CHAPTER 13

"Daddy?!" I shrieked, grabbing onto my father's pant leg and tugging wildly. "What's happening to mommy?!"

Dad had been dazed for the past several hours. Ever since he'd found mom collapsed in the shed, he just hadn't been able to speak. When I came home from pre-school that day, she had been fine. She was walking around, smiling, and trying to tell me how excited she was that the baby was coming.

"It's a girl?!" I'd shrieked excitedly.

"That's right." Mom smiled. "You'll have a cute little sister to play dolls with."

I could hardly contain my excitement. At four years old, what girl wouldn't be excited to hear that they would be having a sibling? The fact that it would be a girl that I would finally be able to play dress up with was an added plus. It was the best Christmas present that anyone could give a lonely single child. I'd practiced my writing for months, so that Santa would be able to read legible handwriting when he looked at my Christmas list. There was only one thing on it this year:

"Please let mommy and Dani-chan be born safely."

I'd written it only a few weeks earlier on an index card in the biggest handwriting possible.

"Winter," Dad laughed. "Only Dani can be born safely. "Mommy can't be born twice."

"Oops!" I shrieked, realizing my error with guilt. "Oh my! What would Santa think?!"

"He might be confused, but I think he'd understand eventually." Dad had assured me.

Mom had been so sparkling and radiant in the last month that even I could notice it at my tender age. I'd given her several compliments over the course of the weeks, and she only became more beautiful as the days grew closer.

I remember that day well. It was cold that year...Mom had never been fond of the cold, but she was a hard worker. She would get things done no matter the weather nor the temperature. She seemed to believe that if she worked hard throughout her pregnancy, then Dani would be born hard-working too.

I ran into the living room, my arms practically spilling over with colored-pencils and printer paper, and got to work on making a colorful drawing for my new little sister. I was so excited...I wished she was by my side right now, so I could hug her and introduce her to the new world. I wanted my name to be the first thing she said...

Half an hour later, I was starting to get hungry. I put my coloring tools down and dashed into the kitchen to find mommy so she could make me a snack. She wasn't there. I checked her bedroom then. she wasn't there. I went to the basement and to the attic, to the bathroom and to the laundry room. She wasn't in the house at all. She hadn't told me she was leaving, so where could she be?

I walked out of the house through the front door. Mom's gardening tools were lying stationary in the grass, but Shirayuki Mariko was nowhere to be found. Confused, I walked past them and towards the back of the house, into the shed. Lo and behold, there was mom. On the floor. Completely still.

I was terrified, and wasted no time in sprinting back into the house.

"Winter, remember, if you're ever in trouble and something happens in the house, call 911 okay?"

"Hello?!" I cried to the officer on the other end of the phone once they'd picked up.

"This is the police, what's your emergency?"

"Please help, mommy's not moving!"

Dad came home five minutes after I'd hung up. When I told him the story, I watched as the panic spread across his face, and he immediately ran to the shed. Ten minutes after I'd hung up, paramedics were loading mom's limp body onto a stretcher. The baby was several minutes away from arrival, and mom's contractions combined with her anemia and stubbornness contributed to her ending up in a heap on the floor. Dad was allowed to stay in the ambulance with mom, but I was escorted in a police van because I was so young. The cops had assured me that everything was fine, and that my sibling was coming soon so I should be happy. It cheered me up yes, but something about seeing mom lying helplessly on the floor had awakened something in my heart that I couldn't identify.

I met dad at the emergency room, The police took me to him. When I got there, dad was lying dormant in the waiting room, with a faraway look in his eyes. I was excited to see him, and I kept calling his name, but he didn't snap out of it until I asked: "What's happening to mommy?!"

Dad smiled at me, picked me up and sat me in his lap. "Nothing, peach." He said soothingly. "Dani's coming. Aren't you excited?"

"Yeah!"

We were in the emergency room for another several hours, and I was so excited that I couldn't sleep-although it was well past midnight. I was rubbing my eyes in fatigue, but I forced myself to stay awake. I wanted to see my sweet little sister.

A doctor finally came into the room with a clipboard in his hand, an icy and expressionless look on his face. As he summoned for dad to come, I felt something strange. There was no warmth in his eyes at all, and although I didn't realize it, I felt it.

Dad came into the room several minutes later, and without acknowledging my presence, he sat back down on the chair with his hands folded, staring into space. I was scared to approach him, but my nosiness overcame that, so I asked.

"Daddy? Where's Mommy? Is Dani okay?"

After a few moments of stillness from dad, he suddenly reached down and pulled me up into a tight hug. I'll never forget the despair in his voice when he said to me:

"It was a still birth. Dani...is gone..."

At four, I didn't understand the permanence of death. When dad had said she was gone, I was wondering where she went. Several years later I found out what a still-birth was. But that year of 4 was the last that my parents mentioned Santa Clause to me. Two months later, I buried my letter to Santa with Dani at her funeral.

...But by then, I had figured out on my own that Santa did not exist.

I jolted upright in my bed, shivering. My clothes, my sheets, my everything was soaking wet with ice cold water. When I looked up, the first person I saw standing over me was Tidus, with a small, wooden bucket in his hand and a pathetic smirk on his face. If it had been any other person, I wouldn't have had such an overwhelming desire to punch his nose back into his head.

"Morning!" He said cheerfully.

"You son of a bitch!" I greeted him curtly. "What was that for?!"

"It's 6:00am." He said, beckoning with his head to the window above my bed. Outside it was pitch-black, as if it were still early in the night. I took a quick glance at it, and then glared back at Tidus.

"You couldn't wake me up like a normal human being?!" I shrieked.

"Oh, I tried everything." He said, letting the bucket drop onto my bed. "You sleep like the dead, woman!"

"You're gonna join them if you don't get out of my face right now." I growled.

"I wouldn't worry so much about me," Tidus strutted over to the door and reclined on the doorframe. "I'd worry more about what Lightning will do to you if you keep her waiting. She seemed pretty serious when she told me to wake you up this morning."

"She told you to dump water on my head?!"

"At first I didn't wanna do it," Tidus admitted. "It seemed like too much trouble. But then she said: 'Do whatever it takes.' And then I just couldn't resist."

I felt myself twitch. "I don't have anymore clothes to change into!"

"Pity." Tidus shrugged, walking towards the door. "I heard it's gonna be pretty hot today so don't worry! You'll air-dry!" He yelled to me from down the hallway.

I glared in the spot he'd been standing in. "That blond haired, pretentious ASSHOLE!" I yelled to the four walls as I stormed out of bed and grabbed up my sword, boots, and pistol-the only dry things on me.

As I walked out of the inn, I felt miserable, like a wet cat. My hair tended to poof up when it got wet. Sometimes it fixed itself, other times it stayed poofy. Over time though, it usually ended up back in its tightly wavy/curly texture. God knows what this freaky atmosphere would do to it though.

I walked through the barely-lit town square until I finally found my way to the city gate. When I got there, Lightning was waiting. I approached her with caution, making my presence known with a barely audible, "...I'm here..."

She turned when she saw me, as if snapping out of a daydream.

"Where's the Blazefire Saber." She demanded in a no-nonsense tone.

"Is that what it's called?" I thought as I unsheathed it and let it straighten into a sword, then held it out to show her.

"Here." I said.

"And the gun?"

I patted my holster. "Here." I said.

"How far can you run?" She asked.

"Um-" I began.

"No um." She cut me off. "If you talk to me with an 'um' in your sentence then I didn't hear it. Got it?"

I blinked, and nodded slowly.

"A nod isn't an answer." She continued. "You need to answer me with clarity when I talk to you, or else I didn't hear it. Is that understood?"

"What is this? Boot camp?!" I gave Lightning a confused look. "Yes." I said.

"Yes, what?"

"Yes sir!"

Lightning narrowed her eyes at me.

"How far can you run." She asked again.

"I don't run." I said flatly.

Lightning blinked. "Then I hope you've got a Pheonix Down." She finally said, walking away from the gate and towards the wasteland. I followed her, wondering what she meant. Little did I know, that by the time this 'training session' was over, I would be well acquainted with Pheonix downs.

Training: DAY ONE

Lightning dragged me five miles out of the city on foot, and by the time we had crossed the desert and scaled the cliff overlooking the city that was to serve as the rendezvous point, she was pretty much dragging me along, coming just short of having to carry me in a box.

When I collapsed onto the ground, coughing, panting, and wheezing, Lightning showed me no sympathy.

"Stop being dramatic." She said coldly.

I turned my face and rolled my eyes at her.

"Get up." She ordered.

"When I can feel my legs again, I'll be happy to stand up for you." I mumbled loud enough for her to hear.

Without warning, Lightning fired her gunblade into the air, causing me to jump and immediately look up at her. She then pointed the gunblade at me, looking upon my frail and lifeless form with a murder in her glare.

"Get up. Now." She said firmly.

I immediately stood up.

"Until further notice, you're going to be here everyday at 6:30." Lightning explained, pacing the area in front of me in a sergeant-like fashion. "Before the end of this week, you'll know how to use the Blazefire Saber and fire a pistol. When you come here, be ready to work. You will work out until you're body feels like its on the brink of death and you'll fire so many bullets that you'll hear them in your dreams."

"Well my body already feels like it's on the brink of death!" I thought. "How much more dead could I possibly feel?!"

"Everyday you come here, you'll do whatever set of exercises I have for you that day. You'll do all of them, because you won't sleep unless you do," Lightning continued. "After that you'll do sword and gun training, and if I'm happy, then you get to leave. If I'm not, then you do it over until I am. I don't repeat myself, and I don't do whining. There's only one rule. Do as I say, but not as I do. Understood?"

"Sure."

"Excuse me?" She raised her eyebrow, as if I'd just insulted her.

"Um...yes sir?"

Lightning sighed and shook her head. "On your knees. I want 20 pushups."

"20! I can't do 20! I can barely do one and a half!"

Lightning shot her gun in the air again, and I jumped.

"Now I want 40."

"I am NOT doing 40 pushups lady!" I argued. My ears were rattled once more with the sound of that bloody gunblade firing more bullets.

"And now it's 60."

"You're out of your mind! And for god's sake! Would you stop randomly firing that thing?! It-!"

"80. We can do this all day. And when I say you won't sleep or eat until you do EVERYTHING, I'm not bullshitting you."

I believed her. So instead of digging my grave deeper, I decided to get on all fours and attempt to do girl pushups, until Lightning stopped me and demanded that I do "normal" pushups.

It took me just about 2 hours, but I finally completed all 80 pushups. Once that was done, she had me do squats, sit ups, jumping jacks, abdominal crunches, toe reaches, Russian twists, and a myriad of other things that I didn't even know existed.

By the time we were done, I wanted to kill myself.

It's day one! Training Begins! Stay tuned for the next chapter of White Snow Dimensia!

Author's Notes:

**Sorry I took forever updating this chapter. Truthfully, its been saved on my PC for months now, but I wanted to make absolutely certain that there was nothing I wanted to change. I also struggled with the chapter content, and trying to figure out how to split up the training days.

**Love this chappie. Next to the end of 3 and all of 4, its my fave x3

**Lulz, am I the only one who listens to music while I'm writing these? I just feel like its easier to put yourself in the characters shoes when you do. I listened to a music box version of "Sanctuary" when I wrote the flashback, and it was epic =U

**I think this is the shortest chapter so far.

**I wrote up to Chapter 23! I'm happy to see that people are still reading even though I haven't updated in a while. I thank you, and I thank the plot bunny. Just send a review my way and you'll make me very happy :D

**There was a 1 day delay in updating this chapter. I meant to put it up yesterday but fanfiction was being a douche!

Thank you for reading!

-Kamikimmy13