An Imperial Blessing

An Unexpected Visitor

School is just like any other kingdoms' school. It's boring, and it's pointless. At least to me. I always fell asleep during classes and then woke up confused. I wasn't dumb, but I wasn't the smartest kid in the class either. That role was reserved for Rothmir. The little prince of the kingdom who knows he's smart and decides to be an absolute prick about it. He's a kissass to the teachers and a showoff to all the girls. What's really sad is the king and queen are the two nicest people in the kingdom, it's a wonder how this jerk is their son. Either way, he's leagues ahead of everyone else because he has his own personal tutor. I could care less, either way, I'd rather stick to the drawings in my notebook. Perhaps if I took more notes and drew less I might do better but I don't care enough. School is just a chapter each day. It's what comes after school that really gets me going. Every boy in the kingdom has to train to be a knight once they hit the age of 14. I'm 16, so I've been at it for a while. With the loss of the Imperial Knights, the kingdom kind of has to have its own makeshift army to defend itself, but they are nowhere near as strong as the Imperial Knights were. Well, I guess I can't make that assumption yet, none of us have actually fought a Draken yet. The kingdom has us more as a last line of defense behind the wall, in the rare case that a Draken actually makes it through. They'll try to break it, and some have come close, but the wall is too strong. Nothuil says to not underestimate their power, and that one day the wall will break. But so far the wall seems to be holding strong so no one is really fazed by his warning.

Knight training normally starts with us putting on our suits of armor. We wear basic helmets and armor pieces with full chainmail. We normally use wooden longswords for sparring and practice. None of our actual longswords have been used because none of us have encountered Drakens yet. So far there are about 20 of us in training. There aren't many boys in the kingdom, and fully trained adult Knights go to guard the king and queen. The training school isn't anything flashy, just a basic stone building with a large arena in the center for sparring and maneuver runs. After we put on our armor we normally run through the Draken weak points. We only know of a few from Nothuil: the chest, the lower back, and the back of the head. One could argue these are trivial weak points, but according to Nothuil, they're harder to find than we think. We kind of have to take his word on this since we've never seen a Draken before. Nothuil pretty much only gave us that. He never comes to the training school. As I said, he kind of just chills in his house. Anyway, after we go over weak points we learn a few new moves. Today we were learning how to do crushing counterstrikes. Each of us grabbed our wooden longswords by the blade in a technique called half-swording. We waited for our partner to throw an overhead strike and blocked and attacked all in one swift movement like our instructor showed us. It was a difficult maneuver, but it proves to be effective when done right. We continue our repetition for a good hour and a half and then take a break. It was at this moment something very unexpected happened. Nothuil actually came to the training school. We were standing there drinking our water from the bowl when he walked through the tunnel to the arena floor. He immediately went over to our instructor who looked just about as stunned as we were. He must have asked him to speak in private because our instructor told us he'd be back in a minute and the two of them left. "What is that all about?" said a voice from across the arena. I looked over to my right and saw my friend Soltar walking over towards me.

"I don't know," I replied. "I guess it's something important if Nothuil came here to do it".

"Yeah, it's almost like the guy got bored of being inside his house all the time and decided that it was time for his old joints to be loosened up a bit," said Soltar.

Soltar was a smartass, always cracking jokes, and always being a tad less respectful than everyone else. But he was a good fighter and his heart was in the right place. That and he was my best friend. I had known him for basically my whole life. We lived right next to each other.

"Soltar, watch what you say about Nothuil, or he might kill you himself," I said.

"Oh please, the man can barely walk over to the well to get his water," replied Soltar.

Soltar and I just stood there conversing while the other kids around us did the same. We were all thrown off by Nothuil's appearance so we didn't exactly know what to do besides wait for the two of them to come back. After about an hour of standing, they finally returned. Nothuil left almost as soon as he came, but our instructor stood there appearing shocked, standing in front of all of us who were all eager to hear what had happened.

"Nothuil has come with a proposal, he will be returning tomorrow to tell the rest of you. In the meantime, I recommend you all go home and get some rest. You all worked hard today and you'll need your strength tomorrow," said our instructor.

What could he have been talking about? What proposal? It was rare for Nothuil to come out of his house, and even more rare to come out here. Whatever this proposal was it must be an important one. Soltar and I walked back to our houses. I went up to my bedroom to get ready to go to sleep. It took me a while to actually get to sleep because all I did was ponder what the proposal was. I guess I'll have to find out tomorrow.