Over the next several years, as the siblings returned to their normal routines together, Alyse noticed an unprecedented vigor and deliberateness in Reynard's daily actions. This was especially true in his combat training.
More than ever before, her little brother brimmed with the joy for life she'd always admired in him. Feeling that it was in some way attributable to the enchanted gear she'd procured for him, she felt a deep satisfaction that no amount of disdain from the rest of the family could erode. Both siblings were once again truly happy in their lives, which Evelyn quietly observed with a warm, motherly pride.
In the following decades, as Reynard became a full-fledged adult, his skill with a sword grew to heights that surprised even Alyse. Reynard still couldn't win an unrestricted sparring match against his sister, but that did not discourage him, since he saw Alyse as the pinnacle of combat prowess. However, Alyse had come to the realization that, in a 'pure' sword fight without spells of any kind, Reynard would easily beat her.
Though Reynard himself didn't take much solace in this fact, Alyse had the utmost respect for it. First, because her brother was the only person who, even in terms of pure sword technique, surpassed her. Second, because while he was certainly more naturally talented with a sword than most elves, it wasn't to the degree that Alyse was blessed. He'd overcome that talent gap through a rare level of discipline, effort, and attention to detail.
Before Reynard was through the first half-century of his life, Alyse found that she was learning from him in their sparring matches. Her combat abilities were improving noticeably for the first time in centuries. By contrast, however, Reynard came to the realization after a couple more centuries that his own skills were no longer improving, and he still couldn't truly challenge his sister.
Once upon a time, that would have made him despair about his worth. But, ever since the day his sister returned from her journey to the dwarven villages, he'd dispelled such intrusive thoughts. If he'd perfected his existing techniques and stopped narrowing the gap between them, he figured he just needed to find new skills and techniques to perfect until he closed that gap.
Alyse was the pinnacle of the sword styles around Wellick, so Reynard knew that if he wanted to improve any further with the sword, he'd have to journey from home. He had no concerns about the rest of his family, who he knew would consider his departure no great loss, but he worried about leaving his sister.
When Alyse heard of her brother's plans and reasoning, she was first shocked, then apprehensive. Her apprehension was not borne of a concern about her brother's safety or well-being. Rather, in a way she hadn't realized until then, she depended on Reynard. Since he was born, maybe even more so than her own mother, he was the source of her feelings of happiness and belonging. She knew her days ahead would be darker without him.
Alas, she knew she couldn't ask him to stay. More than she cherished her brother's company, she wanted him to find the sense of accomplishment and self-worth that she felt he deserved. If pursuing the sword abroad was what he needed for that, he'd only have her support.
While Alyse would have happily joined him on his journey, she also felt lingering responsibilities to her mother. Evelyn had just passed her eighth millennium of life and had yet to produce another suitable heir, and Alyse couldn't leave her mother alone to deal with a burden that she felt she'd placed on her mother's shoulders. Reynard knew his sister's feelings on the matter as well, and so he never solicited Alyse to accompany him.
Thus, it was with heavy hearts that the siblings parted ways. At first, Reynard would visit Alyse every few years, but those times apart widened considerably as his travels grew more exotic.
Following Reynard's initial departure, Alyse's life was relatively enjoyable at first, but grew less so as time went on. In part, she felt loneliness without her brother's company. She still had her mother, but Evelyn had less time for her daughter as her age advanced without a proper heir and pressures from the family increased. This also weighed on Alyse in the form of guilt, and it made her hesitant to ask much of her mother.
Additionally, Alyse – now almost three millennia old – had become increasingly bothered by her lack of a long-term romantic partner. While this was expected to some degree, since high elves normally take regular elves with shorter lifespans as partners, Alyse had an especially difficult limitation.
While it wasn't uncommon for her to meet female elves that reciprocated her romantic interests, she'd never found any that could be in a lifelong monogamous relationship with her. The desire by them and/or their families for them to have children was just too prevalent. Consequently, her relationships were always transitory in nature, never lasting more than a decade.
It was for all these reasons that, as the centuries passed without Reynard, Alyse's mood soured gradually. It didn't help that the other prominent members of the family and the Prima became increasingly antagonistic towards her as her mother approached 9,000 years old without conceiving another child.
As they became increasingly frantic about the family succession, they were more insistent with Evelyn and Alyse that an alternative strategy be decided upon in case Evelyn failed to produce another heir. To their dismay, however, such discussions never seemed to go anywhere when they were brought up.
When it was suggested that an heir could be produced by Reynard while Alyse acted as interim matriarch, the traditional Egris family bemoaned about the importance of a continuous bloodline and the likelihood of Reynard's children being 'weak like him'.
When it was suggested that a closely related bloodline could take over, with or without Alyse as interim matriarch, they were quick to decline on the basis that the family's customs dictate that the matriarch must be a high elf. Since there were no high elves among the closely related bloodlines, they posited, such a shift in family lineage could not be accommodated.
Truthfully, Alyse felt that all the Prima really wanted was to browbeat her and her mother into a specific alternative solution. She imagined that to be a promise from Alyse that, if another heir wasn't born, she'd become matriarch and force men on herself for however long it took for her to produce an heir. However, they didn't outright suggest that at first, but rather waited for the suggestion to come from Evelyn or Alyse.
When neither Alyse nor her mother did so after several decades worth of such discussions, the Prima became emboldened or desperate enough to plainly propose exactly what Alyse had suspected. They asserted that, after so many years without a viable alternative, Alyse had to acknowledge that it was the only acceptable decision.
Alyse, enraged by their callous remarks but striving to remain civil for her mother, reiterated that such a thing was the very definition of unacceptable, or at least no more acceptable than the alternatives the Prima had rejected. Thus, these discussions devolved into reruns of the original meeting in which Evelyn proposed that she'd give birth to another heir.
This trend continued for quite some time. Every few years, when such discussions took place again, the same arguments surrounding Alyse producing an heir were repeated with increasing fervor. To her credit, Alyse remained quite civil despite the rising hostility and stubbornness from her extended family. However, that's not to say that her patience was endless.
At first, Evelyn would vehemently support her daughter in these debates, and the Prima's rudeness was kept in check. Unfortunately, Evelyn's forcefulness against the Prima waned with the passing decades, until she was practically a silent observer throughout such meetings. Then, the Prima felt justified in expressing open condemnation towards Alyse.
Alyse knew that her mother didn't agree with the Prima, it was just that after over two millennia in this predicament, stretching into the last millennium of her life, Evelyn had little fight left in her. Still, her mother's silence pained Alyse all the same, as did the obvious toll the meetings took on her mother.
Little by little, Alyse's veil of civility was thinned by the Prima's ever-worsening harassment. 'How can you be so selfish?', they'd ask. 'You should be ashamed over abandoning your duty', they'd say. 'You need to follow your mother's example and sacrifice for the sake of the family!', they'd insist.
One day, after a particularly frustrating meeting, four of the Prima had cornered Alyse to speak to her privately about the matter. Ultimately, it was just an opportunity to berate Alyse with their unrestrained hostility without bothering Evelyn. Despite that, Alyse nearly persevered without incident, until one Prima's comment made her snap.