Vaeludar heard of the king having a single child, a daughter who would be the next in line for the throne: Princess Stephanie. And the Siren would be considered an adopted daughter of the king of Shimabellia.
It would all seem strange for a king to take in a believed monstrous creature by adopting it, but Vaeludar had mysteriously won the heart of the Siren. It was then the king would adopt the Siren as a princess and a daughter, since the Siren almost looked human, only with some fish figures on her skin.
“It would seem the Siren, Marina, would be eager to see in the flesh,” said Vaeludar.
“You can daydream of your fish friend all day while I have to go and make preparations for the king,” said Geraldus. He mounted back on his horse and strolled away.
Vaeludar looked over at the surrounding trees and felt a small wind rousing around him. “I wonder if she is really eager to see me after we have just met five years ago. Of course, it have been five years since I last seen her. What is going to happen when she sees in for the first time in five years? I wouldn’t want my skin facing against a Siren’s sharp teeth.”
A PIECE OF CLOTH AGAIN
V
aeludar spent the next two days doing some more sword training, with the blade whipping-snipping at the practice dummies he was easily cutting down. He added great swiftness and brute strength to the sword. Having the strength and stamina of a Dragon and the size of a human being he was quick to master the skill of a sword.
With a mighty sharp sword still believed to be a magic sword and a cross specimen wielding it, Vaeludar’s great power had doubled. Not only had he thought he would fight like a beast but fight had a human as well.
Vaeludar had been raised by humans more than by monsters or savages. He needed to show he was more human than a monster seeking the savages of war.
With the passing hours he was putting in, he was showing he was a capable warrior and a fearless fighter. Normally, it would take some long months for a training recruit to master a few basic moves, but Vaeludar have mastered the most basic and the most advanced moves within days. His half dragon body could be the only reason for why he had mastered the skills so fast.
“I should have discovered this in my younger years,” he said. “I have a great talent for swordsmanship.”
Of the moments he had witnessed in his seventeen years of life, this was the event he was finding the most exhilarating, how to use a weapon instead of fighting with bare hands.
Of course, where he was going, there were bound to be eyes watching him, mostly soldiers-in-training. The soldiers, from a distance, watched the hybrid slashing-and-dicing the training figures. He knew they were watching him, but he didn’t care if they were watching for entertainment value or staring out of jealousy of his inferior skill.
He thought they would be jealous that he was cutting down many magic stick figures or that he had killed a beast they could have killed with their spears and axes. And other thoughts they were thinking of the hybrid of he shouldn’t even be living in the village or should be not be permitted in the training grounds, since he was taking up most of the time taking down any wooden opponent coming to him.
But how could he stop? Every time one would go down, the stick figure would magically come up and fight again. Vaeludar couldn’t stop the fight until all enemies had been beaten, and he felt like he still needed to go on. At several points he wanted to stop chopping up wood, but there would always be a secondary thought for him to continue the fighting.
And he couldn’t help it, he just keep on fighting, trying to keep his wooden enemies on the ground. He just kept on going in the following hours.
It was late in the afternoon, after he left the training grounds behind and the soldiers had their turn of the magical, wooden figures and started their training.
Vaeludar never knew he could have a split personality in his brain: two different personas. He felt his human side wanted him to stop, and his dragon side aching for him to continue the fight until he had downed all the figures, which didn’t work in Vaeludar’s human favor. They just kept on coming back from being chopped firewood and back into humanlike figures.
It was when someone called out his name that he suddenly stopped. When he stopped fighting, the figures had stopped as well. He finally had the will to stop fighting and walked away from the training ground. He was done with the sword training and did not need to seek any more training.
Back at the village, every damaged place had been repaired and everybody was back at work, gathering enough food to last them through the winter before they would resume working in the spring to prepare for the winter of next year.
From the last few fights the hybrid fought in, the damage he had caused had been swept away.
However, there were some casualties the wolf pack had taken. They killed some villagers while he was away. Vaeludar wasn’t to blame as he never knew there was going to be another attack from the Greenwood Forest.
Vaeludar managed to kill the wolf pack and save the rest of the villagers from dying, but he came too late to save some others that weren’t as lucky as the rest of the village.
A small funeral was held for those who had lost their lives during the second skirmish. Vaeludar also attended those buried when the Black Dogs attacked the village.
