Ice Princess

[Vahene]

One, two, three, thrust, turn--*TWACK*.

"ICEWYNDE! Concentrate," the scream was heard from across the room.

Vellin Icewynde rubbed her forehead, and pushed a lock of hair out of her face, finding a tie nearby, pulling her dark chestnut hair into a ponytail. She dabbed a cloth from her pocket on the fresh bleeding cut on her cheek, and bent down to pick up her two-bladed sword, sliding the cloth in her pocket again.

"You will never achieve mastery with that weapon. Choose another," the bulky instructor barked at her, turning away to face another student, who was fiddling with a katana.

Vellin's eyes filled with tears and she blinked them back, facing her practicing dummy again, and she began her exercises, ignoring the 'advice' given to her. Blue eyes burned with a desire to prove herself as she repeatedly thrust both ends of her sword at the target. She spun around, and with a loud *CRACK* the target was destroyed, broken in two.

"Vellin of the House of Icewynde?" A formal sounding voice called out into the room loudly. All movement instantly stopped and faces turned towards her. Her blood ran cold. Her family was once nobility in Dasaria, a few generations back, but their title had been stripped away, for 'actions unbecoming', or some such nonesense. Vellin didn't know the details, and honestly didn't care to.

Vellin held her sword proudly, leaning it against her shoulder. "What?" She stared at the messenger as if he wasn't the least bit important. Truthfully, he wasn't.

The messenger sniffed importantly. "A missive for you." He tried to hand her a message.

The fighter smiled. "Now, now, you know the drill. Your job isn't only to give me the message, it's to read it as well. So why don't you go ahead and do that. As you can see, I'm all sweaty. I might run the ink." She waved a hand in his direction and the messenger backed up a step as if she had a disease and was contagious.

"Fine," the messenger said haughtily, unrolling the scroll. He read for a moment and then his eyes glistened with something that looked like triumph. It wasn't a very good sign to Vellin. She was sure this messenger was nobility somehow, and most of them didn't like her family.

"Your brother is dead. He was stationed in Daris, and one of the enemies of the queen breached the town perimiter, killing him. Nothing other than that is know--" the messenger gurgled as he was slammed against the wall, Vellin's blade (one of them), pinning his tunic to the wooden door behind him.

"Who killed him?" Vellin hissed.

"Vellin," her instructor said her name, kindly, and with obvious compassion. "You don't want to hurt him, he's only giving you the news."

"WHO!?" She screamed. "He was a Crusader, trained for combat! He wouldn't have been taken off guard by just anyone."

"Co-could have b-been lots o-of pe-people," the messenger stammered. "V-varanites, maybe drow?" He squealed as Vellin let him drop to the floor.

Swiftly, Vellin turned to her instructor. Her blue eyes were burning with hatred and her voice was ice cold. For the next few years, it would remain that way, and throughout Dasar, she would be known as the Ice Princess in the fighter circles, unpredictable, and very dangerous.

"You will train me with this weapon, as you did my brother, and I will avenge his death," She demanded.

"Your brother was a good man, and one of my best students. He wanted you to learn, as your parents did, and your grandparents did. You don't need to ask, Vel, of course I will teach you," the retired, bulky Crusader said.

Two years later, when Vellin turned of age, in her mid-twenties, she bid the fighter circles in Dasar and the old section of the city a fond farewell. She had buried her instructor only a few months before, and now she was looking to train herself the hard way, in Daris, where her brother had sent her letters in her youth, speaking of dangers he never wanted her to see.

Not only was Vellin Icewynde determined to see them, but she would find her brother's murderer, and she would destroy him.