on the right/above is a pic of Master Hart Jillian
Chapter Three: Nora
When I got back to my room, a bluish transparent map of my new agenda, was hanging in the air in the middle of the room. I quickly put the lenses on my eyes. It seemed like I had to meet my new teacher, Master Jillian, at the library in thirty minutes. Master Hart Jillian had a profile on the agenda that kept blinking until I pressed on it. A picture of a man, which seemed to be Master Hart Jillian, with an inverted triangle shaped head and dark hair that matched his eyes appeared on the map with a persona description on its right.
“A skilled fencer and boxer. Just transferred from Ilaine – wonder where that is – with high results in hand-to-hand fighting and knife fight. Holy Imva, who is this guy? Have they hired a complete psychopath?” I kept on reading about Master Jillian. Apparently he’d also been in the army, which I thoughts was odd, ‘cause there hadn’t been a war or anything like it the past hundred years! Literally. Then he’d been taking courses in the southern mountains, which actually didn’t have anything to do with fighting. This guy had the black belt in several sorts of material arts, it made my heart pound more than enough to make me sweat and suddenly there was fifteen minutes till I had to meet him, which made me sweat even more. I ran out of the room, with the map imprinted in my mind. I just had to go straight ahead in the direction of the Dining Hall but instead of going right and into the hall I had to go left. There I got to two huge (seriously huge!) mahogany doors! My eyes widened at the many details of pictures and the big variations of symbols on the door. Unlike the mechanical swiping doors where there was a wave-your-hand-effect these doors actually had door handles. Used golden handles.
“A-hem…” A firm and confident voice said behind me. I turned around and looked upon my teacher. Master Jillian. “You’re late.” he said it without blinking and no expression on his face. Not like on his profile where there had been a smile in his eyes. But I hadn’t been late.
“No I’m not.” I could feel my pulse rise in confusion.
“I’ve been waiting for you for fifteen minutes.”
“But I’m not late. I just left my quarters with the knowledge of having fifteen minutes to get here.” I said, a little annoyed ‘cause I knew I was right. Was he testing me on something?
Master Jillian’s, very muscular, arms folded on his back. “Next time you’ll be here fifteen minutes earlier, is that understood? C’mon. We have work to do.” He said it as if I was some tiny minion. With no word I followed him through out the courtyard not far from the library. From the courtyard my mind felt like it had just exploded. The Institute was bigger than I thought it was. Shaped in a pentagon with eight-ten stories high, with a court in different sections in different levels. And not levels as in oh-a-hill, but in levels as shit-a-cliff-better-take-the-lift-up-and-down levels. The levels didn’t even touch each other! One of the levels had forests, some training Chosens was literally jumping around chasing each other while a teacher was watching their moves and tactic and on another level filled with sand and rock was a thin guy with glasses raising a series of rocks, apparently his rocks weren’t good enough as his teacher made them sin into the earth again and the guy with glasses tried again. Master Jillian and I weren’t on the highest level; I looked up and saw more metal platforms.
“C’mon Turner.” Master Jillian said confident. I made myself aware of him and went after him on a lift up.
“Master Jillian can I ask you something?”
“You just did.”
“But can I?”
“You did it again.”
Holy Imva this guy is rigid!
“Is the entire court yard’s trees real or replicas? Considering that the trees are sacred.” I then asked.
Master Jillian didn’t answer.
The lift stopped four stories up. We stood on a level with a two light rosy trees, which seemed to have its crowns grown together, welcoming us to its place. Master Jillian leaded us on through the tree gate. It seemed rather peaceful here. It continued with the light rosy trees all the way through, their pink peddles fell off and made the scenery look so beautiful, as if nothing was impossible and there was no trouble in the world.
“Keep up.” Master Jillian interrupted my thinking and peace, but I hurried after him any way. His hands weren’t on his back any longer.
“Where are we going?” I tried without expecting an actual answer from him.
“To the roof,” he said.
“What? Aren’t we going to stay here and do something?”
“Like what?
“I don’t know, training? Aren’t that the reason I’m here?”
“Yes and no.”
“Are you always this simple-answering?”
“Are you always this interrogating?”
“That’s not a bad thing.” I casted the last look at the light rosy forest from the lift leading us to the roof. The Institute’s roof was designed as a running field. Master Jillian left the lift, as did I, and headed to the field’s start. “Isn’t it dangerous to be up here?”
“Said the girl taken the open lift twice without looking down.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“There’s a longer way down from the levels to the bottom, than from here to first floor.”
“This place has a basement?”
I went back to the lift and looked down. I couldn’t see the bottom, but I could see a hole where the lift fitted through the ground. “More like an underground base, or if you like, a training centre three stories down. We’re safe up here.” I looked back at Master Jillian who pressed various buttons on a device that had risen from the roof.
“What are you doing?” I asked him pressing the last button before stepping away.
“Welcome to your training, Turner.” That was the first time that Master Jillian had smiled at me, and what I noticed was, he didn’t smile wickedly, more like teasingly. “Let me see how good a runner you are.” His persona had suddenly just changed; I was confused when he then ran off! “C’mon Turner!” he shouted back, “The last one round is a pile of chicken shit!”
“I’m not a pile of chicken shit!” I shouted back at him and ran after him to prove him wrong. By putting one foot in front of the other I chased after Master Jillian. My heart beating faster, the pulse speeding up made me aware that I hadn’t always been a great runner. Turning by the second corner of the roof, I was just a few feet away from overhaul him, when my throat felt like a cactus while panting for air. My veins stopped pumping blood down my legs and replaced it with acid while my heart felt like it had stopped pumping. My lungs began to force coughs up my dessert dry throat. Master Jillian took the lead. Looks like I am a pile of chicken shit. I stopped running. The cactus feeling didn’t leave my throat. I bend over, trying to catch my breath, when Master Jillian patted my back and then stretched me out.
“Bend over and cramp. Make muscles by stretching back.” It sounded rhythmic when he said it. I’d don’t know I had expected him being that helpful. I’d really thought he’d be all bossy and arrogant, but he wasn’t! “Come, come, easy.” After stretching out, and I caught my breath, we started over by running lightly, but Master Jillian wanted me to move my entire body when I ran, so I would sweat. And I did. He made a rhythm I could run to, which made it feel like running like a clock. After five easy runs around the roof he called it. My throat was still a cactus and I wanted to hurl up my breakfast.
“That’s enough running for today I think.” Master Jillian proclaimed while stretching out his own muscles.
“You think so?”
“For you yes, I don’t want to teach a dead student. There’s not much life in them.”
“Then what do you suggest for me to not die?”
“Before you go to bed, every night, I want you to make twenty sit-ups, one minute stationary squat (for now), twenty push-ups. Remember to stretch! What did I just say before?”
I quoted him “Bend over and cramp. Stretch and make muscles.”
“Correct. Every morning I want you out here on the running field, running three rounds, like we just did.” I could already feel how my legs and back and bones started to ache just by thinking about it. I finished stretching my leg. “Whoo—“ Master Jillian breathed, as if he was really out of breath, and he wasn’t. It kind of annoyed me, cause I didn’t like people making fun of me, not like he just did.
“What now?” I asked him. It came out annoyed, more than it should have; he just sent me a lifted eyebrow.
“Now we go to class.”
“What class?”
“Next class, keep up.” He made it sound like I was really stupid. I couldn’t help that I had been more interested in my teacher than what my schedule was. The guy had a face of an ancient God, like that guy, Adonis, our ancestors called them Greek Gods, but there’s no such thing. When the new world, this country, was founded, the monks of the south, east, west and north all received an epiphany, how the old God’s had died and three new had taken their place. Now one believes in the old gods anymore. When this country was still new, and those who wouldn’t believe in the Three Gods, a great purge started. Many got tortured and brainwashed, those who didn’t break during their maniacally treat, got executed for treason. I’m not saying I’m proud of what my country have done, but it was two hundred years back.
Nevertheless Master Jillian moved towards the lift and I followed. The lift began to move downwards. This time Master Jillian led me into a light training room, with huge windows from floor to the ceiling. From here I could look into all the others who was training as well. Just across I could see three Chosens fighting their ass off! Not just by kicking or fist fighting, but with fire! Three people just fisted each other fireballs, as they continued to dodge the enemy fire. They looked good. With their muscular bodies and amazing biceps. One of them had this haircut, his fringes sat on each side of his head, and slight trimmed head I couldn’t see his face in details, but his haircut wasn’t hard to remember. He kicked his foot in a perfect half circle. The kick wasn’t what impressed me. The phenomenon that impressed me was the tale of fire his foot had, with an almost whip like form Well, Ben did say there was a lot of training, jeesh, was this much not too much?
Master Jillian opened a metallic cabinet “How much do you know about fencing?” he threw me a sword. It was light and looked like a giant toothpick.
“I’ve never fenced before.”
“Good, let’s start with the basics then.” Master Jillian placed himself in funny-looking position next to me. His right foot faced front while his left foot pointed in 90 degrees to the left. “this is called the en garde, it’s a starting position. Do what I do. You copy that?”
“Yeah I copy” I tried my best to copy his position.
“Good, now bend down in your knees, like this, it’ll make it easier for you to move around. All right. Now advance, look at my feet. Right food, heel toe, left foot. Heel, toe, no… Your heel goes first, on your most dominant leg, which is your right I assume,” I nodded, “so like this. Heel, toe, yes that’s it. So that was an advance, if your opponent comes against you, you do the opposite, like this.” Master Jillian then did the retreat, which just was the opposite of the advance. After getting the hang on the moves we then moved on to the lungs, which was the attack, then the parries. I sat down after an hour of movements with lungs and bouncing and attacks, seriously I was so tired I could retreat back to my room, just to sleep. Sleeeeep…
“Here.” I hadn’t even noticed Master Jillian leave the room to get bottled water. I gratefully took the one he handed me, opened it and drank it. The ice-cold water cooled down my hot throat and made me cough. “Easy tiger.” He sat down by me and gave me his, still ice-cold, bottle.
“I still h-have some left…” I coughed.
“Not for your throat, it’s for your forehead. Cool down.” I could feel how the sweat pearls on my brow mixed with the cold water drops on the bottle and I dried it up with my sleeve. I eyed back at the room where those fire guys were fighting when we entered. They’d stopped fighting. Their training room was huge, the jumped around across the rooms equipment, one of the others exhaled so it looked like a cartoonish bull, I bet the room was fireproof.
“Did the benders catch your interest?”
“The what?”
“The benders. Bending the fundamental elements, earth, air, fie water. But you,”
“—I’m here to fence.”
“No. You’re not here to fence.” Master Jillian hesitated.
“Then do excuse me for asking, Master Jillian, but why are you teaching me to fence then?”
“First things first. I’m no Master, not yet. And secondly, you’re here to train your power. I’ve been informed about it, but you don’t have to be such a grumpy little catshit all the time, so stop it, ‘cause it won’t do you any good, neither for you or myself. Thirdly,” Master Jillian straighten himself into a governing position with his arms crossed, “you can start pulling yourself together, cause your way out of shape, and as I’ve heard from the board and doctor Stannings, your power will drain your for energy once in while, so you better get in shape and learn how to save your energy.” I just sat there. Reckoning that I had been really grumpy, but he hadn’t been all friendly himself. “I agree I was grumpy this morning, but you were late, and I had a shitty night, all right?” that shocked me.
I raised my finger, “did you just…”
“Read your mind? Yes. I did. Don’t worry I’m not going to sneak around your mind, I can turn it off, I just had to know what was going on, ‘cause I’ve never met anyone that grumpy.”
“I hope not.” He eyed me very stiffly, “sorry. I’m sorry I’ve been all grumpy. And made your day all shitty.” That was true, after what he’d just told me. “Do you think we could start over? Without the grumpiness?” Jillian eased and sent a short smile.
“’Course.” I stood up and raised my hand. Jillian did the same.
“I’m Nora. Nora Turner.”
“Nice meeting you Nora Turner, I’m your new Master. Master Hart Jillian. Looking forward to our training.”
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