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The world suddenly dimmed. Up above, the moon and stars were fogged behind a wall of dark looming clouds, and the breeze began to blow damp and heavy.

Rain was approaching.

“And so it is only natural that your health and well-being are most important above all. They must be maintained.”

From down below, crashed a rather hefty wave against the bottom of the ship, its impact rippling throughout as a slight quiver within the slightly rotted floorboards.

“Besides, I struggle to even recall the last time we were plunged in the midst of battle. Time might have dulled you.”

“It has not,” Eshwlyn automatically said, still staring deep into the open hatch, yet for some odd reason, finding herself unable to make a single step... and perhaps not even wanting to any longer.

.....

“Then consider this a simple test of your abilities...” Behind, from the slightest creak of wooden planks, she could hear Tilina taking a few steps back, taking her place. “A final test from me to you, if you would. To gauge how truly befitting you are the mantle of our Master’s perfect Knight.”

Was it just her imagination, or did her intentions not clearly match the tone of her voice? The way she spoke, as if with a sneer, with uncertainty... contempt... all hidden beneath the pretense of indifference.

“All this, for Master’s sake, yes?” Eshwlyn turned back around. Tilina had one foot forward, and another placed back. A subtle, unassuming stance that could be mistaken as any other, yet one that was anytime ready to deliver a lethal strike, which only strengthened an already aroused suspicion. “Or is this, perchance, solely for your own?”

The Knight did not answer. Her gaze, her focus, unfazed, even as another humid gust of wind blew her red flowing locks over her eyes. Instead, it only bolstered it, with her grip on both blades growing firmer. Eshwlyn saw this, saw her, and glimpsed back towards the open hatch. But her gaze stayed only briefly.

“Very well, a final spar, if it should finally strip away all qualms you have of me... or of yourself...” a slight flitting swish streaked across the whistling wind, and Eshwlyn had her blade drawn squarely forward. The distinct piercing glow of gold opposing her split cleanly in half before the narrow edge of her sword.

For the longest time, the two Elves only circled one another, a tense ambling that ignored the tangled netting, the loose ropes, and overturned crates all strewn across the vicinity. “Then let us cross our blades once more.”

It was unlike any prior sparring session they ever had. For one, there was not this heavy air above them, this tension, this feeling of danger, of death...Eshwlyn usually only ever felt within the chaotic midst of a battlefield... and right then, Tilina’s silent, focused expression harbored that same perilous sensation.

Another wave crashing from the side rocked the ship, rattling every joint, quivering every surface, and that was the perfect opportunity. Tilina spurred forward in an instant.

Eshwlyn felt more than she saw; reacting solely by instinct alone. She ducked and felt the powerful sharp breeze of a narrowly missed strike. Her blade rose the next moment and at once brief bright sparks flared from the heavy clash of metal against metal. A blur of bright gold weaving and Eshwlyn quickly disengaged with a jump back, in time to feel the trembling impact of Tilina’s blades embedding deep into the surface of the ship’s middle mast.

An open window, she took it.

Eshwlyn began to charge forward while Tilina’s swords still remained lodged. She aimed her blow, forced it forward at her opponent’s exposed chest. But there was a flash, a blinding light, and suddenly her stroke was deflected, both her sword and herself blown far back.

The flash of light instantly evaporated, and what followed was the distinct rustling clangor of heavy armor... charging, rushing... Eshwlyn raised her blade again in a disorienting spur and suddenly found herself repelling back the might of both swords, and seeing her strained, alarmed expression reflected back at her in the silvery gleam of a Knight’s chestplate.

“I will admit,” Tilina’s voice flared from behind their crossed swords. “You had certainly improved from that Elf wildly and desperately flailing her sword that I could so easily subdue before all those years ago.”

Eshwlyn felt herself bend, her knees buckling. “And I continue only to improve with every passing day...” She heaved, rising again. “But what of you? Can you say the same as I?”

“You doubt me?”

“No, you doubt yourself,” Eshwlyn said. “Is that not why you’ve grown to resent me? Why you tend to avoid me as much as you can? It does not take a Matriarch’s keen perception to know that you wholeheartedly disapprove of me. And yet I cannot fathom why it is that you do.”

“I am not obligated to explain myself to you!” Tilina roared, and lunged a kick that sent Eshwlyn careening into the bow of the ship. She rose, pain flaring in her abdomen. There was a mighty yell, and a barrel was suddenly hurled at her in a rapid spin, exploding into shards of splintered wood as she swung her fist at it.

Another yell, an unperceivable blur of movement, and once more a violent flurry of blades and blows followed, each attempted strike quickly matched by the other. Nimble footing had them racing back and forth across the deck in a struggle to attain any advantage.

“What is it precisely are you trying to prove here?” Eshwlyn asked between deflected strikes. “That you are better? That you are more worthy than I to be at Master’s side? That Master is wrong about me?”

“He is wrong about you!” The pitch blackness from above began to rumble and flash, illuminating Tilina stripped bare to her true self. “But I have already said my piece. I am done trying to convince him otherwise. If he desires only you, then he shall have you! But not before I affirm it to you, to myself, that you are inferior to me!”

Eshwlyn narrowly dodged a spinning slice, jumping high and landing steady to a higher landing atop the helm of the ship, perspiration falling as fast as her heaves and gasps for air.

“Inferior indeed!” She said, staring down at Tilina’s furrowed expression from below. “You wish to prove yourself in such a skewed manner-your vast strength as a Knight against my own? I am still merely an Elf, the advantage is already yours! And yet you still insist on proceeding with this? Do you truly not see the flaw in your reasoning?”

“A flaw, you say? Where? Please, enlighten me. I do not what you mean,” Tilina challenged in scorn. “Was it not the you as you are that have already bested a Knight prior? The very same you that slew Remelda in spite of your condition, your ailment, and still yet lived? Am I mistaken? Was all of Master’s praises and reverence I was forced to listen to meant simply for someone else?! Was that not you?!”

It poured lightly now, the patter of rain adding to the drifting of waves, refusing to allow a moment of silence, a semblance of peace to enter the scene.

“So unless I am mistaken, I must take on the assumption that you are already far beyond than what you claim you are,” Tilina continued, pointing the tip of one of her blades at her. “And if that is so, then I will defeat not just a mere Elf... but a fellow Knight of equal footing!”

Then suddenly Tilina was streaking across the air, dashing forward, plummeting down at her with both blades plunging with the pouring rain above, and the fighting commenced once more.

“But why insist upon this?!” Eshwlyn shouted, finally rousing the question, the mystery that had left mulling all this while. “This loyalty for him? This envy of me! Just what could have brought upon this level of devotion to stir within you?”

A flash of lightning gleaming beads of gold, rumbling thunder adding ferocity to her cry, “I am his Knight!”

Over time the deck of the ship became besmirched with gashes and streaks etched in the floorings, the masts, all over, objects broken and disheveled. The waves grew heavier and would tilt and rock the deck, splattering the floorboards with the ocean’s growing unease.

“His Knight!” A shrill ring as blades once more collided and clashed. Eshwlyn felt the rain flood in her lips, blurring her eyes. “And yet what of before? You were just an Elf! An Elf like me! Once free, once bearing an aversion of humankind! You mean to say you were still loyal to him then?! You told me that you’ve too disobeyed, distrust, hated the fate befallen upon you just as much as I!”

“I did,” Tilina replied with a growl. “But just like you, I’ve learned to change my stance. I learned to serve, to obey, to be as loyal as one can ever be!”

“Then what has changed, Tilina?!” Eshwlyn shouted, the edges of their blade dripping with tears from the darkening skies. “What has Wilvur done to you that made you so willing to give your life as his Knight?!”

“Love!” roared the thunder, crashed the mighty waves against the hull, and glimmered the glow of golden eyes. “Just as you to your sister! I pledged myself, I stripped myself of my freedom, because I had learned to deeply love.”

There was an air of confusion that brewed and blew like a storm. Eshwlyn quickly backed away, her strength, her might, skewered in a disarray, unable to comprehend, understand... heeding words, listening to a prospect that surely can never be.

And yet Tilina stood, blades in hand, her strength, her loyalty unwavering as if opposing the very reality of the world, of nature itself.

“And for my Master, for Wilvur Hendrick of the House of Hendrick,” Tilina said. “My love for him will continue to prevail over you!”