“Oh good,” Jake commented, “it’s you. Just out on patrol sheriff?”

“Like I said,” the broad shouldered man grinned “glowing people always merit investigation on my watch.” He cast a shrewd eye over Amari’s semi-clothed form. “You’re fine.” He told her. “You know, when my abilities first started to develop, I glowed too. I learned to control it, but it still happens once in awhile.”

“This...is normal?” Amari asked stepping away from the tree. “How do you know so much about me?” she asked.

“We may have known each other,” he said, “in another life, or on another plane of existence. It’s hard to say. My memories aren’t clear. But you are familiar to me in… many ways.”

Amari seemed hesitant, glancing sideward at Jake before commenting. “I cannot lie, and must say I feel the same of you.”

“Well this is just flaming lovely,” Jake muttered. He moved away, down the path. “I’ll see you back at the inn, Amari.”

Amari frowned, “Jake - wait! What did…” her words faltered, as they fell on deaf ears.

“Let him go,” Breaker said easily. “We have much to discuss, in any case.”

Jake trudged out of earshot before they could say anymore lovey-dovey things to each other. He supposed he knew this might happen eventually, but it seemed so sudden. Anyway, Amari had never looked at him the way his friendly neighbourhood serving girls did. And how could you be with a woman who didn’t give you the smouldering eyes? Even so, Jake’s chest burned as he accelerated from a walk to a run, thundering down the path with his tonfa swinging on his hip.

He exploded out of the woods and raced back to the Dansdel training grounds and stopped, breathing heavily. He took Amari’s handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiped his brow, and then threw the token in the dirt. He didn’t fully understand the emotion rising inside him, or maybe he didn’t want to.

“You look like a volcano fit to rupture,” commented a tall youth around Jake’s age. He walked up with two cronies at his elbows. All three carried wooden staves and wore practice woolens and a sheen of sweat. They’d been working hard.

“And you look like a skinny fat bastard I’m about to beat half to death.” Jake growled.

The tall youth’s face twisted and he raised his staff.

Jake stepped forward and drew his tonfa as Breaker had shown him, using both hands to drive the butt upward. It smashed into his enemy’s nose with a sickening smack.

“Get ‘im!” The tall whimsy whimpered as he sat down hard, dropping his staff to cradle his nose as it ran crimson. His two friends came around him like an eagle’s wings, wielding their weapons.

Jake swung at one and thrust at the other. He kept his feet moving and his eyes wavering. For what felt like an age he managed to fend them both off, and then something snaked between his ankles and tripped him up. It was the downed fighter’s staff; he’d stopped holding his nose and found his courage. His friends beat Jake mercilessly as he fell, curling into a ball to avoid the worst of the damage.