Dancing with Deception

Dancing with Deception (8)

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Chapter 8 – Kiss and Make up?

As lunch ended we headed back outside, making our way to the edge of the forest around the back of the castle, which from this side was less than half a leagues walk.

Our weeks consisted of six days of training, physical work in the morning and classes in the afternoon, with one day off. The focus of this weeks afternoons had been on wilderness training, which I found to be a useless endeavor—after all, I never planned to be in a situation requiring such knowledge—but at least in this I wasn’t quite so behind as the others.

We had started off the week mapping out the forest. Split into small groups, each was sent off to different sectors of the wood to chart the area, seeking out waterways and landmarks, animal trails and places that would provide some shelter.

It had been a surprisingly pleasant afternoon with Clara as guide to myself and Ella.

For the first time I found myself enjoying the company of other girls as we wove our way through the trees. It was so unlike what I was used to at home, where the girls were always seizing one another up, making acquaintances based on who was most likely to marry well and had the best connections.

The concept of friendship was reserved for the townspeople, while those of us ladies were taught early on that friendships were temporary in nature, only useful so long as it was convenient or gave you some advantage.

Yet here I was, with the most unlikely of companions, whom I had already grown so close to we could convey our thoughts in a single look. Over the last two weeks calm and collected Clara had proved herself to be a helpless romantic, wistfully speaking of love in such poetic words we were forced to make fun of her for it as she glared at us both and despaired of ever finding it.

Ella had finally begun to be comfortable speaking up, shyly admitting how sheltered her life growing up had been and that she had never even spoken to a boy her own age, which we promised to remedy as soon as we could find one worthy enough.

During our afternoon classes they teased me lightly for trying to avoid patches of mud, which Clara happily jumped into, splattering herself nearly head to toe in the dirty water. Ella left us all astonished by nimbly climbing up a tree to scout the area.

The mapmaking took up the better part of two afternoons, at which point we had to combine everyone’s findings, learning how to give directions and orient ourselves in the forest. On the third day each team had to place a marker somewhere in their sector and give another team directions on how to get there. It had been both a race and a test to see which teams could best give and follow directions, as well as find their way back to the starting point. I found myself to be fiercely competitive in the challenge, desperate to prove I was not the worst in everything, and was rewarded when we were the third group to arrive back.