I panted,darting around Kevin's arm and holding my knife against his neck, not letting the win distract me. I quickly brought my other one in between his ribs. "Very good, little Kore, very good."
I smirked, stepping back and swiping the loose hairs away from my face. It had been a week since I'd brought up Eric and Four's response to my friendship with Kevin, and he hadn't seemed
bothered, claiming only that my instructors were aware of the dangerous people within the faction. It strongly implied that Kevin believed himself one of these people, and judging by Four
and Eric's reactions they did too. It should have worried me but instead, I was comforted by theknowledge that he was helping me.Kevin had done his best to fulfil my request for fighting multiple people but he never seemed to leave his tunnels and my friends weren't bothered enough by the obvious gap in our learning to come I had pestered Cassius and Archie into attacking me in the training room and had resulted
in some nasty bruising that proved I was entirely unprepared. I tried to consider I hadn't wanted to hurt my friends and thought during a real fight I would have used dirty tactics like going for the
eyes, but the truth was simply It was extremely difficult to watch your own back.
A chuckle pulled me from my thoughts, "Little Kore, how has your fear of falling improved?"
A smile stretched across my face, the only sim I'd had since my one dangling from the hub to do with heights, was the one yesterday, which was me hanging from one of the metal ridges that
crossed the chasm, I knew the fear might look like I was afraid of falling to the instructors viewing it, but I had known that the feet that had stomped on my fingers had been what I was
truly afraid of. On one hand, I hated that I was afraid of Thaddeus, but on the other, I had known at that moment that the distance from the ground had not even entered my kind, I wasn't afraid
anymore, it seemed my conditioning had done its job.I'd exited the sim having done extremely badly. My usual time of under 2 minutes had stretched
to 4 twice as long to get a better grip avoiding the shoes stomping down and to calm my heart, but I'd sat up with a smile stretching over my face, I could tell both Four and Eric were confused
by my reaction, but I wasn't about to explain, I'd conquered my fear of heights, not I needed to beat Thaddeus.
"Fan-tastically." I answered Kevin's question, "I'm not afraid anymore - And!-" I added on excitedly, bounding to grab his hand and pull him along the tunnels, heading for the moon cave,
"That's not the only thing I'm not scared of anymore. Look!" I released him as the dark cave into sight, and I bolted across the stones towards the pale while object, kneeling down I gingerly held it, not out of fear, but respect, once I had seen the bones as a memory of life rather than an echo of danger, the terror that had previously seized me didn't return."Very good, little one. How many fears do you have now?"
I'd had a few more show up in the week ones I hadn't known about, drowning, a fear I suspected came from my tumble into the river, being confined in a very small space, which was eerily similar to being buried in the casket. I knew if I was planning on trying to condition myself to those two, it would not be fun. Then there were the ones I knew were coming, Being strapped to a chair, restrained and helpless, my father no doubt would make a separate appearance, and needles, although I suspected due to my exposure to them they would be incorporated in my fear with my father.
I counted them aloud, "Falling, and the skulls I'm good with now-" Or at least I could calm my heart rate pretty much as soon as I orientated myself in the sim, "I've still got Thaddeus, being buried alive, small tight spaces, chairs, needles, my father." I looked up at him, "That's pretty good, right?"
Ge nodded "Yes good. Come to me when you think you are ready." I frowned. He was supposed to tell me when I was ready, I didn't even know what being ready meant or what I was supposed to be ready for. He saw my expression and elaborated, "There is more to Dauntless than you
believe little Kore, I think you will know."
I wanted to say I was ready now, my curiosity was eating away at me but I didn't, something in me told me to wait, I decided first I would decipher his last cryptic sentence. More to Dauntless. What did he mean by that? Thanking him for the lesson I followed him back to our training room, secretly hiding a few more coins for him to find, later on, then I made my way to go find Neil, I needed information and he was always a good bet.
ooOOooOOoo
