A huge bang at the door.
It wakes me up instantly, making me hop awake, my eye sticky with eye mucus, that I wipe away with the back of my forearm.
I lift my eyepatch to wipe away whatever eye mucus is there, catching slight sight of Marcilene's orange aura, before I put the eyepatch back on.
Marcilene is now on her side of her bed, arms under her head as another layer of pillowing.
Another bang at the door.
I look out the window and the moon is still, though low, in the air, it's the early morning.
I slide my feet off toward the side of the bed, with a small gap between my feet and the ground I land on the ground with a small thump and begin to walk to open the door to exit Marcilene's room.
I look both left and right into the hallway of the hallway and don't see anyone.
I turn towards the end looking at Steel's room, not finding anyone knocking on the door to Steel's room.
'God, who's at the door this early in the morning?'
Leaving her room I heading toward the stairs going down step by step and going right to the door.
The fire is crackling to a halt.
The knob is about face height with me, I grab it, twist it and open the door.
Before me is the same woman that said she would become my mentor, even after she had nearly had me killed.
Sply.
She stands there with her face as neutral as ever, she nods:
"Good you're up."
She says:
"Grab your bow and wash your face, we begin in fifteen minutes."
I squint my eye, trying to get understand what she said, because my mind only processed: We begin.
"What did we begin?"
She sighs, looking at me and shaking her head:
"You'll be training now, hurry wash your face and get ready, you'll need your bow and to be awake."
She says, standing beside the door.
Lazily I nod my head and head into the kitchen leaving the door open for myself, slowly I head over to the water that was used yesterday to wash the bowls, a few feet beside it is the another tub filled to the brim with water that is near pristine.
Dunking my hands into the water I pick up some of it and wash my face. My eyepatch get wet.
'Fuhhhh!'
I take it off and for the longest time I feel like I've just been freed from a nightmare, and some eye strain, my eyes begin to see the very faint aura radiating off of the water, it's very faintly blue.
Then looking deeper into the aura is my reflection, but I don't see any signs of an aura around me.
The only thing I do see is my light skin, my two different colored eyes, and my black hair.
I look deeper into the reflection and for a second, the smallest of seconds I see a very bright light, like the same light of…
Bang!
Sply knocks at the door again:
"You have a few more minutes before I leave you."
As soon as she says that I run, now awake even more than before all because the help of the water on my face.
I stop in my tracks and turn to grab my eyepatch that I immediately put over my eye.
And head straight toward the livingroom to grab my bow, tripping on air as I get to the front door, to stand before Sply.
"Good, took you long enough."
She says in her usual monotone voice.
I hold the bow by its grip and look at Sply.
"Why so early?"
I ask.
"We have other things to do during the day. Better this way."
Sply says as she turns and begins to walk towards the stone wall that's used as a gate.
I feel a water slide from my left eye down, touching my face I feel the water that I splashed on the eyepatch go from my eye down to my cheek, making me wipe it away and follow after Sply.
"Where will we go to train?"
Sply walks through the gate, letting it close behind me, making me push it open myself.
"There is a small training grounds in the square, it's about a mile from here, it took me about ten minutes to get here, you will keep up."
She says, giving me a glance before turning her head back towards the dirt path.
She begins to stretch, turning to look at me:
"Follow what I do."
She tells me, I follow.
She leans down to try and touch her toes, so do I, only getting up when she does. She brings her foot to her butt, I do the best I can, hopping left as my body is uneven.
I try to hold the bow out to balance myself just for me to be unable to balance in the other direction.
She switches foot, I follow, now on my left foot, which has more balance, but I still over lean, nearly falling many times.
'Thank god she wasn't watching.'
I let out a sigh as she drops her foot, meaning I do the same.
"Get better at that. You need good balance in case you ever have to shoot on uneven terrain."
'SHE KNEW?!'
I mentally face palm.
She does a small jog in place, each knee reaching her chest.
I try my best, my knees only reaching about the height of my stomach.
She turns back:
"We're going to jog now, if I feel that you are too slow I'll leave you behind."
She begins into a small jog, each foot keeping up in front of her, every step just in front of the next, at a reasonable pace.
I follow behind her, nearly full strides to try and keep up with her.
I stare at her, then at the ground, we pass many houses, one of them being Wes and Elsa's house, their father, Rez, sound asleep just the same as them maybe.
We also pass as a man exits his house, he waves at us, but we don't pay attention, better yet, I can't pay attention, if I take my eye off of the ground, or her, I'll trip and fall.
My breath slowly becoming haggard, I try and pace my breathing to match my own footsteps, it slowly helps me.
The man is now far behind us.
A sign that says: Entering Town Square.
Sply looks at it for a second, then to me for a second before turning back forward.
My sweat falling from my forehead and hitting the ground.
Or my bow feeling like it's going to slip because of the sweat that rolls from my forearm down to my hands.
Sply's footsteps slow slightly, as our feet begin to hit, not dirt path, but a cemented pathway, one that I'm somewhat familiar with from the Centennial Festival.
Sply continues her jog, me following right behind her, as she takes many different turns.
Passing a giant Colosseum and many different shops that sell, either armor or weapons, majority catered towards knights or men that use heavy weaponry, like a flail or a battle axe, that's somehow the size of double me.
We pass another shop that sells what's marketed as: Soul Weapons
'Maybe it's like wands, like Apa's own.'
I trip on loose cement, but don't fall, putting one foot in front of the other.
'Knew that would happen once I wasn't focused.'
Continuing after Sply as my legs feel like giving out, just slightly.
Passing many more houses until we slow down at a dirt path at the end of the other side of town.
Immediately I lean down and put my hands on my knees, my bow now slinked onto my shoulder all the while I'm trying not to die from overexertion.
My breath coming in and out in heavy huffs and puffs.
"This jog, was the very first of many that will eventually come to happen, I hope you get better before you become older."
Sply tells me, sounding a tad bit aggressive, but her monotone voice doesn't fully suggest it.
"Oh…"
I take a deep breath in:
"Ohh… Okay."
I force out of my mouth.
Sply begins to walk towards the place that is beside the dirt path and the place is made to be in an L shape and the building built with wood, and a wooden fence around the house.
The building blocks what looks to be an empty field, that's all I can see out the corner of eye, as well as from the place I'm standing at.
Sply enters and I speed up for a second to be able to catch up to her. I take a massive breath to make sure I don't faint.
Once we both enter there is a huge array of weapons, many just wooden, not ment to be used for actual aggression.
Along with metal bits to fully portray the fullness of combat, most likely.
Sply walks up to the rack that has the bow base facing downward, for easy grip.
Sply grabs the largest one and pulls the string a bit, with little to no effort she makes the large bow bend slightly with a full pull, she doesn't look like much, but she actually very strong from the looks of it.
"Good enough."
She says, before she turns toward the end of the hall and begins to walk toward the door at the end.
Following after her, the door nearly shuts on me as she gets through a few seconds before me, forcing me to push the door open myself.
My bow hits my back as I turn quickly to slam my arm into the door forcing it open.
'Asshole.'
Outside is a dirt field that has wooden dummies mounted into the ground, lined up, with chips into the side of them.
Sply stand at a small dirt mound that is used to know where to shoot from, that stands in front of targets.
The targets are just hay wrapped together tightly with string, hay lays at the floor right below it, signifying that it has been used, unknown if it was recently or, just not cleaned in a while.
Sply materializes an arrow, something even smaller than my arrows and with a good and strong pull, one arm on the grip, the other hand at her chest and arm behind her back.
She lets it rip, cutting right through the target, and before it can sit into the building behind it, the arrow dematerializes, disintegrating before cutting anything into the building.
Sply stands at the small dirt mound in the ground and waves me over.
"Come."
I go to where Sply was standing and unslink my bow from my shoulder.
Holding the grip in my hand.
"Okay."
Sply says, as I get closer she moves to make me stand where she stood:
"Shoot the target."
I turn to her.
"That's all?"
She nods.
Looking back at the target. I tap the sigil on the bow grip and the arrow appears blue and all.
I pull back and the string, trying my best to replicate her pull, the string begins to dig deeper into my fingers, a pain that I've felt once before, but didn't have time to really feel it.
Now with zero danger in sight, the pain is very much felt.
I release the string without aiming and the arrow goes flying.
Missing the hay target completely.
Silly sighs, disappointmeant completely taking over the sound she made.
"You'll be here until the sun rises."
The way she said it wasn't in a way that sounded like sarcasm, it sounded like she genuinely wanted me to stay here till sun rise to shoot arrows.
I look up at the moon, and it's still above the horizon, meaning, I'd be here for two, to three hours.
'Just great.'