BUT SHE IS THE WARLOCK PRINCESS

Our archery club teacher-in-charge entered the hall with the two external coaches. One was human, the other two were wolves.

We were gathered to sit on the gym floor for the introductions.

Captian and Priya stood in front of our group with the two adults. Captain spoke first, introducing us to the teacher-in-charge, Mr Yarde, and then the two coaches who had been coaching our school archery club for the past thirty years. (Wow, thirty years!)

The male wolf was Coach Emerson. He was the competitive team's coach. He was a master and the national champion and various other archery accolades which sounded cool, but I've got no idea what they meant.

The female wolf was Coach Roberts. She was the beginner class coach on Tuesday, as well as the intermediate class coach on Thursday. She had spent all her career starting off many competitive archers, including all of our school champions. She also had a master title and list of accolades which sounded like random alphabets strung together.

After the introductions, the captain called for us to get up and head over to our respective ranges. The competitive team would be practicing outdoors today, and had to go gear up for the winter weather.

The moment we got up, Mr Yarde shouted, "You!"

The entire club froze and looked at me.

"You with the long blue hair! Unnatural color hair and contacts are against school regulations!" Mr Yarde stalked up to me, with the way he was behaving, it was as if I had killed someone.

I stood my ground, deciding to let the human blow off some steam first before reasoning with him.

"But sir!" Priya didn't wait to come to my rescue, "That's her natural hair and eye color!"

Then she turned to me, "Right?"

I nodded. Right.

"There's no such thing as blue hair! And that eye color is obviously fake. This is a serious archery club, not a cos play fashion show!" Mr Yarde was just getting angrier.

So was Priya, "It's real! You can't blame her for that!"

"Don't give me that bulls***!" Mr Yarde spat out. (Was a teacher allowed to use words like that?)

Priya flinched, but the teacher wasn't done, "What's your name girl?"

"Samantha Kingsley." I answered.

"Samantha Kingsley, you're out!" Mr Yarde screamed.

"Ah, let's not be hasty, Mr Yarde." It was Coach Emerson, "Isn't Samantha Kingsley the top scorer among the recruits?"

"Well," said Mr Yarde reconsidering, "since our esteemed coach had spoken up for you, I'll give you one chance. Go home today, get your hair cut and dyed back and take off those ridiculous blue contacts. Show me tomorrow morning and I'll let you continue in the club."

I held back a sigh, "I can't take off my ridiculous blue contacts because I'm not wearing any. This hair is real too. It grows out fast, you can cut it now and it would grow back by tomorrow morning."

"I've never heard such rubbish! Someone fetch me a pair of scissors." Mr Yarde commanded.

"Eh, this is bad." Coach Emerson grumbled.

"I will make an example of you." Mr Yarde promised, "For telling such lies."

"Mr Yarde, I don't sense she is lying." Coach Roberts said.

Mr Yarde laughed, "How could any of that be real?"

"But she is a warlock princess, sir." Captain said.

"What?" Mr Yarde said.

"What?" Coach Emerson said.

What? But I didn't say that out loud. We all knew there was no such thing.

"Well, then it's better we don't cut off her hair." Coach Roberts suggested, "It might start a blizzard."

She walked up to me, "Indeed she isn't wearing contact lenses."

"I'm not a warlock princess." I wanted to fight this out with the truth, not some make-believe legend. Cut my hair. I'll prove it!

"Yes, yes, of course. You're just a normal girl, right?" Coach Emerson winked and patted my head, "Don't worry, you will not get any special treatment. If you want to get into the competitive team, you'd have to rely on your own hard work."

"Well then, Mr Yarde. Perhaps you should call for the practice to start." Coach Roberts suggested.

"Yes, of course." Mr Yarde decided, he looked a little fretful, "What are you waiting for? Get to your practice!"

"You heard the teacher!" Captain shouted, "Let's go!"

I followed the other beginners and Coach Emerson to the range on the side. She started us with a safety briefing, and then warm ups, followed by a run around the hall.

Some of the other students started complaining. I don't think they expected to break a sweat at archery club, I didn't either, but Coach Roberts said physical and mental fitness and alertness was an integral part of archery.

Our beginner pack included a wrist guard and a finger tab. Only the wrist guard was compulsory. Coach Roberts taught us how to put them on and use them.

Then we practiced with special bows, which weren't bows at all.

Coach Roberts said we should use this to practice our stance and posture, because we must never practice drawing a real bow without an arrow.

That's called a dry fire and it's so disastrous that the world would end if we did that. Well, she didn't quite say what would happen, just that "we don't want that."

So we were going to use fake bows because we were going to "establish our form".

I kept hearing grumbling from the other kids, but this was alright for me. I practiced till my arms were sore. Coach Roberts said my height was an advantage for archery, but I couldn't rely on that alone. She also said I needed to turn out my bow arm more and not just rely on the wrist guard. I can't say I understood what she meant, but I took it from her tone to just keep practicing.

I didn't use the finger tab. I liked to feel the bow string. By the end of club, Coach Roberts said I was ready to shoot next session. She went through every student, going down the beginner group list, taking the attendance and announcing who would be allowed to shoot next week and who would have to practice just the bow hold.

"It's very important in the long run, so as not to get injured unnecessarily, and so that you can hit the target over and over again." She explained.

That's cool. I liked Coach Roberts. By the end of the practice, I kind of understood how she had started off so many champions. A good foundation is often the most important if you're going to build a tall building on it.

At least that's what Beta Lucas often said.

After that, the seniors got back, their cheeks reddened by the cold outside.

"Thank you warlock princess for the good weather!" Priya shouted.

The other students shouted and hooted a bit too. I pointedly ignored them even as I felt heat crawl up my neck and my hair bristle. It flared within its pigtails and dropped down again.

"Woah..." Priya said, her eyes widening, "Do that again, Sam."

"I can't do it on command." I shrugged.

"Less chit chat, more clean up!" Captain called out.

So we dismantled the equipment, checked and folded the nets, cleaned the arrows and bows, and carried everything in their parts to store into the equipment room downstairs.

It was grimy, troublesome work, nothing too different from storing away the obstacle courses or training equipment back at my home pack, but I guess humans didn't do this kind of thing on a regular basis. They found it quite tiring.

I tried not to notice them slacking back as time went on. Back home, I would yell at the slackers to pull their own weight, but I was not back home.

One of the boys tripped backwards and landed with a resounding crash. I wasn't sure which was less possible, tripping backwards when you were walking forwards, or making that kind of sound with a few metal poles.

I winced. His friend went over to help him up, "Oh, you're such a klutz."

But at least he was still working hard.

I stopped too, and picked up the poles on top of the ones I was already carrying.

"Eh, wait!" The fallen boy scrambled up, "I can carry that!"

I remembered Priya's cheerful ways and grinned, "It's fine, you can go get the nets."

"Are you sure? But you're a girl!" The boy was blocking my path, but his black eyes looked sincere.

"Yeah, don't worry, I'm pretty strong." I told him.

"Ah, my name is River." The boy said, "That's Keanu."

"I'm Sam." I said.

"Hurry up noobs!" One of the seniors yelled.

"Better go." I said.

"Bye bye Princess!" The boy named Keanu said. And the two boys left to gather the nets.

Now that my path was unblocked, I carried the poles to the equipment room. They were kind of heavy, I guess more because my arms were already tired from practice earlier.

{Beta is near}

"Good work today, Sam!" Priya called out as I took my leave.

I raised a hand to say bye. My phone chimed.

B.HARVEY

- Sry, running late. 5min ETA. Student foyer.

Do all betas typed their texts like this, or only when they were in a hurry?

I checked the time. 4.55pm. Technically, he would be exactly on time.

Do all betas feel they were late when they weren't at least five minutes early?

{Beta is near}

I hope he wasn't speeding.