Next day near the clean pond Dhira was mending the half-broken wooden mace with some local tools and he was having some difficulty doing it, apparently he wasn't adept in this.
He was getting a little frustrated, his fingers tapping restlessly against the handle, when a soft voice came from the side. Dhira looked up. It was Dia. She was walking toward him.
"Let me help," she said and sat beside him and without him even agreeing, she started to fix the broken mace, her movements precise and practiced, thumb occasionally brushing against the feather at her neck.
He noticed the feather on his old friend around her neck, he wanted to ask for a long time and now seemed a good time to ask.
" When did you met Samuel?" and hearing this Dia who was engrossed in her work just nodded but after registering it asked, "What did he say?" And he asked again where she met Samuel, and Dia replied.
"You mean Lord Onewing?" And hearing this, Dhira nodded. "Yes, that one and half winged angel. How did you meet?" And she replied.
"He fell from the sky in front of me." And Dhira let out a laugh at this. "Same to me. That guy just fell from the sky on top of me. Don't know what he was doing in the air with his broken wing."
Dia also chuckled and continued her previous comment. "I met him when I was a child. My knee was injured and I was lost, away from my convent. He helped me heal and we became friends." And he nodded..
"Sounds like him."
Then he asked, "How did you know this guy Aatreya?"
And she replied, "Aatreya! He was the one that raised me when I was a child. He introduced me to the witches and said they are my own people."
And hearing this Dhira said, "So you are a witch?" And Dia said, "A healing witch. In the rest, I'm just a half-baked witch at best."
And she looked at the wooden mace in her hand, and asked, "How did you defeat that God with this broken branch?"
And Dhira said, "He wasn't a God, he was just a weakling, and that branch isn't anything special. It's just a tree branch. For a warrior the most important thing is his mind. Strength and weakness may depend on people, but a thought that I'm strong or I'm weak depends on himself. As long as you believe you can do it, you can do it."
And hearing this Dia had a thoughtful look, her thumb unconsciously rubbing against the feather at her neck, but a thing still bugged her.
"It's ok, but how did you manage to kill that if even Aatreya said if you feel fear or disgust toward it you can't kill it. Even gods feel fear and disgust towards him. How did you do it? Didn't you feel fear?"
And Dhira said, "He is just an opponent of mine, nothing less. And if you are talking about fear." And he paused, " To be honest I don't know."
And she asked, a little puzzled, "Don't know? What do you mean you don't know? Shouldn't you say something like a warrior doesn't feel fear?" And he chuckled and shook his head.
"They do feel fear. They just overcame it." and he looked at her and said,
" When an enemy's weapon is piercing your chest, you will feel fear, and that's nature. But instead of thinking about life and death, using that same weapon to pierce the enemy is the warrior."
And hearing this Dia was in deep thoughts when she asked, "How did he defeat him then. Was it difficult?" And Dhira replied,
"To be honest he wasn't that difficult. It's just like dealing with those water bodies."
And hearing this she asked, "Water bodies? How did you defeat them? Aren't they immune to physical and magical damage? They are really hard to kill. Only a high level mage can defeat them."
And Dhira said, "You don't need to hit them to kill them. Just use the mace as a force spreader. Don't expand the attack power, focus on compression." And she nodded.
"By the way did you really learn mace fighting from Lord Hanuman?" And hearing this, a different look appeared on his face.
He seemed to recall a past, a sweet and melancholic mood. He was remembering something bitter but beautiful. And he said,
"Yes, and no." At the same time.
" When I was a kid, I saw him swinging a mace to destroy the mountain. It was just a casual swing. The mace didn't even touch the mountain perhaps, and the mountain was gone like it was never there. I learned it from that."
And hearing this she blinked, and asked, her eyes saying she didn't believe it. "You learned the entire mace fighting from that one swing?" And he said with a smile,
"Who said I learned entire mace fighting from that? I learned the most important thing in that one swing."
And she asked, "What's that?" And before Dhira could say that, Aatreya arrived, telling them they were ready to leave. And soon they walked out.