Follow Your Passion: A Seamless Tumblr Journey
Alpine let out a cry as Willow knocked him over once again. Her face was devoid of sympathy as she glared down at him, the harmless wooden sword grasped with practiced confidence in her hand.
“That was terrible, kid,” she rasped, lips pulling back in a sneer. “How can you expect to be of any use to your country if you can’t even walk straight?”
Alpine bowed his head at her clear disappointment. It’d only been three days of this training, but it seemed that, to Willow, he was as hopeless as a baby bird. Alpine longed to give up, to go back to Willow’s weird house with leaves on the roof and hide away in the room the old woman had given him. The only thing stopping him was Willow herself.
“Get back up and do it again,” she hissed, using the sword to push the young boy to his feet. “Quit with the nerves, don’t let it show. I don’t care if you don’t feel brave, all that matters is that you look it. Even the best warriors fear confidence.”
And so he tried again.
This would go on for hours each day: Alpine would fail and Willow would scold him for it and then push him to get up and try again. She refused to let him stop until she thought she could get nothing more from him. Then, they would return to Willow’s home and eat a hot meal, typically soup and bread, and go to bed. Wake up and repeat.
After a month of the near-every day training, Alpine was exhausted, but supposedly improving.
“Good, again,” his mentor muttered, her face no less stern than it had been on the first day.
Alpine, thoroughly winded and waiting for the woman to finally call it a day, huffed in response, “Again? This is the 30th time in a row I’ve gotten it right, can’t we just say it’s done?”
Alpine rarely spoke up against Willow’s orders. She was older and more experienced, so clearly she knew things he didn’t- not to mention she did this kind of thing for a living. He’d learned quickly not to talk back to her after what happened the first time. He wasn’t looking to get chewed out like that again.
But today was different. He was tired and he wanted to crawl into a hole for three months before he’d even think of starting this rigorous training again. The sun was sinking towards the horizon and he realized it was past the time Willow normally stopped. He at least wanted to know what she was thinking.
“I said it’s good,” she snarled, but he knew she wasn’t angry or annoyed. Her grip stayed constant, not tightening nor loosening its hold. “But I know you can do better. And when you reach better, you keep practicing even then. This isn’t just something you learn and be done with it. You perfect it, and once you’ve done that? You do it again.”
Alpine was rendered speechless. Sure, he didn’t think Willow hated him per se, but he’d at least thought she had a distaste for him. Over the past month, he’d gotten to know Willow and her tells, like how he knew she wasn’t actually angry when she looked and acted the part. But this was the first time she’d ever complimented him, clearly at least. There were other times when she’d say things and Alpine wondered what she meant, but he could never dwell on it for long before she was pushing him to his feet and ordering him to do it again.
Alpine’s mind floated back to the present as something cold landed on his nose. He blinked and looked around, noticing snowflakes falling gently all around.
“Kid,” Willow called. Alpine looked over to see her face relaxed, the creases between her brows and the deep frown that once decorated her face now gone without a trace. “I want you to know something. I’m not pushing you like this because we’re under some time constraint or something; I’m doing it because I know you can take it. I know you could be an amazing warrior if you would only try.” She breathed out slowly, her breath visible in front of her face, and kneeled down. “Alpine. You’re not weak. What happened to you was out of your control. You can’t let the past control your future. You have a family back home, right? You wanna get back to them? Then you try. You put in the effort so you can go home, go and see your sister and mother again. You will succeed because you have someone who believes in you.”
Alpine watched Willow with wide eyes and tried not to let the tears fall. Suddenly, this field he dreaded returning to every morning felt like home.
Willow sat on the snowy ground and sighed, placing her wooden sword to the side. “You said you’re from Splendor, right? What’s that like?”
“Well, it’s a real pretty place…”
837 words.