17- Breathless for Knightwalker
Her core was molten with a unquenchable fury and everything burned with a blur of pain, rage and resentment.
Struggling, she clutched the wooden practice sword with numb and purple-hued knuckles and bloody palms. Callouses protected her hands the way the cheap, ripped cotton padding protected her small, growing body-- that was to say not at all because every day the training grew more brutal and demanding.
The man standing opposite her didn’t waste his time on more talking; there was no mocking glint to his cold, professional eyes. In his hand was live steel, and more than once she’d earned herself the sharp edge as a warning for her temper.
If she’d a better temperament, she’d be grateful for the fact she got warnings. Some of the other children in training were not so lucky and bore disfigurements as a price. But it was her fire and snarling that kept her going, and it was those same qualities that were humored and encouraged by the ones honing her.
Fighters had no need for manners or niceties.
Grunting with frustration, she lunged again at his motion. For a long moment, her attack seemed to be hitting home, right to back of the man’s kneecap. Deftly, he casually swung his right foot out catching her in the lower rib cage with steel-toed boots sending her crashing back.
Knocked breathless, she lay sprawled staring dully at the early morning sky for the only moment of peace she’d receive from sun up to sun down. Sand grains trickled and shifted under her, a couple of birds squabbled in the trees that lined the training field and warmth from the sunbeams hit her tanned skin pleasantly, promising another scorcher full of sweat and burns for the children to mutter and cry about as they tucked into their flea-ridden bundles at night.
In that moment, she had a flash of another kind of laughter, childish giggles, and another kind of warmth, one given from secure hugs. Within the blink of an eye it vanished and a heavy tread of footsteps were the only warning she received her escape had come to an end.
Childhood was only memories and daydreams for her.
