mind_the_muse: March topics: Picture prompt - Sword

[notevendarkyet]

One of the basic principles of Aikido has been, from the beginning, achieving one's goals and protecting oneself while at the same time minimizing damage to the adversary.

Sometimes, Karrin thought, that wasn't such a good idea. Sometimes, she didn't follow though on that. One day, a particularly spectacular episode with a chainsaw would demonstrate that. One day, her adversaries would become a lot bigger and badder than what the creators of the martial art had anticipated.

But it helped.

Even the sword practice was not aimed at harming or killing the enemy, but to focus on and improve one's own technique. Which was why it was practice with a bokken, not a katana.

In the beginning of her career in the Chicago PD, Kareen Murphy considered it the perfect combination. After all, they may always be after the wrong person, and capture-now-question-later was much better than any of the alternatives. And with the combination of her gender, height, and proficiency, it was easier for her than most to get close enough for an arrest.

But she didn't take long to realize that things weren't that simple. Nor that easy. The idealist... part of her started stepping down to a more cynical, more determined - and more efficient her.

And she stepped into working on the ways that could make her, occasionally, deadly.

She had been a fair shot in the academy; then she started working harder - she turned into a superb shot. She was also making her own practice rounds, to make sure she always had them.

And then she went and got herself a katana. A good one, of course, nothing but the best instruments, if she was to do things right. If she was to still walk the vague line between right and wrong.

It registered very different from the bokken. Thinner, heavier. Deadlier. Different balance, different purpose, different feel to it.

But then she started practicing the familiar moves with it, and the difference dwindled out of existence.

There was flow of energy, and once one learned to control that, the rest just followed.

She very rarely used that sword, or even took it out for more than maintaining it in the best condition it deserved.

Still, it was another symbol that a little cute girl in pale yellow braids would never run in the garden to greet her family home again. That girl was a memory, a sunlit reason for her to care for people, but Murphy ... couldn't go back to her anymore.

Though, sword, bullets, and will, she'd try her best to keep other girls like that from anything scary that might come to them!

Muse: Karrin Murphy
Fandom: The Dresden Files: Novels
Word count: 443

Comments

[semi-auto-magic.livejournal.com]

<33333

Loved this.