“Overcome your own visceral need to react. It may feel good in the moment, but you will regret it. Believe me.”
That’s something I’m unfortunately pretty familiar with, she mused, thinking back to a few ill-advised trysts back in the day.
“Okay, I’ll try.”
“Try? There is notry. You do, or do not, it’s that simple. The games are violent, difficult, and at times enraging, but they are not all about aggression and strength. Strategy is equally as important, if not more so. The challenges are not only of our bodies, but of our minds. Our will to succeed. Strength, speed, agility, tactics, there are many aspects to these games, and you will be hard pressed by many of them.”
“You don’t think I can hack it?” she shot back, feeling her hackles rise slightly at the hint of a doubt as to her capacity as a competitor.
“No, I do not,” he replied, utterly indifferent to how his words might land. “But you are a burden I must now deal with. I only hope that you are not a totally lost cause.” He turned and strode off, the cable between them tugging her hard. “Come on. We only have a few days to train and perhaps give you at least a chance of making it past the first events.”
“Train?”
“Yes. And to start, we run.”
He started jogging, forcing her to either keep up or be dragged by the wrist in a most uncomfortable way. Fortunately, Ziana rather enjoyed cardio back home, so keeping pace with him wasn’t a big deal, though she suspected he was going easy on her as he seemed to underestimate her to a frustrating degree.
“Where are we going?” she asked as he led her out of the open field area and into the trees.
“We do not have the luxury of easing you into this. You must learn to run on uneven ground. These trails are still quite easy, but they will at least require your accessory muscles to fire and strengthen to keep balance. I only hope it will be enough.”
With that he darted onto a narrow dirt trail. The length of the cable between them was just enough to let them run single file without kicking one another, but only just. A little more slack would have made a world of difference, but as they were typically going to be next to one another rather than following one another, it seemed this was the predetermined length, and they’d just have to deal with it.
Around trees, over rocks, and even through shallow streams they ran. Dorrin kept the pace steady, not too fast, but not slow by any means. Ziana had found his comment about using muscles she didn’t usually engage funny at first, but after a half hour of steady jogging on uneven ground her ankles, knees, hips, and pretty much everything else, all felt the strain of the effort. It wasn’t that it was hard work, but more that her normal cardio was pretty linear, and she simply didn’t usually use these muscles in this manner.
Just as he’d said.
She was not about to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging that fact.
“This way,” he urged, veering back into the open fields once more and redirecting them toward one of the rest zones dotting the area.
They eased into a steady run, their strides opening wider as they ran side by side, no longer hindered by the environment. Dorrin slowed their pace and eased them into a light jog for the final four hundred meters, then walked the final fifty. Only two other competitors were at this particular rest spot. A pair that were contrasting in color, the female with blue skin, the male with red. They appeared to be the same race as one another, however, though the alien ridges on their heads and limbs were definitely not human. But compared to one another they were essentially the same despite the color difference.
They were also very well dressed. Elites, she guessed. The pair watched them with curious, almost amused eyes. Ziana knew the look. That air of superiority. Disdain. These were like the rich kids who drove a new Mercedes as their first car, not acknowledging their privilege but, rather, believing themselves better than everyone else simply by the fluke of being born to wealthy parents.
Dorrin gave the slightest of nods but otherwise ignored them, which they did not seem to appreciate. No groveling from him. No ass kissing. He was utterly unimpressed, and his indifference to their supposed rank was almost palpable.
“Excuse me,” he said, stopping just short of shouldering the male aside as he opened one of the sturdy metal boxes that were found at each rest area. A little mist of cool fog wafted out. Whatever was in there, it was cold.
“Drink,” he said, tossing Ziana a pouch of some cloudy liquid.
“What is it?”
“Replenishing fluids designed to support proper muscle recovery after strenuous activity.”
“Alien sports drinks?” she said with a chuckle, struggling but finally pulling the top off and splashing half the contents all over herself.
The red and blue pair laughed uproariously.
“Looks like you have a mentally challenged partner, Dorrin,” the red-skinned male said with a derisive grin.
“She is not from this world, Broodius. Her ignorance is to be expected. But what, I must wonder, is your excuse?”
“Youdare?” the man growled, balling his fists.
Dorrin’s lips creased in a very worrying grin. “Oh,please. Give me a reason.”
The red man, for all his bluster, apparently also realized that he was no match for Dorrin in a fair fight outside the constraints of the rules of the games. Self-preservation of both his body aswell as his social standing were a stronger instinct than entitled ego, at least for the moment. He turned to his partner.
