The sword is heavy in her hand.
Jen tightens her grip, changes her feet and drives it hard into a practice dummy. It doesn't feel natural to her, and if she's honest the thing she's best with is a bow. But the military of Katolis works with all sort of weapons and if she wants to be accepted into their ranks after she 'comes of age' or whatever she's going to have to practice harder.
She's going to have to be better.
The kingdom is still reeling from the death of Harrow, and Jen is among them.
King Harrow had shown her kindness when he was under no obligation to. He had taken her and Len in from their tragedy along with the other dozen survivors from the Razing of Liathe. People here were kind, in general. Humans were kind. The people of Liathe had taken them in when they had found themselves thrown from their home and into the river. They had been fished out and given a place to stay, until the attack.
Jen stabs the dummy with a grunt, her green eyes narrowed and glowing with her fury.
She had been helpless then. All she could do was watch the fires burn across the village while the elf's marched in, tearing apart house after house and driving their glowing swords into humans. Len had grabbed her and forced her to run, but she could still hear the screams.
She could still smell the burning flesh.
King Harrow had taken them in from that. He had given them jobs, given them a place to stay. Len was content to be a simple servant but that wasn't enough for Jen. She wanted to repay him for his kindness. She wanted to never run away again. And King Harrow had offered her a way to do that, too. She was just a page yet, the oldest one there was, but if she worked hard enough she might be a squire before the year was up. She was already an athlete.
King Harrow was why they had all this. King Harrow was the one who had granted them this chance and she would never forget that kindness. She would never forget him walking amongst his men, telling them how to adjust their grips, how to set their feet, how to steal their courage.
She would never forget the quiet night she had gone to him, begged his audience and told him the truth. Their truth, the whole truth, the truth that Lenore insisted no one could ever know. She was a coward, so afraid of what would happen, so willing to run. Jen was not like her. She was younger and already she was less afraid of a fight.
King Harrow had listened. He had believed. He had promised her that, once the fighting was done, he would have Viren look into a way to get them home. But for then, for right then, it was just for them to know. The idea that other worlds existed was dangerous information and they coudln't afford for the wrong people to know.
He had comforted her, helped her, and now he was dead.
Jen took the head off of the practice dummy, watching it roll onto the ground. Her breathing was heavy and hard.
He had helped them and now his sons were gone. Taken on the night of his kidnapping by an elf.
She knew what she had to do.
She couldn't find Commander Gren, or Soren, or Lord Viren, or General Amaya.
She did find Claudia.
She offered her a swift bow, not a curtsey since she didn't have a skirt. She wore the pages uniform, a red tunic over a long black shirt, black breaches and brown boots. It's nothing like the soft poly-cotton she grew up with, but it's good enough. Sturdy, it won't tear, and she has yet to wear patches between her thighs.
She's very different from Len in how she's built. She's shorter and stocky, a little round but strong in her shoulders and quick. Len is a ballerina, literally. She's lean and tall, all legs and arms. She's not strong like Jen is. She's smart, wickedly smart, Jen has seen some of the crazy things she's come up with but she's not brave or strong.
There's a reason Jen is the one who's going to be the knight. And she will be, just watch.
She approaches Claudia in the east wing, mindful not to sneak up on the girl . She doesn't want to be turned into a toad, or whatever. Claudia is a fair young girl, her long hair is so dark it shines near-violet in the burning sunset. She's a year older than Jen is to the day.
"Claudia?" Jen calls carefully. Claudia looks back at her and her eyes, normally so bright with some sort of mischief or plot ot new knowledge she's gained, are trouble. Jen feels herself soften. "Is something wrong?"
"Wrong?" Claudia repeats. She laughs, but there's something about it that doesn't sit right with Jen. A high note that shouldn't be there. "Nothing's wrong, silly. I mean, besides the King being dead and the princes being missing. And us being on the brink of war," she rambled on, her gaze drawing away from everything before it snapped back on Jen so fast she almost jumped. "But besides all that, everything's fine!"
Jen doesn't think she believes that. But, she takes a deep breath anyways. This has to be done. She has to do this.
"I want you to take me with you on your mission to get the boys," she says quickly. Like maybe if she talks fast enough Claudia will forget that-
"You're just a page! We can't take you with us."
"I'll be useful," she promises swiftly. "I can be, really! I'm a good tracker and I can find them for you, and I'll be useful in the fighting-!"
"Genesis, you can't."
Claudia is not harsh in her words but hearing her given name makes Jen's hair stand up on end. The only people who use it are her parents. She doesn't even know how Claudia got ahold of it but it feels wrong coming from her lips, even someone as sweet as she is. Jen's stomach curls.
Genesis. The name is strange, even here among 'Ezran' and 'Soren' and 'Aanya'. She is the only Genesis. Because her name is weird. It's not Jennifer, or Jane, or even Geneviere.
"I can help," she isists, but Claudia shakes her head. "I'm sorry. But Soren and me, we've been training for this kind of thing our whole lives. You've only been doing it for a few months. I can't take you with us. I know you want to help Callum and Ezran. But you can do that by staying here, and being ready for their return. Hold down the fort, you know?"
She offers her a smile that's so kind Jen feels part of her bitterness and the unease of being called Genesis eb away. Her shoulders drop. Claudia smiles at her, touches her shoulder, and glides away.
Claudia is no help. Claudia thinks she can't do it.
But there might be another… Someone who can overrule her.
If she can convince Viren she can be of use, he'll send her along with his children to get the prince's back, and she can start to repay her debt to Kind Harrow.
King Harrow.
Kind was good too. He had been, and the messy business with the Dragon Prince was the price that they had to pay. Elves and Dragons had been the ones who had pushed humans out of Xadia, their own ancestral lands, and split them off from it with a river of lava. They were the ones who continued to keep them out, who hoarded magic all to themselves and looked down on humans. They were the ones who crossed the borders and killed innocent men, women and children for a few shiny rocks.
Jen lets Claudia go and runs to find her father. The party sets out at dawn, and she needs to be with them,, but it's hard to find them. When Lord Viren doesn't want to be found, almost no one can find him.
Jen stands in the courtyard and takes a deep breath. She focuses on Viren. On his staff, on the closed off grey of his stormy eyes. The streaks of white in his hair and the little smile he gets whenever he has a 'creative' solution for a problem.
If she were Viren, and her kids were going out in the morning on a quest, where would she be….
She would be up on top of the battlements, looking out the cliff they sat upon at the forrest bellow.
Jen takes the stairs too at a time. The sun is almost gone by the time she reaches the top and the shadows wrap around her shoulders in a cloak. Metaphorically, of course.
THey still keep her pretty out of the way as she sprints up the stairs to the high walkways on the edge of the castle wall. The air up here is crisp and clean and sparkles with stars. She takes a breath, then another, trying not to start panting,
Voices draw her down the pathway. Viren and Soren. She knows better than to interrupt them but she wishes she had. She wishes that she doesn't here what follows.
"Accidents happen all the time," Viren says, his voice smooth and velvet. "You will return with the news that the princes have perished, and I will make a stronge ruler for the kingdom. The kind that Katolis needs. I know you'll make me proud."
His hand drops on Sorens shoulder just as the sun vanishes at last and the three, the father, the son, and the not-so-holy, not-so-much-of-a-ghost.
She is frozen. She's not stupid. She knows what she's heard and it roots her to the ground until she can't move. Can't run back to the little room they'd given her and Len, can't grab her sister and shake her and tell her about this. Ask her what to do.
She knows what Len would say. She would say to run. To stay out of it.
But Jen can't. She owes to Harrow. Even more than that, Ezran is a child. Callum is a good person. They don't deserve to die, especially not at the hand of someone that they trust. Did Claudia know? Was that why she had been acting so strange earlier? Because she knew they were going to kill the boys?
If the elf hasn't killed them already, Soren will, and she needs to get to them. Fast.
Soren and Viren leave. They don't notice her, and it makes it easy for her to go sprinting down the high spiral staircases. Her heart is in her throat as she slips into the room she and Len have. Len won't be back for a few more minutes and that's all the time she needs to cram food into her backpack. Her school books at long gone, shoved under her straw mattress.
Len had been walking her home from class when this had all started. She thought so, at least. Everything from their change in worlds felt fuzzy and Wrong. But the backpack is sturdy and it settles on her shoulders, and over top of that she draws a long cloak. It gives her the look of a hunchback.
She pulls out a piece of paper and a pen and writes a quick note that she puts on Len's pillow. She takes all the money she's shored up in the last few months, hopes its enough for a horse, and slips out into the night. It's an adventure, a dangerous quest, and if Mulan can do it, why can't she?
Thus begins the Crucible of Genesis Henley.