Post by Bobbie on Mar 13, 2023 16:36:21 GMT -5
While Hayden excelled in his studies, Danielle had no similar result. Unlike her brother, she lacked all motivation for study and had absolutely no interest in burying her nose in a book the way he did; instead, she’d much rather engage in something more hands-on and busy herself with more interactive skills that required physical training.
For this purpose, Danielle tried out many different sports, but not many of them held her attention long enough for her to see it through any competitions. Her next attempt was martial arts, which her mother tried several times to dissuade her from getting into.
“But sweetie, what if you get hurt?” or “Don’t you think that’s a little rough for you?” were only two of the many responses that she got from her mother when trying to pursue such interests in her young teenage years. Nevertheless, Victoria never actively prohibited Danielle from giving them a shot if she wanted to, yet the end-result would always be the same; Danielle would eventually grow bored of it and abandon that fancy before anything worthwhile could come of it. This pattern repeated itself until she discovered sword fighting.
Barbossa’s Battlements caught Danielle’s eye when she was walking home from an errand that her mother had sent her on, the woman’s form of punishment for her stubborn refusal to study. Only thirteen at the time, her curiosity got the better of her as she put her grocery bag down on the ground outside its entrance and couldn’t resist peering in through the open doors.
It was amazing and everything that the girl had ever dreamt of. Her eyes wide, she immediately envisioned herself being in there among the other students, wielding a sword of her own.
The door was always left open for that very purpose. Kieran Barbossa wanted to send the message that anyone was welcome to have a look inside, step in, and enrol if they wished to. There was a fee, of course, but he would often allow students to come to him free of charge for the first few lessons, and would frequently take in a couple of curious individuals without asking for payment before they were sure they were serious about the art of swordsmanship. While he spotted Danielle’s red eyes, he made no attempt to lure her in and decided to wait until she was ready to enter by herself. It would take a long time until this happened, but sure enough it did, after Danielle had turned 14 years of age.
The day a new member joined the dojo was always a big deal for the sensei, and he made sure to share that joy with all other members. While he always took care that it did not impede on the other students’ training, Barbossa was keen to have newcomers introduce themselves and then proceed to make them feel as welcome as he possibly could, urging his students to do the same.
Danielle’s new membership within the dojo was no different.
Introducing herself as Danny, she was open about her struggle with academics unlike her twin brother, and what drew her to this specific dojo. The dojo was a home to some of them and only a temporary shelter to others, a place where she hoped that she too could form a sense of belonging among like-minded individuals regardless of their age and gender.
Eyeing her new companions, Danielle offered a smile. These were people who strived to wield a sword just like she did, many of them already well on their way in that journey. Some were younger than her, others were older, and a couple were roughly the same age, but there was only one other female within the dojo, her brown hair tied up in a neat bun to keep it out of the way. She was slightly disappointed to find that there was only one other female, but that never stopped her from doing anything in the past. She soon found out her name was Sylvia, a woman in her early twenties with her hair tied neatly in a top bun and a disciplined expression on her face.
As time went by, the students formed a little community among themselves like a small family of sword enthusiasts. At home, Danielle’s mother and brother both saw a positive change in her character as she finally found something to dedicate her time and energy to. Of course, it wasn’t exactly what Victoria envisioned for her daughter, but what was most important was that her beloved girl was happy, and that she was. Every get-together that was organised by her colleagues, Danielle would attend, whether it was a barbecue, a casual chat over drinks and snacks, or a local tournament. Her excitement for the sport showed, even in her failures. This, however, was not enough to cure the blonde of her hot tempered nature. Her passion for sword fighting alone was almost overwhelming, when it was coupled with a short fuse and frustration, the student became a ticking time bomb that most of her peers had learnt to steer clear of during heated moments. Once Danielle fell into a downward spiral, it was only Barbossa who dared intervene and helped to get her back on track as the efforts of her fellow students were often met with hostility.
This never came from a bad place, however, and was always followed up with a genuine apology the next day.
While Danielle was making a name for herself in Barbossa’s Battlements, her twin brother, Hayden, was pursuing yet another new subject of studies – pharmacology.
Returning home from one of her many busy day-long training sessions, Danielle was feeling good about herself. She had reached a new milestone in practice and won in a duel against one of her the more veteran students against whom she’d always failed until this one instance and she wanted to share the moment.
“Guess who just floored T-Rex!” She exclaimed, standing in the doorway to Hayden’s room while her male lookalike lay on his bed going through an old textbook.
“T-Rex?” Turning his head toward her before his eyes did the same, he marked the page with his finger and sat up, closing the book with his finger caught in it.
“Yes, T-Rex. Come on, don’t you remember? The big guy, been sword-fighting since dinosaurs walked the earth, that’s why we call him T-Rex.” As she explained, she walked over to the bed and took the book from Hayden to see what he was studying this time. “Natural Pharmacology, a complete guide to medical herbs. Echin… Echinac- what is this?”
“Echinacea, it’s also called Coneflower if that word is too difficult for you.” His teasing elicited an eye roll from his sister. “A type of daisy, good for colds, apparently... so if you get sick, I've got your back!” The young scholar-in-the-making reached out for his book back, which was promptly returned. In this area, the twins couldn’t be any more different – it was as if they came from two completely different worlds, raised by different mothers, as they went down such contrasting paths. This, however, didn’t stop them from taking an interest in each other’s hobbies.
“So tell me how you won against the mighty T-Rex.”
What followed was, quite possibly, the nerdiest description of a sword fight that Hayden had ever heard, as Danielle got into all the swipes and techniques she used, accompanied by demonstrations for Hayden to understand the technical terms. Danielle was on a high, and this persisted throughout the entire evening until her head would eventually rest on a pillow and she would drift off to sleep with a satisfied smile.
The following day, her life would take a drastic turn as the excitement of her victory was not felt quite as much by the loser of the duel.
As Danielle entered the dojo, she could immediately sense an unusual level of tension in the air that all seemed to be centred around a large and well-built man who sat with something of an immature sulk. Meanwhile, Barbossa was busy talking to one of his newer students. Danielle tried to read the faces of her peers for any sort of clues as to what was going on, but they all averted their gazes – all but one. Sylvia waved and called her over to sit beside her as they waited for their sensei to address the rest of them and begin their training.
“What’s going on? Why’s everyone so gloomy?” Danielle asked Sylvia in a whisper, whom she didn’t really consider a friend, but a decent classmate.
Sylvia shrugged and changed the subject. “Are you doing anything after training today?”
Danielle raised an eyebrow – since when does she want to hang out with me?
“Is this about yesterday’s duel?” the blonde pushed on with the topic she wanted to discuss. “It was a friendly spar, why are people making such a big fuss about it? I only won because I got lucky, anyway, it’s not like it will happen again. Besides, nobody’s advertising the guy as a colossal failure, he has an amazing record of wins to losses.”
Sylvia looked at the blonde who was seated beside her and shook her head. “Danielle…”
That was when alarm bells started going off in her mind. Sylvia, who was looking at her so guiltily, just called her Danielle, not Danny. That was the first time she had been called by her full name and not the shortened nickname derived from it. Unsure of what to say, she simply turned her head to face forward, thoughts flooding her mind and fear that she was going to be judged spreading like wildfire through her subconscious. She wasn’t sure how Sylvia knew her as Danielle and not Danny… did Barbossa reveal my name to her?
“Who told you to call me that?”
“Nobody told me to call you that, but it is your name isn’t it?” There was clear judgement in the woman’s voice, Danielle was sure of it. “Why would you even try so hard to hide it anyway?”
Of course, Sylvia didn’t understand… she was pretty and had a very feminine figure. People flocked to her in the arena, idolising her for being skilled in combat and having a body shaped like a perfect hourglass. It was the perfect combination and nobody judged her for it. Instead they worshipped her.
“Who told you my name?” Danielle asked through her teeth, feeling anger rise within her as she was ready to pounce on Sylvia if she didn’t answer her question soon.
“It’s in the student list enrolled in next week’s competition, Danielle Sky. It’s up on the noticeboard, everybody saw it. Don’t worry, you’re still in the third bracket of contestants, you didn’t get cast to the bottom or anything.” Sylvia watched Danielle with a look of betrayal, not unlike the looks that she could see in the others in the dojo. With bitter sarcasm, she scoffed, “Congratulations.”
So what? She thought to herself, So they all know my name, and that I’m a woman. Why does it matter? It doesn’t change anything…
“Alright, are we ready to begin?” Barbossa stood at the front of all his pupils, addressing them all in the same polite manner he always did. “Today I’d like to start with a demonstration, a practical pop quiz of sorts, in preparation for the warm up to the competition.”
Danielle’s thoughts flooded her mind, the worry that irreparable damage had been caused by this little slip-up. Everybody was going to judge her, or hate her, or both! She’d be thrown aside, disqualified from the competition and possible kicked out of the dojo… Looking around her, the young fighter sought out any friendly faces, but they suddenly all seemed foreign to her. It was like she recognised no one, and she had no friends in this space.
“Danny? Are you coming?” Tilting his head, he watched his distracted disciple with concern. “I can choose somebody else to demonstrate if you’re not feeling well.”
It made her blood boil that the assumption was that she was unwell. Was it because, as a woman, she was more prone to sickness, dizzy spells, weakness?
“No! I’m fine. I can demonstrate.” Immediately, Danielle rose and moved to the front of the class, but as she stood there with everybody staring at her, she suddenly felt so small in comparison to everyone else in the room. It was never anything to be ashamed of, being a woman, but she had never wished that she wasn’t more.
“Erm… I’m sorry, sensei, demonstrate what?” she tried to ask as respectfully as she could, causing Barbossa to frown.
“If you’re inattentive when I explain, then I can’t have such poor focus during a swordfight. Please sit down.”
Watching the senior man shake his head in such disapproval, she felt his disappointment cut through her like a knife. “No, I’m paying attention! I’m sorry, I was… I was distracted, but my focus is all here now.”
Barbossa turned to her with a quizzical look of concern more than annoyance, but really wished for her to sit down and not work herself up into a state. Before he could answer, however, another trainee shouted out, “Give the GIRL a break! Look, she’s going to cry!”
The rest of the group burst into laughter, some out of the plain desire to fit in while others did so to spite Danielle, feeling deceived by her for two full years and ashamed to have not seen it sooner. They were a community, the fact that Danielle hid her gender from them was a crime against whatever brotherhood they claim to have formed within this dojo, one that now collectively rejected Danielle, which Barbossa certainly did not approve of. The ringleader was none other than T-Rex, instigating conflict among friends.
“That’s enough!” The dojo master announced, a feeble attempt to control the uproar that had really only just begun.
“Little princess hiding behind the captain!” another student shouted.
“She’s a girl! Pick one of us if you want a proper demonstration!” One more chimed in. Danielle stared at them, jaw clenched in anger at the misogynistic attitude suddenly directed at her in such an appalling manner. One that she, nor any woman, deserved. Why Sylvia didn’t meet the same fate puzzled Danielle, but looking in her direction led her to no answers, as the older woman merely looked away each time, until she stood and left the dojo altogether.
Barbossa was also quite shocked to hear his students talk like that and was speechless for a moment, before he began a reply. “Everyone is welcome here and equally capa-”
His attempts to tame the fires were thrown to the wind when Danielle spoke louder, addressing her peers with hurt rage in her eyes in contrast to their sensei’s calm approach. As always, she did what she always did at times of having a thorn stuck in her paw and she lashed out.
“I can take on any of you, easily. Man, woman, young or old!” The confident blonde spat at her peers, infuriated by their comments, betrayed by the people she considered her own up until this moment. Perhaps also blinded by her own pride, she added, “All of you actually, at the same time. Who wants a brawl?”
The sword master frowned and remained between Danielle and his other students. “No such thing will be happening! Class is dismissed for today. Everybody go home.”
It was a stupid challenge to put forward and everybody knew it, yet it didn’t stop some contestants from whispering to one another and rising to their feet from their positions. Welcoming the challenge, T-Rex was the first to step forward, craving redemption with a thirst for blood, then another followed after him, and a third. Horrified by the complete lack of comradery among his most loved students, the sensei found himself at a loss, staring at them with such a deep sense of failure in his heart. If he failed to unite these youngsters in their love for swordsmanship, what had he really accomplished? Being a skilled fighter was only scratching the surface of his goals at Barbossa’s Battlements, what he envisioned and his father before him was so much more than that. It was a community. It was a brotherhood based on love and teamwork, inclusive of all who simply dared to be human.
This was not that.
Faster than he could count individual heads, there must have been about fifteen of them standing, hands ready on the hilts of their swords that had been drawn so many times during training exercises together. Others who refused to get involved remained seated or followed Sylvia.
“We do not turn on our own!” Basbossa’s voice rang through the large room that was their dojo, but it was clearly not enough to reach his students’ hearts and lacked the necessary authority to do so. On the contrary, it seemed that defying the dojo master’s wishes only brought more excitement to this act.
There was a collective roar and the first sound of clashing metal came from his left. One fighter had circled around him while he was watching those on his right and lunged at Danielle. From that point, it was nothing but chaos, as the experienced swordfighter tried his best to subdue an estimated fifteen warriors of varying experience and skill, all the while paying attention to hurt none of them as if they were family. They were.
Her scimitar held tightly, her arms locked in a defensive stance that was made less effective by the woman’s rage, Danielle fought off one attacker, and then the next.
“Is that all you can do? I thought you come from a family line of samurai enthusiasts, if this is how you handle a sword, I’d hate to see how you treat your lover.” The blonde countered the verbal assault that was fired at her from the crowd amidst the hungry cheers for action, while juggling the physical attacks from her opponents fairly well.
“Tough talk, coming from a girl who hides behind sensei when the going gets tough!” A young opponent shouted out before running at her full speed.
Barbossa had kept himself between Danielle and as many students as he could, slowly guiding Danielle backward toward a corner to reduce the number of sides that they could attack from. His commands for them to stand down fell on deaf ears again and again as they were completely ignored, turning what was once a beautiful thing into a slaughter bred from betrayal.
Among those who chided the sensei for jumping to her defence was none other than stubborn Danielle herself, who was trying to wriggle out from his shadow and get around him, only to be forced back by yet another opponent that always replaced the last.
“I don’t need your help! Let them come and fall into their own well-deserved pits of shame and misery after they fail!” Her words were spoken with malice as she too had every intention of making her strikes count, losing sight of what she once saw in this group of people, Barbossa included. Each aggressive lunge that came at her was countered with an equally hostile swipe from Danielle, hurt and anger reflecting in her eyes as any illusion of family was shattered.
Outnumbered, it became impossible for Barbossa to prevent the willing participant behind him from engaging with those who got through, and steel collided once more. The students were attacking Danielle, some were accidentally striking each other, and their teacher found himself facing the same barrage that he had formerly demonstrated to his students as he tried to defuse the situation, unsuccessfully.
Within moments, even Barbossa was overrun by the overzealous fighters of all ages, some physically larger than himself and able to shove him aside as if he weighed nothing.
Danielle found herself with her back against the wall and had no more remarks to hurl at the traitors who were now swarming her. Her sword had to be held in a tight grip, both of her hands wrapped around the hilt to withstand the blows coming from all directions as she just barely managed to keep up enough to protect any vital areas of her body.
Seeing that his student was reaching her limits, Barbossa once again squeezed into the middle of the fray and forced himself between her and the others. Against her wishes, he took over to offer her a moment to rest.
“I said that’s enough!” With a loud voice and a powerful strike, desperate to be heard, he shoved as many as he could backward, before dashing to parry an oncoming attack directed at Danielle.
A loud shattering sound stood out from the expected clanking and scraping metal sounds. Suddenly, the entire dojo was stilled. Everyone’s eyes fell upon the broken sword of the student, as the cheering stopped and all attention was on the bladeless hilt, gripped so tightly by its owner. Each steel fragment from the shattered blade could be heard dropping onto the wooden floorboards while nobody dared to move.
Barbossa’s arms took the worst of the shrapnel that exploded from the weapon, as he blocked many of the projectiles while he fought to protect Danielle, but a few made it past him.
At last, everyone had quietened and the fight was over.
Taking a deep breath, their sensei turned to Danielle to reprimand his disciple for what she started here, taking the moment of silence to be heard, but the sight that he was immediately met with prevented him from uttering a single word.
Danielle’s sword dropped to the floor and her newly freed hand rose to her face, her fingertips touching the sharp edges of piece of the shattered sword that struck her in the eye, then they moved closer to her face to feel the skin around her right eye where it met the cold steel.
“Danielle…”
The world around her suddenly became a blur to the young woman. Everybody else in the dojo ceased to exist and Barbossa’s voice seemed to float in the air, somewhere… somewhere very far away. She stared down at her hand in confusion, its edges becoming distorted and unclear, held at a distance that she couldn’t quite calculate.
Raising it to the right side of her face again, it moved out of her vision, but she could feel it against her skin, and then it was back as her hand was lowered once more.
It was warm.
It was red.
Once the shock began to subside, the immense pressure in her right eye was felt, coupled with incredible pain that caused a subtle gasp to come from her and then she clenched her jaw, teeth pressed together. Tears formed in her left eye as her gaze finally left her bloody hand to meet Barbossa’s.
Her lip quivered and she fell back, her shoulders hitting the wall of the corner that she had been pushed into. Her jaw opened once more as she took a deep breath only to let out a blood-curdling scream that rang louder and sharper than any sound that all her peers and sensei had ever heard come from Danielle. At the top of her lungs, Danielle screamed as she slid down against the wall, a tremor in her cry as she yelled in pain and in shock, horror washing over her as in a heartbeat she learnt of her mistake. Her cry was heard until her chest hurt and she simply couldn’t scream anymore.
The room spun, and soon the vision in her left eye went as black as that in her right. Collapsing to the floor, she lost consciousness.
Following this, Danielle was shifting between a state of being awake and unconscious for the next 24 hours. She only came to for short intervals, in each of which she’d find herself in different locations and surrounded by different people.
The first time she awoke, all she could see was the sky. It was clear blue and the sun’s warm rays reached her face, feeling the heat trapped underneath her black clothing everywhere else on her body. Her feet weren’t on the ground, her arms being pulled downward by gravity while her head suffered the same fate and tilted back. Half of her face felt sticky and her skin was tight, like something had formed a thin membrane over it and tugged at it.
Membrane… she remembered Hayden teaching her that word when he was reading a surgeon’s guide. That was before he realised that he had a very weak stomach.
Looking around her, she soon realised that she was being carried by none other than Barbossa.
You… you told them my name!
The words in her mind and those that were spoken were vastly different, as the former was coherent in her mind, while the latter was nothing more than unintelligible groans and murmurs.
“I’m so sorry...” The man’s voice was undeniably filled with guilt and remorse, uttered the moment he realised that Danielle was conscious.
You should be! If you didn’t get involved, this wouldn’t have happened! I was handling it!
Her body didn’t have the strength to verbally produce actual words, and all she could do was whine in pain as she tried to struggle against his grasp, to no avail. As weak as she was, her body quickly gave in and she slipped into the darkness once more.
The next time she was awake for but a brief moment was in the hospital. She was no longer being carried, but was lying on a bed that was being pushed through corridors. There were so many unfamiliar faces all around her that threw her into a panic. Frantically, she tried to sit up, only to feel a massive weight on her chest that pushed her back down. Looking down at her own body, however, there was nothing physically restraining her, but her own bones refused to support her weight long enough to allow her to rise. It was crushing. Raising her right hand, it only made it a few centimetres before a doctor would gently hold her arm and utter some words to Danielle in a soothing tone. None of it made any sense to her and eyes rolled back once more as she slept.
When she opened her eyes again, Danielle found herself staring at a hospital ceiling with absolutely no sense of time. She wasn’t moving anymore and everything was so still. Choosing not to disrupt that calm stillness, she didn’t try to move. It wasn’t that she couldn’t, but rather had no incentive to do so yet. She wanted to sit there and stare blankly for a while longer, with no worries and no concerns. It didn’t matter where she was or how she got there, the flickering light seemed to have a hypnotising effect. With her next breath, she felt a sharp pain in her chest, her lungs now suffering the consequences of having all oxygen screamed out of them. Slowly, she started to become aware of her surroundings, but her vision was limited. She couldn’t see anything to her right, and each time she tried to roll her eyes in that direction, she was prompted to stop her attempts by a painful pressure in her right eye.
Finally mustering the strength to move her body, she forced herself to at least try to sit up, and her vision was instantly filled with the two loving faces of her mother and brother. They both looked worried and had recently been crying.
“Mum? Hayden… I don’t know what happened…” Danielle’s memory was hazy, a frown forming on her face which pulled at the tape that held the padding over her right socket where her eye had been.
Instantly uncomfortable, her fingers instinctively moved to the cotton to remove it, but Victoria intercepted her hand and held it, gently. “Honey… the doctor said that needs to stay on for a while, but somebody will be coming in to help you with it later."
“Help me… with what?” Having just woken up after such trauma, Danielle’s mind needed more time to catch up and recollect recent events. “It’s uncomfortable and it itches,” she explained, trying to pry her hand free of her mother’s grasp, but the woman squeezed tighter, trying very hard not to burst into tears at seeing her beloved daughter in such a state.
Watching this was heart-breaking for Danielle, as Hayden’s eyes also welled up with tears and she knew to stop resisting.
“I’ll tell you everything that the doctor told us, but you need to listen to mum and leave that alone for now.” Hayden forced a smile, trying to be strong for the two most important women in his life, before trying to add some humour to lighten the mood. “She needs to get some coffee or a relaxing cup of tea anyway, and while she’s not in the room, I’m in charge. Mum said so, you just didn’t hear her because you were sleeping.”
Taking the opportunity, the mother of the two nodded and let go of Danielle’s hand to leave the room.
Watching her leave, Danielle then turned to Hayden and cracked a little smile, “I’m the older twin, you’ll never be in charge.”
“By such a miniscule amount of time that we can round it down to zero, so it doesn’t count.” The rehearsed response was met with a roll of the sister’s eye. This was followed by a sharp inhale through her teeth as she felt a strange sensation in what was left of her right eye beneath the dressing. It was at that moment that images flashed through her mind of the accident at the dojo, if one could call it that, an ‘accident’. A sword had shattered and struck her in the eye after the entire class turned on her.
The next few hours all blended and it was impossible to count how many had passed.
Danielle’s attention was torn between all the fussing over her that was done by both her brother and her mother, her memories, all the lengthy explanations from doctors, and her anger toward Barbossa. It was a lot, and much of it was missed as the blonde fell into her own corner of sadness and rage.
This went on for days and that soon became weeks, as Danielle moped around the house, rejecting any doting that would come from anyone if it were a matter she could handle herself. Hating the scar on her face and her wounded eye, that had gained a rather unsightly appearance of muscle and tissue beneath a partly open lid, she insisted on wearing an eye patch to keep both her eye and its surrounding scars concealed. The itching along the edges of her tool of concealment was unbearable at first, but she soon grew accustomed to it and quite used to the new look, learning to take it off for the night and replacing it in the morning by habit. The anger toward Barbossa never subsided, however, as she was furious at him for interfering in matters that were not his business. He had no right revealing that she was a woman, and he shouldn’t have interfered in the battle – even if she didn’t stand a chance against their numbers, she could handle a rough beating, and that would have been all it was. An experience to make her stronger.
Yet the worst was not that… she could feel people’s pity when they looked at her, being viewed as the girl who tried to play a man’s sport and got hurt. There was only one way to resolve that… against her mother’s wishes, she decided she had to return to the dojo.
It had been three months since Danielle lost her eye within the four walls of Barbossa’s Battlements, and an additional two before the dojo actually reopened. It seemed that Barbossa himself couldn’t handle the guilt of what happened, and she only hated him more for it. Shutting the dojo down got in the way of her achieving closure…
One fine day, on her way back from grocery shopping, she walked past the dojo and found that its doors had been opened at last. Dropping the bag and its contents, she stepped inside.
A few things changed. For one thing, not a single metal sword could be seen in the hands of each student, as they each wielded a wooden sword with a narrow floral pattern along the side that marked Barbossa’s name – they were crafted and supplied by the master of the dojo. Secondly, most of the faces were different. Danielle could recognise a few of them, the ones who had left before the fight began. Other than them, there was a complete reshuffle of students, which she could only assume was the result of the incident. Lastly, the man himself had a firmer command over his disciples. This came at a cost, as she could instantly feel that there was a looser bond between the students and none of the light-hearted humour that existed prior, like that of a family. The students in his dojo were exactly that – students.
Students who sat in his dojo to listen to the man’s instructions, with nothing but respect for their sensei and the discipline to follow his orders.
As she walked in to join her fellow swordfighters, Kieran Barbossa’s speech came to a halt mid-sentence. Staring at his former student, one he thought he would never see again, he could see a look of pure determination on her face that masked a wider range of emotions that she felt re-entering the building.
The pair looked at each other and neither of them smiled. A part of her hoped that he resented her the way she did him – that would make him an easier target for her hate, but she knew the man well enough to assume the opposite. He was caring and tried his hardest to connect with the most lost souls, which she believed now was partly the cause of the outburst on that unforgettable day. It broke through the barrier that should separate a good sensei from his disciples; a leader from his warriors. This, Danielle could see, was already different, as the attention that was offered him by his new students was quite unmatched by the selfish interests that were among her cohort of students. It occurred to her that perhaps there was more room to grow than she had originally realised... still, it was not enough for her to forgive Barbossa for his part in what happened to her, whether that was his active participation in the fight, or his inability to control his students, as their sensei.
Ignoring the whispers of some of the students who had heard rumours about what caused the dojo to temporarily shut down, she moved to the back and found a seat.
With a nod, Barbossa continued, “Some of you will face struggles you’ve never imagined, others will breeze through and find your calling with ease. This leads me to my third rule. If you have no support to show to your comrades at their worst times, go find your people elsewhere.”
For this purpose, Danielle tried out many different sports, but not many of them held her attention long enough for her to see it through any competitions. Her next attempt was martial arts, which her mother tried several times to dissuade her from getting into.
“But sweetie, what if you get hurt?” or “Don’t you think that’s a little rough for you?” were only two of the many responses that she got from her mother when trying to pursue such interests in her young teenage years. Nevertheless, Victoria never actively prohibited Danielle from giving them a shot if she wanted to, yet the end-result would always be the same; Danielle would eventually grow bored of it and abandon that fancy before anything worthwhile could come of it. This pattern repeated itself until she discovered sword fighting.
Barbossa’s Battlements caught Danielle’s eye when she was walking home from an errand that her mother had sent her on, the woman’s form of punishment for her stubborn refusal to study. Only thirteen at the time, her curiosity got the better of her as she put her grocery bag down on the ground outside its entrance and couldn’t resist peering in through the open doors.
It was amazing and everything that the girl had ever dreamt of. Her eyes wide, she immediately envisioned herself being in there among the other students, wielding a sword of her own.
The door was always left open for that very purpose. Kieran Barbossa wanted to send the message that anyone was welcome to have a look inside, step in, and enrol if they wished to. There was a fee, of course, but he would often allow students to come to him free of charge for the first few lessons, and would frequently take in a couple of curious individuals without asking for payment before they were sure they were serious about the art of swordsmanship. While he spotted Danielle’s red eyes, he made no attempt to lure her in and decided to wait until she was ready to enter by herself. It would take a long time until this happened, but sure enough it did, after Danielle had turned 14 years of age.
- -
The day a new member joined the dojo was always a big deal for the sensei, and he made sure to share that joy with all other members. While he always took care that it did not impede on the other students’ training, Barbossa was keen to have newcomers introduce themselves and then proceed to make them feel as welcome as he possibly could, urging his students to do the same.
Danielle’s new membership within the dojo was no different.
Introducing herself as Danny, she was open about her struggle with academics unlike her twin brother, and what drew her to this specific dojo. The dojo was a home to some of them and only a temporary shelter to others, a place where she hoped that she too could form a sense of belonging among like-minded individuals regardless of their age and gender.
Eyeing her new companions, Danielle offered a smile. These were people who strived to wield a sword just like she did, many of them already well on their way in that journey. Some were younger than her, others were older, and a couple were roughly the same age, but there was only one other female within the dojo, her brown hair tied up in a neat bun to keep it out of the way. She was slightly disappointed to find that there was only one other female, but that never stopped her from doing anything in the past. She soon found out her name was Sylvia, a woman in her early twenties with her hair tied neatly in a top bun and a disciplined expression on her face.
As time went by, the students formed a little community among themselves like a small family of sword enthusiasts. At home, Danielle’s mother and brother both saw a positive change in her character as she finally found something to dedicate her time and energy to. Of course, it wasn’t exactly what Victoria envisioned for her daughter, but what was most important was that her beloved girl was happy, and that she was. Every get-together that was organised by her colleagues, Danielle would attend, whether it was a barbecue, a casual chat over drinks and snacks, or a local tournament. Her excitement for the sport showed, even in her failures. This, however, was not enough to cure the blonde of her hot tempered nature. Her passion for sword fighting alone was almost overwhelming, when it was coupled with a short fuse and frustration, the student became a ticking time bomb that most of her peers had learnt to steer clear of during heated moments. Once Danielle fell into a downward spiral, it was only Barbossa who dared intervene and helped to get her back on track as the efforts of her fellow students were often met with hostility.
This never came from a bad place, however, and was always followed up with a genuine apology the next day.
While Danielle was making a name for herself in Barbossa’s Battlements, her twin brother, Hayden, was pursuing yet another new subject of studies – pharmacology.
Returning home from one of her many busy day-long training sessions, Danielle was feeling good about herself. She had reached a new milestone in practice and won in a duel against one of her the more veteran students against whom she’d always failed until this one instance and she wanted to share the moment.
“Guess who just floored T-Rex!” She exclaimed, standing in the doorway to Hayden’s room while her male lookalike lay on his bed going through an old textbook.
“T-Rex?” Turning his head toward her before his eyes did the same, he marked the page with his finger and sat up, closing the book with his finger caught in it.
“Yes, T-Rex. Come on, don’t you remember? The big guy, been sword-fighting since dinosaurs walked the earth, that’s why we call him T-Rex.” As she explained, she walked over to the bed and took the book from Hayden to see what he was studying this time. “Natural Pharmacology, a complete guide to medical herbs. Echin… Echinac- what is this?”
“Echinacea, it’s also called Coneflower if that word is too difficult for you.” His teasing elicited an eye roll from his sister. “A type of daisy, good for colds, apparently... so if you get sick, I've got your back!” The young scholar-in-the-making reached out for his book back, which was promptly returned. In this area, the twins couldn’t be any more different – it was as if they came from two completely different worlds, raised by different mothers, as they went down such contrasting paths. This, however, didn’t stop them from taking an interest in each other’s hobbies.
“So tell me how you won against the mighty T-Rex.”
What followed was, quite possibly, the nerdiest description of a sword fight that Hayden had ever heard, as Danielle got into all the swipes and techniques she used, accompanied by demonstrations for Hayden to understand the technical terms. Danielle was on a high, and this persisted throughout the entire evening until her head would eventually rest on a pillow and she would drift off to sleep with a satisfied smile.
- -
The following day, her life would take a drastic turn as the excitement of her victory was not felt quite as much by the loser of the duel.
As Danielle entered the dojo, she could immediately sense an unusual level of tension in the air that all seemed to be centred around a large and well-built man who sat with something of an immature sulk. Meanwhile, Barbossa was busy talking to one of his newer students. Danielle tried to read the faces of her peers for any sort of clues as to what was going on, but they all averted their gazes – all but one. Sylvia waved and called her over to sit beside her as they waited for their sensei to address the rest of them and begin their training.
“What’s going on? Why’s everyone so gloomy?” Danielle asked Sylvia in a whisper, whom she didn’t really consider a friend, but a decent classmate.
Sylvia shrugged and changed the subject. “Are you doing anything after training today?”
Danielle raised an eyebrow – since when does she want to hang out with me?
“Is this about yesterday’s duel?” the blonde pushed on with the topic she wanted to discuss. “It was a friendly spar, why are people making such a big fuss about it? I only won because I got lucky, anyway, it’s not like it will happen again. Besides, nobody’s advertising the guy as a colossal failure, he has an amazing record of wins to losses.”
Sylvia looked at the blonde who was seated beside her and shook her head. “Danielle…”
That was when alarm bells started going off in her mind. Sylvia, who was looking at her so guiltily, just called her Danielle, not Danny. That was the first time she had been called by her full name and not the shortened nickname derived from it. Unsure of what to say, she simply turned her head to face forward, thoughts flooding her mind and fear that she was going to be judged spreading like wildfire through her subconscious. She wasn’t sure how Sylvia knew her as Danielle and not Danny… did Barbossa reveal my name to her?
“Who told you to call me that?”
“Nobody told me to call you that, but it is your name isn’t it?” There was clear judgement in the woman’s voice, Danielle was sure of it. “Why would you even try so hard to hide it anyway?”
Of course, Sylvia didn’t understand… she was pretty and had a very feminine figure. People flocked to her in the arena, idolising her for being skilled in combat and having a body shaped like a perfect hourglass. It was the perfect combination and nobody judged her for it. Instead they worshipped her.
“Who told you my name?” Danielle asked through her teeth, feeling anger rise within her as she was ready to pounce on Sylvia if she didn’t answer her question soon.
“It’s in the student list enrolled in next week’s competition, Danielle Sky. It’s up on the noticeboard, everybody saw it. Don’t worry, you’re still in the third bracket of contestants, you didn’t get cast to the bottom or anything.” Sylvia watched Danielle with a look of betrayal, not unlike the looks that she could see in the others in the dojo. With bitter sarcasm, she scoffed, “Congratulations.”
So what? She thought to herself, So they all know my name, and that I’m a woman. Why does it matter? It doesn’t change anything…
“Alright, are we ready to begin?” Barbossa stood at the front of all his pupils, addressing them all in the same polite manner he always did. “Today I’d like to start with a demonstration, a practical pop quiz of sorts, in preparation for the warm up to the competition.”
Danielle’s thoughts flooded her mind, the worry that irreparable damage had been caused by this little slip-up. Everybody was going to judge her, or hate her, or both! She’d be thrown aside, disqualified from the competition and possible kicked out of the dojo… Looking around her, the young fighter sought out any friendly faces, but they suddenly all seemed foreign to her. It was like she recognised no one, and she had no friends in this space.
“Danny? Are you coming?” Tilting his head, he watched his distracted disciple with concern. “I can choose somebody else to demonstrate if you’re not feeling well.”
It made her blood boil that the assumption was that she was unwell. Was it because, as a woman, she was more prone to sickness, dizzy spells, weakness?
“No! I’m fine. I can demonstrate.” Immediately, Danielle rose and moved to the front of the class, but as she stood there with everybody staring at her, she suddenly felt so small in comparison to everyone else in the room. It was never anything to be ashamed of, being a woman, but she had never wished that she wasn’t more.
“Erm… I’m sorry, sensei, demonstrate what?” she tried to ask as respectfully as she could, causing Barbossa to frown.
“If you’re inattentive when I explain, then I can’t have such poor focus during a swordfight. Please sit down.”
Watching the senior man shake his head in such disapproval, she felt his disappointment cut through her like a knife. “No, I’m paying attention! I’m sorry, I was… I was distracted, but my focus is all here now.”
Barbossa turned to her with a quizzical look of concern more than annoyance, but really wished for her to sit down and not work herself up into a state. Before he could answer, however, another trainee shouted out, “Give the GIRL a break! Look, she’s going to cry!”
The rest of the group burst into laughter, some out of the plain desire to fit in while others did so to spite Danielle, feeling deceived by her for two full years and ashamed to have not seen it sooner. They were a community, the fact that Danielle hid her gender from them was a crime against whatever brotherhood they claim to have formed within this dojo, one that now collectively rejected Danielle, which Barbossa certainly did not approve of. The ringleader was none other than T-Rex, instigating conflict among friends.
“That’s enough!” The dojo master announced, a feeble attempt to control the uproar that had really only just begun.
“Little princess hiding behind the captain!” another student shouted.
“She’s a girl! Pick one of us if you want a proper demonstration!” One more chimed in. Danielle stared at them, jaw clenched in anger at the misogynistic attitude suddenly directed at her in such an appalling manner. One that she, nor any woman, deserved. Why Sylvia didn’t meet the same fate puzzled Danielle, but looking in her direction led her to no answers, as the older woman merely looked away each time, until she stood and left the dojo altogether.
Barbossa was also quite shocked to hear his students talk like that and was speechless for a moment, before he began a reply. “Everyone is welcome here and equally capa-”
His attempts to tame the fires were thrown to the wind when Danielle spoke louder, addressing her peers with hurt rage in her eyes in contrast to their sensei’s calm approach. As always, she did what she always did at times of having a thorn stuck in her paw and she lashed out.
“I can take on any of you, easily. Man, woman, young or old!” The confident blonde spat at her peers, infuriated by their comments, betrayed by the people she considered her own up until this moment. Perhaps also blinded by her own pride, she added, “All of you actually, at the same time. Who wants a brawl?”
The sword master frowned and remained between Danielle and his other students. “No such thing will be happening! Class is dismissed for today. Everybody go home.”
It was a stupid challenge to put forward and everybody knew it, yet it didn’t stop some contestants from whispering to one another and rising to their feet from their positions. Welcoming the challenge, T-Rex was the first to step forward, craving redemption with a thirst for blood, then another followed after him, and a third. Horrified by the complete lack of comradery among his most loved students, the sensei found himself at a loss, staring at them with such a deep sense of failure in his heart. If he failed to unite these youngsters in their love for swordsmanship, what had he really accomplished? Being a skilled fighter was only scratching the surface of his goals at Barbossa’s Battlements, what he envisioned and his father before him was so much more than that. It was a community. It was a brotherhood based on love and teamwork, inclusive of all who simply dared to be human.
This was not that.
Faster than he could count individual heads, there must have been about fifteen of them standing, hands ready on the hilts of their swords that had been drawn so many times during training exercises together. Others who refused to get involved remained seated or followed Sylvia.
“We do not turn on our own!” Basbossa’s voice rang through the large room that was their dojo, but it was clearly not enough to reach his students’ hearts and lacked the necessary authority to do so. On the contrary, it seemed that defying the dojo master’s wishes only brought more excitement to this act.
There was a collective roar and the first sound of clashing metal came from his left. One fighter had circled around him while he was watching those on his right and lunged at Danielle. From that point, it was nothing but chaos, as the experienced swordfighter tried his best to subdue an estimated fifteen warriors of varying experience and skill, all the while paying attention to hurt none of them as if they were family. They were.
Her scimitar held tightly, her arms locked in a defensive stance that was made less effective by the woman’s rage, Danielle fought off one attacker, and then the next.
“Is that all you can do? I thought you come from a family line of samurai enthusiasts, if this is how you handle a sword, I’d hate to see how you treat your lover.” The blonde countered the verbal assault that was fired at her from the crowd amidst the hungry cheers for action, while juggling the physical attacks from her opponents fairly well.
“Tough talk, coming from a girl who hides behind sensei when the going gets tough!” A young opponent shouted out before running at her full speed.
Barbossa had kept himself between Danielle and as many students as he could, slowly guiding Danielle backward toward a corner to reduce the number of sides that they could attack from. His commands for them to stand down fell on deaf ears again and again as they were completely ignored, turning what was once a beautiful thing into a slaughter bred from betrayal.
Among those who chided the sensei for jumping to her defence was none other than stubborn Danielle herself, who was trying to wriggle out from his shadow and get around him, only to be forced back by yet another opponent that always replaced the last.
“I don’t need your help! Let them come and fall into their own well-deserved pits of shame and misery after they fail!” Her words were spoken with malice as she too had every intention of making her strikes count, losing sight of what she once saw in this group of people, Barbossa included. Each aggressive lunge that came at her was countered with an equally hostile swipe from Danielle, hurt and anger reflecting in her eyes as any illusion of family was shattered.
Outnumbered, it became impossible for Barbossa to prevent the willing participant behind him from engaging with those who got through, and steel collided once more. The students were attacking Danielle, some were accidentally striking each other, and their teacher found himself facing the same barrage that he had formerly demonstrated to his students as he tried to defuse the situation, unsuccessfully.
Within moments, even Barbossa was overrun by the overzealous fighters of all ages, some physically larger than himself and able to shove him aside as if he weighed nothing.
Danielle found herself with her back against the wall and had no more remarks to hurl at the traitors who were now swarming her. Her sword had to be held in a tight grip, both of her hands wrapped around the hilt to withstand the blows coming from all directions as she just barely managed to keep up enough to protect any vital areas of her body.
Seeing that his student was reaching her limits, Barbossa once again squeezed into the middle of the fray and forced himself between her and the others. Against her wishes, he took over to offer her a moment to rest.
“I said that’s enough!” With a loud voice and a powerful strike, desperate to be heard, he shoved as many as he could backward, before dashing to parry an oncoming attack directed at Danielle.
A loud shattering sound stood out from the expected clanking and scraping metal sounds. Suddenly, the entire dojo was stilled. Everyone’s eyes fell upon the broken sword of the student, as the cheering stopped and all attention was on the bladeless hilt, gripped so tightly by its owner. Each steel fragment from the shattered blade could be heard dropping onto the wooden floorboards while nobody dared to move.
Barbossa’s arms took the worst of the shrapnel that exploded from the weapon, as he blocked many of the projectiles while he fought to protect Danielle, but a few made it past him.
At last, everyone had quietened and the fight was over.
Taking a deep breath, their sensei turned to Danielle to reprimand his disciple for what she started here, taking the moment of silence to be heard, but the sight that he was immediately met with prevented him from uttering a single word.
Danielle’s sword dropped to the floor and her newly freed hand rose to her face, her fingertips touching the sharp edges of piece of the shattered sword that struck her in the eye, then they moved closer to her face to feel the skin around her right eye where it met the cold steel.
“Danielle…”
The world around her suddenly became a blur to the young woman. Everybody else in the dojo ceased to exist and Barbossa’s voice seemed to float in the air, somewhere… somewhere very far away. She stared down at her hand in confusion, its edges becoming distorted and unclear, held at a distance that she couldn’t quite calculate.
Raising it to the right side of her face again, it moved out of her vision, but she could feel it against her skin, and then it was back as her hand was lowered once more.
It was warm.
It was red.
Once the shock began to subside, the immense pressure in her right eye was felt, coupled with incredible pain that caused a subtle gasp to come from her and then she clenched her jaw, teeth pressed together. Tears formed in her left eye as her gaze finally left her bloody hand to meet Barbossa’s.
Her lip quivered and she fell back, her shoulders hitting the wall of the corner that she had been pushed into. Her jaw opened once more as she took a deep breath only to let out a blood-curdling scream that rang louder and sharper than any sound that all her peers and sensei had ever heard come from Danielle. At the top of her lungs, Danielle screamed as she slid down against the wall, a tremor in her cry as she yelled in pain and in shock, horror washing over her as in a heartbeat she learnt of her mistake. Her cry was heard until her chest hurt and she simply couldn’t scream anymore.
The room spun, and soon the vision in her left eye went as black as that in her right. Collapsing to the floor, she lost consciousness.
Following this, Danielle was shifting between a state of being awake and unconscious for the next 24 hours. She only came to for short intervals, in each of which she’d find herself in different locations and surrounded by different people.
The first time she awoke, all she could see was the sky. It was clear blue and the sun’s warm rays reached her face, feeling the heat trapped underneath her black clothing everywhere else on her body. Her feet weren’t on the ground, her arms being pulled downward by gravity while her head suffered the same fate and tilted back. Half of her face felt sticky and her skin was tight, like something had formed a thin membrane over it and tugged at it.
Membrane… she remembered Hayden teaching her that word when he was reading a surgeon’s guide. That was before he realised that he had a very weak stomach.
Looking around her, she soon realised that she was being carried by none other than Barbossa.
You… you told them my name!
The words in her mind and those that were spoken were vastly different, as the former was coherent in her mind, while the latter was nothing more than unintelligible groans and murmurs.
“I’m so sorry...” The man’s voice was undeniably filled with guilt and remorse, uttered the moment he realised that Danielle was conscious.
You should be! If you didn’t get involved, this wouldn’t have happened! I was handling it!
Her body didn’t have the strength to verbally produce actual words, and all she could do was whine in pain as she tried to struggle against his grasp, to no avail. As weak as she was, her body quickly gave in and she slipped into the darkness once more.
The next time she was awake for but a brief moment was in the hospital. She was no longer being carried, but was lying on a bed that was being pushed through corridors. There were so many unfamiliar faces all around her that threw her into a panic. Frantically, she tried to sit up, only to feel a massive weight on her chest that pushed her back down. Looking down at her own body, however, there was nothing physically restraining her, but her own bones refused to support her weight long enough to allow her to rise. It was crushing. Raising her right hand, it only made it a few centimetres before a doctor would gently hold her arm and utter some words to Danielle in a soothing tone. None of it made any sense to her and eyes rolled back once more as she slept.
When she opened her eyes again, Danielle found herself staring at a hospital ceiling with absolutely no sense of time. She wasn’t moving anymore and everything was so still. Choosing not to disrupt that calm stillness, she didn’t try to move. It wasn’t that she couldn’t, but rather had no incentive to do so yet. She wanted to sit there and stare blankly for a while longer, with no worries and no concerns. It didn’t matter where she was or how she got there, the flickering light seemed to have a hypnotising effect. With her next breath, she felt a sharp pain in her chest, her lungs now suffering the consequences of having all oxygen screamed out of them. Slowly, she started to become aware of her surroundings, but her vision was limited. She couldn’t see anything to her right, and each time she tried to roll her eyes in that direction, she was prompted to stop her attempts by a painful pressure in her right eye.
Finally mustering the strength to move her body, she forced herself to at least try to sit up, and her vision was instantly filled with the two loving faces of her mother and brother. They both looked worried and had recently been crying.
“Mum? Hayden… I don’t know what happened…” Danielle’s memory was hazy, a frown forming on her face which pulled at the tape that held the padding over her right socket where her eye had been.
Instantly uncomfortable, her fingers instinctively moved to the cotton to remove it, but Victoria intercepted her hand and held it, gently. “Honey… the doctor said that needs to stay on for a while, but somebody will be coming in to help you with it later."
“Help me… with what?” Having just woken up after such trauma, Danielle’s mind needed more time to catch up and recollect recent events. “It’s uncomfortable and it itches,” she explained, trying to pry her hand free of her mother’s grasp, but the woman squeezed tighter, trying very hard not to burst into tears at seeing her beloved daughter in such a state.
Watching this was heart-breaking for Danielle, as Hayden’s eyes also welled up with tears and she knew to stop resisting.
“I’ll tell you everything that the doctor told us, but you need to listen to mum and leave that alone for now.” Hayden forced a smile, trying to be strong for the two most important women in his life, before trying to add some humour to lighten the mood. “She needs to get some coffee or a relaxing cup of tea anyway, and while she’s not in the room, I’m in charge. Mum said so, you just didn’t hear her because you were sleeping.”
Taking the opportunity, the mother of the two nodded and let go of Danielle’s hand to leave the room.
Watching her leave, Danielle then turned to Hayden and cracked a little smile, “I’m the older twin, you’ll never be in charge.”
“By such a miniscule amount of time that we can round it down to zero, so it doesn’t count.” The rehearsed response was met with a roll of the sister’s eye. This was followed by a sharp inhale through her teeth as she felt a strange sensation in what was left of her right eye beneath the dressing. It was at that moment that images flashed through her mind of the accident at the dojo, if one could call it that, an ‘accident’. A sword had shattered and struck her in the eye after the entire class turned on her.
The next few hours all blended and it was impossible to count how many had passed.
Danielle’s attention was torn between all the fussing over her that was done by both her brother and her mother, her memories, all the lengthy explanations from doctors, and her anger toward Barbossa. It was a lot, and much of it was missed as the blonde fell into her own corner of sadness and rage.
This went on for days and that soon became weeks, as Danielle moped around the house, rejecting any doting that would come from anyone if it were a matter she could handle herself. Hating the scar on her face and her wounded eye, that had gained a rather unsightly appearance of muscle and tissue beneath a partly open lid, she insisted on wearing an eye patch to keep both her eye and its surrounding scars concealed. The itching along the edges of her tool of concealment was unbearable at first, but she soon grew accustomed to it and quite used to the new look, learning to take it off for the night and replacing it in the morning by habit. The anger toward Barbossa never subsided, however, as she was furious at him for interfering in matters that were not his business. He had no right revealing that she was a woman, and he shouldn’t have interfered in the battle – even if she didn’t stand a chance against their numbers, she could handle a rough beating, and that would have been all it was. An experience to make her stronger.
Yet the worst was not that… she could feel people’s pity when they looked at her, being viewed as the girl who tried to play a man’s sport and got hurt. There was only one way to resolve that… against her mother’s wishes, she decided she had to return to the dojo.
It had been three months since Danielle lost her eye within the four walls of Barbossa’s Battlements, and an additional two before the dojo actually reopened. It seemed that Barbossa himself couldn’t handle the guilt of what happened, and she only hated him more for it. Shutting the dojo down got in the way of her achieving closure…
One fine day, on her way back from grocery shopping, she walked past the dojo and found that its doors had been opened at last. Dropping the bag and its contents, she stepped inside.
A few things changed. For one thing, not a single metal sword could be seen in the hands of each student, as they each wielded a wooden sword with a narrow floral pattern along the side that marked Barbossa’s name – they were crafted and supplied by the master of the dojo. Secondly, most of the faces were different. Danielle could recognise a few of them, the ones who had left before the fight began. Other than them, there was a complete reshuffle of students, which she could only assume was the result of the incident. Lastly, the man himself had a firmer command over his disciples. This came at a cost, as she could instantly feel that there was a looser bond between the students and none of the light-hearted humour that existed prior, like that of a family. The students in his dojo were exactly that – students.
Students who sat in his dojo to listen to the man’s instructions, with nothing but respect for their sensei and the discipline to follow his orders.
As she walked in to join her fellow swordfighters, Kieran Barbossa’s speech came to a halt mid-sentence. Staring at his former student, one he thought he would never see again, he could see a look of pure determination on her face that masked a wider range of emotions that she felt re-entering the building.
The pair looked at each other and neither of them smiled. A part of her hoped that he resented her the way she did him – that would make him an easier target for her hate, but she knew the man well enough to assume the opposite. He was caring and tried his hardest to connect with the most lost souls, which she believed now was partly the cause of the outburst on that unforgettable day. It broke through the barrier that should separate a good sensei from his disciples; a leader from his warriors. This, Danielle could see, was already different, as the attention that was offered him by his new students was quite unmatched by the selfish interests that were among her cohort of students. It occurred to her that perhaps there was more room to grow than she had originally realised... still, it was not enough for her to forgive Barbossa for his part in what happened to her, whether that was his active participation in the fight, or his inability to control his students, as their sensei.
Ignoring the whispers of some of the students who had heard rumours about what caused the dojo to temporarily shut down, she moved to the back and found a seat.
With a nod, Barbossa continued, “Some of you will face struggles you’ve never imagined, others will breeze through and find your calling with ease. This leads me to my third rule. If you have no support to show to your comrades at their worst times, go find your people elsewhere.”
Danielle: #fffd17
Hayden: #c3f8fa
Victoria: #a38cd8
Barbossa: #4f8235
Sylvia: #8f7d6c
Dojo students: #bab9ba