The Mating School

Chapter 24

The sky looked so perfect in the minutes right before dawn. Lily watched it through the domed roof of the courtyard. Tuesday meant Life Principles, and General Agility later.. but not right now.

Right now the morning was Lily's alone. 

She took a few minutes to stretch.. mostly to give herself time to figure out how to shift again. 'Relax the mind', she remembered Mrs. Bernette telling them. Breath deep... 

A few more minutes passed, and Lily was glad no one else was around.. as if it'd be embarrassing to be seen just standing there. 'Honestly, they probably wouldn't care though', Lily thought to herself.

Even if there were students there, and even if they did feel judgment towards her; She shouldn't care. After all, she couldn't control the opinions of others, and as such worrying about what others might think, wasn't the best use of her time. 

She supposed she could get better at this focus and mind control stuff.

She almost laughed. 

"Ok Lily," she told herself, "Remember what it felt like."

But another 30 minutes passed before she started to feel a tingling sensation. She thought about the feeling of her paws and the warmth her fur provided. She remembered the feeling of her tail as she leaped onto a low-hanging tree limb. How it moved in tandem with her sleek body to help with balance.

In many ways, shifting was kind of like falling asleep. A quiet peacefulness washed over her mind as she let go of all thought. All the things she'd need to be doing later.. all the homework and essays she'd need to finish this week. She let go of the idea of shifter abilities she needed to acquire... because right now.. it was just her, a new day, and the euphoria of racing forward, and embracing the feeling of being in her leopard form once more.

Lily wasn't able to manage her enhanced sense of smell in human form until the next Tuesday; By which time Anne, had drilled into her about how she needed to be vigilant about controlling her mind and thoughts.

'Imperative..', thought Lily.. that was the word Anne had used. 

The students were evenly spaced in long rows doing their warm-up. That's how General Agility was for the most part. The teacher stood at the front showing them the correct position of the exercise, and the class mirrored it. 

The second part of the class was always more interesting though. Today the teacher had gotten out the gats; which were devices that were about the size of a tennis ball. Once the launch was triggered, it would shoot out spongy darts three at a time. The blunt darts were incredibly fast and flew with a slight curve depending on the angle of the gat when triggered.

The object of the lesson was to not get hit... Or rather to provide students with the opportunity to improve their spatial awareness and agility. The darts were so light that it didn't hurt to get hit. A red border was spray-painted in an expansive and curvy kind of way.

It must have been the adrenaline of the game that triggered Lily's ability. Because Lily didn't feel relaxed or meditative at all. 

She'd thought the achievement of accessing her shifter senses would leave her feeling euphoric, but the reality was that enhanced smell in a confined space full of nearly 100 sweaty students was .. overwhelming. 

She ran and dodged a gat thrown towards her, but her evasion of the darts released left her uncomfortably close to the out-of-bounds line. Irene was coming towards her looking smug. 

Well, that is until Sophie hit her from behind. Effectively disqualifying her. 

Lily laughed and high-fived Sophie before running towards the middle where there was some tree cover. As such, she didn't see the mutinous look on Irene's face...

Sorry about the short chapter.  I'm going to start posting three chapters weekly, instead of two to make up for this. I am getting better at writing longer chapters in the story I'm currently working on! 

Thank you for the feedback and support. It's incredibly valuable to me.

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