Luna’s sweat dripped from her entire body as she tried to do another pushup. It’s been a month since the talk she had with her mother and she was somewhat regretting ever bringing up the subject of training. This was far different than the training Alv had her do when he allowed her to join. Now it made sense why Anna would train extra with Thea, Thea’s training, while weird and a little brutal, showed results, while Alv’s just trained the basics. Even though that was what she was doing right now, but at a far higher degree.

After the last pushup, she collapsed on the ground bone-tired, her body feeling like jelly, relaxing while she could. Hoping to get at least a few moments rest before her mother forced her up once more.

“Come on sweetie, if you want to catch up to Van and Anna, you're going to have to work and push yourself harder than that,” Thea said, a mixed expression of worry for her darling girl and amusement at seeing her flounder and push herself so hard.

“I… don’t think… I can… do this anymore…” Luna barely managed to get out between breaths.

“Sure you can! I even brought more stamina potions and nutrient potions. You can go on for a few more hours at the least.” Thea said helpfully.

Luna paled, face still on the ground, body heaving, turning her head to try and plead with her mother. “Isn’t it a little dangerous to force the body to train like this? I can barely move as is and I’ve been working out for three hours straight!”

“With breaks.” Thea admonished.

“They were hardly breaks! And those potions taste like shit!” Luna replied, now feeling very fearful of what could happen to her if she didn’t convince her mother to at least give her some breathing room, all the while Thea looked proud of the fact that Luna finally said the word shit and was breaking down her daughter's decorum. “Not to mention we have been doing this for a month straight, I need a break, a real one!”

“It's nothing but training in the morning, training in the afternoon, and training in the evening. My body can’t take it anymore!” Luna tried to reason with her mother.

Thea looked at her daughter as if weighing what Luna said before finally seeming to see the light. “Alright… I suppose you can take the rest of the morning off…but-”

“Oh thank the gods.” was all Luna said, before closing her eyes and passing out, sleeping on the ground, leaving what Thea was about to say unheard.

With an amused sigh, Thea gently picked up her daughter to carry her to the bench and rested Luna’s head on her lap. Gently stroking it lovingly. This was one of her favorite past times, just her and her beautiful daughter. She could spend hours just stroking Luna’s head over and over again. And in fact, she did, humming one of her special tunes just for her baby girl all the way till lunchtime where she gently woke Luna up and helped her towards the table outside which was piled high with food.

Once sitting down, Luna still couldn’t help herself laying her head down on the table, arms acting like a pillow, despite how hungry she was, she could barely move, using most of the energy she recovered getting to the table, leaving barely any for eating.

“Come on sweetie, you have to eat, otherwise you won’t grow big and strong like Me!” Thea said encouragingly, showing off her body.

“What happened to the nutrient potions you were planning to feed me,” Luna mumbled sarcastically, it was enough to almost bring a tear of pride to her mother's eye.

“This is this, that is that.” Thea began. “The nutrient potion is just to make sure your muscle and body gets the nutrients necessary for your body to repair itself stronger. The food is for the same, but far more enjoyable,” she said mischievously. “Oh! And energy, like a stamina potion! but more enjoyable…” she tried to joke, but it only made Luna groan.

“Come on, please start eating? The more time you spend eating, the less time you have to spend training…” she said knowing the reaction that will get out of Luna.

With another groan, Luna finally got up and started to eat the food in front of her. Slowly at first, but far more voraciously as time continued, making her mother feel very proud.

Luna went at it like a tornado, sucking up plate after plate of food, filling her stomach, while at the same time filling up her mother with pride at how much she ate. After emptying several dishes she paused perplexed, looked down at the empty plates surrounding her, pushed one aside, and let her head fall back to the table once more. dropping the bread and chicken she was carrying in each of her hands.

“Isn’t she beautiful…” Thea said out loud to no one in particular. The Annas who had served the food shared a look, and went back to work, ignoring the comment.

After a short nap, Luna woke up with a start, strangely feeling far more tired than she ever had before despite getting time to rest and food to eat. “Wha-what happened…” Luna asked, confused as to the going on around her.

“Nothing sweetie, you just fell asleep again,” Thea replied helpfully. “And after some thinking, I suspect we ‘may’ have been pushing your body perhaps a ‘little’ too far. It most likely needs ‘some’ time to rest and heal properly before we can train you further.”

Luna looked up in disbelief, afraid of what might happen if she began to hope. Nervously she asked, “f-for how long.”

“Oh, perhaps for a few days. After that, we will begin proper martial arts training. The only issue I have is, which martial art should I teach you?” Thea said, pondering the question.

Luna blinked a little at that. “Martial arts? So soon? Not even Van and Anna have been taught martial arts yet.”

“That's because, for Van, he doesn’t have the time for it, he is far too busy learning magic and whatnot. As for Anna, she is also busy learning everything she can to be a proper maid, though soon she should be able to start learning some styles and forms for her to improve her combat potential. As for you, you will have to start learning earlier if you hope to catch up to them.” Thea said

“What martial art will I be learning?” Luna asked with open curiosity. A little excited at the prospect of learning something useful that will make her strong and more helpful.

“Hmm…” Thea looked at her daughter's body, taking into account her build and future fighting potential. “Perhaps… Blood and Shadow weaving? It's designed with vampires in mind, taking advantage of our affinity for darkness and blood. Eight forms for blood weaving, eight forms for shadow weaving, combined together for a total of sixteen forms. I say forms, but they are more like techniques. This style of fighting will teach you some hand-to-hand techniques, but is mostly used as a base for vampire martial artists to get into more advanced martial arts or rogues who want to improve themselves.”

“It will teach you how to improve your ability to read your opponent, confuse them with miss direction, take advantage of their openings and use their strength against them with a mixture of open hand fighting and more. It's a need to know kind of martial arts for all those who want a good foundation and base for further martial improvement… or rogues… you can use it for both, who knows? Maybe you will prefer being one of those, hide in shadows kind of people? Anyway, what do you think?” Thea asked, wondering if this kind of martial arts will appeal to her daughter.

Luna thought about it, but she didn’t really have any knowledge on martial arts to go on to know if it was a good one or not. So she just nodded and agreed, feeling like knowing a martial art was better than knowing none. Not to mention she had to start somewhere.

“Wonderful!” Thea said, clapping her hands together, “I'll let you rest for the next two days. Afterwards, we will begin your new training!” she said excitedly.

Luna just nodded once more, wishing she had more time, but also a little excited at the prospect of learning a martial art. Somewhat looking forward to what may come.

---

Two days later after her rest, though she says rest, she still had to continue her meditation and aura exercises, she finally was brought to the training yard to be taught the martial art style of blood and shadow weaving.

“Alright.” Thea began. “The first thing you need to know is that this style of fighting also allows you to use a sword if you must, but is mostly for hand to hand, particularly open palm, counter-attacks, and general redirection of your opponent's attacks. As you progress through the forms, you will gain more skills and techniques to better handle your foes and deal with them in a fast and precise manner.”

“You will be learning blood weaving first. The first form to learn of blood weaving is what's called blood sense. Think of it as something similar to aura sensing or mana sensing. It’s meant to allow you to sense nearby life, particularly if it has a blood flow. While not very helpful for when trying to find undead or other creatures with unique circulatory systems, it's important to be able to refine that sense until you cant detect life with it, while at the same time, detect the very blood flow of your opponent, since that is what will allow you to learn the second form of blood weaving.”

“For the learning of this technique, I have brought some animals in these cages here.” pointing at some squirrels and rabbits that Luna had been wondering about when she got here.

“I will teach you the basic technique and you will train that technique by trying to guess where I put the animals. Of course, this goes without saying, but you will be doing this with your eyes closed and sitting in the center of that ring I drew over there.” Now pointing to the circle she drew a few feet away.

“Once you have been able to detect the locations of the animals correctly and consistently, we will begin learning the blood flow of the animals by touching them, then move on from animals to people. Until you can not only detect them with your eyes closed but also be able by a glance, figure out their blood flow. Do you understand?”

Luna nodded a little nervously, not fully getting what's going on or how she was supposed to do it, but agreeing anyway in the hopes that when she starts practicing she will figure it out along the way.

“Good. For this, you will have to open your mind and let in your latent vampire potential, awaken that feeling and desire for blood, or at least embrace a small part of it into you. Allow that more feral aspect of yourself out, but under your control.” Thea said, guiding Luna towards the center of the circle and sitting her down.

“Now close your eyes, the first step to learning this technique is to learn it with your body. Feel your heartbeat, the flow of your blood moving through your veins. And when you have mastered that, then we will move on to trying to feel out the blood of others and then their general location. Don’t worry about trying to master it in one day, and using a little aura to cheat is also fine. I will help you every step of the way. Now close your eyes and let's begin.”

Luna nodded nervously but did as she was told. Closing her eyes, she did her best to hear her heartbeat. Not very difficult considering that trying to ignore your heartbeat was one of the bases for reaching true meditation, except this was in reverse.

Through the gentle whispers of her mother, she was gently guided into feeling the veins of her body, the way her blood flowed through it. Her every breath and movement of her organs. Slowly she was taken into a deeper understanding of her body's inner workings thanks in part to her mother’s guidance and being somewhat reminded of her own studies on biology.

After what felt like a few hours, she was able to feel the life energy that Thea had been talking about, and was slowly brought back to awareness and opened her eyes.

“Not bad sweetie, but then again you have been training and practicing your meditation exercise for years now. Now it's time to see if you can expand that feeling from yourself to others.” Thea said, getting up and bringing over the animals. “Eyes closed please. I don’t want you to cheat on this part.”

Luna did so, closing her eyes and waiting for a signal to begin, when it came, she tried to expand her awareness outward. A somewhat more difficult task to do, but one she was at least trying to do. After spending the whole day, she was able to get at least a sixty percent rate on guessing where the animals were. She wasn’t sure if that was something she should be proud of or not.

After that, she spent the next two days making sure that she was able to feel the presence of the animals from several feet away, and guess correctly at least several times in a row never stopping until her mother was satisfied and she moved on to sensing people. Sometimes touching them and trying to feel their blood flow like she was told to, trying to get a better understanding of life energy within people.

All this plus having to do the back-breaking workout that Thea set out for her. But she didn’t give up, she worked on it for a whole week, until her mother said she was ready for form two of blood weaving. Bio reading, the ability to read the twitches and muscles of the body to predict your opponent's moves.

It was far more difficult to learn this skill, a useful one, no doubt about it, but pretty hard especially when your mother was your sparring partner and she hardly held back.

“Come on sweetie,” Thea said, enjoying herself fighting her daughter. “You can do better than that.” As she threw another punch that Luna couldn’t dodge, pushing her daughter back. “Read the flow of my energy, feel the twitches of my body, I’m literally making it very obvious.”

“You try concentrating on ‘flow’ when you're being punched!” Luna sarcastically remarked back, a little annoyed about having to do something so difficult and failing miserably.

“It's not that hard sweetie,” Thea said as she casually sent a kick that pushed Luna back, sliding her several feet away as her daughter tried to block the attack. “All you're doing is trying to expand your awareness outside your body all the while you are fighting and having to dodge, read, counterattack, and watch the flow of your opponent. It just takes some balancing.”

“Easy enough for you to say, you had years of training and experience to work on, not to mention I feel you're more the kind to get stuff like that on an instinctual level than on a mental one,” Luna said, trying to ignore the soreness of her arms while she blocked another kick.

“But I can’t just do that,” she said, jumping up to avoid a sweep kick, only to be pushed back by an open palm, sending her back flying some more. Getting up, “I’m not like you,” panting, slightly out of breath, “I can’t just be shown it and go ‘aha! So that’s how it works!’ and then just go on my merry way!” now some of the feelings of her inadequacy showing through, making herself feel bad.

“Oh sweetie…” Thea began, feeling like perhaps she should have realized her daughter's feelings and addressed them sooner. “No one is saying you have to be exactly like me, trust me, I understand feeling inadequate when your training and studying doesn't seem to show fruit. But you have to understand, I’m not asking for perfection here, and I’m not expecting it from you. Your skills lie in other areas but don’t think that means you lack talent in this either, you have made far more improvement than most would have in the time given you. Not to mention you only have been at this for about a few days, and even going easy on you, you have begun to dodge and block my attacks far more often than before, even without proper reading of my body. That's an accomplishment if I ever saw one.” Thea said, allowing some of her pride in her daughter to show through.

“Remember what I said? It’s okay to cheat a little by using your aura, so long as you figure out the skill and make it yours. Try doing that right now, use your aura and try to follow the flow of my aura, and maybe over time you will begin to learn what I mean by reading your opponent. Do you want to try? Or do you want to take a break?” Thea asked, trying to be helpful.

Luna sighed, “I think I need a break.” she said, slowly walking over to the nearby table where water was poured for the two to drink.

Thea also left the field to join her daughter in some downtime. “Luna my love,” she said as she sat down on the table with her daughter. “Give it some time, no one becomes a master in just a few days of training. Not to mention you are making great progress, it’s something you should feel proud of. I promise you, when Van gets back from his studies, you will be a completely different person! Strong and powerful…”

Luna looked at her mother uncertainly but with a little hint of hope. “Really…?”

Thea nodded. “Really.”

Luna sighed and took another drink of her water. “Alright then…let's go...” then going back to the training field, followed by a smiling proud Thea.