There wasn’t enough time to discuss things further, so we part ways and head toward our next course. I make my way, Cat on my shoulder, and wonder if I was to continue running on the wall. It was rather fun now that I was getting better at it. Oh! I wonder if I will be able to learn quick maneuvers off of them. Mayhaps I shall have to play a bit. No one else has shown any interest in wall running, but instead have stayed in the areas in which they had been originally assigned.

"Oh my, well look who it is showing up to my course early!" Alice said, leaping off of one of the platforms and landing in front of me.

"Hello Alice." I say. I always end up feeling a bit excited when I see her. Whenever I was around Alice I was always learning fun things, which I truly enjoyed. I wonder what she will be teaching me.

"My dear sweet little Ami. Are you ready to learn something new?" she asks me.

"New? Not on the walls?"

"No, it will be on the walls. Watch and see if you would be able to do this. You are not a cat-kin so it might be harder for you.”

"I do like a challenge ever so much." I tell Alice and race her over to the walls.

"Alright, keep your eyes fixed on me. I have been wanting to teach you this ever since I saw you run the walls the first time. Ready?"

"Indeed. I am ready."

Alice winks at me and takes off running. She runs swiftly and deftly. She gets a running start before leaping up and getting as high as can on one of the walls. She holds her position for a moment before dropping down and using the momentum she flies up the other side of the canyon. I was thoroughly impressed with how high she could get and thought it would end there. It does not, she flips off of the wall and while in midair throws several knives, hitting targets dead center.

"I must learn that." I tell Cat, who had yet to leave me.

"Keep watching." Cat says tail twitching back and forth.

Next, I see her run high up on one wall then throw herself off of it, leaping through the air, doing a full flip and then running down the opposing wall.

"Today you will be practicing flipping off of the walls. I will stay here to spot you. I won't let you get hurt. But if I catch you I am going to cradle you in my arms and tell you how adorable you are. So, I suggest that you don't fall." she says and gives me a wink.

I take that as my cue to begin my training. I run at the wall and try to do what she did. I realize how little control I feel I have, which had been fine up to this point. Now though, now I do believe that I need to substantially increase my level of control. How to do this then. I run the walls a few times, seeing where my feet gripped the best. Ah, this seems like a good place.

I take a deep breath and open up all of my senses, trying to have the greatest sense of my body that I am able. Once I feel that I have the most awareness and control I give it a try. I try starting the first maneuver at a lower point. I managed to get to the flip, but did not land gracefully and I was not able to hit any of the targets with my knives.

Very well, it was only a first try after all. I spent the next little while doing flips off a lower height. When I felt that I was landing much more gracefully I try going a little higher.

How much difference such a small bit of height makes. I began to feel as though I was flying, my body moving gracefully through the air. It felt as though the air, the wall and I were dancing with one another. This must be what true freedom of movement feels like. And I must say that I enjoyed it. It could be that I was enjoying it a bit too much and overextended myself, as my foot landed wrong and I skid down, down, down. I did, however, manage to keep from landing upon my bottom.

All of this flipping did remind me of my family, if only a bit. I had been a rather small and adventurous child. I would explore everything and everywhere and quite often found myself on top of things. My family, after realizing how much I liked tall places, started throwing me into the air. They would throw me as high as they could and eventually started to tell me to do flips, which I did.

I was brought out of my memories when I hear Alice shouting at me.

"What was that? Are you part bird? Part mokey? How did you throw yourself so high on just your first day of learning this. You are a very fast learner aren't you? Or perhaps just reckless, either way that will make training you so much fun! Honestly you are leaving your fellow students in the dust. Wait, didn’t you get your stat update today, you should show it to me. Gimme!" Alice extends out her hand with a greedy glimmer in her eye.

"I apologize, but I don’t think that is quite appropriate as it contains personal information.” I tell her, honestly uncertain of how she will respond.

"Never mind, it's nothing. But wow! Cat you picked a good one didn't you. But you could already see that couldn't you, you big cheater."

"Yes yes, I am a cheater. Shouldn't you tell your students that course is over?" Cat asked Alice.

"What? Already?" she checks the time to make sure that Cat is not having a jest. "Well what do you know. The course really is over! Students the course is over. Get out of here!" she shouts to all of us students. "See you tomorrow." Alice says to me as I leave alongside of the other students.

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"Indeed! I shall see you then!" I tell her as I am walking to my next course.

"Just a warning, if you keep learning at this pace you are going to bring negative attention to yourself." Cat chides me.

"I was simply having fun." I tell Cat, a bit sulkily I must admit.

The walk to my next course was quiet, but not uncomfortably so. I think about the way that I felt as I was moving with so much ease. Is this what it means to be an adventurer in training? If it is I must profess that I enjoy it quite a bit.

"Ami! Hey, how was your course?"

"I had a great amount of fun today! I have not been learning how to use my weapons, but I am enjoying learning to use my body ever so much." I tell Kay brightly.

"Learning to enjoy how to use your body huh? And with Kay’s new hair color, oh, you two work in a brothel together don't you? Well for people of your status I guess it is to be expected." Rex says to us coldly.

"No. We do not work at a brothel. You think you would know that as you are certainly familiar with such workers." I tell him back, equally as cold.

I did not even want to be near him. I know what men like him do to women. I almost feel the bruises while speaking to him. I did not want to be near him, so I grab Kay's hand and pull him away from Rex. I could hear him making a few more derogatory comments, but I tune him out.

I manage to get through the course while tuning out Rex, but it was rather difficult. He had started moving towards us, but the instructor cut him off. I am ever so grateful that our instructors are doing what they are able to protect us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rex makes his way home, furious about the events of the day. No, not the day, the events of this week. How is he, a proud pure-blooded elf being bested by such low lives. And by his cousin no less, and his cousin’s... Well, he wasn't sure what race she was, but he knew that she was a bitch all the same.

"Rex, why do you have such a look on your face. You will get wrinkles." Rex's mother says, fussing over him. "What would your father say about you coming home while wearing such a look."

"Yes. What would your father say?" said a commanding voice as it entered into the room. "Well son, why do you look so angry?" his father asked, waiting to hear the answer before deciding if he was angry with his son or not.

"I’m still only able to take second place, and the person, no thing, in first place is that girl that hangs around with Kay."

"What family is she from? If she can best you she must be strong. If she comes from a distinguished enough family, she may be with worth connecting to our own." his father asked, clearly interested in bettering his own family. He relished the idea of bringing other powerful people under his control, and could not help the thought a wife might help settle some of his son’s more distasteful actions.

"She wears a cloak, I don't know what race she is. And I wouldn't breed with a thing like her. She spends all of her time with Kay and Cat."

"I see. Unfortunate. Why did you allow her to beat you? And didn't you say that Kay had been doing well in his courses? What are you going to do about this Rex? You need to show that you are the top student, anything less is unacceptable."

"I know that." Rex says, barely able to keep it from becoming a whine. He knew what was expected of him, but it wasn’t his fault as they had to be cheating.

"I have an idea father." he eventually ended up saying.

"Oh?" his father asked, curious as to what scheme his son had thought up.

"Can you get me their test scores? We just had our weekly update, and I know all of that information gets stored somewhere."

"What will you do with this information?" he asked, wanting to know what his son had planned before he was willing to go along with it.

"I feel it will be valuable to know their weaknesses." Rex stated.

"Fine. But Rex? Don't get caught. It’s not breaking the law if you aren’t caught." he reminded his son. It was part of the family moto after all, the unofficial one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I can't believe that Rex did that to you. What would he have done if you had fallen." Kay says to me. He then gasped. "Gasp! You don't think that he was trying to prevent you from becoming an adventurer, do you? I mean I know he is a stupid jerk face, but he wouldn’t actually hurt you, not seriously, right? I mean, then he would get in all sorts of trouble and what would he do, oh. He would just say that you fell wouldn't he. And where he hit you looks like it hurts a lot. Does it hurt a lot? Do you need ice, a salve, me to sing you a song of healing?" Kay asks and opens his mouth as though he is going to try.

Cat shoves his paw into the gaping maw that is Kay preventing him from attempting a song.

"It is quite alright Kay. I did not get hurt so I suppose all is well?" I ask him, although I believe that we both know that it wasn't alright. "Anyways, he has been doing these things to you since you were young. He must see me as an extension of you, or as some sort of accessory?"

"Both of you need to calm down. He learned he can't attack you and make it look like an accident, so naturally he won't be trying again. The thing to worry about is if he decides to escalate things, as he will probably send someone else in his place. But I wouldn’t worry about it, with the rate of your stat increases none of his lackies should be a threat."

"What about Kay?"

"Even less to worry about, they do technically share blood, which makes it look even worse if he were to do anything against him. But I suppose we will see." Cat says.

"Do you not think that you should be accompanying Kay then?"

"No. I see that you are unique. And then I saw your scores. And then who did we hear in our heads.” Cat pauses taking a small breath “WHY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT REX?!" Cat starts shouting, causing his little body to lift off the bed with the force of his shouts.

"Oh yes. I suppose we should talk about that, especially since Zayne has made it so you cannot speak of any of this. I mean, I eventually would have trusted you with this. Also, there is a great many things that I myself do not fully understand." I say, lifting the book about Rockeaters up off the floor. "Now then, where to begin." I say, thoughtful.

'Is that alright to be doing? Also, how can you do that?'

"Where to start." I say, looking at the two of them. They were staring at me, just staring. That is... Rather aggressive staring.

"Well as Zayne said. I'm a fox. My people are persecuted and murdered by the Inquisition. I don't really know why, just like I don't know why I absorb mana crystals into my skin, or even what that means. I mean, why does it dissolve. It didn't just dissolve my body absorbed it. Oh. Umm. Maybe this is what caused my stats to jump?" I say to them.

"Oh, so you really don't know much about what is going on either? I guess we really shouldn't be demanding information from you then should we. But it seemed that you were so knowledgeable. It is a very strange feeling for me not to know something, but this is about your own race so that makes it even stranger. Oh! Is that why you wear your cloak? Because you look so different. I knew that your ear and tail shape was something I hadn't seen before. And your eyes are also a really pretty shape. I especially like the way they look with eyeliner.

“Do you think that I could wear eye liner and look just as pretty? But can anyone look as pretty? Is that a fox thing? Or is it a you thing? What does your mom look like? Is she a fox too? Or was your dad? Is it maternal? Paternal? Why are you all still letting me talk. Because you know, I can really just keep on talking. About anything. And everything. No one just lets me talk. This is weird. I think that I will stop talking now. Right? Okay. I'm done. For now. I think."

I sit for a moment, then throw my arms around both Cat and Kay. It was nice to have someone to share secrets with. Now let's see if they remember them in the morning.