Irina Villiard Leonhardt, Sugiuran Sueki Hybrid [WIP]

“You need to spend time crawling alone through shadows to truly appreciate what it is to stand in the sun.”
― Shaun Hick

Many rumors have befallen as to what exactly befallen a member of the Leonhardt and a member of the Sanguine Court to have conceived a child together. Romantics believed that this was a sign of true love, surpassing that of race and social status and as to why the mother wasn't there for the child's upbringing was merely due to her death. Another theory was that this was a sign of treaty, having offering a child that was both from the Sanguine Court and the Western Kingdom was to symbolize peace between the two and either leaving the child in the hands of the Sugiurans was to further empower that idea of trusting them. Or perhaps the Sanguine Court was in some sort of trouble at the time and it was unsafe to have a child there at the time. If you weren't the romantic time people have believed that a Sueki had forced themselves upon a member of the Leonhardts. After the spawn was born, she was sent to the realm to be a spy for her people thus being that of a bad omen.

Many, many rumors surrounded Irina and her birth, no-one knew exactly which member of the Leonhardts was her father but there were theories on that as well. No-one knew exactly who her mother was as she was left in the hands of the sugiurans without a messenger. As for Irina the world was filled with too many uncertainties, what was she supposed to tell people that she couldn't even see the face of her mother. Irina was born with very poor vision, only capable of making out coloured blurred shapes, she had a rather hard time in life. The man who ended up taking her in was a valiant one; as far as she could remember he was the time to go out of his way to help those in need however, he was still very stern.

Even if she could remember her years as an infant, nothing would have prepared herself for the events that would befallen the young child. By the time she was capable of walking her vision has already dropped further, the colours weren't washed out but everything seemed a lot darker. It was quite obvious to her father that she could never reply on her sight, and for her first birthday was gifted two things. The first were bandages to place over her failing eyesight so she could begin training in her life of sightlessness, and the second was a particular item. From touch alone this felt rather heavy and smooth; part of it seemed to flare out before coming back into a small cylinder; unaware of what it was the infant thought it of only as a toy.

Many of her toys were of the same nature, and many of the games and stories she learned were all aimed in a specific direction. Slowly it seemed her father was pushing her towards becoming a knight, exposing her to these sorts of things at such a young age. So by the time she was capable of starting her training he would have wasted no time. The beginning was brutal and her father was unwilling to hold back, Irina can still recall the fear she felt when she didn't know where these next blow would come from. How many times have she went home covered in wounds, scrapes, bandages and tears, unlike other children she didn't need to go to school. For her she was home taught, what she needed to know was whatever her father had taught her; thus in his eyes someone who is blind shouldn't learn how to read or even write.

By the time she was capable of defending herself and even delivering a blow back she had barely reached five years old. She had never met anyone around her age in all of her time and each day was a struggle to keep going, but for some reason that faintest excitement she felt when her father finally praised her was enough. Training with her father now wasn't the only thing she wanted to do, some nights she'd spend trying to practice her sword swings, get stronger to be capable of delivering something far better. Though as restless as most nights are to anyone the nights alone seem to be noisier than ever. Voices, almost like whispers would speak to the child telling her stories and hints on how she could better herself, and each morning when she asked her father of other children in the area he would deny it's existence.

As she grew stronger and older the voice had begun to tell her tales about the night, what the world was like, but it stories soon shifted to that of questions. The first and most alarming of questions was "Why do you keep your bandages on?" With each time she would answer the voice with a simple "I can't see." It would go silent. She couldn't understand this in the slightest, this voice was something so familiar to her. By this point she had already grown adjusted to her vision loss, and her beliefs on this being some sort of guardian angel or perhaps fairies were only growing stronger with each time it spoke. It never did make any sounds other than it's voice. Not a single footstep.

Only a couple years had went by, but how quickly she had been advancing was startling. Perhaps her training further each night did really help, further being capable of upgrading to larger and heavier weapons was the reward she received. But when she was seven years old that's when her father thought that magic should be necessary to know. The simple spells were difficult to learn at first, in between her physical training and sparring with her father he'd have her attempt the spells over and over again. However after she'd learn the first spell, the second had come much easier; much like her sword practices during the night, she'd also try to squeeze in a tad of magic.

By this age her father had put her up against other larger individuals, possibly other knights, to practice against. He was far to worried I would get used to his patterns and movements, therefore not advance to actually spar against others. At first glance most people would have held back how could they not, she was merely just a young child, not even ten yet who was blind no less. Though as these spars continued, slowly people weren't holding back anymore, there were some who were new that would, but everyone eventually gave up. There was once when she had severely injured herself, having to stay home in bed while her injuries have healed was the most curious time of her life. Her father had stayed home that day, making sure that she was comfortable enough, well fed but it was uneasy to say in the least. To have a full day without the sound of metal clashing against metal, in the midst of the silence she thought she could hear whispering once again.

Irina was nine by the time she had met another child a few years older than her, it was one of her father's colleague's offspring. Perhaps her father was either worried she would get injured again, or perhaps he thought this would be a good learning example to learn from someone her age. Irina has no idea what was going through her father's head when she faced off with this young boy. His movements were sloppy, his swings were shaky, he was nervous, anxious, yet at the same time he was full of himself. She decided to not swing at the boy because she was curious on how he would react even further. By deflecting each hit, his next was more rushed there was tension behind it. Perhaps it was anger, he would be angry as well if she haddn't experienced it before.

With ease she was capable of disarming the boy, something that must have enraged him because after doing so he launged at her. Not expecting such an attack, she was thrown off guard and toppled over. She was unable to see the face he was making, but the sounds of her father's colleague yelling at his son, and then the sensation of him being pulled from her was what she could perceive. By the time the familiar sounds of her father had approached her, she already begun to pull herself up to her feet. She never thought that this encounter was important at the time, but in retrospect perhaps she should have been nicer to him.

A year had past and Irina has advanced so far in her training that she was more than capable of taking down multiple knights at once. Obviously her father was more than proud of her thus resulting in a much harsher regiment. In this end this was all to make her stronger to help defend this kingdom, this is when she met up with what her father called an “old friend”. An individual who was supposed to help bring her training to the next stage and another nameless figure nearby that her father had failed to introduce not that it should have matter; if it was important her father would have explained. The first match with this individual truly marked the difference between the strong and the weak. The speed and strength of this person was far superior than anyone she had matched till now there were points in which Irina hadn’t even heard the sound of his foot leaving the ground. The worse of all is that she knew he wasn’t even going full out; their fights and training had continued into the night leaving Irina utterly exhausted.

Once her father had retired to bed and the two had left; Irina decided to perhaps hold out on training even further to night. Feeling the sweat underneath her bandages Irina took them off to wipe it off when that familiar voice spoke up ‘why don’t you open your eyes’ To her surprise once she had done so, it wasn't the black that she remembered, it wasn't the blurriness from before then. The world was completely different, it was almost overbearing to see all at first. It was the first time she would see anything, the trees, the ground, her weapons, herself and even the sky. Everything was so enticing and beautiful, perhaps she can been cured from resting her eyes all those years! Her father must learn of this as soon as possible. Just as she was leaving to go rest in bed to tell of this great news in the morning she faintly remembers hearing a voice whisper 'I can teach you far more things.. come back tomorrow night..'

In her excitement, Irina woke up the next moment to despair, the world that she saw wasn't what she remembered it was the same black as she was accustomed too. Heartbroken, Irina went back to her old ways wearing her blindfold once more, continuing her training for the day. At one point her father had pulled his friend off to the side leaving both Irina and the mysterious individual alone, -WIP

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ROLE PLAY SAMPLE

» How long has this been going on? Soon after Irina had landed the last blow on yet another soldier was she able to take in the scene around her. It has this world come too? The burning feeling of the ashes reaching her eyes, the fatigued feeling of her muscles from such a prolonged battle and the constant feeling of being breathless was starting to get to the female. Trying her hardest to catch her breath she could hear yet another running up behind her, without even a second thought Irina gripped only her blade swinging it around to strike the individual. The sharp clink of metal hitting metal wasn't the only thing that came of it, even with their armor her blade was fully capable of reaching the flesh beneath it, but not completely through. Stunned her opponent was quickly bleeding out and not wanting him to have a second to recollect himself to strike her she'd quickly twist her blade as much as she was capable of and used all her strength to drive it into them.

The sensation of something wet and warm was starting to pool at her hands before the body on her blade finally went limp. Letting the corpse drop to the ground, Irina threw her font down on it, trying to wiggle her blade out from its clutches. using the back of her hand to wipe off the dirt and sweat from her face did no justice even without seeing her face just by the heavy metallic scent in the air she knew the blood would have just smudged itself there too. From battle after battle, Irina was finding it difficult to take a break. Once she had finished one off another would show up, she couldn't tell if each one was stronger or if she was getting weaker.

It was getting to the point where she was just holding herself up with her blade wedged into the ground. Her fingers lost all feelings, her legs were feeling like jello; even she didn't know how long she would last. If the physical weakness wasn't enough, she didn't know how long she could handle this war mentally. From the sickening sweet yet metalic smell of blood filling the air to the sounds of either metal clashing against metal or the screams echoing in the lands before falling silent; it felt like torture. She only trained to be a knight to protect people, not fight in something like this.

The enemy would casually walk into settlements and murder everyone inside of them, kill people left and right. From how bloodstained the ground was, it was almost as if people were just balloons of blood and gore. Spiraling ever so quickly down into a fit of insanity a small cry of a child seemed to break through the masses. [wip][/font]