I don't know

Life goes on

Kiran's POV:

Sleepily I blinked against the sun rays which shone through the window and even past the curtain and somehow managed to meet my eyes directly. I let my head fall back but after a while I gave up my plan to sleep a bit more since it just was too bustling around me for that.

I threw back the cover and pulled the curtain away.

"Oh, hello dear. Do you want breakfast?"

My mother had just been rummaging around and tried to clean up a little bit but now she had turned her attention to me with a warm smile.

"What have you got?"

"Oh, I saved you a bowl of porridge.", my mother said and handed me a bowl from the table behind her while I blinked at her in confusion.

"Saved? Did I sleep through breakfast? How late is it?!"

"Yes, you did and it's 10 am already. Normally I would have of course woken you up but I thought you could need the additional few hours of sleep after training the whole week. You look quite tired nowadays."

"Mmh, yeah, if you say so. Well thanks for saving me breakfast."

I smiled at her gratefully and she turned around and continued to put our things - which we had somehow managed to spread over the entire room - in order. I practically swallowed down and then left the room with a "See you later to my mother". She had probably been right about me looking tired. Now that she noticed it I felt uncomfortable around her - because she might have been right about my sleepiness but not quite as correct with the reason for it - and had had the desire to escape and have a bit of time to myself. I walked through the gate and towards the training grounds.

As expected they were devoid of any motion. It was a sunday after all and the first day of rest since training had begun two weeks ago because the sunday before that had unexpectedly become part of the expedition planned for saturday.

We had left the town by foot and went to the nearby forest on Friday morning to train how to survive in nature. Each of us had been packed with a big backpack filled with something to drink, some food and pans, flint and tinder or a tent. We had been in groups of two and so one person had taken the proviant and one the tent. In the beginning everything had gone as planned.

We had set up the camp, gathered firewood and arranged shifts to guard the camp and set up traps for rabbits and deers. When all that had been done the sun had already been setting and so we had gone to sleep. On the next morning we had performed our usual training - just, this time on a ground which was far more tricky than the flat training field - until around 13 o'clock. Then we had checked the content of the traps - two rabbits, one deer - and had taken them with us to the camp. There Ser Darren showed those who had never done it before how to skin and eviscerate a rabbit while Finn - who had helped his father at the butcher's multiple times - had done the same with the deer. Meanwhile Jill had quickly taken care of the other rabbit.

A few others had prepared a fire where we had then roasted parts of the flesh while others had been cut into smaller pieces and thrown into a pot filled with water. Then we had hung that pot over the fire and added a pinch of salt and a few of the herbs which we had found all around.

We also threw in a few potatoes and carrots from our supplies and then let it cook. While we waited we had wrapped up the roasted parts which we would take back to the castle with us. When the soup had been finished we had eaten and afterwards Ser Roderick had ordered us to pack up.

However, just as we had begun to take down our tents a heavy rain began and the temperatures went down like a waterfall. It was a clear reminder that it was autumn already even though it had remained pretty warm up until now. Because of that our two teachers had stopped us from taking down the tents and had instead ordered us to stow away our things where they would be safe from the wetness. We had then spent the night huddled close together in our tents but because of the decision of Ser Roderick and Ser Darren we had at least remained relatively dry. If we had followed through with the original plan it would have taken us at least until 10pm to reach the castle and since the rain began by 7pm we would have been wet to the bone by then. Even worse, the last bit of our body heat would have been stolen away by the strong gusts of wind which came up around an hour after the rain.