Chapter Seven; Leanunya

In the morning Leanunya stood and stretched. She had stayed up most of the night making sure Nagos was warm enough and to keep predators away. She looked at the still sleeping nagos and went to him, shaking him.

"Time to get up, come on. Your training starts." Nagos opened his eyes and looked at her. She spoke, "You'll be getting up at dawn from now on, ok?" Nagos nodded after sitting up and stretching out.

Leanunya watched him calmly as he got up. She nodded "come on let's go out. You'll only get breakfast after fifty laps around the shack." She then left the shack and entered the cold air of the forest making her fur fluff up in response. She looked at Nagos who shivered and was holding his hurt arm. She spoke, "get going." Nagos nodded and started to walk around the shack. Leanunya spoke "you get to have ten laps of walking to warm up the rest of the laps you either run or jog or no breakfast."

Leanunya saw Nagos nod and continued to walk. She nodded and walked over to one of the bodies of the zarowls. She took her dagger and stripped a large chuck of meat off. She then took the meat to the shack and the fire pit. She grabbed an old metal wok and put it over the fire. She cut the meat up into chunks and put it in the wok before leaving the shack seeing Nagos start to jog. She nodded her approval before going to gather some edible plants and some water.

She knew a stream that wasn't far from the shack and wasn't afraid or concerned about leaving Nagos alone. She walked carrying a watering bag she had once made from the skin of a skiniuna. It was a large warm blooded snake-like creature. It's skin was the best to make clothes or bags out of. She reached the stream and filled the bag before gathering some nearby mushrooms and wild onions. Leanunya then headed back.

She walked calmly and reached the shack. She looked at the jogging Nagos and nodded before she entered the shack and went to the fire pit. Leanunya added some water to the wok and then chopped up the onions and mushrooms before adding them. She knew her wild plants extremely well and so was able to make her own poisons and eat what she wanted since she knew what was poisonous or not. Although she had become resistant to most poisons due to her tasting plants to eat.

She put the water bag to the side for later and stirred the food in the wok cooking it. Leanunya cooked while keeping an eye of Nagos and counting his laps. At first it may not seem like she was paying attention but if one looked at her closely they could tell she was.

She was subtly watching Nagos from the corner of her eyes everytime he passed the door. She was also attentively listening to him. She wanted to make sure he got in all his laps so he could build his leg strength and Stamina. If he couldn't do this she would completely give up on him and send him back home.

She may have promised to protect him but if he couldn't build his Stamina then she would not protect him. She had one rule that trumped all others; if one could not grow then they had no hope. It could also be phrased into; strength is power. Leanunya respected strength but also understood that there were weaker people that needed to be protected. She was picky though. She agreed children were those that needed to be protected.

Although, she also knew that overly protecting children would hamper their growth. If this growth was hampered it could mean the child would amount to nothing or be a foolish adult. In this world strength and power was respected. Although, there is the rare case when that's not true. Most often that only happened with elderly people who had lots of knowledge which would be considered power. The ones who had real power though were those in the underworld but only those at the top.

Leanunya had power and lots of it but her power was only rudimentary in comparison to others. This was because of her inability to settle down in any one place. The reason for that was due to Wolferan who was constantly chasing after her. She barely ever got the chance to stay in a town for longer than a few weeks or if she was lucky a month or two. She didn't know how he always knew where she was and was starting to suspect she had some kind of identity in the underworld.

She had looked into him but only found a few rumors about him being immortal and he was a bounty hunter. This made him even more mysterious to her and she wanted to find out more. She just couldn't though. She only knew about the few rumors and what she had learned about him from running from him for so long. But, the same could be said of her.

Leanunya had very little information about herself in the public. If one looked they would only find the false names she used and what they thought she was, as well as her crimes. If they looked for more they wouldn't be able to find it. She had to say it was a blessing they thought her a cattrina otherwise they would've been able to find out more about her. She was glad for the misunderstanding that the people had about her. It allowed her to be more free in her everyday life. Although she still had to worry about Wolferan catching her.

Thinking of such things she really only considered Wolferan and the king to be threats to her. The king was a threat because of his decree seven years ago. Wolferan was a threat because she could sense he was dangerous and he was hunting her. For you to be a threat to her, you had to be dangerous or have power and was using it to threaten her. Leanunya didn't care if one was a top class assassin trying to kill her or a demon; if they didn't have the strength to pull it off they weren't a threat. But if they gave her the sense of danger then they would be a threat.

She really only saw things in black or white. If you were good to her you were a good person even if you killed many people. If you were mean to her she saw you as a bad person and even if you were a good person she would consider you a bad person. If they were 'bad' enough she would even go as far as to kill them. She saw things very differently than most. So in this way she was still quite childish. But she was getting better in this aspect.

She could tell if someone was just trying to use her or get cozy with her. She would consider those people to be bad though it was getting better. She now had a grey area though it was meant for those she didn't interact with. She was smart enough to know when others were pretending and when they weren't but she still had some childish concepts. She could act when she needed but only for her own benefit. She was quite a selfish person.

She shook her head free of her thoughts and focused. She finished cooking and looked at Nagos. He was only short two laps by now and so she waited until he was done. Once he finished she called him in to eat. She could see Nagos was panting tiredly as he came in slowly. Leanunya nodded softly and gave him a cup of water and a bowl of food. She watched as he drank the water and ate his food after catching his breath.

Leanunya ate her own bowl of food before speaking, "Nagos, we are starting your training and every morning you will run laps. After breakfast we will go hunting after I teach you how today. You will hunt until noon. After noon, you will climb trees until you are proficient, then you'll learn to fight" she looked at Nagos who nodded. Leanunya spoke, "it will not be easy and there is a high chance you will die so take it seriously." She heard Nagos reply timidly, "y-yes." Leanunya nodded and stood. "Let's start"