"Come on Fiona, focus!" Clara admonished me. "Don't let it droop down towards the ground. Maintain a firm grip, keep it up."

I sighed and held the stick a little tighter, so the end was angled upwards instead of dangling down by my feet. At the same time I asked, "Do I really have to keep doing this? I'm really not sure I'm cut out for this stuff after all."

The tall strong ranger nodded, "I'm sure Fiona. Like it or not you do need to know how to fight, incase we come across something that Avril and I can't handle on our own. We can't always count on the same sort of luck that took down the Demon Queen. So let's start again, ok? Now."

"All right," I grumbled as I tried to mentally prepare myself for yet another mock fight.

It was early evening by now, but the three of us had stopped a bit early to make camp after we came across a convenient meadow. We spent a half hour gathering firewood, then Avril got to work setting up the bedrolls and things while Clara insisted on taking some time to give me proper lessons in fighting.

Except she hadn't really tried to teach me anything, all she'd done is get me to try and attack her over and over again while she easily defeated me each and every time. Fortunately we weren't armed with real weapons for this, my sword and daggers were with my pack and everything else. Same with her things. Instead I was armed with a piece of wood that was roughly the same size as my sword, while Clara had a stick of her own.

The two of us using sticks left me with the mental image of a couple kids pretending to be knights or pirates or whatever, hacking away at each other with sticks and imagining it was some great flashy fight scene from a movie or video game.

The difference was Clara and I weren't using our sticks to wildly swing at each other. This was a lot more precise and measured, but every time I approached to attack I was invariably disarmed or ended up on my butt.

And my latest attempt ended exactly the same as the previous dozen. I tried to pretend my stick was a sword, tried to call on whatever skills I'd been gifted, and tried to score a hit on the tall strong ranger. And exactly as I expected, she easily blocked my strike then landed one of her own, which left me off-balance and I ended up on my ass again.

This time I didn't even bother to get up. I just sat there and sighed, "This is pointless. I'm not a rogue, I'm not an adventurer. We shouldn't have wasted money on my sword or daggers. I'll just be your loving cuddly pet fox, that's more my style."

Clara reached out and took my hand then easily lifted me up onto my feet again. She gave me a sympathetic smile as she said, "You've got some skill cutie. Your grip is good, your swings and thrusts are pretty good. Your technique is ok, but I can see what you're doing wrong."

"Ok I'll bite. What is it I'm doing wrong?" I asked.

"You're trying to fight me as if we were the same size," she replied with a shrug. "You're focused on my head, my neck, my shoulders and upper arms, my chest. And granted those are good areas to target, but the reality is you're just not tall enough to attack those areas. Not on me, and definitely not on anybody taller than me."

I felt my cheeks heating up as I protested, "I'm not that short! I can easily reach your face with my bare hand, and my sword gives me another forty-five centimetres ontop of that!"

The ranger smiled, "I didn't say you couldn't reach Fiona, I said you weren't tall enough to attack there."

"It pulls you off-balance," she explained after a brief pause. "And it leaves you over-exposed. All your attention is up above your own head, your eyes, your sword, your focus is all way up here. That leaves most of your body open to attack, and with you all stretched upwards and outwards so you can strike it's easy for me to nudge you all the way over so you fall."

I frowned, "So what am I supposed to do then? Attack people's ankles like some angry little puppy?"

A burst of giggles behind us told me Avril was listening in on our conversation. Even Clara was fighting to hold back some laughter. She just barely managed to keep a straight face as she corrected me, "Young foxes are called kits Fiona, not puppies."

"And actually yes," she added, before I could protest again. "Attack where your enemy is weak and you are strong. Don't fight them on their terms, fight them on yours."

Her tone became much more serious as she continued, "I'm sorry cutie but the bottom line is you are a small weak cute foxgirl. If you try to fight like a tall strong man you will lose every time. I could give you some specific examples but first I want you to try and come up with some ideas on your own. So take a minute Fiona and think about that. Fight like a cute little foxgirl, not like a man. How would a cute fluffy little foxgirl fight?"

My cheeks were bright red again by the time she was finished, but my tail was gently swishing back and forth behind me as I tried to figure out what she wasn't telling me. I ended up trying to envision what our fights looked like from other angles. Then to sort of exaggerate the differences in my mind, I tried to imagine what it'd be like if I was even smaller or she was taller.

It finally dawned on me what she was getting at, based on her agreeing with my joke about going for the ankles. And in retrospect it was so obvious I felt embarrassed all over again. Basically she was saying to strike low, below my enemy's reach. Instead of me trying to stretch upwards to hit them, force them to stretch down to defend. If my over-extending up and out pulled me off-balance, then forcing my opponent downwards might draw them off-balance instead.

"Ok," I nodded to let her know I was ready. Then without any more delay I attacked again.

This time instead of trying to hit her in the usual spots I ducked even lower as I moved in for my strike, and actually managed to tap the side of her thigh with my stick. It wasn't a decisive victory though, as her own stick tapped my shoulder at the same time. But at least I didn't end up on my ass again, so that was a plus.

"Good start," Clara smiled. "Don't forget to defend yourself though cutie. You can still use feints, dodge, fake attacks, all that sort of thing."

"And there's better targets than the outside of the thigh," she added. "Back of the ankle if it's not protected by boots. Back of the knee. Inside of the thigh. And if you're facing off against a guy, right between the legs is a good soft target."

I grimaced, "Isn't that fighting dirty? Going for the hamstring or the groin?"

Clara gave me a sad smile, "There's no such thing as fighting dirty Fiona, not out here in the real world. There's only fights you win, and fights you lose."

"The idea of fighting clean or dirty only applies in tightly-controlled situations such as sparing or official duels," she added in a sombre tone. "But in a real fight where your life is on the line, you do whatever it takes to win."

I nodded slowly as I took a second or two to digest that. Then before I could respond Avril spoke up, addressing the both of us.

"Are you two about finished?" the druid asked. "I've got the fire going and I'm ready to start fixing dinner now."

"No wait," I said as I turned around. "I want to cook this time! I have a treat for you both!"

Clara smiled, "In that case I suppose our training is finished for now. We'll pick it up again tomorrow afternoon though."

Within a minute or two I was kneeling next to the little fire, frowning in concentration as I tried to figure out how to do this. Bacon in this world wasn't like the stuff I had in my last life. It didn't come pre-sliced in perfect identical thin strips, instead I had a solid slab of meat that I had to cut up myself.

And I didn't have access to a flat cutting board or a clean counter, I didn't even have a butcher knife. So I was doing my best to cut slices off the hunk of meat using my new little knife, and for a cutting surface I had the flattest piece of firewood I could find. Which was still pretty round.

So rather than a bunch of thin neat identical strips, I ended up with a half dozen chunky misshapen pieces of meat. On the plus side I didn't cut off any of my fingers, and didn't drop any of the precious bacon in the dirt. Even better, I still had enough left to make at least two more meals. So that got wrapped up and stuffed away into my pack, while I placed the metal pan ontop of the fire.

My next challenge was cooking the bacon without burning it or setting it on fire. I'd never cooked over a wood fire before, and instead of tongs my cooking utensil was a piece of firewood I hastily whittled until it had a sort of flattish edge like a small makeshift spatula.

And while I was keeping an eye on the meat I also did my best to cut one of my fresh loafs of bread into slices. That went about as well as slicing bacon, I managed to get six slices but they were chunky and kind of ragged.

Actually toasting the bread was another challenge. I ended up doing that one slice at a time, by poking a thin bit of wood through it and holding it over the fire as if I was roasting a large flat marshmallow.

So not only was the bread unevenly cut but it was also unevenly toasted, with burned bits and untoasted bits in addition to the parts that actually browned. The bacon wasn't much better, slices had crisp parts and burned spots and other areas that were still kind of juicy and pink.

The final step was probably the unhealthiest, but in lieu of butter I took the bacon out of the pan and quickly dropped each slice of bread in, so it picked up a coat grease on one side. Then at long last I carefully assembled all the ingredients into three sandwiches. Each one had two pieces of bacon in between two slices of bread.

Through the whole ordeal I managed to only burn three of my fingers, which I considered a minor triumph considering my inexperience and the conditions I was working with.

"There we go," I announced as I handed one to Clara and the other to Avril. "Sorry it's not as perfect as I wanted. I hope you like it anyways."

For the next few minutes the three of us ate in relative silence. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how good dinner turned out to be. I was positive it was going to be sub-par at best, considering the conditions and how messy and unevenly cooked it was.

And sure, some bits were crunchy and other bits were chewy, but all of it was tasty. It maybe could have used a bit of seasoning, and I'd definitely look into that next time. Over-all though, I was actually pretty pleased with how it turned out. Especially since it was the very first thing I'd ever tried to cook in this new life, and under these sorts of conditions.

On the other hand I was still worried what my companions thought of it. It didn't matter how much I liked it if the two of them thought it was bad. So I was kind of anxious when I stopped eating after a minute or two and asked, "So um, what do you think? Is it ok?"

Clara was already halfway through hers. She swallowed another mouthful then smiled "It's delicious. I'm already looking forward to having this again tomorrow, Fiona."

"Definitely," Avril agreed. "I've had bacon before, and toast once or twice. But never combined them together like this. It's really good. What do you call this delight?"

By that point my tail was wagging up a storm again. The fact that my friends both liked it made it taste even better, as far as I was concerned. I probably had a big happy grin on my face too as I replied, "It's just a sandwich."

The druid frowned, "I thought a sandwich was roast lamb inside bread. This is bacon inside toast, how is that the same thing?"

"It just is?" I shrugged. "Last night I made a roasted lamb sandwich, this is a toasted bacon sandwich. A sandwich is just, a thing inside some bread. Or toast. Or buns, you can make a sandwich with buns. The inside doesn't have to be meat either, you can make sandwiches with veggies. Or um, I don't know if you have peanut butter here but I think it's like a bean or lentil that's been ground into a paste."

My companions exchanged a confused look, then Clara asked, "So how do you know what's a sandwich and what isn't?"

I gave her a sage look, and forced myself to keep a straight face as I replied "That is a matter which has been debated endlessly by the greatest philosophers of my homeland."

"Well I certainly don't want to argue with great philosophers," Clara stated with an equally serious expression.

"Indeed," Avril nodded. "So let's enjoy our sandwiches, and be grateful Fiona was so kind as to share this foreign delicacy with us."

That was by far the best idea, and having a mouthful of toast and bacon meant I couldn't dissolve into giggles. Not without choking myself anyways.

We finished our dinner by washing it down with ale. Then as the three of us sat together on the bedrolls Avril looked to me and suggested, "I know there's not much daylight left and you're probably tired from training with Clara, but how do you feel about a few more lessons before we go to bed?"

"Oh," I grimaced. "Um, I suppose... What kind of lessons? More magic stuff I guess?"

The gorgeous druid's lips started to curl into a smile as she responded, "Actually I was thinking of something else cutie. It seems to me that Clara and I owe you some pet training."

To emphasize the point she reached out and hooked a finger through the metal ring at the front of my collar, then gave it a gentle tug. She pulled me closer so my head was resting against her shoulder as she asked, "What do you think Fiona? Maybe we can teach you to sit up and beg?"

Just like that my heart was racing almost as fast as my tail was wagging. I bit my lower lip as I looked up at her and tried not to let on how eager and excited I was. Not that I even had a chance, my tail had already betrayed me once again.

I found myself grinning up at her, and all I could think to say in response was "Yes please!"

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