Bruises of Onyx [Kheft]

“Inverted asshole-posing syphillitic chicken f—kers!!”

My rage took a momentary pause in self-admiration as the convoluted cussphrase slid off my tongue with particular panache. I liked it – will have to keep it in mind for public consumption.

The reprieve was short-lived and my head of steam came back in full force with enough pressure to make my eardrums pop and my eyeballs bulge in their sockets. My feet led me in a direct path, not around but through any obstacles, towards the training ring. A good thing it was that the Center was emptied out by this time, or any interfering individual would have found themselves with a Nyx-shaped hole through their belly as I stomped my way out their spineless backside. I was pissed.

“Scabrous pile of 24 carat, gold plated, wall-mounted, self-actuating coprolite!”

Another pause. That one had real talent, but cursing just wasn’t doing it for me right now. I needed to hit something and fast. The door into the gym presented itself just in time, and my open palm met it with such force that the steel frame vibrated and the knob slammed viciously into the wall, taking out a chunk of plaster with its impact.

Not enough.

Now normally for training purposes I would tape my wrists and hands, binding the tendons, muscle, and bone together with firm layers to protect from any lasting injuries during a particularly violent training session. My dad was adamant in such cautions, and the possibility of him limiting my ring time was severe enough to keep me in line. Right now, however, I didn’t have the patience or concern to fulfill such measures. It was surprising that I even bothered to don gloves before winging a devastating punch into the unprotected gut of a worn out pedestal bag. I felt my knuckles pop in protest, but my mood was black enough to drown out the small physical discomfort of grinding cartilage and I slid smoothly into the ferocious rhythm of my fists pounding the weighted leather into pitiable submission.

Possibly the fringe neurons of my brain that weren’t thoroughly submerged in combative focus might have picked up on the sounds of another human presence in the enclosure, but they were smothered into silence by the white-hot scorch of anger and adrenaline that was scalding its way from nerve endings to muscle fiber and back.

The interruption was hotly resented, and in turning I nearly swung for his face out of pure annoyance. You’re a fool, Onyx…and fools die fast. The words were a mocking tone in my head with Bantu’s gruff voice so unhappily familiar from my training hours. He was always correcting me. You don’t have the bulk of these boys that come for blood. You’re fast, but you can’t blindly take them on or you’ll be just as dead as a slow man. Lose control and you’ll lose your life, girly. Biting back on the loss of control, I turned the motion into a swift grab for the javelin and let it fly just shy of the boy’s head. I had blearily sighted at one of the throw dummies in the javelin range and let loose. Without the momentum from a run-up, it had little distance and went far wide of its intended target, but still stuck into a padded area of the pit with a satisfying THUNK.

My eyes abandoned its quivering halt and returned to the tall career who stood watching me intently with folded arms. His face held some air of familiarity, but in truth, his words were accurate. I had no idea who he was. I could say I didn’t care, but that might not be fully true. The passion of anger and combat was fading slowly, still quite there, but I was no longer insensible with it…just moderately cranky. Even if I had known him, I might have played dumb, just for the sake of being difficult.

“Not the foggiest, frankly. Are you the family gardener?” Yeah, yeah…obviously he was here training. His half naked torso and sweaty appearance made that conclusion inescapable. Still, if you don’t like my snark, then take a quick walk into a brick wall for all I care. Besides, what was he doing here when this place was meant to be my empty retreat at this hour? Resenting once again this encroachment on MY sanctuary, I met his gaze with one that—while not quite a death glare—certainly resembled at least a “may you break out in an itching, pustulent, rash” glare.

“What are you doing here anyway? Don’t you have some flower beds to dig up or something?”

Sweat was trickling into my eyes, salt stinging them, and I reached up to push back the loose hair that fell over my forehead, forgetting for a moment that I was still wearing protective gloves. I yanked them off with frustration and pitched them across the ring in a fit of temper. Stop being a child, Onyx.

“Shut up, Bantu.” I muttered beneath my breath. I didn’t need a mental commentator to tell me that my actions weren’t wholly rational. I had no reason to take such personal offense to this boy’s actions. They weren’t exactly perverse; I was just in a mood to take exception to anything that managed to pop up in my path at the moment. I wanted to punch something, and now this…Indrik? Had pushed his smirking mug into my personal bubble. Granted that bubble probably extended several hundred yards when I was this irritable. Suck it.

"You know, I can never forget the last time we met. You were straddling my chest. Breath elevated. Sheen of sweat."

Oh that’s the game you want to play is it? Typical career, flirtatious, arrogant, toss about a few sticks and expect that I’m going to swoon naked into his arms? Fine, we can play that game buddy boy.

“You know, come to think of it, I do remember you.” I slunk across the arena, pausing to lounge idly against wall beside where Indrik stood, breathing heavily after his training-dummy killing spree. “You were the new kid with the glass jaw.” My smirk matched his own, notch for notch in superiority. If he wanted to play condescension he would find himself pitted against a master with a whole childhood of role model examples to fashion herself after. I let my steps lead me from the wall until I stood in front of him, lifting my hand to draw a finger along the sharp angle of his jaw bone, “How long was it wired shut for? Must have been a hardship, can’t go around annoying girls when you can’t talk.” I patted his cheek dismissively.

Now is when I should turn and adopt my most exaggerated ‘queen of the world’ swagger and leave him here in the dust of my absence. I doubted very much that a guy like this was accustomed to having a girl turn her back on him. All the sweeter to enjoy, then. The problem here was that I didn’t want to swagger out; I was still wound too tightly to go home. Anisse would be fluttering around, putting together this big dinner that she had been planning for the last week. It’s why I was really here anyway. I hated these occasions when the house was decked out like we were hosting visiting royalty. Our neighbors would flock over in their fluffy little, color-coordinated gaggles. Polite, gentlemanly boys were pushed in my face, and I’d have to dance and laugh and smile as if they actually had two brain cells to rub together. Too much, it was just too much. I didn't think I could sit through one more of these fussy meals without something drastic and violent occurring. So, instead of flouncing out of the gym, I let my steps lead me only as far as a set of rings and bars suspended from the ceiling, they formed a challenging course of ariel acrobatics that would absorb all of my attention and hopefully put party and career out of my mind.

There was a basin of chalk beside the first set of bars, and I dipped my sweaty hands into it, liberally dusting the fine grit over my palms. The suspended metal bars floated just out of reach, a good twelve inches from where my short frame could comfortably grasp at. I was accustomed to this, and crouching briefly, I launched myself up that extra foot. My fingers curved to grip the bar, the remainder of my bodyweight plummeting back down towards the earth. Good lord, maybe I need to lose a few pounds. My arms bore the familiar weight, and a swift snap of my legs upward and a swing of my torso sent my entire body into momentum. I felt that long second of flight as my hands released their anchor and I lunged towards the pair of rings that dangled in empty space. Catch, twist, and flying again. This time the hot streak of rough hemp rope cut into my flesh and I felt my lips pull back in a slight grin.

Pain wasn't my enemy. Don't get me wrong, it's not as if we are bosom enemies, and I never do get those angsty chicks that want to cut themselves for fun. I just don't find it something to run from. It's a reminder that I'm pushing myself, working myself, a little marker that my heart is still beating and my lungs inflating and all is well in my little world. I've got so many scars that it's a wonder I can tan in the summer. Anisse hates it, she constantly nags at me to wear more protective gear so that my body won't become some hideous lump of scar tissue that can't be hidden in low cut gowns. I can't think of anything better than being unable to wear said gowns. I'm probably going to be scolded tonight for getting injured yet again. You'd think Anisse would give up by now, but she's still adamantly trying to turn a sou's ear into a silk purse.

I'm tired of this thought pattern, tired of letting my family's nagging dominate my mind. So, I push harder, letting the rings and bars become a complicated blur that I navigate through sheer muscle memory.

"Three months. I couldn't speak for three months. Was prohibited from contact training for another two."

His words throw off my rhythm, and I struggle to hide that fact from him. I'm not about to let this Indrik fellow see me falter. Five months though...that was a substantial chunk of time. Enough to make the difference between victory or defeat had he been reaped. No wonder he was so intent on pestering me, I was rather surprised that he hadn't jumped me the day he got back to the Center. It's not like my dad would have stopped him. Choices and consequences, he's always harping on that tune. The fights I pick are mine to deal with, just because he runs the place doesn't mean I get an ounce of protection from him. I mean, I'd like to think he would intervene if someone was intent on killing me, but who knows.

"Give me a spear, and I'll beat you senseless any day of the week."

That was probably true. I hated polearm weapons, they always felt awkward and unwieldy in my grip. I much prefered something that was a more comfortable extension of my reach. Bladed, particularly, although I'd gained a reputation as being mean with a lashed weapon.

"Plus you beat any concept of mercy out of me."

Suddenly his next words broke the air directly in front of me and I nearly fell from the shock of it. In the span of my thoughts between his last statement and this one, he'd followed me out onto the course and covered a fair bit of distance. What he might lack in grace he certainly made up for in brute strength. My face was red and sweaty, I knew it, and my arms were beginning to protest the prolonged abuse. Still, if this was a contest of who could wait out the other, there was a damned chance that I would lose. So I gritted my teeth and adjusted my grip on the rings, pulling myself into a chinup to face him at equal level.

"Mercy is just enabling the weak to be weak. No one thanks you for it in the end." A bead of sweat slid down the plane of my forehead and hovered on the tip of my nose. It was uncomfortable and I wished for a free hand to wipe it away.

"So, were you here just to vent, or are you just training?"

"I'm here to dance the Viennese waltz. Why do you care, anyway?" I felt a slight twinge of guilt over my continued harsh tone, made even harsher by the fact that I was biting back my discomfort. I decided to give the man a break, if only a slight one. "I'm delaying the inevitable. Party at the house tonight, maybe if I get severely injured they'll give me a doctor's note."

He's taunting me now. You open one small crack in the defense of animosity and they always think they know you, can peg exactly what you think and feel. My father is a well-known figure, and our home was nearly a public building, so frequented as it was by the highest and brightest of District One society. So it happened more often than can be imagined that someone assumed from their window of observation into the workings of the Andromeda household that we were exactly as we appeared to be. My ex-career father providing a formal and austere backbone to the family and Anisse the picture perfect hostess with her gaggle of lady-like daughters. Because I was the odd duckling, the only one who trained in my father’s footsteps, it stood to reason that I hated being dressed up in gowns and petted, cossetted, I must hate to dance and make small talk, but be forced into that position by my father’s high expectations.

I laughed, a strained one albeit. I couldn’t help it. The very idea that my father would be the one stuffing me into a dress was ludicrous. My father who would never be caught dead in a suit if Anisse didn’t harass him unendingly about it being a necessity for his societal role. He sympathized with my own distaste for garments that smothered or strangled you, weighing you down until you became defenseless. We shared that, and it was he who came up with the game. Whenever Anisse was on a ‘newest fashion’ rampage and dressed us from toe to hairline in whatever was the last word in Capitol chic, we took turns coming up with ways that the most obnoxious of adornments could be turned to our advantage in a fight. Ties becoming garrotes and stiletto heels could puncture the carotid artery, leaving a victim to bleed out.

There was a guilty tug in my chest as I realized that this little rebellion I was playing at by hiding out here meant that he would be on his own tonight, left to struggle into suit, tie, whatever else outlandish might be the ‘hottest thing,’ on his own.

"You do look good when you dance though, I'll give you that. Poor sods have no idea they're dealing with a bloodthirsty cage-fighter."

Interesting, although not beyond reason. My father would often invite some of his more promising beneficiaries to the house to wine and dine them. It was one way to more thoroughly secure their allegiance, but it also helped his image to white wash some of the more illegal aspects of his career training with philanthropic appearances. The Andromeda’s and their bighearted interest in the lives of the less fortunate. It also wasn’t unreasonable that Indrik would have noticed me, the lone career offspring of his benefactor. The fact that he’d taken particular note of my dancing abilities was a little odd, but again, nothing too unusual.

My arms were beginning to burn like a b—tch, but he seemed even worse off, already changing hands, trying to prolong what his arms were capable of. In the end, the added weight of his larger frame and the sacrifice of dexterity for muscle bulk was telling in our little standoff. With a final groan of discomfort, my competition surrendered, and he collapsed on the mat below, begrudgingly admitting defeat. It wasn’t enough though. I hadn’t gotten to this point by contenting myself with being better than my opponent. I had one more point to prove. So pushing my muscles forward on sheer orneriness and stubborn will, I finished out the course my arms shaking with exhaustion, but my face bearing the smug smile of a victor.