❆ ❆ ❆Chapter Twenty One❆ ❆ ❆

Seeing Ghosts

[Snow]

Snow was exhausted. She had a bigger route today with seal scouting and she came back straight back to Aela’s training regime.

“Aela can we stop for the day? I could barely manage to stand.”

“No, we go until nightfall approaches.” Aela was relentless

Aela launched five chains forward and Snow barely dodged them.

“Aela, I'm really tired. Can we please call it a day?”

“No, you will dodge and dodge and dodge until nightfall approaches. Think of this as endurance training.” The chains readied themselves again and this time all six shot forward at once.

Aela didn’t care one bit about her exhaustion. Aela only cared about squeezing every single minute of sunlight available for this brain numbing dodge exercise, which Snow could easily complete if Aela didn't start counting in fractions from nine to ten.

Nightfall finally started approaching.

“We are done for today.” Aela looked unsatisfied.

Snow couldn’t even feel her body anymore; she was afraid of what she was going to feel in the morning.

“Eat, bath, sleep. We will continue tomorrow after your route.” Aela went inside.

Snow was surprised she even made it to the house. Her legs felt like mush. That night's sleep felt like a flip of a page. She had just closed her eyes and now Aela was standing over her.

“Get up.”

The covers were ripped off against her clutches.

“Ten more minutes...” Snow mumbled and rolled on her side.

“No, we can't waste any daylight. Get dressed, eat and get a move on.”

You would figure that being a frostblood made you less tired in the morning, but it doesn’t. Snow wanted to sleep like anyone else. She rubbed her eyes and dragged herself up.

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Snow returned and wasnt even able to go rest in the shack. Aela was standing in wait for her. “Pick up the sword and we can begin.” Aela summoned the training chains. Training was immediate upon return.

It's been a couple of days since the start of this strict training regime and Snow’s body was in permanent hurt.

“Aela, when are we moving on to offense. I am tired of just dodging attacks.” As the training went on Snow was getting impatient. Aela was diversifying her attacks each day but she's only been teaching her how to dodge and nothing else.

“So you are tired of living? Defense is more important than offense. You can't even hold the sword above your head yet, and you want to start learning attacks? No, we continue evasion training.”

Snow tried to lift the sword higher, she managed to bring the handle up to her chin before letting it fall back down to waist level.

“You are not ready yet.” Aela reiterated.

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The next day they were in the middle of training and Snow had a face.

“What's with that face?” Aela questioned.

“I am not making any progress! I'm tired of the same old dodging, I want to fight back! And this stupid sword sword, I still cant raise it above my head! Rggg!” Snow tried but still couldn't get it past her chin, “I should be way stronger by now. This is ridiculous! Just like when I was training back home. Why do I need to put in twice as much effort just for negligible results!” Snow’s morale was pretty low.

“Don’t compare those posh fraudulent exercises you were doing back at home with my training. Training is exactly that, training. If you don’t put in the work you won't get results. Do you want to stop? You won't get stronger by sitting there and crying, this progress doesn’t happen overnight.”

“How many nights has it been though, Aela? I've been doing this for months!”

“Too bad, we will continue evasion training until you do it perfectly.” Aela really was unmoving when it came to this exercise. It was the pinnacle of her belief: evasion above all else.

At the end of Aela’s point, a magical noise was heard. The noise sounded like it was powering down. Snow was trying to remember where she had heard that familiar noise before. Then, it came to her, it was the same sound the seal golemn made when shut down. If that was truly the same noise, that would mean one of aela’s tornado defenses were severely compromised. Snow was going to question the sound, but Aela’s face confirmed the suspicion.

“We are done for today. Go back inside.” Aela began sprinting towards the direction of the noise.

“I am coming with you!”

“It’s dangerous. Just stay.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Ugh, just keep up and keep quiet then!” They both sprinted into the forest, towards the source of the noise.

Aela and Snow reached an incline that gave view of the seal site. The fact that the area was still plunged in winter meant that the seal was still functional which was good. However, they discovered the source of the disturbance, Three black knights were surrounding the magical tornado. They began channeling their black blood into the winds. The wind began to darken and slow down. The winds wobbled, mirroring the unstable state Snow was familiar with.

“This is what they've been doing?” Snow whispered, Aela reached for her weapon handle and began to get up from the cover they were prone behind.“Wait Aela.” Snow grabbed Aela’s sleeve.

In front of them was that ghostly woman, her eyes were dead as night and she was staring right at them.

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“That thing, I've seen it before!”

Aela looked at her. “What thing?”

“You don’t see it standing right there, that lady?” Snow pointed straight ahead

“Stop playing games. There's nothing in front of us.” Aela harshly whispered back.

The black knights ended their channel and began to walk away. Aela lowered herself back into cover.

“I don’t understand, if they want to break it why don’t they just do it? Maybe they aren’t strong enough yet?”

Snow’s eyes weren’t deceiving her, that woman was real, Snow knew now for sure. Was that an actual ghost though? The lady was staring at Aela and approaching her with one hand up.

“Aela she's coming! She's trying to get you!” Snow got closer to Aela and drew icebreaker.

“Snow what the hell are you on right now?! there's nothing there! God, I told you you shouldn’t have come!”

The lady disappeared.

Aela stabilized the tornado and they went back to her shack.

“Tomorrow I want you to stay here. I’ve been pushing you too hard, you need to rest.”

“Aela, I’m fine.” Snow reiterated.

“Yeah, says the person seeing things.” Aela shook her head.

“I saw that lady before! Back around when I first got here in front of another seal tornado.”

“There are no such things as ghosts. Just stop. Rest up. I'll cover your seals tomorrow. Plus since there were three black knights out now. It is way too dangerous for you to be going out right now.”

“I can sense when they are close. I will be fine Aela!”

“Yeah and if they sense you, it's over. So no way. Just rest up.”

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The next day, Snow awoke, surprisingly not at the command of Aela. She sat up in bed and looked around. Aela was gone, Aela really was serious when she said to rest up today. Snow slipped off the bed and yawned. Today was the first day she slept in in a long time.

Snow slipped on her clothes, grabbed an apple, and went up to the kitchen cabinets. After opening each door she took stock of the ingredients they had left.

“Since I have today off, I might as well make something good. Aela would appreciate that.” Snow began prepping the vegetables and tenderizing the wolf meat for a big dinner.

After she finished setting potatoes to boil, the flame began dying down. Snow lowered herself to look under the cooking stove. The cooking stove needed more wood.

Snow went outside to the side of the shack to where all the wood was. She set up a log to be chopped.

The axe was stuck into the cracked stump. Snow gripped it and tried pulling it out. After some tension the axe came loose and nearly flew out of her hand.

“What the?” Snow was confused. Why was the axe so light? It felt like it weighed literally nothing. She then turned towards the training sword that was sticking out of the ground and then back at the axe.

“She played me!” Snow grit her teeth. No wonder the sword felt like it was the same weight every day. Now that she thought about it, the sword was starting to feel heavier. Aela’s been making it heavier each day!

After about an hour Aela returned.

“Wow, that smells good.” Aela said, taking a seat, and lounging back.

“When I was cooking, the stove was running out of wood so I chopped some.” Snow served Aela a plate of wolf steak topped with onions and spicy sauce sided with sliced potatoes sprinkled with seasoning.

“Did you now, shame, I forgot to put more yesterday.” Aela said with a smirk, knowing the game was up.

“Why did you trick me!? Why didn’t you say the sword was getting heavier?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because, you said you that you would start teaching me how to attack if I could raise the sword above my head while dodging and you’ve made that impossible by making it heavier and heavier every day!”

“If I told you the sword was getting heavier you would be more worried about that then dodging my attacks.” She cut and took a bite of the steak.

“Damn Snow, maybe you should have taken that housewife deal. This is great.” Aela joked. Snow just eyed her. She didn’t find that funny. “Kidding! Wow, relax kid. It was a joke.” Aela spoke in between her chews.

“Like your cooking.”

“I guess I deserved that, sorry but I don’t like cooking. I just make the essentials and keep on moving. I'll tell you what, cook like this from now on and I’ll let you sleep in twenty extra minutes.”

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The following day, Snow and Aela were outside of the shack. In the usual training area.

“Alright Snow, since the jig is up. I’ll actually give you a chance to pass the dodge test, no more fractions, I’ll count straight to ten and I took off the added weight of the training sword, the sword weighs as much as the first day.”

Snow grew excited, “Alright, I’ll prove it to you Aela, I can do it.” This was the first time in a while she grew excited but she was also nervous.

“Be warned though. I will not hold back.” Aela raised both her hands and ten chains emerged from the ground. The chains were alot bigger than normal too.

Snow focused up and pulled the training sword from the ground. The sword felt weightless in her grip, to the point of being able to wield with one hand.

“Wow, I can hold it with one hand now!” Snow was shocked.

“Stay focused.” Aela threw one hand forward, “One.”

Snow bended her knees and turned her body to the side as two chains flew past her. A successful dodge.

“Two!”

Two more chains flew out and arced downard, towards her legs, to which Snow slid to the left. A successful dodge.

“Three!”

Three chains fired forward. Snow began to run to the side. Each chain was met with a duck and dodge.

Snow tuned out Aela’s voice, it was a destraction. Snow's only focus was the chains. Snow didn't just wait for the lunges, she anticipated them. She was so used to dodging that she wasn't worried about the initial attacks, Snow was solely trying to predict what kind of follow up each chain was sequenced with. With that in mind, she would never put herself in a position to be comboed or puppeteered by Aela’s direction of attacks. The size and speed of these chains increased Snow’s focus. The lost exhilaration that were prodded from the danger of combat returned to her. She was avoiding attacks from a frostblood veteran. She had made progress. Aela wasn't just teaching her how to dodge. She was teaching her to maintain her focus in the heat of the moment.

“Eight.”

The barrage of chains swirled in the air and began moving in an unreadable erratic fashion. This attack appeared undodgeable. However, Snow didn't believe that. Aela’s trainings were backboned with trickery, making things appear mountainous that were not. Snow shifted her perception from the chains to Aela. Then, a grand enlightenment revealed itself upon Snow. The missing piece of the puzzle, a secret that was so obvious that it hid itself. Snow slid to a halt and began twirling in a dance while not taking her eyes off Aela. Each chain, one after the next, slammed into the ground around her. Soon, all ten of Aela’s chains were impaled into the ground, all missing their mark. Snow was standing on one foot, like a dancer. She had dodged all of them. But it was not over yet.

“Nine.”

One final secretive chain bursted up from behind Snow. Snow simply shifed her head three inches to the left as the chain flew past the empty space.

“Ten.”

“. . .” Snow was silent, her chest expanded as she took in a long winded breath, “YES!” Snow shouted in exhilerated celebration, she was so immersed with the achievement she didnt notice her step and tripped over one of the chains crashing into the ground. She rolled over and laughed. “I got it Aela!” “So you figured it out.” Aela stood over her..

“Your fingers telegraphed it. All this time I was so focused on guessing where the next chain was going to hit when your fingers gave it away.”

Snow took Aela’s hand and Aela pulled her up on her feet.

“Frostblood and Black knights operate like this. You must see their attack before it happens. Whether it be fingers, shoulders, arms or legs. The body tells a lot. Once you are physically capable of dodging, then you need to develop a focused mind, the ability to think while fighting. For example the ability to stay dangerously calm while in the heat of battle is invaluable.”

Snow breathed a huge sigh of relief.

“Thank god that's over.”

“Congratulations, Now we move on to deflecting.”

“I thought you said Attacking!”

“I lied, too bad.”

“Awwwwwww” Snow whined.