So Perfectia Dawnlight (Me) of the houses of Dawnstar Village, daughter of Kel’Donas Dawnlight, a noble of Dawnstar houses, my mother, and a commoner high elf named Lachance, my father. This is my sour attempt to write an autobiography from the start to finish and in 22 years of being here I don’t think it shouldn’t be too long, but I’m a little surprised that my self-deprecating introduction filled out as many pages as it did.
So my father was a librarian as I remember back then. As far back as I can remember I was waited on hand and foot by servants and slaves that spoiled me, and I was very starved for attention. I remember tantruming, breaking things, making impossible orders to slaves, and telling on them to servants and butlers because my mother was extremely distant with me and as was my father, I didn’t know what he was at the time and neither did he. I was called the bastard child she decided to keep but my mother said she gave me the name Perfectia for within the moment I was born she could never imagine a more perfect moment. When I was dipped in the Sunwells water I was told that my eyes glowed like a thousand suns. Perfect was the only way she could describe it and as relatives gave her a list of names she paid little attention to them and Perfectia just kind of stuck. I still remember those conversations when I was three, when my mother was my entire world and she couldn’t be more grateful to have me in her life. I think I was “good” then.
I still remember being small, barely able to walk and scaling the walls as I walked around curiously. My mother’s beautiful blonde curled hair that bounced like springs as I pulled them, her light blue glowing eyes, and me wanting to be carried, whenever I would let her. For so long I remember feeling like a sacred possession she refused to put down or let anyone touch. I walked with her, I drank with her, I took in the Sunwells magic with her, and as far back as I can remember I shared the same bed with her. Even though I remember seeing people bring gnome tech strollers, my mother always held me in her arms or at the very most kept me on her back when she was on a mount. She did put me down sometimes, but I was never away from her worried gaze as I played with or tried to play with other children, but I got a lot older and started talking for myself. I saw other kids not just with mothers, but fathers as well, they picked up their children the same way my mother did. They had this feeling of protection, but it wasn’t over protective like my mother’s was, mothers seem to be rested, content, and nurturing. I asked my mother what a daddy or father was in a way a two in half year-old child could, with a lot of pointing and “What mommy?”
I remember my third birthday very clearly. I had aunts, uncles, handfuls of cousins, and most of them were old, but there were a few newborns as well. All of us had the word “Dawn” somewhere in our last name; Dawnbreaker, Dawna, Dawnsong, Dawnridge. Most of us had blonde hair but there were some lighter reds in the bunch too, but blacks and browns were usually seen from servants and slaves, but there were a few noble houses that had black hair but no one that was in my family.
It was somewhat of the first time I really had eaten anything, but the food platter that was given to us was all sweets and assorted fruits, and then there were the colors. Almost like a stream of greens, blues, and oranges, that wanted to dance in front of me like streams of curious snakes. My mother sat next to me and asked, “Do you like the fruit Perfectia?”
Somewhat distracted trying to grab the images in front of me I shook my head, “Do you not like the taste.” She asked. Taste, that was a familiar sense but only when it came to the touches of magical objects or spells. The things that smelled just smelled. The oranges smelled like oranges. The grass smelled like grass, the smell of burnt wood smelled like burnt wood, but that feeling on the tongue was only intensified by things of a magical sort, not food. If I closed my eyes and put something in my mouth I would barely taste anything, just texture and a sinking feeling down my throat. I decided that I didn’t like this feeling, it made my mother worried seeing me try to grab things that weren’t there.
Synesthesia it was called but for the most part with this special occasion it was the first time I ate anything, so it was never brought up again. As a High Elf living so close to the Sunwell, there was never a need to eat for nourishment; just reasons to stay hydrated and the Sunwell produced its own water.
A few months after my third birthday I was talking a lot more, asking my mother questions more and more about the males in my family. Why did most kids have two people taking care of them only to get back small sentence responses like, “He’s not here.” or “He’s away.” Then one morning she was gone, not gone like I never saw her again. We just had a morning routine of going to the Sunwell, going to a park, and then some kind of educational class where I would be working with a teacher that would watch me play with toys or show me letters in the process of teaching me how to read. There was a black-haired servant I didn’t know at the time and neither did he, but he was my father, and he was a lot more distant than my over protective mother. He didn’t hold me for more than a minute and while in class rooms he would sit there filing his nails or doing something with his hair. That day I didn’t see my mother until nightfall and I told her that I missed her and didn’t like this Lachance person. He shrugged dismissively and said, “You hired me to clean and find you new books for your library, not look after your child.”
My mother Kel’Donas looked at him, sighed, and shook her head.
“You’re not going to fire me, are you? I did everything you asked, she’s not hurt, I kept her safe. ‘guarded her with my life’ like you said.” He explained.
“No.” She said dismissively, “I’m putting you on assignment, there’s some books in Kul Tiras I need from Daelin Proudmoore and he wrote to me that his next book is almost complete. Also, he needs some of mine. If his book isn’t complete, stay there and assist him until it is. I want the first copy that comes out of the press.”
"That’s halfway across the planet. Without the Sunwell… "
Mother interrupted, “There are mana potions you can buy, and you can sustain yourself with ‘normal food’. Besides, it’s not like you NEED the Sunwell to keep yourself going.”
Servants and slaves couldn’t use any forms of magic. Mother handed Lachance a pile of papers and he left for his assignment. She bent down to me and said, “I’m sorry Perfectia, but mommy needs to work now, but don’t worry, I’ll fix this.”
After that day I never knew I could miss my mother’s over protective nature, those prying eyes, and those defensive stances that scared even the most arrogant of nobles away. Things without her weren’t bad but if I was far away I would hear her running toward me. If I looked around because I thought I had lost her, she would wave to reassure me. While Lachance may have shot a glance at me to make sure I was okay, he was more interested in his own thoughts or speaking to what he might have thought were single mothers or lonely housewives. Working with educators, he only spoke in dismissive grunts and shrugs. I didn’t tell my mother anything else or he would have been fired, but I wondered when my mother was going to come by our house most of the day. That first day with only spending time with servants was the most painful, I thought she died, even with people reassuring me that she was just working. That anger, that rage, was foreign at the time, but it was so painful to hold it in and I didn’t know how to let go of it and I remember sleeping in our bed alone terrified for the first night.
The second day of waking up without my mother in my bed, the rage found an outlook, of screaming, crying, and breaking things. The whole day was a literal wrestling match to get me to dress, eat, bathe, and stay quiet. I remember screaming for my mother that whole day and I wouldn’t listen to the excuses that she was busy, working, or not there. She finally came back a little before sundown, but only to tell me that she was disappointed in my behavior and I would be sleeping in my own room from then on. The second night wasn’t terrifying, but I felt completely abandoned.
From the time I was five, I had two to seven servants escorting me around the Sunwell Plateau. Also, on the occasion I would see my mother, I would say which servant I liked, which servant I didn’t like, and which educator was boring, mean, or ugly. How I didn’t like the way a certain servant dressed me, or carried me, or fed me, or just simply was not listening to my needs. Some of the servants said ‘no’ to me in spite of my yelling, pestering, or tantruming, I usually didn’t see them again. But it wasn’t just servants and slaves whose lives I made a living hell. The kids I saw got a big chunk of my personal terror that I could inflict in parks and businesses. Even at the Sunwell I was avoided, and that just made me angrier. I wanted them to do what I said, play the games I wanted to play. If they had toys I wanted I would take them, if a child my age was doing something that got attention, I wanted them to stop, and if they retaliated physically as some of the bigger kids do… Well, I never saw them again. There were so many bad days and I was barely ever content when things didn’t go my way. I saw my mother less and less and soon educators were eventually replaced with entertainers, clowns, jugglers, players, and toy makers. The more days I spent being entertained the more of a harsh critic I became. I had an edge on the playground when I talked about what my “school” was like to the other kids, they started wanting to be my friend. Lot of them started listening to me, knowing that if they played with me they would be rewarded. The shows and level of entertainment their parents couldn’t provide. Friends were also allowed to talk to my servants the way I did, getting what they wanted for a while. They were in my company and that was nice for a little while. Until other parents started saying no, because they were mirroring my behavior. That’s when the direct insults started flying– bastard child, royal brat, corrupted princess, every now and then a servant would step in before things got physical with parents, but a couple of times I got slapped in the face hard. The first few times I told my caregiver, my mother wasn’t around enough to listen to all my complaints when things got physical with grownups. Just like the kids, I never saw the parents again, but that also meant that I didn’t see the friends I wanted to play with. And then later I wasn’t allowed to go to the park or play with other kids again. When in the Sunwell, if I saw parents and children, they would avoid me like I had a plague and I heard the term ‘Terror of the Sunwell’ thrown around more than a few times.
Things were lonely and keeping me locked up with whatever toys I wanted seemed like the best option. Not just because I would break things and try to hit people, but also my rage and tantrums would cause me to hurt myself. I would scream, hit my head against things, and scratch myself. That pretty much stopped my ‘teachers’ from wanting to be near me regardless of how much they were paid. A few times they were blamed for the damages I self inflicted on myself.
There was a time when small baby animals might keep my interest and yes for a time they were cute and cuddly, and it was entertaining to watch them eat and play, but the moment I stepped in a pile of their feces I didn’t want them anymore. Usually I threw them outside of the Sunwell Plateau where they might have found new families, were eaten by predators, or brought back to me. From there I usually kept them in a small room or tied to a chain farther outside until they starved to death.
Few of their corpses were brought back to the estate, one of them was taken to my mother. A black and white cat that kept getting thrown in my room like garbage. It was the partial cat that liked to defecate right on top of my writing desk. The chaining of animals outside was something I usually did with dogs, but this cat was fed by the servants and slaves, so it kept coming back and getting tossed in my room while I was asleep. I woke up before anyone was up, trapped it in a blanket, and tied it to a chain and tree and left it there.
After not seeing my mother for more than five minutes a day for a whole year she confronted me with this and threw the dead cat at my feet. “Well?” She stated angrily.
I looked in the bag and saw the blank dead eyes, and she smelled like rotting meat. I rolled my eyes and looked at her, “It scratched me.” I said blankly.
“So you killed it?” She asked.
“I never wanted it, but it kept coming back, so I made sure that it didn’t.”
She looked at me in disbelief, “I’ve heard some disturbing rumors about you, Perfectia. Would you care to read the letters I’ve received from your cousins?”
I shrugged.
She handed me a piece of paper, “Read it out loud.” She ordered.
“Perfectia Dawnlight is such a sweet and charming girl we wish you would bring her by so she can come to all of our parties.” I read.
“You think that’s funny!?” My mother stood up from her writing desk and snatched the parchment away.
I knew that look, it was the same look grownups gave me before they were about to hit me. I remember the first time someone hit me; it hurt so badly that I cried, but later I found that that parent was arrested because of my family. The next time someone hit me, I accepted the pain, without tears knowing full well that before it happened and after it happened, they had just signed their own death warrant. “That’s what it says.” I said dismissively looking at her, baiting her like I had the other parents on the playground, a faint smile crept on the side of my face.
My mother looked at me suspiciously, “Read it again, sound it out Perfectia, slowly.”
I didn’t understand what that meant, I had seen letters before, I even knew what they were all called. I could write my own name and could even recognize it if I saw it, but I had no idea what the concept of phonics was. She walked toward me slowly, I looked at her with a sense of anger, narrowing my eyes, I tightened my jaw, readying for the swift slap across my face, jaw, or head. She picked me up and sat me down on her writing desk, put me on her lap, dropped her quill in ink, and gave it to me. "Perfectia I want you to write a letter A. ‘’ Her voice was distorted like she was about to start crying.
I did as I was told for the first time in a long time, “Now what sound does the A make?”
“I don’t know.” I stated.
“I’ve spent so much time with that child prodigy…” I barely heard her whisper that.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing…” I heard her sniff and I felt a tear fall on the back of my head. “We’re moving to Silvermoon city tomorrow.” she stated.
She ran me through all the letters one by one and I wasn’t sure if someone had said them to me or maybe I had forgotten. Reading was something I hated but we made it all the way to the J’s before I was too tired to continue.
I was six at the time and I didn’t know or really care about what my mother did that kept her away from me for almost three years, but there we were taking a boat across the water to the big High Elf city of Silvermoon. From what I heard, most of the entertainers that would come by had been from there, but not all of them were High Elves. My mother told me I was going to go to a school and would only be taking short trips back to the Sunwell Plateau if I was sick or injured. “What about grandpa and all my cousins?” I asked.
My mother rolled her eyes, sighed, and shook her head, “You have a few here and besides, did you really see many of them when we were back home?”
I thought back and the only time I could remember seeing any of them was during my birthdays, “Not really.” I answered. “Are we going to still have servants?”
My mother laughed, “Maybe, but not as many as before and you’re going to have to start being nicer to them from now on.”
“I’m always nice to servants, mommy.” I argued.
My mother looked at me suspiciously, “When have you ever been nice to servants, Perfectia?”
“I let them sleep and eat in our great house.” I recited.
“Where did you hear that?” She asked.
I looked at her. “Grandpa.”
She looked away from me and chuckled at the thought, “We will most likely not have servants. I will be changing you from now on.”
So, we had a single bedroom apartment where we kept most of the clothes and linen with a bed and a writing desk. The living room was mostly kept to me where all my toys and collectibles were. School was a place with kids without parents with one grownup telling everyone what to do. It was uncomfortable to say the least, especially since my name didn’t have the same pull as it did on the Sunwell Plateau, but it was good because the teacher didn’t once try to hit me or call me names. If I threw a tantrum the class would continue, or I would be sent outside. I did try to run away only to be dragged back by city guards that patrolled the school and sent back to my class. The daily routine was to get up, take a bath and my mother would dress me. By the time we left the house someone was already coming into our apartment. Mother said she was a friend, but I knew she was a servant. She dropped me off at school and when it was over, she was there to take me home. When we got home it was clean, the laundry was done and a fresh half barrel of water was ready. The bed was made and a meal was ready that was somehow always hot. Well I didn’t know what it was at the time, but she was heating up the plate using arcane fire magic and she was most likely doing this with the bath water as well. She would just put her hands in the water until it was a temperature I liked. Then we would use the writing desk to do whatever homework I had. After I finished, I would go into the living room and play with my toys, look at picture books, or draw. Mother would take a bath and when she got out she would tell me it’s time for bed and change me into night clothes and I would go to sleep in her arms.
There were still bad times, times I didn’t want to eat at all. I wanted to take a boat back to the Sunwell, I wanted some other form of entertainment other than what I had or having books being read aloud, but the routine was something that I needed to be fixed on. If we fell behind schedule, or she didn’t have a coffee or a Thistle Tea she would get really moody. She would pull me painfully if we were running late and sometimes she would have these loud screaming WHAT?!'s if I was bothering her, followed by an apology and an excuse that she had a headache. Some days there was just nothing that could make her happy and those were the weekdays we both took an unscheduled trip to the Sunwell which was about a two to three-hour boat ride depending on the weather. Sometimes even after I was asleep I would see her sitting at her writing desk scratching away in a large book or some kind of parchment.
Lachance did show up a few times to take over for mothers’ routine, but I acknowledged him as a servant even though I never treated him as bad as I did the ones at the Sunwell Plateau. Some days Lachance would come by to walk us both to school and those were the days mother bought something from a paper bag food place and I would come home to a mess. I think back on it now and I think they were… being intimate. But my times with my unbeknownst father were days I could get away with more, I even managed to convince him to take me outside the gates of Silvermoon.
There was a slave boy with red hair that would come by and “play” with me, but playing with him, I was actually being cruel to him. Pitching him, pulling on his hair, burning him with candle fire or poking him with needles didn’t seem to faze him, he was no different from a servant, just a little bit older than me. I was able to pry at him when I told lies about him and his mother. That got through to him. I could hurt him emotionally if I said that I knew where his mother was or if I arranged a fake meeting with her. He waited throughout the day and all night until the following morning. The next day I saw him crying, but even for how cruel and spoiled I was… How I took so much pleasure in people’s suffering, I couldn’t help but regret going that far. I held him as he cried, and I felt really bad because I didn’t know who my father was, and I had been called all kinds of nasty names when I was living in Dawnstar Village and would come to the open areas where kids played.
I was nice to him from that point on, well, as nice as I could be. I was still extremely bossy and short tempered, but didn’t want to make his life a living hell, and I didn’t want anyone else messing with him either. Redworm was his name, but I just called him Red and my mother was glad that I was keeping a friend that I wasn’t mean to.
I saw him almost every day after school and I even got out of some of the homework that I needed to do. Weekends we spent most of the day together and my mother was even considering adopting him. My mother showed up at Red’s slave master’s home and offered to pay for him, but his master said he needed to think about it, she offered more but he said he needed to think about it.
He didn’t need to think about it, because he knew who we were, nobles from the Dawnstar house. Red’s slave master knew just by the way my mother talked.
One day me and Red were out playing, and his master put a sack over my head and bonded my hands together and I had no idea where I was going. That night Red came and unlocked me and told me to run as far as I could and I did, but I didn’t know where to go.
I ran into a tribe of trolls in the forest and I was kidnapped again, they kept me in a cage this time and they kept putting food in there.
There was something strange about these trolls, they could make something like the Sunwell with their drum music, dancing, and fire rituals. It all tasted really nice and I felt the urge to dance in my cage, so they let me out to dance with the other trolls. I put my hand on one of their gems that they kept by the flames and for as close as it was to the bombfire it was slightly cold. It made a silky sweet milk hit the middle of my tongue and it was cold, but a good cold. I could understand what the trolls were saying, and I could speak to them with the gems in my hand. They said I needed to start working and I couldn’t use the gems every day. I would have to learn the Troll language little by little. I thought I was going to have to go to school again but the next day they taught me how to fish and that was actually fun. It wasn’t fun cleaning nets though, it smelled awful, but I had little hands, they had these big three fingered hands, so I did it. I also wasn’t the only one doing it. There were troll kids of various ages doing it as well.
Later the troll kids taught me how to swim and without much success tried to teach me how to use spears.
I think I threw one tantrum while I was with the tribe, I threw myself on the ground and started losing myself in a fit of anger. I was picked up immediately by the woman who I shared a hut with and she hugged and shushed me like I was a baby. I didn’t know what she was saying but I do remember the term “berserking” being used as she passed me to several other troll women as if my rage was a symptom and a hug and some loving hums and songs were the treatment. It appears that it is, because I haven’t had one since then. Not every night was a fire dance party but every night was a story of events of sorts, heavily gestured in thrilling or comical fashion. They would tap me on the back and go into a story mimicking a fish I caught or a silly thing I did and few of those stories ended in applause. Everything was harvested, hunted, or grown, so everything tasted really good.
There were also the dinosaurs, while I was afraid of them at first, the ones I did meet were especially affectionate. When one would rest their head on my lap, well those times I… Those things I did to those smaller pets… Well the guilt was really settling in. Tema… Tema was the name of the Troll woman I shared a hut with, she would find me in tears every now and then. She would hug me and pass me the same way she did before. Sometimes to men every now and then.
I wanted to tell them that I missed my mother, that I had come from a noble house, that we could be friends if they brought me back home, but there was a part of me that didn’t want to go back. No, I didn’t want to go back and I wasn’t hungry to be near the Sunwell because of their gems. I must have been there for about a month or two and I think they were going to set up a bed or hammock for me, but I slept in that cage the whole time I was there, like it was my own bed. They gave me blankets but that’s not what my mother and the group of high elves she brought to that encampment saw. I think she must have thought they were going to eat me.
I never knew what a mage did until that day. I thought it was like any other job, like a librarian, or an artist, or a record keeper. My mother burned them mercilessly, she told me to look away, but I didn’t. I told her to stop, but she couldn’t hear me from all the screaming and burning huts.
The cage I was in wasn’t even locked, I tried to hurt her in a way a seven-year-old could, I tried to hit her, I told her I hated her, and I told her so many times to stop killing them. I called them out by name when they were consumed with fire but It didn’t stop her from killing anyone, she stood there dismissing me, like another one of my tantrums, all the while casting fireballs on huts and frostbolts on trolls. Until I said, “Ebost Asala, Temassran!” Which meant “Your soul is dust, parent.” They didn’t have words for mother or father. That got her attention. These words aren’t translating when I ask someone to proofread, so if I write something in Troll, I’ll just tell you what I said. Maybe I’m not spelling it right.
“What did you say?” She finally ordered them to stop.
I cursed in as many Troll phases as I could, some of these were just greetings, but I made them sound like curse words. Eventually my mother slapped me, but this wasn’t like those hits from the parents from the park. This felt like my neck had cracked and she knocked me flat on the floor. While I was there I could feel the left side of my face swell up. I remembered the words, “Ataash varin kata.” Which meant “In the end lies glory.” And chanted that phase as I was crying on the ground.
I remember her saying, “I told you not to speak that savage tongue.” She picked me up by my left hand, seeming to want to hit me if I didn’t stop chanting, but she looked around the ground and it was glowing with yellow fire. She picked me up and tip-toed painfully out of the holy area. She walked to her servants with me in her arms. “Do you know what spell that was?” She asked.
They looked behind her and the glowing had stopped. “No. All the trolls are dead or fleeing. Did you want us to track them down?”
Mother shook her head, “No. Perfectia is safe.”
I bit her arm as hard as I could and she let me go. I ran over to the fire and took one of the gems that was by the fire, and I’ve kept it with me to this day, it reminds me of a lot of things. I did however try to keep running away to no avail. One of mothers apprentices caught me and brought me kicking and screaming back to her.
I calmed down a bit on the way back to Silvermoon City and I told my mother I wanted to go back home and to take Red with us.
Mother told me that I wasn’t going to want to see him again. I went back to the slave master’s house and saw him. He was walking around with a stick because they cut out his eyes, I don’t think he knew I was there. But she was right. I didn’t want to see that, and I couldn’t bring myself to say goodbye to him.
When we went back to Dawnstar Village things were very different for me. I thought when I moved into a one bedroom apartment with my mother and also when I was living in a hut, that I had moved into poverty. I was being forced to live among peasantry, but this felt so much worse then all those times. I thought because of my nobility I was somehow higher, but I realized that I couldn’t have been more wrong. Going back to nobility was when I was impoverished, then I was poor. My servants couldn’t believe how much my personality had changed and I remembered my uncles and older cousins asking me how I suffered being around savages. They would ask me to say a few words in Troll and I would. If I said something like “Shoka ebasit hissra. Meraad astaarit, meraad itwasit, aban aqun. Maraas shoka.” Which meant, “Struggle is an illusion. The tide rises, the tide falls, but the sea is changeless. There is nothing to struggle against.” Which was a prayer for healing.
They would assume that it meant, rip out his tongue and boil him in oil, or something of a violent nature. I remember one of my cousins, a little older than me, pushing me during my welcome home party. He told me I was still a bastard and was more disgusting since I was corrupted by those savages. He shared my last name, Kulick Dawnlight who’s both parents were nobility, and I realized that I was looking at my former self. I very calmly headbutted him in the mouth. However, he had two years on me, trained in some swordplay, and he was a boy. He beat me up until my mother and grandfather showed up. I wasn’t invited to any parties after that but I also didn’t really care.
I took my education a lot more seriously and I spent my free time fishing off of one of my grandfather’s war boats. He was impressed that I could catch a fish that was bigger than my head with improvised sticks and cloth string. That I could file, gut, and even cook a fish. In the few months I was with those trolls I learned more than most of my tutors could ever teach me.
I told my grandfather Kel’Magnus Dawnlight about what happened to the trolls and that I didn’t want to be a mage. I wanted to sail like he did.
My grandfather said, “Well Perfectia, you’re going to have to learn how to use a sword. But it won’t be easy.”
I nodded and he ran me through the basics for about an hour but we never trained for less than an hour. We would get to a curtain point and he would say, “Okay Perfectia, that’s enough.”
I would say, “I’m not tired. I can keep going.”
From that point on he would fight a little harder with each passing hour. But speaking through his practice lessons as he sparred, but when he was quiet he fought stronger and faster as he focused. There were times other soldiers would come by and say, “General, you had a scheduled appointment?”
He would reply with, “Can’t you see I’m doing something important right now, rescheduled.”
For about six months I learned swordplay, sometimes with him, sometimes with one of his soldiers. He was strict, but he told me it wasn’t going to be easy, so I accepted that. He would make me fight grown men holding nothing back knocking me back on the ground. He would keep his arms crossed discontent and say, “Another.” and I would get back up and fight the soldier until I was knocked down again and he would say, “Another.” again.
If I got discouraged he would remind me of the trolls and he would say, “You wanted to protect those trolls from your mother didn’t you?”
I nodded my head, my nose bloody and body covered in bruises from getting hit with wooden weapons.
“Mage’s won’t let you start over once they knock you down. You know how merciless they are.” He would put a hand on his armored soldier, “This is just man but a mage will be monstrous.”
I nodded and kept the drill going.
There was this one time his other soldiers had this idea that if I did do something like a performance or a fight choreography my grandfather might be impressed. I was supposed to take on six armored soldiers at once. I ran drills and choreography with the other soldiers without my grandfather knowing, where I jumped, strike, ducked, and parried and defeated all six of them in a fashionable style that looked more like a dance.
I remember I performed for my grandfather that sat there with the same look of discontent he sometimes had. I did all of the flashy moves from the choreography I learned to beat one of the armored soldiers. Then two, then three, and then all six and I got a round of applause from his other soldiers. My grandfather just stood there discontent, rolling his eyes, shaking his head, and even somewhat angry. I thought I would get something out of him after I took on all six heavy armored soldiers that seemed to be knocked out. Everyone seemed happy and entertained, except him. He stepped forward, looked around at all his other soldiers that were pretending to be knocked out and he said to them, “Get up.” And they did as they were ordered. “Now, fight her for real.”
They were his soldiers and they looked at my grandfather bewildered, “General, she’s a child. Your granddaughter.”
He nodded, “I know, I need you to fight her like you’re trying to kill her, and I’ll tell you when to stop.” He pointed at me, “This one is not a dancer-”
I stepped back and shook my head.
“PERFECTIA, IF YOU RUN AWAY I’LL MAKE SURE YOU NEVER SEE A SWORD AGAIN!” He screamed enraged.
I put my head down and I looked at the six members I had run choreography with for the past few weeks and I nodded my head at them.
“Now fight.” Grandfather ordered calmly.
The choreography I learned did help a little. I was able to hit some of them with the flashy moves I learned but my small frame and wooden weapon couldn’t do enough impact to their metal armor. When they started swinging at me with their wooden weapons I dodged, but eventually one of them was able to strike me in the back and it stung as the elf that was most likely four times my size hit me with his wooden weapon.
The soldier that hit me looked at me with a look of empathy as I was hit and they all stopped, that made my grandfather even more angry. He ran over to the soldier that hit me in the back, grabbed him from his armor, and said, “Hold back like that again and I’ll kill you right here.”
He pulled a steel bar from behind him and it extended into a spear. His weapon of choice. He banged one end on the sand twice, “Now, again!” He ordered.
I was scared now and as the strikes came I could only think of blocking, which doesn’t work when you’re a child fighting six heavy armored grown men. The first one came in as I blocked high and hit me on the top of my head through my defense, one across the jaw, and another at my calf knocking me to the ground. I fell on the floor somewhat relieved, hoping to hear my grandfather say ‘Another’ again. Some of them knew that if I fell down they were supposed to stop.
“What are you waiting for? I told you to keep going until I tell you to stop.” I heard grandfather say.
They started kicking me like I was a snake in the grass, it hurt and I kept myself covered, curled in a ball, but I knew they were holding back. I heard my grandfather take a weapon away from one of his soldiers, “Not like that. Like this!” He came down with all his might with the side of the weapon on my kidney. I screamed and grabbed it in pain and came out of the ball.
They came with their weapons this time hitting me, there was one time my grandfather stopped one of his soldiers and said, “No, stabs. You are not really trying to kill her. Keep going.”
For about two painful minutes of crying and trying to keep myself covered my grandfather finally said, “Stop. You’re all dismissed.” They left and my grandfather walked toward me as I laid there in excruciating pain, “I know you think that was cruel of me.”
I looked up at him somewhat out of breath, in pain, and looked down as I remembered something he said, “But mages are even more cruel.” I recited.
I heard something that sounded like a slight laugh, “Yes they are.” He picked me up, “Come on Perfectia, I’ll take you to the Sunwell.”
I remember him taking me there and submerging my body in the water. He looked at me strangely, “Wow…” He said as he looked at me in the water, “They really do turn gold.”
He was referring to my eyes. I don’t know why the Sunwell’s magic works the way it works, but if you’re injured, sick, or you’ve just been away for a long time, it has this funny way of making you feel euphoric. I lost track of what my grandfather might have been saying as he held me there. I felt like I was drifting off and his voice seemed distant as I fell asleep.
After that day I tried to avoid my grandfather and I really started rethinking my idea of being a swordsman. I traveled far away from his ships to fish and I didn’t mind if I got my feet wet. But he tracked me down, “You never missed a practice before Perfectia.” He complained.
I shrugged not looking at him, “I didn’t feel like it today. I wanted to fish.”
“Well you could have brought your fishing line to one of my ships.” He explained.
I only shrugged. Not making any eye contact since the conversation began.
“Well you should at least watch the other men practice.” He suggested.
I looked at him finally, “No.”
“No?” He repeated in disbelief, “Who do you think you are?”
I looked away from him, “The Terror of the Sunwell.”
“Well I’m your grandfather so you’re coming with me.” He ordered.
I didn’t respond but he came closer to the water’s edge and reached for me. I disengaged, leaning my head and body back, and lunged forward with the fishing pole putting it in his left eye. I felt a slight resistance of his flesh, then a give when his eye popped like a water balloon.
He screamed in pain as he grabbed the left side of his face, “YOu little terror!” He screamed and looked at me with his good eye but I kept side stepping to his left like we practiced. I pointed the end of the stick at him in a Tierce fencing position, pointing near him, my left hand above my head. “You’re not the first kin I’ve slayed Perfectia.” I yelled at me.
“I wouldn’t doubt that. But you had six men before and now you have a blind side.” I stated while sidestepping to his left. I looked for an opening in his body, as he was trying pretty hard to protect his face and neck with his hand outward. I lunged at his kidney on what I thought was cloth but there was something hard under there. He grabbed my stick and snatched it out my hand.
I started running and he chased after me. Grabbed me by my clothes and held me at his side like a sack of potatoes. I bit and clawed and screamed at him to let me go. I didn’t know what he was going to do or take me, but he brought me to the practice area full of sand where we trained. He threw me on the circular sand pit, “STAY THERE!” He screamed at me, and I was scared frozen trying to cover myself, “Run Perfectia through her swordplay lesson I prepared for her.” He barked toward one of his soldiers and looked over at me angrily, “I need medical attention.” And he left.
I looked at one of my older grown up cousins, Dorian Dawnridge, a High Elf with a long red ponytail, “Grandfather wants you to work on a wooden dummy he designed.” He laughed and shrugged slightly, “It was kind of a surprise present.”
I picked up a practice sword that was around the practice circle and ran back to Dorian, “I don’t think you’re going to need that.” He brought me to a hard wooden dummy.
I knocked on the wood, “It’s kind of hard. Most of the dummies I work with are laced in fabric and hay and then wood.” I stated.
He nodded, “I know. But this is supposed to represent an enemy in armor.” He tightened some screws on the dummy and its limbs held in place. “Look here.”
He put pressure on the moving parts of the arm and the limb made a popping noise and came off. “This is how you break a man’s arm.” He shrugged slightly, “You usually start learning how to use this after you learn sword and shield but grandfather wants you to start now.” He looked at me suspiciously, “Did you stab him in the eye?”
I looked downward, “No.” I lied.
He laughed and put the arm back on the dummy. “You try.”
I was short and light and this was extremely difficult as I pressed and pushed and struck with my sword. And even when I stood on that darn dummy and tried to jump on the weak side I just ended up slipping off the thing because the limb would slide down if there was too much weight on it. Cousin Dorian tried to show an easy break that could be done with the legs if it was on a locked knee. He made that look easy. I got a running start and tried to drop kick the locked knee with both of my legs. That didn’t work either.
I tried to use my sword to see if I could pry the limbs off. I rested the arm of the dummy on my shoulder, put the sword on the breaking point and pulled it down with both hands and that didn’t work. I tried everything to get that dummy to break, only taking breaks to eat. Around sunset I just kept hitting it out of frustration that it wouldn’t break, I could barely put clips in the dummy. I must have gone through five or ten practice swords that broke in half. I remember screaming, “You stupid dummy! You stupid stupid dummy!” And broke another wooden sword over its hard head. I was about to walk away but my grandfather was there. The sun had already gone down so I didn’t notice him show up. The left side of his face was wrapped in bandages and there was still a spot of blood over the bandages where his eye used to be.
“You weren’t about to quit were you?” He asked me.
I looked at him shocked and concerned, “Grandpa, I…” I shook my head and held the side of my arm, “I thought, maybe if I used a real sword.”
He shook his head, “You’re not ready for that yet…” He sighed, “You need to loosen the bolts so the limbs loose. You need to pull quickly and once the arm is fully extended, then you strike the weak point. Even a child could do that, but the timing has to be perfect.”
I sometimes forget when people use the word ‘perfect’ they’re not always referring to me. I loosen the bolts so that the limbs were wobbling from side to side. I tried to do it like he said but it wasn’t working. I kept slipping. “It’s just my name grandpa, I can’t do it.” I cried.
He raised his eyebrow at me, “Stop crying.” He shook his head, “That’s the first time I’ve heard you say that.” He laughed slightly, “Don’t go to the Sunwell tonight. At least for a few days. I want your muscles to be sore tomorrow. You’re going to eat eggs for breakfast and we’re going to do this again.”
I nodded sadly, “Grandpa… I’m really sorry about your eye.”
He looked away and shook his head, “Go to sleep Perfectia.”
So the next day I started my strength and resistance training in the morning with some of his navy sailors even before I ate breakfast and I tried the methods my grandfather told me to use but it still wasn’t working but I was less frustrated this time. Cousin Dorian showed me a few breaking techniques but he was still a grown man. He showed me that the head could come off if he twisted it to the side. He was able to get the wooden dummies head to twist if he really wound up a strike with a practice sword but my sword usually broke in half when I tried to do that. He showed me this technique where my feet were square, knees slightly bent, and I held the sword in a ‘kamae stance’. (That’s a sword point facing upwards, holding the grip near the center of your chest. Also, if you’re not interested in swordplay you can just skip the next few paragraphs because you might think this is boring.) At least that’s how the hands were kept. Hands on top of each other but he wanted me to hold the sword from behind my head as opposed to keeping it in front of me. We talked about this sword swing for about an hour before he would let me get a full motion of how it was done. How I was supposed to move my front foot to emphasize timing. How I was supposed to bring my front shoulder down lower then my back shoulder to create an access that I can swing around so when I got to the point of contact my shoulders would switch. My front shoulders would be higher and my back shoulder would be lower.
I really feel I need to mention this technique with emphasis. I’m sure there are a lot of people that know nothing about swords except that the pointy end goes into the other man and this might sound like a foreign language, but I still use it today when fighting a beast of prey. Out of all the different sword techniques I do know, this has been my foundation. Because if you begin your sword swing from this starting point you can really feel your hips and lower half almost pulling the sword through the point of contact. This is where MY power comes from and I think a lot of men swing a sword the same way they chop wood using only arms and back muscles. But when you’re chopping a tree you’re not trying to get the axes stuck in the wood.
Anyways, cousin Dorian showed me an exercise so my back leg and the ‘but’ of the sword were moving at the same time and even before my first swing I did this exercise for over 20 minutes. Back and forth making sure my back heel raised up and my front foot launched forward slightly. I was feeling a lot of stress and tension in my thighs and hips from this exercise. Even after I was finally able to do a full swing, cousin Dorian still had a lot of say about my form, how I need to keep my elbows the same distance through the whole swing until I hit the point of contact.
This whole thing made me more than a little frustrated. It seemed boring, tedious, and he was ordering me around for over two hours over and over, over something that should have only taken one or two seconds to execute, and I finally snapped, “This is so stupid! You really expect someone to just stand there and let me swing at them while doing all these stupid steps?!”
He rolled his eyes, “It’s about timing and swing accuracy, Perfectia.”
I looked at him slightly confused and shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t understand what that meant.
“Right place, right time?” He tried to explain better, but I still wasn’t getting it. He let out a sigh, “I guess it will be easier to show then to try to explain this to you.” He walked away from the training area and came back with a smooth apple size stone and a heavier training sword and positioned himself so that he was facing the ocean but still in front of me. “Timing…” He said as he held the stone in his hand in front of me and the training sword in the other. He tossed the stone in the air slightly, went through all the steps, and swung the training sword at the stone in mid air. The sound made such a loud crack that it made my ears hurt and I saw the stone fly dozens of yards away and slash into the ocean water. “And accuracy.”
“Oh my gosh that was amazing.” I said in awe when I saw the stone fall in the ocean.
Cousin Dorian laughed slightly, “Thanks, my father used to take me to a lot of town ball games when I was a child.”
“What’s ‘town ball’? Is that like a party?” I asked excitedly.
He grunted out a slight laugh and shook his head slightly as he remembered back. “It’s a game we used to play with humans, but the rules vary from place to place, but there hasn’t been a seasonal game since the orcs showed up.”
“I don’t understand…”
He sighed and shook his head, “Why don’t we get you back on the sword swing?”
“Yeah!” I said excited now. I really wanted to see if I could actually do what he just did. It looked easy, but it wasn’t, but he was more encouraging and I was less resentful as I tried to hit small stones with my training sword
Cousin Dorian showed me there was a curtain ‘sweet spot’ around the side of the chin that could make the dummies head fly off. He gave it a few tries with his training sword and even with that big wind up he couldn’t pull it off, but I did hear some give from the dummy, like he might have been getting close.
I mimicked his techniques but the strength in my arms and legs was gone. Usually when I was in any pain at all I would run to the Sunwell, but I put up with the pain for reasons unknown to me at the time. I was just thinking I didn’t want to disappoint my grandfather.
When grandfather showed up at 4 pm and asked me if I had been to the Sunwell today. I said ‘no’ and he said, ‘good.’ He showed me more deep rooted stances of pulls and pushes. There was a quick count of one, two, and the dummy’s limb just came flying off. He would make me run through the exercises on the dummy and a lot of holding myself in place in single closed and wide stances. With the same strictness and discontent look he always had. Repeating ‘Again’ more times than I could count. He still had the bandages on his face, but they weren’t blood soaked. Lastly, he made me eat meat and vegetables and I really didn’t like eating anything in the first place. But as the sun came down he had someone bring him and me meat from land animals and vegetables and it felt a little like when I would sit by the fire with the Trolls, except I could actually understand.
The next day was pretty much the same thing except that in the morning I started running with a few dozen of grandfather’s sailors but I could only keep up with them for about a quarter of the island before they broke away from me. At least for the first day. But my mother did in fact ask me if I took grandfather’s eye during breakfast. “I said I was sorry.” I told her.
The third day a few hours before sundown I finally managed to break off one of the leg limbs on the dummy. I looked back at my grandfather in celebration and he only smiled for a second, nodded, and said, “Again.”
I could only do it once. I guess he knew I got lucky. After about a week I was able to break off a few limbs of the dummy and I wondered how I could possibly feel stronger from being away from the Sunwell for so long.
However, my grandfather stopped showing up and after being able to use Cousin Dorian’s grappling and swinging techniques to break off the limbs, I was ready to go back to traditional swordplay and fencing. I saw my grandfather a lot more often then I saw my mother but that still wasn’t a lot compared to how much time I spent training alone. There were also educators that tried to teach me how to read, write, basics of math, and even a few classes on how to speak the human language Common.
The choreographers that beat me up told me that there was a Lordaeron-Silvermoon friendship week where Humans, Dwarves, Night Elves and even Gnomes could come to any part of the city to engage in festivities. They were supposed to reenact the Troll Wars along with a few other things and they wanted me to do a demonstration. I asked my grandfather this time if I could do it, he said, “If you promise to keep working on the limb dummy, then yes.”
Just like before I trained for the next event. My mother even stayed for a few hours to watch the team do their demonstration with me. She brought friends to show off the fact that I could be an ‘enchantress’ or a ‘battle sorceress’ or a ‘red mage’. These combat classes don’t exist anymore if they ever existed at all, but I have heard stories from books she read about crosses of arcane magic and swordplay. Frankly I think she just came to brag.
That day came but unlike before I wasn’t the center stage girl like I was before. There were people that did several choreographies, not only direct combat. But brick breaking, sequences of movements that the whole team had to memorize and perform. We all did what we were supposed to and gave a final bow at the end. But grandfather however came walking in front of us slowly clapping his hands as he came forward. “Great performance men.” He said to the whole team. “Perfectia.” Since I was the only girl. “Now, fight my granddaughter for real.”
The crowd that was behind him seemed somewhat shocked, but the people I was working with seemed less surprised and they all looked over at me, “We’re sorry Perfectia, but he paid us.”
I looked over at my grandfather, he smirked at me, and winked with his one eye. “Fight her like you’re trying to kill her and I’ll tell her when to stop.” He said.
All of them had their weapons at the ready. There were about ten of them but they weren’t in armor like before, but one of them looked over at my grandfather for a second and said, “Wait? What do you mean ‘her’?”
He was the first one to get slammed with a wooden demo sword on the side of the chin with the ‘Town Ball Swing’, I remember hearing the cold break of his neck like I manage to do on the dummy and I heard the crowd let out a sound of sympathy and worry. These performers were used to fair duels and flashy swinging sword movements. I always started low and if the calf bone or kneecaps didn’t break, I would stab or strike with the wooden sword to the groin. There was one man that tried to grab me from behind, he lost an eye when I put my wooden sword there from behind me, and the rest were like scared sleep. They faced off with me using their flashy sword spins and kicks, but that didn’t go well for them. The style I was using… Well, I wouldn’t even call it a style, it was very ugly, and I left that arena looking like a crowded war zone tent hospital.
I remember everyone in the outside of the arena being shocked and appalled, I heard a few in disbelief saying, “This is just a show right? They’re not really hurt are they?” and many of them were even physically sick. But I looked over at my grandfather amidst all the booing and scared panicking, and he was so proud there were tears in his eyes and I thought, “Anything to make him happy, anything.”
He hugged me for the first time.
I was happy for those past few months. The name ‘Terror of the Sunwell’ finally felt like a badge of pride, but it was short lived, because we all know what happened when Arthas came to Silvermoon.
