Well, since I'm bored, I have nothing to post, and I don't really feel like not posting anyway (and, to be honest, I'm also doing this so I can maybe get some more hits), I'm going to be putting up the next 1200 words of the Nikita story. Why ONLY 1200 words, you may ask, since I wrote 2600 words last time? Why not all 2600? Well, I'll tell you: when the literary catastrophe that I'll be beginning next week (also known as "The Crazy Adventures of Nemesis" and/ or my NaNoWriMo novel attempt) is over, and since it's being written in a composition notebook and probably won't be typed up until winter break due to lack of finishing and ample amounts of procrastination, I'll have to get back to the real world of Passing Creative Writing, and I want to have time to recover from being braindead (as I'm sure I will be after writing 1700 words a DAY) and still be able to pass (as it's probably one of two courses I currently have a good grade in). Case in point, it's only 1200 words to give me a while in December to think of what's coming next.
So here it is. YAY!
“Well, part of it,” I admitted. “Part of it I just figured out on my own.”
“Which parts?”
“Well, the trees told me the part about Sonru and his army…”
“The trees told you about Sonru,” Sparraben repeated bemusedly.
“Yes, sir.” I decided that it would be best to at least address him politely now that he was the one asking questions.
“Trees told you that one of the darkest Dark Lords in the history of dark lords is forming an army,” he stated.
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you sure you weren’t sleeping?” Sparraben said doubtfully.
“Quite sure, sir. My legs were still hurting from walking.”
“Care to explain how the trees were able to communicate this information to you?” he asked.
“You see, my grandma was an Elemental, and…”
“What was her name?” Sparraben interrupted.
“Rhyda Shynade. She was one of the last full elementals left.”
Sparraben’s expression finally changed to something other than anger for longer than a few seconds. He now looked pensive. “Has anyone told you that you look just like her?”
“No,” I said quietly. “Mum never knew her, and Dad died before he could tell me a lot about her.”
“How did your father die, exactly?” he asked next.
“Blue Fever, according to Mum,” I answered.
“Do you remember whether anyone else in your family caught it that year?”
I paused, pushing my memory back. “No, I don’t think anyone did, no,” I said. “But I remember that he came in from the fields one day and his face was all red, and there was a bloody spot on his shirt near where his heart was. And I remember thinking that it was weird that he had died of the Blue Fever when you get boils and spots on your arms, not your chest. And his arms were clean.”
Sparraben’s face was unreadable, but I could tell he was still thinking. “His arms were clean,” he said slowly, “Because more likely than not, he was killed by something that wasn’t the Blue Fever. Did he have an Elemental trait?”
“Yes, Earth and Water,” I replied.
“Did you ever find out how your grandma died?”
“No,” I said quietly. Why did he suddenly want to know how my various deceased relatives met their ends? It wasn’t significant, was it?
“Hm…” he muttered, more to himself than to me. After a long pause, during which I waited very nervously for his verdict, he said, “All right, I’ll do it.”
I couldn’t help grinning a little bit, but the grin faded as he added, “But under the condition that you do a two-month crash course of Ranger Training.”
“Two months?” I repeated, aghast. “Isn’t that a bit LONG?”
“No; in fact, it’s rather short,” Sparraben replied. “Any shorter a time, and you would miss an important point.”
“But… But…” I stuttered. A million reasons WHY two months would be too long – the mysterious Sonru’s growing presence being a significant factor in most of them – raced through my mind, but Sparraben’s height and obvious strength stopped me from voicing my doubts.
“Well?” he asked.
“is there any way you could make it any shorter?” I squeaked nervously.
“no,” he replied shortly. “It’s this way or I’m out.”
A battle was going on in my head – figuring out where Sonru was, WHAT exactly he was, what he was doing, and how I could stop him, all on one hand, and getting Sparraben’s vast amounts of skill and knowledge to do so, which would probably prove to be the wiser course of action simply because of his experience.
“Um… Okay,” I said.
“You are impatient to defeat Sonru,” he observed bluntly. “I can see it in your face. But the first lesson you must learn is patience. Being too hasty can cost you a kill; cause you to overlook a chance. Moving too soon can cost you your life. Get it?”
“Yes, sir,” I said timidly. If he was trying to intimidate me, it was working.
“Good,” he said. “Your training begins now. Remember that this is a crash course – you won’t be able to do anything really well, but you’ll be able to do a lot of things well enough to survive. Understand, girl?”
“Yes, sir.”
And so the real adventure began – the first day of the rest of my life, you might say. The first thing I did as a trainee was to surrender my bag and to begin doing pushups.
Chapter 3
Two months? Sparraben had told me that that was my time frame for training. He had decided, however, that I was either terrible at doing combat or great at it, and had insisted that I extend the training period to seven months if I wanted his help on anything.
Although this gave me a lot more time to develop every skill I had to learn, it also freaked me out slightly. Two months after I’d left home would mean that there would be a chance that Sonru would only have a body and little more. Seven months, however, would probably guarantee him not only a body but a sizeable killing force as well before the only person who knew he was on the rise – also known as me – would have a chance to alert anyone who appeared to care.
Although Sparraben had lectured me on the first day about not jumping into things too quickly, I hadn’t learned that lesson well enough when he said my training should probably be extended for another five months. Two months after Grampa’s death was when the trees just began to change color and the weather grew cool. Four months after his death was when you couldn’t go anywhere without freezing, but the boots and the Ranger cloak I had been given would reduce the cold enormously (although the only times I was ever truly warm was when I had to practice with a sword non-stop for two hours). Five months after was not only in the middle of the winter holiday (usually celebrated with gifts, but the only one I got that year was an order to do more target practice, which wasn’t really a gift at all), it was right in the middle of the worst part of the snowy season. It was also just my luck that that year was the worst winter that any part of Illindara had seen for more than a century. Snow didn’t fall once: it fell three times, each dumping out almost a foot of white powder.
Either way, before I knew it, the trees were budding again, which was sort of alarming. Although I was not more physically fit than I had ever been and I had acquired more skills in almost seven months than I had in thirteen years, I was scared that the trees would wake up from their hibernation and tell me that Sonru was on the brink of annihilating the Three Cities – the general center of Illindara in most senses of the term.
One morning, soon after the trees had began to bud again, Sparraben announced that soon I would be getting my horse, and then we would review all the things I had learned.
“After that,” he added, “You only have about a week of training left, and then you’re free to go save the world or whatever it is you wanted to do.”
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