A/N: Thanks for the reviews again! Oh! Please don't be sad! There has to be some conflict, otherwise it wouldn't be much of a story! A note of warning though: Things have to get worse before they get better. Enjoy the chapter.

Kimi's eyes opened to near darkness and she groaned. Someone was pounding on her door and it wasn't even dawn. She rolled out of bed and opened the door.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Page Kimiko," Hatsumomo addressed her and bowed to her. "May I come in?" Kimi moved to one side then sat back down on the bed. The Shang Falcon entered and studied the young girl for a minute. Suddenly Hatsumomo said sharply, "Get up! And get dressed. You and I will be training today."

"What? Today? Why?" Kimi said as she sprang to her feet. The Shang Falcon was not someone to be disobeyed.

Hatsumomo studied her intently. "I am a warrior woman and know how hard it is to succeed. You need me to teach you the ways in which to grow stronger. You are barely keeping up. If you do not get help, you will not last for very much longer. Now get dressed. Quickly, or I might change my mind."

Kimi stumbled behind the dressing screen and into training clothes. It was much too early for Kimi to fully grasp any of this, but she hurried to obey.

"Now, Page Kimiko," Hatsumomo began when Kimi appeared.

"Please, call me Kimi," Kimi interrupted.

"Very good, but you must call me Mistress Falcon. I did not get that name for it to be never used."

"Yes, Mistress Falcon," said Kimi meekly.

"Very good. Now, we will do this every morning. You must be up and ready when I come for you and you must be prepared with all your equipment."

"What time is it?" Kimi rubbed her eyes. She still couldn't digest in her mind that the Shang Falcon was in her room ordering her around.

"An hour before dawn." Kimi wanted to faint. "Now, do you have a glaive?" Kimi blushed and pulled it out from under her bed. Hatsumomo snatched it from her and examined it. "There is dust on this. Then I trust you have also not kept up with the Yamani fighting arts?" Kimi shook her head. "Fine, carry this, and we go to the practice courts." Kimi followed without question, still in her morning daze.

"Put your glaive over there, and we will start stretches," Hatsumomo instructed. Kimi obeyed, and stretched with her new teacher. When they finished, Hatsumomo bowed to Kimi, and Kimi bowed back. Mistress Falcon sprang forward and began testing Kimi in her fighting arts. Kimi soon found that she was rusty.

Hatsumomo shook her head. "Poor, very poor. When has been the last time you practiced? I would have expected more of Yukimi's daughter."

"What has my mother got to do with anything?" Kimi spat out angrily. She was feeling embarrassed because she was tossed so much and she was now starting to feel the aftereffects.

Hatsumomo stared at Kimi without emotion. "I am not a patient woman, Kimi," she said finally. "But I will give you one more chance because you have been spoiled and you have been lazy. Most of which has not been your fault until now. But things must change or I will not help you. You will not be rude to me again, and I will not deal with your theatrics. Do I make myself clear?"

Realizing she was dead serious, Kimi yanked on the shreds of her Yamani mask and tried her best to make herself stone. "Yes, Mistress Falcon."

"Better. But I can still see that you are angry. Practice. Now, we will do some glaive pattern dances." Kimi ran and retrieved her glaive and set herself up in the traditional ready position. After two dances, Mistress Falcon made her stop.

"Sloppy," she said. "Very sloppy. I see we have a lot of work to do. Go run two laps. If I don't think you ran it fast enough, you will run them again. Go." Kimi ran. By her second lap she was starting to wake up and review the morning. Nothing made sense. Why was Hatsumomo taking an interest in her now? And this wasn't the traditional workout she gave the boys and her in the afternoon. It suddenly occurred to her that they had been speaking Yamani all morning, even though she had sworn to herself to speak in that language as little as possible. Kimi wondered fleetingly if her mother had set this up with Hatsumomo the night before, but she was almost too afraid to ask.

"Was that fast enough?" Kimi panted in Common when she was done.

"No," Hatsumomo said. Her face was as still as ever, but there was more force behind her words. "You will address me only in Yamani, Kimi."

"But…"

"You have no self-discipline, so I will give you discipline. To be a woman warrior, you have to work twice as hard as a man. Now, do twenty pushups." Kimi could only manage ten. Hatsumomo shook her head. "Not good, not good. I assigned you ten pushups weeks ago. By this time you should have been able to do twenty easily. Practice." Bells echoed throughout the palace. "Good, time for a late Sunday breakfast. Go put your glaive away and wash up." Kimi took her glaive and started trudging up the hill slowly, feeling every ache and pain in her beaten body.

"Kimi?" Kimi turned slowly. "Run it." Hatsumomo demanded with a polite Yamani smile. Kimi bowed and tried to fight the emotions from showing on her face, then began to run.

Kimi fell into bed, completely exhausted, when she arrived at her room. She couldn't remember a time when she'd been that sore or out of breath. The woman's trying to kill me, she thought wildly. She needed someone's opinion on it; everything was much too confusing. After a few minutes of lying down, she willed herself to get up and get washed. She threw some clothes on, barely paying attention to what she put on and slowly made it to breakfast.

"Hello, Kimi," Patrik said as Kimi slowly settled on the bench. He raised his eyebrows at her. "Had too much to drink last night?"

She rolled her eyes. "You know we weren't served ale or wine last night. Try again."

"Aching from yesterday?" He guessed.

"Close enough. This morning Hatsumomo woke me up an hour before dawn and made me work out for an hour and a half."

Jonathan overheard the last part of the conversation when he sat down next to her. "Hatsumomo made you do that? Why?"

"I don't know! It was so strange! She wakes me up, tells me that she is going to help me, and then orders me around and threatens to change her mind like it was all my idea!"

"Strange," Jon agreed with her.

"And she says I have to do this every morning!" Kimi was really getting into her story and was using hand gestures.

"Relax, Kimi. Why wouldn't you want to do it?"

"I agree," said Patrik. "She's a great warrior, and I bet she could really help you improve if you work with her."

She began to grow cross. "You're just saying that because you think she's pretty."

"No, I'm saying that because you really need the help. And she's pretty." He grinned at her.

She ignored him and turned to Jon. "But, Jon, she's making me do Yamani workouts," she said quietly.

"Oh," Jon said. His polite Yamani mask settled into place.

"So you see; I can't do it anymore. I can't believe I did it today. I wasn't even thinking clearly. And she's also my teacher, so obeying and doing what she said was perfectly natural. I think I'll tell her today sometime that I can't continue. I'm sure –"

"What? You're giving away free help?" Patrik said. "Don't be silly! You should at least try it for a week. And if you improve at all you should continue." Patrik frowned at her. "I don't understand what Yamani workouts have to do with anything."

She grew angry. "You wouldn't!" she snapped and got up to go.

"You haven't eaten anything, Kimi," Patrik said before he could stop himself.

"I'm not hungry! And you're obsessed with feeding girls!" She got up and stomped off. She fumed as she marched into the Page's Wing and to her room. To calm herself, she pulled out a slate and began writing. She wasn't paying attention until she looked down to read what she had written. It was all in Yamani characters. She threw it across the room and buried her tearstained face in her arms.

She stayed in her room for hours, ignoring the knocks on her door and the calls of her friends. It was about noon; and all had been silent for a while when there was a knock on the door. The knocker was persistent, and finally Kimi pulled herself out of bed and answered the door. A smiling Patrik stood there with two trays of food.

"Can we talk?" he asked, and then moved past her when she didn't respond.

"Where is everybody else?" she asked finally.

"In the market place. It is our day off, you know." He handed her tray to her and sat down in the chair.

"Why aren't you there with them?" she asked. She took the tray from him with numb fingers.

"Because I had chores to make up. And I need to talk to talk to you." He placed the napkin in his lap and took a bite of food.

"About?"

"Why I always make sure you eat." He looked very sad and he gave up on his food. "This is going to be hard for me, but I must explain myself. It's very important." Kimi nodded, and she tried to act alert. ""I don't know if you've heard about my sister, Sonsaida of Anjou?" Kimi shook her head. "Well, I assumed you were kept away from court gossip. Two years ago my sister… stopped eating. She believed that she would never get a husband because of her size and my mother supported her. My mother was proud of her for her perseverance. I was here, so I could do nothing and could not see her. Then I saw her at a ball she attended. She was so thin… a sickly thin. Soon after that my mother sent me a letter saying that Sonsaida was ill. Mother tried to get her eat but it was too late. My sister died when she was fifteen because she starved herself to death." He took a deep breath.

"And then Ana decided she needed to do something with her weight last year. I saw the signs for the first time and didn't recognize them. I hadn't been home with my sister, so I didn't know, and Ana tried to her best to hide them. But luckily I finally figured it out and made her eat before she got too sick. I now know the signs, I've seen this obsession with weight kill my sister, and I swore I would not allow another girl to starve herself. That is why I make sure you eat every meal. I am determined not to make the same mistake again, and I will never forgive myself for letting Ana go that far. She is my best friend, and I almost let her die like my sister."

Silence enveloped the two pages. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry," she said sincerely after a pause. She picked up a roll and took a bite of it. "I understand why you make sure I eat everyday, and I thank you for your concern. But I promise you, I will not starve myself. Look at me. I'm thin enough as it is. I couldn't afford to miss two meals in a row and I know that. Please, don't worry about me." She placed a hand on his arm and smiled at him. He smiled back, sadness over his sister and Ana still etched in his face. "Let's have lunch. I'm hungry."

"I'm glad," Patrik said. "Me too."