I was kinda confused at first, and honestly had no idea what was going on, but Sadie continued with a very firm and brief tutorial.

"Number one rule: I know you want me to bring you back to Rarish. But that. Isn't. Happening. We are illegal. The Empire wants us. They'd kill us if they had the chance. Do not give in. Say good bye to normal life, because from now onward you're in hiding." She lectured me. I of course had much to say about this.

"But my parents! How do I see them again? Besides, the Empire would never do such a thing! They're here to keep us safe!" I frantically replied. Sadie merely answered me with a glare and something muttered under her breath, then went on.

"Number two: I'm the boss. Anything I say goes." She continued. I felt this was kinda unfair, but Sadie kept going so I said nothing.

"Number three: The only reason I'm keeping you is because you obviously need to be trained. Otherwise I have a feeling you'd die." She said matter of a factly.

"Uh, why would I die? I'm not that stupid!" I responded indignantly. Another glare in return.

"With that settled, I'm assuming you didn't bring anything with you. Good. You can sleep with the rooster." She continued. I spluttered, so frustrated and indignant that I got a familiar feeling. Heat swarmed up through my fingertips, and an inferno of fire erupted. Sadie lept into action. She somehow pulled the fire away from me and calmed it down until it was only flickering in the palm of her hand.

"Well, looks like frustration is your trigger," Sadie said in a satisfied voice.

"What do you mean?" I asked, still annoyed.

"For your powers, obviously. Oh, and you won't have to sleep with the chicken. I was just testing to see what triggered your fire." 

I relaxed slightly, but still slightly annoyed that she had almost manipulated my emotions. 

"How does that help me?" I asked.

"Because now you know to avoid frustrating situations. Then we can work on using it in a successful situation, and once we have control of it then, we can move on to working on controlling it while frustrated." Sadie looked at me as if that was the commonest knowledge out there.

After all this, Sadie decided we should work on controlling my power immeadiately. Like, it's such a great idea to take someone who's been up half the night and try to make them control powers they never knew they had before, without any sleep at all.

Yeah, Sadie wasn't high on my list of Best People Ever that day.

First, we went outside. Sadie obviously didn't want to almost burn down the house again. Then, she created her own fire, somehow transferred it to my hands, sat back, and stood there expectantly.

"What do I do now?" I asked nervously.

"Do something with it. Make it smaller. Make it bigger, move it, whatever." Was her unhelpful response. I tried to stretch it out. It went completely haywire. Sadie stood, doing nothing. 

"Don't let it touch the house." She replied. Well, how was I supposed to control that? I stared down at my hands. Sadie stifled a laugh. I glared at her, and became determined to do something, anything, with the fire. My next attempt was to make it smaller, which I did by pushing my hands in a tight ball. This only made the fire wilder, trying to escape my fingers.

"It isn't a physical movement. Force it with your mind," Sadie suggested. I tried this, and it worked partially. 

We continued until Sadie declared it was lunchtime, and I was all too happy to oblige. Enough had happened in the past 24 hours.

After lunch Sadie put a clump of blankets on the floor, and said I would sleep there. She then went out to the chicken, which I was already a bit miffed towards as Sadie had suggested me sleeping with it. 

When Sadie returned, I was forcing myself not to fall asleep on my makeshift bed. She rolled her eyes.

"This is Ahriman," Sadie said happily. She almost seemed to like the chicken, a feature I'd thought was impossible for Sadie.

"Odd name," I mentioned. Most names on Suf are pretty short. Sadie shrugged.

"When I got the chicken, it already had a name," she said. Curious, but not worth thinking about.  The chicken seemed almost triumphant, as if it liked having an odd name. I decided I was not just miffed at the chicken, but detested it. Sadie seemed to detect this.

"Ahriman is a good rooster. The sweetest and most handsome rooster, aren't you?" She cooed. 

"I thought it was a chicken," I said. Sadie glared at me. I'd been getting far too many glares from Sadie that day.

"Ahriman is a he, so therefore a rooster." She clarified. I had to put up with the chicken- excuse me, rooster, for a few more minutes as Sadie let it run around.

So that was how my first, and definately not my last, day at the cottage.

This chapter was mostly a placeholder, where I could tell the readers all the information they needed to know. It was hard to write, because I already know everything- so sorry if anything was unclear. I promise it'll start to get more interesting in the next chapter!