Training of the Bone Princess

Training:

Cass was approaching the third and final hour of her morning routine that was mostly just doing her facial skull make up. Every morning it had to be absolutely perfect, and there was absolutely no chance she could be seen without it. As such she was always awake early to get started, and often would keep the family from going to the toilet. But it was all worth. Cass knew it was worth it when she looked so damn good. And maybe, just maybe, that would be the day that Sam might finally love her. “Yeah, one day you’re realise how much you truly lust for me Sammy-chan,” She spoke to her reflection as she was finishing the final touches to her lips, making sure they were absolutely coated in the white paint and finally on to the more detailed step which was the flower patterns painted on to her chin. Paint brush in hand she dragged it through the black powder spreading the miniscule amounts of moisture to collect on the bristles, “… ok brush… please try not to make a mess of this again today,” She spoke to the brush like it was alive, even giving it a scowl, before she brought it to her chin. As was the occurance every day the sharp bristles tickled her chin and immediately made her squeak and flinch. Having done this so much she knew exactly to pull back right away or risk smudging all of her hard work. “C’mon, I asked nicely this time and everything!” She wasn’t even so fussed over making noise by now as she was sure that Sam would be awake by now at least. In fact she was sure she heard him shuffling around. A grin crossed her face as she had saved up enough for such a delight that she hoped he would like. Of course to anybody else they would tell her she needed another person to show it off too due to Sam’s romantic persuasion, but she never listened then and saw no reason to now! She would get him one day. It didn’t matter he liked other boys. Cass would be the exception to the rule!

It took Cass several more tries of just putting the brush to her chin before she could even stomach the tickling. But once she could steel herself from responding she was gold. Until she got to the underside of her jaw where it was all skin and nerve endings, no bone. It was just a repeat of short squeaks and trying not to smear the black make up anywhere, either from the brush itself or nudging the black lines she had painted on to her face. Almost an hour later and the flower was lined and painted, and she was on the final segment; the cobweb motif on her forehead. That was nowhere near that much trouble however. She had the most steady for hands after all, it was one of the traits that made her, as she was once told by Sam when she first came to live with him, an ideal candidate for puppeteering. The lines were made exceptionally swiftly, without a single stray line, like single strands of hair wearing together on her face to form the web. She stepped back and admired herself, including kissing at her reflection in the mirror. But now, now the day was starting.

And she had nothing to do. She couldn’t think of how to spend her day, she needed to get stronger, find a way to fight without puppet strings. Sam had some big secret he was keeping from her, and it unfortunately was not a proposal. No, she’d already rummaged through his drawers the day before so she was certainly unless he snuck away from her to buy a ring, he didn’t have one.

Looking to her arms she recalled some secret technique she’d found mention of, one that was apparently impossible without intricate knowledge of bone structure. And who better to master said technique but Cass, the self-proclaimed Bone Princess, she could do it for sure. But perhaps a little time to relax first, go for a walk, focus her mentality on impressing Sam to finally truly fall in love with her. She meant become a strong warrior! That was what she meant. She couldn’t have Sam fall in love with her unless she was a strong fighter after all. One would undoubtedly lead in to the other.

But Cass finally had something to occupy her time around bothering her adoptive brother. She had visited Magnus a few times in his store, always ending with being kicked out for being ‘too creepy’. It wasn’t Cass’s fault that weird Faunus had a none symmetrical skill protrusion that she could have easily fixed with just a little bone breaking. She was a master at that! But no. Magnus booted her out for harassing customers. This was worse than the time she was just admiring a woman’s hips! They were just perfect~ Wide enough for easy child birth, perfect for fat distribution and as a result grip during sexual intercourse allowed the best forms of contact, all whilst still not too wide to impede her natural walk. Sadly she didn’t have the shoulders and rib cage to match. Too naturally pear shaped, she over ate in order to not look like a triangle Cass believed. It was truly a shame. She was only admiring the hips but apparently it was rude, ignorant, and harassment. She needed to compare though, having visited one of her mentors’ friend. For a masculine composition bone structure, Hana certainly had a feminine figure despite her youth. But apparently that was fake? Hana had said she used her mark to halt her physical aging, so perhaps that was all. There was the perfect imperfections still though that made her great. Plus she seemed to encourage her flirty behaviour. Cass wasn’t really interested, but it was nice to be admired and shown how to wield a crop.

She began to wonder if perhaps she could get better with a crop, maybe Sam would fall in love with her. Maybe he liked that sort of thing? She wasn’t as deeply a follower of Jashin in the same way he was. To him death was a different aspect. Death allowed Cass to commune on a more personal level, she would make allies, an army of Souls that would empower her puppets. She didn’t understand fully, but she felt the contrast was to Sam in that his army WAS those who had died. Cass would bind them to her, they would fight with her. Sam’s, his would fight FOR him.

And Cass began to drool almost at the thought of Sam demanding and dominating her in that same way.

Word Count: 1128 / 1.1K

Approved

Basic Training - Physical (Weekly Training)

Every day that passed was another day that the young Cass was approaching the time when she could finally begin making a mark for herself. She was officially a student to her adoptive brother, something she rather quite enjoyed as it was one period of time he couldn’t actually get away from her. However likewise, she had long promised not to do any of her ‘creepy stuff’ during the training. What creepy stuff?! Was showing your affection and love for something creepy? Cass certainly didn’t think so. Everybody else however knew Cass was abnormal in her love for her brother. She had been working so hard, more so now that her arm was fully healed after the extraction of the bones in her forearm. That was always going to be an interesting story. The bones still currently sat in her bathtub being soaked and cleaned. They were more than horrendously messy after all. But with them out she had already been planning the shapes they would take, especially now she was getting control of the Steel Release permeating her bones, making them tough, and with more ways to vary them. With her bones she planned the thinner to be her sword, long and sharp, light weight, whilst the other would be her mace, heavy but balanced, shattering surfaces with each swing. They would be beautiful when they were done and she knew it. She could only hope that others would find the beauty in her art. She knew what else was coming however, knowing her bone weapons would pale in comparison to the approaching puppets.

Word Count: 265 / 250

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Advanced Training - Physical (Weekly Training)

Cass could not understand why she ever thought that this was a good idea. Everything seemed to sound in her mind, such an amazing idea that could make her exceptionally strong whilst she waited on Sam to finish his preparations, and her own teachings that made up the kugujutsu style that Sam had learned from someone else. One that apparently would make her even stronger than the usual puppeteers. Apparently her love of skeletons only went further to help that. She wasn’t too far off, her bone control was beyond what most Ibwa were, if only for her Dakar lineage, and that would help her aim. But as she looked down at her still healing arm, she was realising she was jumping in to realm that were beyond what most called ‘normal’.

She was sure that Sam rather liked Cass was in her current bandaged state. She had been unable to put her make up on, which had at least meant she was sleeping in more, helping with her clan training she was finally take part in to learn of the Spiritual side to things down the Spirit Path. It was an odd sense of serenity. Without her right arm she wasn’t taking two hours a day for her make up, she was going to lessons to learn to relax her mind and commune with those who have passed on, she had put so much less focus on her brother. Rather than her usual grabbing, often groping, and flirting, she would end the day just sitting with him much like any normal little sister. She hadn’t seen any body else however, wondering to herself if she could visit Magnus. A little spark went off in her mind as she wondered if he might have something in his utterly bizarre roster of weird candy concoctions with his… what was it? Alchemy? Cass wasn’t completely sure, she hadn’t visited him at all recently, even before having the bones in her arm removed.

Cass was getting bored without Sam around, off perfecting some ‘ultimate army creating technique’. She had no idea what he was talking about, but it sounded amazing, and made him promise to show her what it would do. Little knowing that in the future she would take his idea to her own teachings, giving them a strong combination. But due time. And her sensei wasn’t around either, having told Cass to just read up on old techniques whilst she waited for her arm to regenerate. She still needed to clean up the now dried blood from the family room, and from the bones she had cut out too so she could properly form them in to her weapons. But doing any heavy work like that without both of her arms was almost impossible.

She would sit down at the low table, looking over the bandages as she released the sling she had it wrapped in to rest on the table. It hurt a little to have the weight like that, but it was easily nothing she couldn’t handle. Peeling the bandages off, her body was healing up fine it seemed. Her arm no longer looked like a squeezed tube of toothpaste, and whilst the bones now seemed physically there, they weren’t strong enough to fully support even her hand, or strong enough to take holding a bag of rice. With a sigh, the sling came back on, and she decided to head to Magnus’s place for something sweet.

Word Count: 575 / 500

Approved

Training:

“Say Cass. Beautiful Miss Cass. Cassiel Rachiel Ibwa. Heh, Ibwa still sounds funny to say.” It was in that moment that Cass actually realised that the natural endorphins that her body gave off whilst she was fixing up the missing bones in her arm was getting too much without control. Why she thought her name was funny was completely lost on her, it had after all been her name since she were a toddler. “I wonder if Cassiel is even my real name. Or Rachiel. Oh! I wonder if my name might actually have been Rachiel Cassiel something or other. I wonder what my birth last name even was. Oh! Maybe it was Shwamba. Heh, Cassiel Rachiel Shwamba. That’s an awesome name but it’s a really dumb name,” She rolled over wanting just to get out of bed for the bathroom, but found the floor instead. She rolled right out and slammed face first in to the floor. “Uh, Sam. … Sam? … Sam?!” She was still lying face down on the floor shouting for her brother’s help. “Oh yeah, he’s gone out,”

Cass actually fell asleep in that position only shortly after trying to shout for their parents, or her adoptive parents any way, but neither came and she finally recalled she was home alone after the visit from the doctor who was helping her with the pain. When she finally woke up the pain relieving drugs were taking a better and more stable effect on her, no longer feeling any where near as loopy as she had been before the little nap. But now had an incredibly sore face still, and her joints in her shoulders hurt. The reminder however came when she tried to push herself up only to recall one arm was sealed away inside of a thick cast, which felt exceptionally weird when her arm was quite literally empty from the elbow to her wrist. It was going to be a very long road, but she was certain that she could make it through without too much worry. It just meant she would do a lot of studying.

As she looked back on that first morning all those weeks ago, she was finally cutting open her own cast. Something she knew that she would be told off for so much as she nearly nicked her very freshly healed arm, but she was just so excited to finally have it off. Dropping the knife with the remnants of the cast she flexed off her arm, even smacking her hand to it. She winced as the area was still tender, but she was no longer like a squeezed bottle of toothpaste and that alone felt just so amazing. Even if it hurt more and more the longer she did it, she still dug her fingers in to her flesh just to feel the outline of the regrown bones. Just the feel of them right back there, knowing that the entire structure in her arms was brand new, grown perfectly as she wanted from nothing but her own Dakar skeletal structure. It was amazing. If she were older she might understand better the wave of emotions, and would have known how to deal with them, but instead she was left with a tightening in her chest and letting go of her arm and focusing her attention on the large mirror on her make up desk. It was a strange feeling, seeing herself even without her usual make up on. But with the past few weeks it had become more and more common to not wear it due to ease.

For all she felt from groping her new bones, looking at her natural reflection made her stomach turn all of a sudden. For all the necessity looking at her bare face had done little, but now both arms were usable, seeing the pale skin beneath just felt completely wrong. She wanted to go out, but… she didn’t have her skull face on. “… Hey Sam?” She called out. One little perk she’d grown to like was her brother seemed to at least tolerate her more lately, though perhaps that was she was after his company on a whole new level whilst she was healing. She still felt she annoyed him, but he seemed to have liked her more recently. Even shared a little secret that he was planning to take her out at some time to teach her something new. Something big, he said. In return she would read up on old clan teachings as a follower of Jashin, and to practise more for the abilities her Dakar lineage would allow. She didn’t know what he was going to teach her however, but it also helped her desire to be close to him. She was getting some private tutoring! Every young girl knew what that meant when a boy wanted to private study with them.

The old Cass was coming back. Even without her make up on, she began to grin that same toothy grin that apparently unnerved people, and thought about. Private time with her Sammy.

Word Count: 845 / 800

Approved

Training: Dakar Strength C, Speed D+C

Cass needed to be fast. Since her graduation to Bronze Knight was coming so close she had been training more and more with Ibwa clansmen, and so far whilst she’d become good with her bone manipulation, and of course the constant scaring of people, she had yet to win a spar. She might not have been exactly expected to win against much more skilled fighters, but it was still an annoyance to the sugar skull girl. So that day she intended to beat the new instructor. Waking up early, even going so far as to skip out on her make up to train in perfect privacy, she found a little grove that the strange woman Stohana had shown her one time for even more privacy. She wouldn’t however get all of the way in, stopping as she heard the very obvious noises of two women giggling, and from the additional sounds, that they were enjoying each other’s company plenty. Cass sighed and turned around before she could undoubtedly walk in on Hana and her bride to be having some private fun in the girl’s personal training ground away from the compound she lived on.

Turning back she would just find her own little spot in the area. It wasn’t an easy task exactly but she would stumble through the area and in to town. For the most part during the walk through town nobody seemed to even recognise her, even the local vendors she often bought chocolate filled bread rolls from didn’t recognise the brunette without her skull face on. She was all the more upset however when the stalls were only just preparing, and thus she couldn’t pig out on rolls. Thinking that over she realised that it was probably a good job or she might have found her training that much more difficult because of a full stomach.

Where she lacked in speed, Cass surely had worked on the strength her hardened bones gave her, using that sheer power just to launch herself up on to the roofs of nearby buildings and along edges to speed up her movement. She was long since out of breath, she just wanted to find somewhere to train by herself quickly. Little did she realise that just her running around was giving her more of a work out than she’d had all week. So much focus on her abilities, she neglected the very core training she should work on, especially as a future puppeteer who would need to defend herself as well as controlling puppets. Before she knew it she was relying less on her sheer power to get her between buildings, landing more fluidly on the edges and able to grab when she fell from ledges, and jab her Calcium Knuckle in to the walls when she was falling backwards.

It was approaching the time for her to head back home to change and apply her ‘true face’ when it finally dawned upon her she had been making the whole village a training ground. The fact that nobody seemed to recognise her without her face, well that helped in that she wouldn’t be told off later.

Word Count: 522 / 500

Approved

Training:

Cass wasn’t sure what had caused it, but looking over the markings running up her arm where the bones had recently regrown back in to place. But after a sparring match had gone slightly too far, Cass had knicked herself on her own sword. Sat in the medical bed she watched the vitals slowly increasing as her bloods seemed to be regenerating within herself. Thinking back, maybe a ‘knick’ was a drastic understatement. She stabbed herself. Through the stomach. That was definitely more than a knick. Maybe little more than a stab too. Perhaps it would be much closer to say she tried to use her own body as a sheath. There was no other way at all. She’d have to learn not to do that.

She found herself discharged from the medics care not too longer later when it was discovered the blood pumping through her veins had returned to normal long before she was even comfortable in the bed. If anything she had more taken for transfusions. It turned out at some point she had learned a way to push her body to replenish her stores of blood. Only after did she realise that it was a drain upon her reserves of chakra, but as she had rested, she had simultaneously recovered her blood natural, along with any chakra she would spend in order to increase how quickly her body refilled. Still, had had meant she was all the more sturdy And despite the rather serious accident, her trained had given her the okay for placement as a Bronze Knight of Pandora. Now she just hoped that her Sammy wouldn’t divert that decision as her official mentor. She had given up plenty to get to this point, and lately that even included having to spend her nights in her own bed and with the promise not to interrupt Sam. She… was definitely not a fan of that. She liked being close with him, and she couldn’t even convince him just to let her sleep in his bed with him. No flirty stuff or anything. But it was a no deal.

Cass turned her attention to their shared home, knowing she would be alone for another few hours and figuring there was no better use than to rest up. If she had to test herself to become a Bronze Knight she intended to get well rested. It also meant that if she had to wake up early she had plenty of time for her make up.

Word Count: 415 / 400

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