Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Memoirs of a Mercenary ❯ Chapter 3

Gradually, my status changed. I somehow became a good-luck charm to the training grounds. If the performance of the boys pleased me, then the village was safe from evil spirits. I even heard the trainers using this motivation to spur on the lazier boys. I somehow went from awkward curse to mediator between the two worlds—human and spirit. I suppose if everything had gone on the same, I would have become something like a shaman woman. But it didn't happen that way.

 

I spent a couple of years sitting on the railing, and in the evenings I would sneak into the woods and practice what I had learned by watching that day. One day, though, that changed. It was much like the day I had first come to watch. One of the boys had been injured, and the shaman woman had come to heal him. This was a fairly common occurrence, it happened about once every other moon. The older boys trained with real swords, and sometimes they made mistakes.

 

The thing that was different was that today was one little boy's first day. He kept rubbing his hair awkwardly, it probably felt very strange to him. He tried very hard to help, but he kept getting in the way. Finally, one of the trainers pointed him in my direction and said “Go talk to Tera, ok?”

 

The little boy stumbled in my direction, clutching onto his wooden practice sword. He obviously knew who I was, and was a little afraid. At last he reached the railing, and I could see him swallow the lump in his throat.

 

“I'm a boy.” He said quietly.

 

“So I can see. Congratulations.” I replied, and he smiled. “Do you like being a boy?”

 

He screwed up his face. “I dunno. I think so. My hair is weird though.” He ruffled it again.

 

I laughed. “I bet it's a lot cooler than long hair in the summer.” I suggested.

 

He thought about that a moment. “Yeah, probably.”

 

He looked at me for a moment. “Are you a girl?” By this time I had developed enough that the bulges in the front of my shirt made it easy to guess.

 

I smiled a little. “Yes. I am.”

 

“Then why do you wear those clothes?” He pointed to my clothes, which were the cut of children's clothing, only bigger.

 

“Because I'm different, that's all.”

 

Time to change the subject, I thought. Since it was late afternoon, I figured he had probably learned something earlier in the day. “Can you show me what you learned this morning?”

 

He nodded enthusiastically. He began to form the basic positions, and did them horribly. I knew it was his first day, but even considering that I thought they were atrocious.

 

“No, no. Raise it up a little higher. Now put your left foot back a little more. Much better. Show me the next one.” So we went through the positions and I tried to help him get better at it. One of the trainers watched me suspiciously for a moment, but decided that my verbal instructions were harmless. The little boy went through each of the positions several times, but there was one that he just couldn't get the hang of.

 

“No, not like that. You have to twist your shoulders more. No, no, no. not that way, the other way. No, not like that, either. Here,” I took hold of his practice sword and demonstrated the upper body position.

 

“Oh, I get it!” he reached up to take back the sword, but I had frozen. So had everyone else in the courtyard, and they were all staring at me. I, a girl, had touched a sword.

 

I handed it back to him quickly. “It's just a stick,” I argued. “He was doing it horribly. I was very displeased.”

 

The silence grew uneasy. They were torn, I could tell, between following custom and avoiding my wrath. It was the shaman woman who spoke up first.

 

“Tarmac,” she addressed the head trainer. “Weren't you just complaining to me the other day that you couldn't convince enough men to come back as trainers?”

 

“Well, uh, yes, but—”

 

“And that the reason they gave was that doing basic was boring and tedious?”

 

“Yes…” Tarmac sounded very suspicious of the shaman woman's direction of reasoning.

 

“Well, it would appear that young Tara here is quite good at that kind of instruction. Surely it wouldn't hurt for her to show the younger boys how to wield a stick and you men could be free to spend more time on blade instruction?”

 

“Now, I don't think that is such a good idea. She is a girl and—”

 

The shaman woman interrupted. “Jesah, come here.” The little boy meekly walked back, not completely understanding the seriousness of the situation.

 

“Would you be a good little boy and show us your basic positions?” she asked.

 

Jesah did so, and did it well. There was much murmuring among the boys and trainers.

 

“Tarmac,” one of the trainers offered, “I didn't think he'd get it in a month.”

 

The head trainer growled. “Girl!” he yelled, and I nearly jumped a foot in the air. “Come here.”

 

I hesitated a moment, thinking I had heard wrong. Surely he had not asked me into the training grounds, where the shaman woman was the only female allowed? My heart thudded in my chest as they all stared, waiting. I carefully slid off the railing, my feet touching the packed earth lightly. It was almost surreal, and I can still remember the way the tiny grains felt beneath my then-uncalloused feet. I walked towards the trainer with measured steps.

 

He yanked a training sword from the hands of another student and held it out to me. “Show me what you can do.”

 

I did. I showed them everything I knew, starting with the basics and moving on up to the more complicated moves I had witnessed in bouts. Training for these moves took place inside the building, so I had not witnessed them, but in my solitude I had worked them out to perfection. As I had practiced these moves, I had imagined this day. I had imagined gasps of surprise, murmurs of approval, even sounds of shock.

 

Instead there was silence.

 

I had underestimated the taboo I was breaking. I may be different, but I was still a girl, and this was still a thing for boys alone. At last I finished, bowed with respect to the head trainer, and handed the practice sword back to him.

 

“Who taught you this?” he demanded quietly.

 

I raised my chin defiantly. “My husband.”

 

“Tera!” the shaman woman scolded. “Tell the truth.”

 

I frowned, but obeyed. “I learned from watching. I practiced alone in the woods. I meant no harm.”

 

He growled. “I knew it was a bad idea to let her watch.”

 

“What is past is past. Now you must see what is. Is this not more than most of your students learn in five years?” the shaman woman inquired.

 

I knew that I had been imitating boys much older than me, but I didn't know I had done that well.

 

“Yes.” He begrudged.

 

“So are you going to let her train the boys?”

 

There was a long pause, and the shaman woman looked to me.

 

“It is all I have ever wanted,” I lied, “and I would be very upset if you sent me away.” The last part at least was true.

 

Tarmac growled again. He was clearly not pleased. “Only wooden,” he said at last, as if it were a warning.

 

“Of course,” the shaman woman answered for me. “Anything more would be unclean.” She stared hard at me with these words, a warning not to push my limits. This was all I would get, if I didn't want to get in trouble.

 

I bowed. “Thank you.”