Camouflaged Strength

Chapter Two

I don’t stop to put my shoes on and instead, attempt to put them on while running through the hall, down the stairs, and around corners until I run into the main room of the training facility. I skid to a stop in front of my training master and smirk at him. Although I am slightly out of breath and I’m sure my skin is beginning to glisten, I know I made it on time.

He looks me over and glances behind me to the clock on the wall. He snorts in disgust. “You barely made it on time.”

“Yes! But I did make it!” I gleefully taunt.

His scowl deepens. “For your lesson today, we’ll be working on your reflexes.”

My smirk falls off my face as I groan to myself. I would rather stand outside in a blizzard, hungry and naked than work on this lesson. Or better yet, wear a dress and style my hair! And he knows it.

“Just because you are strong does not mean you are impenetrable. You need to be better at not getting hurt,” my training master admonishes. “I am not trying to kill you. I cannot guarantee that from anyone else.”

If I was 6 years younger, I would whine and stomp my foot right about now but if age has taught me anything, it has taught me that it would get me no where. And I had plans. Big plans that didn’t involve me doing nothing with my life. I am much too close to fulfilling my goals for anything to stop me now.

“Khristie! Over there!” My training master’s command snaps me out of my thoughts. I walk over to the table where my master was pointing and glance at the item laying on it. I pout to myself. I hate this.

“Stop dawdling! You’re wasting my time!” I humph and do as I ought to. I pick up the folded cloth and tie it around my head over my eyes. Right as I finish tying the cloth and lower my arms, I feel something pass right where my arm was raised and shortly after, hear a thud hit the wall in front of me. I duck quickly knowing what is coming next. I hear a couple more thuds and then a clatter. I smirk.

“Sounds like you’re not throwing hard enough, old man.” I quickly roll to my right knowing he will throw a knife straight for where I once squatted. “Don’t tell me you’re age is getting to you!” I feel a sting high on my left arm and a thud as a knife impales the ground behind me.

“Less talk. You need to concentrate and not try to anticipate my moves,” my training master criticizes. My only response is a growl as I jump up and miss the next knife he threw towards me.

Me jumping, diving, rolling, and mostly avoiding all of the sharp objects, continues on for another hour and a half. He always starts with the knives. One of the bigger weapons in the throwing category. Just as he always ends on plumbatas: the hardest of the throwing weapons to avoid. Let alone doing it blind folded, beaten, and tired.

“Enough! You barely moved out of the way for that last one,” my training master once again rebukes me.

I collapse on the floor. “That’s what happens when you’re tired!”

“Ah! Then that’s the way to kill you then. Get you tired and throw a rock at you.” He chuckles to himself.

“Like a rock would do me in,” I scoff. “That was a terrible and unrealistic joke.” I lift my head up high enough to see him scowl at me. So me being the mature woman I am, stick my tongue out at him.

“Go shower. You stink!” He glowers at me.

“What about your breakfast?” I ask. Not that I want to get out of my chores but he was beyond correct in saying I am stinky. Trash sitting outside in the sweltering 115 degree weather for a few days, no doubt smells better than I do right now.

“I want to keep my breakfast down which I could not do with you in the same room as me.” After saying his piece he turns and shuffles out of the room and I, not needing a second reproof to avoid any chore, jump up with a new rush of adrenaline coursing through me. I may not like dresses and things that are girly but that doesn’t mean I like smelling as I do.

After my shower and putting on some questionably clean clothes, I put ointment on the deeper cuts I received from my training and then run down to the kitchen to grab an apple before I have to begin my list of chores for the day. I took a little longer in the shower than I should have but it was definitely worth it in the end. Just as I reach the kitchen I stop in the door way.

“Master, what are you still doing in here? Has no one arrived for class?” I am very puzzled as to why he would be lingering in the kitchen when he gives me such a hard time about being late.

“Yes there are many here already. Some were even early.” With that statement he glares  at me and I can’t help but roll my eyes at him before he continues on, “but when students began to arrive, so did a letter for you.”

“But then why didn’t you just leave it on the table like you usually do? I would have seen it and read it later.” His actions were beginning to worry me and with what he said next only proved me right.

“I would have but this letter is from your mother.” And with that, he places it on the table and leaves.

Since he deemed it to be something special, I sit in one of the chairs and just stare at the envelope. Sure enough, scrawled across the front was my name in my mother’s handwriting. It had been 10 years since I last heard from her. Her last letter was filled with pleadings to come home and to give up on my plans. You could see in places where she had been crying because the ink was splattered and smeared. My fingers are itching to tear open the envelope but a strong sense of foreboding is stopping me from giving in. What ever is in that letter, is not good tidings. I take a moment to slow my rapidly beating heart. There’s only one way to find out what’s in that letter and I had much to do today. I reach for it slowly as if I expect it to bite me. I open it just as slowly, still dreading the contents of this missive. I gasp as I read the letter in the now silent kitchen. The sound disturbs me almost as much as what I am reading.

I was right to fear that letter.