"You had the biggest smile on your face?"
Sply says as she sits at the top of the tree. Her legs dangling and with her small frame she looks like a little girl that just climbed up the tree.
"I'm trying."
Her face doesn't change.
"Well all I see is you standing there looking like you're going to shit yourself."
"Yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't get good information to try and help me."
"I gave you information on how to do it?"
Her tone still in its same, neutral tone.
"Imagine yourself up here and boom!?"
I look up at her, my legs still squated as if I'm going to poop.
"Those are horrible instructions."
I say dramatically.
"You don't have a better teacher to teach you how to do this. So you're gonna have to learn through me."
'I am so freaking screwed.'
My eye begins to hurt staring at her gray aura, her stupid purple hair that's just swaying left and right.
She looks down at me.
I rub my eye a little the sting becoming annoying.
I move my hand and take mother deep breath and when I feel ready to try again.
I see the movement of her gray aura, like it's pulling off of her body, and she moves to another strong branch on another tree.
She stares at me as I stare at her aura, and as she opens her mouth she moves to where I was just facing.
"What are you doing?"
"I just saw your aura move…"
I say shocked at my discovery.
"What?"
"Your Soul Energy…? It moved before you did…"
"What does that mean Lazuli?"
"Uhh… I don't know..? But it could help me."
"And how is that?"
She says.
Making me stammer a little:
"I don't know, but maybe I'll learn easier with this piece of information."
My arms grow numb, as I wrap my Soul Energy around my forearms.
"It might help if I do this."
Sply looks down to me with a confused and wondering look.
As I say that I look up at her with a renewed look of belief, ready to go again.
~~~
After so much time has passed. I haven't even made a dent in my progress. The sun is now in the air, and sweat is slowly dripping off my head.
Making me stand here below her, as she has moved around the place so many times above me.
"I've been moving around, yet I don't see any sign of movement from you."
Sply says in a condescending tone to me, somehow, not that different from her usual tone.
"It's difficult Sply…"
I say kinda exhausted.
"…Plus for the last three years all you've been teaching me is how to get better with shooting a bow, it's kinda difficult to do something that isn't bow related without Apa."
"Apa…?"
She paused and looked at me confused:
"Oh yeah, your elf girlfriend."
She finally connected the dots.
"No! Not my girlfriend, just regular friend."
I defend myself.
"Anyway…"
I start changing the subject:
"…with Apa, it's easier for me to understand Soul Magic and stuff, but with you… it's a very different matter…"
"Then ask her for help."
She says, not angry, but instead giving me the idea.
"She can help you, yes?"
I nod:
"Yeah."
"Then ask her for help."
Sply's gray aura comes down infront of me.
Her body soon following.
"Today, I want you to learn Soul Displacement with the help of… that elf girl."
"Apa."
"Yeah, Apa. Have her teach you how to do it."
"You sure?"
"Lazuli… this is a technique that you would need to survive as an archer, that isn't an option."
She says telling me with her words sticking it into my brain with a knife and super glue.
"Okay."
"Yeah good… and…"
She starts the conversation then stops it.
"Nevermind, go back home."
As she says that she goes around me and walks on the grass heading back into the direction of the dirt path.
I lean down and grab my bow, that I had dropped to try and pull off Soul Displacement, to no avail ,of course.
Grabbing it I follow Sply toward the same dirt path.
After about fifteen minute and us now instead of in a dirt path, and now on cement, we split up, the sun now pretty high into the air.
Breaking into a jog I continue toward the colosseum, seeing a crowd of people, the amount of people have been growing day by day.
The amount of people slightly stinging my eye, making me rub it and block my vision a little.
'It's been this way for a year… wonder who's the one that they're cheering for?'
For a second I'm reminded of Jahar, and my eye, burns, but then my anger subsides as quickly as it arose and I just ignore it, following my same route I've been taking and heading back home.
Exiting the town square of Squea, I end up at the dirt path that's all too familiar and I end up going right past Wes who has also grown, the same as me.
I pause my jog and walk up to the gate, watching their training.
He's training with his father who has now grown a slight stubble, his aura is blue and the way he moves around his son, is ruthless, yet beautiful, like he's in mixing fencing and mma striking with his own swordsmanship.
As both of their aura coats not only their bodies but their weapons as well.
His wooden sword is weaving Wes sword out the way relentlessly, making Wes immediately counterattack with another strike, his form matching his father, but not with the sense of calmness.
Wes gets into a spin, he follows his body's spin and swings his sword once more following his spin, generating a blow to his father, Rez blocks it, effortlessly.
Wes doesn't stop, instead he moves forward, letting the wooden sword slide off of Rez's own.
Rez notices it and pushes the sword away, messing up Wes' momentum. He has to take a step back, but in that step Rez quickly lifts his sword into the air, ready to strike.
Wes panics and in the moment jumps back, far out of its range, then in a quick motion.
Rez cuts that distance in half and gut kicks Wes, just enough to push him back a little but not to really hurt him.
"You did good, but if I really wanted to Wes… I could have killed you."
Wes grabs at his stomach, his sword on his other hand tip pointed down.
"Yeah…"
He groans.
"You have about a few more months before the Knights selection. You have to be ready by then."
He grunts.
"Yeah."
He says, slowly getting up.
"You did pretty good Wes."
He turns to me.
"Hey, Lazuli…"
He sounds saddened.
Wes looks to Rez and Rez nods, going back inside with a wave, I give him one back.
Wes comes closer to me.
His face growing a very, very faint mustache, and his height growing just as tall, if not a tad bit taller than me.
His muscle mass also better than mine, afterall our training styles are different I train to shoot straight and stay consistent and he trains for powerful slashes, aimed to either incapacitate or very likely end them.
'Still didn't help him win that fight though.'
"How much you see?"
"Just the part where you lost."
I say sarcastically.
"Yeah..? Let's see you fight Steel and win."
I shake my head.
"I'm good."
We stare at each other with a hateful glare, then quickly break into a laughter.
We both reach out each others hand and do a handshake that took us five months to make.
Slapping each others hand, we switch it into a grab and pull each other closer. Hitting our shoulders together and stepping back, I pull an imaginary bow, and Wes swings an imaginary sword, both toward each other.
'It seems simple, but it was very hard to figure out.'
"Damn!"
Wes says.
"Now that I think about it, I've never seen your eyes… you really do have two different eye colors?"
"Yup."
He looks at my face closer.
"Where's your eye patch?"
"Broken."
"Oh."
We pause for a second.
"Anyway. What you plan for today?"
I ask Wes.
"Not sure, you?"
"Heading back to Warren Forest."
Wes rolls his eyes, then smiles at me deviously.
"You're going back to that elfen girl..? Or better yet you're girl…"
"Don't finish that sentence."
I say sounding like I'm begging him.
"I'm so tired of people telling me that about her."
"Well…"
He shrugs his shoulder and gives me a goofy looking face.
"There is no Well! There nothing!"
"Whatever you say bud…"
"Don't bud me…!"
"Whatever bud…!"
I reach out to his shoulder and give him a push.
He follows it and stumbles back a bit.
"Whatever, I have to learn how to do some crazy cool spell."
"Can I come?"
He asks as I jog away.
"Heck no!"
He huffs.
"Just say you wanna be with your.."
"SHUT UP!"
He laughs as he goes up to the front door.
Within two minutes, I end up back at the front door of my house.
Passing the gate, I see the door slightly open.
'Elsa is here again.'
I say as I jog up the steps and past the door.
Dropping my bow, right beside the couch, hearing laughing from upstairs and seeing Steel eating something in the kitchen.
His red aura so bright just that in itself is stinging my eye, making me close it.
I wipe my head and walk to Steel.
"Busy today?"
Steel looks at me, and groans.
"I was hoping that it wasn't true…"
"What?"
I say with worry.
"What happened?"
"You're getting to old for this eye patch."
He says as he pick up the broken eye patch.
"Are we serious."
"It means you're growing up.. I don't want that."
He says in a sarcastic tone with his voice saddened.
"Once your old enough you'll end up being by yourself, you'll be grown."
"Oh my days…"
He stops then laughs:
"Anyway… want me to get in touch with Tali and ask Flock for another."
"What?"
"What me to tell Tali to get you another eye patch?"
"Sure. That'd be nice, but how are you going to do that?"
"A bird, the same way as anything, then I'd take about a month or two for her to get the note, then it'd take another month or two, to send one back, then she'd have…"
"Yeah, NO. I change my mind, that's a hassle."
Steel signs.
"Thank Erical. Cause I hate waiting in those long lines."
I switch subjects my eye still closed.
"What you eating?"
"No! This is mine."
"Come on! One bite."
"No, you just eat twenty bite in one."
"Still one bite."
"NO! You're not getting my food."
"I don't care anyway."
I say as I try Soul Displacement again and once again to no avail, I'm standing there looking like I'm going to crap myself.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing, freak you I'm going into Warren Forest."
"Tell Apatite, I say hi."
"Whatever!"
Grabbing my bow I walk out the door and past the gate.
Hearing both Marcilene and Elsa in the house, chitchatting the place up, with massive laughter.
Opening my eye as it feels strain from me keeping it forcibly closed.
'Freaking loser, Steel!'
Leaving the house area I walk past the Golem of Erica and toward the edge of the forest.
Entering the forest, the orange aura of the same person who's always at the same place, almost every single day, since we have agreed to meet there.
With her back facing to me, her blue hair now reaching her lower back and looking beautiful even though she lives in the forest.
Her face, looking clean and clear, and now, she has learned Soul Magic on a different level then when we were three years younger.
She floats just above the ground with her eyes closed, the aura around her lifting her up slightly.
Apa, even though she has always looked the same, she has never reduced in skill.
"Apa… I'm here!"
I say waving to her.
She opens her eyes and huffs, with either anticipation or anger or excitment or all three.
"Finally."
She turns to face me and smiles.
Wearing new clothes as well.
She wears a black cowl that wraps around her entire upper body, like an evil witch. Wearing her same old black leotard under that, while she wears new black shorts, that stop just below her knees and a belt that holds her wand in place.
"Good thing your here, and you brought the bow, good. I want to try teaching you how to add more Soul Energy into your bow now."
She says.
"I'd love to Apa, but there's something else I want to try and learn."