A Woman In Trousers
(Was: Kit's Journey)
AN: Thank you so much for all the lovely reviews. You guys really make me smile. ^________^ It's really nice to get feedback, and to know that people are enjoying this. Thank you!
I'm really sorry I couldn't get this out quicker for you. I was hoping to give you a quick update, but I really got stuck 500 words in! I wrote the last 4000 words of this chapter before the first 1000. Leax was being charming though. Believe it or not, he was just a throw away character when I started. And he's becoming quite lovely. You do get a slightly longer update for the wait though.
Anyway. I'm afraid I can't promise another update for two weeks or so, because I really do need to start knuckling down to real work. Three essays and a presentation are no joke, even if I have finally finished filming. I'll have editing to do after easter as well, so I won't even be in the all clear then. But it really is the last stretch before summer now. So just a month more, and then I'm free until September!
Thank you again for your continued support.
Ela.
Added disclaimer: The song referenced in this chapter is "The Mermaid Song" by Sophe Lux. It's pretty, and wonderfully inappropriate. And not mine.
Chapter Eleven
Mermaids
Algar had lost his appetite. They were given fresh bread, cheese, and some dried meat, but even after the hardship of their travels he found it difficult to swallow. Leax, Kit and on the other side of the table, the two boys (whose names Algar still hadn't managed to find) were eating with relish. None of them seemed to notice his discomfort, although he did spot Kit watching him at one point.
He didn't understand how the others could be so calm. Well, Kit probably didn't have a clue what was going on, but the other two…
Then again, they were younger, Algar realised. If things had hadn't worked out the way they had, they probably would have never joined the army, and they certainly wouldn't have so young. Even Leax had Algar as a fall back: he was unlikely to do better than his brother, and no one expected him to.
Algar, on the other hand, had his father's ghost leaning over him. His father had been well liked and well known, and while they hadn't been spotted as his sons (as they were unlikely to be here, since his Éored had been stationed in the Eastfold), rumour of them would eventually get through to those who had fought alongside them. Algar had to stand out. He had to make his father proud.
If he had had his way he would have dragged the meal on for as long as possible. But, of course, it ended, and there was no way that he could sit out for any longer. Leax seemed to have ants in his pants since captain Acwel, the captain who had been looking after then since they got there that morning, had left the table. Why Leax was bothering to wait for Algar, he wasn't sure, but he did know that he wouldn't put up with him for much longer.
With a sigh, Algar rose. Leax grinned and jumped to his feet, and after a moment Kit and the two boys followed suite. At least they didn't look as stupidly enthusiastic about the upcoming test as Algar's brother was.
They came out into the yard, and when the captain saw them, he smiled and came over. "You clean up quite well." He commented playfully. "You almost look human."
The comment almost threw Algar off. He didn't know how to respond appropriately, and in the end just treated it as he would do with his brother. He rolled his eyes and smiled pointedly at Acwel. "Almost is better than not at all."
This seemed to be the right thing to do, since the man threw back his head and laughed an infectious, roaring laugh. Algar certainly hadn't thought that it was that amusing. "You have some quite some spirit, lad." Acwel said, and then, suddenly, had drawn his hand and was approaching Algar for a strike.
Algar wasn't completely green though, and reacted fast enough to jump back. This gave him time to draw his own sword, although he was no where near as fast as the older man. Acwel grinned, and began hammering down blows. They came thick and fast, and Algar was struggling to keep up with them. The few he managed to block with his sword powered through the metal, shaking his arms to the bone. Every time that Algar thought he was beginning to get a measure of Acwel's strength, the man doubled his efforts once more and the dance continued.
Algar couldn't help but notice that the man hadn't stopped grinning yet, though, and that he was yet to be disarmed or be hit. He was managing, if just.
The deadly dance continued for a good ten minutes. The smile had long since faded from Acwel's face as they both struggled. Their movements began to slow, and they started to circle as tactics took over from pure strength. While Algar hadn't been putting as much power into his blows, the continued effort of blocking and dodging had taken almost as much out of him as the powerful sword thrusts Acwel had been using had him. It was now a matter of who would make a mistake first.
It was Algar's inexperience that ended the fight. Unpractised, he didn't know whether to keep his eyes on Acwel's sword or his face, and the captain took advantage of this. Darting forward when Algar's attention was drawn, he was able to flick the boy's sword out of his hands with a complicated twist of his own sword that he managed to make look easy. The sword skidded away onto the dirt by their feet, and before Algar could work out what to do next, the tip of Acwel's blade was at his throat.
The boy and the captain held each other's gaze for a long, drawn out moment, before Acwel once again grinned, and relaxed his hold. Gracefully bending to pick up Algar's sword, he offered it to him handle first. "A good fight. You'll be a great swordsman one day."
Algar grinned, relief pouring off him. He was good! He would be great! All those years of practise had paid off then.
Acwel pulled off his shirt and wiped the sweat off his brow with it, before stepping back again, and beckoning to Leax. "Come on then. You're next."
Leax stood forward with his usual brash confidence and drew his sword. Almost immediately, Acwel broke past his defences with a blow to his side. Leax only just managed to dodge it. He was obviously started that the older man still had such resources after the fight he'd just endured with Algar. He was no match for his brother as a swordsman though, and it was soon clear that even fresh he was struggling a bit. Acwel managed to clearly beat him, ducking under a wide slash and thrusting forward, stopping only when the tip of his sword was resting on Leax's chest.
Leax looked a little put off by this as he stepped back, but Acwel's smile was disarming. "You're not bad. You'll get better. Keep at it, and you'll be able to beat your bother – and maybe me one day. Keep an eye on your strikes: try and be conservative with your energy." He offered.
Leax managed a half smile at this, and nodded. "Thanks."
"Next then. You?" He looked at Kit, who looked a little surprised, and looked at Leax for comformation. Algar, who was closer, gave him a little push on his back, encouraging him to step forward to face Acwel. He was interested to see how the boy would do.
Kit looked nervous as he took a step forward, taking a defensive stance. Clearly taking pity on him, Acwel didn't strike suddenly as he had done with the two native boys, but allowed him to draw his sword. Leaning forward, he adjusted the boy's grip slightly, pushing his hand lower down on the hilt, and then stepped backwards again.
Kit's body was running completely on instincts, and it was fairly clear to see from his stance and hold that he was completely untrained. Almost cautiously, he aimed a stab at Acwel, which the captain easily turned away with his sword. Kit's second blow was aimed, to the onlookers' surprise, at Acwel's sword.
Acwel allowed Kit to carry on for a little longer. He was obviously struggling not to aim for the captain's sword, and while Acwel was pleased that he knew that it was no use to do so, he was fairly surprised that he had been taught to aim for the sword in the first place. What use would that do?
Eventually Acwel had had enough, and sheathed his sword. Half ignoring Kit, he looked at Algar. "You said that he fought the orcs?"
Algar nodded, thinking. "He was barely scratched. He… saved me."
"He's clearly untrained though. I mean – not like me. It's not that he hasn't practised, he hadn't tried before." Leax added thoughtfully.
Acwel nodded, and looked at Kit again. "How did you fight the orcs?" He asked, slowly, not sure how much he could understand.
Kit thought the question over, and frowned slightly. After a moment, he took Leax by the shoulders and stood him in front of him. "Orc." He said, clearly indicating Leax, and then indicated himself. "Kit no fight…" He waved his sword vaguely at Leax, pointing very clearly with it directly at him. Then, with his free hand, he turned Leax around, and mimed stabbing him in the back.
Acwel laughed again like this, and looked at Kit with something akin to respect. At least the boy wasn't stupid. He had some sense, and that could be worked on. It had to be said that he almost must have been given an unusual amount of luck to survive an orc attack, but he wasn't hopeless and that was a start. "But what if they came to you from the front?" He asked, curiously.
The question was too complicated for Kit to understand, and Acwel watched interestedly as Leax explained to him through a mixture of the simple words that Kit had learnt and mime. Eventually, Kit nodded his head, and looked back at the captain. With his fingers and his palm, he indicated running – he had run away from him.
Acwel laughed again. Yes: he was a smart lad, and no mistake.
~*~
Kit sung softly under her breath as she pulled her arrows out of the target. Once again, she had the practise area to herself – whether that was because she was being avoided or because the other archers had better things to be doing than shooting all day, she didn't know or particularly care. Actually, she quite liked having the space to herself since it was the closest she'd gotten to privacy since she got to this godforsaken place. It also meant that she didn't have to put with the pointed looks whenever another arrow went wide. Not that she was doing quite so badly any more, but the lack of caffeine was still clearly visible in her morning scores, and the muscle ache became more and more obvious as evening approached. And she was still no where good as most of them, but, she would repeatedly tell herself, ten years (plus) of constant practice was a tough precedent to beat.
Slipping the arrows into her quiver with practised ease, she spun on her heel…
To where Leax was waiting, a huge grin on his face.
Kit swore loudly, putting one hand to her chest. "Jesus H. Christ. Bloody hell, Leax, no one should be able to move that quietly." He must have been quiet: without her headphones to keep her amused, Kit had found that it was actually quite easy to pick up on some quite subtle sounds that she would have sworn didn't exist a month ago. "What on earth do you want?"
Leax was still grinning, but Kit suspected he hadn't understood much except for the swearwords. She really shouldn't have taught him them. "What's a "mermaids"?" He asked her, the grin changing to a smirk.
"Oh, you were not meant to hear that." Kit groaned loudly, and resisted the urge to hide her face in her hands. She could feel the blush rising to her cheeks, burning it's way up her neck and along her face. The full line? "And he fucked all the mermaids," – and Kit knew Leax knew what fuck meant, and could probably guess at the rest.
Quite aside from which, how on earth was she meant to explain mermaids?
She shook her head. "Hard." She said, a word she'd learnt to use when she couldn't verbalise something. "No boys…" She tapped her ear, trying to get it across that it wasn't something that she should explain.
Leax pouted, but playfully. "Ah, but I'm not a boy. I'm a man!"
It took a moment to digest this, but when she understood (or hoped she did), she laughed, and clapped Leax on the back. "Leax say to Leax all days." Kit teased him, as she gently pushed him forward, back towards the line. There still wasn't anyone in the practise area, but it was good practise to stay behind the line for as little time as possible.
Her teasing was slightly too mangled for him to understand, but he was smiling again. "So, what is a "mermaids?"
"Mermaid, one. Mermaids, many." Kit said, absent-mindedly, as she tried to think of how to explain it.
"One mermaid?" Leax tried, after recalling the number.
Kit grinned. "Yes." It was always funny to hear the boys trying to speak English: their accents slaughtered it so entirely. Of course, she was quite sure that she did the same to their language, but she didn't get to appreciate that. "Ahhh… Okay. What is water…?" She didn't know animal, and so held her hands together in front of her face and made swerving motions to indicate fish.
Leax laughed at her miming, but had to think for a moment. "Fish?" He tried.
Chewing on her lip, Kit hesitated. "Um, lives," she indicated under with her hands, "water. Good eat."
"Fish." Leax said, sounding slightly more certain. "Mermaid is fish?"
Kit shook her head. "Mermaid no live." She struggled, and then tentatively tried making book motions, but then remembered the looks she'd got when she'd asked about writing. "Fathers say to child. Um…" She was faltering, and looked at Leax for help.
He looked almost as mystified as her. "Oh, bugger. Umm… Like Elves, or Dwarves, Phoenixes?" Of course, it was too much to hope that any of their other legends shared names, since mermaids didn't, but it was worth a try. Giving up, she started again. "Mermaid is…" She indicated her waist, cutting a line with the side of her hand, and then showing below that line. "Fish. And…" She indicated her chest and head with the flat of her hand. "Girl."
One eyebrow rose, and Leax smirked. "And he fucked mermaids?" He repeated.
Kit felt the insatiable urge to hit her head against something. Gods, this was embarrassing. "What is…" She sang a few lines of the song. "Words, not doing."
"Song."
"Song not…" The word for real stumped her again, and she chewed on her lip, trying to think of a way that might make some sense. Then she smirked. Might as well pass the embarrassment on. "Man," she indicated little with her thumb and index finger, "song say," she indicated huge by stretching out both arms.
Leax laughed out loud, but nodded. She might have failed in passing on the embarrassment, but at least he was laughing with her rather than at her. "Teach me." He asked. Kit didn't understand, so he sung the line, and then waved a hand to try and get her to continue.
"No way! It's not appropriate!" As usual, as soon as Kit stopped thinking, she fell back to English. Leax seemed to have understood her from her tone though, and he pouted, his eyes going wide.
"Teach me." He asked again.
Kit laughed this time, and shook her head. "No."
"Please? Please?"
She didn't remember teaching him that, and looked up at him surprised, but still held out. "Not that song. Ah – Not mermaid song."
"Another?"
"Maybe…" She tipped a hand one way and then the other to show maybe. "What Leax want?" She asked trying to change the subject. "Why…" She indicated the archery field. "Shoot?" Another smirk lifted her lips: Leax had shown no interest or skill in archery so far, and she somehow doubted it.
The distraction worked, or at least, Leax let it. He put one hand on the hilt of his sword. "Come and spar with me."
Kit didn't understand enough of that to get the gist of it, but once he explained spar, she looked at him with wide eyes. "I think not. Leax ten years sword, Kit one month."
"All the more reason to practise." Leax laughed. "You can't shoot all day."
Again, Kit didn't understand most of what he said, but she did understand shoot all day, so she responded to that part of what he said. "Why not? Shoot good, sword bad." She rubbed her arms to show muscle ache.
"Arrows are limited though."
"No arrows, Kit," she showed running away on the palm of her hand. After her display when they'd asked her to show her sword skills, she didn't think it would surprise him too much.
He laughed again, tipping his head back. Good. Kit was a coward, but that didn't mean that she wanted to be treated like one. She had a very good reason for it – self-preservation. She wanted to get home so she could kill her friends for this little trip. She was still utterly refusing to believe that anything else could have got her here, even as it got more and more unlikely.
Leax had obviously decided that she had no choice in the matter, because in a surprisingly fast movement, he snatched her arrows away. Before she could react, he was headed off towards the barrel, and by the time she reached him, they'd already been neatly slotted away. "Come on." He laughed.
"No." Kit reached out to take her arrows back, but Leax caught her wrist, and began to drag her off. She resisted a little, but didn't bother to hold back too hard. She'd already realised that he was stronger than her, and besides, she wasn't that against the idea of sparring with him that she'd want to get on his nerves over it.
He led her back through to the yard, finding and approaching a space in amongst the warriors who already utilised the space. Kit felt embarrassment start to rear its head again: she was going to end up making a fool of herself, she knew it.
Leax stopped, suddenly, and before Kit could react (or run away), he'd snatched her sword out of its sheath and shoved it into her hands. Once again, she found herself running on instincts, and as she stood back into the same defensive stance she'd used before, Leax drew his own sword.
She only had a moment to prepare herself for his blow. She hadn't expected him to strike that quickly, and although she stepped back, he still caught her arm with the flat of his blade. Even though she could tell immediately that he'd held back, it stung, and she dropped her sword in surprise.
The sigh of disappointment was enough to force her to stoop to pick up her sword again and take back her stance. She might be a failure, but she would at least put some effort in and keep Leax happy rather than just give in.
That was a rather new sentiment, and she wasn't quite sure if she liked it or not. Effort had always been her nemesis. But, hey, so had been exercise, and she'd done more of that in the last two weeks than she had in the rest of her life all together.
Leax smiled when he saw her straighten up again, and with his hands managed to encourage her to take the first blow this time. Kit managed to over ride her instinct to hit his sword for one blow, which Leax ducked with ease, but her second strike was aimed for his sword, and Leax responded with a flick of his wrist that sent her sword flying again.
Kit sighed, and moved to scoop it up from the floor. Leax had sheathed his sword though, and he came over and corrected her hold on her sword again. Kit gave a shallow laugh, but attempted to relearn the hold, overlaying twenty years of expectation. The stage fighting she'd done before had mostly been two handed, Kit realised, which probably went some way to ruining her hold on this one handed sword.
Standing behind her, Leax put one hand on her wrist and the other on her shoulder. By nudging her foot with his and directing her hand, he showed her a simple stabbing motion, repeating it with her until she was moving by herself with confidence. Standing aside, he taught her "again", and then commanded her to repeat the motion until he was happy with it.
Over the course of the afternoon, he taught her two more basic moves, a slashing motion and towards the end of the day, the same wrist flick that he'd used to disarm her, but that she couldn't really get the hang of. Occasionally he would break into Kit's practice and make her attempt to spar with him again, but she never managed to keep her sword for more than three or four blows.
Algar wandered over to have a look at one point, but unlike Leax, he gave a snort of disapproval to see her attempts, throwing Kit off completely. Leax glared at his brother, and said sharp that Kit didn't catch, but guessed from the tone was a telling off. She grinned, grateful that Leax was standing up again, and realising that her hand had slipped once more, pushed her hand back down, and tapped Leax's shoulder to bring his attention back to her. "Ignore him." She said, softly. "Let's try again. Again!"
He grinned at her and held up his sword. Algar shook his head, but was smiling now, and moved away to let them get on with it.
They carried on until Kit could barely hold her sword, let alone move it. Leax tried a few times to get her to continue, but eventually realised that there was no point in continuing. He petted Kit's shoulder and said something that the girl hoped was some sort of compliment for trying so hard. For all she knew though it could have been anything. It was hard enough to think in coherent English, she was so tired, let alone translate his Rohirric.
Realising this, he shook his head, but led her inside. Kit almost stabbed herself the first time to sheath her sword, but managed to just miss, scratching her side. The second time, she managed to sheath it safely. Leax took her into the barracks and sat her down by the fire. Slumping forward and letting the heat from the fire warm her aching limbs, she sat there, staring mindlessly into the fire until Leax returned. He tapped her on the shoulder, breaking her from her reverie. When she looked back over her shoulder at him, he grinned, and held up a bowl of food – probably a stew like they'd been given yesterday.
Closing her eyes, Kit struggled even to remember thank you, but eventually managed to mutter it, taking the food off Leax. They ate in reflective silence, and Kit began to feel better, although her whole body was radiating a soft ache from the hard work she'd put in that day.
By the time they'd finished, others were arriving and joining them. Most ate on the tables that were set out on the other side of the hall, but a few preferred to sit in the relative quiet and the warmth of the fire side.
Kit was dozing, her head against the wall and her arms tucked around her legs when Leax poked her in the side. She glared at him, annoyed that he had woken her up, but he just grinned. In the dim light, she could just see that they had been joined by Algar, who was using something to sharpen his sword on Leax's other side. "Teach me the mermaid song." Leax asked.
Kit shook her head and sat up, stretching. "Not this again." She muttered, hanging her head. "No, Leax. No mermaid song."
"Aw, please?" He grinned at her.
"Leax. Don't." Kit yawned, exaggerating it to make a better excuse for herself. "I'm tired, see? I need sleep." He could probably tell anyway. Her Rohirric always got worse when she was tired.
"You said you would." Leax said.
Kit didn't understand him the first, or second time. Eventually she realised and sighed. "No, I didn't. And anyway, I'm not meant to be talking in English while other people are around." Maybe it was just as well Leax wouldn't understand that, she realised after she'd said it. "No, Kit say." She said, to clarify. "No many English while many men."
Algar nodded at this, and said something to his brother. Kit could see that he was looking put out. But she had a plan to get him back for the punishing sword practise he'd given her today. "Leax archery with Kit day… ehh… tomorrow?" Leax nodded, showing that she'd got the right word, and watched her interested for the rest of the sentence. "Tomorrow, archery and song. English song. No Mermaid song… song though! Something different. Good song. What song Leax like?"
Leax considered this. "In the morning we'll do archery and in the afternoon, sparring?" Kit looked confused, and he added, "swords" to make it clearer for her.
"No many archers morning, archery. Many archers, swords." Kit offered.
He grinned, and nodded. "Teach me an English drinking song!" He mimed drinking from a mug.
Rolling her eyes, Kit tried not to laugh. What a boy. "I don't think we have that many drinking songs… that is, we probably did but we don't sing them any more." He looked utterly confused at this, and Kit realised that she'd been speaking English again. She as fairly sure that she wouldn't be any way of trying to translate what she'd just said though, so tried to simplify it to translate it for him. "Kit… eh, I no songs…" She mimed drinking. He was just as confused by this, and Kit sighed. What on earth was the word for know? Remember would do to. "I no…" She tapped the side of her head, to try and show know, "songs for drinking."
After she mimed drinking again, Leax nodded, but frowned, looking a bit disappointed. "I'll find something inappropriate for you." Kit promised with a laugh. "Just not the mermaid song!" He looked at her, and she groaned. This language barrier was going to drive her insane. "I'll teach you something Mae no like."
He understood the end of that and grinned.
"Alright then, tomorrow an English song. But tonight, we'll teach you a proper Rohirric fighting song!"
"Tonight?" Kit repeated, not sure if she'd heard right. She didn't want to do any more tonight! She wanted to go curl up in her soft, warm (if scratchy and uncomfortable) bed, and sleep until next week.
"Tonight!" Leax repeated, enthusiastically. Algar even looked back up from his blade, one eyebrow raised and a grin he was failing to hide on his lips.
"No thank you!" Kit quickly rose, but Leax caught hold of her shirt and pulled her back down.
Leax stood up instead, and shook his hair out of his eyes. A few of the other men who had gravitated to the fire saw this and grinned, and cries of "a song", and "sing for us!" started to echo around the gathered men.
When Leax did sing, Kit was pleasantly surprised to find he actually had quite a nice voice, even if it was a little higher than she had expected. It was much better than her own, and she suddenly felt a lot shyer about teaching him. He'd end up singing it better than she could!
He finished quite suddenly, and Kit realised that she hadn't picked up much except for the basic tune. He was looking at her expectantly, and she just shrugged. How was she meant to pick up anything from that?
~*~
After that, the days started to fall into a routine that was almost comfortable. It was certainly repetitive, and Kit was just grateful that whatever war the boys had expected seemed to have been exaggerated. Yes, some men were coming in injured from somewhere, and a few groups had gone off, but more or less (as far as Kit could tell) nothing seemed to be happening. They were left to their practise: half the day at archery, and half the day at sword fighting, where Kit continued to utterly fail at anything other than a few strikes at Leax. Leax, on the other hand, took to archery like a duck to water, and was already using a heavier bow than Kit. Her only comfort was that he didn't have the patience (and how! She had thought that she was bad) for it, and so rarely got more than one or two good scores at a time.
In the daytime, while they were shooting, Kit would teach him English songs, which they struggled to translate into English. She picked the Celtic, new age songs that she had stolen off her mother, and were both easy to sing, and somewhat appropriate. He was disappointed in their lack of colourful lyrics, but she reassured him that she was trying to remember one that he would like. If he noticed that Kit singed about an octave higher than any male over the age of 13, he didn't comment on it. In the evening, he, and sometimes Algar, would teach her Rohirric songs. It was only a week later that Algar realised that she wasn't actually learning the words, but the sounds. It was a habit she'd picked up from anime and their j-pop opening and ending themes, and once Algar picked up on it, he took it on himself to try and get her to actually understand the songs.
Kit struggled though. She'd learnt maybe a hundred or so basic words, but couldn't get her head round anything that sounded even remotely like a structured sentence. It didn't help that she'd never been all that good at English language, and didn't really understood how English worked. Applying what she didn't understand to another language just made it impossible. Leax and Algar did take her aside one day and forced her to learn a few basic commands – shoot, retreat, and directions and directions. Useful, Kit realised, and she really focused on learning them. But she was forgetting words that she'd learnt a week before, without anything to write them down on. It was just… all getting too tough. It was only the routine that was keeping her going.
And then, even that changed.