A Garden of Flowers and Bones [Lloyd Garmadon x Reader]

Chapter 1: The Path of Least Resistance

The fight ended as all others: with her sword sailing through the air before clattering to the ground a few yards away. Beathán stood victorious, as he always did.

Perhaps 'ended as all others' was a bit dramatic- or, at least, that's what she told herself to lessen the sting of repeated defeat. It wasn't always that the sword got tossed from her grip. Sometimes, there was a glimmer of hope right before she lost. Sometimes, she even almost won!

Sometimes, the sword just fell from her hand next to her. Sometimes, she still had the sword in her hand by the end (a very big achievement!).

All times, she lost, however. It put a bit of a damper on her fiery spirit.

Y/N sighed, brushing her sweaty hands against her dress and hesitating at the slight strain in her wrist. She must've twisted it while destroyed. Beathán was overwhelmingly strong- perhaps too strong. A veteran turned merchant who was giving her a reserved smile.

"You held up better this time. You remembered the parry-counter that I taught you," His voice came with a strong accent to it- different to Y/N's rough accent, posher.

She shook her hand back and forth, listening to her wrist crack and feeling the sting alleviate a little.

"Thanks," She tried to smile back, but it came off as weak and insecure.

She was, indeed, both of those things, as her constant sword-based failings proved very eloquently. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't have needed such a set of skills, as a woman living nearby (but not entirely close to) a small, far-off village in the wilderness- not even on any maps. As long as she followed her father's rules as her older brother before her had done, she would surely be fine. But there should always be contingency plans in case things went awry.

As time passed the Fey were becoming more and more... audacious. Bugger, even that was putting it lightly.

Swordsmanship was a good method of self-defence, and Beathán was right there and had been trained in the sword. The only other fighters in the village were hunters who killed animals, more skilled in archery than any martial art, and a retired mercenary who literally turned his nose up at her whenever she dropped by his carpentry place (so, she wasn't about to go out of her way to hang around the grump). It was a remote village, after all.

Of course, she wasn't blind to how vastly outclassed she was in comparison to the Fey, and she'd have to be deaf to not have heard of their incredible feats of magic and trickery before.

There were fantastical legends of Faer that could move entire forests, or carve mountains with rivers at their finger tips, or make humans do their bidding with just a few words. Holding a simple sword while standing in the doorway of her house would mean absolutely nothing to a Feyrie who could easily snap her neck with a whisper, but it was better than being completely defenceless.

For now, she could leave renewing the protections around her house for later and focus on a more proactive means of protection for herself and her ward, Dwyn.

Sadly, the swordsmanship lessons she had been taking for the past year-and-a-half had yielded virtually no progress. She was hopeless at it. 

Beathán taught her as best as he could, as far as she was concerned. It simply appeared that she just wasn't cut out for it. Slow reflexes, weaker upper body strength, and a desperate mindset that led her to treating every spar like she was standing among the dead, fighting her way out of the underworld. Like something was chasing her down. Which made her impulsive and prone to missing details and making silly mistakes.

Clumsy, terrible hand-eye coordination, lack of focus: these were all the traits that made her a terrible student. And Beathán had also judged that spent longer chastising herself over these mistakes than correcting them. The only leg up she had was her quick judgment- she knew how to use location to her advantage and was inventive when it came to unconventional countermeasures, and her brash courage often ventured into 'idiotic' territory. She'd just endanger herself in battle and be a danger to or hinder her comrades.