Lissa.

Many children, when they are young, have fantastic ideas about what they want to do when they are older. Ask a five year old, and they will say they want to be the Hero that defeats the Devil King, or they want to be the next Archmagi. Of course, nearly all grow up live perfectly normal, productive, lives. Carpenters, farmers, maybe the lucky ones get to be adventurers or even a knight, or a mage.

I never had any doubt. From the first moment I had a cohesive thought, I knew I would be serving the Blessed Mother. 

My father, when I eventually proclaimed this at age five, was torn. He was a merchant, with a thriving business, and had wanted me to take over when he was older. However, he was also aware that such a proclamation from one so young probably meant the Blessed Mother had chosen me, and it was never a good idea to go against a goddess, especially one as powerful as the Her, so his dilemma.

That ended though, with the birth of my younger brother. Now my father had someone to pass the business down to, leaving me free to follow the path destined.

We lived in Freehaven, a country run by the High Trio, three men and women who were elected by council vote on a regular basis. The country was not as big as others, but it was stable and wealthy, having a good amount of resources and land to grow food. We were by the sea, and had a strong navy, as well as a well-run, modern army to defend our borders. 

My family was decently wealthy, which meant I attended a respectable school, where I studied hard. Overall, I was a good student, and fairly popular with my peers.

Alongside that, I took to visiting our local temple, where I was immediately welcomed by the Mother Superior. No doubt she saw the mark of the Blessed on me, and knew I would be joining the order when I was a little older. I took to doing tasks around the temple, and learning how things worked, as well as a few basic prayer-incantations, all of which came very naturally to me.

One day at school, when I was about ten years old, I realised that I was looking at a new girl in our class with feelings I'd not encountered before. Others in my year had already had brief flirtations with boys, but I had never even really noticed them, despite one or two being friendly towards me.

I suddenly realised that I liked this girl in a way that most girls liked boys. And then it struck me that all at the temple were women. Men were not even allowed in most parts of the buildings there. In the more private areas, when I had been cleaning, I'd even seen some of the sisters holding hands.

Thus emboldened, for if the Blessed condoned it, it couldn't be wrong, I, rather shyly, approached this girl, whose name I can't even remember now. She rebuffed me quickly and decisively, and I retreated, red in the face and upset.

However, later on, as I was walking home alone, she appeared next to me. Hustling me into a small side alley where no one could see, she pinned me against the wall and treated me to my first real kiss. I thought my heart would explode! Then she grinned at me, gave my developing chest a quick grope, and ran off.

And that was how my first relationship went. We would meet in private, she was very specific about that, and fumble around, experimenting. 

That lasted, maybe, six months, and then her family moved, and she left the school with barely a word. It took me a while to recover. 

Recover I did though, I was still young after all. I did eventually have a proper relationship with another girl, Amanda, who was several years older than me, when I was about thirteen, just before I joined the temple. She was the one who taught me the pleasures of the flesh. 

When I joined the order, we broke up. Neither of us were that upset, it had been a light and fun relationship, there was never any chance of it becoming something more, and we even remained friends.

After that, I threw myself into the routines of the temple, learning the ways of Mother, and was soon acknowledged as one who had been Chosen. As such I was given advanced training and, when I was fifteen – the age of adulthood – I was sent on my first solo mission.

It wasn't anything hard, just a routine exorcism of a young lad who was being troubled by a vengeful spirit. I dispelled the thing fairly easily, and returned to report my success. The Mother Superior simply nodded at my excitement, smiling gently. It had been a simple task of course, but to me it was a major milestone, and she was kind enough to recognise it.

So I advanced. And now I was given some weapons training too. Not enough to fight off anyone really good of course, but enough to hold my own if needed. Of course, most of the time I could use the powers granted to me by the Blessed, but as Mother Superior said, it was always good to be prepared.

I wasn't prepared really though. One day I was travelling through the land of El, to the north, when my small group was attacked by bandits. We only had a single professional fighter with us as a guard, and so it was down to me, another novice on only her second mission, and a servant to try and fight off the other two attackers.

I managed to put one down with a spell, but the other, a large man with good sword skills, quickly ran our poor servant through, and was about to take out the novice when he was attacked from behind.

Our saviour was a woman not far off my age. Right from the moment I saw her, bright green hair tied in long braids, leather armour gleaming, thrusting her shining sword deep into our ambushers body, I knew she was the one for me.

She helped fight off the other attackers, there were only two left at that point, and then, after wiping the blood off her sword on one of the bodies, approached me and gave a low bow.

"Blessed," she said. "My name is Rath, are you injured?"

"Thank you Rath," I said, with a gleam in my eye. "Sadly, our assistant has been killed." I had checked whilst the fighting was wrapping up. "However, Novice Celia and I are fine. Do you have any wounds? Please, let me heal them."

"Only a minor thing, please heal your guard first."

Blushing at such an oversight, I nodded and rushed over to our escort, who had a variety of fairly small wounds, which I healed easily. After he thanked me, I asked him to tend to our dead friend, and returned to Rath.

"Where are you injured?" I asked.

She held out her arm, which had a fairly long slash along it. 

"Oh, that's quite serious," I said, shocked. She must have lost a fair amount of blood. Quickly, I called on the Blessed Mother and healed it. 

"That is so much better," she said, faintly. "Could have used that trick a few times before. Oh, I need to sit…"

And so Rath joined our group as we travelled. She explained she was a freelance mercenary at a Weapon Master level of skill, which was very impressive for someone her age. I offered to pay for her escorting us, but apparently the local lord had already hired her to go after the bandits, who had been plaguing the area. Usually the local troops would have dealt with them, but El at that time was involved in skirmishes with their neighbour to the west, Reinhart, and troops were concentrated there.

Our trip lasted several days, and by the time it came to part, I was totally smitten with Rath. Having taken her into the bushes on the second day for a private talk, and then quite a few times after that, not so much for talking those times. I was fairly certain she felt the same way as I did.

So, when it came time for her to report back to the one that had hired her, I accompanied her. It wasn't far out of our way in any case, and our quest wasn't so urgent. 

Once she had reported in, and collected her fee, she rejoined us for the rest of my mission, and then returned to Freehaven with us, saying that she had heard of a few mercenary jobs down there that sounded interesting anyway. Just an excuse of course, but I was very happy to hear it.

One thing led to another, and in a little over a year we were married in the temple by the Mother Superior herself. 

After a short time, we decided to move north, to Rath's home in El, and from there we both managed to find positions on the Silfen Academy, which is where we decided to have a child.

Sisters of the Blessed do not lie with men, but we can still have children with our partners thanks to a special Divine prayer-incantation. Such a thing, though, does not mean that the pregnancy will be special, or even have a better chance of coming to term, and I was worried for my baby when he was born. The poor chap was weak and sickly, and we both feared he wasn't going to make it.

However, the Blessed Mother works in mysterious ways. After one day he suddenly lost all traces of ill health and became a fit, healthy and strong baby boy. 

That being said, I still worried about him. Theo, as we named him, hardly ever cried. He looked at you as though he was judging you, and he learned to walk remarkably quickly. We soon we realised how special he really was, after he taught himself to read! He also held conversations calmly, as if he were an adult. And then there was the whole enormous mana thing. 

But even with how strange he was, he was our boy, and we both loved him with all our hearts.

Hence, when our wagon was attacked on the way home, Rath, who had heard the attackers approaching, slid into the forest and hid as they made themselves known to me. 

I pushed Theo back, and told him to hide in the rear, whilst I heard their demands. They were the usual, and the thieves were no more than your basic thugs either. As much as I am not a fighter, I could have taken them out on my own fairly easily.

Still why deprive Rath of her fun? She soon came at them, and ripped through them like I knew she would.

Then, to my alarm, I detected a huge release of mana from behind! Did they have a mage with them? I turned, only to see Theo on the floor, moaning and holding his head.

"Sweetie!" I cried, leaving Rath to deal with the bandits. "What's wrong?"

"I fell and bumped my head," he moaned.

"Don't worry, we'll soon fix that." I cast a quick healing spell on him, and, once he was sitting up again, and I was sure he was all right, took a look out of the rear of the wagon. There was a fresh gash of earth running along the road, as if a giant dragon had torn it up. But other than that, nothing.

Rath poked her head in. "What happened there?" she asked.

I shook my head. "I'm not sure we want to know. Are we all clear?"

My wife smiled, that gleaming white smile that I love. 

"I was just warming up, and then there were none left!"

I looked back at our son, who was sitting up and muttering to himself.

"I don't think you need worry. I have a strong feeling there will be a lot more action to come."