Not Your Damsel in Distress

10

Kick. Hit. Stab. Kick. Hit. Stab. Charlene had been doing it for nearly the entire morning and yet she still felt like she had been the one being kicked in the guts all over again and not the training puppet she had been stressing her anger towards. She wore a light blue shirt that clung onto her body like a second skin from all the sweat, but she didn't even notice it. She was panting hard from never doing her exercises for so long and with such intensity except when she was angry. And angry she was.

"Brought you a drink," the voice, belonging to the source of her anger, was heard from the fence of the training ground.

"Great," she said with clenched teeth and walked up to him. She took the glass from his hand and spilled the content, she didn't even care what it was, onto his head. "Oops."

"What was that for?!" exclaimed Auberon whose smile vanished from his face immediately.

"Here," she said calmly and gave him the glass back. "Now you can shove it up your ass, pull it out and be your own damsel in distress! Problem solved!" She turned around and began attacking the doll once again.

Auberon froze in his tracks. "You heard."

"I am not as weak or pathetic as you have me for. I can walk around on my own and hear things," she said with a breathless voice as she kicked the doll hard enough to have it fall off.

"What you heard... yes, I have to save a damsel in distress to break the curse, but..."

"But you also wanted a quick lay, didn't you?" asked Charlene between pants and hit the doll with her sword again, ducking when it rotated around. "You thought that not only was I a poor little helpless girl, I was also one of your whores!"

"That's not true."

"At least I lied about what my full name was! You lied about... everything! You thought I was weak and petty and... wanted to use me!"

Auberon had enough and jumped over the fence. "Lenny, look at me!"

Charlene turned around and pointed the sword at him. "What?" she asked and narrowed her eyes. "What do you want from me?"

"Just listen to me!"

Charlene pulled a sword from the training puppet's hand and threw it to his feet. "Pick it up." When he gave her a confused look, she yelled, "Pick it up! You clearly think I am unable to defend myself. Just fucking pick it up!"

Auberon slowly picked the sword up. "Ok, I am picking it up."

"Hold it up!"

"I am not fighting you, Lenny," he said with a serious tone and yet so slowly as if he was scared of scaring her off with his words.

"Really?" Charlene laughed. "You can't fight me, but you have no intentions with me?"

"And you can eavesdrop?"

Charlene attacked him and he managed to block it, but she managed to throw him off balance. He blocked another attack and managed to bounce away from her.

Emmet was leaning on the window and drinking a glass of wine after an active night. He noticed something down at the training ring for the knights. "Bea," he called into the room with a smile on his face. "You'll be sorry if you don't come and take a look at this."

Beatrice joined him by the window, wearing only her nightgown. "What?"

Emmet pointed with his chin and grinned. "Lenny is..."

"About to kill Ronno," finished Beatrice. "Well, it was nice knowing him."

"Maybe for you."

"Are you complaining about us meeting over him?" asked Beatrice and pulled him towards her bed again.