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Training and Bonding [training/solo]

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Ariella Negri

Ariella Negri
Ω-Tier
Ω-Tier

Ariella sat at the table, eating the porridge Viri had made for her as she glanced over the reports she had brought home the night before from Remano. She had been keeping very busy since Azix had left, but she still felt the twinge of longing every time he crossed her mind, which was often. She arched a brow as her father strode into the kitchen a few minutes later, almost having forgot that he had stayed here during her trip yesterday. It was very weird, seeing him on a daily basis again after her time away from home. What was even weirder for her was seeing the lines of stress on his face and the lost look in his eyes. But this morning, there was a spark there and she groaned. She knew that spark. That was a spark she was quite familiar with.

“You and I are going to go out and have some training time, dear Ella!”

She sighed and sipped the strong tea Viri had set on the table, not looking forward to the bright tone in her father’s voice. Training to him generally meant watching him show off for a few hours and acting like she were paying attention. And he was one of those ridiculously cheerful morning people. Everyone had figured out it was best to give her about an hour after she woke in the morning to try talking, unless quiet voices and simple topics were used.

“Training, Father? Must we?”

“We must, Ella! We absolutely must! You have recovered from your ordeal with the Mantis Beast and so now, you must train!”

She sighed again but nodded in agreement. She had been feeling almost like her magical studies were stagnating and there were advantages to coming from a family of magicians. One perk being that she had someone with vast amounts of knowledge. She quickly finished up her tea and porridge, rinsing out her dishes and setting them in the sink before preparing for training with her father.




Equipped with her wand, she and Adamus both grabbed a horse and rode off, heading far off into an unused field a great distance from the house. Magical studies could often be destructive and she did not want to risk her or her father accidentally setting the crops on fire or scaring the animals.

As they rode, she noticed her father’s eyes flicking over to her until she finally looked at him with an arched brow.

“Out with it, Father. You have that look…”

“What look? I am just… curious as to what my daughter has been doing since she ran away from home!”

She rubbed her temple with one hand, the other staying on the reins of the horse.

“I have been living and training, Father. Doing what I could not do at home, enjoying myself and my gift without feeling like a constant disappointment or like every action I took was being judged.”

Adamus frowned at his daughter’s tone, but reminded himself there was a purpose behind pushing her away from the home she would never have been happy in. He cleared his throat to change the subject, waving a hand around them.

“Very generous gift your grandmother left you. I am glad to see it doing so well. But look around you a bit closer. Tell me what you see?”

Ari arched a brow but did as he commanded.

“Trees. Grass. Clouds. A creek.”

Adamus shook his head and had a disappointed look in his eye.

“Look closer, Ella. Look with magic in mind, not beauty. Look with the gift you say you have been enjoying.”

Ari grit her teeth at his look of disappointment, having thought she was beyond the feeling of being a disappointment to her family. She remembered Figuro’s words, though, and took a deep breath, looking around again after locking her anger deep inside her mind.

“I do not know what you hope for me to see, Father. It is land, it is earth, it is sky. What else is there to think?”

“It is life, Ella. Look with magic in mind, look for that thing that first told you that you were a magician, above all else.”

She looked around her once more, not sure what exactly he was expecting her to see. Thinking about how each of the elements could be used for magic started to churn in her mind and she thought about what magic was and how magicians were able to use it. And that was when she started to notice what she so often saw without actually seeing.

“Rukh. The thing that allows us to use magic. It is everywhere.”

“And too often, we forget it. It is not simply some tool to be used. It is everything, it is life itself. It is what makes us who we are and it is what we return to when our physical bodies pass. How often, when you are waving your wand around, do you think about what it is you are asking Rukh to help you do?”

She huffed softly in thought, realizing he had a very valid point. Every student in Magnostadt learned what Rukh was, the life force that was inside of everything. But as you studied more, you paid less attention to what gave you the power to do what you did. She rarely thought about the fact that she was asking the very force of life itself to assist her when she cast a spell, the fact that it had once been something or someone that had lived and breathed. Even when she meditated and communed with the rukh, she did not consider the very essence of the rukh. Looking over to Adamus, he had a knowing look on his face.

“We all forget at one point or another what grants us our gifts. Even me. But the more distanced we become from that which grants our power, the more we distance ourselves from our capability to grow and expand that gift to what it is meant to be. Have you learned more than just lightning?”

She nodded, her voice quiet as she responds, the thought of her second magic type making her remember the disappearance of her mother.

“Yes. Life magic. I have not told many people, but I can now use life magic fairly well. Lightning will always be most natural to me, but after seeing what Mother was capable of, I wanted to see if I could become even half as proficient with her. I… I only know a few spells, so far. I am trying to work on my healing a bit more. I do not want my gift to be nothing but destruction. But life magic is capable of both giving and taking life quite freely, I have found.”

Adamus sobered at the mention of his wife, her disappearance still weighing heavily on his mind.

“You are absolutely correct. It can give and take much more easily than other magic types. And what of your magician friends? I know Iatsu wields water with proficiency. What about the other one, your Marquis?”

Ari blushed at the mention of Azix, mumbling slightly as she spoke again.

“Marquis Niraj uses light and strength magic. He seems to have some creative uses of both, from what I have seen.”

Adamus nodded and they finally pulled the horses to a stop. She could not even see the farm house from this distance so at least she would not have to worry about damaging her home.

“Now, I know, usually, I bring you out and show you what I can do. This time, I would like you to show me what you can do.”

Ari stumbled in shock but swallowed nervously and nodded. This was what had always made her falter in her exams. It was not the lack of ability or natural skill, it was being watched… examined like a piece of meat at the butcher or a painting hanging in a museum. It always made her freeze up and interfered with her connection to the rukh. It was like she forgot how to speak to it. Lost in her thoughts, she did not notice her father cast a fireball at her until it was nearly upon her. With an unthinking wave of her wand, she used one of her Shock Balls to intercept the spell and then retaliate with an Electric Whip. The spell crackled against her father’s borg and he arched a brow, grinning. They spent the next few hours flinging spells back and forth at each other until the sun dipped below the horizon and both were exhausted.

In the mock battle, it seemed like the barrier that had stood between them as Father and Daughter had fallen and they behaved more as comrades. Even once the wands were lowered, the wall seemed to stay down and she laughed when her father made a small flower of fire in front of her that fizzled out quickly. Rather than head back to the farmhouse, they decided to camp out for the night. The clouds from earlier had cleared and the night sky was clear. It seemed almost natural to lay back in the tall grass and watch the stars like they had when she was a child.




The next morning, after a quick snack from a spontaneously grown apple tree, they did another mock battle. She found that the more she fought against him, the more creative her moves became and the less she focused on being ‘tested’ about her skills. Her father had found an effective way to cure her stage fright by simply attacking her outright. When they paused for lunch, he began talking to her about the evolution of her magical abilities and how she could further expand on it.

“And, while we were fighting, did you pay attention to the rukh itself?”

Ari frowned and shook her head, disappointed in herself for not remembering the first lesson he had taught her for this training section.

“Then we do this again! En Garde!”

She chuckled as she got to her feet, this time paying close attention to the rukh as she cast, focusing more on what was giving power to her spells. She was sloppier at first, but as the day went on, she found that as she gave more thought to the rukh and what she was trying to accomplish, her spells seemed smoother and more powerful and she felt less drained. They continued into the night before repeating their stargazing from the night before.




They spent the rest of the week out in the field, only returning to the farmhouse to bathe or grab supplies. Most of their food was grown in the field thanks to her life magic and she found as the week wore on, not only were her abilities more defined, but her connection with her father was not as stunted. She still found herself getting irate with every disapproving look he shot her way, too many years of feeling like she was nothing but a disappointment preventing her from letting the wall fall completely.

As they trained, her father would ask her questions about what she had fought, where she had been and who had taught her. When she mentioned Figuro, he actually gave a full blown laugh, allowing one of her attacks to strike his borg. He recovered quickly but explained to her why he was amused. It turned out Figuro had actually been one of his instructors, so the idea that one of his teachers also taught his daughter apparently tickled his funny bone.

On the final day out in the field, clouds moved across the sky and began dumping rain on them. Rather than run for the cover of a willow tree, Ari stood out in the rain and danced before giving a bright grin, raising her wand and adding lightning to the mix of rain falling around them. Her father clapped, impressed as she added her native magic type to the natural occurrence of the rain. She seemed much more comfortable in her own skin and with her magic since her departure from Magnostadt, which he could not help but think was slightly ironic. A magician not comfortable in the country made for magicians. He shook his head before finally dragging her to the horses and making their way back to the farm house. While the training had been nice, he knew they must both soon return to the city.

[2000+/2000 Int trained from B -> A]

[exit]


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Training and Bonding [training/solo] Ari%20Sigs_zpsn7c2bhju

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