Challenge: The second week's challenge, the training session where your charri gets beaten up.
Word Count: 910
Comments: I've pulled a Rodin here. Some might say it's unfinished, but I've chosen to leave it like that because, well. I wrote a resolution, but it was... clumsy.It didn't really work, was unrealistic and didn't fit. So, I chose to leave it like that. I didn't post it in time because I went away that weekend, so I didn't have much time. Alice's name is pronounce al-EE-chay. Because it may, or may not, be set in Italy or a fantasy version thereof.
- Spoiler: show
- Alice beamed, wildly excited. Around her crowded fifteen or so other youngsters, all staring intently at a raised platform on which a lithe young woman and a burly man were fighting. They ducked and spun, swords locked in a deadly dances. The grace and power with which they fought took Alice’s breath away and confirmed, once again, that this was what she wanted to do.
Like it needed any confirming. To fence and duel with the sword, to master the moves that could, possibly, save her life... That was what Alice had wanted to do for a as long – longer – than she could remember. Indeed, it was in her blood. Her father, Daniello Mazzoli, had been the best swordsman of his day.
And yet. Steel cannot stop the ravages of time, or death when it finally comes to call. And the dead cannot stop the bank man when he comes to tell you that you father owed more money than you owned, and when people come and take your home and money, there’s nothing you can do. Especially if, at the time, you are only eight years old.
But Alice’s mother had been a good woman, and a hardworking one. She had found cheap lodgings above an inn, and work in the inn itself. A grizzled old soldier had been among the many patrons at the inn, and had come to be like an uncle to Alice. It was him who taught her to fight, seeing promise in the young girl with the wide green eyes.
Promise that had led her here, to the Scuola di Guerrieri, school of warriors, as one of the fifteen hopefuls trying to get in. It was likely that only five would succeed.
The fight drew to its conclusion, an intentional draw, for the fight had been merely for show. The woman turned her head to the onlookers, taking them in with a gaze that could, possibly, freeze water. She dismissed her sparring partner, still staring, and started to speak;
“Welcome,” her voice was cultured, and caught directly in between the steel of a sword and the velvet of a fine dress, “To the Scuola di Guerrieri. I am the Lady Isabella di Guardina, owner and, if you are lucky, teacher at this school. I shall tell you the truth. Not all of you will stay here. Indeed, it is probable that less than a third of you will. I shall find out which of you they are.”
Alice’s eyes widened slightly. Lady Isabella was known far and wide for her skills with the blade. In the inn, one of the most common discussions was speculation as to what would happen if she had ever crossed blades with Alice’s father.
Isabella’s cold blue eyes snapped to Alice’s then, boring a hole in her skull. For a fleeting moment, it seemed that the noblewoman could read Alice’s every thought and feeling, as easily as if she were an open book.
“You.” She said, eyes still locked into Alice’s “You will fight me.” Alice could do nothing but nod mutely, and step up onto the platform. “Have you a weapon?” Isabella asked, which set Alice off fumbling at her side for the sword that had once been her father’s. She handed it to Isabella, hilt first, as was custom.
She took the sword, weighing it in her hand and testing it’s balance. She looked critically at the handle and crosspiece, at which point Alice flushed. Unlike many of the swords, there was not a single gem or flash of gold or silver upon it. The only form of ‘adornment’ was a strip of leather around the hilt, used to keep a hand from slipping.
“A good sword,” Isabella decided finally, putting it back in Alice’s hand. “And now we fight.”
There was a blur of motion. Alice barely had time to register a gleam of metal before the flat of the blade bashed into her side. Alice gasped, the breath knocked out of her. She knew that, if Isabella had chosen to use the sharp end of her sword, Alice would be dead. Another blow came, this time aimed at her neck. Alice managed to parry it in time. Steel met steel, and the fight began in earnest, Alice constantly on the defensive, with Isabella wearing her down bit by bit.
The fight could have lasted hours, or minutes, or days. Time was irrelevant, as Alice fought to remember every move she had ever been taught, every attack sequence, every dirty underhand trick. She threw them all at Isabella, modifying and combining them asbest she could. But all for nought. Sweat ran down her cheeks and mingled with the blood of numerous small cuts, and Alice felt her sword knocked out of her hand and cold metal at her throat.
Alice sank to her knees, tears of shame rolling up and out of her eyes. I’m useless. I failed; I am just a foolish girl, playing with weapons too big for her. I’ll never be a warrior, never. She was barely coherent, swallowed as she was in a whirlpool of misery and humiliation. She was almost completely unaware of the warm, rough hands taking her by the shoulders, and leading her to a room with a bed, chest and washstand. Already dead to the world, Alice fell onto the bed, and into a deep sleep filled with dreams of being defeated and mocked a thousand times over.
by CandlelightFight » Wed Jul 21, 2010 11:26 pm 
