How I earned his love
Sometimes I end up questioning myself. Just why does he love me? Me? What's so special about me? William worked hard to train me, expected a lot out of me, but what did he want in the end? It certainly wasn't an obedient little slave girl, unfortunately.
On the hunting trip where he taught me how to hunt, and clean, and cook, and tan, and many other things involved in surviving off the land, he had a lesson for me one night. Mind you, this was New England in the fall - very, very chilly. The test - if I wanted to sleep in the cabin I had to get past him. And he wasn't making it easy. As opposed to when he was teaching me to fight he was blocking my every attack. He's a whole lot bigger and stronger than me, and I was smaller then than I am now, so he probably out weighed me by almost a factor of three. Then you factor in his experience and skills and there was no way I was going to get past him unarmed. I picked up the hunting knife but a few uncommitted attacks on my part showed that just having a weapon didn't count for squat. I had to be willing to use it. I made a lunge, he stepped back, and I put all my weight into a thrust down and through his foot. With him pinned to the ground I darted around and leapt into the cabin. I'd won, and he said he wasn't mad, but needed some help getting it out because it hurt a hell of a lot. While I was crouched down pulling the knife out of his boot (it's easier to think of it that way) was the first time that he told me that he loved me.
Yeah, we have a special sort of relationship, and he can be a bit on the crazy side compared to most people, but what he was doing with me was making me into someone that would stand up to him and do what was necessary.