Ashen Reign

Chapter 13

When it came to swinging and/or tossing deadly weapons around, Hailey was pretty confident in her abilities. She'd trained practically every day of her life. At this point, weapons were basically just an extension of herself. Even when she'd injured her dominant arm, she'd been able to manage well enough. After all her opponent was always tangible even when they weren't always necessarily visible. That was the difference between training in Seoul and training on this god forsaken ropes course. As much as she wanted to finish the day with a big screw you to Grayson and the Jerker who insisted on staying on the first level of the course, she quickly realized doing anything else would be suicidal.

The ropes weren't taught. Any step or tug came and the rope gave way. It was nearly impossible to distribute her balance properly. She would take a few steps and begin to feel confident, then she'd take a few more and the netting would have a change in the amount of slack. If she wasn't constantly on edge, the sudden change would cause her to lose her balance and she'd go tumbling towards the ground. Again. As irritating as the Jerker had been, Hailey found herself grateful for the 'demonstration' she'd given them. With the amount of times she'd fallen over the past few hours, had she not seen the demo she probably would have had far more injuries than the scrapes and bruises she was currently coated in. At least she had stopped screaming. She made the mistake the first time she fell of loosing the terror that had been budding up inside her as she navigated through the first section of the course. She wasn't afraid of getting hurt. She wasn't afraid of a challenge. She was, however, afraid of heights.

Theoretically, she knew falling from this height wouldn't kill her. It wasn't the idea of the pain from the impact that scared her. The impact was inevitable. It was the idea of falling freely through the air and having zero control. She liked threats she could handle. Thankfully, focusing on the way she was falling by working to hit the ground in motion helped to control her fear during the fall and pushed her to focus on maintaining her balance to keep from even having to deal with falling. She was doing much better with the first of those endeavors Hailey sighed internally as her knees slammed into the ground yet again. Propelling herself forward into a roll, she perched herself on her toes and sat for a moment in a crouched position starting up at the course above. The shadows surrounding the course had grown larger with each fall she had taken, taunting her with each passing hour and with each jarring impact. A hint of pink flirted with the horizon and she knew they would have to go in soon, but she wanted to make it to the end of the first level at least once. Just once. With this many falls under her belt, she figured it was only fair she have one win.

"You good down there Hailes?" Meg laughed, peeking over the platform Hailey had been working towards. She and Jack had been having a splendid time watching her fall all day. Jack had offered her advice on the best stances to maintain her center of gravity and giving tips on which parts of the course were more variable in slack than the others, while Meg had flounced around demoing each section saying how 'easy' it was and to 'just do this.' Hailey was sure she meant well, but was quickly learning that Meg definitely wasn't the most thoughtful person. After all, they'd both been through the entire course once before. Of course it would be 'easy' to them. Even so, Hailey still found Meg catching herself at times as she navigated the course. It was rather hard to miss with the way she immediately whipped her head around to see if Jack saw her stumble. Each time it happened, Hailey saw the relief flood Meg's eyes when she realized Jack hadn't been paying attention and the briefest glimpse of disappointment at that fact. It was one of the rare moments that the confidence Meg radiated waivered. It never lasted though, she'd look down for a moment and immediately turn back to them and make a show of bouncing around the course to prove to Hailey how simple it was. Getting ragged on by someone younger than her definitely wasn't ideal, but she couldn't bring herself to tell Meg where to shove it. She was a sweet girl. Just young and in love. Quite obnoxious really, but she wasn't that much older and she definitely understood so she'd play along.

"Yep. People stop bitching to me about how long I take in the shower when I actually have a nice caking of dirt on me so really I'm just trying to buy myself some shower time later!" Hailey called back as she pushed herself into a standing position. Jack made a snarky remark in joking agreement that sent the pair laughing as Hailey made the long trek back to the ladder at the first platform. The rope bridge connecting the first platform to the second had gotten easier with each trip across. Initially, she'd had to hang on to the rope supports dangling above for dear life, but she was able to maintain her balance as she crossed now mostly on her own with just a light grip on the ropes above for support as needed. The rope wall to the next platform had less to do with balance as Hailey had learned, but more about strength as a whole and nimbleness to avoid getting tangled the further you climbed. It had been relatively easy the first few times, but the more she fell and the more energy she exerted, the more exhausting it became. She practically had to drag herself on top of the third platform this time around.