Only the Strong (Yandere Prince x Powerful! Reader): remake

13. Extra Help

Your mother was a hunter. She worked for a company that went after abnormally large game like king deer and colossal crabs.

She only had to work if a holiday was coming around. District 5 holidays always required a feast of some kind, so your mother and a group of others would search the depths of the district to find these large animals; and then they'd bring it back, skin it, bid off the pelt, and cook the meat for the entire town. She had been hurt during these trips many times, but until you were a preteen, you had never realized how horrible her injuries truly were. She was just so damn good at hiding the pain she was in.

However, despite her ability to endure and though your mom could catch the most towering and strong creatures, she wasn't really good at fighting other human beings. She could take a beating, you'd seen her take one trying to calm down the town drunk, but she wasn't good at giving beatings. She couldn't teach you how to fight if she didn't know how to.

You noticed that she was a little sad about it when you first began your training with your father. You two used to be so much closer before that, but your training took up an abundance of your time. You were always too tired to have your nightly talk with her, you were always too busy training to say good mornin, and too tired to say goodnight. There was always something in the way.

It hurt her more than anything to know that you and her were drifting apart.

So one day, around your after about five months of training, she had asked if you wanted to catch something big with her—go hunting.

She wanted to catch something that was big enough to create an copious amount of leftovers that she could share with a few of your neighbors but small enough that if it attacked you, you would still have a chance of survival.

It was a good plan, but it didn't end how she wanted it to. That day, while you mother was setting up a camp, you had gotten stung by a red tailed beetle that was hiding underneath a rock. Your finger had brushed up against it while you were tipping stones, looking for sticks to set up a camp with. It was then that you had been through true pain.

The venom made living unbearable. You could hardly move. It was a miracle that you didn't die from paralysis.

Your mother, through all of that, had nursed you back to health. She had cried every time she saw you, your body stiff as a board and your eyes swollen nearly shut. You could tell that she was trying not to break down in front of you, you could hear her try and stifle her sobs. You were sure that she didn't know you could hear her, and that maybe she was trying to remind strong for herself too.

But as hard as she tried, she still felt that it was her fault you were hurt and not some freak accident.

She never forgave herself for that one, no matter how many times you assured her that it was not her fault. She learned that she couldn't stand the thought of you suffering. She told you that she couldn't stand the thought of any one of her children suffering and that if any one of you ever did, it was her fault—as your mother—for not preventing it.

So it was then that she taught you the most important skill you could have ever learned. She trained you, helped you meditate, made you hold poses for hours until your muscles felt sore. She even helped you play around with poisonous plants and, of course, bug bites.