"That's just teleporting."
Apa says as she grabs her wand from her belt and start chanting stuff before I can speak.
The aura around us swirls as many different colors clump together. THen we puff into a smoke of colorful auras. When the smoke clears arond us. We find ourselves at low part of the hill.
A few feet away from the place we were at before.
I look around surprised that she could do that. Grabbing at my clothes along with my bow to make sure I wasn't striped naked in the teleportation process.
"Holy crap, I didn't think you could even pull that off."
Pure surprise and happiness in my voice as I let go of my bow.
Turning around I find Apa with her hands on her knees as she is huffing for air. Her aura wavering slightly with every huff.
"You weren't the only one learning for these past three years."
She says as she lifts herself to stand upright, tilting backwards slightly.
"Dear God Apa, Are you okay?"
I say asking her with genuine care for her, as I place hand on her shoulder, to stop her from falling back.
"Yeah, just having a hard time standing."
"Did you over do it with your Soul Energy?"
"No, I just didn't sleep enough."
She says as she tries to stand upright againa dn tilting toward me this time.
Messing up slightly and stopping before she falls toward me. Her aura still waverig.
"Liar, you over did it."
"Well, I wanted to show off."
She says in a voice that sounds, like a mix between serious and comedic.
"But now you can't even stand straight?"
She lowers herself.
Me thinking she's falling I grap under her arms, to sto[ her from falling, with more ease than I thought.
"What are you doing?"
She says confused.
"You're falling."
I say as my body is pretty close to her as I lift her.
"No, I'm not, Im trying to sit..."
As she says that I look down slightly to see her looking away from me with her ashen skin being betraiyed by herself, amking it reddish, mostly from her blushing.
Seeing my position, I turn away and let go of her as well.
"Oh, I just thought that you were struggling to get into a stand, guess I was wrong."
She plops to the ground.
"Yeah I guess so."
She chuckles slightly as her orange aura floats around her, now growing slowly brighter after she sat down.
Standing above her, I continue to look away from her face.
"So, how do you expect to do this Soul Displacement thing?"
She asks changing the subject, maybe before we stay here too emberressed to do anything since that stupid carrying bit.
I look down to her, her face, no longer blushing but now she has a serious look on it, so does mine, well less serious then her, but still serious.
"When Sply did it. I could see how her aura moved before she managed to move."
Apatite listens.
"Maybe If I could like imagine myself walking fromhere to the top of the hill, I could..."
"NOPE!"
Apatite says not making me finish.
"Then how else I'm I going to do it?"
"Lazi, can you tell me how far she made you try doing it the first time?"
Apatite asks.
I think back to the time, standing under that same tree that she dangled above me, before she hopped off in front of me and we went our separate ways.
"She wanted me to get on top of a tree."
Apatite's eyes go wide, her aura getting a little bit brighter with ever passing moment.
"There's where you are wrong."
"What do you mean?"
She sighs, like she's dumbfounded at that question.
"Oh dear Soul. What did she think would happen? For you to just be able to get up there with complete ease?"
Apatite says exasperated,
"I don't know..."
I shrug my shoulders.
She takes a deep breath and leans back, holding herself up with her arms as she looks up at me.
"Lazi, here's something else that I want you to do instead."
She smiles.
"Take a step to the right."
She tells me to do that I tilt my head at her, then step to the right, one foot after the other.
"Okay...?"
Take another step.
She tells me.
I take it.
Then she tilts her head to face the top of the hill.
"Go to the top."
She tells me.
"Okay, what's the game here that I'm missing?"
I say confused.
"Just do it."
She says, sounding like she's tired.
"Okay."
I drop my bow down, beside her foot.
Breaking into a brisk jogging speed, I run up the slight incline of the hill. Stopping to wave at her as she stare up at me, then coming back down to her, with a deep breath to get the air back into my lungs.
"Which was harder?"
"What?"
"Which was harder?"
She says again as if that's what stumped me.
"No I heard you, I'm just confused on how that''s needed right now?"
"Answer the question!"
She says in a forceful tone, but not necessarily loud.
"The jog up then down."
I answer her.
"Making it easier for you to take small steps instead of further ones, right?"
"You want to make me do shorter distanced Soul Displacements?"
She lifts one of her hands to snap her fingers.
"Good to know you didn't shrink your brain with the time learning with me."
She chuckles softly.
"So, still how would I do it?"
"And it did..."
She pauses:
"Lazi... Imagine yourself taking the steps."
And when you feel that you have, try imagining taking another step, afterall you said that you soul her aura move right, that maybe means that she tried to envision where her body would be and ended up there."
"Meaning...?"
"She had to imagine herself moving there."
"Oh!"
"I'm going to need to make you learn some common sense."
When she says that, without taking an actual step, I imagine my foot moving just slightly beside me.
I feel my body shift slightly, but don't physically see the difference.
But Apatite grows a smile on her face, as her aura is now the same amount of brightness as before making it very much easier to see the spike for when she was seeing my posititon.
"I moved!?"
I ask Apatite excitedly:
"Apa! Did I move!?"
I ask again, to eager to give wait for her to answer, growing little patience.
"Yeah!"
Apatite says with same smile on her face for me.
"Good job, Lazi. Now I want you to try and over up to that hilltop now."
She turns and points to the top of the hill behind her.
I groan and try to feel myself jogging up the hill, to get to the top.
Holding my breath, I Imagine myself running up there just for me to still be in the same spot I was before.
I stand there for about five minutes, before Apatite clears her throat.
"Lazi...?"
"Yes."
I say slightly exhausted:
"I'm I doing it wrong all over again?"
She chuckles again.
"No, but when I said to go to the top of the hill, I meant for you to..."
She places one hand infront of the other, three times:
"... get there, little. By Little."
"Meaning?"
"OH MY GOSH! Get there, using small steps!"
She shouts out, freaking me a little bit.
"Oh, Yeah, I may need common sense training."
After that, I feel the same way as before, taking the smallest step in front of me to start my journey to get to the top of the hill that Apatite wants me to get to.
Every move is me going up by just a few inches, but After about thirty minutes, I turn to see, that I've made a great amount of progress, while losing a lot of light.
The sun is has reached it's peak already and gets to the point where it is going past that point.
My body feels strained.
I get to the midpoint of the hill. At the part, where the incline starts and, I feel my head beginning to spin around in front of me.
My eye begins to sting a little, but theres no aura in front of me.
I feel myself try to do it again, then I feel the air resistance disappearing as I fall backwards.
Dropping to the ground, I fall then tumble down the slight hill.
Stopping when a blurry, spinning and muffled Apatite comes to my side, holding me, then pulling me to sit up. Her aura seems to be nonexistent for some reason.
She opens her mouth to speak to me, but the words, don't seem to match her mouth, like they aren't suppose to mix together.
Slowly, I can hear the sounds of everything again, and still for some reason still can't see her aura.
"Lazuli! Lazuli! Are you Okay!?"
She asks me as I continue to have blurry vision, that is fading away as time moves on.
"Yeah... Yeah.."
My ords come out semi-slurred, but still very much being able to hear me.
"I think I'll be fine."
She puts her hand on my shuolder, then looks around my face.
"Okay, Soul exhaustion... For now we'll stop. We did enough training today anyway, plus You learned something new... So let's just sit back and relax for now."