"It's an heirloom, isn't it?" ... "I got it from my father." The tutor ran his hand along the sheathed blade. "This is a remarkable weapon--a knight's sword--tarnished with time and travel. You don't use it as often as the others. The bastard and short sword are tools to you, but this--ah--this is something else--something revered. It lays concealed in a paltry sheath, covered in clothes not its own. It doesn't belong there. This sword belongs to another time and place. It is part of a grand and glorious world where knights were different, loftier--virtuous. It rests in this false scabbard because the proper one has been lost, or perhaps, it waits for a quest yet to be finished. It longs for that single moment when it can shine forth in all its brilliance. When dream and destiny meet on a clear field, then and only then will it find its purpose. When it faces that honorable cause--that one worthy and desperate challenge for which it was forged and on which so much depends--it will find peace in the crucible of struggle. For good or ill, it will ring true or break. But the wandering, the waiting, the hiding will at last be over. This sword waits for the day when it can save the kingdom and win the lady."