The Girl Who Stood Against the Wolf
Thank you... thank you...
Adelaine Lucrecia's childhood unfolded atop a low hill. The wide roads of the capital, the white spires of the cathedral, and the starlit records of the magic tower never reached that far. There stood a single dilapidated mansion. When the wind blew, the front gate creaked. When it rained, the courtyard turned to mud in moments. On winter mornings, thin ice formed in the cracks of the stones by the well.
But to young Adelaine, the place felt vast. The smoke rising from village chimneys below the hill. The blue light seeping through the window at dawn. The sound of her mother boiling water in the kitchen. The click of her father buckling his scabbard before heading to the yard. All of it was her entire world.
In the middle of the courtyard stood an old training dummy, scarred wood battered countless times. Rain pooled in the sword marks, drying slowly under the sun. Adelaine never saw it as frightening. It was a quiet tree that always stood in the same spot, swaying just a little in the wind, murmuring low when someone swung a blade. A strange friend. So she sometimes left wildflowers at its base. Yellow ones. White ones. Tiny weeds she didn't know the names of.
Adelaine would set the flowers down and whisper, "You're still here today."
The dummy never answered. Instead, the wind passed by. A single water droplet on its surface trickled slowly down. That was enough for Adelaine.
She was that kind of child. One who believed even silent things had their own days. The creaky door. The cold well. Her father's scabbard. Her mother's handkerchief, folded every night. Gaze at them long enough, and you'd glimpse their hearts.
The day Adelaine first said she wanted to learn the sword came after rain. The sky hung gray, puddles lingered in the yard. The flowers she'd left at the dummy's base were sodden, flattened into the mud.
Her father swung his blade in the yard. His injured leg gave a faint limp with every step, but it vanished when he gripped the sword. Rainwater on the edge caught the dim sky and glimmered briefly.
Adelaine sat under the eaves, staring at that light for a long time. It was cold, yet strangely warm. Like a small lantern in a dark room.
"Father."
He lowered his sword. "Speak, my daughter."
"Why does the sword sparkle?"
He glanced at the blade in his hand. "Because I polish and care for it."
"Does polishing make it sparkle?"
"Mostly, yes. For any object."
Adelaine thought for a moment. The rain-soaked yard. The muddied flowers. The blade that shone even under the overcast sky. It all connected slowly inside her.
"Then... does polishing the heart make it sparkle too?"
Her father didn't answer right away. Adelaine's face was purely curious. Dark things brighten when cleaned. Dirty things grow pure. So perhaps the heart could too.
He sheathed his sword and knelt before her. "The heart is hard to polish alone."
"Then who polishes it?"
"Family, sometimes."
"And?"
"The promises you vow to keep, other times."
Adelaine didn't fully grasp it. But she liked the word promise. Small and solid. Something that wouldn't fade if tucked deep in her pocket.
She looked at his scabbard and said, "I want to learn the sword too."
He asked, "What does the sword have to do with the heart?"
Adelaine replied as if it were obvious. "To protect people with a sword that always sparkles! To polish their hearts!"
That day, Adelaine received her first wooden sword. It didn't sparkle no matter how she polished it, but she was thrilled all the same. No holy sword's glow. No legendary name. Just a training blade from the yard's corner. The hilt was rough, too big for her small hands. When she gripped it two-handed, the tip drooped. Heavier than expected.
Still, Adelaine smiled. A clear smile. Not from victory or praise. Just joy at the weight handed to her for the first time.
She stood before the dummy, wooden sword in hand. No idea where to place her feet. Or how to hold it properly. Yet she stared at the target. The tree she brought flowers to every morning. The quiet thing always in its place.
Very softly, she said, "I won't hurt you."
Her father must have heard. But he said nothing.
Adelaine raised the sword. Her arms shook. Her feet slipped. Her shoulders tensed. Once. Twice. On the third, the wooden blade finally grazed the dummy.
Thud. A tiny sound.
Adelaine's eyes widened. "I hit it."
Her father nodded. "You did."
After that day, Adelaine's mornings changed a little. Open the window. Step onto the cold floor. Head to the yard. Check if the flowers at the dummy's base had wilted. Grip the wooden sword.
At first, ten swings. Then twenty. If she lost count, back to one.
Her father asked, "Why start over?"
Gasping, she replied, "Because I got it wrong."
"Don't your arms hurt?"
"They do."
"Yet you start again?"
"Getting it wrong means I didn't train enough. It bothers me."
From then on, he counted for her. One. Two. Three. Adelaine swung to the rhythm of his slow voice. Morning sun settled over the yard, drying the dummy's wet scars bit by bit. While thin ice melted by the well, she repeated the motion.
To Adelaine, the sword was less a tool for cutting foes and more something that let her stand a little longer before the frightening. Like holding a candle in a dark hall made it less scary. Like a hand in the rain kept you from slipping. The sword was that. Gripped tight, it let you say it was okay even when tears threatened.
That belief first wavered on a snowy winter night. The village was eerily silent. Chimney smoke hung low below the hill. No footsteps to the well.
Word passed through the mansion: wolves had come down. A few livestock torn apart. Travelers locking doors, dimming lanterns.
Adelaine stood at the hall's end, listening. Wolves terrified her. Yellow eyes in the dark, silent paws on snow, bared white fangs.
But the village's silence gnawed deeper. Morning water-fetching. Doors opening and closing. Voices calling out. All buried in snow.
Her father buckled on his sword. Adelaine gripped her wooden one and stood before him.
"I want to go too...!"
He looked down. "...Daughter, we're going to hunt wolves."
"I know."
"It'll be terrifying."
"...I'm scared."
"Then why go?"
Adelaine bit her lip, searching for words. She didn't want to look brave. Or defeat a wolf. The village was just too quiet. She hated it. She loved its lively hum.
Clutching the wooden sword, she said, "Because everyone's scared. I have to protect them... make them shine again."
Her father fell silent a long time. Then, curtly: "Don't stray from behind me."
That night, Adelaine wielded her sword outside the training yard for the first time. Not a real blade. Still wood. Yet she gripped it two-handed. Snow piled to her knees, wind lashed her face. The lantern flickered near extinction.
Her father walked ahead. She stepped only in his prints. Stray, and her legs sank deep.
Deeper into the woods, sounds faded. Wind muffled by trees. Adelaine heard only her breath. White puffs. Fingertip pain. Fingers freezing around the hilt.
Then yellow eyes lit the dark. Hungry wolves padded slowly over snow.
Her throat dried. Heart pounded so hard her ears ached. The wooden sword grew heavier.
Her father's blade moved first. Blood sprayed over snow. Wolves scattered, then charged again. One leaped at Adelaine. A small one. Still huge to her.
As it kicked off the snow, Adelaine did as trained. Feet planted. Breath held. Sword raised.
And swung down.
Thud. The wooden blade struck the wolf's nose. It yelped, rolling aside. Adelaine toppled back. Snow jammed her back. Wrist throbbed.
Yet she didn't release the sword.
Her father drove off the rest. The woods fell quiet again.
Only then did Adelaine's hands shake.
He knelt beside her. "Hurt?"
She shook her head. Tears welled.
He didn't take the sword. Just placed his hand over hers.
"Scared?"
Very softly: "Yes."
"Yet you stood like a knight. Splendidly."
Adelaine cried. No sound. Tears just trailed her cheeks.
On the way home, village windows flickered open one by one. Lanterns leaked through door cracks. Someone peeked cautiously.
Adelaine walked, clutching her snow-caked wooden sword. Standing like a knight. In any situation, without shame.
...I protected it. The village. I protected it...!
To protect everyone...!
"Wolf... wolf... catch..."
At first, it sounded like a beast's growl. The sound leaking from her overgrown jaws scraped low and muddy, like wet earth clawed.
Roën's fingers twitched. Black iron fluid rippled thinly at his feet.
Adelaine Lucrecia's eyes were clouded. Black magic trickled between her horns, curse-threads seeped from the hole in her chest. The hand clutching the holy sword was too twisted to call human.
Yet she spoke. One ancient word. In a voice worn and broken.
"Catch... the... w..."
Ena halted, sword held low. The tip still aimed at her heart.
But it trembled faintly. Not hesitation to strike. The quiver when memory brushes the body.
Adelaine wasn't seeing Ena. Or the forest. She saw another night. Long ago, heavy snow. A child clutching a wooden sword. Small feet following her father's prints into the woods. Yellow eyes blooming one by one in the dark.
Terrified, hands near frozen—yet she hadn't retreated. The thud of wooden blade on wolf's nose.
That tiny sound crossed centuries, mingling with the holy sword's hum.
Her lips moved again. "Sca... red..."
The words didn't finish. Magic clogged her throat. Curse scraped her vocal cords.
But Ena heard. Roën too.
A child's voice.
Ena slowly lowered her gaze. Before her stood a body twisted by the Demon King's curse. A horned monster. The previous hero, listed missing in cathedral records.
Yet inside lingered the child from that snowy night. The girl who hadn't dropped her wooden sword. Who stood despite fear. Who believed a gleaming sword made fearful paths less so.
Very softly, Ena said, "Yes."
Adelaine's clouded eyes quivered.
"It must have been frightening."
At those words, the holy sword's tip dipped slightly. Adelaine exhaled. Beast's huff mingled with human sob.
"Yet you stood tall. Like a knight."
Rain fell harder. But in that moment, a tiny light flickered deep in Adelaine Lucrecia's eyes.
Snow-blanketed yard. Weathered dummy. Numbers her father counted. One. Two. The thud as the wooden sword swung down.
Her hand tightened on the holy sword. Grasping who she was. What she'd wielded it for. That final piece.
Ena raised her blade. Her face held something deeper than pity. The quiet of one conducting a funeral.
"Adelaine Lucrecia."
The name settled over the rain-soaked forest. For the first time, the monster didn't howl. She swallowed softly. As if startled that name could still call her.
Ena said, "The wolf you feared is gone."
The holy sword trembled.
"The night you guarded has long passed."
Black rain—or tears?—trailed from Adelaine's eyes. Ena asked no more. She already knew.
Too long with eyes open. Too long refusing to release the sword.
Not longing to return to that childhood yard. Knowing it could never come again, she'd endured here on one lesson from there: how to stand.
Ena lowered her blade. And said, "Now, you may close your eyes."
Ena's hand gripped her hilt. The last sight Adelaine would know.
Schwick.
As her head fell, Adelaine Lucrecia realized, after centuries, what she'd missed.
"Thank... you..."
Her eyes had still been open.