Stars Of Our Lives

*Epic Montage Music*

We ended up staying at Trollmarket for the rest of the spring and well into the summer. And it was every bit the adventure our last five month trip had been.

I spent my mornings with Claire, working on my push ups. Sit ups. Stretching. The works. Two weeks in, Claire mentioned my 'extracurriculars' to Jim and he got Eli to install a pull up bar. Eli had glared at me on his way out. "You better not hang yourself on it," He muttered.

I glanced at him over my shoulder. "What a ray of sunshine you are today."

"Shut up."

One morning, Claire was feeling better than normal and challenged me to spar her. It was honestly the most fun I'd had in weeks. Old muscle memory started pouring back into my brain, reflexes I thought I'd long forgotten kicking back in. I was sore beyond belief for the rest of the week, but it was totally worth it.

Even when she wasn't feeling better than normal, Claire still watched me until she was. It was weird having an audience while trying to work out, but it's not like there was anything else to do in that room.

"It's like waking up under water," She told me one day. "And you can't breathe or move or think, you just have to wait for yourself to float to the surface. And . . . and it hurts."

Every hour or so, she would ask me to do something specific. Like the handstand thing. I did a dozen cartwheels. Several backbends. And like a million different ways to do the splits.

One day she asked me to do a backflip, and long story short, I almost dislocated my shoulder and Jim recommended I stop taking suggestions from Claire while she's too hazy to recognize her own name.

I kept doing the damn backflip anyway, determined to get it right. And like, a million and one bruises later, I finally did.

Of course, that wasn't the only training I was getting. Thought it was the only training I was actually good at. 

Go figure.

Seamus and I were doing the blocking exercises for weeks before I was finally able to shut him out. It happened just like he said, slowly and surely. With painstaking practice. And I'm not exaggerating the pain part. I started carrying a bottle of aspirin on me at all times, just to keep the migraines under control.

"They'll go away eventually," Seamus said. "Not as soon as you'd like, but you know, eventually."

Working with my abilities actually wasn't too different from working with my muscles. It hurt, and I was sore in ways I didn't even know I could be. But eventually, I started feeling my strength build up. Pushing the door closed became easier. I was able to keep up the struggle for longer and longer each time. The wall between us became more and more detailed the more time I spent fleshing it out.

When I'd finally done it, I almost didn't even realize I had. I was just holding up the wall, pouring my energy into shoving him away. Then I felt his hand pull away from mine.

"What?" I asked.

Seamus was grinning. "Do you know what just happened?"

I leaned back. "No . . ."

"I was holding your hand for five minutes," He said. "And you didn't get into my head. Not even once."

I looked down at my hands in awe. "You mean . . . I did it?"

He gave me a proud smile, nodding.

A laugh bubbled up from my throat, and as exhausted as I was, it lasted for almost ten minutes. "I did it!" I pumped my fists in the air. "Yes!"

After that, we worked on the block becoming second nature, me only entering someone's mind when I wanted to. That mostly consisted of Seamus and I talking, then him grabbing my hands at random, and me having to keep up the conversation while still blocking him out.