The sound of metal clashing against metal echoed through the clearing, followed by angry screams and grunts. Swinging his sword like it was an extension of his own arm, Owain let it connect with the piece of armor he was fighting with one last time before he threw his blade down, panting from the thrill of the fight. "A worthy opponent once more, but this is a victory for neither party. Your defenses have accurately and completely shut down my offenses, bringing this duel to a stalemate," he monologued, kicking the armor. "Without learning to defeat you as a piece, how is this noble warrior to piece the heart—literally, of course—of the woman who wears you?"

"Oh gods, Owain, what are you doing out here talking to yourself?" Entering the clearing with a scowl on her face, Kjelle took a moment to see what Owain was doing, before her scowl deepened. "Is that really my armor you've been messing around with? What is wrong with you? I've been searching for that, on the off-chance that we had to march today! What if we had, and I had to go without armor because you had been out here scuffing it with that blade of yours?"

He shrugged, smiling at her as if she wasn't clearly mad with him. "Today is only a training day, and learning the skills to lay siege to one of my greatest adversaries is the top priority for this time." She rolled her eyes and muttered something that he didn't here, and he was too focused on grabbing his blade up off the ground and brandishing it once more. "She stands before me, defenseless as the mighty swordsman holds her protection beside him! Come, Kjelle, and duel with me!"

"Oh, yes, I'm going to duel with someone when I'm completely unprepared. That's a lovely idea, Owain. Best one you've had today." He didn't take her words as biting sarcasm, and before he could realize she wasn't being serious, he could feel his hand twitching, drawing him to lunge at her. As he inwardly battled with what he should do to quell his hand's desires, she raised her eyebrows at him in a bit of shock at his behavior. "What, are you really thinking of an attack on an unarmed ally?"

"The sword hand sees no difference between armed and unarmed, or ally and foe. It only notices challenges, of which you are the greatest!" At that, Owain gave into his hand's desire and charged straight at Kjelle with his blade pointed directly at her. Unhindered by armor, she was able to jump to the side to keep the blade from running through her chest, although her skillful dodging combined with the lack of weight normally carried on her shoulders sent her stumbling to the ground.

He ceased his charge and walked to her as she began picking herself up off the ground. "You idiot, I told you not to attack me, and look what you did. You tried attacking me. I can't wait to tell your uncle about how you put your hand's bloodlust above your ally's life."

"Y-you wouldn't tell him. I'd be told to stay in the kitchen or the barracks until the end of time!" Lowering his weapon, Owain quickly helped Kjelle back up to her feet, hoping that the gesture of kindness would get her to forget what she had just said.

"Probably should get used to kitchen duty then," she told him, once she had dusted herself off. "And you might want to learn a bit of good armor polishing technique as well, because after what you did to my piece, you'll need it." As she turned to leave the clearing, she wasn't able to watch his hand that gripped his blade start to twitch once more; before she could even know it was happening, he had raised his sword and ran at her once more, piercing through her back without realizing what he had done. Her eyes widened at the impact, the rush of pain catching her completely off-guard until she looked down to see the point of the sword sticking through her. "Owain, you're so going to pay for this one," she muttered, before falling to her knees as he let go of his sword in a panic. "Go get your mother so she can clean up this mess for you."

He swallowed down hard and nodded, watching for a second as she reached to see if her impalement injury was real before he was off and running, screaming for whatever help he could possibly enlist. The last thing she heard before she closed her eyes and slumped over onto the dirt and grass was one of his wails, and she really hoped he was going to come through for her.

Muffled laughter was the first thing Kjelle heard when she started waking up, her eyes slowly opening to try and see whoever it was that was making the noise. It definitely wasn't either of the faces she saw staring back at hers with looks of equal concern, because neither of the women hovering over her looked like laughter was anything they were interested in doing at the moment. "Looks like she's going to be fine, Sully, just like I said she would," one of the two, the one with the long blonde hair hanging down and framing her face, said with a relieved smile. "If Owain hadn't been so quick at finding me, who knows how this would have turned out."

"Let's not talk about that damn boy like he deserves praise or anything for doing what he needed to do after that display of being a dumbass." Sully, still with concern plastered all over her face, locked eyes with Kjelle. "Isn't that right? He had no reason to attack you, except his own idiot nature, yeah?"

Nodding the best she could while lying where she was, Kjelle cracked a small grin at her mom's question. "Oh yeah. I told him not to, because I wasn't prepared. At least he listened to me about getting his mom to clean up his mess." She carefully moved one of her arms the best she could, and motioned to where she had seen that sword going through her body, a spot that was still radiating intense pain through the rest of her body. "Thanks, miss Lissa."

"You're welcome, but please don't talk or move so much right now. I don't want you getting worked up and possibly hurting yourself more." Leaning back a bit, as well as pushing Kjelle's arm back down to a resting position, Lissa turned her head to listen for noises outside of the room where they were. "We should probably let everyone know you're awake and okay, I guess…"

Kjelle opened her mouth to say how she didn't want that to happen, but remembered that she had just been told to not talk so much, so she gave a small sigh, which inadvertently made her wound hurt a bit more. "Sounds good," she said through clenched teeth, resisting the urge to say any more than that.

"Eh, I don't think that's a good idea." Also leaning back to get to her feet, Sully shook her head over at Lissa. "Hell, I think it's a terrible one. Don't need that damn boy of yours getting close to her and deciding he wants to finish the job he started."

"He won't dare try hurting her again. He's already going to be in so much trouble for doing this in the first place that I doubt he'll ever think about ever attacking one of his friends again…ever!" Lissa shook her fist in the direction of the laughter that was still going on outside the room. "It doesn't sound like there's a lot of 'punishing' going on out there, though, and that's worrying me."

"It's been nonstop laughing from those guys since they got here. Wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if they all lost their damn minds and were telling jokes or something." Raising her eyebrows at a particularly loud guffaw from outside, Sully put her hand to her forehead and rolled her eyes. "Knew it was a bad idea the moment you called for your mate to get over here. He's one hell of a comedian, and I'm sure he's used that humor to completely ignore punishing your child."

"I doubt that's what's happened!" Getting to her feet and cupping her mouth with her hands, as well as completely disregarding what Sully had said moments before, Lissa called out, "Guys, get in here! Kjelle's awake and I think Owain needs to come apologize to her!"

The three men that shuffled in moments later were still chuckling to themselves, earning glares from the two women who were up on their feet (and Kjelle was glaring too, but the act of leaning up to see them was too painful). None of them said a word until they were fully in the room, the door closed behind them, and the laughter had mostly faded. Then, with a giant grin on his face, the white-haired dark mage everyone knew and at least somewhat respected decided he had some comment to make. "Oh, lovely, she didn't die after all! Good for her, bad for those of us who wanted to see a dead body! It's been far too long since I last got to spend time with a corpse!"

"Henry, this isn't the time or the place for that kind of comment!" Lissa continued holding her glare, but stole a quick glance over at Sully to see the redhead cracking her knuckles in preparation for giving someone a beatdown. "Why don't we just be happy that she's okay now, and not bummed that she isn't dead?"

"Well okay, if that's what you want me to do, I guess I can't argue with it!" He began laughing again, which quickly spread through the other men once more. "Oh man, this is so good though! Owain got a woman to fall for him by running his sword through her! That's normally how it happens, sure, but with a different sort of blade!"

Trying to sit up more, Kjelle muttered something about how she didn't actually fall for Owain because he had attacked her, but none of the guys were able to hear her say it. In fact, the only person who did hear her was her mother, who looked down at her for a second with a small headshake. "Don't try talking, really. We'll handle this and get the damn apology you deserve from that boy."

"Apology? I feel that she should be showering him with accolades for his crafty swordwork! He managed to bring her to her knees with a single motion! It took myself many failed flirting attempts plus the takedown of one terrible thug to land a woman in my life." At the first word, Kjelle had known that what was going to be said was going to sound horrible, but she hadn't expected her father to say such uncaring things. True, she should have expected it at least a little bit, but it still hurt to know that he saw her injury as a thing to celebrate on Owain's behalf, not something that needing punishing.

"You better take that back real quick before I choose to disfigure your face." Cracking her knuckles again, Sully took a step closer to the group of guys, more particularly the one she was married to. When he made no motions to say anything, she stepped forward again. "Do it, Virion, because I'm completely serious with this threat."

"Hey, no violence in a sick room!" Henry moved in between the feuding couple, raising his hands for emphasis. "Virion's completely right about Owain having the best way of how he got a woman though! I mean, I only managed to get Lissa because I'm great at magic and managed to get her to sleep on me. That's not as cool as getting someone down on their knees on the first date!"

"Henry, that's not appropriate for this conversation!" Now it was Lissa's turn to step closer to someone, and she did it was a look of anger and disappointment on her face. "Why are you making what Owain did to poor Kjelle out to be something positive?"

As those four continued with their bickering, Owain took the time to walk over to Kjelle's side and sit down on the floor next to her. "Look, I can't apologize for what my sword hand did to you, but I can assure you that I did not tell your father or my own that I did any of this for romantic purposes. They sort of assumed it."

"Sure they did," Kjelle replied, attempting once more to sit up but giving in to the pain that the motion caused. "And now I'm injured and they think were dating."

"Er, actually, they don't think that at all. It's kind of weird, really. They think I'm trying to date you but it went wrong." Owain scratched at the side of his head awkwardly. "Very, very wrong, in fact. But I can assure you that I have had a long discussion with my sword hand and that this will never happen again! An ally will never again be felled by my hand's cruel intentions, not after today!"

She gave him a small smile, but followed it with: "Hmph, wish you'd made that decision before today. Would have saved a lot of problems."

And if he really had decided on that, it would have solved a lot of future problems as well. But Owain claimed that his hand was an incorrigible beast, and so when Kjelle accidentally ended up in the same training field as him a few weeks later, a very similar situation unfolded and she ended up with a blade poking through her in the same place the first one had. The mothers once again weren't pleased with this, but the fathers couldn't help but make more jokes about how Owain was great at getting the woman he wanted to fall for him over and over.

A/N: Request fill for Wish I Was A Pirate! c: