Project Empress 005

 (Chapter 3 continued)

A couple of hours later, Cara had closed up shop and had followed Natalie back to Bacchus’ Barrel, the same place where they´d had their after fight meal the night before. 

The door was closed. The sign on the door proclaimed that the wine bar was closed.

Natalie banged on the door. First just a few raps with her fist, followed shortly by some serious bangs, then two or three kicks. She considered her options for a short moment, then decided on using the steel capped end of her journeyman staff to smash it against the door. 

Cara observed the situation with increasing alarm. She was both trying to catch Natalie’s attention while at the same time miming her non-involvement with the situation as the few passers-by looked at them in terror and as Natalie was obviously busy vandalising an ancient door of historical importance their gazes wandered over to Cara demanding answers.

After an embarrassing eternity the door swung open, Walter, cast iron skillet in hand, exploding out of it and almost directly into Natalie’s staff, his eyes growing wide, he instantly pulled his body back trying to turn away from the staff. His hand shot up placing the pan into the closing gap between the staff and his nose. The iron tip, scratched over the heavy pans surface letting sparks fly. As Natalie’s staff lost its momentum, Walter slowly straightened up again, inhaling, his broad chest expanding, his free hand grabbing hold of the staff moving it out of the way, while the skillet hovered menacingly next to his head.

When he spoke his voice was cold and where his words reached they covered everything with frost. “Are. You. Fucking. Insane.”, he said looking Natalie in her eyes. Cara had to force herself not to step away. If need be she had to defend her new master, no matter how afraid she was. 

Even Natalie, who usually went to great lengths to show the world how she had not a single fuck to give about anything, visibly deflated. Her smile was all teeth and awkwardness. 

“Oopsie?”, she ventured.

“Nat?”, Walter barked, his eyes bulging out of their sockets. “Is there a reason why you are trying to murder my door, my nose and my patience?”

Natalie was about to answer, when Walter added. “And my patience is almost dead already…”

“We need to use your garden?”, Natalie said.

“Good for you, but that doesn’t answer my question…”

“Er…”, Natalie shifted her stance slightly to try to pull her staff back, it didn’t budge. “I knocked on your door, because I wanted to ask you if we could use your garden. And as the normal knocks didn’t work I gradually increased the intensity.” The last few words came out more slowly as Natalie was considering each one of them carefully while trying to gauge Walter’s reaction to each of them.

Walter sighed. He relaxed, let go of Natalie’s staff. Cara noted that although Natalie had been pulling to get her staff back, she barely moved when it was suddenly released. 

“Nat, do you see this?”, he pointed to a button next to the door.

“Yes.”

“That Cara, my idiot child is the button that rings the bell of both my restaurant and the one in my flat above it. Why, pray tell, did you not use it?”

“Oh… yeah… because I thought that maybe there wasn´t electricity at this time of the day?”

Walter just pointed to the sign above the store, Natalie looked to where it was pointing, inside the building Walter flipped a switch. The lighting of the sign went of and on again. 

“Oh…”

“Natalie, this thinking thing has been all the rage with the younger orders within the younger classes of mammalians. You should try it one of these days.”

“Or I could just punch them.”, Natalie said with a smile.

Walters shoulders sank, he rubbed his face with one of his hands while considering his next step. 

“You need the garden?”

“Yep, today starts the training of my new apprentice”, Natalie grinned.

Walter raised an eyebrow. “Compared to yesterday you seem to be rather cheerful.”

“Well I already accepted her. I think she shows promise and now that I’ve slept over it I’m all in. Teaching her is following the Path.”, she smiled. 

Walter considered her words, shrugged and said: “Very well, you have,” he checked his watch, “two hours.”

“Why only two hours?”

“Because then it’s dinner time and both of you will have to eat. You can continue with your training afterwards.”

Natalie beamed. “Cheers Walter, that sounds very sensible and modern mammalian style. Come Cara, let’s get to work.”

“Modern mammalian…”, Walter murmured shaking his head, while Nat and Cara paraded past him. 

Cara for her part had missed everything after the point when Natalie had said that she “showed promise”. She hadn’t received such praise for her martial skill… ever. 

She only came back to her senses when she found herself on Walter’s roof top garden. It was warm and humid up there, smelling of aromatic flowers and herbs. Cara focused on her surroundings, realising that she was in a state of the art rooftop green house. The entire structure had enough space for small trees to grow there. The edges were densely populated by a variety of plants growing in a suspiciously intricate pattern, indicating to Cara, that this were self sustaining populations where one plant gave an advantage to the next. This was not all that surprising, especially for the roof above an establishment that also served food. She should have known, really, as the menu contained only a few dishes but used luxurious ingredients for this late in the year. What was far more surprising though was the large middle part of the garden where only flat growing green herbs had been planted. All edible, but it was clear that they had not been planted there for the harvest but to have a large space in which one could firmly move. A level of luxury that Cara had heard about but had never thought she’d ever see let alone set foot in herself.

“Neat isn’t it?”, Natalie said grinning. 

“It’s breathtaking…”, Cara was still trying to get to grips with what she was seeing.

“Right? I mean, Walter has his own secret salle all of his own.”

“Salle? I meant the open space in his garden. He must be really rich…”

“Rich? No,” Natalie laughed, “if Walter was rich, this would be all lawn and there would be servants and shit. Nah. Walter is a man of the blade and a clever one at that, his stratagems were always the best. The plant he grows there don’t mind if you trample them and they are either tasty or are good medicine.” 

“When you are done being impressed by plants existing,” Nat added, “, you can get your sword and get ready.”

This brought Cara back to the present and she started to unpack her things. “Should I change before we start?”, she asked.

“No. I want to see how you move in your everyday clothes.”, Natalie said. “Oh and lesson number one, you should always wear clothes in which you can freely fight.”

“OK.” Cara said, nodding. “She pulled Jeanne D’Arc, her sword out of her backpack and walked to the middle of the green house where she stood, not sure what to do next.

“Go on then.”, Natalie said.

“But you haven’t told me what to do.”

“Yes I did. Move with your sword.”

“But in what way?”, Cara asked, now thoroughly confused.

“I don’t know. It’s you and your sword. Show me your moves. Show me how you strike, how you and your blade move through space.” 

“OK…”, Cara said, still unsure what she was supposed to do. She was used to a kind of training where the master said very clearly which moves the students were to make and how they should do them. So Cara went to her default, moved a few steps forward, a couple backwards. Natalie just watched with a completely neutral expression. ‘Well,’ Cara thought, ‘no complaints is a form of praise.’ and started to add some slashes to her moves. Still Natalie just watched her without showing a reaction, neither good nor bad, and soon Cara was lost in her flow. Striking from above while moving forward, the same with strikes from below, then attacking high and retreating, covering it with slashes from below. It didn’t take long and Cara had forgotten that Natalie was even there and just followed her moves. As she got more and more lost in her own rhythm and motions she began to imagine music playing in the background, something epic and moving, from one of her favourite ancient old orchestral music from the movies of the late 20th and early 21st century. And Cara smiled.

“Huh…”, Natalie said, tilting her head slightly.

“What is it?”, Cara asked, not stopping. She was still busy bashing an enemy with a left right combo over the head, finishing him of with a thrust to the face.

“You move like clockwork”,  Natalie said. There was something in her voice that would have told Cara that  this wasn’t a compliment if it hadn’t flown right over her head. “But a few moves ago something changed.” This, however subtle it may have been, was a compliment, it flew even higher. 

Cara stopped her demonstration, thinking about what had changed. As far as she was concerned, she hadn’t changed anything. Well in her movements at least…

“Um… I did start to imagine music. I sometimes do that when I’m drilling movement patterns.”

“Movement patterns… “ Natalie repeated softly, she hadn’t intended to say it out loud.

“Yeah,” Cara said, “Like the the strikes from above, followed by the stab to the face.”

“Huh? Oh. Yes. I see.”, Natalie’s eyes seemed to focus past Cara and Natalie started pacing around the edges of the garden lost in thought. Cara shrugged and went on with her own training. She took a moment to go through her mental library of music, choosing a good melody and continued.

“Cara!”

Cara was pulled out of her flow of motion by Natalie’s voice.

“Yes?”, Cara said.

“I have a plan now. But first we need to eat.”

“Or”, Cara reasoned, “you can start teaching me now and we have dinner later.”

When she heard this, Natalie grinned broadly. “I love how you think, but we have about 20 minutes to go downstairs and grab a bite to eat before Walter comes up here, murders us and then makes us eat and apologise to him for being a disgrace to all vertebrates.”

Cara was a bit disappointed but, now that she considered the situation, also very hungry.