Catharsis (solo)

[The Bard Babe]

Arkin stared down the practice dummy across the field from him. He was quite possibly glaring at it. He really wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he had this searing heat building inside him. It had started bubbling the moment he ran into Eb, the second those knives entered Jeral, and it hadn’t gone away.

 

No, quite opposite to almost all of Arkin’s previous experiences, this taste of rage hadn’t dissipated almost as soon as it had appeared, it had grown. It had had the audacity to take root in his stomach and slowly stoke itself, stroking fingers up through his chest, burning in the back of his mind, growing ever hotter and brighter, and more impossible to ignore.

 

The first knife hit the target slightly to the left of its heart.  The second hit it dead on.

 

Arkin stalked forward and collected his knives, pulling them from the straw man and moving back to his previous position. Five paces further back.

 

He stared at his feet. What were they doing? They were stamping at the ground, not just falling, but forcing their way to the grass, the impact locking his ankles, jolting his knees. So flat footed, so deliberate, so very unlike Arkin’s dancing steps, his light feet and silent movement.

 

The next dagger found the dummy’s left eye, so he threw his second at its right. Both direct hits. He went up to collect them and moved back to the same position. Another five paces.

 

His jaw cracked loudly as he looked down to check his grip. His grip was too tight. His jaw was too tight. Everything was too tight, tense, highly strung, shuddering, filling with that white-hot anger he had no clue how to deal with. It bled through to his knuckles, white against the small knife’s hilt. He forced his jaw to loosen, letting his throat relax and freeing his voice, moving the internal muscles automatically with a singer’s technique. Just procedural. He looked down at his hand and stared at it until it was loose enough for a proper grip.

 

What was this anger? Why hadn’t it gone away? Why did it keep plaguing him? And what was he supposed to do with it? Getting upset about it changed nothing. It didn’t matter that he was angry when Jeral was lying, still deathly pale and bleeding, in Emrin’s hospital. What was he doing about it? Getting angry. What purpose did that serve? Where was this rage when he’d needed to save Jeral? Where was he when Jeral had needed saving?

 

The two daggers buried themselves half a hand below the dummy’s collarbone, on either side of its chest. Arkin felt the rage finally snap and release, flooding his veins and lighting his body ablaze in an instant, forcing its way up his throat, arresting his tongue and screaming out of his body in a roar as he threw knife after knife into the practice dummy.

 

He could have gone ahead with Jeral and let the far more experienced Arinth take care of himself.

 

Right eye.

 

He could have moved straight away to follow Jeral rather than linger in the trees assessing the situation.

 

Left eye.

 

He could have distracted the woman before Jeral jumped out of the tree.

 

Throat.

 

He could have opened with a diplomatic solution rather than wasting time in a pointless fight.

 

Groin.

 

He could have left Arinth behind and done his job.

 

Kidney.

 

He could have done so much better.

 

Heart.

 

The anger left him a rush as fast as it had arrived, and he slumped as the adrenaline sluggishly leaked out of his system. He stared blankly at the bristling practice dummy. Well. His aim was certainly improving. His anger had not forced enough extra power into his throws to force them off-target. His body, his technique, his throwing arm, were intensely apathetic, unattached. His muscles knew what to do, and they did their job, obeying what his mind really wanted it to do, sucking the extra fuel of his anger, turning it into an intense concentration. But now it was gone. It had fled his system as soon as the last knife hit, and now he stood, staring, feeling curiously empty. The rage had burnt away all feelings for now. Not knowing what else to do, he waited until his breathing had returned to its normal pace, and went and recovered his knives.

 

Without the anger, his mind was far clearer. He could see how he could never have known that Eb was there, that Jeral would jump out of a tree, that she would stab him in the chest. Nothing he had done had been the wrong thing to do. His stopping the situation would have been as much of a chance as what had actually happened.

 

Just knowing those facts didn’t help him, but at least that searing hate of rage had faded away to a sizzling in his stomach that he was sure would dissipate within the hour. This was an anger he was used to. This was balanced, normal. Because there was one fact that made him feel far better.

 

Jeral was still alive.

 

Feelings started to thaw back inside him where the anger had scorched the ground. Despite everything that had happened, the boy was alive. What had happened had happened. He couldn’t change the past. The present was where he lived, and he intended to stay there. And presently, Eb was rotting away in a hole, and Jeral was healing. Slowly, but surely. Jeral was breathing. Arkin had made certain of that.

 

As he adjusted his grip on a knife, Arkin even began to see Eb’s side of things. She had been attacked. She had assumed they were there to kill her. She was a soldier, and someone had dropped onto her out of a tree. Arkin couldn’t truthfully say that he wouldn’t have done the same thing if he were of a more infantry like mindset. He personally would have sidestepped.

 

His residual anger, finding nothing to attach itself to, fled his system completely. He couldn’t blame himself, as hard as he was trying, and he couldn’t even blame Eb, not really. Or Jeral. Not while the kid was unconscious in a hospital, anyway. Though he might have some choice words for him when he was up and well again.

 

Still looking at his knife, Arkin took three deep, clear breaths, and took five paces. He knew he would have flare ups of that anger and guilt from time to time, but he knew they would fade quickly now, as they always had before. Because Jeral was alive. And that was all that really mattered.

 

He judged the weight of the knife in his hand and brought the practice dummy into focus. Humming a song in the back of his throat, now free from the rigid locks of anger, he took a breath, aimed for a shoulder, and let the knife fly.