I breath in the warm, stuffy air of the fighters’ quarters. Their chatters have died, eyes pricing into and thru me. I turn to see Enya looking at my blood covered body with a familiar mixture of unease and pity. He wants to get up but a fighter next to him shakes their head.

“I’d go check on Kara if I were you. He’s been pacing the training chambre all day”, he says instead.

I nod and escape the staring eyes and candles light.

It takes a while until I’m clean. Longer until I feel so as well. And so, when I enter the training chambre, the sun must have already set. Maybe part of me had hoped Kara would’ve settled down. Pathetic. He shoots around as I enter: “How was it?”.

“Same as always”

“Of course you’d say that. Why did I even ask?”

“How was training?”

“Bad”

“That much I have been told”

“Look, that’s not…If you’re gone, I’m fucked”.

“I won’t be”

“That sounded different last time”

“In two months, you will be fine without me”

“No. I won’t be. I’m not talking about fighting and you know it.”

“Mykiel was gone earlier. You will get used to it”

“I won’t. I’m not like you Njra. I can’t be alone again.”

I look down.

“Whatever”. He nods to a puppet, wooden arms swaying form left to right: “Can you help me with my transformation? I can’t get them to properly work in a fight.”

“Show me”.

His form begins to expand, face contorting, mouth splitting further and further, bones rearranging themselves, as soon as it stops the shifting beginnings anew: shrinking, extending or merging, again and again. He’s fast, has become even faster. In time it could come to rival my own. Lucky Niilan.

“The pace is good, your precision needs work: Now show me how you would use it”.

He changes at the dummy, pinning it under massive claws.

“Why is speed important while transforming?” I ask.

“You’re vulnerable whilst transforming. So the quicker the better.”

“Then why transform at all?”

“I’m not in the mood for guessing games. Just tell what you wanna say!”

“Every fighter can transform. A shorter time of vulnerability alone is not worth the price they pay for us”

“Okay?”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Speed is valuable because it allows us to transform in close combat.”

“Wasn’t I already doing that?”

“Prop up that dummy”

I run forward, transform into a panther, jump, then, just out of reach of the dummy’s hand I suddenly transform again and spread my winds, shifting my speed and line of attack, tear it into the air by its face.

“That was cool! How did you do it? I wanna learn that one”

“After the basics.”

The palm of my hand shoots towards the boy. Instinctively he dodges to the left.

“Good. Next time dodge by transforming into something smaller”

I reach out a second time and his form begins to shrink. Too slow. I catch his wing mid transformation.

“Again”, I say.

This time he fares better, and his transformation is almost done before I grab him.

“Again”

The third time I clutch him by the face: “Try changing your position whilst you shrink. Again”

And like this the evening passes and bleeds into night, until the few other fighters filter out of the chambre and Karas panting is filling the entire room. Until he is satisfied enough to retire as well.

-

My own scream, pricing and too loud, rips me from my dreams. I bolt upright, eying those in the room. Most are already gone and those left know to ignore it. We all have our demons down here, even demons themselves.

I stand up, force my body to take in the air it so desperately refuses. It struggles, convulses, freezes before finally giving in. Like it always does. I gulp down the food and go train.

I find the boy there, having picked up from where we left off last night.

“I almost had it. Let me try again”, he says to a towering woman.

She came in half a year ago, though I don’t know her name. Do you know any? I always held her for the grounded, reserved type, never seemed to get along with Alinta and the other talkers. She notices me and flinches.

“Astra, you good? Come on let’s go”

She turns to Kara, swings a halfhearted punch. It goes wide.

“Just one more, okay? After that we can switch”

“I should go”.

“Where? There’s legit nothing else to do!”

“I shouldn’t be doing this. Sorry kid”, then she’s off, leaving a stunned Kara in her wake.

He turns to me: “What the fuck was that?”

I shrug.

“You appear and suddenly she needs to go.”

“You’re a wildling”

“I’m aware”

“That woman just took the first excuse to get away”

“Not true”

“If you say so”.

He scoffs.

“What was that anyway?”, I ask.

“You mean the training?”

“You can do that alone.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Did you learn nothing from Aary’s death?”

“DON’T TAKE HER NAME IN YOUR FILTHY MOUTH!”

All heads turn to us. The child lacks respect. It lacks fear.

I shrug and walk away.

It takes an hour until Kara cracks and comes crawling.

“Breakfast was half an hour late today”, he says.

“Odd”

“I know right. So a few of the others went up to see for themselves. And the servants said they forgot. Like actually forgot. The house was swarming like a wasp’s nest.”

I don’t answer.

“You think it’s bad news?”

“Maybe”