Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months as the timed blurred together. Every day Lexa woke up before the sun came up, took her shift on scouting duty. The tregedakru went through the forest, every nook, cranny and tree, searching for a sign of the reapers but the forest gave them nothing. Anya was doing her best, but the reapers refused to appear. The Isagedakru had also faded into the background. Anya said this was likely because they were building up for an attack, but the attack never came. Anya would post scouts out, but her efforts were poured into the fruitless search for the mountain men, even after the snow came. The geda thought the tracks might make it easier for them to be tracked, but even then, nothing came.
Lexa was posted in charge of food so Anya could focus on the reapers. Lexa took the sekons out as winter approached and together they brought in pounds of two headed deer, squirrels with three tails and spiney rabbits. The meat was dried and stored for the long winter. And even as the cold came, the tracks in the snow made it almost too easy to hunt.
But in the afternoons, no matter what the day was, Anya would make sure to take Lexa out into the woods. And they would train. Archery, though Lexa still practiced, faded into the background as spear training came to front. Every method, stabbing, swinging, lancework, throwing the spear. Anya taught Lexa it all. And even as Lexa began to hit harder than Anya, throw further, pierce more accurately, Anya still had more to teach Lexa. The secrets to making arrows from trees in winter, when the braches were half frozen. Together on the days when it was a little too much, they would harvest the needles of the hemlock and make tea together.
Lexa progressed quickly, and as the snow finally began to melt and the weather began to be warm enough that the grounders could leave behind their large hide coats and fur boots, Anya was beginning to teach her staffwork. Together they harvested a long, straight ironwood bough, shaving it down and down until it was a thick, long staff, with a slight bulge on one end for hitting and knocking things down. At first Anya put Lexa on her knees every day, and Lexa would come home with bruises running all down her sides, but as they continued Anya began to have her own collection of bruises. Even then, they would sit by the water as they harvested algae for poisons and antidotes and rub their bruises and scrapes with cool water, laughing as they splashed each other, forgetting about their responsibilities for the moment.
And of course, in the evenings, the sekons would still fight and play, only this time it was with weapons. They would take turns, Lexa with her spear against Sanse and his axe, Costia with a mace and Reed with a short sword. Despite the fact that spears against maces, axes and swords shouldn't work, time and time again Lexa would knock over her opponents, sweeping down their feet with her length, twirling and spinning to avoid the heavy blows that larger weapons would leave and exchanging her spot with a prick from the black leaf-blade at the top of the shaft.
Costia and Lexa would always fight and despite Costia's proficiency in mace and axe, Lexa would lay her down. Costia would try, her face growing taut with concentration, but Lexa would dance away laughing, and poke Costia's rib with the spear to Costia's immense frustration. But all was forgiven during the nights when the two of them would escape from the village to the cliff to watch the stars, and later as the snow melted once again, watch the sunset as the day began to creep forward again to replace the long nights with grey mornings.
And then every night the two of them would come back to the sekons' tent and curl up together under the same wool blanket, curled together for warmth and comfort on their mats. As they began to grow taller, Lexa began to overtake Costia after a year of being shorter than her, so for the first times in a year, Lexa began to curl around Costia instead of Costia being on the outside. Lexa would always comb her fingers through Costia's black hair, fascinated by how smooth it could be compared to her tangle of fluffy curls. And yet Costia would always laugh and braid Lexa's hair for her, though Anya would find imperfections later and tighten Lexa's braids with a smile and roll of her eyes.
The sekons always slept in a tangle of limbs and growing bodies as they had for the past year until finally one day Alana woke up with a terrified scream when she found her sleeping mat covered in blood. Sanse and Janus on either side jumped back with a yell, and Janus ran to get Corin and Ophus. Corin came to the sekons tent with a hurried look on her face, worried that one of the sekons was dying, likely due to the way Janus had described the situation, but upon seeing Alana's bed and Alana's terrified face she dropped her med kit and began to laugh. The sekons in the tent looked at one another, confused beyond anything as their healer cackled so hard her face turned red and she sat down hard on the floor of the tent. She wiped away her tears and collected herself. "Your moon blood's come, Alana," Corin finally managed. The sekons stared at her with confusion. "How old are you, Alana?"
"Twelve," Alana said, still horrified.
"I thought so. Lexa and Costia's should come within the next three or four years as well. Nothing to worry about. Boys, you all can scat," Corin said, with a shooing motion at the other five sekons. Gabe, Sanse, Yunto, Janus and Reed were kicked out of the tent with many confusing glances at each other.
Remaining behind were Alana, Costia and Lexa. The three young sekons listened to their healer as she told them about how every month blood would come out of their bodies and it was life-giving blood and sacred, but you had to wear a weird cloth in your pants for a week while it happened so you didn't get blood everywhere. Corin gave two to Alana. It was essentially a thick piece of cloth, and Corin said every day Alana should switch it out in the evening and wash it and then again in the morning. Their healer then told them that for the first several times, it might not come every month, and that it shouldn't really hurt but after a few years their stomachs might feel like they were knotted and twisted and that these were their bodies going through the motions of having a baby without actually having a baby and that they were quite painful and the only way to really get around it would be to chew the inner bark of the willow, which was a painkiller, and that they could heat up a piece of hide over the fire and put it over their stomach and that would also help.
Costia, Lexa and Alana were confused through this whole talk. "Will the boys get moon-blood?" Alana asked at the end.
"No, they won't," Corin said with a roll of her eyes and a laugh.
"Do they get anything?" Alana said, her brows furrowing.
"No," Corin said with a half-smile.
"What?! That's not fair!" Alana shot back with a frown.
"No, it isn't," Corin said. "So we get them back two ways: with the satisfaction of knowing we can take much more pain than they can, and when they get too annoying, we get them back with a swift knee to the balls."
The three sekons looked at each other as Corin laughed at her own joke. "Ah, the boys will learn quickly not to mess with us when we have our moon-blood. You'll probably understand when you're a little older."
And with that, the healer left the sekons tent and from then on the male sekons had to sleep on one side of the tent and the female sekons had to sleep on the other side, which meant Alana couldn't sleep with Janus and Sanse anymore, so Costia and Lexa would let her curl up with them on the colder nights.
Finally there was one day when the snow melted and never came back again, and this was the day Ophus started sleeping in the sekon's tent again. Upon his return the other sekons cheered, Reed running up to his friend and embracing him. Ophus still couldn't walk unassisted. His legs would be forever knobbed and twisted, but he could make time with a set of wooden crutches that Dain, one of the other geda had made him. And even though he couldn't really fight, Ophus' job became nursing the significant bruises the sekons emerged with, because fighting with weapons will leave bigger bruises than fighting with hands. And Ophus was remarkably deft with healing as his hands became more dextrous and he had more time to practice the skills. He reached for plantain, willow bark, birch bark and cloves and make pain fade, cuts heal faster and bruises eased.
And last of all, Lexa would take Naya on long runs through the forest, practicing shooting her bow and throwing her spear from horseback, and later on, sweeping her staff at straw targets she had made herself. Ever since that day, Naya and Lexa had a bond between them unlike anything Lexa had ever known. Her horse was smart, smarter than most and Lexa finally knew just how smart she was. They progressed to the point where Naya could practically read Lexa's mind and with a gentle shift of weight or the slightest of taps with her heel Naya would turn and go. And Lexa could practically think of stopping and Naya would slow. But her horse was sensitive to danger, dodging trees Lexa didn't see, skirting unknown cliffs and avoiding loose stone her rider had failed to catch. And Lexa would treat her horse with a long grooming, washing her mare down from nose to tail, brushing out her mane and tail and combing her fur until it shone in the sunlight. And when she released Naya into the pasture, her horse would take off, running through the grass and bucking off her energy, galloping past the younger horses despite her 12 years.
And the days ran together and plodded on until before Lexa knew it, another year had looped in on itself as she was absorbed in the busy life of a heda sekon, going to meetings, training, and twice a year, seeing the rest of the tregedakru on the equinox meetings, celebrating the solstices and the springtime sun emergence, the feast day in may, the midsummer festival, the harvest celebration in the fall. Suddenly her village wasn't the youngest sekons as she went to the equinox meetings and met the new batch of sekons, the young ten year olds spunky and naive. They would learn. And as the days looped together, around and through, the months began to approach Lexa's fourteenth year as the summer began to come to an end once again.