Pieces of Time

Ch 15: Chronomancy

There was no way Kali was getting back down that mountain that day. 

Shortly after she and Link returned to the camp, she was practically dozing off in the middle of packing her things.  Her head nodded as she faded in and out of sleep while she sat cross legged, packing her soiled clothes into her pack. 

It had dawned on the party, with confused amusement, that she didn't sleep at all the night before. 

"Nightmares," she claimed blearily, trying to keep a pink blush from creeping up her neck. 

The group decided after she'd slumped over on her bed roll to just let her sleep for a few hours.  Kiden, however departed from them.  The hot springs healing properties were only effective when the water was kept warm in ceramic jugs. 

Anju decided to follow him back down the mountain path, claiming that she was already late getting back and needed to tend to the cuccos. 

Later that day, Impa piled everyone's bags onto Kali's back. 

"Training is back in session," her teacher declared, smirking down at her. 

Kali fought a groan as she adjusted all the bags on her shoulders, knowing that if she complained the exercise would only be made worse.  Impa made her jog down the mountain path.

Link smiled at her sympathetically, then followed them at the back of the small group.  At least she wasn't alone, but she'd probably be the only one who was miserable.

Impa did indeed mean that training was back in session, because the week that followed was hell. 

Kali felt like she'd started all over again. It was warmer now, so her runs and resistance exercises had her drenched with sweat.  Her hand to hand striking drills left her unable to breath. 

The following week, Impa started on weapons training and it was much more intense than before.  With Link lingering around the village more often, Impa dragged him into training sessions to be Kali's sparring partner. 

At first, while she was still learning the techniques of wielding one sword, it was nothing but drilling the movements with Impa or Link matching her pace.  Then one day Link arrived with a round wooden shield in hand.  Impa had sent him on the errand to retrive it to begin her shield and sword training.

The techniques were wildly different.  The shield felt foreign on her arm.  Her shoulder muscles burned at the weight of holding it up. 

At times, Impa trained with her personally, both of them wielding dual daggers and nothing else.  Those sessions were especially ruthless. Impa showed her no mercy, and knocked her down again and again and again until Kali had no choice but to react quickly, or risk getting her ass kicked. 

When she wasn't training in combat, she was in her room, practicing her time manipulation abilities in secret. 

She wasn't sure how the others would react to actually seeing it, and wanted to feel some semblance of control when she finally addressed it with the others.  Kali chose to keep running the exercise by marking a paper with an X, and focusing on reversing the X until it was blank paper again. 

She found out that pushing the limits of her abilities gave her a fierce headache.  Once her nose even began to bleed. 

When she burst out of her room, her hand covered in blood Impa thought they were under attack.  Kali waved her off and said she'd smacked her head off the posts of her bed while napping.  It wasn't a very convincing lie.

She would change up her exercises to get a feel of how else time could be manipulated.  She would toss a piece of paper up into the air and try to make it freeze.  This exercise was easier, since she had done it before on a much larger scale on the twins during her escape.