Training went on in much the same way every day. I would meet Storm on the beach at dawn, snow, rain or shine. We would start with the expansion of my mind in meditation before moving into other things. Combat started with hand to hand without any sort of weapons. There were many bruises, broken fingers, wrists, black eyes and anything else. But it was invigorating, I felt I had a purpose again that was bigger than just healing the sick. I could finally do the job I had been appointed to in a real way.
Storm was an excellent teacher, and I absorbed everything she tried to impart on me like a sponge. She was a Phoenician, and that meant that I was learning from one of the most skilled warriors on the planet and beyond it. She taught me how an unarmed, petite person such as myself could disarm a soldier without using magic. She taught me to use my size to my advantage, as well as how to mentally throw my opponent off with my appearance. I was single minded in my tutelage, determined to learn everything that I could. There had been a time for a magic using healer, but in this age of fear and corruption it was time for a warrior, an assassin even.
After a year Storm started me on weapons. She brought me sacred Phoenician weapons to practice with, not wooden weapons or dull ones. She said I should practice with things that could hurt me, to learn how to use them properly without hurting myself. I learned to use a spear, what she called a flail, a scimitar, daggers, short swords, long swords, claymores, dual swords. There were weapons I had never seen before. There were weapons this world had never seen before. I took the time to learn and master them all, though some were easier than others. Becoming a master of a particular weapon didn't take nearly as long to do as unarmed had, because there weren't as many things to learn. I spent about six months on each weapon, until Storm told me I could learn no more about it.
I loved weapons training, to put it simply. Yes, I would always cut myself, and badly, at first, but my healing ability took care of the worst of that within moments. Storm would give me a day's break if she thought that I had lost too much blood on these days, and would set me to listening to the world or practicing weaponless in what she called Tai Chi. I had never heard of such a thing, but I enjoyed it, especially in the sand with the ocean to listen to, and Storm would do it with me. She wasn't the kind of teacher who just barked orders and stood and watched. She was very hands on and would help with correcting mistakes instead of just leaving me to bumble through it like an idiot.
Throughout this training we grew close and became fast friends, something I had not had since I had left Philae. Storm saw me for what I was and saw my potential, and I thanked the Gods that they had chosen her as my teacher. I still had a knee-jerk reaction towards being given orders from when I had been young and my father had been my teacher, and I still feared a beating if I got something wrong, but my friend was patient with me, even though she would sound impatient when she would quip that she wasn't going to smack me around and that I needed to chill out or we'd be done for the day. She knew how I craved knowledge, and threatening to stop the lesson was enough to put me back in my place. I didn't want to quit for the day. Often I would end up practicing by the seaside long after dark, whether it be weapon stances or doing Tai Chi.
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During this time, I also became less wary of men as I gained the confidence that I could truly defend myself if need be without killing someone. I didn't like killing, regardless of the things I had done in the past during my time in Egypt or what I had done to Rome in revenge. I abhorred killing. I was a healer, and a defender, and a guardian, not a villain. With the things Storm taught me I could defend myself without shedding blood, or much of it at least, as I did break a few noses. But at the same time, I was able to venture out now and then to mingle with the humans in the town I lived in. I joined their festivals and their rowdy inns. I was a renowned herbalist in the town as well, and people came to me for healing and to buy herbs and things that I gathered to sell to make a living. There were times where I didn't actually sleep.
There just wasn't enough time in a day to be able to do everything that I needed to do. I couldn't live without making some sort of income, so the herbs and things I made and sold were essential. Yes, I had quite a bit of money from my time in Greece, but I didn't want to go through all of it and end up a pauper by the end of my training. I never wanted to have to live hand to mouth again. I wanted a choice.
In those days no one visited beaches to swim, humans were afraid of it back then. Afraid of what was in it. I couldn't really blame them either to be honest. I had not recovered from the strange shark that had chased me when I was trying to get to Philae. So Storm and I had the beach all to ourselves day in and day out. And to this day I prefer it that way. A quiet stretch of rainy sand with high tide crashing in rhythm with my breathing.
Storm at one point advised me that I needed to either hire someone to run my little shop or close it, because she noticed that I was running thin, and in order to train properly, I needed to be at my best. So she gave me a break from training to get things in order, and I hired a young girl just as I had in Greece, and I paid her well to gather the right herbs and run the shop for me. Of course she knew where she could find me if something happened or there was an urgent customer.
This freed me to focus on my training undividedly, and managed to get some sleep in between as well. I was immersed, eager, and a quick student. I moved from weapon to weapon, year to year. Each time I mastered a weapon, Storm would have us put it in the sub-dimension that Horus had provided me, where the Archives were stored. She said that it was the safest place for them.
People hunted Phoenicians, you see, and they were almost extinct by this time. Storm was the last of the race's royalty, and the weapons she taught me with, they were the only ones left that hadn't been destroyed or stolen and lost. I cannot express how honored I was when she told me that when we went our separate ways that she would be leaving the weapons in my possession to keep safe. For her to trust me in such a way was a little foreign to me, but it pleased me immensely nonetheless.