The Best Present (An ACOTAR fanfiction)

Chapter 23

The next day...K
Today was the first day of Diana and Catalina's training. Rhys and Azriel had some political stuff to do, so they weren't going to be there, but Mor and Cassian would be there to teach. Lucien and Raelia were on a date. Karshia was there to help teach moves she knew, and learn the ones she didn't know. I brought Astria and Cayden first, handing them them to Mor and Cassian before going to the KK House to pick up Diana and Catalina. They were dressed in comfortable athletic clothes, good for putting armor over. I brought them to the training room of the townhouse. Cassian made them do a couple pushups and sit ups, along with a lap around the training room to warm up.

"Alright, now that you're warmed up, show me what you got," Cassian said. I took my kids from Mor so that she could go to stand beside Cassian and see their moves. The two girls looked nervous.

"Girls, do you want me to set up the dummies? You can just show them what I saw the other day," I said, hoping to relax them a bit. They looked at each other, considering.

"Sure," Catalina said. "Thanks, Aunt Feyre." I nodded. I put the kids in their little rocker chairs, and I went to set up the dummies. Karshia helped me. I set them up in concentric circles like I saw them last time. I moved out of the ring while Catalina and Diana went back to back.

"Ready?" I called. They nodded. "Okay...go!" The girls sprang into action. Just like last time, Catalina used her daggers to take out two or three dummies, Diana doing the same with her sword. The first ring of dummies were on the ground. Catalina's black energy shot out of her hands, taking out the second row, Diana using a shield to deflect the energy off her and direct it to other dummies. The last two rows remained, and they did their same move. Catalina ran and jumped, thrusting herself upwards, landing on Diana's platform of hard air, then jumping and landing on one knee, a wave of black energy spreading out and knocking down the remaining dummies.

"Wow. That was awesome," Cassian said applauding. "You obviously know how to handle your powers, which is good. You both are good with your chosen weapons, but I think you could be so much better. Today we are going just going to practice using a sword. For both of you. Catalina, I can see you prefer daggers, and that's great. Daggers are a very hard weapon to master. But I want both of you to be able to fight with multiple weapons." Both girls nodded. "Aunt Mor will teach you today, because she is quite good, and she has been training Aunt Karshia for the past few weeks." The girls nodded again. I walked into the ring to clear away the dummies while Cassian showed the girls what kinds of swords there are and how you hold them, and showed the girls what kind of sword would be best for them to learn. They started learning moves, taught by Mor. I rocked the kids' chairs while calling out encouraging remarks and occasionally walking into the ring to show them how to master a technique or maybe show them a trick that helped me learn. After four hours, they were both pretty efficient with swords. If it ever arose, they could both fight off any sort of attacker. They picked things up faster than normal, but I suppose that's because they'd already been training themselves. They were both exhausted though. I winnowed them back to the KK House, leaving Astria and Cayden with their aunts and uncles until I came back. As soon as the three of us walked through the door, Jeremiah and Ayden started questioning them.

"Where were you guys? We were looking for you all morning!" They both exclaimed in unison. It took a lot of effort to stifle my giggles. Both girls were blushing. I assumed they had made friends with the boys, and Jeremiah clearly liked Catalina, and I'm pretty sure she felt the same way. Maybe there was some romance between Diana and Ayden too. I stepped out of the shadows so they could see me.

"Au-aunt Feyre!" Jeremiah said nervously. "What are you doing here? Not that you can't be here, of course. I'm simply asking. No offense. Oh my go-" I cut him off with laughing.

"It's fine, Jeremiah. If you want to know where Catalina and Diana were, you have to swear to keep it a secret, though. Understand?" I asked. Both boys nodded.

"They were privately training with Aunt Mor and Uncle Cassian. They both are very good, and I thought it would be a good idea to train them. Maybe you can see them sometime, perhaps learn from them if you really want to," I said, quietly so no one else heard.

"Really?" Ayden whispered, in awe. "That is so cool!"

"Wow!" Jeremiah said. "I would love to see you guys!"

"Maybe one day, boys," Diana said. "We're super tired today."

"Yeah, of course not today, but some day. Um Aunt Feyre? Do they have training tomorrow?" Ayden asked, suddenly becoming shy.

"No, they don't. We decided on every other day." I was kind of curious.

"Why do you ask?" Catalina asked.

"Well, um, we were wondering," Jeremiah cleared his throat nervously. "Doyougirlswanttohavelunchwithustomorrowmaybe?" He blurted it out so fast even I barely understood what he said.

"What?" Diana said. Jeremiah looked down embarrassed. Ayden took over.

"Do you girls want to have lunch with us tomorrow?" Ayden asked, looking equally nervous. I bit my lip to keep from smiling and squealing. Catalina looked at Diana, both of them grinning ear to ear.

"We would love to!" They said in unison. Both boys looked instantly relieved, and Jeremiah hugged Catalina, and Ayden hugged Diana. Then they all looked at me.

"What?" I asked, clueless as ever.

"Can we go? Will that be okay?" Jeremiah asked.

"Oh, of course. That was the cutest thing I've ever seen. Of course you can go," I said smiling. They all blushed and smiled at each other respectively. "But you cannot tell anybody, because this will be the one time you're allowed to leave without a chaperone. And if you break my trust you won't be allowed to do it again. Okay?" They all nodded, making promises to be responsible. They skipped upstairs, Diana and Catalina going to take a shower and the boys were going to celebrate, I assumed. I winnowed back to the townhouse.

"My gosh, Feyre, what took you so long?" Cassian asked, the second I stepped into the sitting room. Both Cassian and Mor had showered. Karshia was sitting with her legs draped over Mor's, holding Astria and cooing at her. Cassian was playing with Cayden.

"Only the cutest thing ever!" I squealed, replying to Cassian's question. All of them looked confused. I told them about what I had just seen, and all of them giggled, saying how cute it was. I fed my kids, before the four of us ate lunch and waited for everyone else to come back from their various activities.

~