Three seasons of winter after her mother's murder and the young Conán was no longer the innocent, subordinate, blonde haired child she once was.
Something was awakening deep within her and her father's training was not helping the uncontrollable twitch that occasionally caught her index finger. "Again!" the antipathetic man growled, slapping his hands together in an action designed to spur her on. Many would see him as a power-mad, rapacious right-wing vulgarian, but to the young girl he was simply a perplexing man of emotional instability - and he was all she had left.
A lofting Iron Wood tree stood tall in front of her minuscule frame. It's adamant, beech coloured trunk was turning a murky crimson with each thrumming sound that radiated through the dense woodland, the girl's face paling as the wood got darker. "I can't! No more!" Punching it. Hitting it with all her might. The blood was pouring out of her knuckles, dripping down to the leaf covered ground and cascading down her arms like a hellish waterfall. "Keep going!" the greying man commanded, stepping towards the quivering, bleeding mess that was the continuation of his bloodline.
It took only a few more hits, a few throws of her tiny fist, before, not the wood, but her bone cracked. The pain shot up from her wrist, stinging every nerve before slamming her in the chest - and when it hit, she could not have prevented the howl of pain that sprung from between her lips. Stumbling back from that which caused injury she fell into the arms of the man who forced her to destroy herself. "Shh, shh, mo Conán." Standing at 4"5, she was swept off her feet and cradled in strong arms, her agony now drenching his shirt with a river of tears. If she hadn't of been mewling in blood curdling pain, she would have rebuked him for using that name, that nickname her mother gave her. There would be time for that later. "Embrace it," he suddenly growled in her ear as her pitiful noises died down.
Every session ended the same way, with the young blonde's face drenched in tears and her body in some way broken. Every time those words were whispered to her.
"Use it." The crying would stop and her father would be pushed away. Hazel eyes would glass over. Her breathing would slow. Shoulders would relax and her face would be wiped clear of any expression.
She would be back at it the very next day without hesitation, pummelling that extraordinarily hard wood or being sent out to survive alone in that dense forest for days on end with nothing but a hunting knife.
For this was the daughter of God and this was in her blood.
