Bliss of the Past

[Ilyria]

The fire cracked blissfully on this cold day. Ilyria was sat in front of the flame on a small pillow, sipping daintily her cup of hot cocoa. While this was going on, she felt like she had forgotten something she should have done. This was quickly answered as Stephen made way into the cozy room. "You know, for wanting so much to be a guard, you don't seem to be taking your training too seriously.”
Oh yeah; that. She had completely forgotten that just twenty minutes prior, she had decided to take a break. “I said I was just taking a break.”
Stephen’s reply as colder than any icicle. “That was two hours ago.”
“Uhhh… It’s important to take one step at a time.”
It was hardly appropriate to anger at this young girl, who has not yet fully clenched the idea of what being an active member of the military entails, for part of the reason that Ilyria had decided to become a guard was an important, life-changing event that is so seldomly seen.

Bo: Wow, your mother’s so cool! Being in the military must be exciting.
Ilyria: Yea, I want to do the same, too!

Now she had toyed with the idea of a life of adventure high in the sky, patrolling the land, air, and sea for any bandits and other like miscreants. Selma had mixed ideas about the whole ordeal, though trying to talk her daughter out of joining an institution she was a part of was a completely fruitless idea. After all, her mother had been a Pegasus Knight as well, so too was her mother, and her mother before her. Ilyria’s father had also served some time in the guard, with his father being captain, and his father being officer too. Even her uncle was still serving at capacity. It didn’t take too much to see how Ilyria wanted to do the same as well.

“Right, and if you if you keep stopping you’ll never get where you want.”

Stephen cared for the girl almost like a daughter, and was always very strict with her training. To his slight detriment, she would always get back up from her stupor and work on her martial prowess. Ilyria immediately launched from her chair and saluted, drinking the rest of her cocoa on the way.

The training grounds for this particular event was a bit different. Actually it completely surprised her, for unlike the small dirt patch outside, they were still inside their sizable lodge. Now the pair was occupying a fairly non-descript room, the library, with a few cushioned chairs and a three-legged stand. “While you were inside enjoying yourself, the weather’s picked up quite a bit, so I thought we’d do some light reading.”

“Ehhhh….”

This moan was met with a book thrown onto her lap. “A warrior’s mind is just as important as his muscles.”

No further commentary was given as the soldier sat down opposite of Ilyria and resumed the place he was reading before. The text that she was apparently to read was titled A Baker’s Boon. It was to say that the look on the girl’s face was most quizacious. “What does baking have anything to do with being a soldier?”

“It doesn’t.”

She pouted some but knew any further response would be just as useless. This guard-in-training, who has never been interested in much save guard training and accounting, opened the book with some disdain and started on this clearly arduous task. She soon learned that this tale was less of a cookbook and more of a satire of the government. Ilyria was too young to fully understand these concepts, and soon was bombarding her uncle with question after question concerning this most exciting and novel novel. It wasn’t too long in her mind then she was nearly halfway complete. It was much to Ilyria’s dismay that Stephen closed his book and declared it time for her to sleep. He wasn’t at all wrong in this judgement, as the sun settled several hours before, and he had to carry the girl into her room. “But what happens to the chandler?!”

“You’ll have to find out tomorrow. You know, it’s important to take one step at a time.”

This earned her largest pout yet, and soon, she was tucked snug in her cozy bed and snoring daintily.

When she woke up, it was nearing brunch, but this headstrong Illian was having none of that. “Stephen!” It did not take long after for the girl to begrudgingly restart her plans of staying in bed all day for the lack of response, and made her way out to the small foyer. There was a bit of a commotion going on, but when she looked in at the fuss, Ilyria immediately rushed and embraced her recently returned father. “Yay, father!” This hug was returned in full.
“Ilyria! I’ve missed you!” There was some time spent between them, as Regine sneaked his way into the kitchen. “Sooo. What’d you get me?” Wladus had already anticipated this greed, and had already sent his assistant to prepare. “We got your favourite cake from Cornwell. Cost a fortune, too!” Regine brought the slices to the couches and handed the girl a piece, along with some honey milk. “This is the best!”
Though as Ilyria sat on the cushions in front of the fireplace and enjoyed this delicious cake, she couldn’t help but think she was forgetting to do something....

[Ilyria]

Stephen was no doubt a legendary warrior, the sort of warrior that some will think only exist in childrens' imaginations, but this was not the case. The Ilian farmer, who actually didn't spend too much time farming, and only then it was a small selection of roots, lived a humble life in a forest near Arphen. He actually lived in a pretty nice mansion too, with a large selection of both fine books and fine weapons. Among his arsenal was a long-pointed spear created out of dragon bone and an axe which was tested on a large troll, which Stephen slayed himself. Now despite his accomplishments he was a completely ordinary man, one you might find anywhere else. There was nothing special about him, except his great ambition. His drive was to protect his village and family at all costs. Once, when Ilia was at war with some invaders to the east and his village was at risk, Stephen took his Dragon-slayer Spear, and faced the invasion himself. This farmer returned with little injury, having saved his village. Stephen was the only survivor, which is why no one else in Ilia has heard of the battle. What's even more impressive is that once the warrior returned to his home, he didn't even drink a cup of honey milk and take a nap. He actually just started polishing his spear, which took quite the beating after such a long and impressive fight. Another time, in the middle of a harsh winter and when the firewood was running low, he went outside in the heavy snow and chopped a bunch of firewood himself. His family was very happy about this whole ordeal, and baked him an impressively large cake afterwards.

Stephen might have well been Councilor due to his accomplishments, but he was very humble and only wanted to serve as a guard to Arphen. The city was very much better off for it, and many bandit incursions were stopped by his stark leadership. His brother too, was a member of the same force, and served as a logistics captain. Together, the two were Ilia's best line of defense. No matter what the task, whether it be fighting bandits, monsters, brewing tea, or collecting beets, nothing was too strong a challenge for them. Their greatest challenge was perhaps when a dragon, the size of a small city, flew in suddenly from the north and begin ravaging the land. This dragon was much bigger than the other dragons the two slew, and it did not get so close to the ground for the two to attack them. The Pegasus Knights were much too far away to do anything, as they were fighting an ogre a long ways away.
However, the two thought of a plan to rid Ilia of this dangerous beast. Wladus quickly gathered up all the beets he could, and laid a trap. Knowing that the dragon must get hungry eventually, he put all the beets into a large pile in a field, and covered it with some delicious basil. The dragon did get hungry, and smelled the very delicious basil. It soon took a nice rest and laid on the ground, eating what it thought to be a very delicious meal. However it was just beets. So rancid was the aftertaste that it died. Arphen was well-fed off of the dragon meat for many months to come...

"Hold up, it did not happen like that!"

Bo made a quick interjection, which quickly resulted in anger from Ilyria.

"It so did! How else would they have killed the dragon?"

"By sticking it with their spears, duh. They're soldiers, not crop artists."

"The dragon was too big for them too kill, they couldn't do it otherwise."

"Also, beets are delicious, the dragon would have loved them!"

"Beets are disgusting, that's why they got all the beets, because nothing can survive eating more than two a day."

Bo and Ilyria kept arguing over the guard reserve's feats, but got nowhere. They stopped their argument when they agreed to wait for Stephen to come back home. When this did happen, he was bombarded.

"Hey Stephen, remember when you and father killed that huge dragon? Not the one you killed with your Dragon-slayer Spear, the other one. How did you do it?"

Stephen recoiled somewhat and had his brows furrowed. "Hmmm... Dragons are long gone. I've never seen a dragon in my life, and neither has anyone else."

The two were even more confused than her uncle. "Haah? What happened to all the beets then?"

"What beets? I thought you hated them."

"I do, but remember a couple years ago you gathered up all the beets and the basil to kill the dragon."

It took a few more moments for Stephen to recollect his memory. "Oh, that. That was for the Spring festival. Remember, the one you were sick for?"

"So did you not kill any dragons?"

"What makes you think I've killed a dragon?"

Stephen plopped down the bag filled with flour he was carrying onto the kitchen station.

"Hmm... Well when I went to the city, Vytaus and the guys at the pub told me that all the meat they got was from a dragon you and them killed. They told me all about it."

He sighed. "Don't listen to Vytaus, all he does is drink. Dragons aren't around anymore."

"So are you saying when you returned early from Edessa, you didn't single-handedly stop an entire invasion?"

"That was when the guards and I stopped a few quarreling clans, there was never much danger."

Ilyria was getting more upset by the second. "Hmph, and you didn't actually kill a troll, or forge a spear out of dragon bone?"

"None of those things happened, and I'm pretty sure anything the drunks at the pub told you didn't either. I just work for the guard, nothing too exciting happens."

By this time the girl and her uncle had reached the library, where her unfinished literary masterpiece laid on the table. Usually Stephen liked to read and so picked up Ilyria's work. It was called Tales About Stephen, which was the tentative sequel to the finished book Tales About my Father, written by Ilyria when she was much younger. After reading this obviously great work, the hero himself let out his critique. "It's alright, nobody will believe it though, and I couldn't tell what the message was."

His niece quickly set out on a revision, this time telling the tales of a guard reserve protecting his home, which now that she thought about it, made for a much nicer story.