Knighting

History

For Forice knights are not really something special that the common folk gets fascinated by. Created in the times of Queen Rathaliah - four generations of royalty ago - the title of a "Knight" is given to a specially trained individuals, most of the time part of the army, to be brought to a state of something between a personal guard, personal assassin and a personal mercenary of the Royal family.

Since then the tradition has been kept and at all times the Royal Family has at least ten Knights excluding the ones the Queen's children want to have for themselves.

Execution

Usually the person to be knighted goes through the typical military training that any soldier takes on to get in the army. Along with that however they do get trained to be stealthy, and they do develop one or more specialties that - on its own - splits Knights into three groups: Avians, Divers and Darters.

After their training's considered done they are summoned to the Knighting Lands in Forice. There they are introduced in front of the Queen and a Council of 45 members. The Queen makes a short speech and according to what specialty the Knight is to be, they're send to a "quest" they have to complete. Once they retrieve the item the quest is for and present it before the Queen she then proceeds to bond the Knight to the person they're meant for by literally tying the hand of the questing one, the hand of the "Master" and the paw of the Master's dragon. Each of the three tied has to say a certain phrase:

• The Master says "I accept your service within me and with all of me. I respect your life as you offer it for me. I shall do all that is within my power to protect you and take care of you not any less that you'd do for me. You are my Knight and my right hand and my equal."
• The Dragon says: "I accept you as my Master and Rider and with the wind under my wings I shall bring you whenever and wherever you might need. My power I offer as yours and may my senses become you."
• The Knight-to-be says: "I offer myself to you and my loyalty and my respect forever belong to you. I am your Knight, your right hand and your equal. I am the eyes on your back, the extra set of hands to aid you and your partner until you need me no more. Should I ever betray your trust you are to punish me with the severe hand of justice and be the voice of my destiny."

After all that the Master unties the thread that binds them and uses it to form with their magic a crest that they then place on the naked skin right under the suprasternal notch. There it sinks in the skin and becomes a tattoo seemingly done with red ink.  All that's left after is for the Queen to raise the hands of both Master & Knight & say "I pronounce you as Knight, sir (....)" .

Notes

• It's always "Sir" followed by the last name of the person who's being Knighted. It means no "male" but "this person is a Knight".

• The questing items are: for Avians - a feather from Volcanic Fanrabat; for Divers - a green pearl and for Darters - a vial of seven moon tears. The quest for the types are according to the element they get in and are usually considered "medium" difficulty for those trained for Knights and "Hard" for a normal soldiers.

• The items needed for the Knighting are - the people present + magical screen to follow the quest; - special magical thread made of hardened blood, dragon heartstring and hair from the "Master". All this enchanted to be long, elastic and very smooth.