FROSTBITE -- CHAPTER 5
I was going to train with my mother first, Dimitri couldn’t make it today because he had something to do with the other guardians. My mother met me in the Lodge’s training room wearing a stretchy spandex shirt with short sleeves and loose drawstring workout pants, similar to the ones I was wearing.
I was kind of excited to have someone else to spar with. Someone smaller, and my mother was known for her badass reputation. My mother was wearing training mitts when I walked into the room, and I just shrugged, I was not as pissy, about it as Rose was. She was kind of unfair in my opinion, I on the other hand just thought it was great to have a mother to spend time with.
My mother adopted the attack stance and I mirrored it. "What are we doing?" I asked. "Basic offensive and defensive parrying. Use the red lines." I just nodded and she leapt towards me, I dodged immediately and attacked her in turn. She dodged and so we continued on. This was kind of boring and I told my mom so, she raised her eyebrow at me and asked me what I wanted to do then. I chucked the gloves away and assumed a defensive pose.
"I have been sparring with Dimitri for months, but he is bigger than I am. You on the other hand are smaller, your moves might be completely different. I know Dimitri's moves but yours …" She smiled at me and I saw the approval in my logic. And so, we sparred. We were evenly matched, but she was faster in her movements and used her size against me constantly. My mother still gave me a black eye, but that was because I stepped on my own shoelace and well actually I fell on her fist, does that mean I gave myself a black eye?
I laughed it off but my mother was concerned. I got up immediately and assumed the defensive position. I felt the eye pound but getting hurt didn't mean I should just give up. My mother respected my choice and we fought quite a bit, she had plenty of advice for me, since we were smaller, but what I did and Rose didn't was listen to her advice and adjust my stances slightly.
My mother told me she was proud of me again, that made my heart feel warm and fuzzy. I had come a long way from the girl with the attitude problem that just took Lissa away. I told her what really happened and with Victor and the compulsion. The psi hounds and she was honestly shocked.
"I grew up mom, the hard way and I think it was the best thing I could have done for Lissa." She grudgingly agreed and I surprised her by hugging her goodbye. This life was not certain, I did not know how long I would have her with me, or how long I would be alive. Since I had my sparring done for the day, I decided to go running. It has been a while and I asked the guardians where the best place was, there was a running trail through the woods that was not too iced and slippery.
I quickly stretched out and then started running, it felt good to run and the cold wind was soothing my eye, probably already swelling up. That would suck, a bit. After my run I went to our room to shower and when Lissa flinched I knew that it might have looked a little bad. Purplish red splotches covered the upper portion of the left side of my face. Lissa healed my eye and I took the darkness. She didn't have enough darkness for me to use in the Drosdov fight, I was worried, would the ghosts be enough? I was worried about that and Lissa was worried about me, but I had to help them.