Chapter 6: No Toilet Paper, Really?
That evening culture shock hit 'Susie' bad. It started when she was busting and there was no toilet paper around. It was interesting to go outside to the 'jakes' for one day. Now, she realised, she'd never have toilet paper again. No running tap water ever again. She might never again have an iced coffee.
So Susie started to cry. She missed her mum with whom she'd basically lost contact over the years. She missed Facebook and Instagram. Eventually she even missed KFC, though deep down she'd only ever loved the smell but hated the taste.
At one stage she was ready to cheer herself up but then she decided to just let the grief rip. "Let's get it out of my system!" she said to herself.
The next day of training was a repeat of the first. She didn't do any better. She did worse. Her endurance was worse, her use of the alphabet seemed weaker. The only thing that was different was that she stabbed herself.
In fact over the next week she seemed to worsen steadily.
Day after day she stayed in the compound. She found a child's picture book about animals. It was in alphabetical order and went through a bunch of animals. If it was to be believed spiders got as big as dogs, snakes as big as trains, karaks were able to turn into mist. Her favourite new animal was a charma. It looked like a porcupine on steroids, the steroids that make you aggressive. It could detach it's spikes and shoot them like darts. Dragons, pheonix, wevryns and kraken were real, though like everything else had evolved quite weirdly. Her main question was, who puts this information in a kid's story book?
She loved learning about the new world although she never left the compound.
Within a month her physical strength had improved rapidly. Jemman could stab, block, slash and lunge with ease. Her ability to sit quietly in the garden and notice what was happening improved. Nevertheless, Jemman began to worry. Not one second of time was spent cultivating. No attempt at mage craft had occurred. She could confidently keep the splades off herself with a birch switch but she hadn't left a compound that was less than a hectare in area. The only "person" with her was Jardin. To her pride she was almost always able to defend herself against his switch. Somehow it only got through when the grumpy wolof didn't feel she was really pushing herself hard enough.
Her once clean, red hair slowly turned into dreadlocks, which she personally thought was cool. Her skin slowly tanned dark and her green eyes became sharper. Her appetite grew until she was eating like a depressed teenager in a fast food outlet. Her muscles became hard though she was clearly preadolescent. Despite the growing leanness she had kept her chubby cheeks.
The wolof began to prepare baths for her that contained various herbs. She didn't know what they were made up of but they made her sweat like a piece of chicken thawing in the sun. It seemed to make her feel awful while she was in the bath and incredible when she'd finished.
As time went on Jemman found the language increasingly fascinating. There was literally no word for anxiety or depression. Sadness, pain, guilt and rage were all words that existed but anxiety and depression didn't. She tried to ask Jardin about it but he couldn't understand. "Anxious?" he said phonetically. "Stupid word. If you can't change something then why be anxious. If you can change it then change it. Why be anxious? Same with with depressed. Don't even think about mentioning these words again. They're the kind of things that would ruin people's lives."
"Fair enough." Jemman replied, "Do you have a good word for me to use in their place?"
Giving her a wolfy grin he replied, "'Self-aware' and 'push through the pain'. Let's try those words for the next two hours. Clearly I'm not working you hard enough if you can waste time on making up such nonsense."
Another month slowly passed.
One day Jardin turned up with a very angry wolof pup. At least that's what Jardin called him. The pup was almost two metres tall. He was grey, furry and had even chubbier cheeks than she did. Unlike Jardin, Kraem was lean. Rather than being still and self-confident, like Jardin, Kraem was constantly agitated. He clearly looked down at Jemman and refused to call by her name . Rather, he referred to her as 'the child'.
"You want me to train with The Child?"
"Of course, Baby Puppy, Only Eight is an excellent training partner for you. It takes ages to make a straw man and you're not a skilled enough fighter not to break them. Fight her, but Don't break Only Eight! I get paid a lot to train her."
For some reason Kraem was happy to call her Only Eight. He was also happy to thrash her in bouts, carefully, but arrogantly explaining his skills as he did it. It was only half an hour each day but Jemman dreaded those sessions.
When she complained to Jardin about the fights he simply said, "What, you want me to make your fights nice? And fair? I don't know what planet you're from but here on Strolm most fights are ridiculously uneven and usually you'll be outnumbered. At least, that's the fights I've been in.
"He's a boundary for you. But I didn't get him here for that. Get your brain in the right place and you'll be a boundary for him. You've got just over three months till you have an entrance exam. You must work harder. By the way, the day you defeat him consistently over a full half hour is the day I'll teach you to cultivate.
"May that day come soon, because I'm tired of you asking me to teach you. Oh, on that day, you can start calling him Baby Puppy."
There is no doubt that Jardin understood how to motivate Jemman.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
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