Chapter 12

Training was going well, due to my continuous training from a young age, it became much less straining than I initially thought, but that was only until my mother increased the amount. ' I swear, that woman is a wolf in sheepskin clothing ' I thought with an exasperated sigh. I had somehow managed to convince her to teach me sword play around 2 weeks after dad and Ella left for the city, and its... exhilarating. The graceful arcs, the feeling I get in my arms as the comfortable weight of the sword finds it's way into my palms, the feeling of my muscle fibres and joints moving in ways I want the too, to create intricate and beautiful slashes and punctures against a mental image. I'm in love with this feeling. As soon as physical conditioning is done for the day, I beg my mother to conjure a sword for me, as I'm forbidden from doing it myself, and either nag her into teaching me more, or continue my shadow sparing against the mental figure of my mother.

During the times of my mental sparing, I recall each and every step, angle and twitch of my mothers form, either trying to emulate it or place myself in the position of my father. No matter how talented I am though, if I can even be considered that, I am too slow to react to the memories dancing form. So I do what I can with my undeveloped body, until the sky is hazy from exhaustion, until my breath is ragged, until I feel the grass of our field underneath my back. Even despite the continual reign of scolding I get from my mother for pushing myself so much, I continue to do so, just so I can get a taste more of that feeling.

Finally mother made me take a day off, so I decided to wander into the woods, the luscious greenery scraped against my legs as I continued into the forest. The birdsong mixed with the orchestral sound of bugs communicating, caused all forms of tension to leave my body. I let my vision unfocus as I wandered through the dense greenery, until I came across an open clearing. It was roughly 20 metres in diameter and had a clutter of rocks in the centre. I walked to the centre of the field and found a relatively flat rock to sit on. I entered a lotus position and just let everything go, my sense of self, sense of time, sense of awareness, and melted into the surroundings. In essence, I just turned everything off, yet I felt more than I ever could, see wider than ever before. The subtle pulse of mana in every animal in the clearing, the individuality of each blade of grass, the morning dew on the brush. I saw what I never could through my own eyes, until someone else walked into the clearing and disrupted my peace of mind.

It was a young girl, with glossy-black hair that ran down the her lower back, she seemed a bit older than the current me, with forest green eyes. Despite her hair covering her ears, those eyes were a dead give away. She was a little taller than me, only by a few inches. She had a slight rosy tint to her ivory coloured skin, and cherry coloured lips. Just like I was staring at her she was staring at me.

"What a freak", her melodious voice and angelic appearance were ruined by those 3 words, shocking me out of my stupor.

"Exume me?" I asked, irritation creeping into my voice.

"You heard me, you freak. What were you just doing?" she replied in a haughty tone of voice, almost demanding an answer.

"Why should I answer you, after you so rudely called me a freak?" I continued, struggling to keep the venom out of my voice. Despite knowing she was young, that word struck me like a hammer to an anvil.

"Because freaks like you must answer, otherwise what good can you do in this world, measly human" that one sentence contained all the arrogance in the world. Veins threatened to pop out of my forehead as I clenched my teeth.

"So not only am I a freak, I'm a measly human who has to answer to the supreme elf race, is that it?" this time I reply without restraining my contempt.

"Exactly, now tell me, what were you just doing" she demanded, tilting her head up to look down upon me even more. By this time she was only 5 metres away from me, so I hopped off the rock I was perched on and walked towards her, halfing the distance between us before halting.

"If you're that much better than me, you should know what it was, shouldn't you, little elf" I say in a derisive tone as I look down my nose at her, which looks rather stupid as shes taller than me. However my mocking seems to do the trick as for the first time, and flashes across her face.

"Tell. Me. What. You. Were. Doing" she responded through gritted teeth.

"Figure it out for yourself, idiotic elf" I reply with a cocky grin plastered on my face. Knowing that she won't get an answer out of me, she clicked her tongue as she turned to walk away, while muttering something I couldn't quite hear.

".... hears of this" was all I managed to catch, but it was enough for me to know that among the elves she held some importance. However, I wasn't an Idiot, I had already figured out that my eye colour, sorry colours, meant something of importance in the human kingdom, I just couldn't understand why we were here, and in the elf's forest no less.

Afterall, there is no way the elves don't know we're here in their own forest, especially when the forest speaks to their elders.