“Say what you will about words, but fact is, people remember things more keenly when they actually get hurt over a fuckup.” - Varsha Creussens, Mayor of Zefirous, circa 10 FP.

By the time she hobbled back towards her tent later that evening, her whole body covered in bruises that promised to be painful for a while, Astrid was half-convinced that the Lady Boss was a sadist who took pleasure in seeing others get hurt.

It was bad enough that she sicced her older daughter on Astrid all day long, though at least Erycea was kind enough to not hit Astrid with full force during their so-called “spar”. Astrid doubted that she would be in any shape to walk back on her own if the other girl had used her full power, or even if she would survive the experience, training weapons or not.

That said, during brief moments of rest from the spar, Astrid did get to see the Lady Boss spar with her younger daughter, and that spar alone was pretty eye-opening for her to watch. She saw Alycea pull off all sorts of tricks and feints that made her polearm look almost as if it was a living creature while fighting the Lady Boss, moves that Astrid was certain the girl had never used against her – probably because she didn’t need to – and would have likely tricked most people Astrid knew of, all avoided or blocked with ease.

Even so, Alycea managed to keep up a good fight against her mother as long as she was able to keep the older woman at a distance, where the younger girl could fully leverage the length of her polearm. As soon as Elfriede closed the distance between them, however, the fight was as good as over, as up close there was simply no way for the girl to match her more experienced and skilled mother.

Alycea did not walk away from the spar without sporting a few bruises of her own, though the girl seemed much more accustomed to it, from the way she just took them in stride.

That said, Elfriede did seem to understand something from the report Erycea gave her after the painful spar, and promised Astrid that she would bring some people who might be able to help her refine her fighting skills the next day. At least the pain she had to go through wasn’t for nothing, Astrid thought, though she had to try hard to convince herself of that when she had trouble sleeping that night.

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When she returned to the same clearing where the spar was held the next day after breakfast, she found that Elfriede, Erycea, Alycea, and a couple other mercenaries already awaited her arrival there. Astrid herself did not quite recognize the other mercenaries, other than remembering that the large woman of orcish descent usually hung out with Erycea and that she saw the rather short – for an elf – elven woman talking with the company’s hired prostitutes every now and then.

“Good, you’re on time. I like people who are punctual,” said Elfriede when she noticed Astrid’s arrival, which was roughly when she got within twenty paces of her, the range she usually kept her sphere of wind-based perception at. Even after she heard from the woman herself, Astrid felt uncertain how it would have been to live while feeling like you were touching everything around you all the time, or how one could even comprehend them for that matter.

“This is Valeria, Soledad’s daughter and one of Ery’s platoon mates,” said Elfriede as she introduced the woman, or rather, girl of orcish descent. The girl was tall enough that she was almost the same height as Erycea, who was already very tall herself, towering nearly half a head over her mother, and was even broader in build. “As for her, that’s Ylisera. She’s practically my second in command, and definitely old enough to have been any of our great grandmothers.”

“Hey, now, I don’t poke at you for being over forty, you don’t poke me for being a youthful two hundred, you hear?” retorted Ylisera though it was clear from the tone she used that it was partly done in jest, as was the way she elbowed Elfriede, which was obviously something she allowed, given how the blind woman could so easily avoid much faster blows during spars.

“Sure, whatever, granny,” replied Elfriede just as lightly. “Anyway, I asked for these two over because I feel that they might be the ones who could help you improve your fighting skills the most. Val here used the same sort of weapons you do, while Ylis is particularly good at helping people improve on their style. I’m better off with showing people where they went wrong and my girls mostly developed their own styles, so we won’t be as much help.”

“Incidentally, I asked some people from Alvaro’s and Lars’s platoons to help your people train their tactics more as well. It’s always better to share the suffering rather than going at it alone, don’t you think?” Elfriede added with a teasing smirk. “Don’t worry, they’ll all thank you for all the extra training after they get into a real battle and realize just how much more efficient they ended up being thanks to it.”

Astrid nodded numbly at the information given to her all of a sudden. Her people mostly stuck with her out of old loyalties, and quite a few had complained about the intensive training schedule the company demanded of them. With even more training added on top of those, she could well imagine the complaints headed her way from right then and there.

“Let’s not dally, now. You wish to become stronger, no? That can’t happen unless you’re willing to put your body to its limits and then some,” stated Elfriede all too nonchalantly. We’ll have Aly train alongside you for this week, just to show you that the training we prescribe can definitely be done. Surely you wouldn’t let a little girl show you up, now, would you?”