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Beau is thirteen. Her hair is a mess- cut short, cropped tight to her head (clearly done by an inexperienced hand). There is a bruise blooming around her left eye, a cut on her lip, scratches on her cheeks, and blood on her knuckles. She glares up at her mother defiantly.
Her mother speaks. “What have you done to your hair?!”
Beau swallows a mouthful of blood to respond. “Long hair is stupid. I hate it.”
Her mother purses her mouth. Bites back other words for later. Onto the present problem. “And, pray tell, what in the Law-Bearer’s name possessed you to attack several of your peers?”
“Donovon tried to push me into a mud puddle. I pushed him first. His friends didn’t like that.”
You should see them, she thinks. She grins a little at the memory, at the feeling that rushes through her veins when she throws a punch, the knowledge that she’d won, before the teachers pulled her away. Her grin melts under her mother’s scrutiny.
Her mother tuts. “You should know better than to get into fights, Beauregard. You aren’t a boy, you are a lady, and you are to act like it. Do better.”
Her mother walks out of the room, skirt swishing behind her. Probably to the drawing room to crochet and drink too much wine.
Beau’s father wanted a son. Beau’s mother wanted a doll. Beau isn’t either. She clenches her fist and tastes blood on her tongue.
Beau is twenty-three. She is three months free of the Cobalt Soul. She is walking, alone, down the flattened dirt road when she hears rustling in the bushes. She stops. Tenses. Hears the whistling of an arrow loosed, and dodges. She whirls around, sees bandits- two, three. Their armor is even more ramshackle than she’d’ve expected. They seem nervous, unsure. New at this.
Beau smiles. Readies her fists. Tastes the memory of iron in her mouth. Leaps forward, relishing the rush.
Sitting later, in her small campsite, bodies suitably searched, re-wrapping the bandages on her arms, she smiles.