The Love of a Crow - Wesper/Crows Fanfiction/AU

8. Matthias

  "No, you're supposed to duck the punch, not deflect it!"

They were in the large training room above the dungeons, in the fighting arena they called the Crow Pit. It was clear not one of the Crows could come up with a more creative name, so anything to do with Crows seemed to stick. The arena, the teaching, the fighting... it all reminded Matthias of his home. Well, his old home. And that was why he punched Wylan a little too hard.

The boy went flying across the room landing splayed out across the other side of the Pit. For a moment all was silent.

Saints, have I killed him already?

Matthias slowly approached, and was relieved to be staring down at two sapphire eyes, though one was turning purple as the black eye he had gifted Wylan started to form.

"Come on. We'll go again." Matthias held out his hand.

Wylan took it gratefully, and as soon as his feet hit the ground Matthias attacked, throwing punches and darting up on the poor boy until he was backed into a corner of the Pit. Wylan started, seemed to find his senses, and began swinging back, weak, tired blows that barely touched the air around Matthias.

"Put some effort in! A criminal won't go easy on you out there!" Matthias yelled.

"You call this easy?" Wylan gasped in disbelief as Matthias landed a blow to his shoulder, almost knocking him down again. Almost.

A rare anger seemed to sweep across Wylan's eyes. Suddenly he jumped forward, swinging again, again, again, this time with some power in the hits. Matthias fell back, deflecting the blows easily. Wylan went for a hit to Matthias right, and he deflected, but Wylan had already landed a blow to his left, sending a slight pain shooting through Matthias. He looked at the merchling, gazing into eyes wide with self-pride.

In seconds Wylan was on the ground.

"Well done. Now. Again." Matthias held out his hand, but this time Wylan didn't take it.

"It's no use. I'll never be as good of a fighter as any of you." He whined.

Matthias didn't know how to respond, because what the kid said was probably true. "No one ever got good at anything by sitting around and moping." He came up with eventually.

"How is getting beaten to a bloody pulp supposed to teach me anything?"

"That's how I was taught,"

Wylan bit his lip, as if stopping himself from firing something back. "Fine. I'll go one more time."

Matthias had to admire the boy's spirit. It wasn't easy to break him, just like it wasn't easy to teach him to defend and deflect and to fire a killing blow. But the boy tried anyway. Again. And again. And again. Until finally he went to swing a punch and collapsed, wheezing, clutching his stomach. Matthias hated himself for going too hard on Wylan. It was something his commanders would do back in Fjerda. He knew from experience that that method didn't work on everyone.

""Are you going to be alright?" Matthias asked.

Wylan lightly nodded, closing his eyes and leaning on the edge of the pit. Silent tears looked ready to fall off his face, but Matthias knew it wasn't from the pain. So what was it from? How was he to comfort a boy he couldn't relate to in the slightest?

He turned away and could feel eyes burning into his skull. Or was that his mind? A quick glance of the room told him it was his mind. He left, trying not to think of the boy he'd left behind to weep.

Inej:

Wylan was one of the worst fighters Inej had ever seen.

She had been watching since the first punch was thrown; she had watched Matthias triumph again and again and again, but he seemed to take no joy in beating the boy. As for Wylan, well... his determination was going into all the wrong places.

As soon as Matthias had left Inej slipped down from her hiding place in the ceiling beams, making Wylan yelp as she landed in front of him. Saints, he was much more of a mess close up.

"That didn't go well, did it?"

Wylan winced. "How much of that did you see?"

"Enough."

Wylan sighed, banging his head against the wall, not bothering to wipe the new tears threatening to fall. Inej hadn't seen someone cry in a long time.

"Enough to see that Matthias's way of fighting isn't right for everyone. So maybe we should try something new," Inej continued. She held out her hand to him. She hated that Wylan looked so surprised at it. Was she that much of a monster in a stranger's eyes?

Wylan eventually took her hand, and Inej smiled. "Now, the real training can begin."

Wylan:

And train they did.

They trained until Wylan felt so bruised and bloody that he was worried his legs would collapse. Inej was phenomenal, like someone out of a storybook his mother used to read to him. She was a part of Ketterdam as much as the moon was part of the sky, and Wylan knew she had used her talents to hunt, to torture, to kill. Yet he envied her anyway. For having somewhere she belonged.

Though he may have been broken on the outside, Wylan felt an unfamiliar thrill fill him up as he spared, as he managed to duck and deflect, and as he landed a punch just below Inej's shoulder. He grinned in surprise. His first punch. It would probably be his last, but he couldn't help the burst of pride he felt.

Wylan could feel Inej's eyes on him, and he shrank back, readying himself to be flung to the ground, but she smiled softly. "You're getting good, kiddo!" She turned away from him, taking a sip from her water cup. "You'll never be as good as me, of course!"

Wylan blushed. "Obviously." He stuttered immediately.

Inej laughed. It was high-pitched, a nice, tinkling sound, like the top note on a piano key, or the whistle of a flute in the wind. Wylan liked it. "They sure do teach you manners where you come from, don't they?"

Wylan's smile faded, his blush turning to shame. "Yes," he whispered. "But they can never teach you everything."

Inej glanced at him briefly, but Wylan was thankful she didn't press. Saints' know how she would look at him if she knew the truth.

"Come on." She said. "If you ever want to beat Matthias you still have a long way to go!"

Wylan took a deep breath, pushing his demons to the farthest corner of his mind. Things like that could wait. But for now he had something to look forward to, a reason to get up in the morning; purpose. And the desirable urge to feel the satisfaction of beating a Fjerden in a fight.