.

Still, when he asked to meet his father privately, the appointment was set up with great alacrity, and the not-exactly-secret-panel to Prime Minister Ascart's office was open as well. So both men heard it as he recounted his firsthand account of witnessing Maria actually fighting. And Dame Matthew too, he supposed. After all, while there were knights who used great shields before, they were usually Reeve and Orma Shields or Giant Door Shields. To his knowledge– which was admittedly spotty, as he paid more attention to the music scene than knight covenants and circles– Dame Matthew was the only one to wield a single great shield in so aggressive a manner. Innovation among knights was rare, mostly because there were so few ways to innovate left, not like the old days, when men like the Father of Giants had birthed leagues of imitators.

"Huh," was all his father said. "Thank you for bringing this to Our attention, Alan. Was there anything else?"

A lesser man or a more insecure man would have been incensed and said something stupid but dramatic like 'That's it? That's all you have to say?' and not realize this was the sort of information you needed to ruminate over before drawing conclusions. Alan, who'd had time to ruminate about it and still wasn't sure what to think, just said, "I don't suppose we have any explanation on how she git gud? I mean, she's a knight now, but I distinctly remember starting my first year of school with a commoner with no ties to anyone in the nobility, secret or otherwise."

"So far, we've managed to rule out a foreign connection," his father said. "She's never even been out of the country, and she's been determinedly staying put. And I extremely doubt that another country would waste so powerful a Light Mage knight on a long term spy mission such as this. Even then, the Ministry office in her home town records a Maria Campbell growing up there, of being interviewed and tested to ascertain her magic, so that rules out her being a young-looking Light Mage knight sent to spy on us."

"Except for, you know, her actually BEING a Light Mage knight," Alan said.

"Yes, but that's what made her worthy of investigation, not what was found by the investigation," the Prime Minster said, stepping into the room. Alan acknowledged him with a nod. "No one at her town was identified as teaching her any swordsmanship, so she is possibly self-taught, and thus a genius sword prodigy."

"Speaking as a music prodigy with a brother who's an everything prodigy," Alan said dryly, "it's less about genius and more about hard work, and Maria must have worked like a maniac to get that good. How did no one notice?"

"Possibly because it was before she was worth watching," the Prime Minster said, and Alan grunted at the obvious answer.

From an outside perspective. Maria was suspicious. She was suspicious with huge flaming letters rising to the sky, being read by the voice of the dead gods. A commoner with magic? More likely some forgotten bastard than genuine random chance manifesting. One with Light Magic? Significant, but no one could really predict what magic you'll get even with precedents of inheritance. His father's magic proved that, if nothing else.

A commoner with Light Magic becoming entangled with two princes, the son and daughter of a duke, the son and daughter of the Prime Minister, and becoming close friends with them? Eyebrow-raising.

That commoner becoming romantically involved with the son of the head of a treasonous conspiracy of Dark Magic? Okay, that was alarming.

That commoner gaining DARK MAGIC herself? More than alarming

That commoner going on a cross-country rampage, catching escaped conspirators, bringing down another Dark Magic enclave and saving children who were 'allegedly' involuntary test subject? Suspicious.

That commoner getting knighted and being put in charge of the same 'test subjects'? More so.

One of those 'test subjects' revealing themselves to have Light Magic?

The discovery of something similar to an ancient mythical weapon and the development of new weapons based on that discovery?

Constantly being drawn to incidents involving 'Dark Magic'?

Taking in a duke's daughter to be her squire despite never having been a squire herself?

At that point, if Alan hadn't seen most of it happen himself and been confirmed to not be under the influence of Dark Magic, he'd have been VERY alarmed. It all just seemed so conveniently contrived!

And now she'd finally seen her fight. He'd seen knights fight before. Sometimes the knights held spars, even tournaments, testing their skill against each other nearly to the point of death. Dame Matthew had fought like those knights, wielding her weapon expertly, tempering aggression and watchful waiting.

Maria had fought like something… more.

And NONE of those knight had ever summoned fog to bar the way to them.

"Could she be the paledrake?" Alan finally said.

"Extremely doubtful," the Prime Minister said at once. He was an acknowledged expert on the subject, though not of his own choosing but by necessity. "She isn't showing any of the paledrake's obsessions over the ancient Soul Art of Sorcery, dragons, immortality, knowledge, power, or sex with the daughters of the Lord of Sunlight. At worst, she might be a similar phenomenon."

Alan blinked. "What similar phenomenon?" he said in alarm.

"Mythologically speaking, the paledrake was not the only powerful soul who was ever reborn," the Prime Minster said. "The myths about the Chosen Lord from when he was a mere Bearer of the Curse and still assembling the Crown Of Immortality spoke of how he encountered the rebirths of Grave Lord, the Witch of Chaos, and the Lord of Sunlight as well as the paledrake. And the Lords of Cinders themselves could be said to be reborn, in a fashion."

"Are you telling me that our working theory is that Maria is some kind of… reincarnation?" Alan said incredulously.

"It's a theory," the Prime Minister shrugged. "She doesn't even need to have been someone famous and named in myth. Just someone whose Dark Soul endured after their death. And it only really explains her how git gud she is with the sword. And that's only because we have no record to explain why she's so good. For all we know, she practiced alone in her room for years and kept it secret from her mother."

"It says something about Maria that both those theories are equally likely," Alan said with a fond sigh.

"She could also be like the ancient king of Friedonia and somehow came from another world through the ancient ritual of sign summoning," the Prime Minister said facetiously. "If we're going to throw in every possible theory for consideration."

"Still, it doesn't matter," the king said. "While knowing this is helpful in getting a fuller picture of Our knight's capabilities, ultimate she isn't under suspicion, no matter how suspicious she can seem. She's proven to be loyal, dutiful, honorable, noble, and if you and all your brothers have no reason to distrust her…" the king frowned. "Wait, why isn't your brother here? He was there too, right?"

"Katarina," Alan said simply.

The King sighed the long-suffering sigh of a parent dealing with a teenager. "For such a smart boy, your brother can be very stupid," he said.

It said something of the relationships between the royal family that this wasn't a politically charged statement.

"He still wants to marry Lady Katarina, does he not?" the Prime Minister said.

"If he doesn't, I'd start checking for an imposter or Dark Magic," Alan said.

"Hmm…" the king 'hmm'-ed "Has he spoken with their graces the duke and duchess about it yet?"

Alan blinked. "Wouldn't he have? I mean, he's been going on and on about doing it for half his life. Why wouldn't he remember to get their blessing to marry their daughter?"

"Ah, of course," the king said, nodding. "Of course, silly Us. Well, thank you for bringing this to our attention, Alan. It is… certainly helpful. I don't know how but it is. And about Dame Romani as well. Perhaps we might see a new tide of shield-wielding knights in future." For some reason, the king was tapping a folder emblazoned with the sign of the Ministry. "I'll see you at dinner, son."

Alan nodded, not hurt by the dismissal. His father was a busy man, after all. "Later then, father," he said.

"Prince Alan," the Prime Minister said. "If, in the infinitesimally unlikely chance Dame Campbell is any of those things, I urge you not to bring it up. If she has been reborn… well, the times past have often been not peaceful, and one skilled in battle would have had to see terrible things they would rather forget. And if she has not been… well, then it just sounds stupid."

Alan snorted. "You don't have to tell me," he said.

Maria, some kind of reincarnation? She's weird, but as a musical prodigy himself, with a brother who was an everything prodigy and two other brothers who were talented in their own ways, he was more inclined to think she was weird because she was talented. His rival was a woman who he lost to at everything not related to music, after all.

Really, it was all as likely as Sophia being the paledrake, which was just silly and a stupid superstition besides.

Katarina stood firm. She watched her opponent. She set her feet, holding her shield in one hand, her sword in the other.

Her opponent swung, and Katarina… PARRIED!

CLANG!

The helmet she was wearing gave out yet another cheerful ring.

"Is this even possible?" Katarina cried to her smiling cousin's face. "Maybe being able to parry with a shield is just a myth! Parrying with a sword makes a lot more sense! I can do it every time!"

Matthew was not enjoying this. Nope, not at all. That would be silly, and wrong. "Reset. Again!"

Sighing, Katarina raised her shield and stood firm. She watched her opponent. She set her feet, holding her shield in one hand, her sword in the other.

Her opponent swung, and Katarina… PARRIED!

CLANG!

Matthew was not enjoying this a lot at all. Nope, not at all.

…

All right, maybe a little. But just a little.

Katarina's (Drangleic) Shield
A modern shield based on an old design. Made of geisteel, it is an orthodox metal shield. Made for Katarina Claes as a gift.

Medium shields are the most average of shields, providing a practical balance of damage absorption, stability and weight.

Skill: Parry
Repel an attack at the right time to follow up with a critical hit. Works while equipped in either hand.

Despite what some might believe, this skill is not a myth.

A/N: So, my Pat-reon is up now at P.A.T.R.E.O.N.C.O.M -/-SCM2814. If you want to support this fic, that would be great, but no pressure. But if you do, you'll also get advanced access to my new original fiction series about a wizard on the frontier, her dungeon, and the idiots around her...