"Excuse me? What did you just say?" She fumed, knitting her brows in agitation.
"You heard me," he replied in a deadpan manner. "You're a spoiled, self-centered, entitled brat," he finished, causing the woman before him to clench her fists in rage...
"Concentrate Seth! you're letting yourself become too distracted," Mathilde cried out as she lunged forth, her blade slicing along the side of Seth's jacket.
Seth had barely managed to avoid her forward thrust when he felt pressure on his front foot in the form of her boot, hindering his movement. In a flash, Mathilde's fist cracked Seth across his jaw, an assault she followed up with a swift kick that sent him flying back and skidding along the snowladen ground into a snowbank. Staying alert, he rolled to the right to avoid the point of her blade and scampered to his feet in time to block a slash that was targeted at his chest.
The song of clashing blades could be heard as Mathilde and Seth met steel with steel, their movements carefully calculated to avoid anything fatal. Mathilde pressed her advantage and increased the speed of her strikes, a speed at which Seth was incapable of keeping up with. Before Seth could calculate a countermeasure, his blade was slung from his grip and his eyes were now met with the sharp point of Mathilde's blade just inches from his throat. The fifteen year-old sighed and put his hands up in surrender.
Mathilde sheathed her blade and waited for Seth to retrieve his.
"Better... but you still have a long way to go," Mathilde informed him, causing the youth's eyes to narrow.
"It doesn't matter how long I have to go. Defeating you is impossible!" Seth retorted, clenching his fists in irritation. "I just keep losing no matter how hard I work."
"And so what if you keep losing? have I taught you nothing!?" Mathilde fired back in a stern tone, startling Seth at her sudden outburst.
"Well..."
"Listen to me Seth Da Silva. In my school, if you will, defeat is a teacher. And if you do not learn from it, you will not grow. Defeat is an inevitable part of life. Even I have to face that reality as there are others out there who are far more skilled than I," Mathilde continued, crossing her arms an stepping towards her disciple.
Seth flinched as she neared, causing Mathilde to sigh and loosen her expression a little.
"My dear disciple, do not be disheartened whenever you face defeat, for defeat is a wise teacher. Learn from it, and you will come out stronger than you were before. You may not realize it yet, but you are already making great progress," Mathilde beamed, patting Seth on the head before turning to walk away and face him again.
As Seth watched her walk away, he could see that part of her clothing had been sliced...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Handling defeat was not something that came easy to Seth. It took many years of hard work and dedication to develop the patience needed to overcome his inability to cope with the concept of failure. Coming out of his meditation, he was met with a pair of concerned blue eyes. Serena sat down in front of him with a look that seemed to ask how he was doing. The swordsman sighed.
