He nodded, considering that. “I was indeed implying that you were too good for me, yes.” He explained. “In case you were in doubt.”
“I wasn’t and you’re not.”
“Good.”
Across the clearing, the sparring session continued. Violet seemed to be getting more and more frustrated, while Kobb seemed to be having more and more fun.
All in all, that was a recipe for disaster.
Tandy squinted at the scene slightly, recognizing that there was about to be a problem with their mock fight. “You know…” she began to Tzadok, “…I think something bad is about to…”
As if on cue, Violet attempted an axe kick, her leg going straight up into the air until her knee was pressed against her chest and her ankle was over her head. Kobb dodged her foot as it traveled upward, but he had miscalculated. The goal of the move was not to hit him with upwards momentum, rather the action was just building up power for the strike on his face as her foot traveled back down. The force would be amplified due to gravity and the elasticity of the tendons in Violet’s leg as they snapped back. Apparently no one in The Wasteland was sufficiently limber to kick high enough to make the move possible, because he wasn’t expecting it. The girl’s foot impacted his face with several hundred pounds of force, smashing downwards into him. The strike was immediately followed by a spinning back kick to his stomach as he was staggered from the initial blow, knocking him completely off his feet.
Kobb hit the ground like a ton of bricks, and with enough force to slide several feet across the rocky ground, despite the girl’s much smaller size and weight.
The entire world went silent for a beat; the cloud of loose dirt gently billowing around them.
He was either knocked out or dead. Again.
Violet let out a gasp of pure horror, putting her hands up to cover her mouth. She made a panicked squeak and took several frightened backward steps away from him, looking utterly shaken by what had just happened.
It had apparently never occurred to her that the attacks would actually connect.
Kobb’s large crumpled form stirred and he spat out a mouthful of blood.
The girl let out a small cry.
Kobb raised his head and looked at her in amazement, his face bloody and already bruising.
Tzadok started forward.
Before he got to them though, Kobb burst into hilarious laughter. A deep booming sound of mirth and good-humor. He clapped his hands together in appreciation of the move, finding the entire incident hysterical for some reason.
Violet quickly started to softly stammer out what was most likely an apology and an explanation that it had been an accident, done in the heat of the moment on instinct.
Kobb slowly pulled himself to his feet, looking not in the least bit concerned or angry, but obviously making a concerted effort to hide pain. He spat out more blood from his cut mouth, then held up one fist and nodded in appreciation and complete support. “That’s how it’s done! That’s how a warrior moves! Chox celebrates your victory on the field of battle!”
Violet smiled weakly at the praise. She started saying something too softly for Tandy to overhear, but the girl put her hands over her heart and then opened them, apparently telling him that she was sorry and asking if he was okay.
Kobb shrugged it off.
Tandy squinted at the scene again. It was fascinating behavior. But… odd somehow. She just couldn’t figure out why. She was missing something. Something important.
“You hurt him again and I hurt you, you little animal!” Tzadok yelled at Violet in fury. “Be more careful! You have injured that man for the LAST FUCKING TIME!”
Violet turned towards him, still looking panicked and scared, recognizing that Tzadok was threatening to take her toy away. She made several weak hand gestures to indicate that it had been an accident, then turned back to Kobb, once again gushing an apology but forgetting the correct words in his language so it came out as gibberish.
Kobb nodded calmly and nonchalantly waved his hand in Tzadok’s direction, indicating that his nephew was out of line somehow and merely overreacting.
Violet hesitantly touched Kobb’s shoulder in support, like she was now afraid of breaking him, then ran off, presumably to go get him something to clean and bandage his face.
Tandy squinted at the scene.
Huh.
Kobb sank stiffly onto one of the boulders, looking dazed and trying to readjust his injured jaw.
“She’s going to kill him and then the rest of us.” Tzadok observed ominously. “Mark my words.”
“I’ve already written down the warning in my journal.” Tandy assured him. “In both Gallandish and the original Wastelandi.”
“She stabbed him. Twice. She almost got him killed in a barrage of arrows. And now she’s going to finish the job with her bare hands.”
“Foot.” Tandy corrected.
“Whatever.”
“She also set his legs on fire a couple weeks ago.” Tandy informed him. “Kobb and I discussed it and decided not to tell you because you’d be angry.”
Tzadok’s face crumpled up in confusion. “How did she set him on fire?”
“I don’t know.” Tandy shrugged in mystification. “It just sort of… happened. Frankly, a lot of violent things seem to happen around her. Usually to Kobb. Have you noticed?”
“No. Not at all.” He said sarcastically, rising to his feet. “You ready to leave this (a word which Tandy assumed was combining the Wastelandi terms for ‘child’s crib’ and the desolate place where they left deranged people to die in the elements) and go scouting?”
She nodded. “I suppose.”
“You gonna be okay if we leave you alone until tomorrow, old man?” Tzadok called to his uncle. “Or are you gonna let a little thing like that break your face some more? Want me to stay and protect you?”
Kobb flashed him an obscene hand gesture.
“What are we scouting for again?” Tandy asked him, hefting up the bag of supplies she’d surreptitiously packed in hopes that Tzadok would ask her along. Not that she really needed an invite, since she was going with him no matter what he said.
“Somewhere that is not here.” Tzadok deadpanned, starting to make his way out of their makeshift camp. “Incidentally, did you come up with a color for the next entry in your sex book yet?”
She made a face at him. “It’s not a sex book, for the thousandth time.”
“Fine. Your ‘legitimate sex study’ book, then. Whatever.” He turned to look at her. “What about blue? Blue could be a good color for sex. It compliments green quite well.”
“I don’t have any blue ink.”
“How about purple? Purple also goes well with green.”
“I don’t have any purple ink.” She shook her head. “Sorry.”
“Well, what colors do you have?” He helped her over a boulder, making sure she didn’t fall. “That might help us decide.”
“I have a pencil.”
He stopped walking. “Only a pencil?” He asked, apparently believing that needed clarification for some reason. “Nothing else?”
She nodded. “Just the pencil.”
He made a sound of complete bafflement. “Then why are we discussing ink colors?” He held out his hands. “What the shit, Tandrea?”
“I meant in a perfect world what color ink should I use.” She explained, amazed that he was confused by something so obvious. “The Galland League of Diplomacy and Interpretation says that you should always conduct yourself as if you were in the best case scenario, even if you’ve suffered a setback.” She bobbed her head. “I can’t let a small thing like strained supply lines stand in the way of good organization. In a perfect world my thoughts about our sexual union would be recorded in a specific color ink, so as to make them easier to locate in the study. So, I need to plan for that, even if I currently lack the ability to follow-through on it.”
Tzadok stared at her silently for a long moment, opened his mouth like he
was going to say something, then closed it again. He blinked rapidly, still looking confused, then simply walked away.
“What?” She asked him, genuinely perplexed why that would be difficult for him to understand. “What did I say?”
Chapter Nineteen:
Burning in the Eyes of an Evil Woman
Violet wasn’t the type of person who cared about a lot of things. From her childhood on, she’d always placed all of her emotional eggs in one basket. Spreading them out just increased the likelihood that they’d be broken or taken without permission. And, quite frankly, Violet didn’t have a whole lot of proverbial eggs to begin with. Multiple baskets meant that there were more baskets to protect. More chances that other people could hurt you and ruin the last bits of you which weren’t… jaded and cynical and filled with hate. But if you only cared about a very limited number of things, then none of that was a concern. If you didn’t invest in other people, then other people had no chance of letting you down.
Violet cared about Violet. And… well… that was basically it.
Not to say that she considered herself a bad person, necessarily. She wasn’t evil or anything like that. She didn’t wish tragedies on innocent people, for example, but when they inevitably happened anyway, Violet didn’t spend a great deal of time giving a shit. But in all fairness, she also didn’t expect anyone else to give a shit about her either, so it evened out in her mind.
She’d actually been in favor of Galland’s Restructuring, back in the day. The loudest voice in the mob. At the time, she had nothing and no one. She was miserable and poor and hated the world around her. The idea of tearing things down and starting again appealed to her. She detested those in power because she knew from firsthand experience how bad they’d allowed things to get and the horrible things they did when the crowds weren’t watching. She hated those without power because she knew from firsthand experience that they were no better.
But those in power had fucked things up for decades. She saw no problem with letting those without power have their turn at running the kingdom aground. The great circle of fuckery was what turned the world, and it was time for a new group to pay to ride.
Violet had been first in line to burn the whole fucking thing down. Not in an attempt to make it better, just… just to watch it burn. Just to feel like she belonged to something, even if that something was utterly unconscionable.
As time went on though, she’d quickly become disenchanted with Galland’s new political order. Not that she’d ever really believed in it, because Violet didn’t really believe in anything, just that she no longer invested herself in her countrymen’s bid to murder themselves. They could do that fine on their own, obviously. And her further involvement would just lead to getting caught in the flames.
Violet believed that ultimately, life was like that. If you wanted to survive in the world, you needed to not believe in anything. Not trust anyone. And be willing to toss away anything you had at a moment’s notice.
Which was one of the many reasons why her current circumstances were so confusing.
“If you’re cold, I can put another log on the fire.” Kobb offered. “But, obviously, the log in question would have to be another piece of the wall.” He pointed to the back of the old hut, which had partially collapsed. “Sadly, we have used all of the other loose timber in the camp and we lack an axe to cut more.”
“I’m fine.” She assured him immediately, out of habit, despite the fact she was rather chilly. Violet didn’t tell anyone what she was thinking or feeling. It was a defense mechanism. If no one knew what you were about, no one could use it to hurt you.
The area they were traveling through was at a considerably lower elevation than the plateau, but the seasons were changing quickly. Violet wasn’t used to that anymore. She’d grown up in the mountains of Galland, but that was a long time ago. She’d gone out of her way to try to forget that time in her life.
Kobb made an unconvinced sound and picked up another log to toss into the small fire pit, recognizing that she was uncomfortable even if she claimed to be fine. As he did it though, the wood slipped from his grasp and sent up a shower of embers into the air as the log fell into the fire. He swore in his own language.
Violet was instantly on her feet. “Did you burn yourself?” She quickly asked in concern.
He shook his head, stamping out the embers before they could ignite the structure. “No.” He held up his hand. “I punched a man from Nodachi in a tavern fight once and broke my hand. Never healed straight.” He shook his head again, laughing humorlessly. “I don’t even remember what the brawl was about now. Some drunken nonsense that made sense when I was younger and my blood was up.” He looked down at his hand and flexed it several times. “Some days… some days I can barely close it.”
She wasn’t entirely sure what she should say to that. “Sorry” didn’t seem to fit. But she was fairly sure she should say something. Again, Violet wasn’t really skilled in the whole “giving a shit about people” thing. She was new at it. It was like learning a second language. Well, technically a third language, since she was still in the process of learning Wastelandi. The whole goddamned thing was confusing.
“You seem to do alright.” She finally responded, sitting back down at the table. It was the sturdiest part of the building, because Kobb had spent an hour repairing it. She wasn’t sure why, exactly, since they were leaving as soon as his asshole nephew got back. But Kobb seemed to be the kind of person who liked to be doing something. Even if it was only meditating or sleeping, Kobb was always focused on an activity. Like sitting still for too long would bring up memories he didn’t want to deal with.
He shook his head. “Nah.”
“That’s it?” She smiled slightly. “No longwinded sermons on Cock’s Will or anything like that?”
“Chox.” He corrected, stifling a smile.
She rolled her eyes. “Like it matters.”
He snorted in laughter. “I suppose it doesn’t, no. Most of the troubles in the world seem to be caused by men following the will of ‘Cocks,’ don’t they?”
“See? That’s the Kobb I’m used to.” She spread her hands out, as if welcoming him. “You managed to take an opportunity to get angry and you turned it into a chance to say something ‘wise.’”
“The world provides us too many chances to get angry. If we took all of them, there’d be little time for anything else.”
“And you did it again!” She slapped the tabletop, then pointed at him. “How do you do that!?!”
“It’s a gift.”
He was a very strange man. Violet couldn’t even pretend to understand his way of thinking. It was completely foreign to her own.
He sat down across from her, staring at the fire. The light shone off of the large bruise which still marred his handsome face from their exercise this morning. She winced. “Again, I am so sorry about that.” She repeated. “I did not mean to hurt you.”
“I know.” He assured her. “Don’t worry about it.”
She leaned back in her chair, continuing to watch him. She spent a good deal of time each day just trying to figure him out. It was her favorite activity. The only hobby she’d ever actually had.
“I don’t think you’re happy.” She finally blurted out, because again, she wasn’t used to dealing with people whose feelings she cared about. Her long-term goal was to one day develop some element of tact, but thus far, it was still just an impossible dream.
“I assure you, I’m not angry over the bruise in the slightest.” He reiterated. “I’ve had worse.”
“That’s not what I mean.” She pointed at him. “You try to hide it. But you’re miserable. I’ve lived with you for a couple of months now. I can see it.”
“I’m not miserable. I’m having a quiet conversation with a good friend, and…”
“I don’t mean now.” She interrupted. “I mean in general.” She waved a hand at him. “Personally, I think it’s your nephew.” She rolled her eyes
. “I don’t know how you put up with his behavior, he’s a nightmare.”
“He saved my life.”
“You saved my life too, but if you treated me like he treats you, I’d be gone sooo fast. He’s going to get you killed one of these days, you know that, right?” She made a face. “It’s nothing to do with you, he just likes fighting. All he wants to do is wander the earth, ‘slaying.’ His whole life is about bloodletting and lusty carnage. It’s ridiculous and juvenile. You need to slap him more.”
Kobb considered that as he watched the fire. “There was a time, when I was young… I did very bad things. The worst you can possibly imagine, and I say that knowing how many bad things you’ve undoubtedly seen in your life. Yes.” He nodded, answering a question she didn’t ask. “Whatever it is you’re thinking, I did that. Many times. In many places. For many years.”
She shrugged. “Knew that already.”
“I had a choice.” He continued, like he didn’t hear her. “But I did them anyway. I knew better. But I didn’t stop. And every day since, I’ve asked myself why. I’ve come up with countless different reasons over the years, of course. Rationales and excuses. All kinds of things. That I was scared or young or I didn’t know any better. It was the booze or the company I was keeping or because I hated myself. That the gods had cursed me… or cursed the world with me.” He leaned forward towards the fire, resting his elbows on his knees. “But the truth of the matter is that it doesn’t matter why. It only matters that it happened. I did those things. With my own hands. That was me. I bear the blame for all of it, no matter how hard I pretend. That’s who I am, because that’s who I was.” He cleared his throat. “And then one day, I came home to see my sister go under with Chox and to make arrangements for her son… and I looked into that boy’s eyes… and I realized that I barely knew him. But more importantly… he barely knew me. Which meant… I could be anyone I wanted. I didn’t have to be me anymore. I didn’t have to be the man who did those things. I could escape them. I could become someone we would both respect. I could be… someone who…” He trailed off. “Someone who could be someone.” He tapped his finger on the table to drive the point home. “That boy saved my life.”
Captive of a Fairytale Barbarian Page 38
