NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 125: The Family
In order to train, I needed supervision. Admittedly it made me feel a little bit like a child, but it made sense. When I started draining my life force into the spell I couldn’t stop myself. If it started happening again it would be good to have someone around to snap me out of it.
When I approached Mara though, she was supervising Airsidh and Lu, who were doing some training of their own… In the kitchen…
Each of them stood with a hand hovering over a hot flame. Airsidh slowly pulled his away first, calm and collected. “I guess it’s over.”
Moments after, Lu yanked her hand away, holding it to her chest. “Haha, I won!”
The whole scene seemed ridiculous, and I didn’t really understand it, but from how calm Airsidh was, I had a lingering feeling that Lu’s victory was a bit shallow.
Mara sighed, shaking her head. “He gave up early...” She grumbled, clearly disappointed in him.
Of course, before she could scold him, or even say anything else, Lu protested even louder than her victory cry. “YOU LET ME WIN!” She yelled, punching him in the shoulder.
It almost seemed like a cute interaction between siblings, if not for the fact that her fist hit with such force that one of the pots fell off a nearby shelf.
He casually brushed it off. “If I won, would you have let me go, or just challenged me to something else?”
She shut her mouth tensing up even more as she groaned. “YOU… JERK!” She threw another punch, but this time he caught it, sending a shockwave through the air.
‘They are terrifying…’
Mara let out a sigh. “That’s enough you two.” She said walking in between them and turning to Lu. “We’ve bothered your brother enough for one day, he’s just a bit tired so we should let him rest.”
She growled, crossing her arms. “Fine… But if he does something like that again I’m going to really hit him.”
My jaw dropped slightly ‘She wasn’t being serious?’
As he walked away she stuck her tongue out at him, but he never turned around to see it. Although, his slight grin told me he didn’t have to in order to know what she was doing.
During the whole interaction it seemed like none of them had even noticed me, but once it had ended both Mara and Lu began to stare silently.
“Who are you?” Lu asked.
I let out a nervous chuckle. “Good one Lu.” ‘Honestly, her jokes are usually funnier. More offensive maybe, but still funnier.’
“Did you need something, Siya?”
I looked at Lu’s absolutely dumbfounded face, and then back at Mara. ‘I guess… she really didn’t recognize me…’ It hurt more than I would have thought, but I tried not to dwell on it, thinking that if I did somehow transform it would have been for the better.
Trying to stay on topic I looked back at Mara. “Uh, yeah. Father’s busy so he wanted you to supervise my training. You don't have to do much, just shake me around a bit if blood starts coming out of my eyes.”
Her arms relaxed, falling to her side. “What?”
Just like that, I had lost them both. “It’s just some magic stuff, I should be fine I just need someone there as a just-in-case kinda thing.”
Lu slowly looked back and forth between the two of us, walking over towards me, and inspecting my face. Since she wasn’t actually saying anything though I just ignored her… Well, as best as I could anyway
Mara’s eyes squinted, and then slowly softened. “Is that why your face is all red?” She quickly came over and grabbed my face in her hands, moving my head around to check if I was ok.
“Mara.” I got out before she turned my head to the side so fast I nearly fell over. “Mara stop your making me dizzy.”
She let go. “Are you alright? If you lost a lot of blood you need to rest.”
I lifted a hand to my head. “Yeah I just have a bit of a headache but I’m fine. I need to get back to training.” ‘Who knows what he’ll do if he decides I’m progressing too slowly...’
She stepped back. “If that’s what you want, but let's at least have you take a short break. You should wash off your face. We have to clean out your eyes just in case. Wait in the dining room, while I go get some fresh water.”
As she left, it was no longer impossible to ignore Lu, who had been politely staying silent until we were done talking. “You look a lot different now you know. It's a lot harder to tease you now that you look human like the rest of us.”
“Uh… Thank you?”
“Your training is intense enough to make blood come out of your eyes?”
“Yeah…” ‘Although, that’s only if I mess up.’
“Cool, can I do it with you?”
“No.”
She shriveled up her nose with a growl. “Why are you and Air always like this? Aghhhh… Fine… Can I watch then?”
I looked to the door Mara had left out of, quickly realizing she wasn’t going to be back as fast as I would have liked. Letting out a sigh I decided to just agree. “Sure.” ‘I guess it should be fine.’
As requested I went to the dining room and took a short break. After Mara got back she cleaned up my face, refusing to let me do it myself on account of her being able to see better, which I couldn’t really argue with.
When that was done she made us wait while she made tea, and then we had to wait until the tea was all drunk, so as not to waste it. Then we had to wait while she cleaned the teapot… Surprisingly, it seemed to bother me more than it bothered Lu… But that only made me feel more childish.
Finally, after the short break turned into a long one filled with awkward silence, we made it outside.
I took my position in the center of the courtyard, while Mara and Lu sat directly in front of me at the one end.
“OK, so how is this going to work?” Mara asked, casually placing her ankle on her other knee as she leaned back against the bench.
“I’m working on toughening my body, but if I accidentally hold the spell too long I’ll start to hurt myself, and that will slow down my progress in the long run.”
“So you want me to stop you if that happens right?”
“That’s the idea. If you see blood just snap me out of it.”
She grimaced, giving me a nod in confirmation. “You said I just have to shake you around a bit right?”
I scratched my cheek. “Well, I don’t know how far you’ll actually have to go…” My hand fell to my neck. “Father kind of choked me out of it the last time.”
She started to scowl, growling through her teeth. “I see…”
Her glare made me a bit nervous, but given the circumstances, I didn’t think it meant anything bad at least, so I calmed my mind and started to focus. ‘Ok, let's begin.’