8 FEBRUARY, MONDAY, CON'T
After our trainers all but recommended I sat out of the rest of the training because I was a girl, the rest of the men in the hall took pause. They looked at me, and then at Dad, and then at me again.
I looked at Dad who looked at me.
Gamma Harry was the first to break the silence, "I think what the trainers say is right. Let Luna Bell fight. Even though Sam is a strong fighter, she's a girl. What if she gets scared when we meet the vampires? She'll make a bad situation worse!"
He looked around at the stoic faces around him, "What I say is true! I'm sure Luna Bell would also prefer his mate is safe. Sam is important to all of us. Everyone would become upset if something happened to her."
I'm not sure how Gamma Harry was able to make me feel so grrr and awww at the same time.
Beta Gerald raised his hand and said carefully, "But our Alpha Sam had extraordinary success outfield and it would be a waste if we did not equip her with further training."
I admired Beta Gerald because he was able to refer to the incidents on our top confidentiality files without actually slipping any specifics in front of the outsiders.
And then he added, "Of course this is only if she would like to continue participating."
Dad looked thoughtful. It was almost as if he was considering what the other wolves were saying.
I had always thought my dad always knew what to do, so this surprised me.
"What do you say, son?" Dad asked for a third opinion, "You are her mate. One day her life would be solely in your care."
My life was in my own care, thank you very much.
Mate nodded seriously, "It doesn't matter if she does or not. I would protect her either way."
Was anyone going to ask me what I wanted to do?
"Well, I think we all know what Sam would prefer." Dad said with wry humor. Hey! Don't assumed anything! (Even if you've assumed right!)
The other men had the gall to take amusement and nod!
So I/Wolfie (we were rather in agreement on this one) sighed and said, "You're right. It's really scary."
They were definitely not expecting that.
I slipped my hand around Mate's muscular arm, "The video was so scary..."
And honestly, I ran out of material. I mean, this entire damsel in distress charade was entirely new to me. So I rested my forehead on his shoulder and repeated the sound, "Uhn."
His wolf growled protectively. Oh, the power I had over my mate! Muahahaha.
"Stop messing with my wolf, princess." Mate wasn't stupid though.
Oh! I got it! "It's so scary I don't think I can sleep alone tonight!"
Mate's growling took a lower inflection, "Princess..."
"I'll need to sleep with the lights on tonight!" Then I looked up at Mate with my most innocent expression, "Why? What were you thinking?"
Hahahahaha. His face! He opened his mouth and shut it again. I let go of his arm.
Dad's face was also pretty priceless. This was really fun.
"Alright, let's get back to the training." Ben called out. I guess he had decided he had enough.
I was pretty relieved, I actually would not know how to carry on from there.
The trainers showed us the short broad swords they used. They had brought some over to loan us for practice. Most of the older males knew how to use a sword. Our warriors used long broad swords, which our trainers said worked just as well - as a sword, but there was a few important differences.
The difference between the two, were some variation in technique due to two things, the sword's reach and weight. Short swords are lighter, and faster. Which had its advantage when fighting a fast opponent like vampires.
Everyone seemed gamed to learn some of the basic movements of using a short sword. Ben and I were the only two without formal training in swordsmanship, and to my chagrin, Beta Lucas had taught Ben from young how to hold and use one.
Mate, whom the trainer praised for his perfect stance came over to teach me how to hold it, "It's not a chopping knife. You need to hold it like this..."
Mate had stood behind me to show me how to swing the sword, "It's a double edged sword, so it cuts both ways."
Ki took a photo.
Mate looked up and growled his annoyance.
"You'd thank me at your mating ceremony when we play a photo montage of your beautiful romance." Ki smiled, "This one will be a twist on the typical cheesy scene where the guy shows the girl how to play tennis or golf."
"Come here and let me show her how to lop your head off." Mate said.
After that we thanked the trainers for their guidance. Esther and another lady had pushed up a trolley of tea, coffee, water, and opened faced sandwiches and Beta Gerald politely thanked them and invited our guest trainers for some refreshments.
By then, I managed to learn to strike and to block. I was a pretty fast learner. I mean, I was a black wolf. Age old fight techniques like basic sword fighting were deeply embedded in my bloodline and my body just moved naturally through the movements. It was like riding a bike, once you've learned how, you'd never forget it. Well, yes, I know, this was my first time with a sword. But even though my mind was learning for the first time, my body felt like it was remembering something it was made to do.
Anyway, we were practicing the moves on our own during the training, but now Ben and I found some fun in chasing each other around the hall, sword in hand.
But ahem, Ben and I were highly trained professional black wolves. You should not run with sharp objects. Please do not try this at home.
The best thing about these short swords were that they needed only one hand to wield, so you could use a gun in another. So remember how Harvey had to choose between his rifle or his sword in our first vamp encounter? If he was equipped with a short sword and a silver bullet shotgun, he probably would've been able to handle both at the same time.
Plus these short swords could be thrown.
Ben and I discovered this when I accidentally let go of the sword while thrusting it forward. After that we competed in who could throw the sword farther. And then we added on a speed challenged: After throwing it, we dashed to retrieve it and charged at each other repeatedly, quickening our pace with each charge. It was very invigorating for my wolf.
{So fun}
"She... Your daughter... Is quite a natural, Alpha." Trainer M said to my dad, "It's too bad she is a girl."
I threw my sword straight at him. Dad caught it by its hilt.
"Good catch, Dad." I said running over. Dad returned the sword to me and I paused to catch my breath. Ben came over for a sandwich and coffee break.
Flynn who was standing next to Trainer M gave us a stern no nonsense trainer look, "If you pups have to play, do it on that side of the hall. I don't want any sword past the middle line, understand?"
"Yes, sir." I answered cheerfully, "Hurry up, Ben!"
Ben responded by trying to put the entire sandwich into his mouth. His mouth wasn't large enough and the sandwich toppings wouldn't cooperate either.
But once that was downed with the rest of his coffee, we were back to our game.
"They're still just kids after all." Dad said watching us.
"These swords have sharpened blades and are not suitable for sparring." Trainer M felt it was his duty to give warning.
"Nah, we were worse when we were their age!" Beta Lucas waved it off, "Remember the time we lost a finger Alpha?"
Dad remembered and our game was stopped.
Ben and I returned to the refreshments area. Ben stuffed more food in his mouth. He passed me a cookie.
"Do you want tea or water?" He asked with his mouth full.
"Water." I decided. I was hot and perspiring too much for tea.
Ben went to fetch it.
I looked at Dad and Beta Lucas, annoyed because I had the winning hand when they called us back, "I just got the hang of it!" And then I narrowed my eyes at the two grown ups, "Both of you still have all ten fingers."
"I used to have eleven." Beta Lucas lied. He laughed, looking pleased at his own joke.
"The healer at our Night Forest managed to reattach it." Dad said.
Oh. "Then it's fine. Both Bell and Ki are around."
Mate smirked at that, "I told you princess, this is a double edged sword. Swung precisely and it cuts your enemy down, swung wildly and it cuts you and the ones beside you."
For some reason, I immediately thought of how Ben always took the hardest hit. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. I passed the sword to Ben to put away with the others.
Now that it was boring again, I felt kind of sleepy.
"It's past your bedtime, princess." Bell said.
How would he know when my bedtime was? I didn't know when my own bedtime was! I mean, it felt like bedtime was whenever I managed to finish my homework this year.
My homework, which was still on my dresser, undone.
"I'm going back to do my homework." I told my dad.
Ben returned with the water and walked me back. I could hear Bell excusing himself. He was going back to the Lorent's with Ki to settle some administration work.
If I read the reports on my Kindle, I was sure it would update me about the Lorent situation somewhere. But I had homework due first. Arughhh!! Homework! Pack reports! When would I ever be free to just have fun and more fun? Never. That's when.
I would always have something not fun to do too.
I sulked at my homework.
"Need help?" Ben asked from my bedroom door.
I shook my head, "No. I just don't like homework."
Ben laughed, "No one does, Sam."
And then he shut the door and left.
So while I was mad about undone homework and reports, Wolfie was fuming because Mate was far away at the Lorent's.
{Want Mate}
I'm trying to do my homework, but Wolfie was making it impossible.
What do you want to do with Mate anyway? We'd just end up arguing when we were alone anyway.
{Want Mate}
My Wolfie wasn't the most eloquent thing.
"How about you help me finish my homework and we go for a run?" I asked.
{To Mate?}
Heh heh heh, maybe.
See, I could be cunning too.
So I borrowed Wolfie's Alpha wisdom to deal with homework. I mean, Wolfie didn't know anything I didn't, but Wolfie's recall was much faster and with Alpha wisdom, I could understand what the teachers were asking for.
Paradigm shift! All this while, I was focused on answering the question, I never stopped to think why the teachers were setting these questions. Suddenly I knew that they were trying to test my understanding of this or that concept. Or that they had switched the question around to differentiate between the average students and the better ones. Or that the very last question was testing our ability to combine our understanding of two related concepts, just to identify the A students from the B's.
After checking my previous worksheets, I concluded most of the math worksheets were this way.
That's why my math teachers had always said I was underperforming. I got the last question right, but I'd mess up in what should be the easier questions.
The science worksheets focused more on the various ways the concepts could be applied, to expose us to all the different ways to ask THE SAME THINGS. Like respiration questions whether with lung diagrams or experiments by putting plants or bugs in sealed glass chambers all just want to make sure we get it that "respiration was a process in living organisms involving the production of energy, typically with the intake of oxygen and the release of carbon dioxide from the oxidation of complex organic substances."
I won't get into the details. But the questions were just a roundabout way of asking you to repeat the same definition again and again. Just in different words, with different set ups, or different focus, but yeah.
And I started to notice how Geography and History questions were set to make you NOT THINK so hard. A lot of it were standard questions with standard answers. They were just testing if you knew the facts. It's not like anyone was ever really going to ask a highschooler how to solve our continent's urbanization problems, or socio-economic divides, or historical slave practices based on anything we learned in history or geography. Not at a highschool level anyway.
And then when we got to English I suddenly appreciated it as an integral part of education to impart the standard of language use as well as to teach life skills such as report or letter writing so that all highschoolers graduate into the world with the ability to communicate in a grown up way to the other grown ups and grown up organizations they meet. (Ideally anyway. You and I know that real life is anything but ideal.)
I suddenly got why Dad had always championed education for the masses and not just for the elite, why Dad believed a high standard of education in public schools was the fastest way to change the world... Because ideally, education wasn't just a highschool diploma, it was the process of maturing youths and equipping them with the knowledge, experience, and critical thinking skills to understand and one day change their own worlds.
By the time I finished my homework, it was past midnight, and I was all charged up to go back to school and LEARN!
{Want Mate}
Wolfie reminded me stubbornly.
I wanted sleep actually, using alpha wisdom was mentally exhausting, but a promise was a promise