The clash of swords fills the hot summer air. Bonnie fights valiantly, with the ferocity of a berserker, and the honed skills of a knight. She dances back and forth with her attacker, bare feet nimble over the uneven ground on the river's edge. His breath comes in ragged pants whilst hers slides from her lungs, smooth as silk. Then an opening. She takes it, twisting her sword against his until the wooden sword springs out of his hand and lands with a splash in the river.
Quickly while his guard is down, she raises her sword and points the wooden tip at his neck. "Will you yield?"
Neven's only response is to put a finger in his mouth with a look of pained indignation. "I think you gave me a splinter."
She lowers her sword, feeling the warm rush of victory flood through her. It doesn't last long enough for her to enjoy it. This is what her father called an empty victory. Neven had never been a match for her despite years of her diligent tutoring.
Neven looks despondently at the river, which is little more than a stream really. He sucks at his finger, his untidy mop of brown hair falling over his tanned face. His shoulders slump, making him look even more small and weedy than he already is. "I'll need to make a new sword."
Bonnie parries the air, imagining herself surrounded by enemy warriors. Barbarians, dragons, witches. All of them shy before her sword. No one thinks of her as just a woman. "It'll take you all of five minutes."
Suddenly Neven brightens. "Can I show it to you now? It's really good. I think this will be the one."
A wariness creeps over her. "Is it going to blow up again?"
"No," Neven says, walking through the long grass toward the single old tree that stands by the river. It had been here long before Bonnie came to live here, long before she or Neven were born, and she suspects long before any of their parents were born. It's a gnarled warped thing that has many hidey holes among its twisted roots. "This is something new. I've given up on the idea of flying for now. Da was right, doesn't seem natural."
As he speaks he lifts a pile of wood and iron reverently from a bundle beneath the roots. He pulls back his grubby sleeves to strap what look like manacles around each of his arms. Something bulky is attached to both of them. It contains an impressive amount of iron for a fourteen year old farm boy to get hold of, but Neven has his ways. His gift for making things had long since caught the eye of the village blacksmith. Neven's father hadn't allowed him to become an apprentice, but he works a few hours here and there in return for scrap metal and a place to forge more complicated inventions.
He holds out his arms toward her with a wide grin, and clenches his fists. The bulky things attached to the manacles sit up to attention, making Bonnie jump. They're shaped like long tubes of metal with a thick box extension attached to the manacle at the inner elbow. Already it's looking better than his last invention - the ‘make a person fly machine', which Bonnie had tried to rename the ‘make a person explode machine' after they tried it with a dummy which is now in various wooden pieces little bigger than the splinter in Neven's finger.
She takes a step back just in case. "What does it do?"
"I call it the ‘shoot things really far machine'," Neven says as the things on his arms make an ominous clicking sound. "It shoots things. Wood doesn't work well because it burns up. I made little iron balls that work best, but stone of the right size does the job, at a pinch. I used the explosive material from the last experiment that wasn't supposed to explode. It generates a force that propels the projectile to the target at high speeds."
"Right," Bonnie says, who had only heard that he had strapped explosive material to his arms. "Are you sure you shouldn't use a dummy for this?"
"It'll be fine," Neven says. "Watch."
Bonnie watches, wishing that she'd asked to practice shield manoeuvres instead of swordsmanship. She could really use a shield to duck behind right now.
Nothing happens.
"That's strange," Neven says, shaking his arms up and down. "It's supposed to be shooting right about now."
A high pitched scream comes from behind them. They spin around.
There on the crest of the small hill that overlooks the river stands Neven's mother Mrs Moore. Her work worn hands press to her face in horror. Wide brown eyes the same dark shade as Neven's stare at them.
In a quick practised movement, Bonnie hides the wooden sword behind her back. For a moment Bonnie has a vague hopeful notion that her foster mother's horror is directed at the possible explosives her son had strapped to his arms, then she shakes it off. That isn't likely. Everyone in the village is too used to Neven's eccentric toys to raise an eyebrow at anything less than a brutal maiming or destruction of village property.
"Bonnie Ceana!" Her foster mother screeches. "Look at you! You're filthy!"
Bonnie looks down. The dress Mrs Moore had picked out for her that morning had been nicer than usual. Freshly washed, with none of the usual tatters that catch her feet as she runs. Now it hangs limp and wet around her ankles, mud showing even on the brown cloth. Splotches of mud travel up both her lightly tanned arms, and there's probably some smeared on her face as well.
"You look like a barbarian," Mrs Moore says, raising her hands to the skies in a show of hopelessness. "Whatever shall he think?"
Bonnie waves the wooden sword behind her back, and Neven finally gets the message and takes it from her. Boys can play with swords and neat things that blow up, but Bonnie would catch her foster parent's fury if they caught her doing anything like that. Girls are supposed to care for nothing but preparing to be a good wife, and worrying what their future husband will think of them.
"He's here?" She asks in a low voice. Her skin itches as dread takes over. What will this one be like?
"Yes," Mrs Moore says. "Now come child. I suppose the damage is done, and a woman should never keep a man waiting."
Bonnie walks glumly up the hill away from the river, feeling as if she's walking to her death. Maybe she is. If this goes the way her foster parents want then she won't be the same person anymore. There'll be no time for Neven or sword fighting. No more fancies about killing dragons with red scales and black eyes. No more Bonnie Ceana. She'll have to grow up and become Bonnie - wife.
The thought makes her shudder and long for her sword.