A True Hero

16 - The Calm Before the Storm

Nicolette

"Ha ha!" I laughed as I blocked Chrys's bokken. I thrust mine toward at her, but she parried it with a perfect arced swing and pushed me back.

"Don't get too cocky, young Star Warrior," she replied, putting one arm behind her back and side-stepping toward me. "Pride comes before the fall."

I mimicked her stance and turned my body to the side. Smirking, she swung down, so I swung up and our weapons met. She pulled back and came down from the right, so I hit to the left. We did this for a few minutes with our feet shuffling side-to-side, similar to how a crab walks, until she suddenly swung up. Unprepared, my sword was wrenched from my grasp and tossed into the air.

"Ha ha," she wisecracked and angled the dull point of the wood at my throat. Smirking, I suddenly teleported away in a puff of smoke. After watching her confusion for a few moments, I reappeared in the air above her and retrieved my training tool. Holding it with both hands above my head, I swung downwards as hard as I could. She quickly turned her weapon sideways in front of her, but the force that I had hit it with was too strong. The wood splintered and broke in half and she stumbled backward out of my way. I let her regain her balance before pointing my tool at her.

"Don't get too cocky, young Star Warrior," I said, "pride comes before the fall!" She rolled her eyes with a laugh.

"Whatever," she said and pushed my bokken away. "That was an interesting martial arts mix."

"Thanks," I said, tossing the wood into the air before catching it by the handle. "Yamikage has been telling me to stop relying on chi to get me out of sticky situations, so I've been combining new teaching with...my father's." I bit my lip and looked away.

My father had taught me everything from how to hold a katana to teleporting since I was able to walk. My mother always said that the first time she let go of me and let me waddle about on my own, my father put a full-size sword in my hands. I remember she immediately objected, saying I was only two, and snatched the weapon from me before I fell over. My father just laughed and pet my wispy curls.

"She's got to learn sometime," he said and scooped me up. "There's more to being a princess in our kingdom than meets the eye."

"Let her learn when she is older," my mother snapped. "There's enough evil in this universe for her to discover; let her enjoy being a normal princess for a few years."

"I'm afraid she's ready to discover everything already," my father said. Apparently, while he was holding me, I had pulled a shuriken from his robes and was sucking on it. Of course, I cut my lip, but I surprisingly didn't cry. Instead, I smiled and waggled my arms, which in turn sent the shuriken flying into the brown wooden door of my bedroom.

"On the inside, she's a soldier," my father sighed and took a small tiara from a nearby shelf. "I don't know if she'll truly ever be a normal princess."

My mother took the crown from him and placed it on top of my head. I was practically bald until I turned three, so the few wisps I had entangled with the crown's beautiful workmanship. After giving me a kiss on the head, she placed me in my cradle.

Even though I was so young, I can remember the dazzling artwork that adorned my ceiling. It was a painting of a starry night sky which started, in the corners and edges of the ceiling near the walls, as a light pink, which then faded into a deep purple as it progressed into the center of the room; then it turned blue, and finally finished in a deep damson. White, gold, silver, blue, purple, green, and many other colored stars dotted the painting with tails trailing some.

I fantasized the stars were actually real and made wishes on them every night before I fell asleep. My favorite part of the evening, though, was when my mother and father sang me a lullaby.