A/N: Soooo... erm finally here's another chapter. No one but me has read this chapter, so I'm fairly sure it probably sucks ass. However, I'm hoping it's not too bad and that someone will enjoy it. Clove finally gets to meet Cato properly. Yay! I had fun with him.
Anywho, not a clue when I'll update again, I'm incredibly bad at sticking to schedules and even worse at getting time to write and stuff. But I AM working on this, so hopefully I'll update sooner next time. Also thanks for the comments and things! I really appreciate them all and thank you all completely. ILU all! See you soon I hope!
Clove knew she was in trouble when the door swung open after she'd knocked on it to reveal not her mother, but her father. He was normally the quiet one. Her mother was the one who dealt with the discipline. So yeah, she was in deep shit, but oh well they'd dragged her here so tough shit to them.
She raised an eyebrow at him and shrugged, about to move past him and head up the stairs to see which room was supposed to be hers, when his voice rang out calm and stern.
"Hold on a moment young lady. You walked off without telling us where you were going, you made your mother worry so bad she had to have a brandy to stay calm and now you waltz in here like you own this place!"
Rolling her eyes at that, Clove attempted once more to move past her father and towards the pile of boxes, intent on at least fetching her laptop. Of course her mother chose that moment to get in her way too, and she deflated a little, groaning under her breath. They chose now to be worried, when she'd finally actually gotten back as opposed to when she was out and lost in a strange town? Fucking bullshit! Their attitude was just such fucking bullshit!
"Well you know… You could have like called me or something, seeing as I had my phone on me and you knew the number. Just saying, since you were clearly soooo worried and all."
"Don't you back chat us missy!" her father grumbled, his dark eyes locked onto her narrowed with anger she'd never really seen from him. Well except for when they'd caught her with Dela anyway.
"We were plenty worried thank you very much!" her mother added, her short brown curls bouncing in time to her agitated movements.
Clove vaguely wondered if she was actually drunk, but ultimately decided she didn't care enough to know the answer to that right now. "Well, if you worried so much, then why didn't you call?! Oh wait, no I know the answer to that, because you don't actually give a damn unless I'm doing something you seriously don't approve of!"
"Watch your language!" growled her father at the same time as her mother spoke.
"How dare you accuse us of not worrying! You ran off the second we arrived in a new town! I was about ready to call the police!"
Yeah, it really seemed like it. Again she doubted her mother's words, because surely if she was that worried she would have called her and then called the police. But no, there was no missed call on her mobile. And she wanted so badly, almost ached to scream at them about Dela, about dragging her here, about the fact that they never actually gave a shit about anything unless she was doing something to embarrass them in front of their oh so precious friends, but she didn't.
Of course their friends weren't here anymore, which was obviously why they hadn't done a thing about her just walking away the way she had. Sadly, seeing as she wanted them to agree to let her train at that place, she had to bite back her anger, or well most of it and get over things. For now…
"I just went to take a look around. I didn't do anything bad, I didn't say anything bad to anyone…" Ok so that part was totally not true, but still, it wasn't like she'd done anything truly horrible really. "And I didn't break any laws. I went to the town centre, I bought a soda, I wandered around a bit and I came home. Jeeze..."
"Clove Vernis! We've had about just about enough of your lip young lady! You know what, you can take all your stuff up to your room and sort it out and you can stay there except for meal times until we decide you're allowed out of the house. I can't even talk to you right now!"
Of course her mother would say that, she always said things like that. Glancing to her father and noting the stern look on his face, she sighed. Like she'd expected anything less. Unless she was doing something spectacularly bad, like kissing her girlfriend, he was pretty much just a doormat. So she didn't expect any help or opinion from him other than to blindly follow her mother and possibly up the punishment a little if she mouthed back.
And seeing as she wanted to keep her computer and she knew that was the first thing her parents would go for, then… Fuck she had to keep her mouth firmly shut right now or make things 10 times worse. At least she could vent to Del if she got her computer sorted soon. Damn was she ever glad her OCD dad had insisted on having all the things like the internet and cable tv sorted before they arrived today.
"Ok ok. I'll be good and go sort out my room," she replied, waving a hand dismissively around as she moved forward to grab one of the boxes still clogging the hallway.
"Hmph." Her father again, turning on his heel and walking away, no surprise there.
"You be sure you put everything away yourself. Your father and I aren't going to help you after we spent almost the whole day worrying over you, this is your punishment. Your room's up the stairs and first on the left," her mother informed her before retreating back into the living room.
Clove snorted the minute she was gone, all afternoon? Really?! They hadn't arrived till already into the afternoon as it was! That was a total over dramatization and they all knew it, but if she pulled them on it…
She'd rather not waste any more time than was necessary stuck in the house, she didn't have to start the new school till next week, and she'd quite like to spend the free time she had before then taking in the town and getting used to things rather than being trapped in the house with her daytime tv watching mother.
Sneering at nothing in general, she swapped the box she'd picked up for the one beneath it and carried her computer and favourite cd's up to her room first. Everything else didn't matter, but she wanted to be sure where that one was, so she could talk to Dela right away. The rest could wait until tomorrow.
Well except for her bedding, she kinda needed that. She was just glad her parents weren't cruel enough to make her actually set her own bed up too. That would just suck. Plopping the box down onto her bed, she glanced around, glad to note that at least her bedroom was quite a bit bigger than her old one thanks to her father's better job here and then turned for the door again. One box down, about twenty more to go…
Making her way down the stairs at lunch time, Clove sighed. Her parents hadn't spoken to her this morning and her father started work tomorrow, so this was probably her only decent chance to talk to them about training at the training center. But would they even consider it given yesterday and how against it they'd been before they'd moved here.
But Clove had a plan, or at least the vague beginnings of one. It was half assed and not up to her usual standards, but it was all she'd been able to come up with. She'd spent most of the night talking to Dela via skype and this morning tidying her stuff away so her parents had nothing to complain about.
Steeling herself at the door way to the kitchen, she glanced to where her parents were seated at the small table and slipped the folded papers from her pocket, smoothing them out as she walked inside.
"There's chicken and cous cous in the fridge for you. Help yourself," her mother informed her, glancing up from her own meal and directing her to a clean plate on the side.
Taking a deep breath to bite back the snappy retort about how nice it was for them to fix her a plate too, she placed the papers down on the table and grabbed a knife and fork from the cutlery drawer. "Thanks," she replied with that same false sweetness she was so used to employing.
"What's this?"
"Oh that… I wanted to talk to you both about that actually I…"
"Clove! You went and looked for another training center?! You know how we feel about that…"
Sighing, Clove took her now full plate to the table and sat down opposite her mother. She glanced at both of them judging their responses, both of which seemed mildly horrified and wondered how long it would take them to agree. She had a week, but she'd really rather not have to use the entire week trying to convince them.
"I didn't go looking ok?! Just… just hear me out alright? I didn't go looking for anything." She paused, taking a bite of her meal and letting that soak in.
Thankfully it seemed her father was feeling a little calmer today since he glanced at the papers flipping through them while raising an eyebrow at her indicating that she should continue.
"Alright, well then would you care to explain how on earth this came about?"
A reasonable parent, god was it her birthday and she'd somehow forgotten or something? Sure as hell felt like it. But whatever, she'd accept it for what it was, a chance to talk to them for once, instead of them all shouting at each other. Taking another bite of her food, she shrugged and swallowed before explaining.
"I was walking around the town centre, which totally doesn't count as a 'centre' by the way, anyway I thought it was a like a community centre or something, so I went inside to look so I could try and see what this town had to offer and it turned out to be some kind of sports centre. It's not just training like I used to do."
Her mother looked at her father, still seeming to be caught between shock and fury and Clove wisely kept her mouth filled with her lunch instead of interfering with the silent communication her parents seemed to have entered into. If she made a fuss it would only push them into saying no before even considering it.
"Have you finished putting your stuff away?"
"Yep, all of it's done properly and everything just like you asked me to."
"And why do you think we're going to allow you to do this when we didn't like it in the first place back in Heighsham?"
Resisting the urge to snarl in frustration, Clove fixed a smile on her features instead and raised her head to meet her mother's eyes. This was where she played her trump card, well what she hoped would be a trump card anyway.
"It's every Thursday after school, all day Saturday and most of the day Sundays. It'll be something to keep me out of trouble, and stop me hanging out with a bunch of idiots like most teenagers if I'm spending my time there. And when I'm not there I'll be doing my homework or training for there. No time to get into trouble."
She ducked her head then, being almost unable to keep the smile from turning sly and calculating as she took in the way her parents seemed to be debating the pros and cons of her 'argument.' Everything seemed to go quiet and rather than make things flare up, she finished off her food and took her cutlery and plate over to the sink.
She was just about done rinsing them off when her father's voice sounded from behind her, calm and thoughtful as always.
"We'll think about it, but we need time to talk this through," was all he said. And fuck, that was more than enough for Clove. She knew what that meant, he was saying yes but he had to let her mother flail around and be angry about it first so that she could then be rational.
"Ok," she replied with a nod as she made her way out of the room. She wouldn't have to do more, she knew she'd played the right hand by stating how this would stop her getting into trouble like she'd done before. She didn't see how kissing a girl was trouble, but let them think whatever the hell they wanted as long as they let her do this. And they would, she knew it.
Checking the letter again, she made sure she had everything she'd need for the day. Thankfully even her mother had agreed to letting her leave the house today and attending the training centre. Now she got to show them all that she was worthy of being there. She just needed her wallet and she was good to go.
It kinda sucked that her parents hadn't let her go all day, but she'd given in to their 'wish' (which was technically more of a demand than anything but never mind) and had lunch at home with them so by the time she got there she figured that most, if not all the students would be there.
Shoving her wallet into her backpack, she zipped it up and hoisted it onto her shoulder as she made her way out the front door. Locking it behind her, she turned and began to make her way towards the training centre. She hadn't been able to memorize the way to school and the town centre by walking it, but she'd memorized things from online maps, so at least she knew where she was going this time and it would cut about 10 minutes off her previous journey, if she got it right anyway.
Thankfully it seemed she had, because the streets were becoming easily recognisable and… Aha! Barely 20 minutes had gone by this time and she'd already found her way to the down centre. It still seemed odd to have gone this way, since it wasn't quite as direct as her original route had seemed, but hey if it worked, it worked.
Picking up the pace, she jogged towards her destination and grinned at the thought of being able to do at least one thing that she enjoyed and she knew she was good at. She pulled the door open and ignored the few teens milling around in the entrance way as she made her way towards the cavernous training room from last week.
They were all in there, or so it seemed, she really hadn't had time to recognise everyone. But there were quite a few people in there, so here went nothing!
Pulling the door open, she slipped inside and deposited her bag alongside everyone else's. Thankfully it didn't feel like everyone's eyes were on her this time, but she could feel a few gazes turned in her general direction. Ignoring the feeling, she turned to the trainer who was walking towards her with a smile and held out the forms to him.
"So you're joining us then?"
She nodded, a grin playing on her lips. "Mmm hmm, all signed and ready to go."
He reached out for the papers, flicking through them before folding them up and putting them away. "You brought your ID I take it? Just need to take a look at it and we're good to go."
Clove reached for her wallet, pulling it out and sliding her ID from behind the plastic window. She handed it over to him, watching as his grey eyes skimmed over the info, matching it with what her parents had filled in on the form obviously.
"Clove huh? Well welcome Clove." He handed her back her ID and held out his hand again, to shake hers this time. "I'm Harwen, nice too meet you."
Stuffing her wallet back into her pack, Clove held her hand out, and shook his. "Hi. Nice to meet you too," she replied, flashing him her practiced grin and watching as his eyes crinkled at the edges when he returned it. She was itching to go and shifted anxiously on her feet, waiting for him to say she could actually start now.
"Anxious I see. Well everything's in order, so let's see these skills of yours. What weapons are you trained in?"
"Knives, throwing knives and I'm pretty good at fighting with daggers too," she replied as he led her past a lot of the others and towards the back of the room.
There were a number of dummies there, in various states of disrepair, apparently having been used many times for many different weapons. A large table covered in a variety of weapons stood off to the side and she was glad to note there were some throwing knives and even a few daggers on it. Good, she could truly show what she could do then.
Harwen moved over to the side, behind the table and out of her range as well. He waved a hand at the table, grinning at her and spoke. "We'll see what you can do here and then I'm going to test your hand to hand combat skills. Start whenever you're ready."
Clove smirked at that, oh this was going to be fun. Walking over to the table, she picked up all the knives she could hold before moving back a fair distance from the ring of dummies. Though he wasn't saying anything, she was fairly sure that Harwen seemed slightly sceptical about her distance from the targets and her ability to hit them. But no matter, she didn't miss and this was nothing.
Raising her arm, she paused for only a second, narrowing her eyes on the furthest dummy and brought her arm swinging forward. Seconds later the satisfying thud of the knife burying itself in the dummy reached her ears and she heard a soft appreciative whistle from off to the left. The feel of multiple pairs of eyes upon her form swept over her and she sighed, but it didn't distract her.
She raised her hand again and again, flinging knife after knife at the targets in rapid succession. They whistled through the air before thunking into the centre of the targets hearts and heads. Once she was done, she glanced briefly at where quite a few of the others seemed to be staring either with narrowed eyes or fearful expressions and turned to Harwen with a raised eyebrow.
"Any good?" she laughed, using his words from last time.
"You weren't kidding were you? Very good, very good," Harwen replied stepping towards her with a grin of his own. "But how are you at close combat? Shall we go find out?"
His laugh was infectious, rich and warm as he moved away from her and towards the centre of the room where mats were laid out on the floor. She actually sort of giggled, (or rather she preferred to think of it as chuckling) in response and followed him, watching as everyone seemed to create a wide circle around the cluster of mats.
So she had to do this with an audience. Not her preferred method, at least not with all of them apparently breaking training to watch, but whatever. She glanced up and the huge blond from last week was watching her, thick arms folded over his broad chest and a smug smirk on his lips.
She returned it with one of her own and then turned her full attention on Harwen and no one else. It didn't take long, for having not ever known each other before, she was surprised to find their movements were oddly synchronised. He shifted, she moved to counter and yet neither of them seemed to move to strike first.
But Clove didn't want to seem weak, or to have this go on too long. So she lunged forward, her leg striking out towards his, intent on taking them out and bringing the trainer crashing to the ground. He countered, lifting his own leg and sweeping it out to block her. However Clove had already planned a few moves ahead, she thrust her right arm towards his ribs, catching him almost unaware.
He caught her move, but a little too late so that her blow still glanced off his side. At the same time, she brought her other arm crashing into his side, striking his ribs with a thankfully pulled punch. She wasn't trying to actually maim him after all.
He seemed surprised by her swiftness and she felt her confidence grow. She wasn't the useless little girl everyone but Harwen seemed to have pegged her as. Hell no. His leg struck the side of hers, calf meeting thigh and she hissed but took the force of the impact and shifted forward on her other leg. Her arm swept down, blocking his leg and pushing it away.
She jabbed him yet again in the ribs, watching him grin back at her. And from there on, their movements seemed to become a blur. His strikes almost knocked her off her feet a few times, and she knew she'd caused him to almost double over a few times, but neither relented. Their movements more like a dance than true combat as they thrust and blocked and struck time and time again.
After what seemed like hours, though was probably only really a matter of minutes, something shifted and she realised she had the advantage oddly enough. He was fast and strong, but she was swifter, more nimble and she was able to anticipate his moves about two steps before he could make them.
His body language was fairly easy to read and it was this that enabled her to plan the finishing moves before he even knew what was happening. She moved forward, seeming to enact a full frontal attack, which he predictably moved to block, but she spun on the balls of her feet like a ballet dancer and moved out of his way before the blow struck just below her ribs as it should have.
She twisted around, whirling a complete 180 and jabbing her fist into his side. He turned quickly, his eyes narrowed in concentration, though she could see the amusement behind it and she reacted. Her hand striking out for his wrist, she used his own momentum against him and sent him into a spin he clearly hadn't expected.
He tried to halt his own movements, she could see it, but she'd already planned for that and her foot swept towards him, twisting around his own and knocking him off centre. He fell to the floor and Clove quickly followed him, one hand pressed firmly against his stomach while she used her forearm to press against his throat.
Both of them were breathing a little heavily and he laughed up at her. She could read the look in his eyes now, pride, at her apparently. She blinked but didn't relinquish her hold, at any moment he could easily over power her technically, she had to press her advantage while she could.
"Do you… yield?" she panted, her twisted smirk playing upon her lips.
"Do I have… a choice?" Harwen chuckled, shaking his head before letting himself go limp beneath her. "Yes I yield…"
It was only then, as she heard those words that she realised the entire room had gone silent. She glanced up, noting the curious, angry and uncertain looks on just about everyone's faces and pulled back from Harwen. Hauling herself to her feet, she held out her hand to him and held herself steady as he pulled himself to his feet.
"Well done. Been a while since anyone managed to knock me off my feet."
Clove raised an eyebrow at that. "Well that's good to know. Who was the last person to do that?"
"Cato," Harwen replied, pointing to the huge blond.
Ah so finally a name to go with the face. Clove turned to Cato, sizing him up and smirking back for what felt like the millionth time when his lips quirked up into a rather cocky smirk. She turned her attention back to Harwen when the instructor spoke again and watched him curiously.
"Now then I think it's time we all get back to training don't you?" His words were somewhat stern, but the smile on his face showed he wasn't actually being as grumpy as his tone implied. He seemed to glance around the ring of students and then spoke again. "So who wants to take on our newest member then?"
Clove stood there as silence reigned, fighting the urge to fidget in the suddenly oppressive lack of noise. Not a single person volunteered and she could see even Harwen twitching anxiously after a while. And just when she was about to walk away, something shocking happened, a smooth deep voice cut through the silence as surely as the overly sharp blade in his hand could cut through her flesh.
"I'll do it."
She turned, blinking up at the hulking frame of the blond as he stepped forward and found her lips curling up at the edges yet again. Of course it would be him.
"Ok, Clove are you ok with that?"
Harwen seemed to be looking at her rather nervously. She understood his reservations, the guy was bloody huge! But really she wasn't afraid of him, and it seemed right now, nobody seemed to want to take her on. Plus she'd love to see if she could even stand up against Cato and she sure as hell would love to win just so she could smirk at him and say she'd beaten him.
"Fine by me. Bring it," she shrugged.
"Alright then, come on people! Let's not just stand around shall we, we're here to train!"
Everyone else seemed to begin drifting away, but she just kept her gaze on him, raising an eyebrow and wondering why the hell he'd offered to train with her, when just last week he'd glared at her and then pushed past her without so much as a damn apology.
"Something wrong squirt?" he asked, his tone as confident as his stance. He shifted the sword in his hand, smirking at her and Clove growled in response.
"Last week you glared at me like you were trying to burn a damn hole through me, pushed past me almost knocking me over and now you wanna train with me? What the hell is up with that?" She folded her arms over her chest and shifted her body to rest a little more on her right leg than her left.
"Thought you were someone else," Cato shrugged, shooting her an amused and casual wink that made her almost want to wipe the look off his face. But she resisted barely and rolled her eyes instead.
"You're not even going to apologise are you?" She didn't need to ask, she knew the answer already. His easy attitude that seemed intent on teasing her, was more than telling enough. Still she asked anyway, lips pulling slightly down into a frown as she watched him.
"Nope! So now that we've gotten that out of the way, do you intend to stand around talking or are you here to train?"
His blue eyes twinkled and the grin that twisted his lips gave him a far more boyish look than she'd seen so far. It sort of transformed him from a vicious looking thug, to an annoying and taunting school boy. She snorted at his words, trying to decide if she wanted to shove that bloody sword somewhere dark or chuckle at his cocky words.
She wasn't sure, but she thought maybe she kinda liked him. At least he wasn't like the rest of them, afraid of her and he was clearly being himself. So shoving aside any the tiny flare of anger, she concentrated solely on him and settled for mild exasperation instead.
"You're impossible," she growled, dropping her slightly defensive stance and watching as he returned his sword to the weapons rack before returning to her. Mimicking her own expression, he looked at her, one eyebrow raised in question.
Yeah, like she was here for anything else other than training. "Just for that, I think it's only fair to warn you I plan to kick your smart ass and then be incredibly smug about it."
He actually laughed then, not just snorted like she had but outright laughed in what appeared to be serious amusement. The sound was rich and somewhat dark she realized as he flexed his muscles. It was almost hypnotising and her eyes followed the movement for a second, before switching back up to his face.
Dark brown met bright blue and she could so clearly see the challenge, the promise of a good fight in them as he moved towards her.
"Well then what was it you said before squirt? Bring it I think, yep sounds about right. So go ahead, bring it and let's see how good you REALLY are."
"I plan to," she shot back, lips curling up at the edges in a faint snarl, though she was more amused than anything. It wasn't often she met someone who gave as good as they got and this guy could probably out rule her in the smug stakes. "And when I win, you'll stop calling me squirt. Got it?"
"Hmm, we'll see. I think I kinda like calling you that. You're tiny," he returned, rolling his shoulders.
Oh she was going to bring it now, damn right she was! She grinned up at him and he grinned back. This should be fun!
