Author Topic: Duris Anaris ~ Searching for the Black Sword  (Read 1294 times)

Anaris

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In a relatively modest lodging house (at least, compared to those available closer to the palace, which was still being repaired of the damage dealt by years beneath the sea), Duris Anaris reviewed the fair copy of the letter he had dictated. Handing it back to his scribe, he nodded, saying, "Very good, Seb. Send it." The scribe stood, bowed, and left the room.

Duris stood from the second chair next to the writing-desk and crossed the room to the window. He stretched his muscular nearly-two-meter frame as he looked out, the breeze ruffling his dark brown hair. He brushed an errant lock from pale brown eyes as his gaze followed another noble entering the barracks across the street that was the reason he had chosen this inn. He was still new to actually commanding troops, but he felt that it was wrong to stay too far from them.

Turning from the window, he picked up a scabbarded sword from where it hung on a peg next to the bed. He drew the sword and inspected it. The edge was already as keen as he was likely to make it, but he pulled out a cloth and polished the flat of the blade a little more. It was a plain, unornamented steel sword, and while it was a finely-made weapon, in perfect condition (after all, it had never yet been used), he was still dissatisfied with it.

"Some day," he muttered to the sword, since there was no one else around, "I need to get you replaced with a black steel sword. Then I'll truly be worthy of my name."

Duris: the Black Sword. Though it was not the name he had been born with, he had refused to answer to anything else since his fourteenth birthday. At the time, it had been little more than a way to push back against what he saw as his parents' overprotective nature and their sometimes stifling expectations of him. Over the past three and a half years, though, he had come to see it as more, and felt that it was his duty to grow into the name he had chosen for himself. "The Black Sword," he whispered. "Not flashy. Not the blade you see coming a mile off, but the one that does not rust, and does not rest. This is what I must become. This is what I will become."
Timothy Collett

"The only thing you can't trade for your heart's desire...is your heart." "You are what you do.  Choose again, and change." "One of these days, someone's gonna plug you, and you're going to die saying, 'What did I say? What did I say?'"  ~ Miles Naismith Vorkosigan