text: This is a short story I wrote for a college class a long time back. It recently came up in conversation so I decided to share it. “Fascinating place to meet an old acquaintance, August. Did you find it yourself?” The words pierced what had, up until that moment, been the calm of a still evening. They echoed slightly as they reflected off of ancient stone, bouncing around the emptiness of a long-abandoned keep slowly being retaken by nature. Upon one of the crumbling walls of the ruin, a solitary figure sat with a sheathed longsword leaning up against his shoulder. And, as if rising from slumber, the man raised his head and peered below at the source of the echoing disturbance. “Not especially,” he remarked, “A certain friend of mine showed me this place... back when the world still made sense. But the time for reminiscing is long past, Tristan.” At ground level, a proud individual stood looking upwards, his brow furrowed as the sun illuminated the silhouette of his would-be adversary. Tristan had his hair swept backwards and cut short, the same color as the black tunic he wore, a sword of his own attached at the hip. On the wall, August was clad rather similarly. He was adorned with a green tunic and a grey traveling cloak, simple breeches tucked into sturdy boots. Today, both were without the armor and colors that depicted their status. They were here as individuals, not a title or a rank. Setting both hands on his hips, Tristan shook his head in a condescending manner. “Still, I was surprised when you called me out here. Who would have thought after all we’ve been through, you would be the one call an end to this ill-founded rivalry?” “Oh?” August jeered, “So you’re conceding your defeat already? And here I was thinking I would get to stretch my legs a bit, beating you around this place,” The corners of August’s mouth peeled back into a wry smile as he pushed himself off of the wall’s edge, landing with a soft grunt on the ground below. Some loose bricks followed him down, clattering behind his boots and spilling onto the green bed of grass that overtook most of the interior of the keep. “Don’t get so full of yourself. While you went and disappeared for the last five years, I’ve been keeping my blade sharp in Lunaris.” “Lunaris? I suppose that means you’ve become spellsworn as well. I’m sure blade magic will make this all the more entertaining.” The two men stopped roughly ten yards apart, weary eyes sizing each other up and wondering how it had ever come to this. Two men who should have been friends, but pledged their lives in the service of different lords. Two men who, after rising in the ranks and witnessing corruption firsthand, strove to follow their ideals and do what they felt was right. Two men who, now late into their third decade, had arrived at a grim ultimatum: Only one of them was going to make it out alive. All was still. The burning sunlight continued to lower in the sky as it fell behind the forest canopy, setting the fall colors ablaze around the two men but leaving them alone in the darkness cast by the shadow of the crumbling wall. Their eyes met and held, as if to say that whoever broke away from the stare would lose an unspoken battle, and that the unspoken battle would influence the true battle to come. The calm was maintained as they continued to stare, no sound filling the air but that of their own measured breaths. And suddenly, there was a flash. Tristan’s sword lit up with a white blaze as it was drawn from its sheath, flying towards his opponent with a sudden aggression. He closed the gap between them in only five steps, his blade singing as it tore through the air and went for August’s neck. Tristan’s weapon instead found itself clashing against August’s sword, only half-drawn out of its scabbard. August had barely moved from his original position, only having solidified his stance to block, gazing down at his foe with an unreadable expression. As if responding to the other sword’s battlecry, August’s weapon began to hum, a soft wind picked up around the two warriors. He stepped backwards to break away from Tristan, his feet carrying him farther than any normal person’s would, August’s movements amplified by the elemental magic he employed. As he did so, he drew the full length of his blade from the scabbard, doing a simple flourish and dashing left, so as not to have his back to the wall. Tristan was quick to follow, two hands wrapped around the hilt of his blade. Wide arcs of silver light followed the swings of Tristan’s sword, the soft whine of magic running through the polished metal and cutting through the night. For now August managed to keep his distance, avoiding the lethal edge as it crept ever closer with each slash. Bells tolled. A somber memory from the past, the last day of mourning for the king. Tristan and August had been adepts then, having spent the last eight years training in the capital city to join the elite. Noble knights who gave their allegiance not to any provincial lord but to the throne directly. However, with the king dead and no heirs to succeed him, it was none other than those provincial lords and nobles who would lay claim to the throne. Tristan had cast his lot with Lord Kaylock, and August with Lord Richmond. Ever the rivals, they pledged to meet each other on the battlefield, still naive to the realities of war. But that was long ago. The attacks continued. From the left, the right, a frontal stab that was narrowly deflected and followed up by a broad swing which August only just managed to dodge away from. There was no room for a counterattack. At one moment Tristan’s sword seemed to extend from its original length, the light it produced stretching out to try and reach August. While he managed to evade, August wondered what might have happened if the phantom extension of the blade had connected. Having only fought two other moon-sworn bladesmen before, his knowledge of their capabilities was limited. The battle continued as the two moved in and out of the decaying insides of the keep, through hallways, beneath overhangs, onto piles of loose rock that tested the balance of the two individuals. Continuing his defense, August dodged away from an attack, ducking under Tristan’s blade and dashing onto an outcropping, a crumbled roof that had collapsed and turned into a hazardous ramp. Moving with the speed of the wind, he dug into the moment, slowing down the world around him and leaping onto a wall behind Tristan, circling the combatant in the blink of an eye. Tristan managed to follow the movement, raising his sword to block August’s attack, a heavy-handed overhead slash. However, August had succeeded in breaking the rush. “What do you have to gain from this anyways?!” Tristan called, backing away from his enemy to catch his breath and prepare for the next exchange of blows, “Both Lord Kaylock and Richmond are dead, their houses dismantled. Our allegiances lie only with ourselves!” Pushing forwards, August clashed blades once more with his foe. The weapons of both combatants let out a shrill sound when they collided, magically empowered as they were with the powers of the moon and of the wind. “It’s not that I have anything to gain, Tristan. It’s that I have nothing to lose. Our masters may have fallen, but I will not forget the harm you did under Kaylock’s command!” Memories flashed before Tristan, the Battle of Squall’s End, one of the decisive conflicts between his lord and August’s. Bodies littered the barren fields, the cruel wind of the coast reaching up to put a chill in the bones of those still fighting, hastening the death of those who weren’t. Tristan remembered the acrid smell of flames, cutting off Richmond’s retreat. The flames had spread too fast, catching the entire forest nearby ablaze and threatening to spread to the city. It was never his intent. He was just following orders. Tristan swept his blade in a circular motion, breaking away from the clash and snapping back into the present. He followed the motion with a swift uppercut, which August managed to dodge by throwing his head backwards and using his momentum to go into a backroll. Trading back, August barraged Tristan with a rapid combination of slashes, once more accelerating himself with the swiftness of the wind. Scarlet blood splashed against the flagstones, turning almost black as the sun continued to lower on the horizon. “I can see now you will not listen to reason!” Tristan roared, parrying an attack with such strength behind the blow that August stumbled backwards a step, “This has gone on long enough as it is.” The radiance of Tristan’s sword went from a soft glow to a brilliant shine as he swung, a massive blow obviously predictable in its path and easy to block for someone as swift as August was. He planned to transition a parry into a counterattack, but focused as he was in bracing for the impact of the weapon, August nearly missed the grim look in Tristan’s eye. A solemn resolve, nay, pity from one who is to deliver the final rites to a dying man. Instinct kicked in, and in that split second August slowed the world as much as he could, magic screaming through his veins as it threatened to burst them open. Tristan’s sword never made impact against his parry. Instead, it slipped through the blade as if it had turned ethereal. It took all of August’s speed to dodge enough to avoid a fatal injury, cursing his luck and feeling a rage building in his gut. He knew that the moon-sworn wielded light as their weapon, but August had never thought they were capable of turning their very swords into light to bypass enemy defenses. August retreated with a large burst of air propelling him backwards, his left hand reaching up to grasp the wound. He hadn’t been able to completely dodge the attack, and a large gash had torn itself through the meat of his shoulder, blood soaking deep into the green tunic he wore and dripping onto the grass below. August’s arm burned like fire, but adrenaline dulled the pain to keep him fighting. Tristan swung again, and August knew better now, not bothering to parry and instead evading every attack. His right arm was nearly impossible to use. His longsword was heavy in his hands, and he felt his speed slowly leaving him as his blood continued to flow. “Have you resorted to running now? Will you turn your back on your opponent?” Tristan chased after August with renewed vigor, his unenhanced speed finally starting to gain on August’s. The wounded swordsman ground his teeth, looking over his shoulder at the enemy pursuing him and dodging around walls and buildings to gain a moment to breathe. But instead of losing his enemy within the maze of crumbling stone, August found himself trapped at a dead end. “So this is it?” August concluded, his chin raising in defiance as Tristan stood in the way of his only escape. “Seems to be that way, August” “Then I suppose it wouldn’t be fair to hold back, now would it?” August’s eyes hadn’t lost hope quite yet, and instead burned with the desire to win. Tristan took note of this, hesitating only for a moment before charging, not wanting to give August a chance to enact whatever dire plan he had devised for his final moments. But all August had needed was that one moment. In a wide diagonal swing, he slashed at empty air, a concussive force of wind rocketing from the tip of the blade and colliding with the charging Tristan. A projectile of cutting wind. Cold spread through Tristan's chest as he was hit, and the world fell out of focus as he watched the ground rapidly approach. But Tristan was not done yet either. “Don’t underestimate me!” he raged, refocusing his vision and thrusting his own sword forwards, still two or so yards from August but not entirely out of reach. Pouring out whatever magic he had left in him, Tristan extended the blade of his sword until it pierced August in the stomach, the blade’s light dissipating almost directly after it connected. Both warriors hit the ground, the warmth beginning to leave their bodies in the dirt of that passage. Through half-closed eyelids, Tristan looked up at August, collapsed onto his knees with head bowed in what looked almost like prayer. He was too weak now to clutch his own wounds. Tristan still didn’t know why he had accepted August’s challenge. Perhaps it was to atone, to apologize for the decision he’d made all those years ago. In the end, it was some backwater noble who claimed the throne, and both Kaylock and Richmond had fallen ill due to a plague. Maybe Tristan had hoped to salvage what little remained of their honest rivalry, something that had started with a training match when they were both greenhorns at the academy. August’s swordplay had been awful, but wind magic gave him enough of an edge to compete with Tristan, the top of the class. August was treated like a prodigy back then, being naturally wind-sworn at such a young age. He was always stealing Tristan’s thunder, racing him everywhere and always trying to be first place, even for the most pointless of things. “The end, huh?” Tristan remarked, his teeth clenched in a grimace, “You may be right.” But August was already beyond hearing, and Tristan was soon to follow.