Re: Take Up Your Cross [Zorolo]
"Blessed are the strong, for they shall conquer!"
These were the words he spoke to me as he lunged his smallsword suddenly and flicked my left wrist quickly, deflecting the tip of his sword with my rapier and taking a step back. Monroe was always saying things like that. He said that they meant something to him. I never once thought to ask what, since it was pretty clear. It was a sign of his most well held belief that the strong shall live and the weak would die. Still, he was learning slowly that the weak needed defending, not conquering. It was just taking a while.
"Zorlo, you okay? You're just standing there," he told me as I looked at him, and then at his sword, the tip of which was pressing against my chest.
"Yeah, sorry," I told him as I rubbed the back of my head and took a step back. Today, Monroe and I had decided to get some exercise fencing. However, to make things interesting, we were both using titanium versions of our normal weapons. We began stepping around each other in a circle, one of us lunging forward to strike every so often, or lashing with their blade towards the side of the arm, but neither of us had too high a level of seriousness, so our blades never drew any blood. Or, at least, not that I noticed. I was rather distracted this day, oddly enough.
As Monroe and I fenced rather heatedly, despite my otherwise else placed focus, I thought not about the flick in my wrist as I slashed my sword, or how I was standing in relation to my lunges, but more about a person I had met. It had been one month, but the occurrence had been one of those you don't forget. Instead of focusing on my foot placement, I thought about that man that had entered into my room and left as the only other person with powers that could be like mine. I couldn't blame him for leaving in anger, after all, no person wants to be told that they are dangerous to themselves.
My left arm was fully extended, arm straight and my blade at an forty-five degree angle towards the ground, a stance that no olympic fencer would take, I assure you, but I felt it best for movement, since it made offense and defense rather easy, actually. Despite that, no fencer from future eras not of my own would say it was full of weakness, yet still, Monroe had yet to hit me. This I knew.
Suddenly, loud steps seemed to be approaching as I ceased my movement, and the man who had been rebuilt in a time different from mine stopped as well. Apparently, I wasn't the only one that had heard those steps. They had stopped in front of the door and I smiled; my compatriot, however, frowned. It seemed he was more interested in who had interrupted us. I, however, knew quite well. Mayhap he had come to tell me he had finally succeeded in what I had sent him to do?