Training, lesson 2.

Thana had given Tess a few weeks to recover, she needed it. In the meantime Thana had spoken with some people she knew, fellow "Fratis" as Tess called them. They had confirmed and agreed with Thana about training Tess. Thana had taken 3 days away from school, an absence that was noted by most people, to go see an old friend. Maester Quantatatïshifuésous. , or as Thana called him. "Master Shifué " in the Tibetan Alps. It was good to catch up with  him, bit now she had a student to train.

Thana set up early, waiting up at the "Training Ground" She stood on one of the platforms and started her dance. It was Thana's Dance, really it wasn't a Dance at all. It was an elegant form of fighting, essentially. She had been taught the basics from Master Shifué, he had been her old Master and still for all purposes was.

Standing on the platform she started the routine, "Left Right, Up Down, Slide, Shift, Turn, " she started, elegantly moving and sliding. The ice made it slippery, but also more enjoyable. She didn't even notice as Tess arrived, she was into her routine. It was her individual routine, everyone had their own. Her's was graceful and elegant. But a trained eye could also see that it had the potential to be deadly.

The beginning of March made itself known with a little warmth from the sun, making the grounds feel more welcoming. Tess had taken advantage of the resting periods from her previous lessons to build up her strength. The first days she rested, taking long showers to warm her skin up, to sleeping when her time was free. But it was time for their second lesson, that much was clear as Thana had sent her an owl.

As usual, she put on her black sports bra and a pair of matching pants ready for the training. Lastly, a blue jacket that she zipped up and she was ready to go. She wondered what was next, and what more bruises and muscles would she use today. Biting her lip, she forced herself to calm down and walked down towards the fields mentally preparing herself for the absolute worse.

But as she finally reached their meeting spot, she stopped and looked as Thana was already training herself. Her eyes shined as she took in the display in absolute surprise. It was graceful, and definitely beautiful. Her eyes shined in glee thinking that maybe she could do this.

Thana sensed Tess arriving, and finished her dance. Remaining graceful she landed and walked over to Tess. "Morning Tess, I see you got my owl" Thana said, looking at her. Once again she was wearing the right clothing, Thana was happy with that.

"Once again I open the Lesson by asking if you have any questions" Thana offered, it was a nice day. A nice morning, March had finally come, the ice was thickening even more. Everyone and everything was being covered in ice, Thana thought it was beautiful.

As Thana finally noticed her being there, Tess murmured a greeting and approached her once she was done. At her observation of her getting the owl, she nodded and looked around. While the sun was high, the snow had in no way lessened, something that took her some time to understand when it came to this weather. She always preferred the weather in Madrid, Paris, or Rome, but years studying had gotten her used to it.

"Once again I open the Lesson by asking if you have any questions"

Tess mulled the question over and nodded.

"I'm guessing I'm learning to do that?" she asked curiously.

"I'm guessing I'm learning to do that?" Tess asked curiously.

Thana just shook her head. "No you will not be learning that, you will be learning a different one" Thana replied, "How did your bruises go? I apologize for them, I didn't mean to cause you pain" She said to Tess.

Once again Thana could see Tess was overthinking already, her facial expressions showed that to the trained eye. This was supposed to be educational, even ...fun..Not something to be thought over and hardly worth stressing about.

Tess hadn't had fun in a long time, in fact that word seemed foreign to her. The idea of happiness and her experiencing it, even more so her deserving seemed farfetched. Her mind slowly became more analytical more calculative in a way her parents were proud. Shutting down a few emotional triggers brought joy to her parents.

Thana's response to her question is what brought her back and reminded her to focus.

"No you will not be learning that, you will be learning a different one" Thana replied, "How did your bruises go? I apologize for them, I didn't mean to cause you pain"

Looking down at herself she shrugged. The bruises had just formed around her abdomen and her knees but now the had disappeared, as for the soreness, a warm batch had done the trick.

"No need to apologize, pain demands to be felt anyways. It feels like..like I did something, but the bruising wasn't bad"

Removing her jacket, she threw it to the side and looked at her determined.

"Where do we start?"

S o where do we start? Tess asked, " wow they aren't usually this eager" Thana thought to herself.

" We'll first off a warmup, I am assuming you can fly right?" Thana enquired of Tess, she had brought two broomsticks down. Both were firebolt 2's the 3's hadn't been released yet.

At the mention of her flying, Tess was in no way opposed to that. There were many things that she thought she was good at, and flying was nearly at the top of the list. She felt natural in the sky, hell she was one of the swiftest chasers if she said so herself. She always represented Slytherin in every game, never once being one to stay in the shadows when a game happened.

"We'll first off a warmup, I am assuming you can fly right?"

"I'm a natural" she said honestly.

If this was a way to boost her ego, it was possibly working. As Thana showed her the broom, Tess grinned seeing that it was the exact same type as her usual broom. Ignoring the fact that it wasn't shined or painted a sleek black like hers was, it would definitely do.

Straddling the broom she kicked off, waiting for the lesson to really begin.

Thana watched as Tess kicked off, following her up on the other broomstick. It wasn't her personal one, just a few spares she had bought at the beginning of the year.

"Wanna make it a comp? " Thana called out, and pulling out a snitch. "Loser has to do twenty pushups, sound good to you?" she asked, watching at how natural Tess really was.

It felt good to be back on a broom, she hadn't decided if she was going to join the Ravenclaw Quidditch team or not. She still practiced anyway, in her own time. And now with Tess.

Tess wasn't a Seeker by any means, but she had flown second string when needed in games before Grey joined, so she felt comfortable with it. While it wasn't her Quaffle, she knew she was an experienced flyer, as three years in the team had taught her, and as Josh had pushed her to be.

While the thought of doing push ups was painful, she felt compelled to agree. She was good at this, she was confident and something about it told her to do it.

"A competition? That sounds fine with me" she agreed.

She stretched out her body, similar to a cat, ready to fly whenever it was let go.

"I'm ready" she said smirking. The first real spark of something in her.

Thana watched as Tess got ready, she knew that she wasn't a seeker but everyone knew how to catch the snitch. When Tess said she was ready Thana just smiled.

"I hope you are " Thana said releasing the Snitch, watching it zoom around. Thana got ready and let Tess fly after it first, Thana closed her eyes and tried to sense the Snitch.

The snitch they were using wasn't a normal one. Thana had bought a set of balls specially for Tess, in them she had placed water. She would try with the Snitch first, seeing if Tess could sense the water in it. It was a fun way to train and warm up at the same time. Thana had no intention of telling Tess what she had done. It was up to her to figure it out.

As Thana released the snitch, Tess' brown eyes sharpened and trailed the snitch. Once it flew off, she was right behind it, not even bothering to look back. In her mind set all that mattered was catching it. It was after a minute did she notice something was off. It moved....differently than a regular snitch did. For one thing it didn't just fly and pause like it usually did when on the field. It was off, rather than hovering it moved, like a pattern, fluid and yet without the purpose that a regular snitch did.

She stopped for a minute, studying it as it floated around, rather than hovering and tilted her head wondering what was off. The wheels in her head were turning and she wondered what the hell was off with it. Turning back she noticed that Thana hadn't even bothered to move, instead looked like she was meditating.

'It's not a normal snitch, it's a trick' her mind screamed.

She tried to copy Thana's movement, trying desperately to try and wrap her brain around how similar it was. It was then that she realized that something was off. Her mind was all dark, completely, until she felt a light pull towards something. As if some part of her was dragging her one way.

Thana watched as Tess noticed she wasn't moving, she could see Tess's mind ticking away. When Tess finally started to figure it out Thana moved she had sensed it enough , she chased the snitch. Making it move, even though it had water in it, it was still a snitch.

Using her senses she tried to catch it, even though Thana knew it wasn't a normal snitch it was still hard to catch. She stopped again when she lost sight of it, reaching out with her mind to find it again.

Unfortunately Thana had stopped upside down, it made her look hilarious she was sure. Hanging upside down, both legs hung over the broomstick. Not moving. "Come on Tess, your supposed to catch the Snitch!" She yelled out, her eyes still closed as Tess zoomed past her.

Tess' mind desperately tried to search for what the thing that was pulling her was. It felt natural, innate really how it tugged at her. Her mind finally echoed a noise, dripping, a steady drip like a leaky faucet, and it echoing in her mind. Slowly did it start appearing in her mind, a blue aura, floating from place to place, teasing her in a way that amuse her.

"Come on Tess, your supposed to catch the Snitch!"

Her eyes opened and she looked to see Thana hanging upside down, feet ahead of her. She frowned, as the girl looked relaxed even hanging backwards.

'She's distracting you!' her mind screamed.

Immediately the pieces began to go together and it was the snitch. The Snitch! That called to her and the moment it made sense, Tess zoomed off. Now rather than ignoring the tug, she let it lead her. She should have known there was more to this lesson than a flying warm up. Now that she caught on, what interested her was actually catching it.

Thana watched as Tess finally got the point of the excercise. She smiled to herself and flew back to the ground.

It was up to Tess now, it wasn't up to Thana if she caught the Snitch or not. Thana sat on the ground, using her Isolde to think. She sent herself out, leaving her body behind.

This was her latest idea, thought projection of sorts. She wanted to project her Isolde out. She could send it to another person, an summon up a decent size orb. But she wanted more, she didn' pay attention to Tess, leaving her to her own task.

Soon Thana got tired of trying, and came back to her body. Tess was still out of sight, so Thana just sat. Observing the world around her.

Tess was oblivious of the whole idea of Thana doing her own thing. She was curious as to how the snitch was enchanted some way, but her mind forgot about the training and instead focused on the snitch. It was the Quidditch player in her that pushed her towards grabbing it.

Pulling the broom upwards, she followed the snitch over the trees. And lowered her body as she was coming towards it. Her eyes were bright in excitement as she slowly slid downwards, her left hand reaching out to try and grab the snitch, as the rest of her limbs were tightly wrapped around the broom.

Catching the snitch, Tess grinned triumphantly, her breathing heavy from the adrenaline pumping. Pulling herself up, she flew back to Thana, the snitch gripping tightly.

Thana sat on the ground, waiting for Tess.  Finally she came back, Thana heard the landing of the broom. Thana could see Tess had caught the snitch, but that wasn't the warmup. "Well?" Thana asked, enquiring of Tess.

"Looks like were about to ready to begin" Thana said, hoping Tess had forgotten about the loser having to do 20 pushups, Thana tried distracting Tess so she wouldn't remember.

As Tess landed she showed the snitch proudly to Thana. The girl didn't even bother following it and it somewhat annoyed her considering that she was treating it like a competition. Still, the way she moved onwards to the next thing reminded her that the girl was ignoring something important.

"Isn't the loser supposed to do push ups?" she said lifting her brow in amusement.

Tess was horrible with doing push ups, she hated the whole process, but in no way did it mean she would deprive someone of dealing with the annoyance of doing them.

"First you do them, then we get to training"

Thana sighed as she was told she had to do the Pushups, ''Bugger" she said again, obviously Tess didn't understand what she meant. "How did you go?" Thana asked again, standing up, then falling down to the ground. Purposely, she started her pushups. After she did three with two hands, she just did the rest with one, taking hardly any time at all.

"Well come on, lets get you started" Thana said to her friend, putting her broom back on a rock. SHe walked over to one of the ice slabs, and stood on top of it waiting.

As Thana began to do the push ups, Tess smirked seeing her doing them. They looked easy as she did them, but she didn't care, so long as she wasn't the one doing them. As Thana asked the question Tess shrugged and put the snitch in the satchel.

"It was like a warm up for practice, you know minus the whole water thing. I have to admit it was ingenious to do that, but it was nice to feel it rather than just rely on eyesight"

Putting the broom down, Tess followed and climbed on the opposing one staring at her curiously, wondering when they were starting.

Thana watched as Tess mimicked her movements, she nodded. "You know you have an unfair advantage when it comes to quidditch" Thana said, instructing Tess on the starting position. "What are clouds made of?" she asked, seeing if Tess knew anything about water cycles.

"Start with your legs slightly apart, and take deep breaths" Thana instructed, showing how she wanted Tess to stand. "Then mimic me" Thana said, doing a basic movement. First she moved her arms in a graceful swing, then slid her leg out making her gracefully and slowly go down into an almost split. "Try mimic that movement" she told Tess. It would be hard, the ice may of looked firm, but it took practice to keep control on it.

Tess rolled her shoulders and waited for Thana to begin explaining. The ice was definitely not a new surface to work with, she had worked on it dozens of times, usually when it had formed itself around the lake. But now they were up there, she looked at the girl curiously.

She waited patiently and as expected, Thana began to explain. Mimicking her moves as asked, Tess moved her feet as directed and regulated her breathing as as rhythmic as she could. The question is what blinded her and looked at Thana confused.

"They're made of evaporated or water droplets, creating air and creating the clouds no?"

A Holmes was always graceful, so as Thana began to move, she followed her movements with ease. And while the near splits did worry her, she slowly moved to position, her legs not used to being in it, but her flexibility paid off. What worried her was the fact that the ice was wobbling a bit, and her legs were trembling a bit. Closing her eyes for a moment she tried to control her breathing and the nervousness that probably came from her in waves.

"They're made of evaporated or water droplets, creating air and creating the clouds no?" Tess replied to her question, Thana just nodded.

"That is correct, now by doing the opposite of what you just did you should be able to sense the ball." Thana said, "Instead of trying to sense the ball, mainly because they won't have water in them during a proper game. Sense the clouds, then you will sense the movement of the ball" Thana explained.

Noticing that Tess was pretty good with the basics, Thana kept going. She did another movement, rotating her legs so she was leaning on her left leg and her arms did another graceful loop. All of the ice slabs would move a little bit, as Tess got more advance Thana would give her ones that moved more and more.

"If you train well enough you may be invited to the Lorem Gatheris '' Thana told Tess, doing another movement which she wanted mimicked. "It is an Annual Gathering of what you have nicknamed the Fratis " She explained to her friend.

"That is correct, now by doing the opposite of what you just did you should be able to sense the ball." Thana said, "Instead of trying to sense the ball, mainly because they won't have water in them during a proper game. Sense the clouds, then you will sense the movement of the ball"


Tess closed her eyes and imagined the cloud in her hands, it seemed farfetched at first, but then again being an elemental seemed farfetched as well. Opening her eyes briefly she noticed that Thana had moved. Taking advantage that she was dominant with her left, and copied the loop slowly, the image of the cloud still clear in her mind.

But as she pressed her weight on her left, she wobbled the ice a bit and shifted, trying to keep her balance. She stopped creating the loop and put her arms out hoping to balance herself. Once it stopped moving, she closed her eyes and created the loops once more, calmly and imagining the cloud being in her hands.

"If you train well enough you may be invited to the Lorem Gatheris '' Thana told Tess, doing another movement which she wanted mimicked. "It is an Annual Gathering of what you have nicknamed the Fratis "

Tess opened her eyes as she explained and wondered if she even wanted to go to something like that. It was fairly new, but to go with people so advanced made her a bit spooked. Saying nothing, instead, she rotated her hips towards the left and twisted her hips pushing the air that she had created in the ball, then slowly returning to the original position.

Thana noticed that Tess didn't seem overly keen on meeting the other [i] Fratis [\i] " don't worry, you dont have to go if you get invited its just a place where we gather and meet up and the masters clai my here apprenticed" Thana told Tess

Seeing Tess struggle a little bit, Thana just kept going. She rotated again with her hands and feet. "Over time you will learn the full dance, for now it is just the basic steps." She explained.