33 Risen#re

Edith barely noticed as Lirian walked towards the stream to clean himself off, she was still too surprised that a Pendragon was in Lirians class.

There were only 45 families deemed as the ancient families and those families went back to the founding of the 7 civilizations.

The 7 civilizations were founded by the 7 guardians that Quaria left behind before her assent to the immortal realm, each civilization was named after its founder, Clovis, Golgoth, Titania, Emphedia, Lithrone, Galatrasia and Luthir.

However, there were 52 guardians, each of whom had sired their own lineages, the 45 guardians that were ascending had sworn their undying loyalty to Quaria so they would not remain behind even if it was for the sake of their families.

The families were dubbed as the ancient families to honour the guardians and they were given special rights in the universe, they belonged to no empire and would never acknowledge the rule of any empire.

The ancient families were a scattered power without any fixed world or location, and they were a type of peacekeeper for the 7 civilizations, but during the exploration era and the race to attain the basins that Quaria left behind many of the families were exterminated.

Their desire to keep the peace was frowned upon, and their purpose was a hindrance, but there was a problem with killing them.

It was impossible for the empires to order the death of an ancient family, it was an oath that all rulers had to take before ascending the throne in a similar way to the paragon families, this oath was taken on every level of the power structure, even a ruler of a lower world who could pose no threat to the ancient families had to take it.

But all contracts have a loophole, during the exploration era the empires had made suggestive messages to the warlords and mercenary groups, in exchange for their attacks on the ancient families the warlords would gain second accord knowledge and techniques.

The ancient families also had their own oaths of restrictions, the main one being that they could not attack or intervene in the civil strife of any empire, they were only allowed to act should the empires attack each other.

It was due to this that only four ancient families remained, when the war ended the civilization did their best to make peace with the remaining ancient families.

However, the families scattered around the universe, never taking their authority back, and it was extremely rare to see even one of their members, let alone one getting involved in politics'.

But the most surprising thing was his family name, Pendragon, that was the last name of Quaria's most trusted guardian, who was said to also be the only lover she ever took.

In the chronicles of the interstellar era, there were many stories detailing the many exploits of the first guardian, Arthur Pendragon as he journeyed alongside Quaria conquering nation after nation while being accompanied by a hateful little wisp.

'No wonder he is seen as the class clown,' Edith thought, 'He is like a high ranking noble that is also an outcast,' it was a strange concept to her, yet it felt oddly similar, it was like being a candidate, the only difference is that no one would respect him for his position.

When she came back from her thoughts she realised that Lirian was already at the river and went running after him.

When she reached the bank of the river she found Lirian near a tree, it was a nice closed of area that others would find it hard to peek into.

Over the sound of the gushing water she heard a sharp crack like bones breaking and looked at Lirian in surprise.

"Why did you do that to yourself?" she shouted as she saw him break one of his fingers without so much as a wince of pain on his face.

Lirian turned to face her, "It's a rule that my mother gave me," he answered simply.

Edith looked at him dumbly, 'What kind off rule would make a person break a bone in their body? What was the purpose of such a rule?' she couldn't understand.

"It's a rule from my training," Lirian started to explain, "If I ever drop my weapon I have to break a finger," he said simply.

"That's only in training," Edith complained she wasn't too surprised by such a condition it was more extreme than hers of being whipped three times, but this wasn't training, "This is the real…"

"The real world," Lirian cut her off, "That's exactly the point," Lirian said sternly.

Lirian stepped onto the shallow part of the water and begun to wash himself in the water, "Have you ever seen me with a broken finger before?" he asked her as he pulled of the cargo uniform top and washed it out in the water.

He didn't let her answer as he pulled off his last piece of clothes, causing Edith to gulp a little as she stared at his body.

"This was the first time I've ever dropped my sword, if I held onto it I would have been able to anchor my self or slow my fall, if not for Mordred being there I would have fallen, I wouldn't have died, but I would have been to late to take down the drake, it would have killed everyone by the time I got back on top of it."

Lirian finish washing up the pants and threw a little silver energy into the water, it took the form of water, Lirian focused and it formed an orb in the air and absorbed all the water from his clothes in small streams.

There were still a few blood stains on the clothes but that didn't bother Lirian, it wasn't like he could see it anyway and he slowly got dressed.

Edith was having a hard time deciding which one was more magical to look at, the strange spell that Lirian cast or his naked body, once he started to get dressed she felt a little disappointed as she walked up to him.

When Lirian came out of the water, the first thing Edith noticed was the big ugly wound on his leg, it was deep, and the flesh was jutting out at odd angles.

As Lirian pulled out his first aid kit that came with the uniforms she rushed forward to take it from him.

"I can do it by myself," Lirian complained as he pulled it back.

"You don't have to," Edith whispered as she released the kit but grabbed his hand instead.

"It's not difficult for me to stitch it up, you don't have to worry," Lirian said gently, trying not to hurt her feelings.

"I never said that it was difficult, I'm here because I want to do it for you," she spoke lovingly and grabbed his leg placing it on her lap.

"You know that you don't have to keep doing every thing on your own," she said softly when Lirian didn't respond, just before the attack, she had felt it, she was so close to getting him to drop those walls around him, but it seemed that they came right back up and she would have to work on lowering them all over again.

Her words seemed to strike a chord of logic in Lirian that was the opposite of all he knew.

That was the way he survived, it was how he had always done things, it was the only way for him to survive when he was alone.

And as if she was reading his mind she said, "You're not alone Lirian you have people all around you that want to help you just like Mordred did with the drake, just like… like me." She finished as she slowly pushed a needle though his skin and stitched it back together.

Lirian felt a shiver run through every part of his body but he hid it away and held his silence not even sure how to respond, if it was anyone else he would have shrugged them off and said they were stupid or they were imagining things, but he didn't want to lie and insult her.

The needle quickly moved and in minutes the stitches were complete, Edith grabbed a few of the salt pellets Lirian bought and crushed them over the wound and finally she poured some water onto it, and despite the stinging sensation he didn't show the slightest discomfort.

As Lirian was about to climb back up she pulled him back down, she was a little angry that he didn't say anything to her in the time that she stitched his leg, she didn't realise that her words had already taken a toll on him making his entire mind quake.

She felt that there might have been something wrong with her approach, so she chose to go with another angle.

She sat on his thighs that were luckily uninjured and wrapped her arms around his neck, "You know I thought that I might lose you today," she muttered her greatest fear opening her heart up to him if he couldn't begin then she would.

"When everyone saw you fight they were mesmerised, and impressed is not even the word to describe how they looked at you and maybe I should have been the same as them,"

"It's every girls dream to have the most impressive of men isn't it?" she whispered her rhetorical question with a pained voice ", but the entire time I was only scared," she said lowering her tone even further.

"I wasn't scared that you'd be hurt, I wasn't scared that you'd die, rather it was how much you seemed to enjoy it like it was the only thing that could give your life any meaning," she sobbed and looked at him with teary eyes.

"What happened to you that could make you enjoy such a horrific thing?" a mixture of curiosity and sadness was thick in her voice as she looked at him with gentle teary eyes.