"That's not true."
Rosa says trying to defend myself.
The few move closer.
"Then what about the girl with her hair."
The guy says.
"Tell her to move her hair."
The one on the donkey tells Rosa to do.
"Who?"
"The white haired girl."
Angel comes closer to the back now.
"You don't have any authority over us."
The man on the donkey looks at the group, then at Angel.
"You think so?"
The man hops off the donkey, dropping by its side, that makes everyone get out of their way as he does that.
Looking down to the ground as if moving around a king.
"People."
He calls out.
The few people around him gather to form a circle that tries to cover us but the size isn't big enough for that.
"Is this suppose to be intimidating?"
John asks as he looks to the man that's walking closer, he stops Tim front of John, putting both of them in a stare down.
"No…"
Another group of people from behind them appear, one that's more than double the amount as before.
They slowly begin to form their circle, with the now grown group moving in a sort of harmony.
"This is supposed to."
The guy says.
John lets out a chuckle.
"This… isn't that intimidating but I would see how you'd think that."
John says, in a heavily snarky tone.
"We are a group of hunters that have just left a Soul Cave that almost killed us. The least of my worries right now is a balding man, that thinks wearing silver around his chest, with a whip and sword on his hip is frightening, just cause his pickle asshole is tight enough for the people behind him to listen to him."
John says.
Letting Rosa, Angel and surprisingly Sply let out a small laugh.
The man's face contorts into a look of genuine anger for a split second.
"You guys died in a Soul Cave that is described as one of the easiest in Reight. I don't think it'd be hard to take you out, then steal the girl."
"Have you ever had to fight a Red- Crowned Spider."
The guy looks at John and a smile slowly forms on his face. Then a laugh as he turns and points towards John as if pointing at a clown.
"This guy!"
The guy laughs, making the rest of the group that's with him let out a staged weak group laugh together.
"You expect me to believe that you had to fight a Red-Crown Spider?"
The guy says as he turns his body toward John.
"Don't need you to. But I'm going to need you to stop hassling our group."
John says defensively for us.
"Then show me her ears."
"I'd rather kill you guys all here."
As John says that, the tension with both groups grows very stiff, and the lining between a bloodbath and a calm settlement gets to close to each other.
Celestrus feels it as well, her hand reaches to mine and after a soft squeeze she looks at me and smile softly.
She words something with her mouth.
I thank you.
As she lets those wordings fall out of her mouth she looks at the group in front of us and lets go of my hand.
She then begins to walk toward the group of people in front of us, my hand moves to go and grab her hand before she moves out of range of me, but she moves her hands to his stomach.
"I'm sorry, Master…"
She says, speaking loudly enough for everyone to hear.
As she slowly reveals her pointed ears to the rest of the groups for everyone in the area to see.
The man in front of John looks past John toward the voice of Celestrus. John turns as well, looking at Celestrus.
"I knew it!"
The guy says as he looks at Celestrus with a watchful eye.
Celestrus walks closer and closer to the rest of the guy in front of us, as the rest of the group stays in their lay circle around us.
The guy tries to move to get around John, and thinking that John would get out the way he gets shoulder checked by John, and loses that encounter.
John just stares at him as he tries to play it off, walking to ward to Celestrus.
"I knew that it was you."
At first his tone is calm and nice.
Then his hand is raised high, and as swiftly as he can bring it down, it strikes her face, leaving a red mark across it.
My hands clutch into a fist, my fist digs into my palm. As I feel anger.
She shudders a bit, turns her face in the direction the slap came from and stands still.
"I told you to never even think of leaving me, nor for you to ever do stupid shit and look at you now."
He grabs at her hair.
"Short hair."
The guy says.
"And…"
He takes a steps back.
Looking at the over coat that was handed to her by myself.
He grabs at the collar of the overcoat and rips it off of her body. Exposing her body to everyone, her bruises and her features to the group, making the whole group smile at her, in a weird way. With only a little bra and a strap of clothing that is used as a covering for her privates.
She drops to the ground as she tries to cover herself as best she can.
As soon as he does that I feel my body tense.
Before I could move my body to hit the man, John does so, his fist connects with a deafening crack to his face.
The man goes flying back.
John takes off his shirt and throws it onto Celestrus.
His body showing the work of struggle, exercise and sword play, over and over again, with wounds and scars and burns all across his body on it, as he stands in front of the group blocking their sight of Celestrus as best he can.
"That's not how you treat a woman."
John says as he puts a hand on his hilt, making his whole palm actually dig into the hilt, a small trickle of blood spilling onto the hilt, covering a good amount of the part he's holding in blood.
The man holds his cheek gets up and looks at John.
"K… K… kuh… Kill Them."
As soon as he says that the group around us begins to move with their weapons in hand to try and kill us.
Sply clears her throat, once, no one hears, then once more and people stop for a second.
"Is Celestrus a Collared Slave?"
She asks loud enough for everyone to hear even the guy that is looking at John at first then turning his face to look at Sply who is standing there unfazed by the amount of people around us.
The guy shakes his head.
"No, she isn't."
The guy says in a scared and angry tone.
"Okay then."
Sply says that and at that same moment. She walks closer to me.
"I propose a Duel for Celestrus."
Soly says, loud enough for everyone in the group to look at her, then at the man.
He lets out a small laugh that slowly gets louder.
"And I'm supposed to duel against a little girl like you?"
He says that and a huge amount of people in the crowd around us laughs, with him, this time not a fake staged laugh.
"Not with me. Him."
Sply moves closer to me and her finger raised to point to me.
"He'll duel against you."
The laugh around the group grows even more.
John, Rosa and more look at both me and Sply, as if looking at a class act of tomfoolery.
"You know what?"
The guys laughter slowly dies out and he wipes a tear away from his eye.
"I'll indulge you, not like I could say no to a duel. Because if I did, then I'd have to give her to you."
There's one among the group that wasn't laughing.
It's the one with the bandage around his hand.
He walks close to the guy that stands at the forefront of everyone, the same balding guy that stood in front of John.
"I'll take on your duel."
He says, not asking for permission, but telling that he's the one that's going to fight in the stead of the older man.
The rest of our group begins to back away.
Stepping back and back and back, until they could be confused for being apart of the group that's surrounding us, Sply even backs away.
Celestrus sits where she stays at and looks at us, holding the shirt over her body to cover her.
Behind her stands to my body, stands two people John and The guy.
In front of her, blocking my view of her is that same guy, that at that moment before I was scared to stay and fight back then, I stabbed with his own knife and ran.
But as of right now. I don't feel anything other than an overwhelming feeling of rage.
My vision flashes between seeing two people in front of me. In the same position.
Marcilene in the position that Celestrus is in. And then Celestrus again and switch and switch.
It's like a flashing in my mind of seeing them switch back and forth one being my sister, then the next being the same person I just saved from being…
My arms drop my bow, then my bag falls away from my back on top of the group, slamming down with the sound of metal on dirt, since the crown is inside.
Sply moves away from me.
John turns back and moves past Celestrus, then past The bandaged hand teen.
John sees my face and pauses, not his steps but his reaction to seeing me, almost a flicker of the rage that was seen months ago.
He stops in front of me and looks down pausing by my side.
"I can do it…"
He says, giving me an out, but. I don't want one.
I shake my head once and that's more than enough as he steps into the circle.
Giving me and the bandaged teen space for a makeshift arena.
"What's your name?"
He asks me calmly, as he begins to undo the bindings for his bandage on his hand.
I don't answer.
Instead I begin to work on my bracers, undoing them.
He chuckles, a laugh breaking through his smile.
"Nevermind, I was going to get to know you, so in that way I'd go easy on you kid, but since you want to be hardheaded, we'll just have to show you some respect."
He finishes taking the bandage off, showing a hole going through his hand.
He opens and closes his hand, showing that it's still functioning, not even batting an eye at the unusual look of it.
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the same knife that was in his hand when he tried to grab at me.
"It's Darahk."
He says as he brandishes his knife.
"You shouldn't have dropped you bow, I mean, if your over there. It means that I could very well do something like this…"
He turns and bends down. His knife nicks at Celestus' face, almost cutting her face. Then he bends even more.
"Or something like this…"
He hand this time is the one that starts to travel, from under the shirt that was given to her by John.
Celestrus looks physically uncomfortable by the whole situation of being in that position.
My bracers drop to the ground, hitting it hard, and kicking up a small amount of dust.
"Seems you are serious."
He says in a confident tone as he licks his finger.
Slowly getting into a stand.
"Let's see it."
My hand close tight as I flex my hands and my vision feels like there's a sting. Then a burn, the same burn I felt when I saw Jahar, but not as bad, I can feel my eye, the change in it, but no bloody tears.
My eye patch as if with a mind of its own, lifts a bit, showing the colors, not just one but all of the people, but I don't care about any of them but the teen standing in front of me.
Gripping my forearms I touch in the scar that was given to me by Wes. Along with the freedom of the bracers.
My arms feel numb.
"You have a weird eye. Might just take it from you."
Darahk rushes at me, his knife in hand as he does so, he swings it in an arch, going for my face.
My body tenses, appearing behind him, my arms launch forward hitting him in his back. Right beside his spine.
He goes flying forward and he nearly crashes to the ground before he skids to a halt just a few inches away from the end of the circle of people.
He turns and looks at me with rage of his own.
He runs again, right to me, with not a single variation of change in his movements, as if he just trying to throw himself and hope to hit something.
Darahk moves his hand erratically to try and hit me.
My body tenses, appearing beside him, my fist slams into his stomach, with an uppercut, stopping him in his tracks. He nearly falls to his knees as he spits out saliva.
My hands grab at the back of his shirt, stopping him from falling and with insane ease I throw him to an end of the circle.
Has hands try to grab the air for purchase, but can't find anything.
My body tenses.
Appearing behind Darahk. My hand slams into his back once more, hitting him in his back, as the people stare.
He drops to the ground, with a slam, then a hop and a scotch.
He stops as he slides on the ground.
He face full of dirt and grime.
Spitting out a bit of blood from his mouth.
My body tenses, appearing infront of him once more.
My foot has a small numb feeling to it.
He lazily lifts his head off of the ground and looks up, he opens his mouth to say something.
My foot drives into his face, kicking out a few teeth and making his face, bleed as he turns and rolls grabbing his face.
Crying and screaming.
He tries to speak again, with his hands covering his mouth.
My foot drives to his face once more, crashing his hand into his face as he smacks himself.
Blood comes out from the wound in his hand and his mouth.
He begins to really cry now, as dirt and blood stick to his face.
"I'm… I'm thorry." (I'm sorry)
He says, with his words sounding weird from missing teeth.
Grabbing Darahk by his hair, I lift him up, gripping his hair tightly.
He screams as his hair is being pulled up and he carries his feet to make him stand to withstand the pain.
I stop just at my face height since he's taller than me.
My finger really tangle in his hair, showing my strength even at my young age.
People begin to look worried for Darahk. Not just the people on his side, but John, Rosa and Angel, Timi does as well, but her face looks a bit pale.
The one that looks the most worried is the guy that Celestrus calls Master.
"Stop!"
Darahk yells out again.
My fist slams into his face, making him bleed into my knuckles.
"Sto…"
He gets interrupted, my hand crashing into his face once more. More blood on me.
"St…"
He gets stopped again.
He tries to speak, I hit. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again and Again.
His eyes begin to flutter in and out of consciousness, trying to keep him awake.
John and Rosa appear right beside me. Both of them looking down at me with hands on each of my shoulders.
John looks at Darahk in sadness, and Rosa looks at me with sadness.
"You won."
Rosa says, softly.
I shrug my arms, moving their hands off of them.
"Not yet."
My voice sounded calm and angry.
My body tensed. I was right beside Master.
Everyone looked as I appeared out of nowhere next to him, he gets ready to let out a yelp.
My hands punched right into his gut.
Making him drop to his knees and cry for air.
He drops right next to Celestrus.
His face looking at her with pain and tears.
"Stop."
He says.
"You win."
Celestrus looks at him. Not with fear, not pity. Just looks at him.
"Hit him."
I call out to Celestrus.
She looks at me, her face looking at me with… fear, uncertainty, unease…?
None looks certain to me.
But regardless of that, she does. She tries to make her hand go up high and crash into Masters face.
For a second his feeling of pain in his chest is changed to a feeling of anger for the one that he had call him master.
He pushes his hand into the ground to try and get up.
My legs pushes into his chest kicking him back more than a few feet.
"You win…"
He says begging.
"I won't touch her. The girl is yours."
He says. Admitting to handing over authority of her life to me.
My face turns away from him and toward Celestrus.
She still has the shirt covering her, my hand reaches out for the overcoat that master had took from her and I put it over her body, making it cover her better.
Slowly I help her up.
One foot, then the next, as she gets up. We begin to walk following the same direction we were going in to exit the town.
She holds my hand in hers as she stands above me, with her back slightly bent. My eye patch once again, without my intention moves itself to block my eyesight once again.
The people opening up a path for all of us. From Sply to Timi, making the whole group able to exit the circle.
With me and Celestrus in the front as the other, but Sply look at the group in surprise, John even going back to grab, my bag, bracers and bow.
"Take her!"
Master says.
"She was a weak fuck anyways!"
He says that, and for a quick moment she shuddered.
I turn my body to him, it tensed, but before I moved.
An arrow, shot through his body, not to kill him, not to destroy him, but to make him physically incapable of ever using his body for pleasure again.
Shooting him through the crotch.
He lets out a gut wrenching scream as he holds his hands over his now gone head.
Everyone rushes towards him and we all begin to leave.