AMBER'S POINT OF VIEW

Amber woke up early, excited for today's morning training. Knight mentioned they were going to have sword combat for today's lesson. She never owned a sword, but her parents did train her with the basics, since that was all she was able to learn at a young age.

Hopefully Knight would give me a sword, if he can...

Or any weapon for that matter.

To this day, she still feels a pang of jealousy as she remembers her sister Zaylee and her brother Lorcan learning the expert moves, while she was stuck with the easy moves.

She left home before she could learn anything else.

"You're up early." Knight commented, as she walked into the kitchen. She's so used to him being up before her, she wasn't surprised to see he was already there at four in the morning.

"I know right! I couldn't go back to sleep." She said, trying to keep her tone less excited than she feels, but that was hard to contain and he caught on to that.

"You seem excited?" He asked his tone slightly in disbelief. He offers her hot chocolate, which she gratefully takes.

"Just excited for your training lesson, I mean finally we're doing combat..."

"Don't get too comfortable, I'll rotate, and I am bringing running back, but I want to think it through so there's no loopholes." He said determined, gripping his mug a bit too tightly, knuckles white.

"If there's a will, there's a way." She shrugged, secretly smiling in her cup.

"Do you want to start training now? Since we're both up." He asked, refilling his cup of hot chocolate, offering to Amber, which she declined.

"We can." She paused, pondering on how to ask Knight. "Just out of curiosity, why are you up so early?" She asked straight forward, placing her cup in the sink.

"I could ask you the same, since the last time I tried to wake you up, you practically tackled me to death, or at least you would have if you weren't sleepy." Knight answered, his tone serious with slight humor.

Okay, that was nearly a week ago, I gotten better.

"You know part of the reason, I'm just excited for this training lesson." She answered, then quickly added, "now, why are you up?"

"What's the full reason, since being excited is only part of it?" He accused, crossing his arms for effect.

"Fine, it's the whole reason. Now before you argue, I can't think of anything else at the moment." She firmly stated, not willing to go into any details about her past.

She refuses to do so.

"I don't like to sleep. My dreams have a messed up way of scaring the ghost out of me, so I just stay up." Amber didn't say anything for a while, taking in the information she just learned about him.

"You have nightmares every time?" She asked slowly, shivering at the thought. Her nightmares only consist of her past life, and even then that's hard to bear occasionally. If she had it every time she went to sleep, she would be depressed, flat out miserable.

"Yep, every time I close my eyes. It all start..." He abruptly stopped, his eyes widening. Before Amber could question it, he raised his hand, stopping her. "What am I doing rambling, we should get back to the topic of training!"

"Actually, finish your sentence, training can wait." She said sincerely, but in all honesty, she's just curious about what he was going to say, nothing more.

"Nah, it's okay, besides, we really should get to training." He stubbornly responded. Amber crosses her arms in protest, but he just mimics her stance, not breaking.

"Fine, lead the way." She sighed, falling a step behind Knight.

After ten steps, he stopped. She doesn't know what surprised her more, the fact that she counted their steps or they went such a short distance. "We're here!" He shouts enthusiastically, while she just looks around.

Empty walls, empty hall.

"In the hallway?" She asked, highly skeptical.

"What? Not flashy enough..."

"It's not big enough." She finished for him. He rolls his eyes.

"It's plenty big, but we'll start off easy, in a large area." He smiled at her incredulous look. "Up there."

She directed her eyes to the ceiling, to see an attic door, hidden with dust. The door is rusty, and looks like it would fall apart any moment. Amber looks back over at Knight, preparing to laugh in his face, until she realized he's serious.

"You're serious? That door's going to fall apart the moment you touch it!"

"Man, are you always this skeptical?" He teased amusingly.

"When my life depends on it, yes!" Her voice raised the more she spoke, so she decided to end it there.

"Okay, seriously you need a chill pill and stop being so dramatic, it's getting boring." He replied dramatically himself as he pulled down the door. It made a loud crashing sound when it hit the floor, but other than that, stayed intact.

"Don't look at me, you're going first." She firmly demanded. He gives a small smile, and walks the steps. Every stair he took the platform shook, but didn't collapse beneath him.

He disappeared from view, shouting down that she could come up.

She doesn't make any sudden movements.

After a full minute of silence and no footsteps climbing up the stairs, he sticks his head through the opening.

"Come on, we're losing daylight." He groaned, lifting his head back up, lost from view.

"The sun isn't even out yet!" She shouted back at him. She's already thinking of alternative places they could train.

"Well...Well, I'm not getting any younger up here!"

"Well, I'm not going up there!" She firmly stated.

"That's it!" He storms down, the steps violently shaking beneath him. "If you won't go up, I'll carry you..."

"No way, we'll break the steps together!" She firmly stated, thinking he's absolutely crazy for suggesting it.

"It's a lot sturdier than you think, and if you bothered to get on, you would know." He made the move to push her up the stairs, but she got out of his grasp before he could try.

"Why is there always conflict with you? And how convenient that it's always on my training days." He mumbled, loud enough for her to hear.

"Not always..." She started, but Knight quickly interrupted her.

"Honey, you're in denial."

"Whatever. Now, you will not push me up or carry me. I'll go, but you need to give me some space!" She demanded as he resumed to push her up.

Knight smiled, his eyes a lighter gold. "It's about time." He said disappearing up the stairs.

She took a deep breath, and took the first step. It shook beneath her, but held steady. She practically sprinted the rest of the way up, relieved that her feet finally hit solid ground, and that it didn't collapse beneath her.

"Wow," she breathed in awe as she looked at her surroundings. Battle weapons found in each corner, but organized and very specific. The near right is full of gold daggers and gold swords. The far right is full of boomerangs. The far left is full of spears and halberds with a gold tip at the ends. The near left is full of bows and golden arrows. Amber looked around guessing the room is twenty five feet long, twenty feet wide.

Not bad for practicing.

"You like it? It took me a while to assemble it, but when I did, a masterpiece was made." He boasted, a proud smile on his face. Amber brushes it off, not letting his pride ruin this moment.

Now I can practice whenever I want...for the two weeks left.

Well, for the next two weeks and two days left. Let's make everyday count in this room.

"It's nice." She said beaming. Knight shrugged, but a smile was on his face

"Where did you get all the weapons? And in gold? I didn't think the stores had those." She questioned, the sudden beauty of it all fading.

Where did he get all this?

"You know, you find it..."

"No you don't. Where did you get all this?" Amber firmly demanded.

Why all the secrecy?

"I may have known someone who was at the Gold Market, and I asked him to get me these weapons." He nervously answered, shifting his feet left to right.

"'Gold Market'? As in the one in Follcerry?" Amber incredulously inquired.

How would he know someone from there if he's been here his whole life? How do you even communicate with someone from Follcerry?

And the question all werewolves in Faire is dying to know is 'why is there no Gold Market here?'" I mean, seriously, I would have bought the whole store by now, if I had the means to do so, but it just had to be in Follcerry. And only Follcerry.

Let's focus on one thing at a time.

"No, the one in Faire." He sarcastically acknowledged before quickly adding, "of course the one in Follcerry, that's like, the only place to get it."

"How did you communicate to your friend who's in Follcerry?" She raised her brow, ignoring the sarcasm and quick-witted comments he made.

"Do you want to get along with training or not?" He snapped impatiently, only making Amber more suspicious about the whole thing.

Nonetheless, she plastered a smile on her face. "You have my undivided attention."

"Okay then." He said much more relaxed. "We'll work with wooden swords first then..."

"I'm sorry, wooden swords? Why not real ones?" She asked.

"This is our first combat training. I need to see where you stand, if you're good or not..."

"You mean good enough to challenge you? With a real sword?" She asked annoyed at the assumption that she isn't.

"Yes." He said flatly. He hands her her wooden sword and walks across the room towards the boomerangs, the only weapons not in gold.

His eyes are dark gold, clearly showing his annoyance at Amber. Her eyes are a dark orange, clearly a testament of her annoyance with him.

"Now, before you get any ideas, there's no loopholes, which means there's no desperately grabbing for another weapon if you lose your original one. That won't happen in the actual battle field."

"What if I had two weapons in the actual battle?" She countered.

"Amber, quit being so hard to work with and just do as you were told to do for once." He harshly commented before taking in a deep breath, appearing a lot calmer than before."Now, on to what I wanted to say, you know the basics, you know the moves, but you're just slow at performing them."

Why does this sound familiar? Oh right, he told me this before. I didn't like it then, I don't like it now.

"Man, there's no sugar coding with you." Amber rolled her eyes, but refrain from saying anything more.

"Oh, don't go there. You never sugar code it for me." He accused. "Besides sugar coding doesn't help you, the truth does."

There was a moment of silence, which Amber tried to come up with a comeback, but couldn't think of one.

"Please, oh wise one, please continue your training description." She replied sarcastically, which actually made Knight smile.

"Seriously? You know what, I'm actually going to start calling you sarcasm queen." He mused.

"Oh, no you won't..."

"Oh yes I will!" He said satisfied. "Anywho, so we'll start off easy..."

"Why would we do that?" She countered again, showing her disgust for that suggestion.

"I just thought we'll work our way up..."

"No, give me your hardest. I'll give you mine." She demanded.

"Which probably isn't that much...OW!" Knight screamed the last part as she punched him in face, literally running across the room to do so.

"Hey, I'm more tougher than I look." Amber said venomously.

"Yeah, the fist size bruise could testify to that." He mumbled, still rubbing his cheek.

You so deserved that!

"Come on, let's start giving our hardest. And we'll work our way up to even going harder than our hardest." Amber responded, ignoring the pain he's feeling at the moment. She felt like she should've gone harder, but she refrained herself.

He stops rubbing his cheek, mischievous look in his eyes. "Usually I would disagree with you, but the idea's starting to grow on me." He grinned, leaning closer to her. "The torture's going to get to you."

She grinned back, before turning around mumbling unplesant things about him. She holds the wooden sword in front of her defiantly. She feels ready for taking him down.

"Okay, we'll...No, you're holding it wrong! Only one hand. You want all fingers except your thumb to be close together with an iron grip. Then you want your thumb as close as possible to the pointer finger... No, no, no! You're doing it wrong!" He shouts across the room, twenty feet away from her.

"Then come over here and show me!" She demands, her voice rising with the frustration of getting the grip right. He runs over, bringing his sword with him.

He demonstrates with his sword as he goes.

"Okay, hold your hand out, no the other hand..."

"The left hand? Shouldn't I fight with my dominant hand?" She criticized.

"No, start your battles with your weakest hand. If anything happens, and you need that extra strength, use your dominant hand. Make them think by using your non-dominant hand, their at an advantage, not you." Knight acknowledged, which frustrated Amber a little bit more.

"Your implying that I would be losing in order to use my right hand, and I never lose." She boasted, but grudgingly puts the sword in her left hand.

"Whatever. Now, put all your fingers together...it's like making a fist but holding the sword in the middle of it...what are you not getting?!" He incredulously demanded, clearly just as frustrated as Amber.

"Well, I'm sorry I just found out there's an actual way to hold this thing." She commented.

Mumbling under his breath, he leaned in closer to her, putting his hand over hers, gently forcing it into place.

Amber tried her best to let him to do all the work, though her hand did protest to her old stance a couple times, which frustrated Knight more, and made Amber smile.

"There, now we're ready to get started." He remarked, satisfied as he runs across the room.

"So I guess we're going our hardest." He shouts across the room, loud and clear, though she could hear him just fine without shouting. "I'll let you go first, to make the first move. If I hit your arm or hand, you switch to your other hand. Any other body parts, besides the legs, is a death sentence and is an automatic win for the other person. Remember, no grabbing other weapons. Any questions?"

"Well, you thought this through. I don't have any questions or loopholes I can think of." She answered grudgingly.

Knight grins, "let's see what you got."