5 Aloura

When Aloura finally came to consciousness, everything on her body hurt. She opened her eyes to stare at the familiar ceiling of her quarters in the academy. The light fading through the window to the right of her bed told her the sun was on its way down. It was morning when she arrived at the dueling circle.

How on earth had she ended up here? And why did everything hurt?

She sat up from the bed to the protest of her muscles and the pounding in her head and slid on her knee-high boots. She was still dressed in her uniform, which made things more confusing. She walked across the polished wood floor of her chambers and inspected herself in the wall mirror near the door. To her surprise and horror, a dark purple ring encircled one of her eyes, like someone had punched her. Her hair was tumbling out of its normally tight bun, and strands of it stuck to her forehead and cheeks with dried sweat. And her uniform was filthy with dirt and dust, especially on her back and legs.

And her sword was missing from its scabbard.

She'd been dueling with Stewart. That was the last thing she remembered. Which meant...

She raised her fingers up and gently touched underneath her eye and winced. That was either a punch or a handguard strike. Which meant he'd punched her in the face while they were sparring, and hadn't pulled it, either.

Oh, really.

She set her jaw, and glowered at her expression in the mirror. That old slob had been hiding his skill from her until she got cocky, and then caught her off guard. And now she would spend the next couple weeks dodging questions from the insufferable simpletons in her classes about what had happened to her. She had finally gotten them all to leave her largely well enough alone, and now....

She sighed in frustration and dropped her hand. This is not how she had expected this day to go. At all. And now, she had to change uniforms as well. How irritating. If she saw that balding loser again, she was going to punch him in his stupid smiley face. Would serve him right.

She walked to the dressing chest to the right of the mirror and pulled out a new set of slacks, a white shirt, and her spare jacket. As she set about disrobing, she tossed each piece of the dirty uniform in a pile on the floor to the left of the door. Someone else could deal with those. Her underpants wouldn't need changing, but the binding wrap on her chest was going to have to be rewound again before she got dressed. It was falling apart, probably from all of the exertion. She sighed again, and set about undoing and unraveling the long strip of linen, groaning as all of the fresh aches and bruises from her match made themselves obvious. With the wrap removed, she took a moment to inspect the damage.

Her ribs on both sides wore fresh bruises, and several more dotted the area above and around each breast. Apparently, Stewart had made a deliberate effort to not harm her womanly bits, because they seemed to be the only part of her that had managed to escape being beaten up. Typical.

She set about wrapping everything back up, binding them back into place so they didn't move uncontrollably with every step or swing. As she did so, wrap after wrap, she just didn't see what the big deal about them was.

What was it with everyone caring so much about breasts, anyways? She did not understand the appeal at all. Her sister made a great effort to display hers as prominently as possible, much to the excitement of drooling lordlings with more money than tact. It was disgusting how much she got away with by doing that.

Emilia, back when they used to live together, used to tell her that she envied her breasts for some reason.

Well, if it were possible for her to cut them off entirely and give them to her flouncy sister, she would have done so a long time ago. Maybe even in a gift-wrapped box with a bow to make things more formal. All the things ever did for her was get in the way of her forms, trap sweat underneath themselves so that her chest felt soggy for most of the day after a match, and get her undue attention from every man with a pulse and a working pair of eyes. Most infuriating of all, a decent number of her sparring partners wouldn't even fight her properly for fear of accidentally "damaging her femininity", like being feminine was even the slightest bit important in the grand scheme of things.

The most infuriating part about being a woman was that she had no one to complain to about it. Anyone who heard her would accuse her of wanting to be a man, or of hating her womanhood.

Except she didn't.

Was it really so hard to believe that she could enjoy being a woman, or want to be a woman, without her tits getting in the way or getting gawked at all the time?

She cinched the last wrap down and tied it off behind her, and made a few quick turns and bounces to ensure everything stayed in place. It wasn't her best work, but it would suffice. She didn't suspect she'd be spending any more time in the dueling circle today, so any small amount of shifting wouldn't likely be much of an issue. And it hid most of their profile, which was the second most important part.

With everything in place, she donned the rest of the uniform, smoothing and straightening until it fell in line, and set about tying her hair back again with a new length of cord from the dressing chest. It was long and flaxen like her father's, but a good bit thicker. Court custom and social pressure prevented her from just cutting the whole length off and keeping her head page-cut short, so she had to do the next best thing and keep it as far out of her way as possible. During days where she would be practicing or sparring, this meant a tight bun. During times where she would be free from combat training, a simple ponytail would suffice.

There were times she entertained the thought of just shaving it all off one day just to see her mother and sister lose their minds. Maybe she would, once she no longer had to see them consistently.

With everything now in order with her appearance that she could control, she glanced around the room again, but her sword was nowhere to be seen. If it was genuinely missing, the Marshal was going to make her life miserable for it. She'd made the mistake of misplacing it once before, and the resulting wind sprints and fencing drills had been enough to make her puke.

As she stood there, contemplating what to do next, a pair of heavy footfalls approached from down the corridor outside, before they stopped outside her door and someone knocked. Whoever it was could not be catching her at a worse time. Taking a deep breath and clenching her jaw, she walked to the door and snatched it open.

There, standing in front of her, looking very pleased with himself, was Stewart. He was holding her sword in his off-hand.

"Hiya!" He said with a cheerful wave.

Before she even realized what she was doing, Aloura punched the confused little man square in the nose and sent him stumbling backward several paces into the hallway wall behind him, where he dropped her sword to the floor with a clatter. Then, reaching down and picking up her sword, she slid it back into its scabbard with a snap.

Stewart groaned as he sat up and got his feet underneath him.

"Well, I suppose I deserve that." He said, pinching his nose to stop the flow of blood that dribbled in syrupy strings onto the floor. "Ow...."

"Thank you for returning my sword." She said curtly before turning to walk away. "Now if you will excuse me-"

"Hey wait! I came here to talk to you about something important." Stewart said nasally, reaching after her as he pinched his nose together with his other hand.

She turned and scowled at him.

"What do you want?"

He looked more than a little sheepish.

"Well, uh, can we talk in your room? What I need to tell you is best shared in private." He said.

"You want to be alone with a young girl in her own quarters without a chaperone. Do you have any idea the trouble I would be risking by agreeing to that, even if there was any chance I wanted to?" She said, crossing her arms.

"Yes, I can see that. But I am under express instructions by the Marshal to tell you directly. I have a writ somewhere here to that effect..." He said, patting around on various parts of his body until he found what he was looking for. He produced a small folded bit of parchment held closed by Marshal Blackburn's seal and held it out for her.

Looking at the piece of parchment with distrust, she took it and opened it. There, in plain wording, the Marshal's unmistakable handwriting gave clear permission for Stewart to deliver a message verbally and privately to her, in any location and by any means was deemed appropriate by the messenger. And there, at the bottom of the page next to his signature, was an explicit instruction to do as she was told.

Aloura looked up from the parchment and sighed.

"Alright then. My chambers it is."

She stepped to the side and motioned sarcastically with her hands.

"After you."

Stewart nodded, one hand still pinched around his nose as he shuffled past her into the bedchamber. Aloura cast a look down both directions of the hallway before following him in and shutting the door behind them.

Once they were both inside Aloura crossed her arms.

"Alright, we're alone. Speak." She said.

Stewart walked over to her bed and sat down. He pulled out a handkerchief from inside his tunic and blew his nose, wiping smears of bloody snot away from his face. Once he seemed satisfied, he tucked the handkerchief back into his tunic.

"Right, so, I suspect the Marshal would have conveyed this to you himself, had... circumstances resolved differently, but the news came right after you went unconscious, and he was called away because of it."

He cleared his throat and continued.

"Word has come that Holstein has been overrun by the Legion, and they are already marching south toward Adelrest." He said.

The words hung in the air between them for a moment. Aloura looked at him blankly.

"...What?"

Stewart sniffed and wiped his nose again.

"They'll reach the northern border by nightfall if the scouts' estimates are correct. And if they continue, they will be to the capital within a fortnight." He said as if he were telling her the weather.

Aloura said nothing, but walked to the window and looked out onto the gardens and streets below. The streets were filled with students and artisans returning to their homes from days of work and study, and faint trailing music rose and mingled from a pair of buskers playing outside one of the local taverns near the school grounds. In the distance, the fading sunlight reflected and shimmered off of the white stone of the capital's walls. What clouds there were shone pink and orange and gold, painting the sky with pastels that served as a background for small groups of seabirds flying to and fro from the harbor in the distance.

When she stood there and said nothing for a long moment, Stewart cleared his throat again awkwardly and continued.

"The news has not been made public as of yet, but the Marshal has already gone to meet with your father and the other members of the council to determine what to do next. I was instructed to inform you of this and escort you immediately home once you regained consciousness." He said.

"I don't need an escort home," Aloura said bluntly. She gave him a side-long glance. "Is that all you have to tell me?"

"Well, I know you don't NEED one, but-"

"Good. Then you understand not to press the issue." Aloura said, cutting him off. She turned and walked slowly towards the door.

"I trust you will be in the dueling circle tomorrow morning?" She said more than asked.

Stewart seemed taken off-guard by the question.

"Well, I hadn't-" He started clumsily.

"I begin training at sunrise, and my first duel is at 7 o'clock. I expect an opportunity to redeem my honor at that time, swordmaster." She said coolly.

She stopped in the doorway and cast a glance over her shoulder.

"Your lesson today was... quite instructive. I expect to learn a lot from you. Good day. And for your sake, I suggest you don't follow me home."

And with that, she stepped out of the room and shut the door behind her.