<span style="color: #FFFF00">“Well now,”</span>came the deep voice from behind her.<br/><br/>Every muscle in Seniré’s body tensed as though electric currents had snaked up through her feet and frozen her to the ground. All of the smoothness, all of the instinctual grace, and all of the righteous anger drained from her lanky figure, leaving only an awkward young woman who stood in a murderous pose that she had only the faintest memory of attaining. The deserter beneath her boot was quite lucky that her fingers had frozen in shock, else she certainly would have dropped the pitchfork and punctured his trachea.<br/><br/>As it was, the immediate sound of footsteps that followed the words spun her slight shoulders around, hay tool dropping to the side as though it alone confirmed her guilt. The heel of her right foot caught on the prone figure of the fellow and the would-be warrior promptly fell backwards into the gelding’s discarded armor, landing with a clank and a clatter that caused several horse ears to flicker in her direction. The fall was a little jarring, but she was used to such things and merely gave her head a little shake: of course, the sight of Linden's Prince, lifting a man by his collar as though he were no more than a ragdoll, caused a dry gulp to stick in her throat.<br/><br/>She watched the ruling unfold, feeling uncomfortably close to the foreground of this impromptu courtroom. She had yet to see the Prince so close; he was obviously not a small man, even without the thick armor, and the intimidating array of scars and bristly facial hair did nothing to diminish his size outside the purely physical standpoint. He came with one of his Maidens, too: most of her countrymen simply referred to two women as his “girlfriends” or something equally flippant, but she had used many opportunities to sneak close and listen to more enlightened conversation. Verana Snowblade's deep red hair and form-fitting black armor made her seem distinctly sleek and small when she stood next to the Prince, but Seniré felt her stomach drop into her boots regardless.<br/><br/>If there had been any chance of regaining her footing, it was succinctly shattered by the appearance of a man who, from the sunburst-eyed woman’s perspective, was roughly fourteen feet tall and ninety-five percent muscle. She was sure that he could have wrestled any stallion to the ground in less than a minute, and his swarthy tan and missing eye told her than he probably did so a few times before his breakfast of granite and nails. The young woman wasn’t sure if it was possible to be so pale that one started to lose feelings in the ears and nose, but if it wasn’t, then she was as close as one could be to it. The screaming of the sentenced deserter echoed in her ears, fighting with her own thundering heartbeat for dominance, but before either could subside she saw the Prince’s visage peer down to her own grounded form.<br/><br/>His words caused her eyes to widen and pupils to shrink. L-l-lady friend? The smile that tilted the side of Snowblade’s lips caused Seniré to scramble to her feet, like a newborn fawn that instinctively tries to flee a predator’s scent. Her own defensive posture was almost unconscious, hands forward as though to fend off any approach, breath fast and knees unlocked, but Verana made no movement for the younger woman as the Prince departed the scene. Her river-blue eyes held, to Seniré, a look that said there was very little she had not already guessed about the “groom” and her situation.<br/><br/>“Come then,” she barked suddenly, her voice matter-of-fact as she spun on her heel and started back toward the concentration of Linden warriors.<br/><br/>The gawky girl hesitated. She… wasn’t going to be cut down? Or dragged away like that deserter, to have her kneecaps smashed against a rock? Maybe skinned, to make that giant a new eye-patch? She… wasn’t even going to be bound, and hauled through camp so that all could see what came of cross-dressing and deceit or a stable hand who took too much liberty?<br/><br/>Verana glanced over her shoulder, “As in ‘with me’.” There was an impatient edge to her voice that sprang Seniré into action, albeit a slightly windmill-like action initially.<br/><br/>She was able to catch up to her senior in only a few strides, and then kept subserviently in the auburn-haired woman’s shadow, her shoulders pulled forward and eyes on the ground. Her breath was coming a little easier now, just knowing that she wasn’t<span style="font-style: italic">immediately</span>about to be facing the business end of an arrow or the Maiden’s fierce little dirk, but her mouth was completely dry and the hammering of her heart allowed room for little else in her ears. There was no way this was going to end well, after all. She could speak up, give her real name and the name of her father, of course; that would probably earn her a one-way trip back home, where she would most likely be locked in her room until she died, to spare the family any further embarrassment. It had been contemplated for lesser things, after all. Disguising herself as a man, sleeping in tents with other (male) grooms, tending horses and armor like a low-born peasant… all of that was a bit overkill, honestly.<br/><br/>She bit the inside of her cheek, brow furrowing beneath her dirty bang. Even if she was sentenced to death for being a simple laborer that took it upon himself to apprehend a military fugitive, would being locked in a room for the rest of her life, known as only a shame and a pariah and an embarrassment that wasn’t spoken of in polite circles, be any better?<br/><br/>The fawn-haired woman’s heart steadied, and she took a few deep breaths. No. She had caused her family enough problems. She had taken this risk on her own, and she would take the fall on her own. Determination flickered in her large eyes, somehow accentuating the shards of deep gold, but any effect was lost after only a moment as she walked directly into Verana’s back, her nose hitting the base of the woman’s skull quite solidly. It would seem that she had stopped walking.<br/><br/>Rubbing her nose, partially out of a dull pain and mostly embarrassment, Seniré instinctively bowed from her shoulders and muttered,<span style="color: #80BFBF">“Sorry,”</span>in her “masculine” twang.<br/><br/>“No more of that,” Verana answered, turning around to face her as though she hadn’t even noticed the slight collision (though the clumsy woman knew she must have), “Speak in your own voice.”<br/><br/>The Brigham girl hesitated again, her head still mostly toward the ground.<span style="color: #80BFBF">“A-all right,”</span>she finally answered, just as quiet and muttered but with a higher, clearer pitch.<br/><br/>“And this,” she continued, cyanic eyes sharp with practicality, “How can you even<span style="font-style: italic">see</span>past this?” Before she knew what was happening, the lightning fast hands of the Maiden had pushed the hair from her forehead up, opening her entire face to the brisk wind of the world. Seniré’s eyes flew open in surprise again and she leaned back, immediately recoiling. Verana allowed her to do so, but added, “Just get rid of it. You’re lucky enough to have two working eyes, don’t put them behind a curtain where they can’t do any good.”<br/><br/>The light-haired woman started to acquiesce, but she felt very confused. Did people from Linden always try to bolster the confidence of their death-row prisoners?<br/><br/>The slim Maiden raised her arm a little, calling out to a few more women who stood close to one of the tents. One of them had a close-cropped head of black hair and was missing the tip of her left ear, but otherwise had a strikingly pretty face; the other two had ear-length brown hair yanked into impossibly short horsetails, one scarred and a little older and the other with wide, emerald eyes that dominated her face and the right side of her stomach recently bandaged. All three had been bent over their armor, the bloodstained rags dropping into the buckets as Verana beckoned them over. They moved smoothly and swiftly, and the younger woman quickly shoved her thick bang up into the body of her groom’s cap; the thing was already stuffed to capacity, but nerves made sure she found a way to fit the rest.<br/><br/>She felt their eyes on her, sizing her up. A flicker of determination sparked the base of her spine and the disguised woman straightened her shoulders a little, though she did not meet any gazes. All three of them, just for her? She may have accidentally been able to knock over a man who didn’t expect it, but she hardly thought it would take three trained warriors just to carry out her sentence, even if it were particularly drawn-out or depraved.<br/><br/>“So, getting to the point,” Verana piped, giving a short nod to the three women who, in a way totally hidden to the lord’s daughter, seemed to immediately know what was expected of them and headed to the left of the tent, “You can think of this as a… proficiency test, of sorts," she continued, following the other women at a slower pace with the girl in tow, "If you show a little potential here, you might have what it takes to stand against a Tutar without dying, so we'll – "<br/><br/><span style="color: #80BFBF">“What?”</span>Seniré interrupted, her fear for the situation and deep respect of the Maiden temporarily forgotten,<span style="color: #80BFBF">“Fight? You – you want to see if I can fight?”</span><br/><br/>Verana paused, a look that was half curious and half impatient crossing her face as she glanced to the woman, “What did you think was happening?”<br/><br/>A beat passed, before the lighter-haired woman put her face in one of her palms for a second to smother her relieved expression. Not executed, not drawn and quartered like a common thief, not tied to two horses who were sent galloping in opposite directions… not even in trouble. The sudden realization that she was significantly less likely to die today drained a fair amount of strength from her knees, but a rushing desire to impress the women that she had idolized from afar replaced it and she managed to only slightly stumble.<br/><br/>Verana brought her to a small, clear spot to the left of one of the larger tents, where a very clear circle had been drawn. It was between seven and eight feet in diameter, and two of the women sent ahead had taken up positions somewhere along the dirt line; both of them held long, thick sticks that looked as though they should have been far more unwieldy than either warrior made them appear, and they had slightly predatory expressions on their faces. Somehow, though she was more than a little uneasy, Seniré managed to look away from the etched circle in time to stop before she rear-ended the Maiden again. Snowblade extended her hand, fingers closed around a pathetic, dry twig that she proffered in a comically generous manner. “For protection,” she added, and Seniré had no idea how to decipher the red-head’s tone.<br/><br/>Not that there was a lot of time for consideration. The second her fingers closed hesitantly around the bit of dried branch, she was shoved smoothly and effortlessly into the center of the circle. “There’s only one rule. I’m sure you can figure it out.”<br/><br/><span style="color: #80BFBF">“But I don’t – “</span><br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Woohmp.</span>The sound the wooden staff made as it connected with her solar plexus was sickening, contributing to the effect almost as much as the blow itself. Seniré crumpled to her knees, arms closing over her midsection as she tried to pull air into her lungs. Her pupils turned to pinpricks as the second branch came swinging for her face, and she folded forward deeper just in time, feeling the rush of wind along her spine as the offending wood whisked past her.<br/><br/>Forgetting about the breath that was still mostly knocked out of her, she scrambled to her feet again and backed away from the two offending women, careful to stay in the circle but trying to achieve a point where she could see both of them. They weren’t very accommodating, however. It seemed like as soon as she managed to dodge one blow, the other woman had a swing coming right for wherever she had gone to avoid the first. Surprisingly enough (to herself most of all, probably) she was holding her own.<br/><br/>A branch whisked for the back of her knees and she jumped, twisting her torso mid-air to avoid the one that aimed for her left ribcage. She landed and immediately sunk to a squat as both branches aimed for her torso, one in the chest and the other in the lower back, one of her legs extended so that she could be even closer to the ground. She felt her heart quicken even as time seemed to slow, and her focus of the world around her seemed to melt into the background. There was no time to be nervous, to try to impress. There weren’t any disappointed fathers, or disapproving mothers here, or Princes, or knights or Lords or Kings. It was simple, so simple: just don’t fall.<br/><br/>She reveled in it. Tension that had been within her bones since the first day she discovered her “uniqueness” seemed to melt into the ground, the way it had when she had floored the deserter. Seniré felt almost graceful, fluid; she felt the way other women looked on the ballroom floor, but she had no bulky gowns or decorum to maintain. She had what they had, and more. The end of a branch whistled past her ear and she moved almost languidly around and beneath it, raising her leg behind her to avoid the other branch simultaneously. The faster the branches came, the faster she moved… and the faster she moved, the more fluid the movements became.<br/><br/>Somehow, before she even knew what was happening, both women were<span style="font-style: italic">quite</span>close; not so close that it was a two-to-one hand-to-hand combat situation, but far closer than the circle had denoted only moments ago.<br/><br/>Panic lit her nerve endings from head to toe and all of the grace disappeared as though it had never been. Suddenly very aware of her own large feet and too-long limbs, she felt (with a very familiar, sinking sense of failure) the toe of her boot catch on her own calf. The result, unfortunately, was that she ended up pushing her own leg out from under her body, falling forward onto her knees and palms. Instantly Seniré shut her eyes tight and threw up her forearm to block her face, bone-side out, and wrapped her other arm around her midsection in as defensive a posture as she could make in such a tiny space of time.<br/><br/>Fortunately, that seemed to signal the end of the “proficiency test”, and no branches thick as a man’s leg came flying down to her defeated body. Seniré was positive that she had done miserably, and the familiar sense of disappointment in herself settled across her shoulders like a well-worn blanket. She dropped her arms and leaned back onto her calves, long spine curved inward and head lolling to the side ever so slightly. Her new-morning eyes hesitantly sought those of Verana, and for the second time in less than half an hour she felt herself awaiting a judgment that, while less lethal, was no less important in the threads of her fate.<br/><br/>The pathetic little twig, protected by the woman's long fingers throughout the exercise, rolled from her hand and sat in the dirt by her legs.