Young Writers Society

I was awoken by someone pulling me by my shirt collar. I groaned as my knee still hurt whenever I put pressure on my right leg, but decided not to let whoever was pulling me think that I was incompetent of fighting back. We went through a door, and I was surprised by the sunlight. ‘Wait, last thing I remember it was afternoon. Have I been out all night, or maybe a few days?’ I got my answer quicker than I’d thought. The woman who’d dragged me out exclaimed, proudly:

“Here is the warrior that we captured last night, captain! You wished to see her?”

“What do you mean warrior? I’m nothing but a waitress, please don’t hurt me!” I hoped they would believe my act, as I had no intention of becoming some old mans wife or worse; his whore.

“Please, we’ve seen you fight. You caught my interest, you see.” A female voice said nonchalantly. My eyes had gotten used to the light, and before me I saw some familiar faces, unsure of what was going on. “Well, are you about to fight or what?” A sword was flung onto the deck in front of me, and when I looked up, at where I’d heard the voice, a woman who couldn’t have been much older than me, stood prepared for a fight. I lifted up the sword and weighed it in my hands for a few seconds; it was well made, barely used it seemed. Ignoring my injured knee, I took a stance; the same stance my mother had taught me since I could walk on my own.

We stood there, staring intensely into each others ees, waiting for the other to make their move. “Come on, someone start it!” a voice suddenly yelled. She charged towards me, and I almost effortlessly backed away from her blade. She continued to try to stab me whilst I simply avoided her attempts, and almost danced on my feet as I always kept her in sight. “Enough!” It seemed she had tired of my apathetic fighting style. She swung her sword and I quickly drew mine. Our strengths seemed equal, we both tried our best to keep our balance whilst still standing up and not wavering for a second. I saw an opportunity to stop the silly armwrestling bit, and took it. I broke the tie with a swift swing, and managed to cut her right by her shoulder, and saw a red line appear. ‘Finally, I’m doing some damage.’ Her subordinates seemed shocked, had they never seen her injured before? She herself seemed untouched by it, and continued her charging tactic, this time quicker. I avoided and deflected her sword as ong as I could; it mightve just been for a few minutes but for me it felt like hours went by as I tried and succeeded in predicting how she would move next. ‘Mother, you did good in teaching me to fight.’ I thought, and felt a bit guilty over not appreciating her help while she was still around. Once again, me and the woman got stuck in a fight of strengths, with swords crossed and our eyes peeled.

We’d gotten close to the side of the ship, we were barely half a meter away from the edge and the deep, dark ocean. ‘We never settled any rules, did we? Except for the swords, they didn’t give us any objective or way to win. It’s worth a shot, is it not?’ I acted as if I was running out of strength, and let her push me down so that I stood on one knee. I could see the excitement in her eyes, it must’ve been a while since she had had a fight like this; or since she’d won one at least. ‘Time to end this.’ With a quick punch to her stomach I’d gotten her out of balance and she dropped her sword. It only took me a second to grab her by her thigh and beneath her shoulder. I lifted her entire body up, and could hear the rest of the passengers gasp in surprise. I threw her off, but not without trouble. As she went overboard, she grabbed me by my wrist and I was forced down with her.

The fall was a blur of grey and brown. The world seemed to go too fast for me to comprehend, until I reached the waters surface.

I swam upwards and took a few breaths of air. I turned around and looked down into the water in case she’d try to attack me. To my surprise I couldn’t see her. When I turned around again I saw her, helplessly trying to wave her arms and legs. ‘She can’t swim? Isn’t she the captain of this ship, you’d think it would be mandatory to be able to swim or something?’ Her subordinates watched her with fear in their eyes. ‘Why aren’t they moving? Perhaps they don’t want to interfere with the duel?’ For whichever reason, they weren’t budging. In the corner of my eye I could see her head disappear under the surface and decided that for what it’s worth, I didn’t want to win a duel due to something as ridiculous as inability to swim. ‘If I’m to win a one-on-one duel, it’s got to be a fair fight.’ I swam over to where I’d seen her head disppear and dove in. My knee hurt from my strong kicks, but I couldn’t let myself stop. I approached her, and was taken off guard by her calm face. Her hair was so beautiful, floating about and her side-braid had unfolded a bit in the fight. ‘Focus! Now isn’t the time to stare!’ I thought to myself and put my arm around her waist before I swam as fast as I could up towards the surface. ‘You’d better survive, I’m not leaving a duel unfinished!’.

Everyone, including myself, was baffled, as we watched the young maiden dve after Freya. “Quick, someone! Get a boat and help her out!” As soon as the words were spoken, two women and a man had lowered a rowboat into the water and were rowing towards where the girl had dived in. A few minutes later she resurfaced with Freya lifeless beside her. The crew members helped Freya into the boat and resuscitated her. As she coughed and tried to breathe slowly, the young maiden seemed relieved. ‘Why the hell would she help her? They just fought like crazy, and she could’ve easily just let her die.

The maiden grabbed the edge of the boat and seemed to try and get onto it as well, but was quickly stopped by one of the women. She squealed when the crew member stepped on her hand and then went silent when she was hit by an oar to the head. Gasps were heard from the ship, some cheered, some muttered about why she would do that. “She saved the captains life! what the hell, Miriya?!” “She is the opponent, isn’t she? The fight is still going on, and since our captain isn’t able to fight, I’ll take her place!” I watched as the maidens shadowy figure became blurrier and blurrier as it sank deeper. Before I knew what I’d done, I’d taken off my weapons, stripped my armor off, and was swimming towards the girl. I dove in and saw the trail of blood leading to her body. ‘Was this all from one hit in the head?’ the thought had barely gone through my head before I saw the source. Her right knee was badly messed up; I was surprised that she was able to move, let alone fight with such an injury. I resurfaced, and saw that a ladder had dappeared, and I swam towards it. When I reached it, I gently threw her to hang across my shoulder so that I had one arm free to grab the ladder with. As I climbed up the ladder, I heard people both cheering and booing. I decided to keep going as I’d already gone ahead and gotten her out of the water.

I laid her down on her side carefully, and shook her slightly to try and wake her up. “Why’d you save her?! She tried to kill the captain!” “She didn’t, she tried to win their fight. She couldn’t have known of captains inability to swim.” The girl coughed up some water and took some hoarse breaths. I sighed out of relief. “She saved Freyas life, she should get to decide her fate.” “Freya’s out cold, I’m guessing Miriya would love to take her place again.” Miriya stomped over to us and roared “what is the meaning of this, Cameron?! This girl-” “Saved Freyas life, and is very injured.” “Nonetheless, she threw Freya off board!” “And she would’ve died, were it not for her selflessness.” “Miriya was visibly angry, she hated not getting the last word. She was about to say something, when she stopped and looked down at the girl. She hunched down and put her ear close to the girls face. I was about to tell her to give the girl some space, when I heard something. A weak voice articulated ever so carefully:

“Let the mother of us all protect my fragile body, for she hath given me my life and shant let anyone take it. My mother in heaven shall strike anyone who dares to do me any evil, and my father shall greet me with open arms as I arrive at home. By the power of Gaia I will survive every obstacle and beat every enemy, til my last breath I shall fight without waver, For I am a warrior, born and raised, and I won’t let anything keep me down.”

The girl stopped talking and quivered before she went silent. I looked at the others and as I’d expected, Freya was already on her feet and shocked. “Cameron… who is that?” “I, I don’t-” “DOES ANYONE KNOW HER NAME?” The people who we’d taken with us from the same town as the girl were pushed forth. Most of them were too scared to say a word, the others seemed to not know her at all. “She, um.. she is Jocelynn.” a girl a few years younger than Jocelynn uttered. Freya got down on one knee and looked at the again unconcious girl named Jocelynn. “Get her a doctor, she needs medical help immidiately!” I was amazed by Freyas calmness. I’d seen her reactions to others who’d said the same prayer, and those times she had gone mad with rage. But this time she wished to spare this young maidens life, why?

Everything was blurry, I could hardly make out where the light came from, but decided to follow it. I coud heard a male voice mumbling something inaudible, that I somehow knew was a prayer. ‘Is this heaven? The land that those priestesses told me I’d never visit? Have I lost my life?’ To both my surprise and relief, I came to in a room, in a very comfortable bed. I saw a man holding my hand as he kept his eyes closed and mumbled. I had hardly moved when he stopped his mumbling abruptly and looked at me in amazement. “You’re awake. Thank heavens.” I drew my hand out of his grip and looked him up and down; he was most likely a warrior, with the armor he wore and the high-quality weapons he held. “Who-? How am I alive?” “I saved your life… you were about to drown after-” he fell silent as I held a finger up, and used my other hand to rub my forehead. ‘Right; pirates, sword fight, swimming, and then-’ “Wait, I saved that, that woman? The one who I fought with?” “Yes, you did, and I and the others are very thankful for that.” “Something hit my head, I vaguely remember getting hit, before everything went dark.” “Um, yes, not everyone was as thankful about your deed.” I combed through my hair with my fingers and almost immidiately felt a bandage on the right side of my forehead. “Why? Why would you save me? And don’t say because I saved your captain I won’t take that as an answer.” He smiled, oddly enough. “Well, you see… The whole fight was just because the captain wanted to have some fun. There was no way she could have known you were that much better than her. It wouldn’t have been fair to let you die because of poor sportmanship on Mariyas, the one who hit you, part. She was just doing what she thought was right.” “Oh, suure.” I mustve slept for at least a day or even two; the fight had happened around noon, and I saw the sut rising in the window. Even with so much sleep I was exhausted, ‘They probably drugged me for the pain in my knee… or to keep me from running away.’ I thought as I longingly looked outside.

“Ah, good. You’re finally awake.” A middleaged woman walked in wearing a white coat. “Are you the doctor?” “Are you Jocelynn?” ‘A doctor with an attitude... great’ She shooed the guy away and sat herself down. “How long was I out-” “I’ll ask the questions, alright?” ‘Has she ever even heard of bedside manner?’ I thought to myself a bit angrily but decided not to piss off the only medical professional closeby. “Okay.”

“Does your head hurt?” I shook my head, but she wouldn’t take my word for it and slightly opened the bandage. I tried my best to avoid being in the way, even though I hated it when people got too close to me without a warning. “Looks like it’s healed well. You can thank the captain, she insisted on buying the best medicine and herbs for even the smallest of injuries.” “Yeah… I’ll remember that.” “Unfortunately, your leg won’t heal as fast. It’s bruised up pretty badly, and coupled with the burns it equals you laying in bed for at least a week, so don’t even try to move.” “I won’t.” She gave me a suspicious look. “You’re not as stubborn as the captain said you were.” “I’m sorry?” “Heh, she usually does exaggerrate things out of proportion. Though I must give it to you, you’re the first I’ve seen who is able to fight with such an injury.” “Was that a compliment?” “Not really, I’m just amazed that you’d agree to fight a complete stranger with such a handicap.” “Well, I didn’t know I had the choice not to fight.” “Still. It takes guts, or a few ouncs of stupidity, to do something like that. Did your mother teach you to fight?” I was surprised by the question. Usually people don’t ask something like that; they think my father was the one who taught me and often think badly of him. “Why would my mother teach me? The men are the ones who go to war.” ‘That’s it, keep acting, they don’t need to know anything.’

“Your countrys traditions may be so, but if I am to believe our captain your mother ws not born here.” “And on what grounds does your dear captain say such things?” “After Cameron,” she pointed at the door behind her where I saw the man from earlier, standing, eavesdropping, “ got you on deck, you spoke a prayer that few people in the East have ever heard. A prayer that has not been spoken in the West by civilians for since the war ended, about twenty years ago.” I froze. “Really? I don’t remember doing anything of the sort…” I truly had no memory of getting on deck “Even if you don’t remember it, it happened. Lucky for you there were no enemies of the West listening or they would’ve had you executed. Most of the crew are from the West, so the older ones have heard it before, including the captain, who was happily surprised to say the least. “ “How so? and your captain seems too young to be able to remember something from twenty years ago, if you don’t mind me saying that.” “It’s true,” the doctor sighed,” she is fairly young to be out in the world adventuring, but as she has grown up in a town