Warrior of the Moon

9

Serena and Will bonded over the following days, thanks to their vested interest in returning home. Each morning, Serena would bound out of bed before him - which surprised her, as she had always imagined that warriors as disciplined as the Wolves would be used to getting up at the crack of dawn - and announce to the room that they only had 5 days left... 4 days left... 3 days left... only 2 more...

They did everything they could to prepare. Though they should not have been able to bribe their way into a hotel room with a golden coin from another Realm, Will somehow made it happen, and Serena snuck her way past the front desk with one of Lyla's hoodies pulled up over her head. Her disappearance was still fresh enough that most people in her old town or any of the surrounding communities would stand a chance at recognizing her, and it was something they could not risk.

Since she could not leave the hotel for just any reason, Isaiah would make his way to them during the days while Lyla was at school, and they would shove the two beds in the hotel room against the walls to try to make as much space as possible. It was not ideal, but it was better than nothing.

She started with Isaiah most days, who was best at teaching her defensive moves, focusing mainly on ways to turn her rival's weight against him, seeing as she would likely be much smaller than most Infernals trying to attack her. Her lessons with him reminded her of her self-defense unit in gym class, where she was taught techniques like fingers-in-eye-sockets and knees-in-groins. Now that she knew she might be fighting for her life sooner than later, however, the lessons were far more intense, and she was in no way inclined to hold back.

Will did not seem as afraid to rough her up as Isaiah was. He would explain a move as he slowly demonstrated it using Isaiah as a dummy, then would tell Serena to try on him. The problem was, he always managed to deflect her. She would try to roll around him, and would find herself nearly falling on her face as his foot tripped her up. She would break one wrist free from his hold only to suddenly be dangling in the air by his grip on her other. Once, just out of spite, she aimed a kick at his groin. He grabbed her ankle in midair and twisted her around until she was hopping on one foot and feeling like an idiot.

By the third day in the hotel, though, she really was making some progress. She could throw a good series of punches that were more likely to hit Isaiah than Will, but that was only to be expected with Will's reflexes. Will had taught her the importance of using all of her limbs as points of attack, not just to focus on her hands and feet. Her head, her elbows, her knees, could all be just as useful, and it would serve her well to remember it, as there was always a chance her ankles and wrists could end up bound one day.

She began to learn that she had been born to be a fighter; or at least that everything she had been born with helped her in that quest. She was fast, and strong, and flexible - even when stuck in the human world. She mastered kicks and rolls as well as she could in her three day time slot, and Will even taught her how to flip, which was something she simply had not believed she would be able to do until she tried it.

There were evidently a lot of things she could thank her Fae heritage for, and was more excited than ever to go back to the Realm and see how much better she would be once she was touched by magic again. While trapped here, she was at the mercy of human constraints, and magic could not find her without killing her. But even a Fae in the human world was more powerful in most ways than a human was. It was just in her blood.

When she was not training, she and Will were planning ahead as far as they could. They had had their pack stocked for days in case their Portal landed them somewhere other than the lake's shore, had watched the news diligently to try to get an exact estimate on when the full moon would be at its peak, and decided where they would go to enter Muiress' realm.