Vastarael and Elyonari's Moment

Vastarael stood atop the highest balcony of the palace. His eyes stared at the distant horizon, where the sun looked imprisoned behind pale clouds that hadn't stopped snowing since dawn.

Below, the courtyard echoed with the faint sounds of drills, the clanking of steel, and the snapping of boots against the frost-bitten ground.

He exhaled, steam curling from his mouth and lowered his gaze, eyes narrowing with the heavy weight of reflection.

Today was supposed to be a triumph.

Runner, his little girl—no, not little anymore, growing faster than he wanted to admit—had trained for hours without stopping.

She had adapted to the brutal tempo of an Ascender's regimen, sparring without hesitation, absorbing his teachings with bright eyes and that same stubborn determination that had always made her special. And she was special. Even now, he couldn't believe how far she'd come from the curious child who once clung to his leg when she got lost in the caravan.

And yet something had changed today. Something he hadn't expected and it shook him.

Her Boon. He had discovered it by accident.

He had been sparring with her, as usual, using a dulled training weapon. But something strange happened when he tried to land a strike. The moment the blade neared her, it simply couldn't touch her. It didn't bounce. It didn't shatter. It just... stopped existing in that path. As if it had been deleted from reality the moment it tried to reach her.

At first, he thought it was a fluke. But he tested it again. And again. Then he brought out Calimostria, his Divine Weapon.

He hadn't summoned Calimostria for a training session, not even for Shimmer. But this warranted it. He needed to be sure.

And to his astonishment… Calimostria couldn't even touch her.

The glaive recoiled before making contact, as if some cosmic law barred it from hurting her. Even when he aimed carefully, with restrained intent, the weapon bent its own path, defying its master. He could feel the resistance in the Tether's link to his soul.

She didn't deflect it. She repelled it. The Boon had awakened and it was one unlike any he'd seen before.

Defense Invocation.

A Boon that rendered her immune to any form of weaponry.

Whether it was a dagger or divine armament, a thrown spear or a beast's claw, nothing that bore the nature or function of a weapon could harm her.

Even Narisva's scythe would fail to puncture her flesh. Even if a cursed blade from Wisterix came down on her, it would melt into irrelevance before reaching her skin.

And for a moment, Vastarael's heart swelled with relief.

Because this world was cruel. Monsters didn't wait for your training to be finished. Enemies didn't pause when you hesitated. The war between light and abyss never stopped, not even for children.

This Boon meant that at least his daughter would be safe.

But then… the contradiction revealed itself.

Weapon Defiance.

He remembered the way she had looked at Calimostria, her eyes glowing with awe. She had reached out just to touch it. But the moment her fingertips neared the shaft, her entire body froze not from fear, but from repulsion. Her soul rejected it. Her hand trembled violently, her expression contorting with pain and confusion as if something inside her was screaming no.

She couldn't grasp it. She couldn't wield it, not even touch it.

And it wasn't a matter of control or tether mastery. Even when she tried to manipulate it using her Speech Manipulation Tether, giving verbal commands to animate it, nothing happened. It was like her voice was snuffed out by the Bane itself.

Weapon Defiance was a complete and irrevocable refusal of all weapons. It was a restriction so total it rewrote the rules of interaction for her.

And the worst part? She knew how big a disadvantage it was.

Even mages, whose combat was not martial, used staffs or wands. Speech Manipulation, especially, was vulnerable in close-quarters. If she couldn't speak, she couldn't cast. A weapon could have served as a backup. A means of last defense. But now she was forced to rely on tactics, surroundings, and pure wit. She was always going to be one move away from a lethal silence.

And that thought shattered her.

She had cried. Runner had cried.

Vastarael remembered the way her tiny shoulders trembled as she tried to hide her tears in her sleeves. She kept whispering

"Why can't I hold one? Why can't I… like Shimmer?"

It cut deeper than any blade ever could.

She wasn't just sad. She was broken. It was about identity. About strength. About the hope that she could be like her sister. That she could defend herself. That she could stand tall beside the people she loved. That she didn't need protecting.

And for Vastarael, that was the wound that hurt the most.

He didn't just see a student. He saw his daughter. The child he adopted. The girl who held his hand when the world was too loud. Who asked about stars and laughed at his bad jokes. Who sat on his shoulders and called him "Dad" like it was the only word that mattered.

So he stood there now, on this palace balcony, staring out across the snow-blanketed expanse of the Fallen Bridge, thinking.

He understood Banes were immutable. But solutions didn't require breaking rules. Sometimes… it meant bending them.

There had to be something.

Could he create a non-weapon focus that still amplified her Speech Manipulation?

Could she use living constructs as substitutes? Creatures, spirits, bound elements?

What about enchanted clothing with rune arrays that could trigger effects by movement instead of weapons?

He would dig through everything if he had to. Because she deserved more than compromise. She deserved to rise. And if fate had carved her Boon and Bane into the fabric of her essence, then he would teach her to reshape the battlefield around that essence.

He would build a world where she never needed a weapon to be feared.

He turned from the balcony, snow brushing his cheek like the lingering tears of the child he loved. His expression was calm.

Vastarael didn't flinch when he felt the gentle pressure of someone squeezing beside him on the narrow balcony, despite how his senses were naturally sharp. There was only one person who moved with that kind of quiet.

Elyonari.

She slipped into the small gap between him and the balcony's icy stone rail, folding her arms as she nudged his side with a slight smirk.

"Move over, brooding dad."

Without speaking, she propped herself up onto the balcony rail, perching atop the carved, snow-dusted marble ledge like it was a garden bench and not a thirty-meter drop into the frozen streets below.

For a few long moments, neither of them spoke.

They just sat there, their eyes locked on the sunset that bathed the landscape in quiet pinks and brittle blues. And despite the snow continuing to fall gently around them, there was a strange stillness in the air.

Then softly, Elyonari broke the silence.

"Shimmer's with her. I think she's been holding her this whole time. You were right to give her a break. She needed it."

Vastarael's eyes didn't move from the horizon, but his heart gave a little ache. He closed them briefly.

"She cried hard. She tried to hold it in, but when the glaive rejected her, when she couldn't even move it with her tether, she just… crumpled."

Elyonari gave a soft hum. Her fingers played along the carved edge of the rail, brushing snow away idly, her legs swinging gently as she perched with far too much casualness for someone sitting so high.

"Shimmer's trying her best but Runner's still feeling the sting. You know how close they are. And it doesn't help that Shimmer's Bane is just…"

She turned her head to give him a slightly amused look.

"She can't eat anything that you didn't cook. I mean, come on. That's like being cursed with gourmet dependency."

Vastarael exhaled, shoulders relaxing a little as the smallest breath of humor touched his lips. But it faded just as quickly, replaced by that familiar frown of thought.

"…What do I do, Elyonari?"

It was rare, hearing him ask like that. Elyonari's expression softened. Vastarael never asked for help before and hearing this somehow made her... happy to be relied on?

"Well, you can't change her Bane. But, you can look at her Boon again. It's Defense Invocation, right? If her body repels weapons, then maybe… maybe her soul doesn't want her to wield one because she doesn't need to."

Vastarael looked at her slowly.

"So you're saying…"

"I'm saying that you need to stop thinking about giving her a weapon and start thinking about giving her something else. Something her essence doesn't register as hostile. Something new. Boons and Banes are always connected. Maybe the key to her strength… is embracing the rejection."

For a moment, Vastarael just stared at her.

Then his eyes widened slightly. Something clicked.

His thoughts began racing, possibilities flooding in like the rising tide. Constructs. Armor types. Assistive devices. Maybe something semi-sentient. A shield that wasn't a shield. A voice-amplifier? An extension of her speech manipulation itself? Something that channeled her presence rather than her grip.

His lips curled into a small, slow smile.

He turned to her and nodded once.

"…Thank you."

It was rare to see that kind of softness from him. And it hit her harder than she expected. Elyonari blinked and quickly looked down, brushing nonexistent snow off her knees, her cheeks warming under the cold.

"You really do worry too much, you know. But… it's nice. It's good. You care. You love them enough to plan ten years ahead just to make them smile."

Her voice dipped slightly.

"And to be honest… I love that about you."

She looked back up, giving him a small shrug and a crooked grin, like she was brushing off her own vulnerability.

"I'm Jealous, honestly. Not in a bad way, don't get me wrong. Just… you've built something beautiful. You're there. You listen. You hold them when they cry. You build for them."

Then, almost as if on cue, she pushed off the railing and landed lightly beside him again, her boots crunching in the thin snow.

"Anyway," she said, changing the topic, "just one more day until we leave for the South. You ready to face monsters, and whatever half-cooked welcome party the blizzards prepare?"

"What do you mean jealous?"