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In the Nest, it didn't matter if practice had run longer than it should have, or if it was eating into your scheduled sleep hours. If the coaches weren't satisfied, you had to keep going.
Kevin's breathing hitched as he put weight on his ankle. It had been throbbing ever since he'd been tackled during scrimmage, but that didn't matter, because he still had to run through his precision drills before Coach Stewart would call an end to practice.
His arms ached as he shot a ball at the plexiglass, rebounding and landing just next to his target line. Coach Stewart looked at it, then at Kevin.
"Again."
Drills had to be perfect. Kevin knew that, but it didn't make his body hurt less as he hefted his racquet once more.
"Again."
Over and over Kevin repeated the drill, under his coach's judgemental eye. The Master wasn't here today but that didn't make practice any easier. His ankle screamed at him as he pivoted, putting all his strength into shooting the ball across the court.
One drill, two drills, three drills - Every drill Kevin ran was accompanied by "Again, again, again" until he could barely focus on anything else, reality blurring under the weight of his racquet and the haziness of his exhausted brain.
"Again."
Because doing something once was not enough. If you couldn't do it time and time again you were a failure of a Raven. Kevin didn't want to be a failure, and he put every scrap of effort he could into every attempt, but-
"Again."
-Every time he had to repeat his actions made something shrivel up inside his chest, eyes stinging and hands shaking because Kevin was tired, he was so fucking tired, and if he had to do this drill one more time he didn't know what he'd do.
"Again."
Kevin was a liar, because he knew exactly what he'd do. He'd do the drill again, as many times as was demanded of him. He had to.
That was how it went in the Nest. And a few years later, at the Foxhole Court, Kevin could still hear the command echoing in his mind.
It was late, night practice, and Andrew was sitting in the stands somewhere. Kevin stared at the cones in front of him, only half of them knocked down because his precision with his right hand was utterly pathetic.
He'd already been at it for an hour, maybe two. He wasn't sure. Kevin's right hand was starting to ache, and so was his left, as it usually did despite the fact he'd barely used it tonight. He could feel the weight of exertion dragging him down, too.
Kevin picked up the cones, laying them out in a line. Then he stood back, readying his racket.
Again, he thought to himself. Aching or not, tired or not, practice didn't end until he'd performed satisfactorily.
Not that he ever did, these days, but he could do better than this, half the cones untouched. He had to.