"It was pure luck, really, that this hadn't happened sooner. Two years of keeping out of his reach had really been testing the limits of fate, and the sane voice inside her head kept telling her she would have to face him eventually. The world was b...
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Four Years And Ten Months Ago.
Sanem's pencils had become frustratingly small. Having whittled them down to the point where they either slipped out of her grasp or strained her hand whenever she attempted to add to her brimming collection of drawings. Her sketchbook was impressive. Without anyone around to scold her of idle doodling, her gathering of hand-drawn birds and animals was growing like a nurtured sapling under the summer sun; turning into something far bigger than she'd originally anticipated. The turtle had turned out beautifully despite her more weighted practice towards feathered creatures. After sitting down to capture it in careful etchings she'd found herself two hours later with the it sprawled across three whole pages at various angles and poses.
She'd since filled up another ten, and her pencils were suffering for it. Despite having turned the whole ship upside down in search, she'd found no replacement; Can had offered a quill and ink from his desk but it was not a medium she was familiar with and her endeavours to change that had lost her whole pages to inky, messy scribbles.
Sanem sighed, looking down at the half-drawn hummingbird on her lap, it's head and wings fully fleshed out while its lower half had been abandoned as only faint trace lines, pushing the pencil back into its usual spot in the binding of the book to return to it later.
Sanem glared at the hardened patches of skin contrasting against the soft palm of her hand - the mild callouses a recent acquisition from the sparing practise Metin had been putting her through. She was pretty shit at it. It turned out that working in a bakery had in no way prepared her for skill in sword fighting, her mind had memorised every pattern and technique she'd observed and analysed while watching the others fight, but her muscles still protested moving the way she wanted them too. Her arms slow and her legs tripping over themselves.
The practise was mortifying, but there was no unkindness in their tone when the others taunted 'why would you give a sword to a lamb?" But Metin had advised, and Sanem had agreed, that it would be better to avoid a repetition of what happened the night of the ambush. She needed to be able to defend herself.
Metin had handed her a sword for the first time as the gathering audience around them made her groan, glancing down at the offered weapon before squinting her eyes at her sparing teacher.
"Are you kidding?"
"What?" He asked, the humour in his eyes giving away the jest behind his reply.
"It's wooden."
Metin smiled, there was almost something smug about it, but it was mostly just playful. "Well, we wouldn't want you hurting yourself would we?"
Any progress she'd made in the last few weeks was almost infinitesimal, but it was progress nonetheless.
Can found her absentmindedly staring out at the water, glancing down at the half-finished hummingbird in the leatherbound book that was perched on her knees over the brown folds of her dress.
