ain fell like silence given form.
Each droplet hit the ground with a whisper, soft yet insistent. The forest was hushed, its usual song drowned beneath the grey downpour. Only the rustle of wind through skeletal branches and the sound of breathing broke the stillness.
Lucien stood alone beneath a dying tree—its bark cracked, leaves long withered, roots half-submerged in mud. And before him knelt a boy.
Tattered. Bruised. Bloodied.
But not broken.
Elric.
He wore no armor, just scraps of cloth too soaked to offer warmth. His hands, calloused from training beyond his years, clutched nothing. No sword. No shield.
But Lucien didn't see a child.
He saw steel tempered by suffering.
---
The boy's hair clung to his forehead, brown strands soaked and darkened. His back was straight despite the pain etched into his limbs. His eyes—dulled, hollow—still held something deeper.
Resolve.
Lucien said nothing at first. He studied him in silence.
A test.
Would he break?
Would he beg?
Would he waver?
But Elric didn't move. He stayed kneeling, head bowed not in subservience, but in recognition.
Of power. Of fate. Of choice.
Then he spoke.
"I have nothing left," Elric said, voice low, steady. "No home. No name worth protecting. Just this…" He gestured to his chest. "This beating heart. That still wants to protect."
Lucien's crimson gaze flickered.
"…Not for vengeance?"
Elric met his eyes then, and in that moment, something clicked—like two pieces of a shattered blade finding each other.
"No," he said. "Not vengeance."
"…For who?"
"My sister."
The rain deepened, as if the sky itself listened.
"She smiles even when she's hungry. She laughs when she's scared," Elric whispered. "She's all I have. But I'm too weak. I need strength—not to destroy, but to shield."
Lucien's silence lingered. Then, slowly, he extended a hand.
> "Swear yourself to me… and I'll make sure you never lose anything again."
Elric looked up.
Eyes still empty—but now lit with something dangerous.
Hope.
He took the hand.
> "I swear."
---
A pulse echoed through the clearing—quiet, but soul-deep.
Something ancient shifted in the world.
Not a contract. Not a spell.
A bond.
Forged not by blood or title—but by fire.
By choice.
Lucien pulled the boy to his feet. Their grips held for a moment longer, then parted.
"You'll live in my house," Lucien said. "Train under me. Eat with me. Bleed beside me."
"…And one day?"
Lucien's lips twitched into the barest hint of a smile.
"One day, you'll command my shadows."
Elric blinked, confused. "What shadows?"
Lucien turned, cloak whipping behind him.
"You'll understand… when the world does."
---
They walked back in silence, the rain thinning with every step.
Behind them, the dying tree finally fell.
A symbol, perhaps.
Of an end.
And a beginning.
---
Back at the Arkanveil estate, Lucien introduced Elric not as a servant, but as family.
The elders questioned it. The servants whispered. But no one dared challenge his decision—not after witnessing the cold fire behind his gaze.
Elric's younger sister, a girl no older than Lucien's own sibling, ran into his arms crying. She clung to him like he was the only real thing left in her world.
Lucien watched from afar. Arms folded.
His crimson eyes softened, if only for a second.
---
That night, Elric stood outside Lucien's training courtyard. Rain still drizzled, but he no longer shivered.
Lucien approached him with a wooden sword in one hand, and two mana stones in the other.
"You want strength?"
Elric nodded.
"Then stop kneeling. Start swinging."
He tossed the sword toward him.
Elric caught it.
And the training began.
---
The strikes were sloppy at first.
Too wide. Too heavy.
Lucien didn't speak.
Only watched.
Strike. Recover. Again.
Hours passed. Mana bled from Elric's limbs. His arms trembled. His legs buckled.
Still, he swung.
And when he collapsed—
Lucien was there.
He placed a hand on Elric's back, channeling a fragment of mana into his spine—not to heal, but to force growth.
"Feel it."
Elric gasped. His eyes widened. The wooden sword cracked in his grip as his aura surged.
---
> [Proficiency Gained: Blade Arts Lv. 1]
[Mana Flow Awareness: +0.3%]
[Muscle Memory Adjustment: Minor]
---
Lucien smiled faintly.
Even without the Proficiency Panel, the boy was adapting.
He would be strong.
Stronger than fate ever allowed.
---
Later that night, as the two children—Elric's sister and Lucien's—laughed together under blankets, sharing sweets and stolen stories, Elric stood guard at the door.
Sword in hand.
Purpose in heart.
And Lucien, watching from the corridor shadows, nodded to himself.
He had found not a servant.
But a shadow-born blade.
Not forged in war…
But in oath.