It was her sword. Her first full-sized sword, and he'd laughed when she'd tried to pick it up off its hook and found it had dragged her to her knees. She couldn't lever up more than the hilt. Tarys. You didn't do something like that with a person's first real sword, you didn't do that. He was trying to humiliate her. It was a beautiful sword, white faesteel with a black grip and gold gilt on the crossguard and pommel, just like she'd asked. She had been about to name it, even if she couldn't decide between Blooddrinker and Vengeance. If she got it fixed it'd definitely be Vengeance now.
Vethrys growled under her breath and sped up, hurdling hedges like she did when she pretended to be a horse in the yards. She crashed through one that was too tall and scratched her leg, but landed balanced anyway, one palm smacking the ground, and kept running. Her fingers stung where she'd jammed then using a tree to pivot around a corner. Her brother's white-blond hair bobbed along before her. When she caught up to him, she'd try out a few of the things Sir Mirak had showed her the other day. She wanted to put her thumbs through his eyes, but she wouldn't. She'd kick him where it hurt and pull out his hair, though.
She didn't scream or shriek. She hated it when girls did that, and besides, it wasted breath. It would feel nicer to catch up to him and make him sorry.
Vethrys had just started to close on him when his blond head disappeared abruptly downward. She almost stopped, confused, and then her eyes darted over the space behind him. The ditch. Ha! Her breath hissed out, trumphant, and she ground her teeth and started forward again. By the time she'd made it to the ditch, though, he'd scrambled out the other side, all muddy and wet. Vethrys hesitated in front of the ditch, wary of slippery ground, then backed up when she saw it wasn't and leapt the ditch, glad she had longer legs than her brother. She did get tangled in the rope on the other side, but when she pulled free she was close.
Her legs felt hot and full of prickly exhaustion, but she pushed herself to speed anyway and caught him in a flying tackle. They rolled over in the grasss. "Bastard," she spat at him, now she had him, clawing for a hold on his wrist and trying to pin him with her weight. She didn't usually call him that, because of how he got and because it was insulting her own lady mother anyway, but she felt like it today. "You're--a--"