alexandra lumiere-fray || district one || fin

At age ten, you received your first broken bone.

This was still during the peak of what you now call your "overly inflated ego" phase. Before age ten, you had been trained solely within the confines of the Lumiere-Fray residence, alternating between direct training from your parents personally or on occasion a personal trainer specialized in the art of training young children up from scratch.

That wasn't to say you had it easy, mind you. Your mother was tough, your father was stern, and the trainer's visits every other week threw in a new thread of unpredictability into your otherwise stable routine.

But you never felt so completely, utterly defeated as you had that day.

You'd recently made the transition from homegrown training to academy training at your parent's behest, a prospect that had both scared and enticed you, at least initially.

Two weeks in, that was hardly the case. You had quickly established yourself as a cut above the other ten year olds in your class - most from middle-to-lower class origin, and without your lineage and head start alike - and had made such a show of it that you had quickly earned the ire of the head trainer in charge.

Things came to a head at the beginning of week three, after yet another easily won duel between you and another kid had lead first to teasing, then to boasting about how no one, not even the trainer, could beat you.

The trainer had heard the last part of the conversation, and had almost nonchalantly offered you the chance to back up your words. Most kids would have had the sense to back down at such an obvious threat, but your nativity had remained as high as your ego, and you had accepted.

The fight lasted six seconds.

You had struck first, but had found your blow easily parried. In contrast, you had barely managed to deflect the trainer's first strike, but it would prove to be her second attack that would truly count.

In one smooth motion, she had disarmed you, sending your sword clattering to the ground, and in the next, she had smashed the butt of her own sword into your nose at full force.

Though it took several days before the true meaning of the lesson sank in, it was one that you would carry into the present day.

Even with your name and your training, you were not invincible.

You've never really had much in the way of friends growing up or today, you've found.

Part of it is beyond your control, of course - when you've got parents that belong to not one but two separate prestigious Career families, little is spent focusing on the art of human interaction in favor of learning the workings of swords and spears and glaives.

Unless you're Arcadia, of course, but that's a different story.

But part of it is your own doing, too, at least in the loosest sense. It's a problem of equal parts devotion to your first love and equal parts the often unpredictable attitudes of your peers.

You've long since known that envy was going to be a part of the game you played - after all,
even those from distinct Career backgrounds rarely possessed the foundation or the raw talent that you possessed.

But sometimes incidents of a more personal and hate-filled manner are sparked, too,
for such is the nature of those that fight to win.

You remember one instance in particular like it happened yesterday, though in reality it's been nearly two years. There was this one boy that you had grown close with in the months preceding, one of the few that didn't give a shit if you were a Lumiere or a Fray or both and actually aimed to talk to you like you were an ordinary human being. He was one of the few that had gained your trust and respect that didn't also possess the jointed name of Lumiere-Fray, and had things continued on their course uninterrupted, well -
who knows what would have happened.

Alas, as with all good things, this friendship too came to an end.

You remember it clearly because of the setting - your instructor had set up a tournament of sorts for the day, a chance for the top sixteen members of each age group to compete and show off the fruits of your labors. You'd always joked with him that if you two had ever ended up fighting in something like this by some sheer chance that you would let him win - after all,
losing was not something you were accustomed to, and what better way to ignite the sparks of teenage rebellion towards your parents than to lose to someone you admired and trusted?

Then, by sheer chance, you two found yourselves in the same semifinal match, swords drawn and clashing against one another.

Jokes, as it turned out, would remain jokes, and you won the day with a quick disarming and a sword hilt to the face.

It would prove to be the defining blow in your relationship forever, for he never got over what he endlessly called the "betrayal" that you had dished out onto him.

Though the anger and the hatred and the inevitable severing of the relationship you two had once had hurt, it was something you had never quite understood. He was a Career, just like you, and he, just like you, understood that losing was a fact of life and something that happened to everyone now and then - even yourself.

But for whatever reason, the fact that he had joined the majority of fifteen as losers of the tournament instead of claiming your place in the minority of one as the winner had apparently proven to be the lead pipe that broke the camel's back.

And yes, it had hurt, contrary to popular belief. But you realized that the fault lay as much in him as it had in you - yes, you had delivered the blow that had knocked him out of the tournament, but no more - and that if he wanted to let his frustration at his loss destroy a friendship you were certain both of you had considered dear, then so be it.

He could go yapping about your betrayal for as long as he liked, but you were above such behaviors.

Even now, two years after the fact, if he came crawling back apologizing for his overreaction and his behavior, you would still likely forgive him - after all, everyone makes mistakes time and again.

But until then? You're perfectly fine not giving a second thought to the boy you once called friend and might have called something more in favor of your one true love.

It's his loss, anyway.