Monster

.5.

The males had always said we had no minds for war. If they saw us now I wondered what they would say.

Persephone pushed us.

She shaped us.

She gave us war forms.

Metal plates wrapped around my body, their weight heavy but welcome. They did little to impede my movements, just rasped together as I moved, letting their presence be known. I moved with the sword given to me, I slashed at my opponent, my steel scrapping across her chest armour with a piercing hiss. Another death blow.

She smiled at me, teeth bared, she was hungry as she panted. Her brown eyes accepting of me, wanting of me but I merely twitched my lips at her in return. She was one that roamed the camp, she took love where she could find it. I did not begrudge her for it. If the mood struck I would take her advances but it rarely did, my eyes were filled with blue, looking towards the female who gave me my form.

She watched, like she did with all of the bouts, her eyes critical. Sharp and cold like ice as she watched us move in mock battle. This time there was a deep furrow in her brow before she waved the other female off. She waved a male forward.

Heart in my throat I held my breath. My fear was back as his eyes landed on my flesh for the first time. There was apology to his gaze but it did not stop the fearful pushing of air from my lungs, the constricting feeling of panic in my form.

He was dressed in armour, as was I.

He carried a sword, as did I.

But there was something about facing off with him that terrified me like nothing else. Wolves tearing into my flesh, me screaming no. The rage and the fire in my veins for what had been taken.

He advanced and I retreated, keeping the space between us.

I darted my eyes about. I did not wish to take this opponent. I did not wish to face off against a male.

My eyes found her form but there was nothing but cold ice in her gaze as she watched, her mouth turning down at the corners. That hurt worse than any rending of my flesh.

Disappointment.

She watched as I stumbled, retreating from the male who followed with large footsteps. Panic making my vision shake, fear tasting bitter upon my tongue. Then she turned away.

I crumbled, heaving breaths escaping me as if I had run miles for my life but I could not stop. Tears burned my eyes and I let the sword drop, following it so I was on my knees. "You won't be fighting females on the battlefield, sister." Sister, not Kin, sister. The male crouched down beside me, out of the range of my gaze as breaths wheezed through my tight throat. "You need to use your fear." He grasped my swords, pressing it to my palm. "We shall practice."

We shall practice.

Words that shouldn't have meant anything coming from the baritone male who had been sent into the training ground with me but they held a bit of hope.

We shall practice.

And we did.

We started away from the others, sticks in our hands. He forced me to overcome my fear or end up with bruises. Red welts covered my legs and my arms as he swung his stick at me. Trying hard to get me to break the fear and defend myself.

The first time I had blocked him he had smiled at me, teeth bared, eyes crinkled, the sun gleaming off the white. He told me he knew I could do it. I had looked at him, my mouth pinched into a line. He was a male females were expected to want but yet I felt no yearning within me.

I longed for her gaze, that blue that changed with her emotions, that showed her inner-self better than anything else.

The moment had been lost as he raised his stick again. "Defend yourself." A sharp set of words that demanded I listen.

And so I did.

I learned to fight my fear, learned to move and to use it to my advantage. I did not want males to take me back, to put hands upon my skin as they once had. If I did not wish that for myself, if I feared that enough, I could do what I needed to make it back to camp.

We practised with sticks until we broke them, then we moved to the swords.

I had not known what being close to a male was like. I did not want the male called, Cyan. I did not ache to have his touch upon my skin, did not truly like the gazes he sent my way that were sometimes too heated.

He was like... a companion.

Someone I spoke to, someone I trained with.

Sometimes he would seek me out, his eyes wide with excitement, telling me about the wonder he had encountered or if one of the smaller females managed a feat not yet done within her small world.

I listened, responded, sometimes even offered him a spot to eat his meals.

I did not know if he did not understand where my interests lay but I did not understand how he could not see. Those heated chocolate eyes that would land on me, the small smile, the crook of a finger that would have me moving from his side to work out a longing that would never truly be satisfied.

He must have.

And yet... he followed me, much like I followed her.

As if he knew what I was, knew I could destroy him but wanted to be close anyway. Perhaps I was the sun to his Icarus, careful of flying too high or he would tumble to his death below.

Such a strange creature he was, one that I couldn't understand. Perhaps it was for the best. If I understood the males, I would pity them. A monster did no good pitying the creatures they were to kill.

The next time I stood in the training field, Cyan had not been my opponent. Another male, a large one. The fear was not there and I gazed at him, watching and waiting like the wolf I was. Persephone's eyes were like ice, cold and crackling as she ordered us to fight.

And we did.

And I won.

I could hear Cyan cheering for me, could feel the heated brown gaze of the female whose name I never could remember, but I looked towards her. Watched as the ice turned to blue reflective pools and she smiled.

I bloomed underneath the warmth the gaze gave me, came alive underneath the intensity and the pride I saw within there. I lifted my sword and bowed to her, as I was to do, as was right, but inside my heart thudded in my ears and longing surged through me so hard I felt I would drop my sword from trembling fingers.

She had smiled and I had bloomed.