Work Text
One hundred and fifty-seven years before the Binding Rod :The wound needed stitches, Seainin knew, feeling warm blood continue to soak the gauze he pressed to his shoulder. His mind ran through the proper steps to dress an injury like this, not life threatening, but deep enough to need attention, just as he'd been taught: clean and disinfect, stitch closed with sanitized thread, wrap firmly with bandages to absorb and offer compression to the site.The only problem was that he couldn't seem to move.It wasn't the pain, though that was a distraction. He'd been injured worse than this during training, though. He'd dressed his own wounds on many occasions as well, often under the supervision of an instructor ensuring he could get the techniques right. The Lanna Sioc didn't waste learning opportunities like that. And yet here he sat, on a hard bench in the room adjacent to the combat training hall, first aid supplies open beside him, thinking about all the things he needed to do next, and he just… couldn't… do them…Why couldn't he just do this? Why was he so stuck? He'd known what today's training would entail. The instructors had made it clear this would be an important session, in light of their honored observer being in attendance to assess their progress. The training had prepared him for this day, and he'd comported himself within parameters, fulfilling the training objectives as given. Yet here, alone in the aftermath, all that training failed him. He couldn't make himself move, even knowing that if he didn't get this injury addressed soon, the blood loss would start to make him lightheaded.The sound of the door opening was like a rod sent down the length of Seainin’s spine, straightening him almost entirely on instinct. He braced himself for one of his instructors to walk around the corner, reprimand his lack of progress, find his still-unstitched wound dissatisfactory. But the man who walked in—his silver-white hair cut short, Winter skin carrying a faint brush of visible blue, and those sharp, stern eyes—was not one of Seainin's combat instructors, but someone far worse… at least in terms of being caught in a state of disarray, that was. Their “honored observer” himself.“Lann Aravall,” Seainin said, quickly rising to his feet to offer a stiff bow, trying to keep pressure on his shoulder all the while. He tried to ignore how his vision swam at the sudden movement, not allowing himself to sway on his feet as Aravall’s steady gaze took him in.“Tolahn,” Aravall said, addressing Seainin by his codename. The trainees were never to use their own names while in the halls. “I had thought you would have finished seeing to that injury already. Is aught amiss?”Seainin bit back the apology that immediately perched upon his tongue, forcing himself to think about Aravall's phrasing. He hadn't been accused of doing anything wrong, not yet at least. But an apology was an admission of guilt. “Not amiss, sir,” Seainin said carefully, though he knew he might need to defend that claim if pressed. “I found myself… thinking through the exercise and assessing my conduct therein.”Aravall looked to the hand still pressed against his wound, but Seainin was spared the question of why he had not addressed that first. At least, not directly. “Is that so?”He still hadn't been told that he'd done anything wrong, so Seainin held his ground, standing firm and speaking calmly. “Yes, sir. The purpose of the exercise was to acclimate our cohort to a new level of combat intensity. I have been… attempting to… acclimate, as assigned.”“So it was.” A hint of a smile touched Aravall's lips, as though the clever answer amused him. “Sit, and let me see to your arm. I'd like to hear your assessment, then.”Seainin hesitated, just for a moment. The instructors would have expected him to dress this wound himself, a punishment that indicated that the combat supervisor ruled he shouldn't have taken the hit in the first place. If he accepted help with it, he could get in trouble for evading his responsibility. On the other hand though, Aravall… outranked everyone on the training staff. He was an active-duty Lann, seventh sealed and on promotion track to attain the eighth in only a few decades. Hells, the whole reason they'd conducted this exercise today was because Aravall, the Lann who would become a handler for some of this cohort if they achieved the seal, had returned from an assignment and wished to see their progress. If Aravall wished to assist him, it wasn't Seainin's place to refuse him. Grammatically , even, that had been an order, even if Aravall’s tone hadn’t been stern. It would be disobedient for Seainin to try to refuse him. So, he sat back down, leaving enough room on the bench for Aravall to join him a moment later. Setting a hand atop the one Seainin had been applying pressure with, Aravall helped him pull the cloth away to reveal the cut beneath. Seainin steeled his expression against the painful flare of the injury being disturbed, knowing he was expected to remain stoic and controlled, even when hurt. “Had you ever killed anyone before this?” Aravall asked him, starting to clean his shoulder with a wetted cloth. “Only other trainees, during full-strike bouts,” Seainin admitted quietly. “But that was always in the Ward Hall, and they’re always quick to bring us back when someone is struck down.”Aravall passed a hand over the broken skin, letting a soothing burst of frosty air fall from his fingers to numb away some of the pain as he worked. The sting of the antiseptic that followed was softer, a plucked string on the nerves rather than a struck gong.“So this was your first real kill, then. The first that wasn’t temporary.” The moment swam back up through Seainin’s senses, every piece of it still so fresh. The scents: acrid spell residue lingering in the air before the siphons caught it, the familiar wafts of oiled leather and metal polish, how different the sweat-smell of a body in the throes of animal fear and desperation could be from the sweat of simple exertion. The wide eyes of Seainin's target, his untrained stance, the wordless grunts and snarls as he wildly swung a sword gripped so tightly his hands shook, hoping passion alone might save him. The feeling of sucking resistance as Seainin forced his sword through the soft flesh of his opponent’s gut, and sensation of those forces reversing on his blade when he pulled it back out. The cleaner strike to the neck that followed, and the little click of bone and sinew when Seainin ensured he severed the spine. The kill clung to him, its physical sensations simmering beneath his skin, its odors cloying in his nostrils, the images of the exchange playing behind his eyelids. It grappled him, smothered him, restrained him in recollection. Half an hour ago, that man had been a living, breathing, feeling person. Now, because of Seainin, he was a pile of flesh swiftly cooling, muscles swiftly stiffening, a corpse hauled off to be disposed of before it could rot. A Lann Sioc is a weapon, Seainin’s mind whispered to him. How can you expect to be Measartha’s Blade if you cannot stomach such a simple act of bloodshed? “Yes, sir,” he said, wishing it didn’t feel like a confession.“Taking a life for the first time can be a cause of great emotion,” Aravall said, his hands and voice steady as he worked. “Describe how you’re feeling right now, Seainin.”Seainin’s ears flicked at the improper address, turning his head to look at Aravall in confusion. “It’s… it’s Tolahn. Sir.”Aravall’s eyes flicked up from his work to meet Seainin’s. “Is it, now?”Seainin stiffened, realizing the name hadn’t been a mistake, but a gentle reprimand. What was he feeling right now? Too much. Far, far too much. A naive child allowed himself to be ruled by emotions, but he was not a child anymore. He faced forward again, finding Aravall’s eye contact too intense to maintain, and felt Aravall return to his ministrations in return. Seainin deliberately slowed his breathing, trying to gather together all the messy confusion and guilt and disgust that seethed in his mind. Then, he imagined he was tamping those emotions down, packing them into a space where they could be controlled, contained. His feelings were like a fire, liable to spread and burn him if left unchecked, and he needed to be responsible enough to smother them, starve them of their oxygen, before they got further out of hand. Seainin was a boy frightened by a new experience, he succumbed to fretting and froze up with shock, but he had been taught. He could make himself think like a Lann Sioc now instead: calm, rational, focused.“Lean upon Winter, let its strengths guide you,” Aravall said beside him, offering the quiet instruction as he correctly guessed that Seainin was attempting to compose himself. “Ours is a season of clarity, of stillness. If the waters of your thoughts would seek to churn, let Winter soothe them back to placidity, and freeze them there.”With the next slow exhale, Tolahn’s breath puffed visibly in the air before him, despite the room itself not having a chill. “I’m… having difficulty identifying why I feel so affected, sir,” he said, the tone of his voice smooth and even now. “I know I must process my own reactions to this situation if I am to learn to control them, but I… I struggle to find where to begin.”He felt a small prick as Aravall began stitching, still bathing the affected area in frost periodically to numb the surface. “The men brought before your cohort were condemned,” Aravall said. “You were instructed that you each would face one in combat, to the death. You fought as a training exercise. Your opponent fought for a stay of execution, one that your competent handling denied him. Tell me what you were thinking as you stepped into the training ring, before the altercation began.”Tolahn thought back, finding clarity about the situation came easier now. “I was nervous, sir, because I knew you would be observing, and I wished to make a good showing of my capabilities. I could tell from my opponent’s stance that he had very little combat training, if any. I could see that the exercise was not designed to be a technical challenge, but an emotional one.”“Twenty-four seconds into the exchange with your opponent, he made a critical mistake. Describe the response action you took and your reasoning behind it.”Tolahn stilled. Suppose it was too much to hope that I might have gotten away without addressing that one. “I… hesitated, sir. I saw the opportunity to deliver a lethal strike, but I failed to take it. My reasoning was… My- My reasoning, it…” Tolahn paused as he found a block in what he was trying to say, took another breath, then tried to reset his mental stance and attack the answer from another angle. “I think, sir, I can claim no reasoning behind that action. Merely a faltering of conviction at that inflection point.”“As a result,” Aravall said, passing another stinging stitch through the torn flesh of the cut, “the man you were tasked to kill instead lived long enough to inflict this injury upon you.” “Y-yes, sir.”“Recount your experience of the moment of dispatch itself,” Aravall ordered calmly. A piece of Seainin poked through in surprise that Aravall wished to move on from discussing his mistake so quickly. He’d braced himself for an extended correction, and yet Aravall wanted to move on to the next part already? Tolahn wouldn’t question a boon like that, and despite the nausea of the experience still clinging to him beneath his Wintery focus, the chance to talk about what he’d done well felt like a far safer topic than where they’d just been. “After taking the injury,” he began, glossing over that error to speak on his successes instead, “I focused my efforts on concluding the exchange expeditiously. I drew the target into another vulnerable state with a successful feint, and capitalized with a significant infliction to the lower torso. While the target was still off-balance from that hit, I concluded the exchange with another significant infliction to the upper spine.”“The maneuver was well executed, Tolahn,” Aravall said, and something in Tolahn thrilled at the praise. “You have always been a gifted swordsman, and it was clear, even as an external observer, that your training allowed you to control the altercation to a conclusion of your choosing.”“Thank you, sir.”“As one who supervises your training only on infrequent occasions, it is heartening to have the chance to see a trainee achieve a feat within the high bounds of his potential like that.” Aravall paused. “Once you had overcome that ‘faltering of conviction,’ at least.”Tolahn nodded slowly, accepting the measured analysis: though he’d finished strong, he’d made a poor showing of himself at the start, and the causes of that early mistake were what he needed to root out within himself. Though he expected they were circling back to further discuss that failure now, his prospective handler surprised him again. “You described achieving two significant inflictions upon your opponent, at the end of the fight,” Aravall noted. “The first was severe enough to ensure lethality, a fulfillment of your task. Tell me why you followed up with the second.”Seainin paused, his conviction fleeing as he realized he didn’t have an immediate answer, worried about speaking incorrectly. It had just felt natural? A death from a gut wound like that, even a severe one, was often a slow, messy thing, whereas his strike to the neck had granted something far more swift. “I believed a clean, unquestionable kill would be considered preferable, for the exercise,” Seainin offered slowly, still not sure why this was of interest. “A decisive act. Leaving my opponent to suffer a– an extended expiration felt undesirable.”Aravall made a thoughtful noise at that last phrase. “The second strike, you would say it was meant to prevent your target further suffering?”“I…” Seainin tensed. That must have been incorrect. “If it were, would that… be contrary to the exercise’s objective?”Aravall offered no answer, instead finishing up the stitches. His cool fingers gingerly applied a salve before starting to wrap Seainin’s arm with neat bandages. After almost a minute of silence, he finally spoke again, though it was not an answer to Seainin’s question.“The man you faced today was condemned by the state. Tell me what that means.”“He… committed a crime deserving of capital punishment?” “No. ” Aravall’s tone was stern enough that Seainin’s head snapped to face him again and immediately found himself locked into eye contact. “Lanna Sioc are not law enforcement. We do not provide justice, Tolahn. We provide necessity. When a man like that has been condemned, to a Lann Sioc it means nothing more than that Measartha has deemed his death would be in greater service to society than his life. We neither ask for nor receive any more reason than that. Many of those we are tasked to eliminate have committed no crime, but they have been deemed to obstruct Measartha’s security or prosperity nonetheless. Do you understand?”Seainin felt pinned beneath the intensity of Aravall’s gaze. Slowly though, he nodded, not entirely trusting himself to give a verbal answer. Aravall pulled the bandage taut with a short tug, and a wince slipped through Seainin's expression at that unexpected flare of pain. Aravall held him in that stare for several silent moments longer, then finally looked down once more to focus on tying off the cloth wrap, freeing Seainin to face forward again. When Aravall continued, his voice was fully placid once more. “You asked if your merciful strike was against the parameters of your task today. It was not. This time. In this capacity, you were not acting against orders to have done so. However, you must understand that you will not always have the luxury of such an option. A Lann must do as the mission demands, even if it means you are not permitted to spare your mark any measure of suffering.”The memories of the kill started to thread their grasp around Seainin once more, the sickening experiences twisting into a hypothetical: What if he had been ordered to stop after the gut strike? What if the training instructor had asked him to stand down and watch that man pass slowly instead, in sucking gasps and agony? Could he have… stomached that? You must. If it is asked of you, you must. That is what Aravall is telling you, the harder side of him reprimanded. A Blade is wielded. It doesn’t question, it merely cuts where the hand directing its movements bids it strike. As his own emotions threatened to paralyze him once more, he struggled to bridle them again, to bind them back under control. Winter would numb him, Winter would grant him focus. Clarity. If he would be Lanna Sioc, he needed to act like it. Feel like it. “You described your killing blow—an act of mercy—as decisive , Tolahn,” Aravall said. “But were you decisive when you failed to secure the kill at your first opportunity in the fight? What instinct caused your resolve to falter there? Identify it.”Tolahn’s voice was barely above a whisper. “M-mercy. Sir.” Aravall placed his hand on the dressed and bound wound on Tolahn's shoulder, applying the barest hint of pressure upon it. “You were ordered to deliver that man's death, in service of Measartha. Your hesitation did not alter his fate. He died as ordained. The only wage of your faltering instinct is this, a pain you will carry as a reminder of the consequences for that misplaced sentiment. “To spare those Measartha has deemed deserving of death brings only harm upon ourselves, upon our people. When your inaction offers a window for Measartha's enemies to retaliate, it is Measartha that will suffer. If you must act in mercy, Tolahn, act to spare Measartha from suffering. Your arm would bear no stitches today had you killed that man first, had you chosen to be merciful towards yourself instead.” Tolahn nodded slowly, trying his best to internalize that. “I understand, sir.”Aravall's hand withdrew, offering one more gentle burst of chilled air to soothe the bandaged wound once more. “The emotions around an experience like this are intense the first time you encounter them. That is the point of training, that you can act, feel, process, and then put those feelings aside, where they will no longer interfere. The next time you are required to act, you will anticipate these feelings, like a sword maneuver that you have learned to parry. This time, your first time, the blow has landed and inflicted its harm. Next time, you may control yourself enough that the feelings become a glancing blow instead. With enough practice, you learn to evade them entirely.”“Until… the instinct to hesitate no longer holds sway,” Tolahn said carefully, not quite a question, but clearly seeking some kind of affirmation. “That is correct,” Aravall said. “Until you no longer allow any emotion that might interfere to have breath within your mind at all. This is not an automatic response, it is honed, like any other skill. It becomes easier with practice. As you described it, most aptly, you are doing the work of acclimating to experiences like these.”Tolahn thought about that carefully, focusing in, trying to make his mind and body feel correctly. It was hard, with how deeply that emotional ache lingered, a pain that ran far deeper than the soreness in his arm, but he kept trying until his breath frosted once more and his thoughts began to settle. Then stilled. Then hardened. He held onto that assurance that it would become easier, with time. That someday he wouldn't feel like this anymore. That he would learn to act without these weaker parts of himself holding him back. With his task completed, Aravall turned on the bench, facing his student more directly. “You are doing well, Tolahn. The sharpening of a Lann Sioc is an intense process, as you now know. I have seen it break many who lack the discipline, the resolve, or the skill to endure what it demands. Do you recall the day of your training induction?”Tolahn’s hands clenched where they rested against his legs, that memory hardening something deep inside him. When all his hard work and accomplishments had meant naught. He'd excellent in his courses, even when he'd been moved up to more advanced sessions at the academy. He'd been recommended to transfer into Lanna Sioc training full time. He remembered that day here at the headquarters ten years ago, the first time he'd met Aravall, only to be faced with immediate, withering disdain. Too soft , Aravall had said, minutes after meeting him. How hard Seainin had fought to convince Aravall to reconsider. Still a novice, but demanding his chance to face down a master to prove his capability. How thoroughly he’d been broken that day, in his pursuit of that opportunity to continue. But it had worked, hadn’t it?“I… recall it, sir.”With a two fingered gesture, Aravall motioned for him to make eye contact again. “It is a rare experience that I am proven wrong. Rarer still that I should have cause to be pleased by it. Yet here you are, in defiance of my initial assessment. Learning, improving, sharpening. You have the makings of an exceptional Lanna Sioc, Tolahn. I never had any doubt you were capable of learning the skills , but it will take work for you to learn the control. That has always been your struggle, and it will be the most difficult part of yourself to master. But when the day comes that I become a handler, I would be pleased to accept an agent like you under my command. Should you continue to prove capable, of course.”Aravall stood, then offered a hand to assist Tolahn up to his feet too.Tolahn straightened as he stood, then dipped into a formal bow, arms stiffly held at his sides, even the injured one. When he rose again, he had to lift his chin to look Aravall in the eyes now, though, as the older man was several handspans taller. “Thank you, Lann Aravall. For assisting me today and for your faith in my capabilities. I too look forward to the day we will work together, once I have attained my seal.”Aravall’s lips fleetingly quirked in a half-smile, there for but a moment before it was gone. “Perhaps. For now though, you have more work ahead of you.” He gestured towards the door to the training hall, inviting Tolahn to walk first. “Back to it, then. Your instructors will be wondering what kept you.”Tolahn returned, holding Aravall's words and the pain of his injury as twin lessons in his mind, and the training continued. As the days went by, the newest lessons brought an emphasis on particularly intense drills and challenges while they had Aravall around to observe. The cohort only had a few months before the prospective handler would return to fieldwork and the training instructors were intent on using the active Lann’s expertise effectively. Aravall wasn't the only active duty Lann on the handler track who took short-term assignments between missions to oversee this group, but there were often months between such visits, and it might be years before Aravall himself returned.Towards the end of Aravall’s time with them, the instructors prepared another lethality exercise. Another opportunity to… acclimate. This exercise however, was not a fight to the death as the last had been. No dueling exchanges to be offered up to the combat evaluator’s assessment. No, this time, Seainin and the other trainees were led into the hall to find a row of prisoners, bound and waiting. Unable to fight back. Powerless. Assignments went out, one prisoner for each student. The orders were clear: the execution method was exsanguination. The instructor would make the calls for the timing, position, and depth of each cut. It was to be precise, it was to be clinically delivered, and it was to be slow.Aravall stood impassively beside the supervising instructor on the observation dais, hands clasped at parade rest behind his back, gaze sweeping calmly over each of the dozen trainees in Seainin’s cohort. It was likely only half of those in the hall today would make it to the end of the program, and be granted a seal of their own. Seainin felt Aravall’s eyes focus on him, reading his posture, his expression, looking for signs that he might hesitate again. Signs of distress. Despite knowing how important it was to show discipline in this moment, the stress and nausea began to rise at the thought of what he was about to do, the suffering he was being asked to inflict. Then the first lesson returned, and he reached for Winter to help him numb that weakness away. Seainin had hesitated, Seainin had let an enemy live and had paid for that moment in blood. Seainin had let his feelings cause him to falter. And Seainin had been foolish enough to make a mistake where the most important man in his life, the man who had doubted his resolve, could bear witness.He took position behind his kneeling target, unsheathing his standard-issue dagger, and placing it against the weeping, weakly struggling man’s neck. Then he looked up at the training supervisor and at Aravall, and waited for the instruction of where to make the first cut. Hollow, focused, and ready to be wielded. The Blade in the hand of another, sharpened for Measartha's benefit. Tolahn would do as he was told.⬼❅⤗
"Self-Sacrifice, Assisted" by Theo Suren, SUWISUWIIDescription: Two different versions of the character Meijin—"Tolahn" the Lanna Sioc agent and "Seainin Ellesti" the innocent boy he once was—are depicted with their mentor and handler, Aravall. Seainin, dressed in white, sits upon a bloodied altar, perfectly content, looking up towards Aravall with trust and admiration. Another version of himself, Tolahn, dressed in a Lanna Sioc black uniform, kneels behind him, holding a blade to Seainin's neck. Aravall, also in uniform, encircles them both. He holds Seainin's gaze with a reassuring smile even while he guides Tolahn's blade to Seainin's neck and holds Tolahn's head to ensure he cannot look away. Two versions of a Lanna Sioc seal, the arcane sigil inked upon the back of all agents in service, are depicted behind Tolahn and Aravall like halos. Tolahn's seal design is simpler, while Aravall's is more elaborate.