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Tears leaked from my eyes as I pushed and pulled the soapy brush along the hard wooden floor. It's so unfair, I thought, for the umpteeth time as I scrubbed. The skin on my nuckles was beginning to break, and soreness wasn't helping me do my work. Pausing, I looked up from my work at the clear blue sky out of the window, and sighed softly. Standing up, I walked over to the clear pane of glass in the wall and looked out at the practice courts. There were people using them, and I leaned tiredly against the wall to watch. Two men were circling each other, wooden practice sword in their hands. One of them was dark-haired and pale, while the other was blonde with brown streaks in his hair, and tanned. There were several other onlookers, tall, athletic people hanging around and leaning on the fence. When I looked closer, I realised that several of them were women. Girls, actually. All of them seemed quite young. Most of them just seemed interested in the men, not the actual sparring, but a couple of the older ones seemed to be more serious. And they were inside the fence surrounding the courts, which was a clear sign.

I lost track of the time watching the fencers. I saw several people who were blatant champions, but mostly people who were just wannabes. However, after one particularly violent match, they seemed to dispatch. Four people, two guys - one of them was the blonde I had first seen, one the dark haired man - and two women, each one tall, lean and dangerous-looking, began walking towards the building I was in. Then blondie caught my eyes, and winked. My mouth almost dropped open, but I managed, with some difficuly, to keep it shut. I must've looked shocked though, because he smiled, a lazy, heart-stopping smile that took my breath away. Then he turned back to the other and carried on talking. As the entertainment was over, I wandered back to my work in a daze. Could he really be interested in me? Why? I was just a servant girl. I was no-one important. Shaking my head, I carried on scrubbing. Just as I finished, the gong went for Meridian meal. I guess the dining hall was mostly for the trainees at the Fort, as everyone else was allowed down into in the village, and mostly got their food there. But the trained fighters often came in here to avoid having to pay.

* * *

As usual the next morning, I woke up in the servants' dormantry, surrounded by girls my age and older. Getting up stiffly, I dressed and washed quickly. It was long before the gong went, so I lit a candle and read until it got light. At dawn, the gong went, shattering the still morning air. The other girls moaned, and began to stir. Blowing out my candle and standing up, I walked out of the large, stuffy room and upstairs, to the servants' dining room. We were placed in a different building from the rest of the fort, being servants. Once I'd finished my breakfast, I walked outside. The early morning air was crisp and cold, waking me up totally. It was my day off today, and I'd already decided to go down to the village.

As I walked down the hill, my feet crunching on the frost on the grass beneath them, I pondered about nothing in particular. However, eventually my mind slipped to the man from yesterday. He had been a good fighter, meaning he wasn't one of the recruits from the villages we'd passed on the way. He was probably one of the transfers, I supposed. A group of fighters had been sent by the king down to this fort to help us defend ourselves. I was guessing the same for the other three people he was with; I hadn't been concentrating on them, I was too shocked by the blonde man. Well, he was probably more like a boy, really. He had only looked about seventeen.

As I was walking along in a daze, the sun rose into the sky. By now, almost everyone was up. The men had probably been up since dawn, like us, but now the village was bustling with activity. I blinked, surprised. Had I really been walking that slowly? Shaking the thoughts from my head, I wandered around the village for a while, glancing into shop windows, occasionally buying things with my meagre amount of money. When it was around noon, I brought a meat pastry from the nearby bakers and wandered down to the riverbank to eat it. The smell of the fresh-baked bread soon brought the ducks and swans crowding around me, and I threw them lumps every now and then, admiring the swans' long, graceful necks, the ducks rich, metallic plumage.

Once I had finished my meal, I stood up, only to slide in the mud and fall over again. Swearing unbecomingly under my breath, I attempted to brush the thick, wet mud off my skirts, without success. Altough there was no-one to see me, I flushed burning red. Stumbling up the bank, I started the uphill walk back to the fort, hoping the get there and change ym dress before anyone noticed. I kept my head lowered, watching the ground pass under my black-clad feet.

By this time, the dew on the grass had dried completely, so I didn't bother to stay on the gravel path. I was so lost in my urgency to get back, I didn't hear the chatter of vocies nearing me, and only realised when the other shoes entered my vision. By that time, I had walked head-first into a hard body. The boy let out a yelp of surprise, and I glanced up to see a bunch of trainees from the fort. The one I had walked into was glaring at me with a look of distaste mixed with anger. "What the hell d'you think you're doing, wench?" He demanded, raising one hand. I flinched back, but stayed glaring defiantly at him.

The matron had always said that my attitude would be the death of me. I'd always imagined that it was because I hadn't been brought up as a servant girl. None of he others would react this way.

"Answer me!" cried the pompous boy, bringing his hand down in a ringing slap. My cheek stung, but I bit my lip and forced the pain down, keeping silent. With a growl of anger, the boy raised his hand again, punching me in the face. This time, the tears were harder to keep down and a few leaked out. I could feel warm blood rolling down my face, my nose turning red. The boys obvously enjoyed my reaction, for one of them crept up behind me and gave me a thump on the back of the head. I stumbled forwards into the knee of the first boy, and a cry escaped me.

Then they were all on me, hitting, shoving, punching, until I heard a voice calling out, and the hands being pulled off me. I lay still, curled in a ball on the ground, bruised and battered. I opened one black eye a crack and gazed up at my rescuer. It was a middle-aged man, broad-faced, smiling with dark eyes and wrinkles. He held out a big hand, saying, "Are you alright? Nothin' broken?"
"I don't think so..." I croaked, taking his hand.
"Come on," he said, pulling me up easily. He was a giant of a man, probably able to snap me in half as easily as a toothpick. "Let's get you to the healing rooms at the fort." I nodded, and leaned on him as he half carried, half-pushed me up the hill. The bullies had scattered.

In the healing room, I sat down on a soft, feather-stuffed cushion, wincing with each movement. I waited in silence for one of the matrons to come out and tend to me. While I sat there, the door creaked open, and a group of people came in, sat a pair of men down and left again. I turned my head to glance at the new invalids, gasping in shock. It was the dark-haired man and his blonde friend, who had grabbed my attention so securely the last day. However, they didn't look as well-off now as they had in the practice courts. The brown-haired one was holding his arm in an arkward position, two of his fingers were obviously broken and his nose was bleeding. As for the blonde, there was a large gash across his forehead, his clothes were in tatters and splattered with blood, and all the bare skin I could see was bruised. He caught me staring and grinned crookedly. I blushed furiously, and he chuckled, obviously not missing his effect on me, or my scrutiny of his wounds. "It's not as bad as it looks, I can promise you," he told me. His voice was smooth, quiet, and slightly amused. I managed a fake smile, still too dazzled to be listening to what he was saying.

He watched my face, smiling that glimmering smirk. "So, what happened to you?" he asked, and I blushed again at his dark green eyes roving over my body, taking in the muddy, tattered dress, the blood, the bruises. I looked like I'd been in a brawl. Feeling stupid, I lowered my head. "Don't worry," he laughed. "I've seen - and had- worse. Much worse." To my surprise, I found myself talking. "But I'm a girl, I'm supposed to be tidy, and..." I trailed off. He was laughing again. "You should meet some of the girls we hang around with!" I laughed slightly. He was so easy to talk to, despite my shyness. "I'd like to meet them sometime," I told him. He smiled back at me, and spoke again, "I'm sure they wouldn't mind... What's your name?" I blushed again. His strange attention embarressed me. "Lorelei." Taken by a flash of boldness, I added, "What about you?"
"Shanton," he replied calmly, semingly not bothered by my sudden change of personality.

I nodded, watching him. He was so open, so relaxed, so friendly. I found myself staring at his smiling face, and my fingers twitched with my sudden desire to touch it, to stroke his tanned cheek, to glide my fingers over his glass-smooth lips. Curbing the impulse, hoping he didn't see me staring at him, I tore my eyes reluctantly away, turning to the dark-haired man who'd watched our exchange quietly. He seemed almost the opposite of Shanton, not only in looks but in demeanour. Where Shanton was welcoming, friendly and relatable, this man was quiet, secretive, and solitary. He didn't seem unfriendly, just... detatched. He noticed me looking at him curiously, and raised his eyebrows. I blushed an even deeper shade of maroon, looking away quickly. Shanton seemed to take this as an invitation, for he grinned wickedly, a full-mouthed smirk that showed his teeth, looking dazzling against his dark skin. "Lorelei, meet Aareohi." The other, more athletically built man gave a murmur of greeting and nodded his head. I mirrored his actions quietly.