Her Pride

The Assessment

I take a deep breath and instantly recognize the smell of bacon. I slowly sit up and look around. The other half of the bed is empty and messy. I push the rest of the thin blanket off of me. I stand up and begin to move across the cold wooden floor towards the door of the bedroom that has been left open just a crack.

"Morning Embers" I hear as I reach the door. I peek through and see Scattered Leaves making breakfast in the kitchen wearing just his jeans from yesterday.

"Morning Leaves" I say and open the door fully and walk out. He turns around and hands me a plate full of food. I take it and sit on the couch and begin to munch on my pancakes.

"How is it?" he asks as he joins me. I take another bite and savour the amazing taste of the fluffy pancake.

"Can you do this every morning?" I ask jokingly and he laughs.

"Only when I sleep over" he says and I smile. I quickly finish my food and head back to my room. I search through the drawers and then the closet to see what I have to wear.

"Your going to want to look in the third drawer for what we are doing today" I hear Scattered Leaves call from outside the door. I walk back over to the drawers and open the bottom one again. I find a large amount of sports bras and matching shorts.

I pull the first pair on and look in the large mirror above the dresser. The black shorts with a neon pink stripe on the hip fit fairly well. The black and pink bra also fit pretty well but I would rather not show off this much of my stomach.

"May I enter?" Scattered Leaves asks and knocks on the door.

"Sure" I say and begin to brush my hair with a hairbrush I found in one of the drawers. He enters the room and stops as he sees me.

"Do I look that bad?" I ask as my face goes red and I put my brush down.

"Not at all, you look amazing" he says still standing in the doorway. He walks in and picks up my brush and begins to brush my hair back into a ponytail.

"Thank you" I say when he finishes with my hair. I turn around as he places the brush on the dresser behind me. His face is close to mine but he tries nothing. I find comfort in his closeness but all too soon it is gone as he moves away.

"Come on, we must begin your training" he says and walks out the door. I follow him out of the house and we wonder through the little village in the trees. We come to the rope ladder that we climbed up when I first got here.

"The training grounds is a little ways away so we have to either change and move through the trees like everyone else or we walk" he says.

"We change" I say without leaving room for an argument. He smiles knowing that I accepted his challenge and changes into a red-tailed hawk. I think of myself as a hawk as well and allow myself to change. I open my eyes and see his hawk has already taken off. I stretch my wings and flap them twice and then take off after him.

I race through the trees after Scattered Leaves. I manage to catch up to him after a few moments. He sees me and swerves off to the side. I launch after him and dodge trees as we go. He suddenly slows and I look ahead of me. In a panic I turn to the right and fly back towards Scattered Leaves just before I hit a wooden wall.

He flies around the side of the wall and I follow him again. We land on the railing of the little wooden platform high off the ground and change back.

"Okay let us begin" he says and stretches out his arms above his head.

"What exactly are we doing?" I ask as I look around. I watch as a few children about the age of ten swing through the trees a little ways away. All through the trees around this area are a few more platforms and a lot of rope hanging down and around the trees.