Second Chances
BattleStations
Prologue
The day had gone dark by the time she got up. She had been kneeling before the small grave site for hours by then, just to remember it was her father's sixth year since leaving her alone. He had been her training partner, her guardian, her best friend. But he was gone now.
The young girl bowed to the small shine then walked back to the path through the dewing grass and lonely graves. She had never known her mother or her brother, but now that she was older she doubted she even had a brother or a mother really. Her father liked to keep her happy and that was what had been so great about him. He was a mischievous trouble maker and a great man no one could ever have argued about it.
It had always been her and her father. The thought made her feel lonely when she looked back on the old times. Maybe that's why her father had made up her 'lost' family, to make her not feel as lonely as she did now. He could do nothing about it now.
She was alone. She only had herself and their small dojo to keep her company. There was no one for her to turn to, no one to draw her attention away from the hole in her side her father had made in his parting.
She pushed her dark bangs behind her ear and out of her sight as she came onto the sidewalk and out of the gravesite. In the distance she could hear the late diners shuffling towards their destinations and trying to escape the cold nipping at exposed skin. Her body felt numb to anything they felt. The cold had little effect on her anymore.
She watched her breath reach up towards the dim glow of the street lamps above her and frowned when they could never reach the warm glow. Her breath could never reach its destination. It only fell short just before achieving the goal.
Down an alley some trash cans fell over as street cats fought over whatever they had found. The echo continued through the neighbor's alley ways and faded into any exposed gardens. She stopped at the tall dark gate leading to the small grounds of her family's dojo. The dark wood still held the feeling of the tree trunks it had been formed from and her family insignia was still carved deeply so as to never fade. The Moi family style had died with her father as he had never finished teaching it to her. Their name may never fade from the gate, but what her name represented had been lost six years ago.
She sighed and blindly searched for her keys in the deep pockets of her thick pea coat. Again, her breath swirled around her face stretching up towards the top of the dojo's gate stretching with all it had for the light just out of reach.
Defeated in her search she turned around and slowly slipped to the ground leaning against the gates thick doors. She must have left her keys inside. Slipping on her gloves again she gazed at the three other dojos in her neighborhood. The other dojo roofs rose grand and important like her father's dojo never could. Competition among the four dojos had left little income for anyone, but that was the kind of small town she lived in. Everyone belonged to one dojo or another, if you didn't you were looked down upon. It was a harsh viewpoint to take, but reality. Everyone around her at least knew the basis of some kind of martial art.
Her father knew just as well as she did that the Moi style would end with him even if he had the time to finish her training. Their family style was old. It was ancient. Therefore meant to be past on from father to son. Her father never "had" a son, he only had her.
To her what she was supposed to learn was awkward. It looked amazing when her father showed her, he was great. But she wasn't a boy, she couldn't fight properly with his style.
The second she convinced her father it wasn't going to happen, she took the liberty of inventing the Moi-women's martial art. If she was great at anything it would be gymnastics, so that's where she started.
Looking up at the crystal clear sky of stars and moon a flash of her father's proud smile skimmed across her conscience. She looked sadly up at the sliver of moon left of the lunar cycle. He had smiled so proudly when he first watched her kick the shit out of the gang of boys gathering in the ally on the other side of their tall fence. They had gone out to eat that night, she was six.
She never was exceptionally strong, so her style was based around speed and agility. When her father and her trained they always raced, everywhere, when she got better the races turned to the roofs and the tall trees in the hill's forest. Even if her father couldn't pass on his family style he never gave up conditioning her for own start.
Her childish motto: if you can't catch me you can't win. She frowned as the memory of when she told her father that crossed her mind. He laughed and tried to snatch her off the floor, they had a game of tag that night. Her father never did catch her. She was eight.
She was always shy when she was little. Shyness had been a big fault on her part for the kind of place she lived in.
She stood up leaning against the gate to help while her hands where still in her warm pockets. She couldn't feel the cold much anymore, but her legs were still stiff if she didn't move.
She had been afraid to show anyone what she could do in childhood, undivided attention had terrified her. When she was in school kids would always show off at lunch what they had learned from their respected dojo. She had always mysteriously disappeared when they would look to her for a demonstration.
She turned around and looked straight up the gate; glancing to the side she saw the lamp post not too far away.
Never showing off her 'skills' led the kids to start rumors. About her. I heard her father was so ashamed of his daughter that he refused to teach her anything. I heard that it was her mothers dying wish for her daughter to be a weak freak. She had heard everyone, they were always childish, imaginative, stupid, and impractical, but it still hurt. As she got older, the rumors died down, instead the kids opted to ignore her, and pretend she wasn't there. Except for their glares, no one even gazed at her, not a glance.
Breathing out the sudden antsy feeling she stepped back a few feet from the gate and street lamp pole. Her eyes swept over the height of her gate and critically looked over the lamp post.
She had dropped gymnastics when the other girls took to calling her names. Especially when they took to calling her an orphan. The names started right after her father had died.
She bent her legs and ran at the pole to kick off it launching herself over the tall gate while twisting in air to clear the top, she flipped her feet back towards the ground and landed bending her knees and facing the small dojo. Her hands stayed warm in her pockets the whole time. She picked a slow pace towards the sliding door of the dojo, her shoulders slumped down and her face was cast towards the ground, her bangs fell free and covered half of her face as she ascended the steps.
She crossed the large dark empty sparing area after she kicked off her shoes and headed towards the hall with the other rooms down it. She didn't bother with the light switches she passed on her way. If she never saw this house again she would be more than content.
The place was perfect for two people. But with only her, it was too big. She passed the dark kitchen and over the square of light from the kitchen window that was cast across the wooden hall. She shuffled past her father's empty quite room.
Shhh…
She slid open the door to her small room and shook out of her coat to drop it in a corner and collapsed onto her futon staring at the flashing red numbers of her alarm clock.
11:47pm
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