7 Thorns

Grandma Angela didn't take her eyes off Cherry for 2 weeks. When the other disciples started to complain that she wasn't teaching as much, she reluctantly let Cherry off the hook.

"You're on probation, Cherry. Don't get yourself into any more trouble or I'll make you join the marines in their summer training." Grandma added, grimly.

Cherry took this threat very seriously. She had met the marine base's commander once and could tell he was a no nonsense hard ass at a glance. Grandma Angela was strict, but she didn't make a big deal about it when Cherry fooled around.

Cherry needed to find a new place to practice her secret techniques. The beach had been great, but if she had unwanted visitors show up once, it would happen again sooner or later.

So Cherry turned her gaze towards the next best candidate; the Thorn Wood.

The Thorn Wood was actually much more isolated than the hidden beach was. The reason it was only 'second best' in her opinion was, naturally, the thorns.

Seriously, everything in that dense forest has needle sharp thorns, many of which were mildly poisonous. Even the coniferous trees' needles would turn you into a pin cushion.

Cherry hadn't spent the last 2 years idly, however. She had been working in Martin's smithy and had earned a fair bit of money.

She used that money to put together a protective suit of hardened leather and thick cloth. She considered using steel, but that was harder to adjust as she grew and a bit overkill. They were just thorns from ordinary plants, after all.

After getting suited up, and enduring Grandma Angela's giggling, Cherry set out for the Thorn Wood to find her new secret training spot.

Pushing through the thorny underbrush went about as well as she anticipated. The hardened leather got scratched up a lot, but held together just fine. Occasionally she'd get snagged and have to pull herself free or stop to remove the accumulating needles in the bottoms of her boots.

After several hours of searching she found a clearing on a small hill that was nearly perfect for her purposes. It had just enough space and the few thorny plants that had encroached were easy enough to uproot.

Cherry went home for the day with plans to return, this time with a number of things to make her new hideout more homey.

Over the next few days she would bring plenty of tent canvas and rope to set up a nice, big canopy over the clearing, bug nets, a table with 2 chairs (in case Grandma Angela decided to visit), a training dummy, and a leather couch with a tarp to cover it (for napping comfortably).

...

Winter came to Boulder Island. Winters here rarely got more than a bit chilly, so wearing her thorn resistant armor was more than enough to keep Cherry warm.

After her morning training, Cherry took the tarp from her couch and a picnic basket through the underbrush towards the beach for a nice lunch a little before noon.

Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be. When she reached the beach, she saw rowboat washed ashore. Cherry put her guard up, hand on hilt, and approached the boat.

Cautiously looking into the boat, she didn't find an ambush, but rather a teenage girl clutching a small, wooden chest.

The girl looked to be 14 or 15 years old, had shoulder length black hair, and lightly tanned skin.

'Suspicious...' Cherry thought, but seeing the girl was wounded, she decided to check on her.

Cherry grasped the girl's hand gently and sent thin strings of vital energy into her body to see whether it was safe to move her. What she found had greatly startled her, however.

'What is this mess of foreign vital energy tangled around her heart? No, not a mess, there is a pattern here, but it's too enigmatic to understand without extensive study. It's almost like inscriptions...'

Cherry decided to bring the girl back to her hideout to tend to her wounds, which weren't serious. She also wanted to study that enigmatic vital energy pattern.

Cherry wrapped the girl in her tarp to protect her from the thorns and dragged the rowboat behind her back through the underbrush. A difficult endeavor, to be certain.

After applying some ointment and bandages to the girl's wounds and giving her some water, Cherry spent a couple hours analyzing the 'heart inscription', as she had decided to call it. When she could gain no further understanding just by looking, she left the girl to rest and meditated on her findings nearby.

...

The girl was deep in her dreams. She was in a warm bed, her mother whom she hadn't known for long held her hand. All the people she had cared about surrounded her with pleasant smiles. A warmth filled her chest that reminded her of a home she could never return to.

However it didn't last, the warmth left her and her mother no longer held her hand. Explosions rang out all around her and the people disappeared into flame one by one.

The girl shot awake in a cold sweat.

She looked around to gain her bearings as she calmed her pounding heart and heavy breathing.

She found herself underneath a large, makeshift canopy in a clearing surrounded by trees. She was sitting on a leather couch with a tarp as a blanket. In front of her was a table, on top of which was the small chest of gold she had stolen and a picnic basket.

She also saw a young girl in strange padded armor sitting crossed legged with her eyes closed. She would have thought she was sleeping if she hadn't opened her eyes in the next moment.

The two girls stared at one another silently for several moments.

"You can eat that if you want." Cherry said to the girl.

"I'm not hungry."

*GROWL*

""...""

Another few moments passed in silence while the girl's face heated up in embarrassment.

The girl sighed, surely she didn't need to be this wary of a little girl. She opened the basket and saw an assortment of cold meats, cheeses, fresh bread, fruit, and tiny jars of various condiments or sauces. It clearly wasn't originally meant for her, but likely meant to be the younger girl's snack.

The mysterious girl let go of her remaining reservations and began to eat.

"My name is Cherry, what can I call you?"

The girl swallowed a bite. "I'm... Raven..."

'She hesitated, so that's likely an alias. This girl might be trouble.' Cherry thought to herself, giving her best 'innocent' smile.

Raven almost choked, 'Maybe she really did drug the food, why else would she smile like that?!' she inwardly panicked.

She calmed herself shortly, however. She had already eaten quite a bit and she had started several minutes ago but didn't feel strange at all.

"Where did you come from, were you ship wrecked? I found you in a rowboat on the beach." Cherry inquired.

Raven looked around. "Is there someone else here? Who brought me here?" She asked.

"No, I brought you here myself." Cherry replied, ignoring that her question hadn't been answered.

"Did you tell anyone about me?" Raven asked.

"No, should I not?" Cherry was sure this girl was trouble by now.

"I'd appreciate if you didn't. There are bad people looking for me, so can you keep this a secret? I can give you money to let me stay here and to bring me food." Raven had never stayed in one place for long over the last several years. So a chance to relax for a while was too tempting for her.

Cherry weighed the offer in her head. On one hand Raven was definitely trouble, but on the other she wanted to continue studying the heart inscription.

Cherry smiled wider. "Deal!"