The sun rose and its light broke through the moving clouds, The Heartland was just starting to fill with noise as the workers left their homes in the pursuit of their professions.
The Blacksmiths lit their fires, the shop keepers opened their doors, the stand owners displayed their wares, everyone followed their own habits and rituals that they built from years and years of repetition.
However, something disturbed their fragile cadence. A young man stood shirtless in front of the well, his porcelain skin shone with the sun's light and helped with the sweat that wet his golden locks. Ropes of muscle rippled across his back as he pulled the bucket of water with seeming ease and he held it high above his face, looking up he poured the water down on his oppressive figure.
The world sat still for a moment.
The sun's rays hit the falling water turning it to a mirror of light, The masked man's hair shone with unparalleled brilliance now that the grime and dust got swept away.
His skin had not a single blemish even if the man radiated an air of battle and hardship, it was also elusive for some unknown reason the more you focused on him the less details you'd see as if your own eyes didn't want to stare for too long.
The moment passed as the bucket was empty and all the onlookers could finally breath again after getting caught up with the beautiful sight—
Crash!
A loud noise shook those standing fully out of their trance as the golden haired man threw the bucket down with unbelievable strength, as it shattered to pieces he shook his head and slicked his hair back revealing the indifferent expression of his white mask.
"It's useless…" His hoarse voice sounded full of frustration.
When he finally looked up to analyze the space around him, the shocked faces of the onlookers greeted him. Tilting his head in confusion he tried to pinpoint the reason for their reactions, remembering what he just did out of just anger he gave the broken bucket a glance and sighed.
"I apologise for disturbing you, I will bring a new bucket." Slightly bowing down to show his sincerity he turned to leave.
***
"It's so much worse than I thought it would be…" Walking back to his room Cael reflected on his training.
He spent the entire night trying to get used to the curse but it wasn't satisfactory. The pain, although manageable to a degree, had a slight effect on his movements especially if he wanted to imitate Arlen's style of combat which was a lot more aggressive and explosive. Every time he exerted force with his muscles they would respond with an equal amount of pain.
Nevertheless, Cael continued he was no stranger to pain and he can control the force of his strikes but even his center of balance was altered as his left leg couldn't hold as much weight as his right and if he tried to force it he wouldn't be able to move comfortably and to top it all off his stamina was less than half of what it was before.
"It's as if I'm back to being that useless child…" He moved with confidence not paying any mind to the eyes locked at him.
He could comfortably act as if nothing happened in a normal situation—Well as comfortable as he could be with the curse—But it was a completely different situation inside a fight when even the slightest mistake a second of hesitation could cost him his life.
"Now even my body doesn't feel like my own." The more he gave that thought attention the less amusing it became.
That part he couldn't keep secret even if he trained for the rest of his life, no matter how good of an actor he might be The Hero changing his fighting style without confiding with anyone is a bit too suspicious, and tackle both the changes in his body and the suspicion that would come from its solution he had an idea.
"I have to pay my "teacher" a visit." He had to find the knight fanatic, Corven Rell.
However before doing that he had to deal with the unhappy sister that stood in front of his door.
***
Sister Elyra's expression was nowhere near pleasant, you could tie The Worldwound to the peak of the cathedral with the amount of knots that littered her forehead, her foot tapped the ground impatiently as she grumbled curses under her breath.
'Quite unsisterly like behavior…' As Cael got closer to her she looked up.
An expression of shock replaced her anger but only for a second.
"Where the hell were you yesterday!? I heard that you went to the slums are you—"
"If you're here to scream at me I don't want to hear it. I felt bad for how I treated you for a second but all guilt is gone now." He cut her off before she could start her nagging.
'I don't know how Arlen tolerated someone like her for years.'
Elyra was dumbfounded by his reply, her brows twisting further but Cael spoke first.
"I promised Cael to visit his home and give the key to some slum kids and the mask is to hide my burns, they can't be healed so I don't have a choice. Are we done here?" He got closer to her as he finished his explanation.
Elyra's eyes widened, her mouth opened and closed multiple times but she couldn't say anything. Seeing that she had no reply Cael turned his head away from her and opened the door to his room but she held his wrist to stop him.
"I-I just wanted to be useful…" Her voice wavered and her eyes watered.
"We haven't seen each other in a year and you greeted me with complaints and then disrespected my dead companion—my only companion and today you were going to do the same thing."
"B-but…"
"It's pointless. If you want to be useful to me you would have to change your entire outlook. Just leave me be for both our sakes and the sun's." He pulled his wrist away and closed the door behind him.
"Arlen!"
Elyra was frozen in place. Her purpose had rejected her.
***
'I might have been too harsh…'
His own problems with the church and its followers slipped into that exchange.
Although she did get on his nerves, Elyra was just following and to an extent he had a sneaking suspicion that she genuinely cared for Arlen, even if it was just her duty at the start she spent her entire childhood following him around doing his chores and cooking for him. Cael felt pity for her but just like so many times before he shows empathy for the followers of light but they never reciprocate.
He was burnt far too many times already, yet couldn't help it.
Letting out a long sigh Cael changed his clothes and put on the Hero's armor, hesitating before picking up Vigil and strapping him to his waist. As he picked up the heavy sword he couldn't help but look at the open notebook that sat on top of the desk.
Cael didn't bother looking through it and didn't give it much thought seeing that Arlen left it out of his hidden area; it meant that the notebook did not house anything too important, at least not important enough to hide. The portrait of the woman that looked as if staring directly at him made Cael take a closer look.
She radiated a graceful beauty even through an illustration. Cael could feel her maturity in every stroke of the pencil. As he looked at her big eyes, her flowing hair, her small nose, Cael tried to fill the image with color in his mind.
Her skin was as pale as the paper she was drawn on.
Her eyes were a light color, definitely green or blue.
Her hair was black? No. It had to be blond…
"Wait…"
It was as if he was describing Arlen, pale, green eyes, blond…
'Don't tell me… Is this Arlen's sister?'
Isolde Solmere or more accurately Isolde Thorne, Arlen's older sister and his only blood relative, the most important person in Arlen's life and someone Cael wanted to meet before starting to act in her brother's stead now he wanted nothing to do with her as she would know his secret in one look.
Arlen mentioned his sister on occasion, she was one of the only people he talked about fondly and she sounded like a great person in Cael's eyes. However a hint of guilt always flashed across Arlen's eyes whenever he talked about her and it wasn't hard for his companion to guess the reason.
The Hero usually hailed from a prestigious family one with a formidable status in nobility, yet Arlen and his sister were but orphans with no background and the nobles couldn't have that, so the king had Arlen's sister marry his son the prince making the Hero the king's son in law and a part of the royal family.
Cael could never understand noble politics and Arlen wasn't much different from him in that regard but if he wanted to seriously become the Hero he was sure to leave his sister's side for weeks if not months and there was no safer place than the royal palace.
His friend's sister being used in such a way left a bitter taste in Cael's mouth but he was powerless and more than that he was now the one feeling guilty for keeping her brother's death from her.
Letting out another long sigh he closed the notebook and left the room.
"…"
"…"
"What are you still doing here?" Asked Cael in an irritated tone.
Elyra was still standing in front of his door with her head held down.
"I will change. I swear to the sun, just give me a chance." Elyra's voice quivered as her shoulder's slumped down and trembled.
"…"
'I guess I'm not a slum rat now and my words have a little more weight to them.'
Thinking deeply if he should give her a chance, Cael looked at the sister up and down, her entire demeanor has changed from a few minutes ago. She looked quite pathetic like a lost puppy. Cael concluded that Arlen never confronted her before, he wasn't even sure if he even spoke normally to her at all…
"Fine… Just do what you need to and be out of my way." Turning away from her and walking in the direction of the knights' training ground Cael adopted the lost puppy.
'I wonder if this is how Arlen felt about her…'