Young Ty's Childhood

"I have trained the hardest with the sword, 'tis my weapon of choice... I have not knowledge of any other weapon than with the sword" Tybalt meditated to himself. The younger page boy watched him intently, being not much older than Tybalt was when he first arrived to the school and training grounds. "Ready!" the trainer called out, holding his arm up, then he dropped it with the signal. "Begin!"

Tybalt turned to face Cattivo, sword in his hand. The larger boy locked eyes on him, and the two went at it immediately. They clashed steel and rang out a song of battle. The crowd was on edge, the two clearly evenly matched in the way of the sword. They fought for longer than with the other rounds, swiping and dodging and parrying against each other, feinting and clashing in a brawl that dragged out for what seemed like hours. Cattivo struck out with weighted fury and Tybalt matched him with calculated strategy. They exchanged light hits on the others flesh, and both of them were able to touch steel to their opponent, but so far nobody had landed a scoring hit on the other. Panting, they both danced around each other dripping sweat, nearing exhaustion, but neither wanted to let down their guard. Finally, Tybalt faltered on a breath as he struggled to keep up his endurance, but being more athletic, Cattivo saw his opening. He slashed with his sword, using the long end of the blade. Instead of chopping like with the axe, he used his expertise to guide the steel with precision across Tybalt's chest. Despite the blunted blade, the sheer force of the slash caused a tear in the fabric to open up the tunic and reveal Ty's flaxen-colored chest. He gasped, staggering backward. The trainer nodded his head to take note of the scoring hit. Fingering the open hole in his shirt, Tybalt grimaced and struggled to gulp in air. He didn't have time to regain his breath. Cattivo came on him again with a swipe of the blade down his shoulder. The steel met the bones of his arm and the crack echoed against the wooden fence of the arena, sending a jolt of pain down to his fingertips. He yelled aloud and heard the crowd groan audibly behind him.

Thinking fast, he evaded backward, scrambling on his footpads. He was able to open up a distance between himself and Cattivo, but his arm was disabled and throbbing with pain. His sword arm. Painfully, he shifted the hilt into his left hand, his unnatural arm. He would have to fight southpaw. Against, his mantra of strategy, Tybalt lunged forward with the blade in his wrong hand. Somehow, the move caught Cattivo off guard and he took a blow to the backside. Quickly he countered with another hit to Ty's bad arm. He screamed again. "Foul!" Tybalt yelled, almost growling from his throat. His arm hung limply at his side.

"What are you gonna do? Cry about it?" Cattivo flipped the blade between one hand to the other, as if to mock Tybalt that he still had use of both of his hands. The crowd booed at him, but he silenced them with a wave of his hand. He growled and slapped Ty again with the flat of the blade on his ruined shoulder. Tybalt wailed and struggled to lift his own sword in his off-hand. He successfully blocked a couple of other swipes from Cattivo, but his arm was piercing through him and a heavier sweat broke out onto his forehead. "Yeah that's right, cry you little whelp! You're so weak, you'll never even be knighted. For all we know, you'll end up janitor to be emptying the squires chamberpots!" Tybalt held his sword up diagonal to guard himself as best as he could, but he was beginning to slump from exhaustion and the weight of his lame arm. He felt no tears pricking against his eyes, but his heart felt broken inside as he was humiliated again.

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It's hard to believe that these were just boys of 12 years of age, for they acted so mature, that one would think they were 18 or perhaps 20. But when it all came down to it, they were still children... young boys pitted to fight against each other with cold steel, learning hatred and pain and the horrors of being a soldier. This was occurring to Tybalt just now as he looked Cattivo in the face behind his blade. Their voices had not yet even deepened full to manhood, and he realized that the crowd behind him wasn't even the spectators of a Roman Colosseum, but the screams of children, his own brothers.

The trainers didn't move. They didn't even care. They just stood watching with cold cruelty to see who would win and who they would have to beat later to train harder. And something about that made Tybalt angry. The same kind of angry bubbled up inside him from the day that he wanted to prove himself to the straw dummy. Or was he proving himself to the trainers? Or was he proving himself to Cattivo? Did he have to prove himself to anyone at all? He didn't know... all he knew was that he was angry, and that it was taking over.

The sounds from the other children faded away, and suddenly he could only hear a ringing sound in his ears, filling a cloud of dead silence. The ringing held a note, high like an angels song, a single note whistling in his head. He twitched his ears, then shook his head, trying to free himself of the ringing. Darkness sprang up in splotches on his eyes. He shook his head again, then dropped his guard. His blade swung to his side, then he dropped it and brought his fingers up to his eyes. He was going blind. Cattivo moved in and knocked him down with the butt of his sword hilt and Tybalt fell backwards into the dust on his rump. He thought he heard Cattivo sneering at him again... asking if he was gonna cry again. But the ringing was just too loud in his ears to even hear the other boy anymore. Tybalt could feel himself on the ground, but the pain from the blow didn't even register in his mind. Then it was as if the pain in his arm dissolved as well.

He stood up suddenly and picked his sword back up and held it on guard with both hands. His eye twitched as he focused on Cattivo and the other boy glowed red in front of him. A target. Prey, lit up by the very ultraviolet of his own heat signature. Tybalt gritted his teeth and someone screamed, "Oh by the gods... what's wrong with his eyes!?"