Fight for What You Love

                         School isn’t all that great like Ma said it would be.

   I’d much rather be out training to fight, but Ma said she wanted a better life for me than that. She says she used to fight too, a long time ago, and that’s why she’s covered in all those scars, but I think they’re cool and makes her look like a real warrior! I wanna be like that someday- big and strong and covered in battlescars.

   Sometimes I sneak out of recess to see the Hawks doing their training, and I’ve gotten pretty good at not getting caught anymore so the teachers stop bothering my Ma with all the ‘parent-teacher conferences’. And no amount of getting in trouble would steer me away from the chance to see the great Rulah out training with the rest of the soldiers. She’s super cool and skilled with her weapons- I’d love to be able to fight just like her! I’ve only ever gotten to talk to her once, and she told me to ‘fight for the things I love’. Then she told me to stop sneaking out of school, but I’m sure she would do the same if she were in my place too!

   For the past few months, I’ve started mimicking what the soldiers do, but with sticks I find in the woods since I don’t have a sword of my own yet. I’d say I’ve gotten pretty good at it! Anyways, there’s this really pretty girl in my class- her name is Aino, and she’s nice and has a big smile with straight teeth, unlike mine. Aino says it’s called an ‘underbite’ and that it’s because I’m part orc like my Ma. She’s also super smart and likes to read, which I’m not super good at, but she likes to retell the stories she reads to me so we can talk about them together! Some of the other kids bully her for talking to me, but she doesn’t seem to care what they think. She told me they’re just ‘racist’, but I’m pretty sure they’re just mean. Being with her just makes me all fuzzy and warm inside.

   After school ends, some of the older kids like to hang on the playgrounds since they don’t have anything better to do. Aino stays to sit on the swings and read sometimes, but I usually head home to help out my Ma with the chores. Well, a few weeks ago I saw some of those older guys making their way towards Aino and decided to stick around. I’m glad I did, since they started trying to touch her and she looked real upset. I thought maybe she could take care of herself, but then they knocked her onto the ground and started trying to kiss her. I remembered what Rulah had said to me, about fighting for the people you love, and I found a stick and ran at them to attack. I bashed the main one real hard in the head and knocked him out, but the others got scared and tried to run away. I was a lot faster than they were because of my size though, so I made sure to at least bruise them up pretty good before they escaped to teach them a lesson.

   I walked back to where Aino was on the ground and tried to pull her into a hug, but she just pushed me away with fear in her eyes. Her dress had dirt all over and her pretty smile wasn’t there anymore. She just looked really sad and scared… of me too, holding my stick and covered in the kid’s blood, I guess. Then she ran off before I could say anything I decided to go home. My Ma scolded me a bit but then helped me take off my clothes to wash them and clean the blood off.

   I had a real bad dream that night about the look Aino had… I didn’t like it. And then the next day, she didn’t sit by me like usual. Instead, she sat all the way across the room. I was going to go over to her and try to talk to her, but another teacher came into the classroom and asked me to step outside. My Ma had to come up to the school and have a really long talk in private until she came out into the hall and took me home early. She said we were going to be moving away from Oppendium to somewhere new. She wanted me to have a fresh start after what happened because apparently, I hurt that kid bad enough that he wouldn’t be able to leave his house for a while. They told my Ma I was ‘a danger to the wellbeing of other students’ or something like that, and that I wasn’t allowed to come back anymore.

   I’m really going to miss Aino, but I don’t think she’s going to miss me.

                         But I’m going to continue to grow stronger and take down people like those stupid guys. 

                                                  For Rulah, for my Ma, and just maybe, for Aino too.