“Having someone to compete with, be it in a serious or a friendly manner, would drive people to do their best, most of the time.” - Ar’kan Eberaz, retired military trainer from the Clangeddin Empire, circa 248 VA.

“You know, Kino? I’ve been your friend for decades now, but one thing I got to say never really changed,” said Eilonwy as she rushed through the obstacle course Yliz made them run as part of their training and flashed past Kino, who she had overtaken by a whole lap at that point. “You were always a bit lazy with working on your body, and it really shows.”

“Well, not all of us are born with elven blood running through their veins, you know!?” snapped Kino back in the midst of huffing and puffing with exhaustion. She had been slacking off quite a bit with her physical training during the peaceful days of the last couple decades, and now that she was inducted to the harsh training practices of the Death’s Hands, that slacking made itself felt.

Eilonwy’s slender, long-limbed physique meant that her strides were long and ate up the distance like it was nothing, while the bit of human blood she had in her meant that she also developed a fitter form compared to her elven parentage’s side, which tended to be rather gangly by nature. In many ways she had the advantages of both races without their disadvantages.

“You got therian blood yourself, you know? By rights you should be the one running laps around me!” yelled Eilonwy back with a chortle as she ran past and left Kino behind, easily vaulting through a shoulder-height obstacle while barely losing any speed. The course was intended to train their endurance, flexibility, and reaction speed, and one of the Death’s Hand’s earth mages kept it changing in form to prevent them from simply doing things out of familiarity.

Kino couldn’t help but to shake her head at her old friend’s words, since Eilonwy was already too far ahead of her by that point for her to retort back unless she yelled her lungs out. Instead, she grumbled under her breath as she brought a leg over the obstacle the other girl passed so effortlessly and rolled her body over.

After all, shoulder-height for Eilonwy meant that it was as tall as Kino herself, ears not included.

She had to take a moment of breather due to her exhaustion after she landed on the other side of the obstacle, her breathing rapid as she rested for a brief moment and carried on with the obstacle course. She still had another three laps to go compared to Eilonwy’s two, and Yliz had always loved making whoever finished last in the training course do the dishes for the night or the like.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Needless to say Kino had become rather intimately familiar with all sorts of sundry tasks that were usually done by the young trainee initiates of the order.

Not that she could do much about it. Yliz did periodically bring in other trainees to help spark a sense of competitiveness in Kino, but most of those trainees had prepared for becoming one of the Death’s Hand for most of their lives. Almost all of them were ridiculously fit physically, having trained since their youth, which just made Kino’s relatively average fitness – she did still train somewhat during the last couple decades – stand out all the more.

Kino felt that maybe she understood why Aideen and Celia were always so insistent on keeping to their training habits, regardless of the times. She herself had been fitter during the Antemeian war, since at that time she was still in the middle of learning along with Áine, Rhys, and Eilonwy, which included a hefty dose of physical training often under Aideen’s lead.

The couple decades of easy and peaceful life had definitely softened her up quite a bit, though, and even if she knew that the rigorous training was to help her regain her previous level of fitness and then some, it didn’t make them any less torturous. In fact, Kino swore in her heart that she’d keep herself fit from then on just so she wouldn’t need to do something like this again should the occasion called for it.

In the end, she still finished the course despite her exhaustion, with Eilonwy having finished by nearly one and a half laps ahead of her. That naturally meant that she had to do the chores Yliz picked for her. Fortunately enough, Yliz sent her to the kitchen to help cook that night, a relatively lighter chore that Kino herself somewhat enjoyed.

Definitely much better than cleaning the latrines or washing the clothes of all the other trainees.

The grueling physical training took up four days of the week, while during the other three days, Kino learned from the experienced scouts and assassins of the Death’s Hand various things like ways to disguise herself, how to move stealthily, or at times to move in the open without causing people to notice her presence, and the like.

It actually surprised her with how most of what the experienced agents taught her were things she had not expected or linked with the idea of disguise.

Things like posture, expressions, and other small tidbits, which accumulated into methods like how the agents pretended that they simply belonged to wherever they were deployed to. As they acted like the locals, people who had a purpose to be around and had not looked out of place, others would subconsciously skip over them even when on the lookout for spies and the like.

How just a slight change of pose, a portrayal of confidence and belonging, of just presenting themselves as another local living their life as normal managed to do that was an eye-opener for Kino. Even in cases where it would be impossible to pretend to be a local – typically in smaller towns or where most of the locals knew each other – such tricks still worked to present themselves as innocuous travelers.

Since Kino happened to be skilled in singing and playing the lute, Yliz had told her that it would be easy for the girl to play the role of a traveling bard, which was never a strange sight to any location. Anyone who doubted her identity would be less likely to press about it after they heard her perform, and a traveling bard needed no real reason to go anywhere, as many just went wherever their feet took them.

Aideen was actually quite amused when she heard Kino relate that bit of her training, as she herself often posed as a traveling bard when she was trying to travel in secret.