~~~
Jabari returned for her as he had promised. At dinner he asked her if she wanted to go back across the SlipSwamp while they still had light. Yes, more than anything, she wanted to see the sun. She wanted to see a tree. She wanted to see a flower.
Gwendoline’s eyes fell upon the forest. No hills filled with flowers awaited her but dark towering trees. Still the evening breeze rose upon her as a contrast to the stale cold air of the Jagged. She closed her eyes and spun around, taking in the warmth of Lesser Sun imagining herself to be again standing up on her flowering hillside as the bees buzzed past her cheeks.
For a moment, Jabari did not speak to her. He just let her be. But she could feel him watching her filled with happiness at seeing such emotion in her. She spun around again, imagining herself to be in her pale pink dress saying her fare thee wells to the day. She could feel the coarseness of the cloak that engulfed her shape.
Her new found freedom from the dungeon, that tower to which she had been sentenced, overtook her. Why not run away, find a place? No one had to know that Dreamer blood coursed her veins. She had never made the same mistake twice. Maybe, just maybe her knight would find her, take her away to a new adventure, one with a happy ending.
“I’ll teach you how to use that.”
Gwendoline had almost forgotten that he stood near her. Blue eyes opened to the fading light.
“That knife I gave you. It’s best if you know how to defend yourself. No place in Three Worlds is truly safe but that which we make so ourselves.”
This fact Gwendoline found herself quickly discovering. She drew the knife from its sheath in one quick motion. Lesser cast shimmer across the smooth blade.
“If I were you and wore lacey dresses…” he paused in thought
Gwendoline mused at the image that flashed through her mind.
“If I had waves of lace across my wrist I would keep my sheath there upon my arm. The weapon would be concealed and easily freed. Great for the element of surprise. You can do a lot of damage with a knife if you can catch your attacker unawares.”
Gwendoline did not want to learn to fight. She did not want to use a knife, but no greater truth had he spoken. He could not be at her side every moment. Floraline could do no better. If the Jagged were to be a safe haven for her, she would have to be the one to make it so.
“There are two things you must know about using a knife. First, you must be quick with it. Any hesitation and failure will be yours to regret.”
Gwendoline nodded. It sounded simple enough. Then memories flooded her, thoughts of her uncle. He had hesitated, or else she would be dead.
“And you must know your target. The groin, the eye, the stomach from the front, permit a quick escape, but if your life truly be in danger there is but one place to strike.”
Gwendoline looked down at the blade in her hand. “The neck.”
“Yes. But knowing and doing are two very different things. Doing takes practice. Depending on your angle, it may be best to jab to the throat. Here, in the center.” Jabari drew two fingers up to his throat to rest them just above the bone. “Or a slice, but it must always include one side or the other, to make the deed final.”
Gwendoline had been afraid he would say that. “I don’t want to kill anyone, maybe injure so they’ll leave me alone.”
“Did that FlameChaser stop when I gouged his eye?”
“No. He became more enraged.”
“Precisely.”
“But a FlameChaser is not a person.”
Jabari looked at her a moment with a blank stare. He did not have to say the words and she understood. The thought sent chills through her limbs though the night lay warm upon the skin. “Who?”
“You will get to that story in the Study. Its better is you find out yourself.” Jabari’s focus shifted back to the task at hand.
“Let’s start with a jab. Jab at me.”
Gwendoline rotated the blade so that the handle top just poked out from the top of her hand near her thumb and the blade shot out from the bottom. She thrust the blade down at his arm.
He took a step back. He judged her a moment. “Only a man gone mad holds a blade like that. No faster way to end up with metal through your thigh. You can cause a lot of flesh wounds that way. Inflict a lot of pain, maybe look more menacing if they find you on a day that you are not in a pink frilly dress, but if you are called to use a knife it will need to be one quick jab or slice. I hope you take no offense.”
Gwendoline did find the words a bit curt, but she had not thought of talk of protection as a time to mince words. The last comment she found amusing as she could see the comment, or at least the essence of it, move through him before it rose to his lips. Nothing ever rose to his lips that she did not see in him first. She imagined that this fact alone kept him from cowering from her presence. He had nothing to hide. She admired him for it.
She flipped the blade up near to her thumb.
“You almost have it. You’ll tilt your hand out a bit like this.” He started to lay a hand upon her arm but stopped short.
“It’s okay.” She replied to his unasked question.
He adjusted her wrist out. “Better. Now pull the blade into your side and thrust it out.”
Gwendoline did as he said, stumbling a little as her arm met full extension.
Jabari watched her. “Again.”
She did it again.
“You will have to get faster and your balance needs work. Try crouching.”
Uncertainty swept Gwendoline’s face, but she tried.
“No.” Jabari held his words. “That is a curtsy. Legs apart a bit, knee out, to gain balance.”
Gwendoline’s blue eyes met brown. “A lady does not crouch.”
“I doubt many ladies inflicted stomach wounds in your household either.”
“Dependent on who prepared the stew.” Only seriousness shaped Gwendoline’s face.
Jabari laughed.
She laughed with him, before extending knee out as he led her movement.