Chapter 5: 1-4

"-Father, you could do that if you wanted to."

"No.  There's a difference between being capable in combat and being capable in warfare.  I can fight as a man and defeat many enemies by myself, yes.  But there is much more needed than just a single man can accomplish to win a war.  Jolene!  Don't touch-"

I managed to only catch the tail end of their conversation as the king came into the throne room with his son to find the older daughter about to try and grab my handle.  I'm locked onto my pedestal at the moment so there's no worries about her being able to pick me up and accidentally hurt someone by swinging me around.  Since i knew she was about to try and gab me handle and I would have to share my vision in order to be consistent I decided to try and make sure that what she would see would be smaller and less detailed than what I usually gave the king.

His son had done something similar several times now, as well.  I knew it would make them have a headache but I can't just not share since I'm using that as a part of my disguise.  Of course the king was a little late in warning his daughter because she managed to touch me anyway.  Surprisingly she's actually keeping her hand on me longer than I expected.  She seems really surprised at the vision I'm giving her but she doesn't seem to have as bad of a headache as when the king first grabbed me or his son.

The king is quickly running up to grab his daughter away from me.  Too bad.  I'm actually a little curious about her, now.  She's being carried away but I'd really like to see if she fulfills the requirement of potential I have.  Hmm.  Maybe I should think of some small way to start testing people or else it might be forever before I find a true wielder.  I didn't think that a princess might be interested in me, though, so I hadn't really been worrying about it recently because I assumed I'd be passed on to the prince who pretty much automatically fails the freedom condition once he becomes king.  If I can get passed to a different child who won't be the heir to the throne then they might be able to slip away from the political stuff and become free so there's definitely a chance for them to be a true wielder if I can figure out a way to make sure they also meet the other requirements.  

"Are you okay, Jolene?  Does your hear hurt or anything?"

Apparently the king is worried about his daughter while he holds her away from me.

"No.  I saw a thing.  It was all pretty and everywhere."

She actually seemed pretty cheerful about it as she held her hands up to try and emphasize what she had seen.  Well, at least her language skills after four years are better than mine were even after five so I won't ridicule her for not being able to be more descriptive.  Still, I'm even more interested now that she said she didn't even get a sense overload.  Mm hm.  I'll definitely have to work on finding a way to test her without anyone realizing it really soon.  I want to be ready for the next time she tries to touch me.

"I see.  You shouldn't touch that sword without permission from now on, though.  It's very dangerous and you could get hurt, okay?"

Oh, come on.  Well, it might sound bad on my part but I hope she disobeys you and sneaks in to touch me again.  Now, how should I go about testing her.  I can't really do much except share vision without revealing myself but I could technically share my emotions to an extent as well if I could find a way to be subtle about it.  I don't think it would help much even then, though.  I know I won't really be able to talk until to anyone but a true wielder since that was basically affirmed by the gods before, at least until I get a chance to grow and really work things out, but maybe I can share a little more than just vision or emotion if I try.  

This will definitely take some work and I'll have to take a bit of a gamble but maybe I can try to flash an imaginary image of what I want from her to make her be a true wielder.  I'll start working on thinking up a good image so I can be ready if she touches me again.

"Father's right, Jolene.  You should be careful with all swords and spears, though."

Whoa there, kid.  I don't like the tone you're using there.  It sounds like you think she shouldn't ever learn how to use any weapon at all and that's the opposite of what I want here.  You two had better not steer a potential wielder away from the path that'll bring us together or you'll seriously make me angry.  It seems like the queen is about to show up as well as I just saw her enter my vision range and she's heading in this direction while carrying the youngest child in her arms.  

Well I guess they're going to have a little family get together before the day starts so while they do their thing I'll try to focus on figuring out how I should go about showing the young Jolene what I want.  Hmm.  Maybe I should figure out what it is that I want first, huh?  I need to think about this for a bit.

---

Jolene woke up in the middle of the night and looked around.  A few days ago she had touched her father's sword for the first time out of curiosity and he seen a loot of black and grey and white and silver all over the place.  It was in every direction and she could somehow see it all even in the places behind her.  She thought it was really pretty looking and had been thinking about it ever since.  

Her father and brother said it was dangerous and could hurt her but she couldn't fully believe that.  It was so pretty and nice that she just couldn't understand how that could possibly hurt in any way.  In fact, she wanted to see it again.  Her parents and brother had been keeping watch over her since then to make sure she didn't try anything so she hadn't been able to sneak away and touch it again.  Now it was nighttime and nobody was watching her, though.

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She quietly snuck out of bed and started padding her way with bare feet through the halls towards the throne room.  She did her best to stay out of sight of any guards she saw as well because she didn't want them to tell her parents that they had seen her walking around when she was supposed to be in bed at this time.  She finally made it into the throne room without being found out and quietly walked up to the throne.  She carefully crawled into the seat and stood up to look at the sword that was locked right nest to it.

It wasn't the most decorated or beautiful thing she had seen but it did have it's own kind of charm.  The blade that made up most of the weapon was a lighter color than other metal things as if the metal had been mixed with something that was a pure white color while the ridge and handle were a bare metal of a darker color.  There was a kind of pattern or something that was hard to make out along the whole ridge except for the handle that looked like a bunch of crisscrossed lines all over and she wondered a little why the handle wasn't wrapped in something softer like leather or something in the same way other swords were.

She reached out her little hand and, after a brief moment of hesitation, grabbed the handle.  She wouldn't be able to pick it up with it locked to it's pedestal but she just wanted to hold on to it for now so she could see the pretty sight again.  Suddenly she could see all around her in that pretty way.  It didn't go very far and everything was very fuzzy looking but it still looked pretty to her.  She moved her head around to try and see it better but the only thing that changed was where she was looking with her eyes.  It was very strange but kind of exciting.

She looked back at the sword with her eyes and noticed slight movement along the side of the blade.  She tried to look closer and saw someone that looked kind of like her, but with no color, holding her father's sword and swinging it around.  She smiled at that since it looked kind of pretty.  Then the little girl that looked like her started to get bigger like she was growing up really fast.  It was fun watching this and Jolene was enjoying herself so much that she almost let go of the handle to clap but she stopped when she saw something else start to change as well.  The slightly older girl was now holding a different weapon in her hands and was spinning around and swinging it in a way that looked like dancing.  The weapon had a similar blade to her father's sword but it was attached sideways to the top of a pole.

Then the girl in the image stopped her little show and looked directly at Jolene.  Jolene gasped and forgot to breathe for a moment.  The girl in the image held the pole weapon sideways in both of her hands and reached it out towards Jolene as if offering it to her.  Jolene reached out towards the image with her own hands but as soon as her hand left the handle of the sword the prettiness around her as well as the image of the girl on the blade disappeared.  Jolene realized that she had let go of the handle and tried to grab it again as quickly as possible to make it all come back but only the pretty world of less color that surrounded her came back.  She kept waiting for the images to come back but they never did. 

After deciding that they would probably not come back anymore, she finally left to go back to bed.  That was really exciting and she hoped she could see it again some day.

---

I think that all worked out rather well.  I wasn't even sure if I could make that work but it made it easier to imagine what I wanted to show her without a bunch of distractions and her being right there to base the image on.  Of course, I originally meant to just kind of flash the images to her a little in a similar way to how I can sometimes flash emotions to people but I couldn't quite pull that off.  The thought to try and show images with my blade was kind of spur of the moment but it worked and that's what matters most.

Hopefully everyone will think she just had some kind of dream if she tells anyone about what happened.  I won't be showing off anything other than what everyone already knows about me anyways, so even if they try and get it to happen again in a way they can see then nothing will happen and they'll probably forget about it.  The real goal here is to see if Jolene got the message to start learning some scythe work from someone.  If she does then that'll be good enough for me to consider the requirement of potential fulfilled.  I'd say she's already on the right track for the respect requirement even if it only goes as far as fascination at the moment.  She's still young so I'll wait and see but she does seem to take after her father more than the prince does.

As for the freedom requirement and the objective requirement, well, I can't really expect a four-year-old to have those things so I can't do anything but wait and see for that.  It might take a few more years but I hope she really pushes the issue for the king to hire some combat instructors for her.  I might be a scythe myself but I don't have any experience of how such fighting is supposed to go so the most I'd likely be able to do is minor adjustments here and there like I already do.  Even if she only ends up learning how to use spears then I might be able to do something with that since they are both pole type weapons.

I'll keep an eye on her for awhile as she grows up.  This is also a good chance to work on my vision.  It'll help me to have some solid motivation to try and watch the older princess regardless of where she goes in the castle.  I'd like to try and watch over her even if she leaves the castle but I'm being realistic here and there's no way that I'll be able to do that any time soon considering I still can't see the whole castle itself.  Maybe someday I'll get there.  Give me a few hundred years and I might be able to see across a whole village as long as I keep practicing and working on it.

---

Finally!  It's taken two years and a lot of bonding time but the king has finally allowed our little princess to start doing combat training.  She's been sneaking into the throne room every night she could for the past two years just to grab my handle and share vision.  I decided not to show any more scenes or anything but I did slowly start letting her have more of my vision, making it both more clear and larger a tiny bit at time every time she came for a night visit.  The king caught her once when he was coming for one of those little talks with me like he used to do.

That was a bit awkward but there wasn't any way I could warn her without taking the chance of revealing myself.  It seems she did try and explain about what I had shown her and how she was trying to see it again but luckily it's difficult to understand a small child's in depth descriptions of nearly impossible phenomena.  The king telling her that it must have been a dream of her imagination helped lead her to the thoughts of what I wanted her to do, though.  She started asking about the weapon I had turned into in the vision I showed her and asking to be taught how to use weapons and fight.

She didn't stop trying to see the vision again, either.  Even though she got in trouble with the king, she just waited a little longer before coming back again while being even more careful not to be caught.  Honestly, I've started to be a little worried about the nighttime security in this castle.  A small child is able to get past all the guards so I have no doubts that a trained assassin would be able to do something similar.  I did decide to reward her efforts even more, recently.  A few days ago, when she came for another night visit, I let her feel a flicker of my happiness that she was paying me so much attention right before she fully let go to head back to bed.  Apparently she caught it and it wasn't as subtle as I intended it to be because she stopped and stared at me all wide-eyed for a few seconds before the sounds of one of the guards walking by outside startled her out of her stupor.

And now, after two years of coming to me as often as possible, she has finally been caught for the second time.  She seems to have learned her lesson about trying to spill my secrets that nobody else will believe but she started yelling at the king about how we were chosen for each other or something, which not even I could fully understand what all she was trying to use to make a point since she's still only about six, after the king suddenly charged forward to yank her away from the sword.  She saw him coming from a decent distance away, though, since I let her have a slightly further view range than even the king gets right now.

The king does seem slightly impressed that she could notice him coming from about the same range as he would get and that she kept holding me the entire time he was coming after noticing her.  That must be why he relented to his tomboy daughter.  I'd like to think that's part of it anyway.  I guess we can finally see how she does with her training.  I'm hoping and betting that she won't get to use me until she's somewhat properly trained first.  I'd really like her to learn some pole weapons at least.

Well, I guess that tonight the king won't be talking to either me or himself, since I'm still not sure which it is when he comes in here to start talking without anyone else around, but I can live with that since he's taking his daughter to bed and I think it's a good thing for him to spend some time with her using that as an excuse.

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