Reflections

[Candy Hart]

Candy sat crossed-legged on the floor of the abandoned manor’s attic. The steel bat—claimed from the Annex—rested over her lap. Idly, she turned the bat. Lips pressed into a thoughtful line. The first punch she threw that night was outside of an official match. The target had been Jochin, following his manner of hello. Sugar $%&s. He took the punch and asked if she could do that in a ring. She took her first match—with someone else and finished with a score of four to the victor’s five in nine rounds. Close, but not close enough.

Following that, Jochin hadn’t made the situation any better by throwing out some nonsense about getting in a ring to work out the sexual tension. She’d gotten in a ring following that, but not with him. Koy, Matt Simon’s wife, was brutal. The match hadn’t ended as close, finishing in eight rounds with Candy two points behind. She could understand why Matt would have to keep on his toes. Jochin threw out some unwelcomed pointers following her defeat and she became more than ready to beat him up in a ring.

She even came close to winning. Close, but yet again, not close enough. Reading his movements wrong, she lost the match after twelve rounds five to his six. Following that, Candy—hungry for more—got into a ring with Rachael and showed no mercy, finishing in six round five to one as she traded blows in her last move. The victory was difficult to enjoy with Jochin acting as her cheerleading section. She didn’t get him and he certainly didn’t get her. It came to a head with the beer.

Jochin and Sayuri had failed to show on Wednesday and as that qualified them both for being the ‘last one there’ that night, she felt they each owed her a beer. He got her the beer. He also opened it for her. Call her paranoid, but being drugged, tortured and barely escaping being killed by her first boyfriend really honed in on the lessons her mother taught her about always being careful. Candy only drank from sealed containers that she opened herself. He wasn’t her friend. She didn’t carefully explain herself to him. He’d done nothing but irritate her all night. Without a word, she poured the open beer down the sink and got out a Badsider that hadn’t been opened.

"I owed ya a beer and yer just gonna pour it out?"

"Don't open my drinks for me."

"We scuse me fer trying ta be cordial. Is there any other requests you have, yer highness? Is it alright if I take my leave from yer ball bustin'?"

He didn’t wait for a response, the door to the Annex banged as he pushed it open and left. Candy mused at being called your highness and thought it unfortunate he didn’t stick around to hear her list. Why ask if you weren’t going to listen?

Candy wasn’t done for the night and she agreed to try her hand at a match with weapons in exchange for another fist match. It had been good that the Annex had been near empty by that point of time. There was no one around to see her easing up on the seventeen-year-old girl that had been her opponent in her last fist match for the night. The girl reminded Candy something of herself—put to training at an early age—though, fortunately for the girl, not nearly as broken. Seventeen. By that age Candy had already met and killed her first boyfriend. First and last, technically. Candy wasn’t as ice cold or stone hard as it appeared, she’d taken an easy on the girl in hand-to-hand.

For the armed match, whether it had been her own preference or the pull of a memory, Candy had selected a blunt weapon over a blade. As the match progressed, she only sought to keep herself from getting hit by the girl’s long sword rather than to knock teeth out. Not on the girl, at any rate. Candy won both matches. The steel bat was a souvenir of sorts.

Taking souvenirs? Looking around her digs in the abandoned manor, Candy had to admit—irritating males aside—she planned to stick around RhyDin for a while. She set the bat aside, laying down to pull the cash she’d been accumulating for fighting at The Brawler. Now she’d just need to find a new place.

[size=0]((Adapted from play.))[/size]