Taipan // Doctor Strange

Chapter 12

The clock upon the wall ticked endlessly as my eyes burned from staring at the pages of books. Next time, I wouldn't be wearing my contacts to my trip to the library. Especially since I still had a daunting six hours of training after dinner was put out for people to grab.

Kamar-taj was different from what I expected a sorcery place to be.. It was old-fashioned, and we had to wear uniforms of baggy clothes with a usual robe thrown over if we were cold. The food was okay, and I had found myself in a quiet existence among the bustle of the temple- but within the couple months of my presence, I was beginning to grow restless.

I missed the constant love of my family, no matter how wimpy that sounded. I missed my sister's occasional calls to check up on me and ask how my life was going; and my dad's meals that he invited us to at least twice a week. But moreover, I wanted to see Samantha.

I wanted to make an impact on her before she learned what was in my past; She was a new member of my family that might not need to know what I'd done- and then I would be seen as a regular aunt to her.

I was becoming extremely homesick, and I didn't try to hide it in my short temper whenever Stephen became frustrated with my lack of improvement during training.

"Keep your hands up," he ordered sternly, showing my weakness by striking the side of my head.

My eyes narrowed after the long four hours of practice. "I'd keep them up if you stopped attacking my lower half."

"I'd stop attacking your vitals if you kept your hands up!"

I dropped my defense immediately. "That doesn't even make sense!" Defeat was written in my tone. I was lucky that Stephen felt tired as well, or else I don't doubt that he'd have taken advantage and struck me unconscious.

This temple ran on tough love, I had learned.

"Just..." Stephen squeezed the bridge of his nose, "You have to be able to adjust yourself." I raised my brow in a defiant confusion. "Keep working on it." and then he sighed, heavily and without motivation.

"I will," I said calmer, grabbing the deep green shawl I had chosen for myself when I was first given a designated room to sleep and keep my things in. Wrapping the thing around my shoulders, I felt his hand land above the layers in an attempt to be reassuring.

"You will get there," he said before pausing and pressing his lips together. "Maybe not as quickly as I did- but we can hope."

I dropped my jaw in humorous shock. "Not accurate, actually." I laughed. "Wong told me you took a trip to Mount Everest in order to get the Sling Ring down" Now Stephen's face mimicked mine.

"What?" He asked in disbelief with a grin, "We pinky-swore he wouldn't tell anyone."

"Aha!" I was victorious. Stephen's confusion made me explain further: "He just told me the Ancient One sent the 'slow ones' to Mount Everest."

Stephen narrowed his blue eyes at me, his gaze down and stuck to my own as the tilt of his smile lowered just the slightest bit. I caught my breath in my throat; Recently I had been having... trouble, we'll say, with keeping my cheeks from burning whenever I was in proximity of this man. His mere presence turned my face to the shade of a sunburnt tomato. And now, he was close, "Well played, Alaria." he said.

I moved away then and into the temple itself. I needed to shower- and hopefully wash away the extreme nervousness I felt when he was around.

Not all training sessions ended on a good note. A few times Stephen ended it early because of my lack of success in whatever we were doing, and I couldn't really blame him. I had accepted that I just wasn't 'good' at martial arts- I wasn't born to do it. I understood that I was his first student, but the fact that he was also fairly new to everything made me wonder why he was the one teaching me instead of Wong or any of the other masters.