Author
Thanks to SoftGameHunter for "Daphne's True Self?"
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I guess you could say I was born in the wrong century. I know it's cliche', but I grew up with fairy tales, like any other girl, and I was different. "Not like the other girls," and "Just like one of the guys," you know? I don't know, we had TV shows, and movies, like Highlander, and I just loved sword fighting, for a long as I can remember. It's so exciting, and fun to watch. So, I always looked forward to them getting past the talking, and court intrigue, so they could get out the swords for some action.
Not cars, and guns, nor ships for that matter. I suppose that Pirates is a good vehicle, and set for swordfighting, because you can sail it anywhere, and they could have something to fight over. Treasure mostly, though sometimes there was a girl, it was almost never for a princess. Okay, The Princess Bride, but that's parody. They worked all the cliches in, and honestly some of the best swordfights ever. Not just the opening one, between Westley, and the Wizard Inigo. If you read the book, he's not a Master. He's past that, he's a Wizard of swordfighting, the highest rank there is, arguably the best in the world.
For revenge. Say it with some weight to it, "Revenge!" The best part, I missed until I read the book. "The Good Parts Version," and I got to the part where Inigo finally confronted Rugen. He said his line, and rather than face him, in a fair fight, he sent 4 guards after him, and the 4th one was dead before the first had time to hit the floor. I ran it back, over and over, there was a cheat in there because the first circled around to stand behind him, but 4 trained swordsmen. He killed all 4, in under a second, without a scratch. That's awesome!
So, then, my parents gave in to my constant pestering, and got me my first Foil. For my birthday, I turned seven, and started Fencing classes. If I was going to lose an eye, I would have with sticks, or brooms, or anything else I could swing around, and it came with a face guard. Then Epee, and then Saber, and finally my Rapier, and Sword Rapier. It's really a Broadsword, they just don't call it that in D&D. They call an Arming Sword a "Longsword," when back in the day, that was just your basic sword. "A sword." A longsword is 2 handed, so they call that a 2 Handed Sword, and so on. They have something called a "Shortsword," for thieves, and Clerics always use maces. All these rules for what classes can, and can't use, a thief can't use a "Longsword" any more than a Warrior can memorize a spell, and Strength is a stat.
So's "Intelligence." The same logic that says that the strongest man always wins every fight should be enough for you to let a rocket scientist to perform brain surgery on you, right? He's the smartest, so who's better qualified to cut your head open, and dig around in your grey matter with a scalpel. He's the strongest, so obviously all those boys let me win, it has nothing to do at all with 9 years of swordfighting. I couldn't possibly be there to teach Them how to swordfight. Okay, I understand Balance. If you had one class that could cast spells, and swordfight, nobody would play anything else, and he'd be god, like Gandalf. See the problem? You have to have something to write down on the sheet of paper, to show you're the strongest, or the smartest, or the most dexterous, and this leads to thinking. You know, I can't even be sure here, actually. Now that I think about it, men just think that way, and wrote it into the rules. Which one's the strongest? Which one's the smartest? Who gets to use the best sword?
I didn't understand, any of that. I was just a little girl, playing with boys, because all the girls I knew thought I was weird. Yeah, I liked hair, clothes, and makeup too, but really we'd get to the point of I have to go to fencing classes, they say "Oh cool!" and some of them even tagged along. Turns out some of them went to Dance classes at the same community center, even in the same room, but not on the same day, because that wouldn't work out. It's basically the same as dance, only improvized, and you react to your opponent, instead of following your partner, and the music. So, I never saw them there.
And boys, we talked about boys, and I didn't care about who was the cutest. Who do you think likes whom, and all that. I set some of my friends up with them, because oddly enough, actually hanging out with boys, you come to find out which girls they have the hots for. It seems to work a whole lot better than looking at them, in groups, and giggling to each other when they look over. I never understood that shit, if you like a boy, and he's right there, go over there, and talk to him, you fucking coward? You can't tell me, that every single girl is a natural born coward, I won't believe it. Bullshit, you raise them with silly stories about prince charming coming to them, so they wait for prince charming to come to them, and their fathers get to protect their precious virginity.
I guess, that seems to be the way it works. Your father lied to you, your mother played along, if they both stuck around, but for the love of god, stop looking at each other across the room, and go talk to him. Are you afraid he's going to say no? You're not pretty enough? Here's a little secret: Guys don't care. Yeah, they want a pretty girl with tig old bitties, and a flat tummy, somehow they have this unrealistic notion that breast fat, and belly fat, and ass fat are 3 different things, because their fathers lied to them too, and showed them impossible airbrushed centerfolds in magazines with big old titties, and not an ounce of body-fat. Do the math there, they're fake. Duh. Moving on, they know those girls are out of their league, and they'll take what they can get, for a handjob. Ask me how I know.
Well, I had callouses from swordfighting, and some of the guys tried to shock me by talking about jerking off. So, I jerked them off. It was fun, I found out how easy it was to get my hands on a dick, and while it's not as much fun as swordfighting, it's a lot easier to find. A guy with a dick, who's not afraid to use it, than a guy with a sword, who knows what he's doing. That's another thing, I'm good at it. Not jerking off, if you need instructions on how to pull it up and down, then I can't help you. Kill yourself, or go find a guy that's willing to show you. Likewise, all we have to do is get out the boffers in the park, and inevitably a guy will show up, to show you how to use it.
"Huh!"
Yves. His name was Yves, and you wouldn't have to tell me he got shit for that, when he was little. So, he got big, and he had a great body, pretty good looking in that French/Swiss kind of way. In fact if you looked at a picture of him, you might even cast him as Prince Charming in your fantasies. Okay, I did, but then he opened his big mouth. Started pushing the boys around, and asking stupid questions. Like "What are you doing?"
"Fishing." I waved my sword around, "What's it look like we're doing with these fishing poles?" Okay, "Sword," a boffer. Take a pool noodle, and tape it on over a PVC pipe. Pack stuff in the tip so you can thrust with it, without actually stabbing someone, and swing them around for hours of fun at the park.
"What's she doing here?"
"They're my swords, so if they want to play with them, they kinda have to wait for me to show up."
"Yeah, she's got the greatest swords." Or somesuch nonsense, they stood up for me, but then again he talked to them about me, as if I wasn't there. I made the best swords, because I actually cared about Quality, enough to want to balance them. The pommel, or the wad of extra foam and tape on that end isn't just to keep your hand from slipping off. It's there to put the point of balance right where I want it, and I even added slugs to the base. Little metal washers, or coins, or whatever I could to balance it, and took care to tape them, carefully. Because I know what I'm doing, I know that I can only fence as well as the tools I have in my hands, and he's the opposite mindset.
"You let her win." Obviously. "You feel like a man, beating up on a girl?"
"Here." I threw the army duffel at his feet. I got it at Goodwill, it's green, heavy canvass, open on one end, and had all kinds of hilts sticking out of it. I couldn't afford a golf bag, or a squire named "Caddy." When we played Dice&Dossiers, my knightesses had a squire, named Caddy. "What do you think, the Nine-iron?"
"Excellent choice, sire."
"I don't want to play your stupid childish games." Or somesuch nonsense.
"No, you just want to come over here, and bully My friends, for playing with a girl. What's wrong, you afraid you'll lose?"
"It wouldn't be a fair fight."
"Of course not, you've never held a sword in your whole life, have you?"
"You're too weak."
"Right. Ha, I forgot that swordfighting has anything to do, at all, with strength. Go on, pick one. Pick one up, any one you like. Put up, or shut up, you fucking coward."
So, I treated the boys to a duel. Guess what? He picked the biggest one in the whole bag. Tried it 1 handed, 2 handed, but either way. I'll save you the blow-bye blow. He tried to overpower me. Every single time, he overswings. That much strength, and weight swings way out of the way, and takes more than long enough to come back for me to get in, thrust, and get back out with a parry. I stared feinting, just so I'd know when he'd swing, and pull back to catch the back edge. Create an opening, but he refused to learn. Even as I lectured him on the myth of the Strength Stat. "Hold it out. Like this." Out of reach. "Just hold it. Straight out, pointed at me. Hold it still, stop shaking. What's wrong? It doesn't even weigh half a pound. You play pool, right?" Circling around, so he had to move to point it at my general direction.
"Yeah?"
"Well, it's just like pool. You can't play, you can't win, unless you hold it steady. It doesn't matter how hard you hit someone with a sword. It doesn't do any more damage, and you've never held something out," Turned the hilt over, so he can see it. Turn, right in front of him. The "Blade" hidden behind the big padded Q tip of tape, and foam, but he could see the tubes out the side for a makeshift handguard turn over. Nothing else moved. Nothing, not a tremmor. "You have the advantage, honestly, you'd make a pretty good swordsman, if you could learn. You've got reach, I have to get past, to hit you. There's a good half foot where you can hit me, and I can't hit you, and you're left handed. I'm used to fighting right handed people, because all of my friends are right handed, you're taller, so you have natural high ground, and yet, you can't even hold the sword steady, because you've never held anything out like that, at arm's length, have you?"
I stabbed him, over and over, before he finally got sick enough of it for me to show him what he got wrong, but this was the victory. I wore him out. His arm got tired, sure he said "But you've got the lighter sword." I held out the bag, of swords. The whole bag, at arm's length, left handed. "I didn't bring any shields. Next week, we'll bring some shields, so you can learn the basics of defense. Give me back my sword." He stuffed it in, and I dropped it. With a "Hah ha!" Like he beat me. That's all it took for him to walk away, and think that everything was right in his world again. He never came back, he watched us sometimes, and I thought that was the end of it. I was wrong, of course.
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Author
IDFK whether to keep this here, or delete it, and copy it to One on 1. I'll probably make up my mind at some point, but in the previous scene, she basically flashes back, to justify her actions. In her mind, child molesters aren't the only ones who make excuses, and she's a self confessed child molester. She's pretty proud of it, in fact, but that doesn't make her any better at this introspection thing.
