The Dao of Magic

54 - Brawl

'Omygosh I want more of that delicious steak, let's beat this woman up! WATERWATERWATERCOMETOME. WATER COME TO ME. Nice, let's punch the shit out of this WOA, woah, I just barely dodged her kick, she is stronger than Bord and faster than Vox! Let's put some water on my fist and HUAH FIRST HEAVY PUNCH. Oooh, she dodged, she is fast. Let's try to kick her now. Put water on foot and HUAH. Sorry grass, your sacrifice was for a worthy cause. Ket wants to start bossing us around again, but I JUST WANT FOOD. Let's do combo number one. One PUNCH two KICK three and spin KICK four PUNCH WHOA, roll away, water shield! She punched right through, but now she is wet, WATER STAND STILL owwww, she moved anyway, that hurt my head a bit. Jump, water under feet, FINAL COMBO DOUBLE FEET KICK'

By the time Selis climbs out of the crater she created, the fight has moved on. She glares at the water on the ground until it comes under her control again. She then jumps on top of a water globe and bounces off, diving into the fight again. The female they are all ganging up on sees her coming and backhands her into a tree. The tree splinters and bends while Selis smacks to the ground. She wipes her dirty face and runs back to the fight.

The other students also throw themselves at the tall statuesque woman with thin armour, but she manages to keep them all at bay for now.

If Selis' parents would have seen her in this state, they would probably suffer from a shock-induced heart attack. That is because Selis was born as the third child and second daughter from a small merchant family. Her parents already had the heir, her brother, and a nice daughter to marry off, so Selis got sort of ignored. The fact that she hardly ever spoke and seemed not to recognise people only exasperated this semi-isolation.

Bad eyesight is not common, and the minor merchant family did not have enough money to visit a doctor. Especially not for an unplanned third child that seemed to have something wrong with her head. In hindsight though, Selis realises that her Teacher would have never picked her from the masses of Tower City if it had gone differently. If Selis had learned to backstab, negotiate and betray like her two older siblings, her aura would have been different.

Selis does not really understand auras yet, but she has started to trust the feeling in her gut that she has been getting while looking at people. The bandits on the road felt wrong to her. They felt like their insides were dirty. All her fellow disciples have whole insides, unbroken and somewhat beautiful to be around. The lady she is now fighting also has a certain wholesomeness about her, like a polished gemstone. She also radiates a certain savageness that tells Selis she is prey until she proves otherwise. Teacher's aura is an entirely different story, his aura feels vast and alien to the blue haired girl. She can imagine that her parents and siblings, shrewd merchants not above taking and giving bribes or making someone disappear, will also have this broken feeling to them.

At home, she was mostly left to her own devices, so she listened. People always talk if you are silent enough. And if people think that something is wrong with your head, they loosen their tongues even further. Being silent while keeping her ears open allowed her to learn the basics of the merchant trade. It also allowed her to learn that her parents blackmailed or were blackmailed by half the city. They made a mistake however, they tried this trick with a noble that didn't take it lying down. So their caravans started to disappear and her parents' small fortune dwindled. It also let her overhear a discussion about whether she should be given to that noble or not.

Her parents concluded that no matter how brain impaired their daughter might be, she still came from good stock and had a pretty face. But appearances had to be kept, so Selis got arrested on obvious false charges. She lingered in the prison for a few weeks, refusing to agree to anything and not talking. Then she got kidnapped, and now she is using a brute force fighting technique alongside water control to try and beat up a woman.