~PILOT /PART 2/~

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5:33 (A.M)

I'm panting like a dog and my legs feel like jelly. They're shivering - and not from the weather, running; though the air is quite cold as well. It rained at night so the floor's wet. I can't sit, I can't stop; and I don't intend to.

I tie my sweats tighter and leap over a column of planks, tiptoe-ing between cones and then sprinting again. A sleepy Lucy-Ella throws a football at me and I tap it onto the floor in Kavi fashion. I pass it back to approximately where she's standing (although she won't agree but she's just a kid) and she fails to stop the ball, even though she can use her hands and her legs.

"Mmmmm Roman! You're not passing straight!" she says.

I slow to a stop.
"You're just being too slow, Ella."

She rolls her eyes and sits down, probably ignoring the wet grass dampening her rump through her onesie.
"Go get the ball as punishment."

"Then what are you here for?"

She shrugs.
"You tell me. I didn't even ask to be here."
Raising the pink hood, she lies down. "I should be sleeping right now."

I sigh and walk over to her, stepping close enough, just so that whatever I say will sound overbearing and true.

"A two-digit girl wouldn't say that."

Ella immediately stands up and stomps over to the ball, grumbling:
"Two-digit this, two-digit that, you won't even get me something nice on my birthday-"

"A—"

"— a two digit girl wouldn't say that either, I KNOW Roman! Shut UP!"

Lucy-Ella is finally turning ten sometime this year; I honestly forgot when, to say the truth, but I'll know when we're close because she's so loud that the whole world will know. Until then, her weakness is anything about her finally being a two-digit age girl.

Lucy-Ella pelts me with the ball.
"You're being too slow," she says.

I don't sound like that.

Nope. I'll be quiet. I'm trying to pick my fights carefully with her. I know I'm supposed to restart, but I'm a little scared she'll go away if I tell her she threw it at the wrong time so I continue.

I chip the ball over a cone and rise with it. Slide left, slide right and I'm past the training dummies. I nudge the ball ahead of me as I burn into a straight.

I'm moving at high speed. I can feel it. I feel like I'm part of the wind. My thin training shirt dematerialises and a whole new world starts to fabricate around me. Then it falls apart—

"You're being too slow!!" She shouts.

I stop again. She looks me straight in the eye, pressing her lips together.
"What? You think life is unicorns and rainbows? People will say that! I'm your coach not your mother!"

And I can't help but be a little convinced by the speed of her barefaced lie.

"Hm." I continue, again.

And for the whole session she shouts "you're being too slow" to 'give me a taste of real life'.

~~~|~~~

7:02 (A.M)

I showered and Ella went back to sleep but she's up and in her uniform in time for breakfast. I know Mum doesn't let the servants bake, or do anything for that matter so I know the breakfast is her doing, which is... nice.

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