The sun got low, pretty fast too, It was fun while we were playing.
"Elsa, Wes!"
Their mother called.
"Come in, time for dinner, say bye to your friends!"
She yelled for them as they turned to look at her.
Elsa and Wes smiled, happy for their day.
"Bye."
Both Wes and Elsa say at the same time as they run back to beat each other, Wes currently losing.
Both Marcilene and I look at each other as we just walk one after the other, Marcilene first after I follow right after her, stopping once I get to her side.
"How was today for you, Marci?"
I asked her with a smile on my face, genuinely happy that I was able to play with her.
"It was nice…"
She smiled at me while tilting her head.
"…it's good that you told me to play with you… but there's something you should know…"
I tilt my head full of wonder.
"What happened?"
Her voice sounded kinda scared the way she sounded when she was nervous, which was rare, well atleast since I've been around.
"My head cover came off. Elsa saw."
My eyes go wide, my heart beats once, twice skips a beat and continues constantly.
"Did she say anything about you?"
She smiles at me, a calm gentle smile that makes me stop and stares at her.
"She actually thought my ears looked cool. She like them, even asked to touch them."
"Did you let her?"
I asked with curiosity as I continued to walk again.
"No, but she was still okay with me being an Elf. I don't think she had any problem with it."
She was genuinely smiling, with what could be happiness, making me happy for her.
"When do you think you'll be comfortable to take the head covering off and go outside?"
I say looking at the head covering that covers her hair and at the same time her ears, leaving only small tuffs of hair poking out.
She shrugs her shoulders, then relaxes.
"I don't know… but I do know, when I'm ready you'll be the first to know."
She smiles at me.
"Is that okay with you?"
We get to the very end of our rocky fat and begin to get closer to the entrance of the gate.
"Absolutely it's okay Marci."
I say as I swipe my hands in front of my face.
"That's nice Lazi… anyway. I didn't know you were that fast."
I smile as we both end up at the entrance to the gate.
"I'm just born to be faster, then even you."
I shrug my shoulders in the most cocky way I could.
We begin to walk up the paved dirt path to get to the front door.
The voice of Steel talking inside, muffled by the door in our way.
"Let's eat and then get to sleep, I don't doubt that Steel would wake me again to go for an early training session."
I push the door opening.
Then walk inside, Marcilene following behind me.
We both stop as we see Steel, along with a sadly familiar face, and the same necklace that blings as it swings…
"Hey Lazuli, Marcilene."
Steel says as his eyes look like they may fall out.
"This is a friend, the person that'll train you."
The woman stands up and walks over to me, her height being just taller than me.
"This is the boy I'll be training, you look weak even in the nightlight."
Her tone is harsh, and degrading.
'It just has to be her that's the, so called friend to help me.'
Steel comes beside her.
"He'll be good though, he can't pull the string well, his shot is off a good amount of times, he's afraid to kill and he's slow on the field…"
His tone slowly getting saddening with every sentence said.
"Yeah good luck."
He says with zero confidence in his voice for me.
"STEEL!?"
"Sorry son, but you should really be better than that if you want my congratulations."
The woman scoffs.
"Sply. He's the one you will be mentoring with."
Sply, the woman with purple hair looks over at Steel.
"Never said, I was just going to train him."
"Then why'd you come here?"
Steel asks.
"I'll test him first, let me see his bow."
Steel goes past me and head beside the couch to grab the bow that I have used twice now.
"Here Lazi."
Steel says as he hands the bow to me.
"Where's the arrows?"
Sply says as she looks at me with only the bow in my hands.
I position the bow better and then tap the sigil, the blue arrow manifests before me, I grab the arrow off of its arrow hold.
Holding it out to her.
"Right here."
The arrow slowly disintegrates before after being removed form the arrow hold.
Sply gives me a look of surprise.
"Why don't you just imbued more Soul Energy into the arrow for it to last longer, and is it only Soul Arrows that you have?"
The question hits as her stern voice asked.
"I don't know, it was only the bow that I have ever held."
"Should have got a sword instead."
Sply says under her breath.
"Come outside."
She says as she walks outside and stands there for a while.
She looks left then right.
"Where did you take him to train?"
Sply looks over at Steel.
Steel points out toward the distance, in the direction of the tree, the direction of Warren Forest.
"Earlier this morning, he was with me, but be careful of him taking off his eye patch, he might end up bleeding if he absorbs to much Soul Energy."
Sply looks at Steel then to me.
"If he can't endure this then might as well train him as a farm hand instead of an archer, he'll need to use both of his eyes if he wants to shoot anything."
Sply words cut through me like butter, making me understand her.
'That's true, if I want to become a better archer, I have to use both of my eyes, if I don't figure out a way to do that, I'll have my peripheral vision reduced the same as my regular vision.'
I sigh.
"Seems he understand as well, maybe he won't be as incompetent as I fully thought of him."
Sply says after my sigh.
"Follow me boy."
She begins to walk toward the gate and with me in tow, following right behind her, the same for both Steel and Marcilene.
She turns back as she opens the gate and walks through, holding it open for me.
Looking past me and toward the other two.
"Only The Boy."
I grip my bow tighter when I hear that it'll just be me.
"Why?"
Sply looks at Steel after the question he had just asked as if he just asked the dumbest thing alive.
"You want me to train him, I'll test him, if he does it then I'll take him in."
Steel grumbles.
"Sply if you take him to those trees and he ends up hurt or worse…
Steel says in a threatening manner.
"What you'll kill me? What do you think Proteas, would think of you if that were to happen…?"
Sply paused and eyed Steel up and down, completely devoid of any sense of worry from the guy that towers over her.
"…she won't allow you to see the kids ever."
Then she takes a deep breath.
"And I'm the best archer in the world, I'd never let a child get hurt while I'm around."
She grips her necklace.
And it's like her heart is inside of it.
Steel sighs.
"Okay Sply, I believe you."
Steel walks over to me and pats my head.
"If she teaches you to shoot something, do so."
His voice was stern when he said: do so.
I nod.
"Yes."
Sply begins to walk away, back towards the trees.
Steel turns and walk back inside.
Marcilene stands and waves to me as I walk away.
Sply and I walk past the same rock that is a golem from Erical. And houses that have their fireplace's burnt out for the night time.
We end up at the same tree that was used as a home base for our very long game of hide and seek, ending up closer to the trees and then we stop.
She looks around, her ears perking, almost like she's trying to hear everything around her and it makes me follow suit.
But I end up not hearing anything besides the tree rustling together and a slight moaning of the winds through the trees, a few small creatures chirping or singing their tunes.
"Wha..?"
"Quiet boy."
She pauses and begins to listen once more.
"Pick up you bow, boy."
I tilt my head and begin to pull up my bow, my finger readily hovering above the sigil.
"What are you doing?"
She looks at my eye:
"Lift up the eye patch."
"Why?"
"Are you questioning me?"
"No, sorry just confused."
She looks at me, her face still the same old face from this afternoon.
"What will happen if you take it off?"
"If there's too much Soul Energy around me my eye will sting, but if it's forcibly released around me, and in a large quantity it'll end up with me bleeding out of my eye."
Sply nods understanding me.
"Still take off your eye patch if you want to see your target. Afterall, you can't hear them can you?"
'God, both Steel and her got to be enhanced in some way, no way they can hear everything for some reason.'
I shake my head then with my lowering my bow, then I lift my eye patch up and see through the darkness of the forest.
Fully exposing my eye to the treeline I see a white aura again.
This time, it's slow, small and not even moving at all.
"That in there is a bunny, try shooting it."
I squint my eyes.
'Why is it always bunnies?'
"Is there anything else that I could shoot, something more dangerous?"
Sply raises her eyebrow.
"You want danger, without knowing how to shoot when told?"
I sigh.
'I'm sorry little bunny, but Steel told me to shoot anything she told me too, and along with her being a hard ass I'm inclined to do what she says.'
The distance to the bunny is great, meaning the arrow will have to fly pretty far.
I breath once, then twice.
Pulling the string back again, I tap the sigil and the blue arrow appears on the areow hold.
With another breath, I release the string, letting the string throw the arrow.
The arrow flies through the air.
'Sorry little bunny.'
I think to myself as the blue aura of the arrow flies right to the bunny, but suddenly disappears before it reaches the bunny.
I turn my face to Sply, her face covered in a magenta aura.
"What happened?"
I ask as rustling is heard, I turn back and see the bunny hopping away.
"What happened was that you didn't enhance it with your Soul Energy."
I pull down my eye patch again, starting to feel the sting of the Soul Energy that Sply is releasing passively off of her body.
"Take off the patch boy."
She says her voice still as stern as ever.
Reluctantly I lift it and feel the slight sting of Sply's aura.
"Look at me, I'm gonna guess you can see the color of my Soul Energy?"
I nod.
"Good."
She holds out her hands, like she's presenting herself to me.
"Shot at me."
She says, not a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
Her magenta aura, now growing to swirl around her body, like it's a weather forecast on herself.
"Are you sure?"
She nods.
"You won't even be able to get your arrow close enough to hit me."
I pause and look her up then down.
"Are you sure, Ms. Sply."
"Don't call me Ms. Sply."
There wasn't a hint of negotiation in that.
"Okay, but are you sure you want me to shoot at you?"
I lift the bow again, my finger just hovering above the sigil.
"Yes, shoot boy."
Slowly I tap the sigil, but as I pull the string back, I can't help but grow a small smirk, happily ready to give this woman a piece of my mind.
As the arrow forms, it doesn't take me long to release the string once more, my fingers slowly getting used to the sting that the string has on my finger.
As the arrow flies to her, as soon as the arrow even taps her skin, it just disappears.
"That's the disadvantage of having used a Soul Arrow."
She says as she puts her hand down.
"It doesn't even pierce through regular Soul Armor, but if you enfuse it with your Soul Energy, just a little, it could very well make a whole in a tree."
I turn looking back at the trees that tower well over both, Sply and I.
I turn myself, to position better. Feet together for a better hold on myself, my arms feel to wide for myself to feel the bow better, then I pull the string back and…
Sply moves closer to me.
"Your stance is all wrong boy."
She sighs as she helps me out.
"Goddess me, you maybe missed the last time because you were standing like this."
"What do you mean?"
"I wasn't looking last time."
"Oh."
Sply pulls my legs apart so that my feet have one to plant me to the ground and another lead foot.
My arms, spread wider as well, so that I can manage to pull the string even the tiniest of bits further.
The sigil, is tapped and the blue arrow appears again.
Silly then moves away from me and I release the arrow, the arrow manages to hit one of the trees and the damage is minimal.
"Goddess me boy, you can't even manage a simple thing like enfusing your arrow with more Soul Energy."
She sighs.
"Follow me."
She begins to walk into the treeline.
Stopping right before the dark consumes her and makes me stare at her.
"Follow. If you don't then I'll leave and this whole trip would have been for nothing."
I look back and forth, looking at no one but trees, houses and empty air.
With a small scared step, I begin walking after her.
'I'm going to hate this.'