Chip

Feniks didn’t believe her mother. Why would she? Her entire life, her mother lied to her with the excuse of preparing her for the outside world and yet not once has a dragon in the garrison lied to her, cheated her, accused her of wrongdoing. Each one of them, even those she didn’t get on with most of the time, held her in the deepest regard and respected her. Her mother did not.
“Are you alright, Lieutenant?” a familiar voice inquired, his voice soft and caring.
Hesitantly, she looked up to see none other than the Deputy Mayor of Mistide; Galleon. As well as his usual attire from an old hunter’s coat to his flowercrown, a cloak ran from his shoulders, covering his wings and protecting him from the rain.
“I’m fine,” she murmured with a frown.
“You’re obviously not, Feniks—”
“It’s nothing, sir.” She eyed the field surrounding her with distaste, though pride thrummed in her at the sight of her men training, swords clashing and roars travelling. “I’ll get back to training soon.”
“Feniks, if it’s bothering you—”
“I said it’s nothing, sir.”
Feniks scooped up her armour, peeling away the crust of mud that dried along it, and slipped it on over her head. She dragged her cleaver from behind the group of barrels and strapped it onto her waist, the added weight to her hips a relief and an anchor.
Galleon wasn’t done with her, his beautiful green eyes narrowing. “If I was to beat you in a duel, would you tell me?”
She stopped in her efforts to tighten the belt holding the cleaver and stared at her higher-up. “Are you challenging me, sir?”
“I hear you’re the best out of all fighters, Feniks,” he began with a grin. “I’d love to see if I can beat you.”
“You sound confident,” she chided before she could stop it, forgetting he wasn’t one of her own men.
“I am confident,” he drawled back at her, grinning. “My own father was a swordsman.”
“I doubt even he would be able to beat me.”
“Bring it on then, Lieutenant.”
She called out to one of her guards to throw the Deputy a blade and stalked into the rain. Galleon followed soon after. A ring formed around them, all of them intrigued by the sudden battle.
“We’ll judge this on the severity of blows,” she called to the audience, and to the Deputy. “If you deem the blow to be a killing blow from either of us, then that dragon wins.”
The audience roared in response, claps and cries of excitement all around them. The battle was about to begin.
Feniks drew her cleaver from her belt, the leather handle her worry stone. Surely she had an advantage; her blade was heavier and dealt more damage than your average rapier, yet the rapier was lighter and faster.
Galleon seemed confident enough in himself and his blade that he grinned at her, fiddling with the rapier’s knuckle guard like it was a toy. She gripped the handle of her cleaver tighter.
“Begin!” she cried, and charged forward.
Her cleaver swung upwards. It would have sliced the deputy up along his torso if he hadn’t dodged out of the way, swinging for her exposed side. Her cleaver met his rapier with a clang of steel against steel, the reverberations travelling up her arm. Where everyone else doubted their moves, Galleon didn’t. He immediately jumped back to avoid her swipe at his leg, and doubled back with a parry when she aimed for his neck, knocking her cleaver backwards.
Already she was panting, desperate to get this over with and win. She regretted choosing her cleaver over the rapier.
Such a thought would make her reckless.
Galleon edged towards her—a coax, a bait—and she retaliated by clashing with his blade, knocking him backwards through the sheer force of her attack. Following up with another swipe at his knees, he blocked her cleaver and did what she didn’t expect; he used the weight of her sword against her, shoving it and her down to the floor, pressing the rapier against her neck. A pool of warmth accompanied the steely cold of the blade.
Roars came from the onlookers as she panted, knelt in the mud at the mercy of the Deputy. Slight irritation flared in her, but her awe for his techniques outweighed it.
“You said your father was a swordsman?” she wheezed. Mud coated both her arm and blade as she stood after Galleon shoved it into the wet earth.
“I did indeed,” he chuckled, throwing his arm around her. The rainwater that dripped from it accompanied the blood spilling down her neck. “You put up a good fight, though.”
Despite herself, she giggled giddily as they wandered back under the barracks, though she still yelled at her squadron to get back to training, much to their protests and calls for a rematch. It wasn’t often she had a good fight, even less so when someone surprised her with skill. As much as Galleon was the more muscular and devastating one of both Mayor Ao and himself, she never expected him to know how to wield a sword.
“Maybe you should train some of my weakest,” she found herself suggesting once under the cover of the barracks. The rain soaked through her skin, chilling the blood and muscles in her legs and arms.
“I could consider it,” he said joyfully, beaming with the compliments her soldiers yelled at him whilst training. “They seem like a pleasant bunch.”
“They are, as much as I bully them.”
Galleon winked at her. “Would it be any other way with you?”
Feniks snorted and tucked herself away beside the fire, hoping to unfreeze her muscles and get back into the fray. Galleon sat with her, eyeing her with intent.
“Our deal?” he inquired after a while. She started.
“I forgot about that,” she admitted, embarrassed.
“Do you want to talk about it here or inside the Mansion?”
Looking out on the wet field, soldiers clobbering their own and wooden dummies dotted around, some of them practicing archery and one—Isengard—practicing a spell, her smoky green arms acting like an umbrella. They didn’t let a single drop of water touch their master.
“Let’s talk about it here,” she muttered, “while everyone’s training. You never know who could be listening in the Mansion.”

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