𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐄𝐀, peter pan

Chapter Twenty-Nine

When the medicine was finished being made, the shelves were all stocked with different types of medicine and it had taken them from morning to mid-noon to be done. It was free time for Mara and the group. The camp was reeked with the strong scent of carved trees and onions and berries.

James did promised whenever they get free time, he'd be training Mara. She hoped he forgot because she wanted free time from all the training and games but it wasn't long when James remembered.

"Don't think I forget about training on free times, we'll start once we finish our lunch" he informed.

Mara frowned and hid her expression glancing down at her food.

"Meanwhile, Tootles, Slightly and I will be heading to the falls to take a little swim then afterwards, relax" Curly flashed a smug as if attempting to make James and Mara jealous. He rolled his eyes while she still frowned.

Once lunch was finished, Mara followed James out of the camp carrying couple of weapons. They were on their way to the same place they trained, it was at the meadow. Before leaving the river, they filled up their canteen with water then proceeded to the meadow. They exchanged little conversations on the way.

"It's been a week I've been here and I'm already dying" Mara moaned.

"You'll survive" James chuckled.

"Was it like this for you when you first got here?" She asked, they were almost at the meadow.

"Broke two bones on my first week, oh and I nearly got myself killed by the Natives and Pan punished me by letting me starve for couple of days. You haven't gone through worse, honestly your first week isn't that bad, you're a lucky bastard"

Mara chuckled softly, "So you got used to this place?"

"Precisely, you'll get used to it too, give it another week or a month"

"And if I choose to leave?" Mara watched him slowing down a little, "You did say I'm currently being tested, and in the end, I can either stay or go"

"Right, of course" James walked normally again, "well then, I suppose you can leave. Like you said, it's only been a week you've been here, first weeks are difficult then you'll get used to it eventually"

"So you think I'll stay?"

"I'm not predicting that you'll stay or go, but they all always choose to stay because they believe this place is better than out there. But do you think out there is better than here?"

They arrived the meadow, the question did made Mara speechless and just thought about it for a long moment. Would it be better here than out there? After all, she has no one out there, but here, she made friends like James, Tootles, Slightly and Curly. And Pan, kind of.

"You'll find out in the end" she replied finally.

The training begun, they started with staffs, practiced her swinging and being taught how to do tricks with the staff. She showed no improvement with staff because she kept dropping it while doing tricks, being smack at every inch of her body and tossed around. Later, they played with wooden swords, Mara showed little improvement in fighting with sword, it was probably because of all that month training with Killian Jones. Then after wooden swords, they practiced with wooden daggers and tomahawks then began throwing with real daggers and tomahawks at the targets which Mara was terrible at. Number of times she'd missed the target and only twice she hit it but at the edge of last line. Then again with staffs mainly because her goal was to defeat Thomas in the combat during training, the combat could happened tomorrow or the day after.

Every limb of her body ached and bruised afterwards, it was evening when James called off the training and start again next time. She had a few small cuts, two on her arms and one on her face.