where do we begin?

The following day, the girl approaches her at lunch, sitting down once the Amazon has given permission. She eats bread with boiled eggs, grapes she’s taken from her daily collection when no one was looking. She holds a small selection out for the Amazon, like an offering. The best ones, she says.

Yet, the Amazon knows only sacrifice. She declines.

If this is the girl’s rebellion, let her keep the fruits of it.

The girl nods, wordlessly, and eats as quietly as she came, as she sat down, as she inserted herself in the Amazon’s world. Yesterday, she was an example of the work force without the will or the means to fight, today she is…

And like she offered the grapes, she offers the Amazon her name. It is beautiful; the Amazon can’t possibly pronounce such beauty the right way, but she tries.

There are no corrections, and no attempt at questions for which the answers have not yet matured.

Let it last her forever, she thinks and holds the armour out to the girl who resembles her, down to the thickness of her thighs, the Amazon wouldn’t be surprised if she can slip right into the metal plates as they are.

The girl reaches for them, she holds the heavy weight between her arms, feels all these defences that used to be the Amazon’s but which will now be hers, going forward. She needs protection, growing up in this city, she needs skin as durable as steel if she is going to defend herself, or others.

Offence is the best defence, the Amazon tells her, repeating her mentor one final time, realising as she turns away, that the feeling is stones lighter. Her armour is the last weight which she lets go off before she crosses over to the other side.

The mountains await her, easier to scale without leatherbound plating slowing the horse down every step.

And the Amazon, too.