Survival.

[Samiyah Zayn]

Samiyah launched her back leg out in a round kick, attempting to use a bit of strategy to divert her opponent's attention and defense low. The gesture went unnoticed. Samiyah's opponent, a teenage boy who stood a good foot taller than her, bared down upon her with a series of attacks. He opened with a lead leg front kick to start her on a backward movement and then came baring down on her with a siege of heavy jabs and crosses.

Samiyah's breath quickened as she attempted to avoid the fury of fists and kicks. One of the multitude of tiny dark braids of her hair had escaped the ponytail which held the braids away from her face and the small braid was whipping her furiously as she twisted and turned. Before she could even react, one of the teenager's large boots was bearing down upon her crouched position in the form of an ax kick. The heavy leather connected against the back of her head, driving her face first into the dirt floor of the ring.

Samiyah coughed out the dirt from the back of her throat, fighting to remain consciousness. The crowd of unwashed men surrounding the ring screamed obscenities -- either in anger or in joy. Samiyah lifted her battered head just enough to watch the teenager prancing around the ring with his wrapped hands raised above his head in victory. Her vision was blurry but she forced her eyes to narrow in on her intended target. Anger bubbled but she kept it repressed. Anger only got in the way in the ring. Survival was the only emotion one could rely on.

Her small dark hands caked in dirt and blood pushed her body to her feet. The shiny metal of a sword on the hip of a man haggling with a bookie, already looking for a return on his bet, caught her eye. With the skills of an expert pickpocket, Samiyah dropped enough to snap the short sword out of his sheath. Before the victim of the theft even noticed, the smallish preteen was stalking towards her much larger opponent across the ring. Without a moment's hesitation and grunting through the effort, Samiyah brought the hilt down swiftly onto the head of the teenage boy who had his back turned to her as he celebrated his short-lived victory. His body crumbled to her feet, blood immediately seeping from the gash to his head.

The cries from the crowd lit up the room. Samiyah heard nothing. There were no rules within these rings. Her opponent shouldn't have made the mistake of turning his back. The teenager's manager rushed in between the ropes to tend to the unconscious fighter. Samiyah dropped the sword carelessly to the dusty floor. She drew her arm across her forehead to wipe away her sweat and blood, attempting to clear her head which remained cloudy from the blow.

Her dark eyes caught sight of her manager -- the seedy establishment's owner. His smirk made her queasy. A toothpick hung precariously between his thick lips. His balding head shone with sweat beneath the harsh overhead lights. Samiyah spit a mouthful of her blood off to the side. After a long moment of enjoying the scene, Leon moved from his spot, shooing off the attention of one of the establishment's many prostitutes. His cowboy boats clunked along the wooden paneled floor until he entered the dirt ring.

"What're you gonna do when we start catchin' on to that broad's cheap tricks?" the manager of Samiyah's opponent shot out bitterly at Leon.

Samiyah's thin arms crossed in front of her chest. Her tank top and jeans suddenly seemed to be little cover. Her dark brown eyes watched Leon's every step. She carefully kept her Bedouin Arab features trained in an uncaring expression. As the adrenaline of the fight faded, the pain became real. Not only the physical pain but the deep, mounting concern over the answer to the question now posed to Leon. There would be time to nurse those wounds later. The best thing to do now was to remain silent.

"Sam's getting older, isn't she?" Leon's smirk grew, he cupped Samiyah's chin in a gesture that almost seemed loving if it wasn't for the smirk and the glint of greed in his eyes. "I'm sure one of you fine gentleman would give me quite a price to be the first to conquer this spit fire." Cheers and laughter rose through the mob of men while Samiyah stood in the ring, fuming in silence.

[Sarah The Stick]

"Stick."

"Cagey."

"Stop calling me that. That's not my name."

"I can't say your name."

"I know, but Cagey? It's not very... flattering. Makes me sound less than honest."

"At least it's fitting."

There would be no purpose in trekking to the confectionary stand, rented out and built from the unused portion of a reputable clothing shop in Midtown, were it not for the treats hidden within and had for a reasonable price. The roguish elven gentleman who acted as proprietor and sole employee, one Elkariathas Gul'daren, was nearly dashing in his black eyepatch, which kept straight, shoulder-length blond hair partially in check. Stick had long been impressed by it, her imagination looping to and fro in speculation of the precise size, shape, and angle of the jagged scar which lay beneath.

Then she happened to stop by on a morning he was hung over and wore the patch on the wrong eye.

That left her two reasons to return. One: The only quality cinammon rolls in RhyDin. The other was Cagey's stories. He was a first-rate yarn-spinner, and with the manner in which he limped about his tiny shop, frequently dressed in drab, worn greens and browns, as an ex-adventurer might be wont to do, Stick considered it a challenge to tell truth from half-truth, half-truth from bald-faced lies.

And, occasionally, he managed to set his ego aside to share some anecdote centered around someone else.

"I'm wounded."

"The truth hurts, Cagey."

He sighed heavily, making his point before changing topics to something that would be less likely to make him look the fool. "How is your new palace of learning coming along? I never did quite picture you as the 'schoolmarm' type."

Dark eyes glared over a tan snack covered in white icing. "You know damn well what kind of school I run."

"Yes, yes, I know. Are your students progressing well in the relaxed atmosphere you surely provide them?"

"Pfffft. What students?"

Silence. She paused. He blinked.

"Ahhh.. it's been some time since you claimed it was ready, so I assumed you had at least one or two."

"Oh. That makes sense."

"It? Does. Yes." He nodded, forcing himself to slow to a natural speed.

Stick nodded back, savoring a bite of the cinammon roll.

"That's good."

"I'm glad you like it."

"It almost makes me feel bad about threatening to rip the points off your ears if you don't tell me the truth."

"But you haven't- ah."

Stick smiled, a wicked victor's smile, and a certain elf residing in Midtown began to wonder, if he tried very, very hard, and believed with all his might it was possible, could he will himself to disappear?

*****

She stood on the corner of an avenue near Badside, surrounded by shacks and hovels slumped to one side or another, broken losers of the war against poverty. One, her destination, stood firm, a lonely general refusing to give up hope despite his wounds. No more than six feet to a side, the hinges of its door remained oiled and shiny while wooden skin rotted around it.

"This can't be it."

What the shack was to small, the platform behind it was to oversized and out of place. Stairs led to its surface, one story removed from the surrounding gravel paths. That would be a place for a fight, packing in spectators to create a smaller and smaller ring of flesh for combatants to do battle in. The closer the quarters, the quicker the fights; the quicker the fights, the more bets could be made. It made sense.

It still didn't match Cagey's description in certain ways.

He had very specifically said it was indoors, for one.

It has to be a mage, she thought. There are enough of them who see regular people as their playthings. Maybe it's like Harris's pocket, where he fits all that crap to throw at people.

Approaching the building, her imagination began to expand on the initial suspicion. A mage wouldn't need bouncers. He- of course it was a he- would have given keys to his customers to allow them access. She would never get in. Better yet, the door would open into dead space, dragging her into some sort of black hole, a concept she had overheard Matt discuss just enough for it to wreak havoc with her mind.

She stood before the ratty old shanty house.

Somewhere in there, a mage was waiting for her.

Somewhere in there could lay her doom.

Somewhere in there, her childhood was being replayed.

Somewhere in there was her supposed first student.

She opened the door.

*****

Stairs, plain, wooden, and rickety. Leading down.

Stick spread her fingers in the air, weaving patterns in a makeshift test for magical properties. Better to lose a hand than a leg or a life. To her pleasant surprise, she remained intact for the walk downstairs, into a mundane, exceptionally large, highly un-magelike basement.

Had she only heard stories, it could have been the Arena; an evil twin, at the very least. It reeked of dying morals and ethics. Courtesans milled about in their tawdry skirts and bosom-baring corsets, leeches searching for golden blood to suckle from victorious gamblers. A cowboy haggled with an elven warlock over odds on fights to come. The spill of coinage rang out heavily, weighing down an atmosphere of competition with the endlessness of business. Debts were created and paid as a bloodied young man shuffled weakly out of the fighting circle, leaving another face-down in sand and dirt to be dragged away by his ankles. Looking up at an impossibly high ceiling, she discerned at least one purpose for the platform outside.

When her attention turned back to the ring, she decided she would have to thank Cagey.

Stick passed easily through waves of leers, catcalls, and occasional lingering stares of recognition to stand by the ring near the braided girl's entrance point. One tale of mistreatment raised her hackles; another, of guile, piqued her interest. She stood impassively, arms crossed and feet spread, ready to observe a familiar sight from a very different perspective.

[Samiyah Zayn]

Time moves slowly in the mind of a fourteen year old. The passage of time certainly seems to move even more slowly when that fourteen year old is waiting anxiously -- be it for a math test or their next birthday or for piano practice to end. To Samiyah Zayn every time she sat on the wobbly abandoned bar stool in the back storage room waiting for the beginning of a fight seemed like a year. She supposed it was only a half an hour -- forty-five minutes at tops. However, it always felt as if it took much longer.

The cheers and jeers outside the little room grew to a feverish pitch. Samiyah's heartbeat quickened as her mind wondered if that noise signaled the end of the previous fight. The anxiousness would not help her in a ring. She shut her eyes tightly, concentrating on her breathing. With a long deep breath, she filled her lungs almost to their capacity, holding it for a moment before slowly exhaling at a steady rate. To one trained in a fighting art, the act bordered on meditation. Samiyah did not know such strategies. All she knew was that to breathe was to still be alive and that alone she could have faith in. The anxiety faded slowly. Her dark features relaxed.

The door separating the crowd from Samiyah's quiet sanctuary swung open and Samiyah's eyes snapped open at the sound. A thick-necked man with a cleanly shaven head stepped inside. He was the type of man that reminded men their place and when the men were bold enough or drunk enough to forget their place, he was the type of man who showed the fool or drunkard to the door. Hence, the reason for his employment at such an establishment. "Sami, it's time." Despite his appearance, his deep voice held a gentle quality.

Samiyah realized suddenly that she was still holding the deep breath that she had inhaled right before the door had been opened. Sliding from the stool, she exhaled that breath in a deep resigned sigh. There was no hesitation when she exited the side room into the crowd. As Samiyah stepped out the crowd erupted with noise -- catcalls, insults, indecent propositions, and the occasional encouraging word. Of those clear calls that did reach Samiyah's ears few were processed by her brain and none were lingered upon by it. Her mind, as well as her gaze, was fixated upon one thing -- making it past the crowd into the empty center that the crowd encircled.

The thick-necked man followed along behind Samiyah to keep wandering hands from reaching the young woman. Little more than a harsh glance was needed that night. Earlier the crowd was given a demonstration of the bouncer's prowess at his job when an emboldened drunk had taken a swing at him with a knife. The bouncer had kept the knife. However, the attacker would have little need for it for at good six weeks while his wielding arm healed from a nasty break.

Her protector fell back as Samiyah reached the empty circle. He took a place on the edge of the circle of people, determined to do his best to keep them from crowding the young woman. The sight of her opponent challenged her ability to keep her face set in a strong-jawed, emotionless expression. Her manager, Leon, had out done himself this time. The man -- and he was certainly a grown man, not a teenager -- who stood across from her was probably twice her weight and nearly a foot taller than the young woman. He sneered and reached forward with both his hands opening and closing his hands, suggesting to the crowd his plans for his hands and Samiyah's breasts. Many in the crowd laughed at the man's gesture and yelled out their own suggestions.

Samiyah quickly grew bored waiting for the man to decide he was ready. As his attention was diverted into the crowd, exchanging insults with a spectator, Samiyah snapped a mug of ale out of spectator's hand. The victim cried out angrily as those around him laughed. She hurled it at her opponent, looking to draw his attention. Her aim was on target. The mug clanked against the large man's head before clattering to the floor. He stumbled back, dazed by the blow. The man gradually threw off the haze, his eyes boring into Samiyah. His thick, calloused hands tightened in fists as his face grew dark and foreboding. Anger. Anger in an opponent was good. It kept them from being completely focused on beating her into submission.

The noise of the surrounding mob grew once more, knowing that the fight had begun. The enemy charged Samiyah's set location. Her legs were spread, keeping light on her toes with her hands held protectively several inches beneath her chin. She could not let the man in. As the taller and heavier opponent, he could easily bear down upon her with a series of heavy blows. She had to make herself a hard target and keep outside his reach. Light and quick. Samiyah was an expert at that tactic.

Just as he came within range, Samiyah drew her front knee up to her chest before darting out a rapid side kick. Her booted heel connected with the man in the gut, forcing the wind from his lungs. Her knee was quickly drawn back in towards her chest and the foot then fell straight to the floor so that she could dart away. Several gasps of breath refilled the man's lungs. Several of his jabs and crosses missed as Samiyah weaved and bobbed. Finally, she choose the wrong direction to twist and turned her shoulder into a hook. The impact threw her in the opposite direction like a rag doll.

The young woman managed to remain on her feet but her opponent gave her little time to recover. She ducked and rolled in a ball off to one side just in time to miss a large fist coming towards her nose. Samiyah rose to her knees and then sprung at the man's legs, sending the man falling to his back. The much smaller woman scrambled on top of the giant she'd toppled with her legs on either side of him, attempting to pin him down with her weight. Too late, she realized that she simply did not have the weight for move to work. The man twisted to get a shoulder up and then rolled on Samiyah to exchange positions. Now on top of the woman, he smirked down at her. Samiyah struggled against his hold on her shoulders but it did little good. He pulled back a hand slapping her with the back of his palm across the face. The pain didn't register. The young woman's only concern was getting him off of her.

Intent on making good on his earlier threats, the man's hands left Samiyah's shoulders, drifting towards her chest. The momentary diversion was all she needed. A hand curled around the dirt of the floor, gathering some in her hand and then tossed it into the man's eyes. Surprised more than in pain, her opponent reached up to rub the dirt from his eyes. Samiyah pulled her knuckles back of her left hand, shooting forward a strike towards the man's nose using her palm. She felt a brief moment of satisfaction as the nose buckled and broke beneath the power of the blow.

He let out a cry, his hands reaching up to clutch his nose as he twisted off the young woman. Samiyah quickly found her way back to her feet, moving in for the kill. The bitter taste of blood reminded her of the earlier strike to her cheek which throbbed now even despite the adrenaline surging through her. The young woman darted in to send a sweeping kick in to knock out one of the man's legs as he was still reeling from the pain. She pursed her lips tightly as he managed to regain his balance before toppling.

His hands dropped from his badly twisted nose, blood oozing down his chin. For a moment, their eyes met and Samiyah knew it was all over. She wasn't going to go down without a fight, though. She tightened her balled fists, waiting for him to make his charge. He came bearing down upon her -- first with a round kick that she managed to avoid and then with a jab to the shoulder which she was unable to avoid. She winced as he connected but held back a cry in her throat. The noise of the crowd reached a feverish pitch. They too knew the girl's time was over.

Samiyah managed to lift her foot in a quick frontal assault against the man which caught his thigh, missing her intended target -- his groin. The pair exchanged a series of glancing blows. Samiyah was trying to escape the man's charge and he was looking to set her up for a match-ending strike. Much too late to avoid, Samiyah saw that attack -- an uppercut. She had always considered uppercut such a slow, meandering, and awkward attack. However, she knew that they could be the end of the game if they connected. His fist caught her right below the chin, snapping her head back violently. Her tiny dark braids clattered against one another with the twist of her head. Samiyah's body slumped to the floor.

She lay on the dirt floor, stunned by the blow. The noise of the crowd suddenly filled her ears. Their yells were deafening. She forced her eyes open but nothing was in focus. Pain from her shoulder surged through her body. A cowboy boat nudged her from her fetal position to roll over to her back. She forced her eyes open again and this time she could make out some of the details.

Her manager, Leon, stood over her smirking down as her opponent's nose was being cared to by his own manager. Leon lifted his gaze, holding up a hand to quiet the crowd. As they did so, he lifted his voice to speak, "The end has come for this fighter. It is time for her to start a new career. One that her pretty face will be much more suited for. Who wishes to claim the first night with this little wench? The bidding shall start now!"

Samiyah's stomach dropped, drowning in sudden hopelessness. She tightly closed her eyes as the pain seemed to scream at her from every nerve ending. A single clear thought could not be formulated through the fuzzy fog that encapsulated her mind. The hopelessness reigned supreme. She gave up her fight to remain conscious and allowed the inviting darkness to overcome her.

[Sarah The Stick]

"Fifty!"

"Seventy-five!"

"Bah, ye cheap bastards! One hunnerd and twenty-five!"

"We're talking pieces of gold here, you rotten old swindler, not copper pennies!"

"Pennies! I'll give you pennies, booted up your skinny arse!"

Through the ruckus, a lilting voice of spite and malice struck the crowd as lightning.

"One thousand."

It came from high above, fittingly, and she remembered seeing him. The robe of deepest purple, swathed with flickering runes which melted, swayed, and twisted amongst each other. A high, stiff collar, onyx dyes shining below golden hems on the inside, protectively circling around finely pointed ears, unmarred and straight. The image in her mind had been fleeting, forgotten; the anachronistic scene of mage and cowboy negotiating refused to stick to her memory until the elf drew the attention of all to himself.

He probably wanted it that way. Wizards were like that.

The room fell into utter silence. Stick hummed a tune to test for magical trickery at work. She stopped when a dozen pairs of eyes turned away from the elven Moses, waves of scumbags and hoodlums parting to allow his descent into the fighting pit, and towards the only noise aside from his slow, ominous footsteps.

Click.. click.. click.. down the makeshift steps.

Had he wished, the warlock could have easily scooped the girl from her resting place and exited via the power of nothing beyond his own ability to walk. But not all villains are thieves; thus, he waited for her master to gather his minimal wits and speak.

"Uh. Thousand. You got?"

From her vantage point, Stick could see only a small corner of the responding smile. Leon's pale face told her she didn't want to see the rest.

The elf gazed at the crowd, held in awe of his majestic appearance, and laughed. It was the perfect villain's laugh, light staccato fading into more lingering tones, the kind normal people remember in nightmares and emulate poorly when telling bedtime stories to their children. One slender hand darted into his robe and withdrew a large pouch with a metallic jingle, jarring in the extreme quiet. He lobbed it high with an underhand toss, landing it at the tips of cowboy boots in a splash of coin. Satisfied with the mark he had made on the Badside consciousness, the nameless wizard went to retrieve his purchase.

*****

The strange thing about having everything go your way is the timing with which that state of affairs ends.

Heavy, echoing steps on the edge of the fighting floor drew nearly all eyes. The crowd beheld an unfamilar, muscular young woman, clad in smooth, inky black. She twirled a metal baton of sorts between her fingers, irreverently staring down the elf and batting his aura of cool with her own. She leaned on one leg, rested her free hand on her hip, and feigned a moment of thought.

"Fifteen hundred."

The bid was almost a suggestion, such was her nonchalance. But her voice gave power to the gathering; whispers and mumblings erupted in all corners, with the occasional, voluminous questioning of her sanity bandied about for good measure. As the nameless wizard approached, wishes of death in his eyes, she smiled, and any fear of his wrath was shattered.

"Let's see it, human."

Stick shook her head apologetically, forcing the smile to remain. "Sorry, I'm not stupid enough to lug around a thousand gold pieces in my pocket."

He let out a disdainful snort, its light and flowery tone making him sound like a coddled prince unhappy with his servant's choice of playmates. "You will not carry one thousand, and yet you offer five hundred beyond that, a sum you cannot come close to producing for the auctioneer? Why do you waste my time?"

"I think you're missing the point." She stepped closer.

"Oh, really? And what is that?"

"I'm calling you stupid."

Stick would remember this day for many reasons, but among them was the very first time she had ever seen an elf become truly red in the face.

*****

One other thing which would remain a pleasant memory was the elf on the ground, face down and unconscious. He had, enraged, demanded Stick's offer be rejected on the basis that no poor slob of a human girl, especially one who had "pathetic excuse for a warrior" written all over her, could dream of the sum she claimed to be willing to pay. Leon's initial refusal and hope beyond hope that he could obtain such a wildly unrealistic amount of gold (by Badside standards) allowed Stick to approach the pair under guise of curiosity and bludgeon the elf on the back of the head with her baton.

"I guess he's out of the running," she said, leering at the slowly seeping wound she had created.

"Yeah." Leon spit. One side of the phlegm wad caught the elf's ear tip and clung there, drifting towards the floor and hovering on the end of a thin trail of saliva. "She's all yours. Don't know what you'd want with her, though."

"Not what you'd expect, I'm sure."

"Heh. Not my place to ask. Fifteen hundred, then?"

"Here." Stick nudged the pouch of gold onto the toe of the cowboy boots.

"That ain't no fifteen hundred. I ain't even sure there's a thousand in there."

"No, there probably isn't." She stared long at the gold, then stood full and tall, chin high as she locked eyes with the portly owner. "But it's all you're getting."

"Now you wait just a goddamn minute. You said- "

"What I said doesn't mean ^@#$ right now. You're not getting a ^@#$&*$ coin of my money. You either take what's in that pouch and send one of your boys with me to carry her, or I'll rip your ^@#$ off and stab you to death with it."

"Eh..." The unique threat slowed him.

She pressed her advantage. "Which is it?"

He fired one last salvo, a pride-saver. "That money ain't even yours, missy. You got no right to spend it."

"Then you'd better make sure he never tries to collect." Stick stepped back, lifting her head and allowing dark eyes to scan the grizzled crowd. "I'm sure your lovable patrons would be happy to help."

Five minutes later, Stick walked out of Badside, accompanied by a burly, clean-shaven bouncer carrying the limp weight of one Samiyah Zayn over his shoulder. She almost felt bad for the wizard, but it was far worse to know the lesser of two evils was dying beneath a RhyDin street.

*****

"How is she?"

"She'll live. She's taken worse. Not by much, maybe, but worse."

"She's asleep?"

"Upstairs in the bunks, like you said."

"I wonder if she'll want to stay."

"Why wouldn't she? Weren't you listenin' to what I told you about her?"

"Yeah. I'm just concerned she'll think I'm going to treat her like a slave before I can get her to trust me. If she runs off..."

"Sam's a smart girl. She's got nowhere else to go. Treat her right and she'll be plenty more scared of Leon's boys catching her if she's out on the streets than anything you might do."

"Maybe I'll leave her a note to read when she wakes up."

"Yer assumin' she can read."

"Can she?"

"I don't know. It's not like she ever had a reason to."

"Okay."

"You seem like a sensible woman, Miss Stick, even if your reputation says otherwise. I may be a son of a bitch, but I'm the only son of a bitch who gave half a damn about that girl. You treat her right, or you'll answer to me. Clear?"

"Yeah, Stevens. Clear. Thanks for your help."

"You have a nice night."

Stick was walking away before the door closed, finding pen and paper. The note was short, succinct, containing only the most important information. Anything else could be asked of her directly.

She left the note on Harris's pillow and went upstairs, taking the bunk across from the dojo's newest resident for the night.

[Sarah The Stick]

"Thank you."

She stood with arms crossed, staring the girl down from the top of the stairs. "And how have I earned your thanks?"

The girl's response was quiet, shaky, but held no hesitation. "I know what my fate would have been if one of those men had bought me."

"You have no doubts at all that what's in store for you here is better? How do you know I'm even the one you should thank, or that I know what men you're talking about?" Stick's voice rose as she spoke, never yelling, but becoming loud, clear, and not a little aggressive.

"There's no fate that I know of worse than what they had planned for me."

"Come here." Sam heeded the order, gritting her teeth to force the limp out of her steps as she ascended the stairs. Dark eyes watched the injured ankle, hiding sympathy for the pain as they stared the teenager down. "There is *always* something worse." And between heartbeats, the gaze softened, one hand rising to cup the girl's unbruised cheek. "But you won't find it here. Come on, back to the bunks. You can't keep walking around on that leg." Stepping to the side, Stick offered an arm for support. She wondered how much longer Sam's self-reliant pride would push her on alone.

The answer was not one step more. A thin arm wrapped around the woman's neck, weight taken off the wounded ankle with a muffled sigh of relief, covered by general flippant teenage commentary. "I've had worse."

"I'm sure you have." She led Sam to the bunkroom entrance, releasing her into a lean against the doorway before striding away from a baffled expression. "Sit down. I'll get ice for your ankle."

Stick returned from the room at the end of the hall, bag of ice in hand, to the sight of the girl's feet flat on the floor as she sat on the edge of her mattress.

This would not do.

"Okay, look. Even if you leave tomorrow, you'll do it knowing how to take care of yourself. Lay back on the bed, that ankle needs to be higher than the rest of your leg."

"Why?"

Stick's answer was muffled by the pillows she busily gathered from the unused bunks. "Touch where it's swollen. Press it, not too hard. Unless you want it to hurt, that is."

"Where will I go?" The bag of ice went directly against one bruised eye as Sam rested against the wall, legs stretched out along the bed.

"I have certain talents, but answering more than one question at a time isn't one of them. Now
touch your ankle."

Sam watched the woman prop her ankle up on the soft pillows. "Touch my ankle? What do you mean "certain talents"? Are you a... witch?"

"Yes, touch your ankle. For the third time. I said your ankle needs to be elevated, you asked why. If you want my answer to make sense, touch your ankle. And I'm no witch! One thing at a time!" Stick stared up at the ceiling, fighting laughter. She remembered her sensei, she remembered herself, and she vividly recalled all the times she wondered how her sensei put up with her obnoxious stubbornness.

"That's too bad."

They watched each other for a moment. Too bad? They would have more differences, Stick realized, before changing the subject. "It's soft, right?"

"Yeah, and nasty." The ice came down into Sam's lap.

"When you hurt yourself badly enough for it to swell, fluids go to where you're hurt and protect it so it can heal better. But if you leave it alone, it takes *forever* to get better.. at least, that's how it feels. Elevating your ankle lets the fluids drain slowly back up towards the rest of your body, where they should be. And ice will keep the swelling down even moreso. If you want more for your eye, that's okay. We have plenty."

"Huh." Stick reached for the ice bag in Sam's hands. She relinquished it without a thought, far more interested in the explanation of how to heal her injury. "Why're you going to all this trouble?"

A pause. Stick had hoped this it wouldn't occur to the girl to ask this yet. "There are.... a lot of reasons. If you want to learn them, you will, but... I can't possibly tell you all of them right now."

"Did... did you buy me?" The girl's energy was powerful; her tension quickly surrounded them both. Stick sat back on the floor, pushing away to lean against the next bunk over and create space. It helped... not as much as she had hoped, perhaps.

"I suppose that depends on who you ask. That scumbag fatass who I gave the even bigger scumbag wizard's money to would say yes, I did buy you. I say I only bought safe passage out of there for both of us. You're not a slave. You can leave whenever you'd like, if you want to."

The accurate, venomous description of Leon became Sam's first real proof she sat with a kindred spirit. She smiled, a small one, but it came easily to her lips. "This is a school? You are its teacher? And where do I fit in?"

"You're pretty smart." The smile was returned. "No wonder you survived in a place like that for any amount of time at all. Yes, this is a school. I teach Shishi Mesu Do. You fit in wherever you'd like to fit in."

A decision placed in her hands? It was a strange feeling. She pushed it aside for the moment. "I like the beds."

"I'm glad. If you decide to stay as a student, you'll learn to appreciate them a lot more." Stick had purchased Sam's freedom. She intended to make sure the girl knew exactly how much freedom she had: total. "If you stay. You don't have to. You have free will to do as you wish. But you are welcome to stay."

"I have no money."

"Have I asked for any?"

"If you don't ask for money from your students how do you pay for all of this?"

"I don't know. I don't have any students yet." Stick chuckled, watching the girl, wondering if that would come as a surprise. "You'd be the first. But I own the building, and I have ways of making enough money to eat and keep us warm, so there shouldn't be any problems."

After a moment, Sam smiled brightly, seeing a very good situation and no catch. "So... I'm free to leave here whenever I want, I have a bed, you're going to teach me to fight, I get food and all of this is completely free?"

Stick was hesitant to match the smile. "In terms of money, yes." There was the catch.

Sam seemed to shrink into her suspicions, carefully wording her next question. "In what terms will it not be free?"

"While you're recovering, you owe me nothing. I purchased your freedom, and I feel a responsibility towards nursing you back to health."

"And after that?"

Time for the full truth. "After you're well, you have to decide whether to stay as a student or leave. If you stay, you are going to &*@#$&@ *work*, make no mistake. I won't mistreat you, although it may feel like it physically at times. You will be a martial arts student under a very hard teacher. You are going to learn to do things very few women are capable of, and you won't have to pay a dime, but you'll earn it through sweat and blood, the same way I did. I may send you on errands that help make money for the dojo, but I will not force you to fight or do anything truly dangerous. And if you get tired of it, you can always leave. You are a free person now, don't ever forget that, but with that freedom comes the responsibility of learning how to care for yourself. Are we clear?"

Sam's head turned. The room became so quiet she heard two of her braids touch. "Y-yeah."

Stick let the lecture rest in the air for some time before letting the teenager off the hook, temporarily. "You have time to think it over. It'll be at least two or three weeks before you're ready to start training, even if you can walk much sooner. It wouldn't be fair for me to make you decide before then. Until then... Can I ask you a question now, or did you have more?"

All questions answered in one fell swoop, Sam acquiesced. "I... Of course."

"What's the name of that sleazy, obese asshole I had to deal with to get you out of there?" It could have been a tension breaker, if not for the tight frown evidencing Stick's extreme distaste at merely remembering Sam's former handler.

"Leon." The name was spat on the floor. In Sam's mind, she ground it into the wood.

"Leon, huh. What a jackass. He was standing there, so important, chest puffed out.. not as far as his belly, though." It was a silly sight, the fit woman holding her arms out wide and pushing her cheeks out to imitate a roly-poly man. "I don't think anyone in the whole place liked him, even though he ran it."

"Yeah. Jackass." Sam grinned slightly, trying out Stick's first new addition to her vocabulary.

"How long were you there, anyway?"

"I was eight. Started out as just an errand kid but Leon got this notion into his head about the novelty of young girls fighting."

"Were there others?" A second question rested beneath the first: "Who else do I need to get out of there?"

"There was a couple of us that fought each other. They were sweet girls but couldn't fight. Leon's attentions turned on me fighting boys and men. They went back to their jobs for a while but, in the end, I was the lucky one." The girl stared at her ankle. It was difficult to tell if she was sincere about her luck.

Stick crept forward, placing her forearms on Sam's bunk and using them as a chinrest. Her voice softened, intimately understanding the delicate subject at hand. "Did they end up the same way you would have?"

"Yeah. I haven't seen them in... two years now, I guess."

"Does it bother you that I'm asking these questions?"

"I... I don't know, really. I don't remember the last time I talked this much."

"Okay. I only have one more question. What's your name? Your bouncer friend said your name is Sam, but I mean your real, full name."

"Samiyah Zayn. And you are?"

"Sarah Allian. Most people call me Stick, though."

Exotic, Arabian eyes widened before blinking away the astonishment of recognizing the name. "Nice to meet you."

Pale wrinkles appeared as Stick's face tensed, noticing the surprise. "Something wrong?"

"No... I've heard your name before."

"You have?"

"Team Dueling. The guys at Leon's talk about it."

"Oh. They'd better be saying good things." It was a moment of pride before the bigger picture came to mind. "Wait, what the hell am I saying? No, no, no.. *%@#$*. I don't want those jackoffs knowing who I am. Damnit. Too late now, I guess."

The girl frowned, confused, as Stick laid her cheek on her arms before explaining the outburst. "Sorry. It goes with the territory of being in the spotlight, I guess. Sometimes I forget how popular team dueling is, that's all. I don't know how much you know about me... but I piss off a lot of people. And I don't like the idea of this dojo becoming a target if the wrong people find out about it."

Sam nodded. "I understand." And yawned. "I.. I don't mean to be rude but I think I may fall asleep on you. That match must have worn me in."

"It's okay. I'm glad you're not one of those people who thinks they have to try and stay up just because. I've made that mistake more than once. I'll be downstairs. The icebox is down the hall, there are some drinks and plenty of ice if you need it. If you're hungry or need anything else, come downstairs and knock on the door."

"Thank you."

"And, um... if you see a guy walking around, that's Harris. He's my fiance. He's a little weird if you don't know him, and a lot weirder if you do. But he's a good guy. Just don't let him scare you or try to teach you anything. I'll let him know you're here, though."

"Huh. Okay." Sam laughed softly. Stick multiplied it in her mind several times, envisioning how much more there should be. She vowed to make sure Sam would never feel alone. It was a teacher's job to help the student learn from their life's shortcomings.

"Get some sleep. I'll work on getting you a pair of crutches. Maybe in the next few days we can go to the Outback or the Arena. They have fights there, but it's for practice more than trying to hurt people. I have some friends there you might like to meet."

"The Outback? Arena? Yeah. Absolutely!"

Stick's hands moved instinctively to the edges of the bunk's light blanket. Before she could tuck Sam in, sense came; she was a teacher, not a mother. Covering only the girl's legs, she stood and smiled down. "Good. I'll look forward to it."

"Thank you."

"Sleep."