Elden Ring: A Sword's Purpose

Sharp thuds filled the air.

Using swords fashioned from wood, the girls smacked away at different dead trees scattered just beyond their cave with the basic downward swing he'd shown them. Well, most of them of them were. "Stop playing around, Amy." He ordered. The young girl stuck a tongue out at him but obeyed, putting a stop to her wild slashes and taking the same stance as her sisters before pelting her tree with blows.

It'd been a little over a week since he started prepping the girls for training.

Amy treated the morning exercises like a game, liable to start doing whatever she pleased with the wooden sword if he didn't correct her. Either way it worked out; she was distracted and building her strength. So long as he stomped out any bad habits she built, it wouldn't matter.

It went without saying that Mary swung the hardest, fueled by a desire for strength. She put her full weight behind every slash, not all of them done perfectly, but each brimming with heart.

Then there was Millicent. It was too early to claim that she was the most talented among her sisters but her slashes were a near perfect imitation of what he showed off to them. Just as there was a desire driving Mary, something fueled the young girl, her strength maintained no matter how many slashes she sent out.

Maureen was perhaps the most ill-suited for this exercise. She struck at her tree with constantly diminishing force but maintained her form throughout the entire thing. Unlike the others she treated this as an exercise and nothing more; a clear lack of interest in learning how to use a blade. This was a necessity for her, nothing more.

Polyanna, the small one held against his side, tugged on a tuff of his hair as if to get his attention, incoherently babbling at him. He offered up a hand and she began biting away at one of his fingers. She had a few teeth but most were still coming in.

Unsurprisingly, Maureen was the first to stop, lowering her wooden blade as she took deep steading breaths. After getting some of her breath back, she undid the string of the waterskin tied to her belt and took several gulps, the thing emptied as she came to his side.

Their more or less identical clothing, simple brown tunics and sandals, as well as the water skins, were all courtesy of a traveling merchant he was acquainted with. It was a massive step up from the rags they wore before.

"Thank you for the water." Maureen said as she handed over the emptied waterskin and tried to take Polyanna off his hands. The baby started crying halfway through the exchange, trying to reach out for him. Normally he wouldn't entertain such nonsense but given the situation and what her cries could bring, he begrudgingly kept her. "I'm sorry about Polyanna. She isn't usually so fussy."

Jin hummed, silence falling over them.

Maureen didn't say much and was the politest of the group, challenged only my Milicent. She'd probably keep any and all complaints to herself. Not a problem for him regarding most things but combat was one of the exceptions.

"You don't want to fight do you?" He questioned without looking her way. He heard her shuffle about, likely worried about displeasing him.

"I would prefer to avoid anything dangerous." She finally answered. He couldn't claim to understand, not truly, but Akai had been similar.

The girl was willing to go along with everyone else, but she'd eventually need something else to do. He'd have to find that something when he went out to get them some fresh water.

…

Back in Limgrave, out on the sands of its coastlines, Jin flipped through the pages of a book, sitting cross-legged before a boiling pot of seawater. A novel about a wandering knight based off the few pages he read through. Not the best entertainment for a child but Akai had been into similar things when they were children.

Maybe Maureen would be too.

"Have you chosen to forgo the search for your clan?" Melina questioned, appearing at a kneel beside him.

"I will find them when I find them."

"You'd been adamant about locating them not long ago. All it took was some sick children for you to abandon your goal?" Melina questioned without a change in tone.

"People are often fickler than they think." Jin said. He looked up from the scavenged book and raised a brow. "I imagine this lord you are in search of would be far more steadfast. I suppose this means your business with me is over?" Melina stared. "Sticking around then?"

She stood, her body beginning to disperse into that bluish-white fog. "It is an honorable thing. What you are doing for those children." Her face didn't budge but something flickered in her eyes. Something other than the rare bouts of impatience he'd come to expect from her. "I pray that fate has seen them suffer enough."

And she vanished, her words joining the whistling winds.

He never would've expected something compassionate to come from someone as one tracked as Melina. Perhaps she did care about more than her obsession with filling that empty title she claimed all the demigods were vying for.

Filling up a number of waterskins and a single bucket with the boiled water, he kicked out the flames and headed out.

The sun was already beginning to set.

Maybe he should take those five out of Caelid. Traveling between regions for food and water consumed all of his time, effectively leaving them all on their own for hours on end. Mary could handle things like she did long before his arrival, but there was no telling what could happen.

Jin sighed.

Spending his days worried about children. Who would've thought?

…

"What is this thing?" Amy asked, holding up a glowing rock, enthralled by its glow.

"A rainbow stone." Jin answered as he set up another in one of the many cracks along the cave the girls called home. There were many others helping to illuminate the dark space. Blue, red, yellow, green; true to their name, the glow of the stones were varied, though all weak. In a small number they weren't useful for anything more than entertaining children such as Polyanna and Amy but had their uses in a small dark place like this.

The fact that the girls hadn't died from smoke inhalation was a miracle all on its own. Setting up a fire this deep in a cave with no visible ventilation was a foolish idea but given their desperation and age not surprising. Maybe all the cracks kept the smoke from building up.

"Rainbow? What does that mean?" Amy asked.

"It's something that happens when sunlight reflects off the inside of water droplets. They usually form in the skies after rain." Jin said as he stepped around the children, prepared to leave. Akai had explained it to him long ago but back then he hadn't paid much attention to his brother and whatever he was interested in. It all seemed so useless. So why were those memories so vivid? "Remember, make any fires near the mouth of the cave if you need to. Not here."

As he passed Maureen, he took a moment to reach into his pouch.

"What is this?" The quiet girl asked, tentatively taking the worn book he held out.

"A story. I have no need for it." He said. She looked it over for a few moments before finally opening up right to its center. As she slowly looked between the pages, her confusion remained; it was hard to tell whether or not she liked what were on the pages.

"She can't read." Mary suddenly said. That explained that.

"Can you?" Jin asked.

"What do you think?" Mary retorted, voice drenched in sarcasm. This girl and her attitude was really something.

"None of us know how to read, mister Jin." Millicent explained while Mary scoffed and looked away.

Whoever took care of the afflicted children before his arrival must've been focused on survival and nothing more. Given the state of Caelid it was only natural; the place had been something of a wasteland before whatever brought about the Scarlet Rot. Not to mention, reading had always been something of a luxury in the first place; he had only fully learned to after becoming the leader of his clan.

Those lessons would come in handy.

"And none of you know your letters either?" He questioned just to be sure as he joined them, the girls shaking their heads. Maureen and Millicent scooted aside, allowing him to sit around the gathering of rocks and wood that had been their campfire. It might not see any use with the rainbow stones around, but the girls still gathered around it when they had downtime.

Physical conditioning, education, and generally watching over these children required an immense amount of time. Time he didn't have when he was too busy hunting and gathering fresh supplies from an entire region over.

Moving them out of Caelid was looking more and more like the right choice.

…

"Ap-A-App-" Mary, book in hand, struggled to pronounce one of the words written within, starting over several times with little in the way of progress. Maureen tried to help but Jin stopped her with a look. Mary's brow furrowed, her grip on the book tightened, and subsequent attempts at the word worsened. Then she snapped. "Fuck this stupid crap!" She yelled, chucking the book and stomping towards the cave's exit.

Jin caught the book before it hit the rainbow stone embedded wall behind him and handed it off to Maureen as he rose. "Keep teaching the others. I'll see to Mary." He ordered, getting a quick nod from her. Unlike their morning exercises, she'd taken to letters and words the quickest. "Start with Amy."

Said girl shouted in protest only to be shushed by Millicent as to not fully awake Polyanna who'd already been startled by angry yell that'd echoed throughout the cave. Amy was as liable to slack off during these lessons as she was during morning exercises.

And yet her flighty efforts outpaced Mary's progress.

Jin silently followed Mary through the cave, stepping loudly enough for her to be aware of him. The fuming girl continued to stomp forward, heedless of his presence, until they were outside. Despite the night's chill and the mounting exhaustion from earlier workouts, she snatched up a wooden sword and got to smacking at a tree.

He leaned against another nearby and waited.

Seconds turned to minutes, each filled with relentless smacks. She would likely see those minutes turned to an hour if she had her way.

"That's enough." Jin finally ordered, having given her more than enough time to let off some steam.

Her swings slowed but didn't stop. "Why?"

"Torturing your body will make you weaker, not stronger." She relented in the face of that reasoning, striking the battered tree with one final swing then dropping the blade. She collapsed right after, propped against the same tree she'd been beating on.

"I don't get why I have to learn that crap when it won't help in a fight." She dulled out the usual complaints of the past few days. "Let Maureen and the others learn that stuff. I'm better at fighting anyways."

Typically, when he ordered Mary to do something he supplied a reason or she already knew the why. In the case of learning to read, he'd yet to provide any. He could threaten her, perch on her shoulder like a hawk, even try some reassurance, but as long as she didn't understand the why, the spirited girl would never give her all to it.

What little childlike wonder she had was overpowered by a desire for strength. To protect.

"From the moment I was born, I was taught to fight. So long as I live, I will continue to do so." He said. Mary's eyes jumped from the dirt and up to him. He'd never talked to them about himself as he saw little point in it. "I told my brother something similar when he first tried to teach me to read."

"You have a brother?"

"Had." Jin corrected. "He was too weak to protect himself and I…I wasn't strong enough."

As a cool breeze whistled past, Mary curled up slightly, clenching her knees as she listened.

"My brother was never happy with life in the clan. One day he packed up his things, wrote a letter, and left. I didn't understand what most of it meant but I learned enough to figure out where he was headed. I was young and stupid back then, so I chased after him without thinking to tell anyone."

"Did he…was he-" For once Mary appeared to be at a lost, unsure of what to say or ask.

"No. I found him cornered into a cave by a bear. Long story short, I killed it and dragged him back home." Jin revealed. "Learning to read may not help you in battle but it'll be another way to communicate with your sisters. If anything were to ever happen, it'll make finding each other easier."

Mary looked down at her knees. "Fine. I guess I'll keep trying to learn that crap." She finally relented before looking back at him. "But only if you teach me. And the others can't be around either."

Interesting demands but given her prideful nature, he shouldn't have been surprised. "Those girls owe you their lives. None of them are going to look down on you because you aren't good with words." He assured her. "The only one here who's going to think you're an idiot is me." He added on just for good measure.

"Yeah, well, I don't give a damn what you think." She bit back with a weak glare. "It has to be you, just you."

Jin nodded; he could let her have that much.

"The fuck is an apple anyways?" Mary muttered mostly to herself, focus back on the ground. He could let things end there but there was one more thing he wanted to bring up with her.

"There is something we have to talk about." He said, snatching Mary's attention back up. "The animals, the water, the very dirt of this land is all tainted. Surviving here is possible. Surviving without suffering the Scarlet Rot's effects is an impossibility."

Mary glared. "So what? You planning on leaving?" She spat out with a scoff. "Then go. We don't need you."

"I am leaving and I'm taking all of you with me." He revealed, her little outburst ignored.

"Oh…" Mary's glare weakened. "Then what's there to talk about?"

"I want to hear your opinion."

"Why?" She muttered, looking back to the ground. "I'm too weak to stop you so my opinion doesn't matter. That's how things work isn't it?"

"Maybe, maybe not. Strength does not mean I know what's best for those around me. Those are your sisters in that cave. Your family, not mine. You know them better than I." He'd begun training them and had somewhat of a handle on their personalities, but push come to shove, he could only guess what these girls were capable of tolerating with their backs against the wall. "Your opinion holds weight. Only a fool would believe otherwise."

She peeked at him, glare all but forgotten. Confusion took its place. He couldn't blame her; Jin had been the harshest to her compared to the others, her personality demanding as much. The girl probably thought he looked down on her or saw her as an eyesore. That couldn't be further from the truth.

"The place you're taking us, it won't be as dangerous?" She asked after a period of silence.

"By nature, The Lands Between is a dangerous place, especially as it is now." Best to keep everyone's expectations tempered when it came to safety in this place. "The Scarlet Rot will no longer pose an issue but there will always be other dangers to contend with."

"And you won't have to go so far to find fresh food?" He nodded. "Then we're going with you. None of us will miss this place."

"Good. Go on and tell the others. Make sure that you're all ready come tomorrow."

Mary nodded and dragged her exhausted body over to the cave's entrance. "When you do decide to leave us, tell me, not them." She said. "They don't need to know." With that she disappeared into the cave's darkness without looking back.

He set off to prepare for tomorrow when a familiar breeze of heat brushed past.

"That story was a lie." Melina stated more than asked from the saddle of her spectral steed who now trotted beside him. Things went both ways it seemed; she was learning his tells just as much as he hers.

"Indeed." He admitted. "In my clan the only thing worse than a weakling is a traitor. And to give up one's sword is a betrayal of one's self; my brother would not have been welcomed back had he stepped one foot beyond our camp."

"What really happened?"

"I found him before he finished writing the letter and beat the idea out of him." Jin said, his hands twitching. He loved to fight. The thrill of combat was unmatched by anything else the world had to offer. But that fight, that one sided beatdown that'd left his knuckles bruised and covered in the blood of his brother, had been the closest he'd ever come to understanding those who wished to avoid battle.

"I see." Melina said, voice free of judgement as always. What matter of life had she lived to maintain such neutrality? "Why lie to her?"

Because Mary was short tempered. Because she was stubborn. Because she was controlling. Because she reminded him of himself at that age without the worst parts.

"I was a horrible brother." He admitted out loud for the first time. It was something he'd only truly realized at the end of his life.

Those girls had no idea how lucky they were to have Mary, shortcomings and all.