Cutlass

Prolouge

Hey guys, please let me know what you think of this, I haven't written in a while and I'm trying to get back into the swing of it. Anyway let me know what you think!

I brought up my wooden dagger and heard it connect. I gave a peal of triumphant laughter before I felt the weight of the sword above me pushing my sword out of my grip. Before my own sword could be knocked from my limber fingers, I shoved up with all my might and dove to the left, rolling out of the way of my opponents reach. I jumped back up, balancing lightly on the balls of my feet and raised my dagger level with my eye line. My opponent chuckled and swung his sword at me again. I easily parried it and danced around the following blow. Then, while my sparing partner was regaining his balance, I jumped onto his back and held the dagger to his throat.
"Gotcha." I sang, cheerfully clinging to my fathers shoulders. He chuckled again and reached over his shoulder, grabbing the back of my dress and pulling me over his shoulders and into his big arms.
"You get better everyday, my angel." He said. I dropped my practice sword to the ground and wrapped my arms around my fathers shoulders in a hug. He stiffened. "Abagail, your weapon. A warrior should never discard her weapon. Warriors respect their weapons. They are tools that need to be used with care and precision. They are to be cleaned and taken care of because if a warrior does not respect her weapon it will not respect her."
"But, daddy, it's not alive, it doesn't feel pain."
"No, but without it, you would feel pain. of you take care of your weapon it will take care of you." My father placed me gently on the ground and let me retrieve my wooden dagger. I used the hem of my dress to clean the dirt off of it, trying my best to respect and restore it, even if I didn't understand why. I had to obey my father, he knew best, and besides, everyone obeyed the king.

Years passed and I grew into an adolescent. My father took me to foreign lands in order to teach me about diplomacy. I was present at the signings of multiple peace treaties and even more declarations of war. Lillydale was home to one of the most fierce armies in all of the surrounding kingdoms, which made my father a force to reckon with. When a neighboring nation would, foolishly, attack, my father was more than prepared to defend his borders. In some cases, however, my father was only interested in expanding his borders. As I grew he taught me that sometimes a person must act violently in order to defend themselves. He also taught me that diplomacy should also be my first method of "attack". Verbal attack was my fathers favorite form of diplomacy. He was intelligent, and his quick mind was his greatest weapon. He always tried to talk out problems with neighboring countries before declaring war, but sometimes other countries were unreasonable. It was their own fatal flaws that brought their downfall - namely pride.

I grew tired of diplomacy easily, and I decided to enter battle at the age of fourteen. A scrawny, short, female child. I had watched the Knights train for as long as I could remember and I knew just the group to keep close to. A trio of Knights, often known as the most deadly, and only a few years my senior.
The battle I decided to first join took place in the Kingdom of Harrington. It was a large kingdom with many prosperous farms and gold mines. My father had decided, yet again, to further expand his territories. My mother strongly disapproved, but father ignored her as he always did. My mother and father did not love each other. They had married for political gains and had had me in order to keep the peace between the kingdoms. I loved my mother, though she was calm and collected and I was wild and free spirited. She always rebuked me, telling me that I was too much like my father and that I would never find a husband to take the throne. I had snuck out to join the battle on this particular occasion. My father slept soundly far from the front lines of battle, in a tent surrounded by guards. I was not even supposed to be present during battle, except that I had told my mother that I would never find a good husband if I didn't know how to tend to his wounds. Somehow that excuse landed me as an assistant in the infirmary.