"Darlings, we start training in 5 minutes. So finish up and meet out at the stables ready to start in 5 minutes!" Sarge bellowed. The first thing he made them do was run laps round one of the paddocks, to see how fit they all were.

They were on their tenth lap of the half-acre field. "Kalia, how can you be doing this and be barely breaking a sweat?" Kathryn asked somewhat breathless. The two of them were in the lead.

"I like running. I try and go running as much as I can." Lachlan pulled up beside them. He had dark blond hair and an accent they all loved and tried to understand. He was from the northern mountains and when he did anything more than walk while talking he could be slightly hard to understand, but it was a pleasant burgh.

"But Kalia this is godlike," he told her.

"Does that mean I look like one to?"

"Yeah the Graveyard Hag," he told her. Kathryn tried to laugh then stopped due to the fact that she needed to breathe. When they got to Sarge at the end of the lap. He told them they could stop, but carry on walking round. Buri was standing next to Sarge.

"She looks like she's only done two laps." She told him.

"But she's done ten. She set the speed and it was too fast for most of them. She overlapped a lot with only about two managing to keep up."

"She could have got that thin from exercise."

"She might have," he replied doubtfully. "Have you remembered her yet?"

"No, I've been trying to remember all week." He laughed at her.

"When are we expecting Alanna?" He asked changing the subject.

"In about two weeks. Sophia has finished school till August, but she's coming early to spend some time with her and then have Sophia travel down with us."

"I haven't seen Sophia in a long time. She must be 14 now is it?"

"No, she's 15 now." Buri corrected.

"I had heard that she doesn't go home anymore," Sarge stated.

"She doesn't. This is the first time in a few years that she has actually agreed to go home. It has taken Eleni over two years to persuade her to visit."

"It must have been some fight, Sophia was only twelve," he said curiously. "Alanna has never said what happened and she doesn't like talking about it. She is really excited that Sophia is coming home though." She smiled before turning and shouting to the people running past, "If you've ran 10 then walk the next one! Then go into the mess and get some water! Drink it slowly! We all meet in there!"

"KYLE! You haven't done ten yet. Go back." The boy sighed, jogging back into the circle.

Two weeks later....

"You're getting your mounts today. You've got ten minutes to be at the last paddock," Buri shouted to the trainees, there were only 23 of them now.

"We've survived the two weeks now, only another year to go and we're in." Sophia laughed. Their group was now down to 8: Kalia, Ianthe, Lachlan, Adrian, Tenness, Kathryn, Krispin and Toraron. They rose from the long benches to put away what remained of breakfast.

"We should go, better to be early than late." Toraron said. There were many sighs, but they all started filing out, Talking as they went.

"I heard the Lioness and Queen are going to be training with us from now on."

"Well we're going to Pirate's Swoop for the summer camp."

"The Rider's always go there now."

"I wonder what she's like."

"Like a normal person."

"I heard she had a big temper." Sophia started laughing. They all looked at her.

"A big temper," she said. "We'll get to see it soon enough." They all looked at her curiously. She moved to the front of their group, leading the way to the last paddock.

Picking ponies took a long time. Ianthe and Kalia had chosen their ponies and were just waiting for them to be checked, along with everybody else some others.

"You're shaking again," Ianthe observed, looking pointedly in the opposite direction.

"I know," she countered crossing her arms.

"You ever going to say why?" It was an old question between the two of them. Sophia never told her why, but Ianthe kept asking hoping that her friend would tell her the truth.

Sophia opened her mouth to tell her friend why, when she heard the instructor coming to check on their mounts. She clamped her mouth shut. There was one problem the instructor happened to be Alanna, in other words, her mother.

Kalia shrunk back. It would be difficult to see her from where Alanna was. She went to Ianthe first. "What's your name?"

"Ianthe, mam." Alanna checked the ponies deciding they were suitable for the blond girl. She smiled, walking over to Kalia.

"What's your-" the smile disappeared. "Sophia. I can tell who you are. So this is where you ended up. I can recognise your face anywhere. What have you done to your hair?" Alanna fingered the girl's hair, before grabbed her wrist. "You've got thinner. I thought we had sorted that out." Sophia pulled out of her grasp.

"I believe I have sorted it out, not we. Red hair doth suit me, does it not?" Sophia stopped using the accent she had adopted and a very polite and noble voice came forward, she fingered a lock of hair. She looked her mother in the eye speaking sarcastically, "Am I not like you Mother? One was basing one's hair on the colour of yours." She narrowed her eyes at her mother, trying to provoke her.

She was obviously educated well. Ianthe frowned thinking, I thought she came from a village north of Olau.

"Thankfully you will never be like me, one is enough. It does not look like you have sorted it out and now is not a good time to be pert." Alanna took a calming breath. "What name did you make up?"

"Kalia Smith," she said putting on an air of arrogance, while looking into the forest to her side.

"Kalia? Bending of the truth I suppose? Do you have any idea how worried we were?" The calming breath was not lasting.

The young girl's head whipped round and her voice was stabbing "If you were so worried then why are you here training?" Alanna could bring Sophia's temper come out in a moment; it was like that now between them. Sophia when around others was usually calm, collected, smiling, charismatic almost anything but hotheaded and temperamental, perhaps because nothing had happened to get her angry.

"The world does not revolve around your whims for attention. I am here because I am meant to be here and also so I can stop worrying about you. Although your letter claimed you were fine, it might not have been true you may not have even written it. No one had felt anything wrong with you. A green eyed friend of ours also said you were fine, so at least we knew nothing drastic had happened. She also said that I would see you well soon and that looking for you would not help. Just because I knew you were fine, that does not stop me from worrying." Alanna stopped, taking another calming breath. "I cannot deal with this. I have to go talk to Buri and Thayet. I will speak to you in a minute, I'm sure I'm not be the only one." Alanna was absolutely seething. She stomped away in search of Buri and Thayet elsewhere on the field, muttering while she went, "I need a drink."

"Kalia what was that about?" Sophia took a deep breath, controlling her emotions.

"That was my mother," she told her softly, then remembering the truth, "Adoptive."

"What did she mean about your name?" Ianthe smiled ironically in realisation. "Kalia isn't your real name is it? You lied to us. You lied to me."

"My real name is Sophia. I do get called Kalia though; the names mean the same thing. The past couple of years I have been studying at the university and just left. I never said I was coming here. Only one person knew I had ran away. I had to lie, other wise I wouldn't be allowed to be here," she told her friend in earnest.

"What do you normally look like?" she asked sounding hurt.

"I had long, straighter, black hair. I dyed it, curled it and then cut it. I don't normally have a fringe but obviously I do now."

"How long were you at the university?" She had never met anyone who had been to the university before. Curiosity was slightly overtaking the sting of betrayal that she had felt.

"Six years." That was the end of their conversation. A second later Sophia got her orders.

"SOPHIA! GET HERE RIGHT NOW!" Sarge has obviously found out she thought. This is not going be pretty.

"Perhaps I will see you later, Ianthe."

"Maybe." Her eyes were on Sophia's back until a horse moved in the way.

Please, please, please review. I need comments! A big thanks to Nala and her messages.