The Finest Blade

Family Issues

katana

/kəˈtɑːnə/

noun: Katana; plural noun: katanas

A long, single-edged sword used by Japanese samurai

"They're here.

I know they are before they get the chance to get past the first wave of guards. I know they're here even before Kittah comes to my door, and to my room, and rushes me outside. I know they are here long before they grab my arm.

The man whose hand is around my wrist is tall, ugly, and heavily built, his black hair sticks to his forehead from sweat and I can feel the heat radiating from his amber eyes.

I am so— hey!"

I push open the door, interrupting the girl who's speaking. Her dramatic monologue is supposed to be about the recent kidnappings, but she's just making it sound like a childish, rushed horror story.

She glares at me angrily right up until the second I pull down my hood, revealing long black hair still tied neatly away from my eyes with Kita's jade pin, and a face closely resembling hers.

Her jaw drops and she immediately stops narrating my story. She got most of it wrong anyway. I found Kita first.

It wasn't a man with black hair. It was a fire bending woman with brown hair.

We weren't outside the palace. We were in the corridor by Iroh's room.

Kita didn't fail. Because I know that's how she's going to tell the story.

"It's Kita." I correct her pronunciation, thudding my canvas bag onto the floor and, with the last of my weary grace, sitting calm and crosslegged down beside it.

I don't let myself snap at her, remembering what my father would say to me just before he spoke in the war room.

Act fast. Think faster. Speak slower.

Instead, I accept a china tea cup with the scent of mint that floats gently towards my nose from a smiling shop keeper. Her blonde hair is scraped into a bun far neater than mine, but I've been running for a while now, I think I have an excuse.

I notice the way she smiles, but also the way her eyes linger on the small scar and the nape of my neck. It's new. It hurts.

I deserve it.

The fire bending woman had a dagger, she thought I was Kita, she nicked me, she took Kita.

She took Grandfather, and Mother, and Father, and my brother.

But not me.

And it's not because she couldn't. It's not because I'd finally lived up to the name my grandfather had given me.

it's not because I'm the Nation's finest blade. It's not because I'm Katana - a sword reserved for noble warriors.

It's because my guard saved me.

I swirl the liquid in my cup, staring at the pale green mixture and the reflection of my eyes looking back at me.