Let Your Clarity Define You

The thunk of her sword into clavicle of the practice dummy was satisfying in a way she'd never before imagined. She spins around, slicing across its back, then shifts her feet again to swipe at its knees. Pause, swing, pause, breath, pause, swing. The give and take rhythm of practicing forms had quickly become the forceful savagery of hacking away at the dummy's minimal defenses. Once Mallory Keen got her blood rushing, there was no stopping her.

Practicing like this, keeping her body occupied, set her mind at ease. Emotions that had been rolling around in her stomach since waking up from her death that morning settled into the back of her mind, letting her find peace, calm, clarity.

She was not worthless. She was strong. She was not intimidated. She was fearless. She was capable. She was smart. She was damn well going to kick the snot out of Halfborn Gunderson for making her feel so off-balance. Why was it that when she looked at him on the field, watched his axes flying through the air, she felt the blood rushing to her cheeks? She was a -warrior-.

The head of the dummy hit the ground in a heavy 'thunk', and Mallory rested her hands on her sword as she plunged it into the ground, panting heavily. She wasn't any one thing. She was a warrior, yes. But she was also a daughter, a friend, a shield-sister. She was a person, and every person was a complex creature- a patchwork cacophony of personalities and wants and experiences.

She couldn't let herself be limited by just one word, defined only by her strength on the battlefield. She'd be killing her -self- slowly if she gave into that temptation. It was hard enough to separate her life from her death- she spent most of her days dying or training or fighting and all the hours seemed to melt into one another. Time moved differently here in Valhalla, but not in a conventional sense. In the sense that every day felt like a thousand, but every decade passed in a blink of an eye.

She wiped the sweat from her brow, sheathing her sword and retrieving the dummy head. Housekeeping would fix it when they came to clean up her room later. She'd stolen the thing a long time ago- a year or five or ten, she wasn't sure any more because it didn't really matter. She liked using it here, where the sunlight speckled her shoulders while she worked out her frustrations.

Setting her sword in its proper spot on her wall, she sat heavily on the ugly floral printed couch that somebody had copied from her childhood house when she'd died and come here. She had always hated the couch, back in Midgard, but here...it smelled like home. Grabbing a cushion, she sniffed it deeply, remembering lavender and turpentine, paint and clay and a thousand different kinds of shampoo.

She liked Halfborn Gunderson. Fuck.

The pillow muffled her scream of rage and indignation. She didn't have time to like anybody- and certainly not that giant, brave, hairy idiot. But she did, and she wasn't going to deny it -at least not to -herself- any longer. She would own it, not let it get to her. Because she didn't have any control over how she felt, but she wasn't going to let it interfere with her life. She liked Halfborn, fine. She'd get through it. Maybe in time it'd just...go away. or maybe it'd just become a part of her, like every other frayed edge in the quilt that made up Mallory Keen.

Only time would tell- she certainly wouldn't.

Author's Note: Wow! It's been a while since I've posted anything. Weeks, I know. I got a really nasty sinus infection that had me down and out for over a week, and then I got caught up in something else. But, here I am again! If any of you are also following my other work, I should hopefully be able to finish the chapter I'm working on for that in the next few days, and then I'll be able to post the whole thing since the two chapters following it are already written.

Thanks for reading, guys!