New Beginnings
All of a sudden, Amber was filled with overwhelming rage. Not for the man that stood before her but for the people back home; the ones that trained her and made her into this killing machine. Her rage was directed solely at the ones pulling her strings, forcing her to fight their battles for them. She took a long shaky breath.
"Screw this." She said quietly and lowered her sword, turned around and walked away.
As the sun continued to set and the dust swirled around him, Stefan stood bewildered at the figure retreating into the distance. He was meant to die here but she didn't kill him. She'd ambushed him as he left his apartment, dragged him into the middle of the desert, knocked him down and raised her sword to his neck and he'd accepted that this was the end of the line. But she never finished the deed.
He began to cry, his knees buckling and his chest heaving, greedily engulfing the sweet air that meant he was still alive. He could feel his heart beating painfully against his ribs but savoured the pain because his life was still his and he could do with it what he wanted. He stayed on the ground until long after the sun had disappeared, thinking over everything he loved and everything he wanted to do. His bladder was bursting, his stomach growling and his throat as rough as sandpaper, but life had never been better.
Amber had left her earpiece in the dust; her sword had been thrown into a nearby sand dune and she'd ripped the insignia from her chest. She relished in her new-found freedom as she wandered into a nearby town, brought a coffee and a slice of cake and sat down to watch ordinary people do ordinary things. She'd never been allowed cake as it was of no nutritional value, but it didn't matter anymore. Feeling delightfully rebellious, she bit into it and let the cream ooze out of the sides. She didn't particularly like it, it was too sweet, and it didn't have much flavour apart from sugar, but she finished it anyway and picked up all the crumbs with her finger.
A waitress gave her a smile as she cleared up her plates and asked in a soft voice if she would like anything else. Amber declined and thanked her for the food, tipping generously. She smiled to herself as she did something kind for the first time.
Her smiled continued as she left the café and wandered around the night market in the town square. It was bustling with life: street vendors advertising their wares; children weaving between people as they chased each other and hunted out the nearest sweet stall; lovers sharing ice-cream at the base of the statue, and many others examining trinkets and confectionary and strange books written in foreign languages.
She stopped at a stall selling coats and scarves despite it still being summer. The man running the stall smiled at her as she moved between racks and ran her fingers over the soft materials. One coat, in particular, caught her eye. It was burgundy with a charcoal grey lining and shiny black buttons stitched with green thread. It came down to her calf and fitted perfectly.
The vendor came up to her, "Yes, yes, very good. You want?" He looked up at her with mischievous eyes and a broad grin. He was missing one of his front teeth. Amber nodded.
"Good, good." He said, nodding his head up and down as he took her money and put it into the pouch around his scrawny waist. "Pretty coat for pretty girl. Hides blood stains too."
Amber turned her head sharply but only to find that he had scurried off to another woman who was trying on a royal blue scarf. She watched him closely as he smiled and nodded and clumsily cobbled sentences together in heavily accented English. She thought about interrogating him as to what he knew but she decided against it. She was leaving that life behind. If he knew more than he should, it no longer mattered.
She pulled her new coat tightly around her and continued to explore the market. She picked up a recipe book of various dishes from around the world. Maybe she should try her hand at cooking or maybe knitting, piano or pottery. The possibilities were endless. After all, she suddenly had a lot of free time and a whole other world to explore.
