Her Last Day as a Village Girl

In an isolated village in the northern region of the Kingdom of Ataraxia, there was a young girl in her early teens. She was awakened by the sunlight that peeked through the small gaps of the wooden board that covered her window. As she sat up, her hazel-brown hair dropped to the bottom of her neck, and she stretched her thin but sturdy arms above her head. Her eyes, which held the same strong colour as her hair, opened to familiar scenery. Even for a village girl, her room was desolate, with only a wardrobe, a desk, and a stool. Her parents were affluent enough to afford more for her, but her interests lied elsewhere.

Getting up at the crack of dawn was the norm for the people of this village, especially with winter approaching. However, she had a special reason for getting ready as soon as possible. After changing from a nightgown to a light brown set of shirt and shorts, she tied her hair into a ponytail with her favorite hair tie. This hair tie was made of shiny rocks that she had collected and was put together by her mother. As the place where she had gathered the rocks had been buried in a landslide, she considered it to be especially precious.

Once she was ready, the girl left the house and entered the front yard. There, waiting for her in a similar outfit but with pants instead of shorts, was her father, who shared her hair colour. He had a handsome face and chiseled body forged from battle, making him quite popular among the village women despite his married status.

"Are you ready for training, Lyn?"

"Yes, I am."

"..."

"Yes, Dad."

"Good."

If she had the choice, Carolyn, or Lyn for short, would much rather call him 'Father', but one of the conditions for him training her was to call him 'Dad' during their sessions. 'Instructor' or 'Master' made much more sense to her, but it was still a small price to pay.

They started with simple warm-ups before going for a jog around the village. They weren't the only ones already awake, so as they went past the houses, greetings were exchanged with the other villagers.

"Rick! Out on a jog with Lyn again?"

"That's right."

"You two sure are close. Lyn must really love you."

"Haha! You think so too?"

Carolyn was more than capable of greeting the villagers on her own, but they always made such embarrassing comments when she was with her father, so she stuck to a bare minimum nod as a response.

Once they were finished with the jog of shame, the two returned to their house and went into a nearby patch of forest that surrounded the village. While they wouldn't make a fuss if anyone saw them, Carolyn's father preferred that they were no spectators, and she agreed. For the next section of morning training, Carolyn faced off against her unarmed father with a wooden dagger in her right hand.

When she was seven years old, Carolyn stumbled upon her father's sword, and due to an encounter with a wanderer when she was ten, she asked him for training. He was firmly against it at first, but her mother persuaded him, so he compromised by teaching her self-defence techniques. She had received basic sword handling training, but she had little talent for the skill, so she was forced to give it up. She wasn't particularly talented in dagger handling either, but it was essential for her self-defence.

Carolyn moved first by charging and extending her dagger forward. However, she pulled the dagger back before it could reach her father and launched a low kick at his left leg. He pulled that leg back, but the kick was a feint that led into a spinning back kick. He stepped back to avoid the kick, and Carolyn took that opportunity to plunge her dagger into his exposed gut. Unfortunately, her father had left that opening on purpose, so he was able to quickly react and grab her hand, forcing the dagger out of it.

"You were too eager. Remember that your training is not to defeat your enemy but to survive."

"Okay."

Once he heard her response, he released her, and she picked up the dagger before returning to her initial position.

"Again."

After their fifth bout and Carolyn's fifth loss for the day, a soft but firm voice called the two of them.

"Lyn. Rick. Come in for breakfast."

Once they heard the voice, both of them relaxed their stances, and Carolyn's father confirmed the end of their session. As usual, they entered the house to wipe off before returning to the kitchen/dining room for breakfast. The black-haired woman putting down a plate of fried eggs on the dining table was so beautiful and shapely that even with the white apron above her plain gown, she looked like she would fit better in a famous painting than this closed-off village. However, with the exception of her husband and daughter, none of the villagers had seen her bare face because she always wore makeup to disguise herself when outside the house.

Carolyn was a head-turning beauty herself, but there were still traces of immaturity, which made her more cute than pretty. She was allowed to walk around the village with her bare face, but whenever she left the village or outsiders visited, she had to wear makeup as well. She had once asked her mother why they had to hide their faces, and her response was that bad people would try to tear their family apart if they showed off their beauty. She never went into detail about who those bad people were, but Carolyn believed her.

Carolyn had changed into a simple green dress, while her father stayed in the same outfit. She didn't mind staying in her training clothes as well, but she agreed to dress decently while helping her mother. She would be with her mother for the rest of the morning while her father went hunting. The nearest river was quite some distance away, but the forest around the village didn't lack prey to sustain the villagers.

For Carolyn, staying with her mother meant either helping out around the house or studying, neither of which she minded. Carolyn wanted to explore the world, so she was eager to absorb as much knowledge as she could until then. Her parents had expressed their firm disapproval of the idea, but that hadn't been enough to douse her spirit.

Carolyn's mother had her help clean the house. She preferred training to housework, but that didn't mean she hated it. She could clear her mind more easily while doing housework, so she would often start cleaning if something bothered her.

Once Carolyn was done cleaning her assigned sections, she returned to the kitchen to help her mother make lunch. Her father normally took lunch with him, so he wouldn't return until an hour after lunch was ready. That would be the time when she joined him for afternoon training, so after lunch, Carolyn prepared her tools and changed back into her training outfit.

Her father returned about the same time as usual, and they left after he shared a kiss with her mother. It was always embarrassing to see how lovey-dovey they were, but she was also proud of their sweet relationship.

For Carolyn, afternoon training was the real challenge of the day. It involved entering the forest to hunt with her father. At this point, she was able to keep up with him while maintaining stealth, but capturing prey was still mostly up to luck. She knew how to set up traps and use a bow and arrow, but her traps were rarely triggered, and even though her aim was good, it always took her at least two shots to finish off a target.

Her father would walk straight towards the prey as if he were invisible and kill it with his knife. While this impressed her every time she saw it, he couldn't serve as a proper reference. Still, his advice was always on point.

"Lyn, you're too tense."

"Be more flexible with your aim."

"Don't aim at its current location. Predict where it will be after the arrow is fired and strike there."

She had once asked for help from the other hunters, but they would only teach her the basics since they believed that a cute girl like her didn't need to do such bloody work. Female hunters existed in Ataraxia, but outskirt villages like this tended to treasure women more.

Once dusk was in sight, training was over, and two of them went to the well to collect water for the night's baths. It was a lot of work bringing water from the well to their house, but none of them hated it enough to give up baths. They were the only ones who did more than wipe off with a basin of water in the village, but Carolyn never saw a problem with it.

It was a little tight, but the tub that held the water for their bath could hold both Carolyn and her mother. She always complained about being too old for this treatment, but she still enjoyed the feeling of her mother's bare embrace. Her father would bathe after them, and the three of them would eat dinner together before Carolyn retired to her room.

Such was her every day. She believed that she would one day have the resolve to part with it. And so she wondered: would it have been better if she had found that resolve earlier? At least then, the nightmares wouldn't be as vivid.