“Inside this tent” Francis continued when he had everyone's attention. Omia absently noticed two people wearing staff uniforms that stood next to him. They had wax nose plugs in, and carried a stack of wooden buckets each. “Is a common and dangerous monster type you are going to encounter, a Carcass Wolf, known for their tendency to devour swarms of undead. They travel in packs, are packed with enough undead energy to kill fifty grown men, and their bites are always lethal unless treated. Not because they are venomous, no, the sheer rot that coats their teeth will devour you from the inside out, causing you to decay while still alive.

“Today all of you will suffer a bite from the Carcass Wolf, then learn to treat that bite before you die. If this is not something you can withstand, please leave now. This will not be the last lesson involving getting injured then learning to treat the wound, so if you can't stand even this, there is no chance of you making it to the end of the year.”

Several had paled, some seemed unsurprised. Jack, as well, was not as shocked or scared as she thought he would be. ‘Are those the people whose parents are guards and warned them? Why didn’t my dad warn me?’

Nobody had left quite yet, but some looked ready to. Francis led them inside and everyone, including Omia and Jack, followed.

It was much darker, but there were a few lanterns hanging on the poles that held the tent up, as well as along the ceiling. In the middle of the tent was a black wolf tied up in chains. A chain went through its mouth as well, stopping it from closing it all the way. Though Omia was accustomed to awful smells, even she scrunched her nose at this wolf's breath. Everyone else except Francis fared much worse than she did, recoiling the moment they walked into a tent. A few of the more sick looking cadets were handed buckets by staff, most of them throwing up.

“The smell is the very first thing you must be observant about to spot a Carcass Wolf. Though they tend to eat undead, they are not above eating people if they’re hungry enough, and they’re stealthy bastards, near-silent in the underbrush. If this particular smell hits you while in the forest, be on guard, as a pack of Carcass Wolves are nearby.

“Now, a Carcass Wolf's bite is infused with undeath energy and rot. Given enough time, you’ll go straight from alive to undead, skipping the death between. Newly-resurrected are particularly weak, which is exactly when the Carcass Wolves will strike. One will bite you, then they will simply let you perish before setting upon your undead self.

“To treat this, you will need a Purge Potion. This potion will, as the name implies, purge the undead energy, but fails to remove the rot. Left alone, the rot will become infected, and you will die anyway. To remove the rot, you must either cauterise it quickly using a field torch or, failing that, cut the limb off entirely and purge the stump.

“The faster you burn the rot, the less you’ll have to burn. Wait too long, and it might set too deep, leading to a lost limb.”

Gesturing to one of the staff members, they walked up to Francis and handed him a wooden box. Opening it, he revealed fifteen glass vials filled with glowing teal liquid to the room.

“These are purge potions.”

Handing it back to the staff member, the staff member placed it on a hook tied to their hip, before pulling out a torch from the other side and handing it to Francis. “This is a torch.”

Placing it on the ground, Francis used a flint and steel he had in his pocket to light it. Only now did Omia notice that there was no Death Eater grass in this tent.

Holding the torch up and grabbing one potion from the staff member, Francis said “Normally, this is where I’d ask for a volunteer to go first, but I’ve had the first volunteer picked out for well over a year.”

Omia’s eyes widened as he looked in her direction and smirked.

The class parted and looked at her, both confused and stunned that she was chosen. Omia knew Francis’ angle here. He wanted her to hesitate or seem fearful because he didn’t think she’d actually go through with it.

Shrugging, she walked straight forward towards the Carcass Wolf, feeling a vision attempt to appear. ‘Not now’ she demanded, already focused on the current moment, and the vision receded.

Francis’ smirk waned slightly when he saw she was actually going to follow through, but he didn’t miss a beat. “Knick the back of your knuckle on its serrated teeth, then stand up, take this potion from me, uncork it, cure the wound, and stick your hand into the fire.” As he spoke, two more staff members came in,holding the wolf down. It was already chained and gagged, but they didn’t want it jerking its head around and causing unclean injuries.

Nodding Omia still didn’t falter. Forming a fist, she quickly brought it down to the wolfs growing mouth, and just barely pierced the skin around her middle finger.

Immediately, she felt a chilling cold enter her system, and stood right back up, showing the drop of blood to Francis to make sure he couldn’t say she hadn’t done it, then taking the blue potion from him. Holding it with her injured hand and pulling the stopper off with her uninjured, she poured the entire vial of blue liquid onto the knick.

Combating the cold feeling, a burning warmth penetrated her skin. It was like the purge potion had a mind of its own, and it dedicated that mind to penetrating as deep into her wound as possible and spreading out across her flesh.

She didn’t stop to investigate the sensation though, holding the injured knuckle to the fire and wincing as it started to blister.

After a few seconds, she pulled her hand away at the same time that Francis pulled the torch away.

Sucking air in through her teeth, she looked at the red and bubbling back of her hand. The pain made her eyes water, but she could hold it in. She didn’t look at Francis, so he couldn’t see she was about to cry, but she could hear the trepidation in his voice.

“Yes, as you can see…” he said, before getting a second wind and realizing he had an amazing opportunity. “It's so easy even a little girl can do it. It was a perfect showing as well. She barely pierced the skin, which is a lot better than some who try and prove themselves by getting multiple lacerations. That's a terrible idea, don’t let your pride put you through more pain than necessary.”

While he spoke, one of the staff members came over to her, kneeling down and giving her a smile as they wrapped her hand in green gauze. Omia felt as her body devoured energy from within the gauze, and realized it was probably made from Death Eater grass. Or Life Grass, as she now wanted to call it. Death Eater grass was such a mouthful.

Francis continued his speech, and she continued to listen. “This lesson is simply to show you the symptoms of undeath energy infecting your system, how to use purge potions, and how deeply you should burn yourself to cut out a fresh rot wound…”

Francis continued for a time, breaking down everything Omia did and basically saying “don't throw your entire hand into the wolves mouth, don’t throw your entire hand into the torches flame.”

He also said that the purge potions were made to dig into the wounds, as she suspected, and would attempt to force themselves through the skin if there was no wound present, which was a much more painful process. The portions were made using different magical ingredients, but mostly Life Grass. Normally the energy in the grass passed right through a body, but alchemists did something to help it root into someone and give the body more time to absorb it. Only a small fraction would actually end up becoming absorbed, but that was okay, because the main purpose was to destroy undeath energy in someone's system.

Now that Omia had gone, many of the more fearful ones looked a lot more sure of themselves. Some even audibly said “If a girl can do it you can too” to their scared friends, which she thought was a bit rude but funny.

Jack was super jealous that she got to stick her hand in the Carcass Wolf's mouth and asked if he could do the same, but Francis said absolutely not, which made him give Omia the stink eye.

Some of the boys that she thought would chicken out ended up going through with it, and she was almost positive she’d kept at least four of them from dropping out of the guard training.

When all was said and done, the class got a free day to chat and sit on the grass, letting the green gauze and Life Grass heal their wounds. Some of the older kids tried talking to Omia, but she was ever the silent type, and they picked up on that. Instead, they talked near Omia, and let her join the conversation if she wanted. Which she didn’t. Jack, on the other hand, was happy to talk about both of them for a chance to speak to some of the older kids.

Though she was something of the center of attention, she actually didn’t mind it all that much. The day went by, it was enjoyable, and halfway through the day her mom came to visit her in the field, as she’d gotten special permission for just this one day.

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The boys scattered when her mom sat next to her, and Omia could see a few of them gawking from a distance. She scrunched her nose at that, “Ewww, do they like my mom?”

Jack was happy to talk to her mom though, in a not-weird manner. He’d become familiar with her since they all tended to eat lunch together.

* * *

After the class with the Carcass wolf, the cadets seemed to pay a bit more attention to Omia, but not with hostility. It was like they saw her as a genuine candidate, while they didn’t before.

Francis as well, for that matter, stopped trying to convince her quite so often to leave, and the few attempts he did make were half-hearted at best. Her heart soared when she realized that, unless she did something terrible, she was legitimately going to succeed. She was actually going to become a guard cadet. A weight lifted off her shoulders and stress she didn’t know she’d been carrying went away.

The rest of her second year of training was quite fun. She continued to push herself, and every time there was a live demonstration with a monster, she got to go first. It put a lot of the cadets at ease, seeing Omia go first every time. She almost always ended up getting teary-eyed, but so did a few of the boys, so she didn’t feel as bad about that.

The Carcass Wolf was probably the most dangerous of the demonstrations, and she suspected that Francis had made that demonstration first so that he could weed out any of the weak ones.

Through the class, she started learning about a guards toolbox. Potions to stave off undead energy in the body, potions to pull the energy out of particularly strong undead, potions to heal injuries and some to grant unique effects- such as the ability to live without breathing.

There was a diverse set of potions, one for almost any situation, but each was limited. Francis beat into everyone that you had to pick the right moments to use each, because you only had one or maybe two per potion type. The only exception was Healing Potions, which everyone had four of.

She learned quickly, and tried ingraining each lesson into her mind. Even though she was going to take all of these classes one more time, she didn’t want to miss anything.

It was near the tail-end of summer, as the days became cooler, that her little sibling was finally born into the world

* * *

Omia and her dad were both given some time off from training and work to spend with the new little family member. A baby boy they named Joseph.

Omia and her dad took care of Joseph and her mom while she recovered, occasionally watching him while she slept, if Joseph himself wasn’t also sleeping. Her mom was otherwise inseparable from her son, and Omia got to watch her dote on him frequently.

Omia was sometimes in charge of watching Joseph when her dad cooked and her mom slept, and she had to say, he was a very cute baby. Most of the time he just sat in his cradle or was held by one of her parents, so he didn’t do much, but that didn’t stop her from holding her finger out and having him grasp it on occasion. He had blue eyes, like Omia and both her parents, but also white hair. At first, Omia thought he was born with a Glimpse of Undeath, but her parents laughed and waved it off, saying that his hair would darken as he got older.

Playing with him whenever she got the chance was fun. Poking his cheeks and holding his hand were surprisingly nice. She thought she would hate the two-week break Francis had insisted she take when her baby brother finally came, but she was much more at ease now. She didn’t even sneak off to train, spending that time playing with the new family member.

By the time two weeks had passed, her mother was up and active, ready to show off Joseph to all the other wives that did laundry together.

‘You know’ Omia thought, ‘I always think I’m going to hate it when my life changes a bit. My first winter after joining the guard, the end of that same winter, now the break to spend time with my baby brother. And every time, I’m wrong. Maybe life is just enjoyable and I need to stop being negative.’

In her time around Joseph, she didn’t suffer from a single of Jane’s memories. They tried multiple times, but she was getting better and better at resisting them. As she got older, the trance began to happen more frequently, but she just kept fighting back against it.

There was no way to confirm it, but Omia thought that her desire to join the guard and face her problem head-on helped a lot. If determination was the issue, Omia had it in spades.

* * *

One early Sunday, when Omia and her dad had slept in and were only now getting up to train at sunrise, they heard a knock on the door. Confused, her father got up from breakfast and answered it. Omia peeked around his side to see Francis standing there, not in his typical teacher getup, but normal clothes.

Surprised, her father asked “Err, hello sir, what could I do for you? Aren’t you supposed to be teaching some cadets right now?”

Francis sighed but didn’t respond to that directly. “May I come in?”

“Oh! Uh, yea sure” her father said, stepping aside to let Francis walk into the house. Her dad closed the door behind him.

“Alright, not a word of this to anyone else, but I get it. I was wrong about Omia, and intend to let her into the guard training program.”

Shocked, it took a moment for her dad to process what he said. Omia, though had expected this for a long time, cracked the smuggest smile she could muster, crossing her arms. When her dad understood, she watched him mirror the posture perfectly, crossing his arms and smirking at Francis.

Her mother guffawed behind them, laughing at their synchronized positions. Her father didn’t even see Omia doing the exact gesture he was, it just came naturally.

Francis mumbled “not far from the tree I suppose…” then said louder “Alright I get it. This is exactly why I didn’t want to say this in the street, you don’t have to rub it in.”

“No, but I can, which is best of all.”

“Hehehehe…” Omia laughed maniacally behind him, rubbing her hands together.

“You don’t get to make fun of me, you’re still a cadet,” Francis complained.

“Sorry sweety,” her dad said, “He’s right. Let me make fun of him.”

They all laughed at that, and Francis was quick to jump in before anyone could say anything else. “I’m here for an actual reason by the way, we need to talk about the next few years.”

Sensing the moment of laughing at him passed, but still grinning, her father nodded and put a few chairs around the fireplace for them to sit by. It was running a bit low, but that was okay because it wasn’t all that cold yet.

“What do you mean by ‘talk about the next few years?’ I believe I remember you saying that year one would be body training, year two would be testing her mental fortitude, and year three you would officially get her up to speed on the cadet baseline, before letting her into the training program.”

Francis sighed. “Yes, but that’s the thing. I underestimated what she could do. She’s already up to baseline, more than that, she’s up to the baseline of second-years. She’s able to keep up with the class of twelve, soon to be thirteen year olds, despite being only ten.”

At his words, her father looked at her with surprise and pride. “So, my little girls outgrown you already?”

Francis grunted. “Not quite. Don't get me wrong, she’s an impressive little girl, but she definitely still needs more training, but only about one year more rather than three. She needs to become more well-rounded in her sword play, and you aren’t the optimal teacher for that. You’ve given her a strong foundation, but she needs to build on that. I’m here to suggest she take the second year of cadet training with the rest of the class officially, and be part of their training.”

“Is that allowed? And more importantly… would that mean she goes on the winter trip?” something flashing across his face as he said that.

Francis shook his head. “It’s allowed if I say so, and no, she wouldn’t. She will go next year, but she’s just a bit too small right now. She’s got a lot of muscle packed into that little frame, but she’s done very little sparring with others, which the bigger cadets have gotten ahead of her in. After she’s got some proper training in the sword, grows a couple inches, and completes her winter trip, she’ll graduate alongside the others. If that’s okay with you.”

Her father almost said yes, but quickly glanced at her mother, who subtly nodded. “That’s fine with us.” he said, and Omia was practically vibrating in her chair.

“After that though, she won’t be given quite the responsibilities of a full guard,” Francis doused her enthusiasm slightly. “Until she gets taller and has a longer reach, it will simply be too dangerous to face off against monsters. Normally, patrols are in groups of three, but hers would just be in groups of four until she could wield the blade more effectively.”

“What if I was holding a longer blade?” she asked “couldn’t I make up for it?”

“Good enthusiasm. No way. In theory, yes, but I’m not gonna let a promising recruit throw herself into danger unnecessarily. It should be for just a year or two, so just bare with it. Though if you want, training with a longer sword could be interesting. When you get older and taller, you might be able to out-reach anything or anyone you fight. Not standard simply because it can be a bit cumbersome, but something tells me you won't mind a heavier sword long-term. If you’re matching the strength of older cadets at your age, you’ll end up stronger than them later in life.”

“Guards already use longswords, what are you suggesting? A greatsword” her father asked.

“Claymore.”

“No way!” her father said more in disbelief than to reject the idea. “Why? Isn’t speed more important than harder hits in a fight?”

“Yes, but I don't think you understand how absurd her strength is for her age. Her arms aren’t getting a lot thicker, but if you watch her exercise, you’ll see how lean she is. She is packed with invisible muscles. I’m suggesting a claymore because once she hits puberty, I’m almost positive her strength is going to get a boost like no other. It sounds crazy, but I think she might be able to hold a claymore with a single hand, if she keeps her training up,” he included the last part while looking straight at her.

“But that’s… absurd! Nobody without a Glimpse gets that strong without putting on a lot of muscle.”

“Yes, which brings me to my final point.” Looking intently at Omia, he asked. “Omia… Do you secretly have a Glimpse of Undeath?”