Ep. 49- Becoming the Blade

flashback montage- ext. training yard

An old training ground for swordsmen- dummies, armaments, etc scattered about a dirty yard. Recruits dot the yard performing calisthenics and sword drills.

The montage proceeds accordingly:

A) The Young Queen, in a clean white training tunic. Before her, an INSTRUCTOR, who shows her an array of swords ranging from fencing swords all the way up to enormous buster swords. The Young Queen immediately selects the most enormous sword in the line. She can barely lift it. The Instructor shakes his head, shows the Young Queen a short sword. The Young Queen shakes her head. She closes her eyes- green air Arcane energy forms around her hands, leaping into the hilt of the buster. She lifts it high above her head and then points it forward as if it were weightless. The Instructor sets a hand on the Queen’s shoulder. The Young Queen looks up at the instructor, surprised to find him scowling.

INSTRUCTOR
You carry a blade by merits of your body- your muscle and bone. No shortcuts. A swordsman who skips the basics is just a child playing with a knife- a greater danger to themselves than the enemy.

The Instructor holds out the fencing sword. The Young Queen reluctantly withdraws her Arcane energy, the sword falling to the floor with a thud. She trades the buster for the fencing blade, which she waves about with disdain.

B) The Young Queen practicing sword thrusts over and over as time speeds by her. As sun and moon pass overhead, classmates speed by and the instructor orbits her in a lecturing circle. The Young Queen’s movements grow more fluid and sure as time passes, her hair and stature growing to match the passage. The blade turns from fencing blade to short sword to longsword- and finally, the massive buster she first gripped as a youth.

C) The Young Queen, now aged by several years, stands at the center of the training grounds. She no longer wears a white training tunic, but the leather armor of an initiate. She swings the enormous buster sword overhead and thrusts it upwards with one hand, then swings it like a helicopter, faster, faster, generating an intense green aura of air Arcane energy. She ceases the helicopter motion and releases the Arcane air energy forward toward a wagon full of hay. The energy strikes the wagon, bursting it to splinters.

From an observation post on the other side of the training yard, the Old Queen watches this, a mixture of concern and pride playing across her face. In the shadows behind her, the outline of Streength can also be seen, a smile playing across her own lips.