"Notice."

"Notice," the blow came as fast as the word, a harsh stucatto through the blistering heat.  A sharp crack to the left with the training sword, followed immediately by another blow to the right.  The wielder of the wooden weapon moved swiftly, gracefully, as if she had fought a thousand of those she trained on a daily basis.

"Notice," she said again,  her long, black hair whipping quickly in and out of her face.  It seemed alive in the wind, never impeding her sight but falling back into place as obediently as a puppy, "your stance is wrong, your form needs work, and reflexes are too slow."  She spun quickly and landed on overhead bash that her opponent just barely blocked.  The loud crack of finished wood coming together reverberated through the trees, fading off somewhere in the distance.  The blur of motion stopped as the woman's eyes narrowed briefly, burning a hole into her sparring partner's head.

"You're getting angry."  Again, the words were sharp, stucatto sounds in the fading thunder of the swords meeting.  Dameon's mind focused, and he felt those eyes bore straight into his soul.  He couldn't concel anything from her, no matter how much he concentrated on hiding it.  And as much as he did not want to admit, she was right.  His sloppy fighting had been a product of his anger, and his attempts to conceal it.  Those things tore away his concentration, splitting his mind, and his fighting became lose.  His teacher had cautioned him about an enemy with a unified purpose, and of an ally without.  He filled his lungs with the dry forest air, and concenttrated on the task at hand.  Studying her intently, Dameon weighed his opponent in his mind.  She was fair skinned and short, maybe five feet and six inches tall.  Slim build and even slimmer arms belied a hidden strength beneath her soft spoken manner and strange insistance on politenes. He had known her for years, since his very existance it seemed.  Yet still, she was a stranger to him at times.

But just as his sword struck and flashed, a thought occured to him.  His mind focused once more, upon the seething hate within his soul.  He gazed upon it, and looked through it, pushing past the hate and desperately searching for the serenity.  He found it a moment before another scathing blow would have toppled him on his side.  He rolled with the strike instead, bringing his left arm up and over his head while turning, taking the blade with him.  In three quick motions high, right, and low, his opponent's sword lay at his feet.  A look of genuine appreciation, and perhaps shock, covered his teaher's beautiful face.

"You did well my son," Dameon's mother said, resisting the sudden urge to go near him and stroke his dusty blonde hair, "another slash and my head would have been removed from my shoulders."  Dameon, his eyes glazed with focus and determination, found himself promptly stuffed back into the current reality.  He gave a small smile.

"I noticed."

{Note from the author: I'll mention that it's been nearly four years since I've written a thing about Dameon, but that does not mean I haven't thought about him.  One of these posts will be an expose regarding each of my main characters and the thoughts and emotions that went into them.  They are certainly very representative of my life and the things I've been through at various stages.  At any rate, here is some more of the Demonic Hero, enjoy!}