Chapter 8: Training Day One

Wolf looked surprised and fumbled the suit when she unexpectedly threw it at him.  He bent down to pick it up while Zena pulled all of her blades out of their sheaths and laid them carefully on a small wooden table to the side of the arena.  Once he got the suit on, he felt like a large balloon.  He called out to Zena, “How am I supposed to move in this stupid thing??” Zena held back a laugh and remained silent as she watched him attempt to waddle out into the arena.  He looked peculiarly like a large black marshmallow.  She had to turn away, wondering if that was how she had looked when Jaenes was training her.   When Wolf finally made it out into the center of the arena, she handed him a small faux blade and he placed it in a plastic sheath at his hip.  She pulled the cage of his helmet down and stepped back.

                “What do we do now?” Wolf asks. 

Zena crouches into a fighting stance with an identical faux blade. Wolf gives a surprised look and attempts to do the same.  Taking pity on him and remembering how it felt to have to wear a similar suit, she sighs and stands back up, telling him to take off the suit and put it by her blades.  When he gets over to the table, he eyes the blades, slowly reaching his hand out to touch the nearest one.  He could tell by the way that the blades were well taken care of that his new mentor favored and even cherished her blades.  As he delicately ran his finger down the blade of a large ornately carved blade, it shone in the sunlight.  He ran his finger down the edge and, without feeling any pain, caused a small, paper-cut like laceration on the pad of his finger.  He shivered as he thought about how many lives could have been taken by the blades.

                “Are you just about done, Mr. Wolf?” Zena asked, coming up behind him silently.  Wolf jumped and bumped the table dangerously close to the edge of the table.  With reflexes quicker than he had ever expected a human to possess, Zena snatched the blade off the table, nudged him out of the way, laid the blade back down in the exact position it had previously been in. 

                “Ready to get back to your training Wolf, or are you expecting to learn on your own terms?” Zena scoffed as she stalked across the dusty arena.

Wolf hurried to catch up with her, hoping he hadn’t blown his chance to get on his new mentor’s good side.  She tossed a lighter suit consisting of a mask and a chest pad.

When he was ready, she once again returned to the battle stance. She crouched low and held her faux blade at the ready.  He copied her awkwardly, moving as if there were lead in his veins instead of blood. In one fluid movement, he was on his back, and she had one heel on his chest, with her elbow on that same knee, the faux blade beneath his chin. His eyes widened.  Unsure how he got there, he allowed his head to drop back to the dusty ground and a small puff of dust swirled up around his head like a pillow.  He inwardly wondered what kind of a person would wear heels in battle, but was afraid to ask. 

                Zena sighed and then back stepped to allow him to rise.  She could tell that she would have her work cut out for her, and silently praised Jaenes for being able to train so many apprentices on his own.

Reviews

[Meat of Dog]

Good chapter. Zena is demanding and hard, but not cold. I can imagine her develop emotions toward Wolf, be they romantic or motherly. She's also good at speaking in a way that might rile his feathers. I like the duo that you have formed and hope they keep working together for a while (she needs a break from the isolation). I also think that her wearing heels is a nice touch' training in shoes like that would be like high altitude training. She would be amazing in regular shoes after that.

other suggestions:
-"(we’ll call her by her protected name now in order to keep things straight)" This kind of sentence is unneeded. We understand that she has two names because it has been clearly stated, so the reader Isnt' really getting confused.
-Saw some breaks in the past tense.
-I was a little confused by the suit thing. It seemed like there was not real use for it that even warranted mention. Perhaps cut that part out all together and go straight to the lighter suit? Otherwise, it would held to give a little more back ground on what the bulkier suit is for and why she chose not to use it.

[Thomas Sawyer]

Apart from switching perspective mid-chapter which i talked about earlier, i think you should use a constant name. Use Zena, you can mention her real name, sometime in the text but it's better to stick to a name.

[E.H. Monroe]

Try and keep your verbs in the past tense. It gets confusing for the reader if there is a bunch of shifts.
The lead in his veins instead of blood is an interesting way to show the audience he was slow instead of just saying…he’s slow.
The sequence is full of intrigue. Mentor and student, one to come up and take the other’s place. I’m always an advocate of chapters being longer. For WC, longer seems to work against most, because no one wants to sit and read. But for cats like me who enjoy the longer, I’d like to see more of the awkward training, more of the speed of the mentor and the traning sequence as a whole.
So far so good, just consider expanding

[Coyote Poetry]

A very good chapter. She is a nice instructor. I failed Soldiers for less. Training is a hard task. Think what the Drill Sgt. training the Soldiers who are doomed to go to war feel? No pity in training. Age can slow down a person. Sometime must work on someone strengths then weaknesses. A very good ending to this chapter.
Coyote