Author's Note

Here I thought the last chapter was padding
And I apologise for the amount of time skips and if anyone got lost because of them, this is definitely NOT my finest work and I may come back to redo it in the future
I also apologise as well for the delay
please point out any mistakes I may have made
constructive criticism is always appreciated
until next time, TTFN!

"Progress"

Stepping out of my storage room, I breath a long winded sigh, releasing any tension in my body and turned to make my way into the living room, Selene still sitting where I left her. Upon seeing me, she quickly stands and notices the helm within my grasp. As she's about to speak, I swiftly cut her off.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" I asked. "If this is what you choose, there's no turning back. There's no changing your mind. This is it for the rest of your life."

"Yes." She replied, the determination in her eyes never faltering, only intensifying. "This is what I want."

"Good." I said. "Follow me please."

Walking over to the dining table, I place the helmet I got on the table gently and look back to Selene, an inquisitive expression on her face.

"This helm belonged to someone who was...very close to my heart." I started. "It's done nothing but gather dust for years. I want you to wear it."

Selene walked to the helmet, admiring the maroon and teal colours hand painted onto it's surface. Picking it up with care, she ran her fingers over the many scrapes and scratches on it's surface, the chipped paint revealing the silver metal beneath and looked up to me.

"Are you sure?" She asked.

"I wouldn't be giving it to you if I wasn't." I said before sighing. "This is your last chance to back down. You put that helmet on, you will be considered one of us."

She looks at me and smiles warmly, the helm still within her grasp.

"Anything you say wont make me change my mind." She said. "I've made my decision."

"Then you know what to do." I said indicating to the helmet.

Looking down to it, she took a deep breath and spun it in her hands, so that the back now faced her and brought it to her head. Slipping it on, her face became obscured, now unseen to the world as she now donned the helmet of a Mandalorian, the start of what would be a long journey.

Looking back to me, she tilted her head slightly.

"It's...more comfortable than I expected." She said, a surprised tone in her voice. "And how is it that despite the helm being flat I can still wear it?"

"Well if your going to wear it for prolonged periods of time, it has to be." I replied. "And in regards to your question: I don't know. They've always been like that."

"That's awfully convenient." She comments, readjusting her helmet to a more comfortable position and after a few moments, looked back to me.

"So what now?" She asked.

"Now, you learn." I said. "You'll want to bring a note pad."

I turn my back and quickly walking to my front door.

Sitting on a tree stump behind my house, I found myself idly sharpening my knife with a flat stone I found, Selene on a large stone a few feet away from me.

"Ok, we're going to start off with the basics." I said, chucking the stone over my shoulder and sheathing my knife, a large smile crossing my face. "So lets start with the Resol'nare."

"The what?" She asked.

"The Resol'nare. Or the Six Actions. These are the core tenets to Mandalorian life. Most of what you need to know basically stems off from these six core ideas. They consist of: wearing armour, speaking the language, defending oneself and family, raising your children as Mandalorian's, contributing to the clan's welfare, and when called upon by the Mand'alor, rallying to their cause."

"Who's the Manda'lor?" She asked, scribbling down what I had told her.

"Manda'lor was the title used by the supreme leader of the Mandalorian people and culture. In its truest, native rendering Mand'alor meant "sole ruler" in the Mandalorian language of Mando'a." I said, rattling off the information like a school teacher, not once missing a beat. "The position of Mand'alor was a combination of king, warlord, and general in function.

"A non-hereditary role-" I continued "-only a Mandalorian who was deemed worthy could claim the title of Mand'alor, exemplifying the Mandalorian meritocracy ideal."

"Your very knowledgeable." Selene said looking up from her note pad after a moment.

"I would have to be, I was the only one left." I said sullenly, my smile slipping slightly. "It fell to me to continue our legacy."

"What do you mean 'the only one left'?" She asked.

"That's a story for another time." I replied quickly, gaining a curious head tilt from Selene, but didn't say anything.

For hours we sat there, with me enthusiastically sharing the knowledge of my people. I spent a considerable amount of time going over each of the Six Actions and the importance of each of them and why they should be upheld. I also went over a few other topics, such as: Societal structure, cuisine and how little importance is put on a persons origin.

In what felt like no time at all, the skies above us darkened, shadows casting over us and Luna's moon becoming the dominant force in the inky black sky. Making our way back inside, I directed Selene to her room. Before closing the door, she turned to me and spoke.

"What's for tomorrow's agenda?" She asked.

"Tomorrow-" I started, craning my head round. "-we continue."

As the next day rolled in, me and Selene found our selves back at the rear of my house in the early hours of the morning, with me sitting on the same stump the previous night.

"So what am I learning today?" She asked, sitting on the boulder opposite me.

"Today, you learn our familial structure." I replied.

"Oohh! I'm looking forward to this!" She said, rubbing her hands together in child like manner. Good to see she was enthusiastic.

"As your you've more than likely become aware of, in the early years, Mandalorian culture revolved around battle, with war being a source of honour and pride in our community." I said. "But as the years went by, the war centric ideology softened significantly, making way for a more family centric ideal. With the most important, in my opinion, being marriage"

"In direct opposition to our infamy as a ruthless warriors, we cherish family and shower affection upon those we love and care for." I continued. "In Mandalorian society, marriage is expected to be a life-long commitment and usually takes place shortly after one turns sixteen-years-old. The marriage itself was often a private ceremony between only the two involved, where they are entered into a legal commitment by reciting the following pledge: "Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar'tome, mhi me'dinui an, mhi ba'juri verde."—translating as "We are one when together, we are one when parted, we share all, we will raise warriors."

"Family seems to be held in very high regard." She commented.

"Family come's before everything. "Family is one of natures masterpieces." I said. "That was something my brother used to say."

I could see Selene wanted to say something, but seemed to be reluctant to speak her mind.

"Moving on. Additionally, adoption was extremely common in Mandalorian culture. To the point that even adults were adopted. This is due to the fact Mandalorian's constant connection to war, widows and orphans became an inescapable fact of life" I continued. "-and adult males became not only welcome, but necessary. Like marriage, the Mandalorian ritual for adoption was rather simple. Known as "The gai bal manda—"name and soul"—the adoption is carried out by the adopting parent stating "ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad" to the intended child—"I know your name as my child."

"Adopting adults?" She whispered to herself. "That's a concept I've not heard of."

"You wouldn't have." I said. "Seeing as we, as far as I'm aware, are the only one's who practised this idea."

"Was adopting war orphans apart of these ideals?" Selene asked.

"Indeed. It was also quite common as well." I replied. "Even children of a defeated enemy, whereas another species might kill them."

"Wow. So Mandalorian's took the whole 'family come before all' idea pretty seriously."

"Of course." I said. "How else would we survive?"

"That makes sense." Selene replied, quickly scribbling into her notepad. "Shall we continue?"

In the coming days, Selene had made exceptional progress, swiftly having a tight grasp on our culture and history and being able to incorporate a select few words into her sentences. At night, I would often hear her repeating the days lessons, doing her best to absorb the information I taught her. It came as a pleasant surprise. Perhaps this wouldn't take as long as I initially expected.

However, that being said, having blasted through what is essentially written work, it was time to get practical.

Standing outside Selene's door, I began bagging two very large pans together, eliciting a loud 'thud' to emit from her room. Hearing an almost panicked scrambling, I simply stepped back as the door opened to reveal the dishevelled Lycan with her helmet on. She got into that habit quickly, thankfully.

"Get yourself ready. We're going out." I said.

"Out for what?" She asked groggily.

"Today we are starting your physical training."

Turning away, I sat down on the long sofa and prepared for the day ahead, strapping my Beskar to my undersuit. I didn't have to wait for long, however, as I soon heard Selene approach as I pulled the robe like armourweave over my shoulders.

"Take a seat, I have to get something."

Doing as I said, Selene sat down as I got up and made my way to my storage room. I walked over to a large crate and removed the lid and reached inside and pulled out the intended object. Putting the lid back on the crate, I walked back into the living room, Selene giving me an inquisitive head tilt.

"What you got there?" She asked.

"Weighted clothes." I said, chucking the the Lycan opposite me.

As she caught them, she was thrown off the sofa and onto the floor with a crash.

"Gods above! Do you really expect me to lug this around?!" She exclaimed, trying to lift the clothes.

"As a matter of fact, I do." I said, folding my arms. "We won't go straight into exercise. That just would be a waste of energy. No, you will start by doing your daily routine with these clothes to get used to them. Then and only then, will we get more extreme."

Over the period of a week, Selene slowly got used to clothes weighing her down, being able to most, if not all normal tasks with only the slightest bit of difficulty, while reinforcing the my teaching, going over the various notes she took. So I decided it was time to put my regime into action.

"Ok, what are we going to be doing then?" Selene asked.

"I think it's about time your physical training officially begins." I said.

"What will the that entail?"

"One hundred sit-ups, one hundred push-ups, one hundred squats and a ten kilometre run." I said. "This will help with cardiovascular health, endurance, strength and agility, just to name a few benefits."

"So what do we start with?"

"I would suggest starting with the run." I said, turning to walk to the front door, hanging up my robe and fur collar as I pass the coat rack.

Stepping out onto the street, we started with a few basic but necessary stretches to minimise injury and began the long run around Ponyville. We got a few odd looks from the citizens, but were thankfully uninterrupted in our endeavour.
It started off fairly well, Selene was able to keep up most of the way. But as we past the two mile mark, she began slowing as her breathing became heavier. As the four mile mark came up, her breathing was physically audible and she became slower than before. Upon finishing the six mile mark and coming back to the front door, she promptly collapsed onto the ground.

"Take ten minutes, get a drink, relax for a bit." I suggested. "Then we'll move on."

"How...are...you...not exhausted?!" She said, taking in large breaths between each word.

"I've been doing this for a long time, I've gotten used to it." I shrugged.

The ten minutes quickly pasted and we swiftly moved onto the next exercise, push-ups. As expected, she had some difficulty doing them, having taken the better part of an hour just to complete. Rolling over to sit-ups, she found these to be more doable, but still taking awhile to be done. And the squats were by far the easiest to complete. With all that taken most of the day to be done, I decided to let her take the rest of the day to relax.

Over the next few weeks, Selene became far more efficient at the exercises as each day past. I could see a physical difference the training was making. She walked and talked with more confidence than before, whether or not she's aware of these, I'm not sure. But the changes are there and she should be ready in little time.

PoV shift: Selene

Falling painfully to the ground, I grunted as I impacted the solid dirt beneath me, the weighted clothes making it more intense. I give a short sigh as I get off the ground and face Fendral who stood defiantly a few metres away from me.

Its been roughly three months since we started my training and if there's one thing I can take away from my experience and that it's hasn't been easy. Then again, I never expected it to be. But with Fendral's training, it was worth it. I can feel the difference it made.

My muscular definition became more apparent and my muscle's had filled out, my digitigrade legs being more pronounced than the rest of me, but I was overall slightly bigger than I had been two months prior.

Gripping the Bo staff Fendral gave me, I got into a low guard and waited for him to make the first move. Rushing forwards, he swung his large practise sword overhead. Raising my staff, I redirected it to the side, but was hit in the face with the swords pommel. Despite it being wood, it still hurt like a bitch. Stumbling back, I stepped to the side, catching the wooden stand-in under my arm, locking his in place with my staff and punch him in the chest.

Yanking his sword from his hands, I threw it behind me and out of the ring, completely out of his reach. Running forward, I jump and bring the staff back for a powerful over head swing. Bringing his arms together, I brought down my staff between them, causing him to swiftly grab it and ram his shoulder into my chest. Feeling the staff being torn out of my grip, I look up to see he had done the same thing I had done to his sword. Karma's a bitch.

Running forwards, I bring my fist back for a haymaker. Fendral sidesteps me and I feel my feet leave the ground as he chucks me over his shoulder and firmly boot me in the stomach. Tumbling on the ground, he slams his fist into my head. Blocking another hit, I punch him in the throat, giving me enough time to deliver a kick to leg, bring him to his knees.
I aim for his head, only for him to shield it with his forearms and deliver a punch to my gut, forcing me to my own knees. Quickly standing and using the momentum, he flips over me and grabs my neck, bringing me into a chokehold.

I struggle as my vision starts to blacken. In a moment of a spit second decision, I throw my elbow into his side, forcing him to let me go. Scrambling to stand, I quickly distance the space between us. Charging, Fendral unleashes a flurry of kicks and punches quicker than I was able to counter. I step back as he sends his fist out, I act quick. Slapping it away, I bash him on the back of his neck, my hit disorientates him briefly, allowing me to get to the ground.

Pouncing for his legs and wrapping my arms around them, I drive all my momentum forward and threw him off balance. Locking my arms around his neck, I restrain his legs with my own. Hold the position, he struggles for a few seconds, before I hear the rhythmic sound of him tapping the ground beneath us. Letting go the moment I heard the sound, he stands up from where we lay and I soon follow him.

He simply stands there, unmoving, unwavering. I began getting unnerved by this, thinking I had done something wrong. But before my doubt could get worse, the sound of his chuckles fill the air. He soon starts clapping, approaching me, his head nodding up and down and firmly places his hands on my shoulders.

"I think your ready."