Osei’s focus narrowed down to his opponent, watching the young half-elf shift from foot to foot, sizing him up with the trepidation of a novice still learning how to use their first blade.  He was aware of the square around him, the burble of the fountain and the call of the tinker peddling his wares, the heat of the day beating down on his chain-clad shoulders and the sweat creeping down his spine.  But all of that was secondary to the scrape of Rhiannon’s feet across the dirt, her quiet inhale as she tried to psyche herself up for the confrontation.

At last, she lunged, but not without doubting and changing the trajectory of her strike.   Osei had the clarity of purpose and the skill to pull a feint off; Rhiannon was just blundering.  

He sidestepped, parrying her uncertain blow.   He wrenched his her weapon from her hands with a casual flick of his wrist, an infuriating smile dancing across his face.  Rhiannon’s staff sailed through the air and clattered down to the dusty cobblestones.  Rhiannon stared at him, brown eyes wide with dismay.

“Commit to the strike,” he scolded, advancing on the young elf.  “Choose it.  Hesitation will only get you killed.”

He saw her eyes go to the staff, lying only a few paces from her, and back to Osei.  He knew the questions flickering through her mind; she’d seen him fight, she knew he was quick.  But she would be thinking that she was quicker, by nature; she was smaller, slimmer, with an elf’s dexterity.

The calculation cost her any hope.  Osei closed the distance between them just as she began to move towards the staff, and caught her across the chest with his staff, sending her sprawling back into the dust.

The instinct to finish the fight, to close distance again and ram his blade into her chest, beat through his blood.  But threaded through the muscle memory was something else; the quiet hum of his soul-born greatsword, the edge always in the back of his mind.  It was not speaking in the voice of a battle, the kean of death and hunger it took up when he fought in earnest, but only a hum of pride, along with a tinge of unease to be parted from him, even briefly.

The sword’s hum was enough to dispel the moment of irrational instinct.  Above all else, the Musani taught their disciples to master themselves; unlike many of his brothers and sisters, that particular lesson had never posed Osei much problem.

He stood down, leaning on his staff for a moment and wiping sweat from his brow.  Rhiannon looked flustered, and tired, but not at all fearful; she hadn’t noticed his slip at all.  Good.  “You’re not listening to me,” he said, with cocky smile.  “The distracted sparrow is the first to be snatched up by the owl, you know.”

Rhiannon grit her teeth, pulling herself to her feet.  She looked none the worse the wear for her tumble; Osei’s strike, too, had been calculated.  It wasn’t the first time he’d trained younger warriors.

Though…  When he tried to think of it, he could feel the weight of a practice sword in his hand, and the frustration of stubborn pupils, but their faces were gone, their names lost to him.  He shook his head, focusing instead on the pupil glowering in front of him.

“Don’t start with that,” she growled, snatching up her staff.  Staff was giving the bamboo shafts a bit more dignity than they deserved, but the daughter of an apothecary wasn’t bound to have any proper bokken on hand, and bamboo had been the best Osei could scrounge up on short notice.  “I am listening!  You’re just too damn fast.”  She eyed him up and down, from the tips of his curled horns to his fine leather boots.

Osei snorted.  In the back of his mind, his greatsword snarled in frustration at this novice’s ignorance. “A slow fighter is a dead one,” he said.  “You’ve seen me fight before, you know my skill.  It’s always remember what you know of your opponent- any scrap of knowledge could give you an edge.”  He tossed her his staff.  “But don’t let overthinking trip you up.  The most important thing in a fight- as in all things- is choosing a course of action and committing to it.”  She caught the staff, only fumbling a little, and gave him a strange look.  He continued with a smile she couldn’t see.  “Flee or fight, block or parry, feint or strike; know that you always have a choice, and make it.”

“That’s obvious,” she said, spinning the staffs experimentally.  “I mean, life is made of choices.  When don’t you make a choice?”

“When you let panic- or any other emotion- force you into an action,” Osei said, walking to the fountain.  He lifted his mask for a moment to splash water on his face.  He could feel Rhiannon’s curious gaze following him.  Even with the long youth of a half-elf, it was unlikely she had seen many aasimar before.  Let alone an aasimar like him.  “For example, like you just did.  Coming at me wildly, because you panicked.”  He wiped his face and eased the mask back into place, before turning back to his pupil.

“You waited too long, and then you panicked.  That’s not making a choice; it’s letting something else make the choice for you.  If you let something else make your choices, and don’t choose your path yourself, you will lead yourself to ruin.”

She rolled her eyes, but her expression was thoughtful.  Osei smiled, again phantom half-memories of the monastery blooming in the back of his mind.  It was strange; it felt like a place of his past, of distant memories, though it had not been so long since he had been cast from its walls to prove his worth.  The memories had a… distant quality, though they were so intertwined with identity that he could not help but relate everything he encountered in the outside world back to the monastery.  And yet… he did not even know where it was.  

He shook the thought away, and glanced up at the sky.  The sun was beginning to sink downward the center of the sky, the shadows of the square reaching out to touch the fountain and the sparring pair.  He had promised the others in the Red Sand Brigade he would meet with them at the gates by sundown.  “I’ve some errands to run before my brigade sets out,” he said, gathering his pack and arms from where he had left them during the impromptu sparring sessions.  “And you’d best be getting back to your father.  Not before you give me my payment, though.”

It hadn’t been difficult to bribe Osei to give her a lesson or two in blades.  The girl had been following on his heels ever since he’d bartered for a few potions from her father; she hung around the Orphan’s practicing grounds, watching his company spar and listening the the old veterans bluster about wars come and gone. Others might have found her interest irritating, but there was an earnest hunger in her that spoke to something in him.  The same ache that was with him always; the drive to be sharper, stronger, match the power he had broken his soul to lay hands on.

“Of course,” Rhiannon was already reaching into her bag.  She withdrew two large vials, full of golden liquid that seemed to catch and hold the afternoon sunlight.  She lobbed them overhand at Osei, recklessly.  Just to see if he could catch them, by the glint in her eye.

He did, of course, and tucked them away.  “Thank you.”

He belted on his sheathed greatsword, feeling a familiar hum of contentment in the back of his mind as his fingers brushed the fine leather of its crossguard.  Some would call that foolish, leaving so fine a weapon, his very livelihood, out in the open when he was distracted.  But not even the most enterprising thief could steal this sword.  It would melt to shadow in his hands.

He felt eyes on him, and glanced up to see Rhiannon watching him from the fountain.  Her eyes gleamed at the sight of the sword, sharp and hungry.  He grinned back.

“You know, you wouldn’t have been moving so quickly if you’d been wielding that instead of a bamboo stick,” she called.

Osei smirked.  “You want to bet on that?” he said, drawing the sword.  Before she could reply, he moved through the first few motions of his practice forms, swinging the massive metal blade as if it were nothing more than a shadow

That was all it truly was; shadow given shape and form by the cleaving of his own soul.

He finished the set with a flourish, allowing the silvery runes engraved along the blade to catch the afternoon sunlight.  In the back of his mind, he felt a flicker of reproach at the unnecessary showmanship of it all.  He shoved the thought away; it was educational for the girl.

Rhiannon’s mouth hung open for a moment, and then she laughed, a bright, cheerful sound that rang around the square.  “Now you’re just showing off.”  She folded her arms, regarding him with an expression that brought to mind some of the masters back in the monastery.  “That’s not very disciplined.”

Osei scoffed.  “Who are you to tell me about discipline?” he said, slipping the greatsword back into its scabbard.  “It will be a long time before you’d be ready to even take on a pikeman.”

“But you’ll show me?” Rhiannon said, her eyes gleaming.  “You’d teach me?”

Another clever remark sprung to Osei’s lips, some idiom his swordmaster had been fond of, something about false idols.  But the words were carried away in the wave of hunger that swept over him.  For a moment, it felt like a fever, like nausea crawling up his throat, like an itch prickling under his skin, like the thirst born of a week’s travel in the deserts.  His sword hummed under his fingers, hummed through his blood, speaking of conquest and a need with an edge so sharp it had sunken into his soul and could never be removed.

Osei knew this feeling.  It was the hand of destiny itself, wrenching his attention away from the meaningless and setting him on the path to something greater.

He turned away from Rhiannon, and just barely caught sight of her.  A figure slipping through the intersection, cloaked in the scarlet of a cleric of some breed.  A sham.  He could see the way the mace she carried hummed on her back, the way it shone black in the sun.  A piece of shadow, a piece of soul.

The only remedy for the hunger thrumming through him with every beat of his pulse.

He took a step towards the intersection, his hand tightening on the hilt of his greatsword.

“Master Osei!” Rhiannon called, but the word meant nothing more to him than any other.  Everything else was preparation, and distraction; the moment had come for him to begin proving himself.  To take the first step back towards the monastery and remembering.

“Osei!”

There was a hand on his shoulder.  He swung around, a snarl on his lips, his hands ready to pull the greatsword from his scabbard.  The sword hummed with hunger, with the anger of a starving thing denied all that would save its life, and it wanted nothing more than to strike down the interloper trying to interfere with his hunt.

Then, suddenly, it was Rhiannon staring up at him, terror written across her face.  His blade drawn, ready to strike.

If you let something else make your choices, and don’t choose your path yourself, you will lead yourself to ruin.

He blinked.  What was he doing?  His brigade was waiting for him, he had responsibilities, he wasn’t prepared for a fight… and yet here he was, about to strike down this girl because she had had the nerve to ask him what the hell he was doing.

Because she was standing between him and destiny.

Osei pushed that thought away, sheathing his sword with shaking hands.  Rhiannon was pale, but either she was overly fond of him or the horror clawing at his chest was written across his face too.  “A-Are you alright?” she asked, taking a step back.

He let go of the hilt of his sword, and glanced back towards the intersection.  The other acolyte was gone.  But if he walked that way, he would find her.  His sword hummed that certainty through his skull.  It was his destiny.

But his new companions were waiting at the gate, and there was so much still to learn.  If he abandoned them now, on the eve of their new mission, they may not accept him back.  Assuming he survived his encounter with the other acolyte.

A choice.