Year 13-1

Tucker didn't understand. Or maybe he wanted me to see something I was blind to. Before our life together in The Enchanted Forest, before the night we first met, I lived a different life. I had to. After losing my mother, my father, and most of my village, I was alone. Life was nothing but battles. A battle to survive and a battle to become a man my father might have found pride to call his blood.

I might have lost that battle had it not been for a woman, Loreal Dane. She could never take the place of my mother, but I grew to love her. As for her husband, Michael Dane, he was tolerable.

When they found me I was a day away from starving to death. The way they told the story, made me sound like a gift from the Gods. They often left out the part where I tried to cut Michael's eye out. They were good people despite their loyalty to the King, which took much getting used to. Unable to bear children, they fostered many girls and boys. Loreal taught me the basics of life, gave me a place to sleep, and food to eat. She allowed me the grace to survive, but her husband offered me the strength to do more.

Michael would never approve of my war against the crown, but he saw my rage and knew it had worth.

"A Hunter," I questioned.

It was a fine day. It was a light day. Kind natured or not, to live with the Dane's was to work with the Dane's. With four younglings under their roof, work was divided among us, and that day I drew the lighter load. After helping Loreal run errands selling her quilts at the market, we returned to the cottage to find Michael waiting for me out in the fields.

"We've all heard you hacking away at the scarecrows when you think you're alone at night," Michael confessed.

At least I didn't wake everyone with the rustling of my sheets as Scott did.

"It's time you learn to use the metal you carry on your hip, or for scarecrow's sake sell it," he was blunt with me while Loreal stood in the doorway, perhaps ready to step in if needed.

"Michael, don't you go hurting one of our boys," she called out.

The mountain of a man we called Michael was more of a child than any he fostered.

"He'll be fine," he answered, waving Loreal away.

All the while, my two adopted brothers, Scott and Harris, were still working the fields around us picking cotton. Their days must have been longer than mine. My adopted sister, Farrah, the only of us not made to work when Loreal was absent, sat on a stump watching.

"None of your brothers have it in em to fight. They came from more than enough war to last a life time, but you, you hunger for it, don't you, boy?" Michael continued while I held the hilt of my sword.

"Teach me," Farrah whined, but she was hardly old enough to use a kitchen knife on her own.

My father's sword was the only thing I had left of him. I would often tell myself he left it with me to cut the men responsible for destroying our home.

"But why a hunter. Why not become a Knight?" I asked.

"You think we have the coin for that," Michael laughed with his big belly.

"But I don't want to be a Hunter," I complained.

"You want to fight, don't you?"

He pushed my chest almost hard enough to knock me over.

I hesitated but answered, "yes."

"Then I'll make you the best Nestle has ever seen, second only to myself, of course," he boasted.

Before Michael married Loreal, he was a Hunter for ten years. He liked to tell us tales of his old adventures, but my adopted siblings and I rarely believed them. Regardless, I never doubted Michael knew how to fight. He wasn't a small man, nor was he modest. Michael was loud, tough, but kind to those on his right side. Could I believe he slew a dragon with a butter knife? No. But I could easily see him crushing a man stupid enough to wish harm to his home.

"You'll show me how to use a sword?"

"I'll teach you everything I know, boy," he said with his hands on his hips.

I was 13. My brothers were older and likely knew how to use weapons already, but I was the first and only Michael trained.

Could I call it training?

Hunters were different from Knights. Hunters fought monsters and magical creatures, not people. Monsters never used swords, shields, or armor, at least not the majority. Tactics for dealing with flame spirits were different from defeating human soldiers. I was taught the basics of swordsmanship and several other weapons, but my training was far from the chivalrous points of Knighthood. Regardless, Michael never sought to end my war. He never ended my battle; he gave it fire and told me never to quit.

I'm sure if he knew why I burned, I might have been casted out before he made me a weapon.