Snakes and Ladders-17

Chapter 17

She’s yelling at me and I was getting up but I stop partway and move my feet through the muck until my feet dig into something that gives me a grip.

“Come Erendae! you think you can just show up and slight me!, My family! Women, Real women! And I wouldn’t take you to task!”

“I am a real Woman.” It just comes out of me and there’s something in me that honestly claims that. I actually think it’s the first time that I’ve ever said it out loud with absolute truth.

I shoot out at her in as close to a classic three point stance as I could get. They don’t have football here so she has no idea that it was coming. I hit her totally different than I would’ve before. I’m lighter but actually stronger than I’ve ever been before. I have these really long powerful legs too and proportionally strong shoulders.

I hit her hard enough we keep going eight feet after I hit her before we wetly smack into the much and I hear the wuffle of wind getting knocked out of her.

Bitch is tougher than I thought; I’d have thought that I’d have broken something. “Stay down Kid.” I emphasize the word Kid. She might be hundreds of years older than me but she acts like some spoiled rich kid.

She’s fighting to catch a breath and I don’t fight fair so I hit her while she’s down and I hit her again and again. I’m hitting different areas on her head. I’m strong like I said she’s going to get a beating and if I can knock her out so much the better but I’m trying not to hit her in the same place in case that’d do too much damage.

She’s a tough little so and so.

She takes two really good thumps to the face on purpose and she gets a breath and she goes all squirmy on me. She’s skinny and strong as shit and covered in mud. She uses that to her advantage by being as slippery as and eel and she gets out from under me and up enough to grab me by the hair and throw me/pull me backwards by my hair with the back of my head getting slammed by her knee.

I try to get free and get a half body turn before she hauls me into a knee in the face. That really hurt like hell but I grab her by both of her legs easy enough with her trying to knee me again and I lift her up into the air and swing her down.

They call that move a power-bomb back home in wrassling. The good thing about that while most of it’s all fake it really shows you how to mess someone up pretty damned good.

Okay enough of this crap between the tackle and this; her torso if nothing is broken has to be massively hurting right now.

She kicks me in the head; well sort of a stomp really the flat of her boot meets my face snapping my head back.

Another one this time to my right breast.

Another one and I grab her leg and slid one hand up fast to her knee to get a grip…she seems to sense what I’m going to do and sits up straight and punches me in the side of the head and I reel back but keep her foot and we both surge sitting up and she hit’s he again but I don’t grab her knee this time.

I thought this’d work considering on Shaya it’s one of her erogenous zones. I take the smash to the face and taste blood but this time I punch her in the ear.

Of fuck did she scream.

I’m ending this because as she’s trying to roll around in pain I put my hand on the inside of her knee and push suddenly and hard sideways breaking it and taking it right out of the socket.

Part of me hates having to do this. I hate that sound of her screaming but I’m not doing this every couple of days or whatever. I let her roll around a few minutes then sit up onto my knees and grab her good leg.

She screams in panic and tries to get away clawing at the mud and I get ready to do the other one. Then I yell at her. “This is it! We don’t do this anymore until we get back to the palace!”

“No! I can’t let you keep deceiving every one! I’ll expose you for the beast and liar you are!”

Oh I should’ve, I could’ve broke that other leg.

Instead I shift my grip and yank her all the way up to standing only I catch her and hold her with one fist twisted into her tunic and I’m holding he off the ground. I lean in and stare her in the face and say loud enough maybe to get through that thick skull of hers.

“I swear by my God and all of your Gods and Goddesses that every word I’ve ever spoken here has been nothing but the truth!”

She going to say something but I cut her off. “I swear it… So Mote It Be!” I put essence into those words each and every one of them and here from what the ones who had been teaching me how to use my majik at Steadfast Said when you swear by the gods and the cast a “So Mote It Be.” With real power if you’ve broken that oath or were speaking falsely then the gods would claim you and cast you into the darkness.

Kyte’s eyes went wide and the place went silent. There was nothing that happened…actually not nothing. It chose that moment to stop raining and the sunlight came out.

I stare her in the eyes and hold her gaze until she drops her eyes from mine and she has tears running down her face.

I’m quieter now and while I’m talking I lower her to her good leg and say. “We’re done here; Kyte there’s no more fighting between the three of us. I godswore and you know what that means.”

She nods but she’s quiet.

“It means when I said that Shaya is Shaya that means that it’s true. She was trapped in Illian, as Illian and tortured by that as sure as any evil majik and the same holds true for me. We are women, real women and we’ve always have been. What Kailynn and The Queen had done wasn’t transformation majik but it was soul deep healing majik.”

“But…but…They say…” she stutters and sniffles.

“They say a whole lot of shit don’t they and while you’re here they’re likely saying in about you too. It’s funny that you tried to do right by your family as much and as hard as you could and they treat you like they’re doing you a favor even talking to you and you’re the one doing all of the work.”

“How’d you know?”

“People tell me things Kyte. I wanted to know about you since you seemed to be so keen on hurting me or Shaya. I’m going to protect her no matter if she’s a dragon rider or not. She’s been hurt enough; you know she still hates herself more than any of you could? That she still cries herself to sleep sometimes?”

“No…just that the royals used their majiks to try for a legal scapegoat…”

“Well, you can’t fake a godsoath. Illian Andreyas Highwood hasn’t been around for a long time now and Shaya is Shaya…trying to make up for the hell she’s been through and trying not to drown in all the blood that was spilled.”

“I…I’ve been very wrong haven’t I?”

“You’ve been under the thumb of a family and a part of your culture that doesn’t want you to stand up for yourself or else they’ll look like the small and petty people they are. It’s only your fault to a point. It’s damn hard to break out of the way things just are where you’re raised. I know, there’s a lot of people who don’t want you to challenge the way things are. They don’t want to se anyone try and do it where they didn’t it’s a bad reminder.”

“You sound like you grew up a girl on Skywood?”

“Part of me would have loved that just to be a real girl instead of the life I was trapped in then. But close…I wasn’t what they call blue collar, a sort of slang from low to mid-low income families, the working poor. And home there were those in that same boat that wouldn’t want someone to get ahead because it reminded them of where they were at so they made damned sure nothing changed or tried but it was the money types that really didn’t want someone who had to claw their way to equal footing to them to do that. Because they’re way of life or seeing the world might have to change.”

“But what does that have to do with me?”

“Kyte you served down here right?”

“Yes.”

“In a Skywood fortress or on tour.”

“Steadfast mostly but I did long patrols too…Why?”

“That means that you are a knight of Skywood by granted title, they had to acknowledge you getting your shield here right?”

“Yes….”

“Then you’re first and foremost a Knight of the Realm. The entire Sylvan realm and not just to Skywood and your Family.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re supposed to protect people, innocents those in need and facing injustice. Too make the world a better place both in the field and at home right?”

“Yes!” she’s looking kind of excited, like I’m getting through to that part of her that stepped into training despite the attitudes.

“Then why are you listening to nobles who aren’t sworn to the crown itself? You’re a Sylvan knight girl, you out rank then at the royal courts and they know it. And the last thing they want you to do is know it.”

“What…but…they…”

The Sage Commander is opening the coral gate for us. “What it means as both the daughter of a noble and a Kingdom knight you by right of service to the crown could claim the full rulership of you house and your lands.”

“But Uncle and the others…”

I look at her and hug Shaya then lean on her so I don’t fall down. “It means that they likely told you it wasn’t any concern of yours and it was men talk or something.”

She nods. “I’ll…”

Shaya reaches out and grips her shoulder. “You’ll do nothing yet. They set you against us to see if we’d do something horrible. Instead stay, help us there’s been more than enough trouble here I think that we can all use a good fighter and another blade.”

Kyte looks at me. “I’m not so sure about being a good fighter, this is twice you’re beloved’s bested me princess.”

“It’s Shaya or Lady if you can’t use my name. I’m a dragon rider remember? I’ve no court rank. And Wren well she doesn’t fight fair.” She says that about me with a smile and I love that she’s smiling about me like that.

“There’s no such thing as a fair fight.” I say snuggling Shaya’s face. I might be plenty beat up but this turned out way better than I ever dreamed it would and it’s making me snuggley.

The Sage commander gives a nod to her men who are returning our things to us and taking Kyte with them.

“I’ll see you both in the morning, by that time I’ll have a good idea of our next steps to take. Lady Shaya get your girl to the healers then …well, I’ll just wish the both of you a good time.” She saunters off with a bit of this wink? And a bit of a cocky swagger to her that seems like she knew what she was doing by ordering me and her to bash things out.”

Shaya pulls my face to her lips and kisses me. “Come with me lover we have orders.”

“Yes Ma’am.”