Only She Knows

            She chased me, I was actually surprised she chased me, I shouldn’t have been. She’s probably thinking I want to expose her, tell everyone she’s an assassin. What she probably hasn’t thought of is that I have no proof, and she’s the king’s cohort. If I was to approach this diplomatically I’d have my head chopped off for slander.

 Honestly all you have to do is look at the king to know he’s head over heals for the girl. It’s probably for good reason. If she’s protecting him, staying close to him, letting him say whatever he’s thinking to her, he has no reason to think she doesn’t think the same.

All I know is if I could talk to that girl, she’d listen. I think I would fall in love with her. But this is all speculation. And it doesn’t really matter. No matter how horrible the truth either she or I will be dead by the end of this.

She’ll be more careful then ever now. She knows someone is out there looking for a way to kill the one person she has spent her life protecting. It’ll be hard to get to the king now.

Even though I did not accomplish the job, I did gain valuable information. I leaned that this girl thinks like me, this girl can anticipate my moves. I really should have killed her when she fell. I shouldn’t have kissed her, and I shouldn’t have run. But as it is it would have been hard to kill her like that. It would be a pity to kill someone so beautiful and strong.

From what I can tell that girl was everything every girl wants to be. Now I just have to find out who she is. I may be able to use her as bate for the king, but I doubt it. I think it’s more likely she’ll capture me first. She maneuvers, she tries to weaken you, she doesn’t start with hard hits, and she tries to tire you. She’s smart, and she’s had a lot of practice.

I only beat her on a fluke. I didn’t know I was open until too late. I was just lucky she was as small as she was so that when she pulled I could pull the other way.

When I think about that fight I’m embarrassed, embarrassed that an eighteen year old man could be so close to being beat by a sixteen year old girl. Next time I might not get lucky, next time she might kill me. I need a new approach something that’s never been thought of before. I need to think of something I could never come up with so that she can’t think of it. The problem is she’ll expect that because it’s what she’d do.

It’s amazing how much you can learn in one fight, in one hit to hit exchange. You can learn weight, height, reaction time, favored weapons, and weaknesses. The problem is I didn’t learn any weaknesses, the good thing is neater did she.

When I jump the wall I have to dive. The water below is deep enough o break my fall, I just have to push out far enough. It is possible to hit the rocks below if I were to plummet strait down. I have time to direct my fall several times before I reach the water. Unfortunately that’s where all my good luck ended. I hit my foot against a rock on my way up and it cuts the skin. If I don’t treat it soon I’ll have an infection that causes me to loose my foot.

I swim for about twenty minutes till I reach the shore.  A few yards away from the beach is a small camp, my family’s camp. Not my family in a normal way, my family as in they took me in, a gypsy camp.

“Alex!” a young girl shouts my name when she sees me limping up the beach.

“Hi Zandra,” I say with a pained smile. My foot really hurts.

“Look at you!” she says when she sees the blood. She takes off her shawl and wraps it around my foot then helps me the rest of the way to the camp.

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Zandra Concept Below

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“I owe you a new shawl,” I say.

“I know,” she says getting water and some bandages and herbs. Zandra is a herbalist and a bard for our traveling group. Lucky for me she’s better with herbs then a lute. “Honesty if you’re not more careful I tell Vixen what you’ve been up to,” she says mixing the herbs.

“You do, and I won’t stick around,” I say. I don’t mean it meanly it’s just a fact.

“If you’re not more careful you won’t be able to move,” she says. We sit in silence for a minute. She’s trying to hide her curiosity; she’s trying to pretend she doesn’t care.

“I didn’t do it,” I say. Zandra is the only one who knows what I’m doing and when I’m doing it at any given time. Zandra is a tall fifteen year old girl who has a natural cherry disposition.

“Why not,” she asks still trying to sound disinterested as she applies the herbs to my foot.

“Someone got in my way,” I say.

“Oh?” she asks.

“A girl,” I add.

“A pretty girl?” she asks bandaging my foot over her mixture. She really can’t resist her natural curiosity.

“A very pretty girl,” I say.

“Did she give you this cut?” she asks.

“No this was stupidity,” I say as she ties off the bandage.

“I’m not surprised,” she says, “I don’t think that anyone could hurt you.”

“They could, she could have if I hadn’t kissed her I’d be dead by now,” I say.

“If you hadn’t WHAT!” she asks surprised.

“I surprised her so I could get away,” I say.

“I hope she hit you,” she says.

“She…Why?” I ask.

“Think about it, a strange boy kisses you and it’s not even because he likes you, that’s hurtful. Girls should never feel like something, they should always be treated as someone,” she explains.

“I’ll apologize next time, but for the record I did like her,” I say.

“Sometimes I wonder how much of your life is exaggerated,” she says.

“Do you now?” I ask. She nods. “Nothing I tell you is exaggerated,” I say looking her in the eye.

“That’s what I keep telling myself,” she says packing away her box of herbs. “I’ll see you tomorrow Alex,” she says walking away.

“Goodnight Zandra,” I say.