Author's Note: Although it doesn't seem to be too hard, as a non-native speaker, it was quite difficult figuring out some of the basic social interactions between the characters. How do they greet each other? How do kids greet an adult, and how do adults greet kids? Do kids even introduce themselves at this age? I googled these questions for at least half an hour, but still, I am not sure at all if I got them right, so I'd be glad if someone could help me out on this.

About two weeks has passed since Quin began to take his training seriously. It was the start of May, so summer was only a month away, which would mean the end of school year, but this was not the case now.

According to the teachers, the city officials decided that due to the dire situation Crows’ Road is in, every citizen should take serious actions, including the children. In short this meant, that in contrast to previous customs, the training classes would not be paused during the summer break, only reduced to four times a week.

Although the kids reacted to it differently, most of them were quite tolerant to it, mainly as a result of the horrible attack that happened during the spring test. Several of them were still frightened, which consequently gave most of them motivation to increase their strength, while others -- especially the stronger and braver ones -- regarded it as some kind of duty. Naturally their resolution was of varying strength, nonetheless they produced clearly better results in their training than in the first half of the school year.

It was late afternoon, about an hour after the classes has ended and the school yard was mostly empty, occupied by only a handful of people. One of them was Quin, who was currently running on the track around the yard.

After this two week, Quin decided it was enough of the ‘warm up’ and he should properly begin his training, not only doing minor strengthening exercises. He thought that he had enough stamina now, to remain a few hours at least on the school grounds after the classes and train. For his focus during this time, he decided it would be running.

Quin’s reason behind this was quite simply: what he wanted was to get strong as fast as possible, which meant that the higher his stamina was, the less breaks he had to take and thus the more quality time he could spend on training. In the long run it would not be quite efficient if he could lift heavy weight, but had to take breaks after each try due to his lacking stamina.

In the morning they had to run for around two hours, so Quin decided to try to start his afternoon exercises with the same. First of all he knew that he was certainly capable of running for this amount, however it was still tiring for him and by slightly increasing his tempo, it would be easy to adjust the difficulty.

While on the track, he usually tried to empty his mind and only focus on running just like before, and he found out that his ability to do it have slightly increased in these days. Basically by switching off everything, he could decrease the intensity of his fatigue.

Quin knew that it would not be a good idea to neglect his other muscles, so at home, in addition he did some general exercises, like push-ups, sit-ups and squats before his dinner time.

A few day in his training, his friends got more and more curious why he stayed at school after the classes, thus Alinor decided to inquire of this.

“Hey Quin, why are you staying again at school, did something happen?” Alinor asked a bit concerned.

“Oh, nothing special, you know I just realized that I’ve got a large gap in my fitness compared to the others, so I stay here for running around the track for a bit, to decrease it,” Quin answered plainly. He did not speak about this to his friends before, not because he wanted to keep it a secret, but he simply did not think of it as something that could be that significant for others.

“Oh...” Alinor and the others were obviously shocked, as they very well knew how Quin despised every kinds of training and yet, here he was doing it voluntarily. “Then, good luck with it! If you need help, you can ask me anytime!” After recovering from the momentary shock and seeing that his friend had finally realized his shortcomings, Alinor answered smiling and then they left for home, leaving Quin to his own thing.

During these days he started to recognize a couple of faces, who often trained in the yard just like him. There were only two of them he has seen before: a red haired girl a few class above him, and a boy from the same year as him, whom he could easily remember due to his extremely big, muscular built.

Compared to the girl, although the difference between them was clearly visible, Quin did not lag behind her significantly. On the other hand, the difference between Quin and the boy was like heaven and earth, making him stunned several times, how someone at his age can be so fast.

The other people who regularly visited the yard were mainly from the upper classes. There were also students, who stayed there after school irregularly or only a couple of times, and Quin has even seen his instructor a couple of times on the track.

People did not go there to talk, -- and Quin was the same, focusing on training and not socializing -- so he did not make any new friends.

It was afternoon, on a chilly day in the middle of May, and Quin was running on the track.

Man, there’s one thing I wasn’t mistaken about: training is sure exhausting, Quin was slightly laughing, though it somehow feels awesome that I’m still doing it. It’d be so much easier if I didn’t have muscle pains constantly as well, he let out a sigh.

“Ahh!” Quin was running for a good hour, when he suddenly slipped and fell down.

What was that? Ouch my ankle, it hurts like hell! Don’t worry, take a big breath, then stand up and continue! He inhaled deeply, and tried to stand up, only to fall back and cry out again.

“Hey, umm are you okay?” the red haired girl, whom he had seen often in the afternoon -- after hearing him first cry out -- stopped to go back to him and asked him in a shy, timid voice.

“Yeah, don’t worry,” Quin smiled as he took another deep breath and decided to stand up again, showing the girl that there is nothing to worry about, but he was met with the same fate again. Man, this is embarrassing!

“Umm, you know, you shouldn’t really do that, it will only make it worse!” explained the girl.

Talking about embarrassment, Quin sighed inwardly.

“Where does it hurt?” she asked.

“I think around my ankle,” he replied, showing that part of his leg.

“Let me take a look, take off your shoe.”

“O-Okay,” Quin was bit shocked but slowly took off his shoe.

The girl knelt down and carefully tapped his ankle at different places, while Quin tried his best not to embarrass himself even more by crying out.

“I think it’s just sprained a little, but I’m not sure,” she scratched her head while speaking. “I think you should go to the infirmary, let me help you,” she said and reached out with her hand.

“T-Thanks, but it’s already closed at this time. I think I will rest a bit here, and then just simply go home,” Quin answered timidly.

“No way! You can’t even walk properly, I can’t leave you like that... You know, my mother’s worked as a nurse, she’ll surely be able to help you! I live just two streets away, let’s go there!” The previously shy girl’s attitude got entirely different in an instant.

Quin still felt embarrassed and he did not wanted to be a burden to this nice girl, but he really had no idea how he would get home like this, so he nodded to the idea.

“Okay, take my hand and lean on me,” she offered her hand again.

“Ah, no, I can walk fine by myself, just let me take a couple breaths.” Quin thought there would be no way he would let her help him like that, and quickly refused.

The girl did not back off either and insisted on her idea.

“Hey, I saw that you fell before and overheard what you were talking about. How about I help you escorting there?” After some arguing, suddenly the big, muscular boy appeared before them and offered his help.

“Uh... Okay, thanks.” Considering his options for a moment, Quin decided that having a boy help him, would not be that awkward as having a girl escorting him.

The boy helped him to get up and the three of them slowly walked through the streets to the girl’s house. Quin has not been to this part of the city yet, so he was a bit surprised, especially seeing the state of the houses in the neighborhood. Most of them were old and run-down wooden houses.

“Hey, mom, I’m back, I brought a couple of my schoolmates,” the girl opened the door and invited the other two, after greeting her mother.

“Hey honey, hi boys,” a woman walked in from the nearby room, greeting them in a gentle voice.

She was probably in her late thirties and had a considerable pretty face, with brown hair. Seeing her rough, sun-browned skin, she must have been doing manual labor for quite an amount of time, though her demeanor did not reflect any signs of that. She was also wearing a well-worn robe, which had a few patches over it.

“Mom, can you help him please? He misstepped while training on the track and I think he sprained his ankles, he couldn’t even step on it. We would’ve gone to the infirmary at the school, but that has already been closed and I thought that because our house is quite close, maybe you’d be able to help him,” she asked with a concerned face and pointed at Quin’s leg.

“Hello, my name is Quin.” He has been living his whole life in a good part of the city, where each house was built out of brick and regularly maintained. Although he was not ignorant and naturally knew that poor people existed, he was not the type of kid to roam around a lot, thus he has not experienced it firsthand until now. He only managed to awoke and properly greet the girl’s mother after several moments.

“Hi, I am Lycela, come, let’s go to the living room and sit down there.” She beckoned them towards the room, where she made Quin sit down on a sofa.

“Oh, by the way before you get scared: though sadly I’m not a doctor, I worked a couple of years as an assistant to a Healer, so you’re in good hands,” she said, while smiling at the boy and started carefully examining his leg.

After a while she stood up, went to to kitchen and brought back a small black bottle.

“It’s indeed just a sprain, take this bottle, and smear a bit on your ankle now, at night and three times tomorrow as well. It’ll will probably hurt for a couple of days but then it should be completely fine. You should wait here for a few hours, to let the salve take effect, oh, and also keep in mind that you should rest your leg at least three days.”

“Thanks.” Quin nodded and started applying the salve.