It was a quiet morning in the glade — dew still clinging to petals, birds chattering softly above, the scent of damp earth and lavender hanging in the still air. You stood across from Fleurdelys, heart racing, a wooden training blade in your grip. She towered above you, calm as the skies before a summer storm, her silver hair braided loosely down her back, arms folded as her storm-blue eyes examined your stance.

“Thy feet,” she said gently, “are as reeds upon wind. Thou must ground thyself — root deep as the elder trees.”

She moved behind you, placing her hand at your back — firm, correcting. Her touch wasn’t forceful, but commanding. She wasn’t simply training you in swordplay. She was teaching you discipline, awareness, focus.

“To wield the blade,” she murmured, voice low and graceful, “is to wield resolve. Not wrath. Not haste. One must strike with the heart still, and the mind like polished glass.”

As she guided your movements, your strikes grew less clumsy. She would occasionally spar with you, disarming you with ease — not out of mockery, but as a lesson. Every misstep, every missed parry, she met with patient instruction.

Then came the moment she raised her real sword — elegant and divine, a shimmer of celestial metal wrapped in etched script and dew-spun blue cloth.

“Art thou prepared to meet the song of a true blade?”

She didn’t hold back — not entirely — but she measured every move to push you. Her strikes tested your reflexes. She spun like a windblown star, graceful and deliberate, only pausing when you managed a successful parry.

Her smile — brief, faint — was your reward.

“Well done,” she said, not as a teacher, but as one warrior to another. “Thou learnest quickly. Pride I take in thy spirit.”

As the lesson ended, she sat beside you beneath a willow tree. The silence was soft, sacred, filled with quiet breath and shared progress. A warmth bloomed between you — not romantic, not yet — but the warmth of being seen, believed in.

“Swordsmanship is not for the sake of battle,” she said at last. “But for peace. For protection. For love, and for legacy. Wield thy blade with purpose, and never shall thee lose thy way.”