For a while, the child wore the satchel of an odd-jobber, Path-less, largely ignored by society, performing small courier services just to try to find something, anything that called out to them. Until one day, the sound of a loud one-sided argument from the local drinkery caught their attention.
From the noise, a blonde woman stormed out of the drinkery and into the plaza where the child stood. Shirtless, with a red triangular cloth around her waist, and a long thin sword on her left hip. Closely behind her was a disturbed and drunken man, shouting.
“DON’T YOU TURN YOUR BACK ON ME, ANTIQUE.” With one hand, he shoved the woman to the ground, and with the other, drew his own rapier. “YOU’RE NOTHING ANYMORE.”
The child saw the point of the sword thrust toward the woman’s heart. A freezing, existential panic narrowed and darkened the child’s vision, forced the child to put both hands instinctively over their own chest.
Time seemed to slow to a near-halt as the point of the sword closed the distance to the woman’s chest. But in a flash, the woman’s own rapier appeared in her hand, deftly wrapped around her opponent’s blade, and with such strength forced it out of his hand and to the ground.
The child’s eyes widened, heart skipped a beat.
In the next instant, the tip of the woman’s blade was sticking out of her opponent’s back. He collapsed to the ground next to the blade, dead. The woman stood, dusted herself off, grabbed the hilt of her sword and pulled it out of the man, wiped his blood off on his jacket, and replaced it at her hip, where it was before she’d been so rudely disturbed by him. She spat upon his corpse and walked away from the plaza, shouldering the onlookers in her path.
The crowd that’d gathered because of the commotion could only watch her go. They could do nothing for the man now. Some of them even thought that he’d deserved it. Even a few regulars of the drinkery were relieved they wouldn’t have to put up with him anymore.
The Dueling Laws on Akabyssus meant that in most cases, two duelists would not be tried for injury inflicted on each other. As soon as one draws a blade, one accepts what will happen to them, even death. In this case where a blade was drawn while one’s back was turned, the woman would have been subject to some protection laws, as well as some compensation to her next of kin, but apparently she didn’t need it.
The child, now having realized their salvation, dropped their work satchel — they wouldn’t be needing it anymore — and tailed the woman. Far away from the plaza and the commotion and the duel, on an empty promenade under a balcony of palm trees, the child called out to the woman:
“How did you do that?”
Thinking she’d been alone on this sandy promenade, the woman turned to look behind her.
A small mop-headed child stood where, from the sound of the voice, she expected to see a teenager. They spoke up again: “Teach me how to do that.”
The woman hesitated. This wasn’t her problem. She was washed up, forced into retirement, and thus ineligible as a teacher or mentor. But there was something about the way this child’s eyes shone behind their dark hair.
In a firm voice, she replied, “It’s called gladiatorial fencing. Maybe Fate will assign it to you if it appeals to you so much.” Then she turned to leave, her long blonde hair tailing behind her.
“Fate didn’t choose anything for me.”
She turned back. “…What?”
“They say I’m Un-chosen.”
She remembered briefly seeing something in a report recently about this happening. Was this that unfortunate child? As the child approached her, now that she really looked at the child, she realized they weren’t quite so small. It was the hair that made her think they weren’t apprentice-aged yet.
“Oh.” And then, still with a firm voice, “Well. I hope you find a mentor to help you.”
“I choose you as my mentor. You’re the only one that—”
“Listen kid, I don’t have the right to be anyone’s mentor. I’m not in the system anymore.”
“Neither am I.”
It was true, since no one had any clue of what to do with this child, the entire system hoped that they would somehow quietly disappear. They were treated like a bad omen. “Every decision is mine now.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be a mentor. It was that she’d never get the opportunity, having been forcibly removed from the system. They hoped she’d quietly disappear too. And now, unable to pursue her passion of fencing, and robbed of the opportunity to pass on her knowledge, she was left with very little to look forward to. Yet here stood this child, who looked at her with the same shining determination that she once felt. This child, also removed from the system, had chosen her as their mentor. It was like—
“Fate,” the child interrupted her thoughts, “could only see one thing for me.”
“Oh?”
They looked down at the purple sand at their feet. “She said I will die.” They pointed to their chest. “By being pierced through the heart.”
The woman was speechless. What kind of prophecy was that? Fate was supposed to divine their Paths, and the woman remembered her own Kismet ceremony where she was told she would be a duelist.
“But I saw you fight that man, I saw the way you turned his blade away without even trying. You must teach me that!”
“Isn’t it counter-intuitive to go into gladiatorial fencing with such a prophecy? Do you realize that you’d be putting yourself in danger?” She rested her off-hand on the hilt of her rapier at her hip. “When you pick up a blade, you accept whatever happens to you. You won’t always be able to turn a blade away as easily as that.”
“I’ve been scared my entire life, and for so long I didn’t know why. I don’t want to run from it anymore. I want to walk towards it, with purpose. Maybe I could even walk alongside it someday.”
She saw the dark circles under the child’s eyes, saw the lack of rest.
“I don’t want to be afraid anymore.” They finally said.
After some time of consideration, she realized there wasn’t much to be done about it. And yet, there was so much to be done. She jerked her neck in the direction she’d been heading, as if to say ‘Let’s go’ and turned and walked with the child, who now wore a satisfied smile and a skip in their step.
Best get started.