"Huff, huff...wait...wait for me..." Her hand stretched out, Lia begged us with a distorted face.
"Cmon, it's the last one." Filtiarn and I went and ran back, but not so that we could lower the pace down as she might want. It was to push the girl from the back and finish the last lap of our morning exercise.
"The first one is always the hardest, Lia. You'll do fine in about a month or so if we do this every day." I reassured her before putting more strength on my feet as I pushed her plump body further.
"Huff...Every...day...!?" Despite slumping down on the ground, I knew what horror Lia felt when she digested my words.
"Yeap, every day. Now toughen up; we're almost there." Lia ran, trembling hard, while she summoned the last spurt of strength and dragged her tired body along the heavy tiled ground.
She was there in the first place because she caught and followed us on the way to our exercise in the morning.
Lia, who always woke up at the crack of dawn, had so much time in the morning and decided to go run with us. She realized her own limit in the stamina department was severely lacking. Thus, she was all the more so determined not to be defeated every week by Killer-Bob's routine.
Furthermore, with Filtiarn and I to keep her company, she won't be as lonely in the morning—quote, Lia Jurtis.
I really could see the shadow of myself when Lance first decided to train me. It was almost run, run, and running some more, to the point of me doubting whether he's gonna taught something else other than running or not.
"Finally! Ahh...Let me just..." Lia hugged the ground like it was the most comfortable bed in the world.
"Let's start ours, Fil." Seeing that she was done for good, I called out Filtiarn.
Running at Lia's pace could be considered a good warm-up for us, but not enough to be called morning exercise.
Feeling the warm air escape the edge of my ears as I sped along the flat ground was refreshing and fun. Not to mention the challenge the venue posed as time passed by—it really got our blood pumping.
It was early in the morning, so the training ground was mostly empty. All the more reason I found the running enjoyable because there were fewer prying eyes there. It was only me, Filtiarn, and the quiet training ground that mattered at that moment...oh, and the defeated Lia too.
We kept running, squeezing every last bit of strength out of those muscles of ours. Similar to Lia, I sprawled on the ground in exhaustion when we were done running. Lia looked over and shook her head, absent of any words, as she saw the full length of the exercise.
"Barbara...? You guys always run like that?" Hesitant in her tone, Lia probed. "More than running normally, you guys were sprinting from start to end."
"Well, Huff... Back then, I used to run in the forest...It was harder because...huff...of the uneven ground...and the trees...You have to—" I tried to explain the best as I could, despite the gripping exhaustion.
"I get it, I get it." And Lia cut me off. "Just catch your breath first."
Minutes passed by, and Lia got up after recollecting much of her bearings, accompanied by the refreshing current of the morning's kiss.
"What you wanna do now? We still got lots of time before breakfast." Asked Lia.
"I'll do a couple sets of Divilizo, maybe?" I replied while studying the Rolos in my hand.
"You still want to train more?" Gasped Lia. "Really?"
"Yeah, I have lots of catching to do." I shrugged a shoulder at the baffled girl. 'I have to get stronger after all. The stronger, the better.'
YOU ARE READING
Barbara's Book of Fire
Fantasy'Kill her! Hang her!' 'Heed the promise and kill the demon's child!' 'She will curse and swallow us down to our very ashes! Like how she devoured her own parents!!' There were those who dread the girl... 'The wounds...I can't tell for sure, but she...
