Title: All for one, one for all
Summary: Faberrittana as The Three Musketeers. Drabble.
Word Count: 780
AN: So I made the mistake of watching The Three Musketeers and having writer's block and well, eh, here...
The steel of her blade slipped through the air, cutting down her invisible enemies with a skill and precision that comes only from years of training. Everything about her was perfectly balanced, from the tips of her toes to the flex in her wrist and in this state of mind she was more deadly than any swordsman in France. She gave another thrust, breathing no more heavily than when she began the exercise, flowing from one stance to the next like water, spurred on by the way her sword sang as an extension of her own being.
Ching!
She startled slightly when steel rang out against steel unexpectedly but she was quick to recover, just the way she had been trained. They moved back and forth, every motion matched and countered and she felt the stretch of her lips before she even realized she was smiling.
Attack, defend. Thrust, parry. Over and over again, searching, probing, waiting for that one mistake to be made. She spun on her heel, ducking around the support beams of the family farm, moving to higher ground, looking for that advantage. The blade of her opponent twitched at her ankles and she jumped, gabbing at a rope and securing it around her wrist, using it to swing out and drop behind the man. He spun, tip raised but was not nearly quick enough. With a metallic sound the edge of her blade skated against his until the point of it lodged in the ornate silver guard and with a flick of her wrist her opponent was unarmed, his weapon flashing uselessly in the low light of the predawn.
He backed away smartly as she continued to brandish steel at him and as the air-born sword made its descent she caught it on the turn and suddenly the man was staring down the flat edges of twin blades.
"My girl," he laughed, tears brightening his eyes and just as she lowered the points he was surging forward, wrapping her in an embrace that had her arms trapped to her sides. "My girl."
She waited until her feet were firmly on the ground and her blade safely in its sheath before she smiled back at him. "Father," she offered him the hilt of the sword she'd deprived him of, but he shook his head and moved passed to cup her cheeks gently.
"You are ready, my daughter," his thumbs swept along her high cheekbones and it was then she felt the first sting of tears at her eyes. "You, Rachel d'Artagnan de Batz de Castelmore, will be of the greatest Musketeers in the history of France."
!
It was her first day in Paris and the young woman doesn't think there was ever another person in the history of history to have such an event filled day. To be insulted and attacked, beaten before she could blink by the Comte de Rochefort, a dishonorable man with a strip of dark hair down the middle of his head and a scar running parallel along his tanned right cheek who would attack a turned back. Then in pursuit of the scoundrel she inadvertently offended and was drawn into three separate duels, set back-to-back-to-back.
And now she finds herself, there, in an a nearly abandoned side street of the great capitol surrounded by a small army dressed in the red of the Cardinal's personal guard, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder with the sword masters she was supposed to be dueling at that very hour. The lithe, grinning Brittany de Porthau, bearing a sword that flashed like a living thing and a booming laughter that rang out with every line of life's blood that she drew. The dark-eyed and tight-lipped Santana d'Aramis de Vannes whose step was always planned seven moves in advance and whose steel never wasted a movement, ever while aware of the cross that bounced against her chest with every life taken. And finally Quinn d'Athos de la Fère, who smiled only when she bared the steel she kept at her hip as it reflected in the steel of her spine and eyes.
"You know how it goes, ladies," Quinn spoke, her voice carrying despite its soft quality, "All for one…"
"One for all," the other two finished for her, the difference in their voices, Brittany's bright laugh and Santana's somber approval, highlighting the truth in the statement and Rachel felt a shiver race along her spine as she wrapped her fingers around the hilt of her own sword. She was about to fight along side the Three Musketeers, possibly the greatest Musketeers to wear the royal blue, and she had never felt more at peace.
All for one, one for all indeed.
So this is a one shot. Will it be continued? No, probably not because I'm terrible about updating and this would be an immense undertaking. That being said, I still would like to know what you think. Thanks and have a beautiful day.