[A/N]: chapter title goes to The Witcher 3 soundtrack named Steel for Humans.

As a side note, I have started to help The Grinning Psychopath and AlexanderRavana with writing their story named D'yaebls Aep An Blathe Bloede Eate. So if you're interested in a story which focusses on Iorveth, check it out ;D (And even if you're not interested in such a story, check it out anyway. Who knows what might happen!)

Though she had at first feared joining the other elves in their training, Gwen found that she hadn't had to worry about anything after all. Despite the fact that the pity slowly began to fade away and many elves replaced it with the hatred from before, a lot of them had already accepted her into the unit. She still did not know whether she liked this or not, but for now she had to remain here, so she might as well try her best to get along with them.

She started building her endurance and power up by sparring with the lowest of the group; mostly young elves who had only just joined the Scoia'tael and who looked up to her. They had yet to become infected by the hatred most elves held towards her half-breed kind, in contrast to the older elves who had gone into hiding for many years before finally searching Iorveth. Gwen had found that, the older the elf, the more they disliked her, which made it all the more queer that the oldest of them all - Ivor and Cedric, though she'd rather not think of him just yet - had accepted her almost at once.

Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to stop thinking about all this. The elf pounding away at her with her wooden sword demanded all of her attention, or else she just might lose an eye during ploughing sword practice.

That reminded her of Iorveth, and her arms faltered for a moment. The blade she had held up with them flew to the side as her opponent smacked it out of her grasp. She hadn't heard nor seen the bloody elf since that... incident almost a week ago, and everyone she had asked about his presence either couldn't or wouldn't answer her inquiries.

Without missing a beat, she dove right after her sword, wincing at the pain that shot up her leg as she landed back on her feet after the roll, weapon in hand. Frustration flared at the fact that the wound still hadn't healed completely, and she used it to fuel her attack as she charged at her opponent.

Woodchips went flying through the air as it now became her turn to try and break the defence of her target, the muscles in her arms straining to keep up with her wishes. The elf before her grunted as she had to do her best to parry Gwen's blows, but it didn't take much longer before a crack filled the air. Her wooden sword snapped in two and the top half flew through the air and past the heads of those watching as they ducked out of the way.

Two sets of eyes turned to the side, but their instructor, Owain, made no move to stop the match. Brown met a deep green that reminded Gwen of Iorveth's eye, and her enemy took the moment's respite to her advantage, throwing her broken blade to the side and instead going for the half-elf's legs.

Said half-elf let out a yelp as she fell to the ground, the force of the ground thudding against her back causing her to let go of her blade. Too tired to get up, she remained on the floor and was just about to start complaining about how she had never really fought with a sword like this before when suddenly something pricked against her neck.

A gasp went through the audience. Some of the watchers hooted, and others booed.

That bitch had picked up her sword and now threatened her with it!

To make matters worse, she tilted it upwards and used the tip to lift Gwen's headband from her head, revealing her not-pointy-enough ears to everyone who cared to look. Her badge of shame, the proof that she did not belong here. That she did not belong anywhere.

"You've lost," her opponent stated in a voice strangely devoid of triumph.

Anger began to rise inside of her as the elf whose name she hadn't even tried to remember casually flung the headband to the side before resuming her position, the blade back at the half-elf's neck. All her movements had been precise, not giving Gwen even the slightest chance to flee.

"No really?! Because here I thought I was lying on the ground because I felt like staring at the clouds," the half-elf snapped at her, only to wince when the blade dug deeper into her skin.

More noise from the audience filled the air, and Gwen wondered whose side they were on, but she soon decided that she did not care. She shot Owain a look, but the instructor still stood with his arms crossed and a blank look on his face. A grin spread across her face when she realised she had free reign.

Clapping her hands together with the blade in between her palms, a hush went through the crowd, and all noise disappeared as every set of eyes stared at the display in wonder. The only set of eyes that mattered looked down at the half-elf in surprise, which soon turned to disdain.

"You've lost," she repeated. She easily could have tugged the sword free from her opponent's grip, but apparently she had believed it unnecessary.

Gwen used that to her advantage, wrapping her fingers around the wood and pulling it towards herself with all her might. The elf yelled in pain and shock and the hilt was ripped from her grasp, and without comprehending the situation, she kicked at the half-elf. Gwen pushed herself away just in time, however, rolling to the side before getting to her feet and once more pointing her blade at her enemy.

"You lost!" the elf shouted once more. "Do you mean to be a sore loser?"

The other chanced one final look at Owain, though she could spot no changes in his demeanour. In fact, he seemed about the only one watching who was not completely enthralled by the show.

"Oh, boo fucking hoo. If this were a real sword, I'd have cut my palms. Perhaps lost a few fingers depending on its sharpness. Either way, I'd still be capable of wielding the sword and defeating an unarmed person such as yourself," Gwen responded. She sucked in a deep breath before adding, "There was no possibility of winning to start with. You hated me even before we began, so there never was any fair play to begin with."

The elf scowled at her, spat on the ground, and left. Before she disappeared from the ring of elves surrounding them, she called out, "You say that as if it were one-sided."

Gwen watched her leave with a smug look, but did not respond. Now that the fight was over, most of the watchers dispersed, some talking energetically while others muttered under their breath. The half-elf couldn't have cared less in that moment, however; the elated feeling inside of her left little room over for anything else.

The instructor, burly and bald and always clad in armour, made his way toward her, his hand outstretched. She handed the wooden sword back to him, hilt first, and awaited his judgement.

"There was a lesson to be learned here, though I am not quite sure whether you managed to pick it up," he stated in that gruff voice of his. Gwen didn't doubt that it had to be an astounding experience to witness him use it to bellow orders across a battlefield.

"Me neither, but I'm quite sure that she learned it nevertheless," she replied with a grin, which earned her a pointed look from Owain.

"Have you learned nothing in your time here?" he asked her, but before she could open her mouth, he held up a hand and went on, "No, I have no patience for your witty responses today."

She bit her lip and tried to stop herself, she really did, but she couldn't help it when she muttered, "That would mean you have the patience for them on other days though."

And suddenly she lay on her back again, her instructor staring down at her as she regained her bearings. It took her a few moments before she realised that the sudden pain burning in her leg - the other leg - came from where he had hit with the blade, which he had used to swipe the limb from under her.

"For tomorrow I expect you to be here an hour before the others, and an hour once they've left," he said as he watched realisation dawn on her face.

"But there are no lessons tomorrow," she uttered weakly in protest, but she knew she had lost.

"Exactly." Owain nodded his bald head once. "It would seem that you need the extra training, however. Nessa spelled the lesson out for you yet still you seem ignorant to it." He rubbed his chin and squinted his eyes in a thoughtful manner as he stared at the half-elf lying at his feet. "Does she not see it? Or does she not want to see it?"

"Uhm... I'm still here?"

She reached a hand out to him, and much to her surprise he accepted it. Instead of helping her up, however, he let her lie there for a few more moments.

"There was no possibility of winning to start with. You hated her even before you began, so there never was any fair play to begin with," was all he said as he stared right at her with that unnerving gaze of his.

At first, the half-elf remained silent before she murmured, "You say that as if it were one-sided."

For the first time since she had met him, she spied a smile on the instructor's face as he pulled her up and steadied her. She winced and bent down to inspect the bruise that had already begun to form on her shin, rubbing her hands over it a few times as if that would make it disappear.

"Apologies. I hope you realise why I thought it necessary to do so," he said once he had taken a step back from her to inspect the contusion himself.

The half-elf nodded in return and dropped the pant leg of her breeches to cover it once more.

"Good. Then I shall expect you here tomorrow at the designated time." Without waiting for her response, he turned and left. Gwen stared at his retreating back with mixed feelings, realising that she did that a lot lately.

It was far too early to be up and most of the camp still slept, but the next day Gwen stood in that very spot as promised, and she waited for the elf to appear. She knew he couldn't be far away, for he had placed two wooden swords against a nearby tree trunk. He must have come and gone, though for what reason Gwen couldn't figure out. And he never let these weapons out of sight; not even these cheap things for practice of which one could easily make a few dozen new ones.

With a frown she lowered herself to the ground, placing her elbow on her knee and resting her chin on her palm. Once she had left the clearing the day before, she had forced all related thoughts out of her head and had simply forgotten about the entire thing. She had gotten quite good at that, what with Loredo and what had happened with him. No, she had acquired that talent long before she had ever set foot in or near Flotsam. It had begun with Elric, and then with the child that had never gotten a name...

Now that she was here, however, she could no longer deny that she had a problem, and that she needed to deal with it somehow. Not just the... thing with Loredo, though that had caused more than its fair share of trouble to begin with. If she hadn't been... been raped, then she wouldn't have gotten that dream - yes, dream - and she wouldn't have accused Iorveth in such a manner. She still hadn't managed to find him, though she couldn't exactly admit to having searched for him since yesterday in the first place.

No, Owain had taught her a lesson she had needed to learn. Though she had realised early on that, perhaps, the manner in which she treated and thought of elves wasn't exactly fair, that hadn't changed anyway. She saw that now. While she had blamed them for the way they treated her, she had never stopped to think of how she treated them, even after she had realised the fault in the way she thought.

She let out a sigh and ran a hand through what remained of her hair. Hadn't she cut it to signify a new start? Had that only been for show, then? She had cut her skin because of the sudden lack of hatred directed towards her, and she had cut her hair because she had told herself she would to accept these new feelings some of the elves were willing to offer her.

As Nessa and then she herself had said: one-sided. When had she planned on changing herself?

The half-elf clenched her hand into a fist, welcoming the stinging pain her nails caused her palm. Anger at herself, and also anger at the world around her made her feel the need to hurt herself again. How could one change oneself, when one had lived a certain way for more than a century? Perhaps that was the blessing of short-livedness; humans never lived long enough to become completely stuck in their ways.

Yet Iorveth had taken her into his commando, even when most of his soldiers had disagreed with him. Chances were, he hadn't even wanted to do so in the first place. But because of some reason she did not know of, he had decided to change.

All this thinking began to make her head spin. With a yell of frustration, Gwen pushed herself from the leave-covered ground, picked up both of the swords and began to slash at a nearby tree. She pictured Iorveth in its stead, and Cedric and Ivor, and Aderyn and Brigid and Dylan. Most of all, she pictures herself and her hatred, and Elric, the one who had started it all, and her mother, her father, her half-brother, Demavend and Stennis... She grunted as she twisted and twirled, one blade flashing forward to carve away the trunk's bark, and then the other, over and over again, switching positions all the while.

Only when she had gone round the tree once did she stop, shoulders heaving as she tried to catch her breath. The battered swords she dropped to the ground so that she could rub the sweat from her eyes, but before she could so she burst into tears and pressed her damaged palms to her face in an attempt to stop them from falling. Her legs trembled beneath her, and she slid to her knees and fell forward, fingers digging into the soil as the tears rolled down her cheeks. She cried because she hated everyone and everything, and then she cried simply to cry, and then she cried because she couldn't stop crying.

Why couldn't things just go better simply because she had decided so, like the writers often portrayed it in literature and bards sang about it in songs? Why did she have to work hard to become a better person? And why did she feel the need to become a better person in the first place?

So that there won't be any more children out there who take to murdering because they don't know what else to do or where else to go.

Because everyone in this camp has their own story, and everyone has once gotten those looks from the others.

Another sigh left the half-elf once she had stopped bawling like a child. She placed a hand on the wounded tree as an apology for hurting it so in the first place after she got up, and she looked up to stare at the leaves that still clung to their branches. It wouldn't take much longer for winter to arrive, she realised all of a sudden, seeing the change in colours. She had always been in sync with nature since leaving Vengerberg, noting the subtle smell of autumn in the wind long before the leaves started to let go... Life had always gone on no matter what happened. When had she forgotten about that?

Once she had wiped her face relatively clean, she reached out for the lowest branch she could find and pulled herself off the ground, wincing when the bruise on her shin touched the bough. Since yesterday it had gotten dark and angry, and sometimes even placing her foot in the wrong way hurt. Now she used that foot to push herself up another limb, and another, until she had gotten as high as she dared to. And then she began to climb deeper into the camp, her mission clear.

Funny how when she searched for him this time, with her mind made up like this, she found him in no time and without problem. To make the whole thing even better he had climbed up a tree himself as well, and played some song or other on a flute.

She swayed above him for a few moments, listening to the tune as she stared down at him. It seemed rather peculiar that someone like him - someone whose soul must have been an angry fire that consumed all that stood in its path - could play such a peaceful melody. As she listened, she could feel her resolve wavering, and her own fire dwindled until she almost didn't want to disturb him. With the sound of birds chirping and leaves blowing with the wind, she feared she just might fall asleep on the spot.

But no, she couldn't do any of that. Before she had the chance to decide against it, she dropped herself down a few boughs until she landed on the one where Iorveth lay with his back against the trunk. The branch they now shared swayed under the additional weight, and Gwen stretched her arms out to the sides to prevent herself from losing her balance.

The elf didn't stop playing his flute, though. In fact, he didn't even look up in surprise at her entrance. This dismayed the half-elf, but she dismissed it and instead made her way closer to him. Only when their feet almost touched did she stop, and only then did he lift the instrument from his lips to look up at her. If she hadn't reminded herself of why she had come here in the first place, she might have kicked him out of the tree for the expressionless look he shot at her.

"I..." she began, only to find all the pretty speeches she had prepared in her mind had disappeared like snow before the sun.

"What is it?" Iorveth's voice sounded surprisingly soft as he tried to encourage the other to say what she wanted to say.

"I wanted to apologise. For... accusing you like that. I should have..." She hesitated. "Well, it doesn't matter. I'm sorry."

The commander's green eye beheld her for a while before he lowered his gaze to inspect his flute. "You apologise for being raped and letting that influence your behaviour?"

"Ye- no!" Gwen exclaimed, appalled.

"Then I, too, apologise for hurting you," he replied nonchalantly, as though the two of them were talking about something mundane like dinner.

The half-elf could only stare at him. He confused her so; one moment he seemed to want nothing more than to hang her simply for being alive, yet the other he acted as though the two of them had somehow become friends. Yet underneath it all she knew he did what he did for his people, and in that moment, all she could see was a selfless Scoia'tael commando leader, sharing the blow with her to make her feel better about everything. Because he knew she needed it. Because he knew what his soldiers needed.

And she had promised to change herself for the better as well. But why she did what she did next, however, she could not say.

Touched by this sudden realisation, and the remnants of his music still echoing inside her head, she knelt before him and moved forward. The elf watched in curiosity and surprise, his eye widening when she pressed her lips to his in a short kiss. Before he could react, however, she had already pulled back. With a grin spread across her face, she slipped down and out of sight.