I was feeling pretty good about the plans that I had brought up and were going to begin changing the swarm when Wisterl approached me.

"Look, it's a miracle you beat Redael."

I started, then looked her in the eye. "I'm sorry?"

"You better be. I taught you to be better than that."

Again, I looked her in the eye. "I'd say I made a fair showing for myself, considering that I knew nothing about him and how he fought. Plus, I won."

Wisterl shrugged. "You won. That's why I didn't say that it was an abysmal fight. I know since you're the Alpha I'm supposed to be polite and so on, but frankly, I'm upset you didn't leverage your advantages against him in that fight."

"What do you mean 'didn't leverage advantages'?" I wasn't sure if it was just me or my khatif blood that was offended, but it was almost certainly a mix of the two. "I used my spear to keep him at a distance, I blocked with my special scales, I even hid my healed shoulder from him until the opportune moment. Seems like leveraging advantages to me."

"So, why didn't you ever grab him?" Wisterl scoffed, "While you weren't sure of what he could do, if you had established a good grab earlier, you wouldn't have taken the punishment you did. If you had been willing to give up a little hit like that last one you did earlier in the fight, you would have reached the same conclusion without all the additional hits, not to mention if you had simply used your heavily defended hands to catch his own. If you had used your little boosting scream at all, that could have put him off, since he wouldn't know what it did, precisely. Do you see what I'm saying?"

My khatif blood didn't recognize Wisterl as an equal, but did recognize her as a better combatant than myself. The rest of me looked at Wisterl almost as a tutor and had finally cooled down enough to recognize that, blunt and tactless as she was, she was also right. I had only "leveraged" my superior physique over Redael, not anything else. A part of me was convinced that, before we got to Old Nievtra, there would be foes much stronger than the Earthspeaker from before to fight, and I wouldn't be able to win by slight surprise and bodily strength.

"Fine. You're right. My vision was narrowed. Happy?"

I knew my mistake the second I saw the crazed look in Wisterl's eyes. "No. Come train with me again. Like last time." A sadistic grin began to cover her face.

"No, I don't have the luxury of being able to spend days on end spilling my blood in the sand to train with you." I was only barely able to keep the sarcasm from pervading my words. Wisterl looked unhappy until I continued, "But, I will take time every day to practice with you."

Wisterl's eyes widened. "GOOD! NOW!"

I couldn't get a cohesive response out before I'd been dragged headlong down the tunnel to her preferred training arena.

…

Stumbling back, I shook my head frustratedly. Even through the calculating detachment of [Combatant's Bloodlust], I 1. couldn't beat Wisterl, and 2. wanted nothing more than to kick her teeth in. I was positive that I was stronger, quicker, and smarter than her, and I couldn't divorce that fact from the additional fact that she was at least three times the fighter that I was. Wisterl knew exactly when to move and how to capitalize on the smallest stumble or hesitation, how to force an uncomfortable movement and so many more things. Just when I thought I'd figured out what she was doing, she'd switch up her strategies and send me pounding back onto the sand.

I'd spent over an hour like this, and my pride just couldn't take any more of it. "I'm done for the day. I'll see you tomorrow."

Wisterl's soft chuckle was all the response she gave, and it very nearly sent me careening back into the room to try to reclaim my honor, but the rational part of me realized that it was almost certainly her attempt to get me to willingly reenter my personalized hell. Thus, I stalked out and nearly ran headlong into Took.

"Hey." I tried to hold in my gasping breaths to only marginal success.

Took nodded, then seemed to make the conscious decision to speak. "I trust you."

A brief moment's pause. I wasn't sure how to respond, but was saved from having to do so when she continued, "I don't know how to help you rule, but I'll help you in the hunt and in the… war, as you call it." She nodded, then continued on to the arena behind me. Wisterl's voice echoed out excitedly behind me, and while I didn't consciously listen, I easily recognized the sounds of a training bout beginning.

I wasn't sure if there would ever be a sane female keelish, khatif, Keel or otherwise around me (or a male for that matter), and surmised that, based off of my sample size, almost certainly not. I sighed and mentally began counting the days until the spawnlings hatched and I could find some reasonable excuse to not spend quite so much time in the presence of Wisterl.