Innocents

Chapter Five

Aveline

A wooden arm swipes through the air. I duck narrowly avoiding the splintered hand that brushes past the top of my head, making the hairs fall loose out of my ponytail. Anger and pain fills my lungs, making it almost impossible to listen to anything but the buzz of intensified energy reverberating around my ear drums. Tendons that are strung tight against the muscle in my neck twitch against the tension. A second fist is flung in my direction. I immobilize their hand as their other appendage comes flying towards my side with a matching wooden sword gripped underneath a set of lumber fingers. I twist the arm in my grasp against their timber joints, and swat away the incoming one with my own blade. I shove the worn hand away from me as my wooden opponent stumbles backwards a few steps from the force. The metal weapon weighs heavy in my palm. The hilt digs into the skin of my thumb, creating a callus that I'm sure is rubbed raw and will sting later. The wooden soldier glows with a hesitant purple aura. Hardly there, the violet magic ripples off the fracturing wood, coming off in heavy waves.

The soldier walks to me in an awkward limp, as the limbs of wood jostle together. The soldier swings the wood sword below my legs, which I jump swiftly over. Sweat boils in the creases of my skin and drips down my brow, leaving a sticky residue. I kick it in the side, and turn around my shoulder to match my sword with theirs. Our swords clash against each other's in a quick paced fencing match. I slash through the air with as much force as I could muster. The wooden dummy catches his sword against mine, the pressure building up between the two blades. I let out a pain drenched scream forcing his sword away from mine. The sound echoes in my ears, managing to seep past the angry fury that burns against my skin. The scream, my scream, sounded more like a cry, a battle cry. My teeth are forced together, grinding against the rising emotions and battling the simmering anger. Without a second thought, the dummy's blade slashes at me. I register just in time to pinch my stomach in enough to dodge the weapon. Ducking under another slash coming at my head, I maneuver to whack my sword against the leg of my opponent, the wood cracking just above the ankle. The rage quickly returns as I slam my knee into their stomach, and flip them over my arm.

I gasp in exhaustion. The magicked training dummy flops onto the ground. The slightly lilac aura fades. The dummy falls limp as the magic fades from the bark. I drop my sword into the sand, planting my hands on my thighs, crouching over trying to regain my breath and my composure. Images fliker past my vision, blood and pain filled pictures. Screams so piercing that I can't tell if they are my own.

And then reality snaps back in seconds later. I hold my hand to my forehead that now aches with the beginning of a headache, forcing the memories back down to my tortured subconscious. I take another deep breath, moving my sore body to work out the aches in my neck and back.

"Tell me not to go up against you in a sword fight," a chuckle sounds from behind me, the voice warms yet worn by age. I immediately know who it is. I don't even have to turn around. Mr. Mortonize is one of our mentors. He's been like a father to me, since my parents died only a couple months after my youngest sister was born. I don't remember them. I was too young to even remember what happened to them. Mortonize said my mother got sick and died, and then my dad died trying to save her. When I think back on them, trying to remember even the smallest of details, it's all fuzzy. I believe my mom once had my smile until it faded into exhaustion. And I gained my father's blue eyes that became haggled with the pain of losing my mother, not unlike how my eyes fade to a grayer shade of blue just at the thought of my own pain. At least this is all I have been told, I can't tell the difference between what I have been told about my parents or what I remember about them anymore. I wish I could at least remember their laughs or their touch, but they were taken away from me when I was all too young.

I know it wouldn't have made a difference. Most of the Viers at camps have parents that are dead or just don't have a healthy relationship with them. It is almost a cultural thing in our society to be raised by your mentor, and it doesn't help that our population is fleeting. But sometimes I imagine what would have happened if my parents were still alive. Would they have stuck around? Would I know their laughs? Or would they have easily left us just as they left this world? It doesn't matter now though. They are dead. There is no bringing them back, and if there was a way, I wouldn't want to pay the price.