Rara Avis: Oak and Iron Bound {S·W·C}

Spoiler: Info stuff

First fic here on the URPG, so I'm not sure exactly what the standards are, but I'm going balls deep for an Aggron.
Required CC: 40k-55k (Demanding)
Final CC: ~64,150

PROLOGUE:​

BLOOD IN THE SNOW​

The snow barely came up past Victor’s ankles, but by his complaining one would think he was trudging up a glacier. “It’s colder than a bergmite’s bum out here,” he grumbled.

Radovan smirked as he followed his apprentice down the road of frozen mud. “Pish-posh, it’s the warmest part of the day.”

Victor turned around to give him a serious look. “Wouldn’t you say it’s just a little bit cold? Perhaps you’ll need to go back soon.”

Radovan laughed. “You won’t get me to admit defeat, mountain-dweller. I may come from the lowlands, but these bones have been through far worse.”

Victor grinned and was about to continue his teasing when a mighty roar shook the forest around them, echoing off the mountainsides with a sound like shearing metal.

“What in the blazes?” Victor pulled his axe from the loop at his belt as the roar faded away. It was a basic woodsman’s axe, but it was the only weapon they had between the two of them.

A chill that had nothing to do with the cool mountain air creeped up Radovan’s spine. “We should head back,” the smith said. “Pokémon roam these woods that wouldn’t flinch at the sight of a simple axe.”

“You’re the one who made it,” Victor retorted, holding the tool at the ready as he scanned the tree-line.

“Aye. For chopping wood,” Radovan shot back.

Victor ignored him. “What if whatever made that sound got to the traders?”

Radovan sighed. The shipment of steel was already several days late, and after a recent round of battles in the Azurefell arena, there were plenty of customers that needed steelwork. Their stock running perilously low, Radovan and Victor had journeyed up the road in the hopes of finding the traders and their wagon, in case their horse had thrown a shoe or something of the sort. They found no sign of them. If a Pokémon was indeed attacking travelers, they would need to report it to the Battler’s Guild. It was worth investigating. “Aye, alright, let’s go have a look. But if it’s anything bigger than a persian, we hoof it back home.”

Victor led the way off the road. “That didn’t sound like a persian,” he muttered under his breath.

Radovan agreed, but didn’t say anything. He followed his apprentice through the pine trees. The snow was a few inches deeper here than on the road, but it was older, frozen snow. The scant flurries that currently danced around on the wind had yet to accumulate much. They hadn’t gone far when something caught Radovan’s eye.

“Victor, look over there.” He gestured through the trees to a clearing where several dark shapes, very much resembling bodies, were lying in the snow. The two of them ran to the clearing.

“By the gods,” Radovan whispered. He had not seen such bloodshed since his days in the arena. He counted three human corpses and as many dead Pokémon. The snow was stained scarlet, the blood steaming just slightly. This conflict was recent. Victor went to inspect one of the bodies.

Radovan knelt beside another one of the fallen men. The man wore the stylized armor preferred by arena battlers, meant to resemble the Pokémon they fought alongside. This man’s armor was red and flanged. He presumably had been partnered with the kingler whose smashed carcass lay nearby. Radovan wrinkled his nose at the kingler’s stench before inspecting the man’s wounds.

“These people were not killed by a beast.” Victor said it right as Radovan came to the same conclusion. “They killed each other.”

Radovan stood to inspect the third body as Victor continued. “But why? Was there a survivor? A winner? I’ll look for tracks.”

The third body lay at the base of a tree, limbs splayed awkwardly. Radovan frowned as he saw it was a young woman wearing a gambeson. She might have been pretty if not for the blood plastering her mousy brown hair to the side of her head. He began turning to leave when he saw a flicker of motion out of the corner of his eye. He looked back at the woman. There, just below her nose, the weakest breath was barely visible in the cold air.

“Victor!” Radovan shouted as he knelt to check her pulse. It beat faintly, but it beat. “This one’s alive!” He quickly checked her for any broken bones. Finding none, he picked her up. Despite getting on in years, Radovan was a strong man with muscles tempered by years of working the forge, and battling before that. He draped the woman over his shoulder. In his excitement, he didn’t notice the tremors that began to vibrate the forest.

Victor, still holding his axe, looked at the woman. “If that’s her only injury then–” Victor’s eyes suddenly widened as he looked over Radovan’s shoulder. “Run!” he screamed.

Radovan whipped around. A monstrous bipedal Pokémon that must have stood over seven feet tall was crashing through the trees towards them. Literally crashing through the trees, tearing them apart like twigs that barely slowed its momentum. When it reached the edge of the clearing about twenty feet away, it punched its forelegs down into the ground to stop itself and let out the same terrifying roar that they had heard earlier. The screeching was so loud it made a lump of snow that had gathered on a nearby tree branch fall to the ground. Radovan almost wanted to drop the woman to cover his ears.

Radovan didn’t have much time to look at it, only briefly taking in its steely armor, sharp horns, and piercing blue eyes full of bloodlust. He knew from his battling days that this was an aggron. He also knew that they were likely already dead. Instead of giving up, he ran as fast as he could back towards the road.

Victor had the opposite idea. With a mighty battlecry, he charged the aggron, axe raised.

“Victor, no!” Radovan watched his apprentice sprint at the beast. With a shout, Victor swung the axe straight into the aggron’s chest. The slash would have obliterated the ribcage of any ordinary man, but this creature was something else entirely. A small gash in the thick hide of its chest that didn’t even draw blood was the only sign that the blow had even struck.

With a throaty growl, the aggron responded with a blow of its own, backhanding Victor across the clearing. It didn’t even use its claws. It didn’t have to. Sheer muscle was enough to kill a man.

Radovan’s mouth hung open and an icy cold feeling gripped his chest. The sickening crunch and the way that Victor lay crumpled on the ground was enough evidence that he was already dead. People weren’t supposed to bend like that.

The aggron roared again, making the hairs on Radovan’s arms stand on end. With the wounded woman still slung over his shoulder, Radovan fled as fast as his feet could take him.

​

EPISODE I: OAK AND IRON BOUND
​

- Part 1 -​

Avis’s stomach lurched as her pidgeot swooped down, just barely drifting over the treetops. The giddy feeling never got old to the girl.

“Go ahead and put us down, Aria,” Avis said with a smile as they reached the clearing near her house. They landed in the tall grass and Avis dismounted, one hand held out for balance, the other holding on to her bow. She stroked the pidgeot’s neck and sighed deeply. “Father and Vito should be back by now, go ahead and hunt or rest or whatever you’d like to do.”

Aria closed her eyes and nuzzled Avis’s cheek, then backed away and took flight off over the trees.

Avis’s heartbeat quickened as she headed down the trail to the little cottage where she lived with her father and brother. Today they were supposed to be returning from fighting in the arena. It was to be Vito’s first bout. It was a dangerous, bloody sport that often ended up with one or more combatants dead, human or Pokémon. Vito had told her to be there when he returned, but she was unable to stand sitting around waiting for them, and so had left early that morning and spent the whole day flying and hunting with Aria.

She eventually came to their house. The shiny metallic mound of Peredur, her father’s aggron, lay resting in his usual place in their garden next to the potatoes. Turiel, Vito’s Lairon, was nowhere to be seen. Growing worried, she pushed open the door.

Her father was standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring at the wall. He wore his heavy plate armor, but his helmet lay haphazardly on the floor. His arms were covered in gore.

“Where’s V—,” Avis started, but she froze when her father’s gaze snapped to her.

A terrible fury burned in his cold blue eyes. He was a tall, imposing man, but the physical presence was nothing compared to the raw anger that bored its way into Avis, stopping her in her tracks and practically knocking the wind out of her.

Her father breathed through clenched teeth, glaring at Avis. Eventually the seething inhales and exhales slowed, but the rage didn’t dissipate. “He’s… dead.”

Avis let her bow clatter to the floor, her mouth hanging open slightly. “No…”

“He was… weak,” her father growled.

“I-I can’t… It’s n-not…” Avis stuttered through growing tears.

Her father let out a scream of rage, making Avis jump back in fear. Hauling back, he punched an armored fist straight through the wall. The wood splintered and broke like it was nothing but dry parchment.

“Weak…”

· · · · ·​

Avis awoke in a strange bed with a pounding headache. Startled by her surroundings, she tried to push herself upright, but the throbbing in her head kept her prone. Breathing slowly, she tried to focus. Feeling at the locus of the pain, her fingers found a bandage wrapped around her head. She blinked slowly and looked around.

She was in a small bedroom of a simple wooden house. The dandelion yellow tint of an afternoon sun through a tiny window above the bed was all that lit the room. The only furniture other than the bed was a dresser on which stood a set of knick-knacks including a geode and an oddly shaped piece of wood. More importantly, there was also a pitcher and a plate of bread and cheese.

Avis’s stomach growled. How long had she been out? How did she get here? Where was here? She tried to think, but her memory was hazy. If she hadn’t learned to avoid the habit, Avis would have thought she’d drank too much wine.

“Hello?” she called out. Her voice felt weak. It took effort to speak loudly.

At the other side of the room, the door hung open slightly. No one beyond it answered her cry.

Once the throbbing in her head had subsided enough, Avis scooted to the edge of the bed and sat upright. She reached out to grab the bread from the dresser and began hurriedly eating it.

The last thing she remembered was flying above the mountains with Aria. She had been… going to meet with her father somewhere… somewhere outside a city where he had been fighting in the arena. And then… what? She had something she wanted to say to her father, but she couldn’t remember what it was.

After a quick drink of water, Avis stood up. Her head swam for a moment, but she stabilized herself against the dresser. Eventually the feeling passed. Her legs shook slightly, but as she paced back and forth across the room, they quickly recovered.

At the foot of the bed, she found her gambeson and the stylized leather jerkin she normally wore over it, as well as her belt with her hunting knife. Avis put the armor on. It wasn’t necessary, but the comforting weight of it made her feel safer. She growled slightly as she realized that her bow and quiver were nowhere to be found.

“Is anyone there?” she called out, her voice working a little better this time.

Still no reply.

She pushed open the door and stepped out into the rest of the house. Hers was the only isolated room. There was a small hearth with a smoldering fire in the middle of a kitchen area, a table and some chairs, a stack of barrels, and a single bed tucked into a far corner next to a bookcase full of scrolls and a large locked chest.

Avis wandered out the front door, where a cold breeze quickly stole away the hearth’s warmth. An overhang covered a fully equipped blacksmith’s forge. She was in the middle of a city that she quickly recognized as Azurefell. Patches of snow marked the ground. It wasn’t far from where she last remembered being. She’d visited the small city plenty of times before, as she had grown up relatively close by.

“Aria?” Avis called to the clouds.

The only response she got was an odd look from a woman walking by.

A seed of worry began to grown in her heart. Aria must be out hunting. That’s the only reason she ever went far.

After thinking for a moment, Avis decided to wait for the blacksmith or whoever had cared for her to return. She went back inside and moved a chair over to the side of the living area opposite where she had woken up so that she could see whoever opened the door before they saw her. They probably didn’t mean her any harm, given that they had wrapped her head and left her with her knife, but she couldn’t help but be cautious.

· · · · ·​

More than an hour passed before Avis finally heard heavy boots outside the door. She sat up straight as it creaked open, ready for some answers.

A man walked in carrying a heavy backpack that he immediately set down with an odd clattering noise. He had graying black hair, a short beard, and a muscular build. He looked towards the room where Avis had woken up and, seeing the door open and the bed empty, swore out loud.

“I’m here,” Avis said.

The man jumped and looked at her.

“By the gods, you gave me a start,” he said. His voice was deep and rough, but not unkind.

Avis hesitated for a moment, suddenly nervous. “Th-thank you for looking after my injuries. You wouldn’t happen to know where Aria went? My pidgeot?”

The man frowned and looked her up and down. “Hmm… I was worried that might happen. How are you feeling?”

Confused as to why he wouldn’t answer the question, Avis paused a moment before responding. “Headache, tired, a little nauseous, but I’ve had worse. Have you seen Aria?”

“You don’t remember anything about the fight, do you?” the man said, pulling out another chair and sitting down.

The seed of worry grew into panic. She had amnesia. Something had happened. She’d been hit in the head and forgotten all of it. Avis shook her head slowly.

“Well, let’s try to piece this together then. My name’s Radovan Todorson, by the way. And yours?

“A-Avis.”

“Well Avis, what’s the last thing you remember?”

“I was flying through the mountains, going to meet with my father in the woods northeast of here.”

“Flying?”

“Yes, on Aria. What happened to her?” Avis’s heart began to beat faster.

Radovan let out a long sigh and lifted a hand to calm her. “I’ll start from the beginning then. My… apprentice and I were out on the road to Donchapel two days past, when we came across the site of a recent battle. That’s where we found you, as well as two dead men and a few dead Pokémon. A kingler, a scyther, and a pidgeot, I’m afraid. Had an interesting little saddle on it.”

The seed of worry burst open into full blow shock and disbelief. Avis doubled over, clutching her gut. Her head pounded, her stomach convulsed, and her heart shattered. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the tears got through anyway.

After so long… After all they had shared…

It wasn’t fair. Aria was all she had. Her only friend. Her only ally against…

Avis straightened a bit, wiping the tears from her eyes and trying to keep her voice steady. “The other men… was one of them tall, with dark hair, and thick steel armor?”

Radovan looked at her sympathetically. “Aye… was that?”

“My father.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hm,” was the only reply Avis could muster. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that. For so long she had trained in some kind of attempt to impress him. But for a while now she had grown disenchanted. A flicker of a memory returned.

She had been going to tell him that she never wanted to see him again.

“I was basically his apprentice after my brother died,” Avis continued, “but I never really wanted to fight like that. I wanted to be free to explore and travel on my own. With Aria.” But that dream was gone now.

Whatever had happened, she knew it was his fault. All her father’s fault. It always was. Somehow, something had finally caught up to him. “W-Who was the other man?” she asked, still fighting back tears.

Radovan shrugged. “Another battler. I just went back with a few members of the Battlers Guild to bury the bodies. They said they saw him in some recent arena matches.”

“You buried the Pokémon too?”

“Aye. Didn’t want mandibuzz or mightyena getting attracted too close to the road.”

“I’d like to go there, if you could show me,” Avis said.

Radovan let out a long sigh. “It’s a few hours walk, so it’s a little late for that. Besides, I’d rather not head up there at all with an aggron running around. The Guild put a bounty on it, but I doubt anyone’ll take it.”

Avis’s eyes widened. “Peredur’s still alive?”

“What?”

“Peredur was my father’s aggron. If he’s still alive, that would be quite bad. My father raised him to be vicious, distrustful, and cruel. He was an effective fighter in the arena, but if he’s wandering free, he could cause a lot of damage.”

Radovan leaned over and rubbed his temples for a few seconds before responding. “It already has. Killed my apprentice when we found you.”

He wouldn’t meet Avis’s eyes anymore.

“I’m sorry,” Avis said quietly.

“Me too.”

· · · · ·​

Avis spent the night at Radovan’s house. Even if she had anywhere else to go, Radovan insisted, saying he wanted to keep an eye on her in case her concussion resulted in any more issues.

Despite her exhaustion, Avis couldn’t sleep. Her head still throbbed and it felt like an icy coldness had gripped her heart.

Avis didn’t mourn for her father. Not really. When she was younger, she’d known he was an awful person, but part of her had always wanted to believe in him. She wanted to believe that he merely needed someone to carry on his name and legacy. But that was only an illusion she had created for herself. Sometimes she got the feeling the only reason he fought in the arena was so that he could kill people with no consequences, but the award money probably played a part too.

She tried not to think about Aria, but it was impossible. Avis couldn’t imagine a life without flying with her pidgeot. Everything felt so empty and devoid of purpose. With her father gone, Avis didn’t even have anyone to channel her anger into. There was no feasible, visible goal for the future anymore. No bonds to struggle against, nothing at all.

Radovan had said that he hadn’t seen her bow anywhere either. Avis had made that bow herself. It had taken her four tries before she managed to cut a decent staff from the yew tree she had felled. Unable to stand listening to the sounds of her father and brother sparring, she spent days out in the woods carving it into a proper shape, adding intricate bas-relief designs of vines and leaves, feathers and flowers. For years, she hunted with it. It was her proudest possession, and now it was stolen away, too.

Every last reminder of her previous life, good or bad, was gone.

Except Peredur…

Avis pursed her lips, thinking about that.

She didn’t sleep the rest of the night. Dawn had begun to creep its way through the wooden panels when she heard Radovan get up. She lay there for almost another hour with half a hope that she might catch a few minutes of sleep.

When she finally got up, she found Radovan working outside. The forge was lit, but he was at a table pouring over what looked like the blade of a scyther. He looked up when he noticed her.

“Morning,” he said.

“Good morning. Is that what I think it is?”

“Aye, I grabbed it from the scyther where we found you. One of the men I was with stepped on it on accident and it cut a chunk out of his boot. It’s sharper than anything I could make, and it gave me an idea.”

Avis looked at his work so far. “Is there much of a market for weapons made from the body parts of a Pokémon?”

“No, but I still don’t have any steel, and I need something to stay busy with to keep my mind off… things.”

“I understand.”

Radovan bent over and reached into his backpack, which lay under the table. “I found a couple other trinkets too.” He pulled out a sharp spike of metal a few inches long that looked like it had been torn off of something.

Avis’s jaw dropped. “That’s…”

Radovan nodded. “I think it’s the tip of one of that aggron’s horns. I didn’t notice it at the time, but I’d guess it broke off when… whatever happened to you happened. I was thinking of using it as a spearhead. I’d forge it into something else, but I’d need to get the forge hotter than the blazes of hell to be able to shape aggron steel.”

Avis couldn’t help but notice that talking about his craft seemed to put Radovan at ease. “You could do it with fire from a Pokémon.”

Radovan smiled sadly. “True. I had a houndoom, Morana, back in my battling days. She could’ve done it. Didn’t become a smith until after she died, though.”

Avis wasn’t sure what to say.

“Oh, and I almost forgot. Grabbed this on a whim, mostly, but now I think you might like to have it.” He reached once more into his pack and pulled out a feather nearly a foot long. Jagged stripes alternated beige and brown all the way down to the white fluff around the quill.

Avis’s lips tightened. She reached out to delicately take the feather. Aria’s feather.

Something to hold on to.

She looked at it while Radovan went back to his work. Tears crept into her eyes for the first time that day. She held it close to her chest.

“Thank you,” she finally managed to say.

Radovan didn’t look up. “Mhm.”

“I mean it. Thank you.”

Radovan glanced up at her. Avis smiled.

The smith’s eyes darted around her face, like he was unsure if she was really there. Finally, a small smile snuck into his beard.

“I’d like to do something for you… and for me,” Avis said.

Radovan looked at her curiously. “What’s that?”

“I’m going to take out the bounty on that aggron. I’m going to kill Peredur.”

- Part 2 -​

Avis wiped a tear from her eye. Her sobs had long ago faded, but the tears just wouldn’t stop. She leaned into Aria, who sat on the ground with her, comforting Avis with her mere presence.

Vito was dead. Her brother, her only human friend, was gone forever. No more late nights spent discussing Pokémon, philosophy, and fanciful dreams of adventure. No more exploring the woods between training sessions with their father. Vito, and Avis to a lesser extent, had been raised to battle. Their father had worked him hard. Perhaps too hard, Avis sometimes thought. Vito’s life was to be the life of a fighter, but to fall in his first battle? It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.

Avis choked slightly. She didn’t have the energy to cry out anymore. All she wanted to do was go home and curl up in bed, but home was where her father was. She hugged Aria, who put a wing around her.

When her father had told her about Vito, he wasn’t sad. He was angry. Livid. At Vito’s weakness. Avis had left not long after, terrified of his violent attitude.

He had devoted so much time to training Vito, but for naught.

“No,” Avis said out loud.

Aria looked at her curiously.

“I can pick up where he left off.” She stood up suddenly. “I can convince Father to make me his new apprentice. I can keep Vito’s memory going. I can fight. I can be strong.”

It seemed so simple at the time. A solid purpose to hang on to like a piece of driftwood in the stormy ocean of despair. But it wouldn’t take long for her to discover the monster that lurked in the depths.

· · · · ·​

“You don’t honestly think you could take on a fully grown aggron by yourself, do you?” Radovan said incredulously over his bowl of porridge.

Avis stirred her bowl absentmindedly. They were having breakfast in Radovan’s kitchen. “It wouldn’t be easy, but I think I could do it. It just requires the right kind of knowledge and preparation.”

“And you have that kind of knowledge?’

“I’ve spent a lot of time in the wilderness with Pokémon. I know a lot about them, Peredur most of all. I grew up with him. I know how he thinks, I know how he moves, I’ve even sparred with him before.”

“Did you win?”

Avis shifted uncomfortably. “If I can have your help setting up, I think I could definitely have a chance.”

Radovan seemed unconvinced, but played along. “Alright, where do we start?”

“By finding him. You wouldn’t happen to have a map of the area, would you?” Avis asked.

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Radovan got up and went over to his shelf of scrolls. Rummaging through them for a minute, he eventually pulled one out. “From my days traveling. This covers the entire Silver Empire.” He spread it out on the table.

The map was considerably more comprehensive than Avis was expecting. The map detailed everything from the Western Sea to the Argent Mountains, but she only cared about a square inch surrounding the little dot that represented Azurefell, nestled in the mountain range on the right side of the map.

“You didn’t see any sign of him when you went up there last?” Avis asked.

Radovan shook his head. “Snow had covered any tracks at that point, and we didn’t find anything else.”

“Where was it?”

Radovan pointed at a spot on the map several miles up the road from Azurefell towards Donchapel, near the other side of the mountains.

“Hmm…” Avis thought for a moment. “Aggrons are pretty good at dealing with the cold, but I imagine he moved to drier climes.”

“Where are you thinking?”

“Probably somewhere open and rocky, though I don’t know if I’d want to engage him on that kind of ground.” Her eyes wandered down the map to a point at the base of the mountains. “Unless…”

Radovan looked at her curiously.

“Unless he went home.”

“What?”

Avis pointed on the map. “I grew up in a little cottage here. That’s where my father trained my brother and me. Not long after my brother died, my father decided that he needed to spend more time in the arena, so we left. We haven’t been there in years, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Peredur knew how to get back. He might even see it as his territory.” She looked at Radovan.

The smith shrugged. “You’re the expert. That’s a long day’s walk, though. How long do you think it would take an aggron to get there?”

“More time than us, I’d imagine. He’d probably find the river and then navigate from there. It’s a considerably more winding path, so if we left today, we’d probably get plenty of time to spare.”

“Today? Will you be up to fighting that beast so soon?”

Avis closed her eyes and nodded. “I’m ready now.”

“What do we need?”

Avis had been thinking of ideas all night. If Peredur really headed back home, then there were several that could work. “Hoes, maybe a shovel, an axe for firewood since we’ll need a fire going all night in case he shows up. Some other things too, but most importantly, you’ll need to finish those weapons you were working on.”

“What?”

“The scyther blade and aggron spear. I wouldn’t say no to a bow if you have it either,” Avis said

“You think they’ll work? That beast was well armored. The blade and spear might be dangerous enough, but that’s optimistic. Arrows will bounce right off.”

“They’ll work if you know where to hit it.”

“Better you than me, I suppose.” Radovan stood up.

They cleaned up and went outside while Avis discussed her plan. She leaned up against the side of the house, watching Radovan get to work attaching a handle to the scythe blade. A few minutes later, they were interrupted.

“Oy, smith!”

A pair of men walking up the street called out to Radovan. He seemed to recognize them and waved.

“Wanted to let you know we found that cart,” one of them said as the two walked up to the forge. They were wearing simple gambesons and helmets, and carried spears. The one who was talking had a long, hooked nose. “All the traders were dead, and the steel gone. Looked like the beast attacked them, dunno why it would take the steel, though.”

Avis almost spoke up, but decided against it. The two men didn’t appear to have noticed her in the shadows of the house’s eaves.

Radovan let out a heavy sigh. “If you have any battlers headed up to Donchapel, I’d like to send a message letting them know.”

The other man shook his head, making his slightly-too-large helmet wobble a bit over his cap. “No arena in Donchapel. No reason to head that direction, especially with Darian patrols wandering through the mountains. It’s dangerous.”

“I understand,” Radovan said. “Did you tell the guards at least?”

“Aye,” the hooked nose man said. “Told them to keep an eye out for any bandits with a load of steel, too.”

“No,” Avis said out loud, surprising herself.

The two men looked at Avis, seeing her for the first time.

Avis took a second to find her words, a little nervous. “I doubt bandits took the steel. If the aggron attacked the wagon, it probably ate the steel.”

The men burst out laughing. Radovan looked thoughtful. Avis’s cheeks grew hot.

“Ate the steel!” the hook-nosed man hooted. “I’m surprised a shiftry didn’t come by and eat the cart!”

Avis’s brow furrowed as she began to get angry. The man whose helmet was too big appeared to notice, and the mirth quickly left his face.

“Y-you’re not serious, are you?”

Avis rolled her eyes. “It’s true. They prefer raw iron, but they’ll eat plenty of metals. It’s not their whole diet, but they need the minerals to regrow and heal their armor plates.”

The hook-nosed man had stopped laughing now, too. They just blinked at her. Avis was unsure if they were convinced. Radovan shrugged and appeared to accept this information.

The man whose helmet was too big looked at Radovan. “Hold on, is this the girl you saved?”

“Aye, the same.”

“What’s your name?” the man asked, eyes narrowing.

Avis blinked. “Uh… Avis.”

“Don’t suppose you know what happened?”

Avis pointed to the side of her head. She’d removed the bandage, but there was still a very visible bump. “Don’t remember a thing. The tall man in the steel armor was my father. It was his aggron. Trust me when I say he’s not worth mourning.”

“Fair enough,” the man whose helmet was too big said. “Met him a couple times. Seemed like a jerk anyway, even if he had a good record in the arena.”

“Anyway,” the hook-nosed man said. “The real reason we’re here is that we talked to Victor’s family just now.”

Radovan’s shoulders slumped. “Aye? What do they need?”

“Funeral service tonight. They’d like you to come and relate his final moments.”

Avis looked at the smith sadly. He rubbed his temples.

Eventually Radovan looked up at Avis.

Avis took a deep breath. “I can handle it myself,” she said. “Don’t worry. It’s my fight anyway.”

Radovan nodded slowly before looking back at the two men from the Guild. “I’ll be there.”

“We’ll let them know.” The men left.

Radovan wordlessly went back to work.

Avis watched him for a few minutes, but drowsiness was making her eyelids heavy. She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew, Radovan had both weapons ready.

“Well, here they are,” he said. Avis straightened up.

The scyther blade was about two feet long, with an odd curvature to it. A scaly green vein ran down the back of it. It looked haphazard, but effective. A simple wooden handle was attached via metal pegs through the base of the blade.

“Not my best work, but it’ll do.”

Avis took the blade from him and gave it a few test swings, hours of sword practice with her father guiding her through the motions. It was surprisingly light. Though the handle was round, she had no trouble keeping edge alignment simply due to the shape and the way it was weighted.

“I don’t have time to make a proper scabbard right now, so you’ll have to tuck it into your belt. Just make sure it doesn’t saw through while you’re walking.”

Radovan held out the spear next. Without being able to shape the tip, the spear wouldn’t be good for anything other than a direct thrust, but that was all Avis needed.

It took less than an hour for them to gather all the supplies Avis requested and pack them in Radovan’s backpack. He even pulled out a bow he used for hunting and a dozen arrows.

“Now I just need some kind of bait,” Avis said.

Radovan gave a long sigh, then went back to rummaging through his chest of tools. Eventually he pulled out two dark metal ingots.

“These are raw iron. They’re the only workable metal I have left until the next shipment comes through. I’d really rather they not get eaten.” He hesitantly handed them over to Avis.

“I’ll do my best to keep them safe.” Avis tucked the ingots into the pack and hefted it onto her back. It was fairly heavy and felt odd, what with the hoe poking out the top and the bow tied awkwardly to the outside.

“You’re leaving now, then?” Radovan asked.

Avis nodded, leaning on the aggron spear. “The sooner I get down there, the more time I have to prepare.”

Radovan crossed his arms and looked her up and down. “You sure about this?”

“Absolutely.”

“Just be safe. I don’t want to have to wander through the woods looking for your body.”

“If I’m not back in a week, don’t bother,” Avis replied shakily.

Radovan’s lips tightened beneath his beard. “Bring me that beast’s head.”

“I will.”

· · · · ·​

Avis had only a passing familiarity with Azurefell, but it wasn’t that big of a city, so it was easy to find the western gate. Once one of the most hotly contested border cities, ever since the silver mines were depleted, interest in Azurefell’s defenses ran out. This resulted in an odd patchwork of partially completed stone walls and more crude palisades.

The road down out of the mountains was equally forgotten. As Avis began to descend through the forest to the lowlands, she stopped seeing even other foot traffic, never mind trade shipments or military patrols.

The solitude helped her keep a good pace, but it left her mind to wander, for better or for worse.

Avis couldn’t’ help but think about how much faster it would have been to fly to the cottage on Aria’s back. She looked up through the pine branches swaying in the breeze at the gray sky. That was where she belonged… or used to belong, at least. Just the two of them, hundreds of feet above the landscape, gently riding air currents wherever they might take them. Despite the constant wind rushing in her ears, it had always felt so still, like the whole world was frozen beneath them while they sailed on in beautiful solitude.

It wasn’t right that those were just memories now, that all of that was behind her. And to end so suddenly… Avis looked down at the ground, frowning, trying as hard as she could to remember. But the memory simply wasn’t there. It hurt. More than anything, it hurt to not even be able to remember Aria’s final moments.

She tried to think about something else, but the only thing that came to mind was her father. Avis felt a kind of numb sadness, but it was mostly from regret.

Two weeks before, she had been flying with Aria while her father stayed in Azurefell preparing for the upcoming battles when she had found another battler traveling with a metagross. He was kind and soft-spoken, and they had shared a meal together. He had asked her about her life, and for some reason, she had answered. Without even thinking about it, she had admitted to this complete stranger her true feelings about her father. Feelings that she herself hadn’t even fully recognized until then.

She hated him. He was manipulative, angry, and murderous. He’d never been affectionate or loving. All he’d ever cared about was fighting and winning. The only thing that brought them together was Avis’s insistence on being trained to fight. She never fought in the arena herself, she didn’t even really want to, but she did it. For him. But why? There was nothing that truly connected Avis to him, not since Vito had died.

After admitting this to the stranger, whose name she couldn’t even remember, she realized that she needed to escape. Eventually, she had decided to go tell her father that she was leaving. Where to? She wasn’t sure. But with Aria, she could have gone anywhere. And anywhere without her father was a place she wanted to go.

So she had set out to confront him. And then… and then what? The gap in her memory still made her uneasy. Had her father grown violent, and the other battler passing by had intervened? Or had the fight between the two men already started, for reasons unknown, when Avis had arrived?

Part of her didn’t really care that much, but another part sorely wished she’d been able to tell her father off once and for all. Just to see how he’d react. Instead, that rage that had built up inside of her was left dangling, unresolved.

Avis stewed in thoughts like these the rest of the day. The sun was sinking low in the sky when she finally saw familiar landmarks. The road was intersected by a shallow stream that Avis knew ran towards a small pond near her destination. She stepped off the road to follow it, and in less than an hour, she saw the squat structure she had grown up in emerge from the trees.

It was a simple wooden house. A small fence surrounded the garden, which was now overgrown with weeds. She dropped her spear and pack in the little grassy clearing where her father and Vito had once spent so much time sparring. She looked at the dilapidated house, unsure if she wanted to go inside. To say she had no pleasant memories of home would be inaccurate, as she had plenty of fond memories of spending time with Vito, but there was a lingering sadness about the place.

She hadn’t returned here since Vito died. Her father had almost immediately set out to compete in as many fights as possible, with the hope of being invited to the Tournament of Champions in the Silver Empire’s capital of Alaban. Naturally, Avis had gone with him.

But the time for memories was not now. Now there was work to be done. Avis looked around the meadow, it was only about thirty feet long and maybe a bit more wide. This would be her arena. She pulled the hoe out of the backpack and began plowing the clearing, digging into the soil as deep as she could. Her feet hurt and she was tired, but if Peredur was on his way, Avis needed to be ready when he arrived.

She wasn’t totally sure that her plan would work, but fighting Peredur on even ground would be suicide. Her hope was that he would struggle in the loose soil due to his weight. She’d seen him stumble around a bit when the arena was torn up by Pokémon with digging abilities. Every possible advantage was worth trying for.

By the time she had finished digging up the whole field, the sun had set and it was getting harder to see. Back when she had lived here, she’d needed to venture into the woods to find appropriate firewood. Some time since they had abandoned the house, however, a small cottonwood had fallen in a storm. The wood was dead and dry, perfect for her needs.

She started a fire at the edge of the clearing, using dead moss as a fire starter, building it in such a way that it would last for a while. Once that was done, she took the two iron ingots out of the backpack and dropped them in the middle of the plowed clearing.

Only then did she allow herself to rest. With a long sigh of exhaustion, Avis unrolled her bedroll and collapsed on it at the base of a tree near the fire. She pulled a waterskin and a loaf of tough bread from the pack and began to eat.

Avis tried to stay alert, but exhaustion overtook her and she slipped into fitful dreams.

· · · · ·​

When Avis awoke, it was not to the crashing sounds of an oncoming aggron as she had feared, but the familiar cawing of a murkrow. It was a sound she’d often woken up to, and brought back a torrent of memories. The sun wasn’t yet visible above the trees, but the sky was beginning to lighten as morning progressed.

She spent most of the day puttering around the clearing. She practiced a bit with the spear and scyther blade, getting used to the way they felt in her hands. It had been a long time since Avis had last sparred against Peredur. She tried to imagine him in front of her, clawing, biting, and slashing, but it was difficult to remember his fighting style in complete detail.

It was late afternoon when she began to grow frustrated. There was no sign of Peredur yet. No crashing of trees, no shaking of the earth beneath his lumbering footsteps. Avis began to worry that she had miscalculated. Maybe Peredur didn’t feel any kind of connection to this place? Maybe he wandered deeper into the mountains instead? At the other side of the range in the Kingdom of Darius, it was hot and dry. Perfect for an aggron. But he wouldn’t know that, would he?

It was a little chilly, so Avis re-lit the fire. Mostly just for something to do. As she gazed into the flames, she had a brief idea. Retrieving the aggron spear from where she had left it leaning against a tree, she carefully balanced it on a rock near the fire such that the tip was licked by the flames, but the wooden haft was untouched.

Building the fire had only taken a few minutes, and Avis was back to being bored. She stared at the ruined house, not for the first time, heartache clenching in her chest. Angry at herself for being so sensitive to the emotional effect of the place, Avis stood up and went to go walk through the woods for a bit.

She had barely gotten a stone’s throw into the brush when she clambered over a small mound of dirt that must have once been an old stump and felt something shift under her foot. Avis figured it was some kind of loose rock or a root, but when she looked down she saw a glint of metal. Curious, she brushed away the dirt and grabbed onto the metal object. She yanked it free of the weeds and tree roots that had grown over it.

It was a sword. And not just any sword. It was Vito’s sword. It was rusted and dull. The shape of the hilt and pommel was nothing fancy, but Avis had seen this sword in her brother’s hands enough times to know that it was his.

“But… how?”

After a fighter was slain in the arena, the Guild generally took possession of his gear so that it could be resold. Had her father taken it instead? But then what was it doing out here?

Setting the sword aside, Avis dug around in the dirt, looking for the scabbard or belt. Her hand found something knobbly protruding slightly from the mound she had climbed over. She dug until she could get a hand around whatever it was and pulled. It wouldn’t budge. It looked like it was grey or white, but in the shadows of the trees it was hard to tell.

She sat down on the ground and put a leg up on the mound for leverage and pulled again as hard as she could. This time, the mound collapsed slightly and she pulled the object from the loose dirt.

It was the skull of some kind of animal. Large and thick, bigger around than her torso. An angular steel plate grew out of the top.

It was the skull of a lairon.

Avis stared at it as she sat, legs splayed, dumbfounded. She brushed some of the dirt off.

“Turiel?”

Surely this wasn’t her brother’s lairon? A sort of terrifying confusion grasped her heart. What had happened here? Why was Vito’s sword and the body of his partner Pokémon discarded, half buried in the woods?

Avis spent the better part of an hour digging out the rest of the small mound until her fingertips hurt. She unearthed the rest of a lairon skeleton, but nothing else.

Clutching her brother’s rusted sword to her chest, Avis staggered back to the clearing. Dazed, she blinked at the house. Maybe it was time to go in? If Peredur wasn’t going to show up, she might as well make the most of the trip.

Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, Avis approached the house, sword still in hand.

She had to lean into the door with all her weight to overcome the stuck, rusted hinges. Once inside, Avis looked around at what was once her home.

Weeds were growing through the floorboards, while a thick layer of dust covered everything. The hearth was thick with cobwebs. The house was sparsely furnished, the only exceptional things being an assortment of tools for weapon and armor maintenance that her father had left in the corner. A beam of fading light from the sun shone through the hole that her father had punched in the wall on that fateful day, illuminating clouds of dust that hung in the air like smoke. Besides the decay caused by the passage of time, it was all just as she last remembered seeing it.

On the mantle lay a dusty book, the only book Avis had ever read. It was a treatise on swordsmanship that her father had managed to get his hands on somehow. He had used it to teach Avis and her brother to read, just enough so that they could read arena flyers and tournament advertisements. Avis had never taken much to letters, but Vito had developed a keen interest in them. It got to the point where he was writing fanciful love poems to the girls he met whenever they went into town. Avis didn’t know if he ever had trysts with any of them, she always just thought he liked making them feel special.

Instinctively, Avis went for the doorway that led to the little room she had shared with Vito. It was simple and sparse. Nothing but two beds with straw mattresses that had long ago begun to rot. The only decoration was an old oyster that Vito had pulled from the nearby river, sitting on a shelf above his bed. He had forbidden Avis from touching it, saying that a pearl was growing inside. If she opened it, he insisted, the pearl would stop growing, but if they waited then it would eventually be large enough for them to buy their own house in Alaban. It was one of many fanciful dreams that Vito had planted in her head. Avis never quite believed him, but she played along. She told herself it was just for fun, but part of her secretly wanted it to be true.

A sad smile on her face, Avis sat down on Vito’s bed, setting his sword beside her, and grabbed the oyster from the shelf. Its surface was dry and flaky and just as dusty as everything else in the house. The two halves easily came apart in her hands. There was no pearl inside, but she was surprised to find a folded-up piece of parchment.

So this was where he kept his love poems. Avis laughed lightly, unfolding the piece of parchment that looked like it had been torn from her father’s treatise. It had been a long time since she had read anything, but she slowly worked out the words.

The ink had faded considerably, but it was still legible. The note was longer than she was expecting.

To her surprise, the first word was her name. Heart pounding, she read on.



Avis,

I wanted to tell you this before I left, but you had already run off with Aria. You really do need to stop fleeing the things that make you uncomfortable. Nevertheless, I have returned victorious from my first arena battle, and you are once again gone. I do not have much time, but I will try to explain as best I can.

Doran son of Shamus, the man you call ‘Father’, is not our father at all.

I do not know the name of our real father, only brief memories of his face and feelings of love and belonging. I was quite young when it happened, you were but a babe. Doran broke down the door of our house when our father was away, killed our mother in cold blood, and took us as his own.

I was too young to really understand what was going on, but I know now he wanted to raise me as an apprentice. He kept you as leverage against me. If I told you anything, or if I attempted to escape, he would kill you, or worse. Over time I grew used to our new life, cruel as it may be. I regret not telling you sooner, but I fear nothing more than for your safety. That was my weakness.

Upon winning my battle, I collected my prize money and came home as quickly as I could, ignoring our so-called father’s orders to give him the winnings, and leaving him in the dust. He must have realized by now what I mean to do and gave chase. Now I return here, ready to flee with you and our money, but you are nowhere to be found. I write this note in case he arrives before you do.

Do not cower petrified in his shadow, dearest sister. Not like I did. You are meant for greater things.

With love,
Vito​

At first Avis was sure she had read it wrong. Reading again, she slowly sounded out the words letter by letter like she had been taught.

“The man you call ‘Father’, is not our father at all.”

Her hands trembled.

Vito…

All that time, he had been protecting her. And she hadn’t even realized. Then, in their one chance to escape, she wasn’t there for him. Because she was too afraid to face the reality of Vito’s first battle. Because she didn’t have faith in him…

Tears fell onto the note.

Sadness and confusion consumed her. She could not mourn parents she had never known, but her father had killed Vito. He had returned before she did, confronted her brother, and they had fought. That was the only explanation. Her father who was not her father had betrayed her, lied to her, torn her life apart and forced it back together in the most painful of fashions.

Avis stared at the wall, like she was trying to see through it. She had found Turiel, but somewhere out there was Vito’s body… lost in the woods…

Before she could fully process this new information, Avis felt something. It was just a slight tremble that made the old house creak softly, barely distinguishable from a breeze, but it was exactly the tremble she had been waiting on tenterhooks for.

A spike of adrenaline shot through her, drying her tears in an instant and making her drop Vito’s final note to the ground. She felt the tremble again, then again.

Avis dashed out of the house to the clearing. She dove for the backpack, pulling out Radovan’s bow and swinging the quiver of arrows over her shoulder. She checked to make sure the scyther blade was still at her belt while positioning herself at the west end of the clearing, near the fire that crackled merrily, oblivious to what was about to happen.

The trembles were growing more intense. They were audible now, and she could also hear the cracking of tree branches.

Avis squinted through the woods at the far side of the clearing.

A minute later, she saw the light of the setting sun reflecting brightly off steel.

Peredur had arrived.

- Part 3 -​

“Again!” her father shouted.

Avis groaned and massaged her arm. The glaive had left a small cut in her gambeson, but hadn’t drawn any blood. That didn’t mean it wasn’t going to bruise, though. She ignored her father and lowered her sword.

Her father responded with a quick swing across her torso. Avis jumped back to avoid it.

“A sword isn’t fit for this,” Avis complained. “Getting inside your reach close enough to hit you is impossible.”

Her father sneered as he straightened his polearm, leaning against it. “Impossible if you’re incompetent, perhaps. A sword is the best weapon for you to be learning.”

“Why won’t you just let me use my bow? I’m plenty competent with that!”

He laughed mockingly. “You’d only get one shot off before you were killed, and arrows would not pierce the armor that most battlers wear.”

Avis sheathed her sword and walked over to where she had laid her bow. “They will if you know where to hit them.”

A few feet to the left of him, her father had placed his barbute helmet on a fence post. Avis nocked an arrow, aimed at it, and released.

The arrow stuck quivering in the wood, perfectly centered in the helmet’s gap for the wearer’s eyes and mouth.

Avis raised an eyebrow at her father. He looked unimpressed.

“A good shot,” he said coolly, “but unfortunately I’ve seen fence posts fight in the arena about as often as women.”

Avis was seething, but she returned her bow to the sidelines and drew her sword once more.

“Again!”

· · · · ·​

Peredur’s pace slowed as he approached the clearing. He stopped at the edge, his eyes going from the iron ingots still sitting in the middle of the field to Avis.

For a single, terrifying moment, she saw her father there. Giant and daunting, the orange light of dusk casting wicked shadows with the spikes and contours of his polished steel armor.

“I will not cower petrified…” Avis whispered to herself, nocking an arrow.

The next moment, he was just an aggron again. Frightening still, but real. Fightable. Beatable. Peredur was watching her closely, unmoving. Testing him, Avis took a step forward. Peredur mirrored it. She took another step. Peredur followed suit.

It clicked. To him, this was an arena battle. For her, her very first. For him, just one of many.

Remembering the rules of combat, she took another step, then another, counting them. When they had each moved the requisite eight steps closer to each other, they were only about ten feet apart. Avis took a deep breath to steady herself.

Her heart pounded in her chest, her ears, even her fingertips. “I will not cower petrified…” Avis repeated under her breath.

Peredur just looked at her, unblinking. Each breath of his was loud and hot enough to feel even at this distance.

“Yah!” Avis shouted, suddenly charging forward, feinting right then ducking left.

Peredur lurched in surprise, swinging at her with his huge left foreleg. She dodged the blow easily, then jumped over his tail as it slowly swung around.

Avis needed to create space, and running directly away from Peredur wasn’t the best way to do it. She had to slow him first, and her sudden charge had done just that.

If she picked up her feet and stepped quickly, the loose dirt barely slowed her, but just as she had hoped, Peredur was struggling. His heavy weight sunk into the soil several inches, making his tail swing sluggish. It took him almost a full second to turn around.

That was all the time Avis needed. She reached the edge of the field, turned, and sighted down the arrow still nocked in the bow.

Peredur bent low on all fours and charged at her. His head was lowered, one and a half horns protruding ominously from his helmet-like skull. But Avis could see his blue eyes when his head swung upward during part of his awkward gallop.

Avis drew the bowstring back, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. She could feel the strength of the bow in her arms, bending dutifully as she pulled, yet yearning to be let loose. Bit by bit, she eased the tension in her fingers until the string was just barely restrained by her fingertips. She only had a couple seconds before Peredur would collide with her, likely killing her outright even if she dodged the horns. This shot had to count.

She waited patiently for her chance, watching Peredur’s head. Up-down. Up-down. Up-down. Up-

She released. Avis didn’t have time to see if the shot had hit, she just threw herself to the side. As she scrambled in the dirt, a piercing screech assaulted her ears. It was so loud and abrasive that it practically knocked her back in the dirt, like a nail drawn across a steel plate.

So she had hit it.

Avis spun around and got to her feet, trying to put distance between herself and the flailing aggron.

Peredur clawed at his face, snapping the arrow that was embedded in his left eye. Dark red blood flowed from the wound. His right eye burned with pain and hatred.

Bow still held in her left hand, Avis drew the scyther blade with her right just as Peredur came toward her. He clawed at her, but she jumped out of reach. Avis swung the scyther blade at Peredur’s outstretched foreleg, but it just skittered across the steel ring around his wrist without catching on anything that it could cut.

This happened a few more times, Avis dodging barely out of reach, but her strikes bouncing harmlessly off Peredur’s armor. She knew the steel plates were impenetrable, but the darker skin was just that: skin. It was thick and difficult to pierce, but vulnerable, especially under the forelegs and in the stomach area. Unfortunately, Peredur was quite good at catching blows on the armored parts of his body.

Peredur suddenly barged forwards, catching Avis by surprise. She lurched to the side, but a foreleg swung out towards her face. She tried to deflect it with her scyther blade, but although it cut into the flesh between Peredur’s claws, she couldn’t keep ahold of it. Peredur’s claws flinched in pain and the blade went flying.

Avis tucked and rolled away. As she stood up, Peredur gave another one of his shrieking roars. It almost threw Avis off-balance, but she saw a chance.

Quickly drawing another arrow, she let loose a rapid shot straight into Peredur’s gaping maw. She didn’t have much time to aim, but it was a big target.

Peredur’s mouth snapped shut with a loud clang right before the arrow hit, making it clatter off the invincible steel of his jaw.

Avis blinked, unsure of what to do next. Peredur had no such hesitation. He spun, plowing his tail through the dirt for a few feet before finally realizing that he needed to raise it to pick up momentum. Peredur was too close and the tail too large to dodge. Avis held out her hands in front of her and tried to roll with the blow.

It hit her smack in the chest, knocking her on her back and snapping the bow into multiple pieces. Head spinning, she coughed and frantically scrambled away from a follow-up slash. Two of the fingers on her left hand that had been holding the bow felt like they were on fire, possibly broken.

Avis clenched her teeth and dove for the dull green blade sticking out of the dirt a few feet away. Another slash went over her head, and she took the opportunity to charge in close, swinging the blade with both hands in a powerful draw cut along Peredur’s stomach. The blade sliced cleanly through the thick skin, but it only got deep enough to draw blood for a few inches of the cut.

Peredur roared again, this time he was so close that the sound gave Avis a pounding headache and left nothing but an incessant ringing in her ears. Too late, she noticed that she was too close to the aggron and had no way to escape. Peredur’s steely claws came in from either side, grasping Avis around her waist, hoisting her into the air, and slamming her down on the ground.

The blow wasn’t as bad as it would have been if she hadn’t plowed the ground, but it still knocked the wind out of her. She coughed and choked, but didn’t have time to recover. Peredur’s mighty jaws bore down on her head. Blood dripped from his eye, splattering on the ground. Hot droplets of it splashed her face.

Peredur’s strength was incredible, she couldn’t even wriggle under his grip, but at least her arms were free. Desperately, Avis swung the scyther blade upwards, straight into Peredur’s right armpit. The blow didn’t have much strength behind it, but the razor sharpness of the blade did its work. It tore into the aggron’s flesh, severing muscles and tendons.

Before Peredur could bite Avis’s head off, the pain of the strike made him collapse on his side, letting out another roar that might have been loud if Avis already couldn’t hear anything besides ringing. The movement tore the blade from Avis’s grip.

Freed from Peredur’s grasp, Avis rolled away and staggered to her feet, still coughing and spluttering. Her whole body hurt now. What was a bad injury and what she could live with, she wasn’t sure. It just hurt.

Avis tried to keep to Peredur’s left side, his blind side. He writhed in the dirt, blood flowing freely from his multiple wounds. His left arm, under which the scyther blade was still stuck, hung limply.

She panted, thinking. She could try to retrieve the blade. If she could get both hands on it, Avis was sure she could pull it free. But that would mean getting dangerously close.

The spear!

Avis looked around anxiously. The fire she had lit was still going, though it had diminished somewhat. The spear was still leaned on a rock, the point jutting into the flames. She limped over to it as fast as she could while Peredur began to get his feet under him.

The very tip of the spear’s point glowed a cheerful orange, just like she had hoped. Grabbing the haft, she picked the weapon up and planted herself in front of a tree.

“Hey!” she shouted at Peredur, her own words barely audible in her ears. “I think this is yours!”

Even with only three usable limbs, Peredur moved with incredible speed for his size. Seeing his prey, he began lumbering across the field.

Avis squared her shoulders. Feeling around with the back end of the spear, she found a spot to plant it against the tree, and waited. The spear might not be sharp enough. It might not be a killing blow. But it was all she had left, and she was going to do it.

Avis refused to let herself close her eyes as Peredur bore down on her. She concentrated fiercely, aiming the spear right where his heart should be. She took a deep breath.

He hit her like a rock slide.

The single unbroken horn slid across her chest, tearing right through her jerkin and gambeson, cutting a gash along her collarbone. His shoulder slammed into her right as she felt the spear buckle and snap under his weight. Avis was knocked off her feet, sent cartwheeling backwards like ragdoll before she crashed into another tree. Colors spun around her, and her head knocked against something hard.

Stars danced in her eyes as she crumpled to the ground, but she fought to stay conscious.

“Not… this… time…”

Alternating between ragged breaths and painful coughs, Avis rolled onto her side to look at Peredur.

The tree she had been bracing against was cracked and splintered. Shards of wood littered the ground. Seeing movement, she suddenly realized that the tree was about to fall.

One final burst of adrenaline was enough to help her scamper out of the way as the fir came crashing down, snapping branches and finally hammering the ground with a rumble that shook the forest.

Still breathing quickly, but with easier breaths, Avis pushed herself to her feet.

Peredur was slumped against the shattered stump, completely still.

Avis limped closer, listening carefully. The ringing in her ears had faded somewhat, but it was still impossible to tell if she could hear the aggron’s breathing. Once she got close enough, she reached out and cautiously prodded his arm. He still didn’t respond. Encouraged, Avis set her shoulder against the aggron’s bulk and pushed him over. There was a high-pitched squeal as the beast’s horn was dislodged from the remains of the tree. The body slumped to the side.

The shaft of the spear was protruding from his chest. The wound leaked steaming blood into the dirt, where it mixed with the blood from the cut on his stomach. His huge jaw hung open, purple tongue dangling out awkwardly. He was dead.

Avis let out a sigh of relief, then winced in pain. She probably had a broken rib or two. But it didn’t matter. Peredur was dead, and with him, the last reminder of her father.

She suddenly remembered Vito’s note.

No, not her father. Her captor, her slaver, her tormentor. That man was not her father.

A sense of relief spread through her that she had not felt when she had initially read Vito’s note.

She was free now. Just like she had dreamed. Aria may not be able to share the dream with her, but if she could kill her father’s beast, then she could handle anything.

As if to remind herself that she hadn’t made it up, Avis limped back inside and retrieved the note, bringing it outside to the firelight to read again, and again, and again.

The sun had mostly set now.

Tired, sore, relieved, and for the first time since she had awoken in Radovan’s house: content, she drifted off to sleep.

· · · · ·​

The next day, after tending to her wounds, she spent several hours searching the woods for Vito’s grave. There was nothing, not even a hint. Wherever it was, it had been long ago covered by bluk berry vines and moss.

The thought of leaving her brother wherever he had been killed was sad, but she honestly couldn’t think of where else she would have buried him. Instead, she just talked to him. It sounded crazy, but it was cathartic. She reminisced of past adventures, inside jokes, and time shared together. It was the closest thing she could manage to a proper funeral service.

Eventually, she had no more excuse to dawdle. The tip of the aggron spear had been retrieved from Peredur’s body and packed away alongside Vito’s old rusty sword. All that was left was to retrieve her trophy. The aggron's head was quite heavy, so Avis used some spare rope from the supplies Radovan had provided and a few fence posts to lash together a sled.

Once that was all ready, Avis began the slow, steady journey back to Azurefell. She was weighed down, and yet… unburdened.