Nina made it to the clearing just in time for her session to start. She saw five elves there waiting for her. One of them was a teacher and the other four were children.
"Sorry for not making it earlier," Nina apologized to the teacher when she arrived. Just like Mytill told her, the children were indeed excited to see her. They all looked at her with their big round eyes as if they had been waiting for her the entire time, which they probably had.
"No, it's nothing to worry about. We aren't that strict about time like you're used to."
"Oh yeah..." Nina keeps forgetting that living with the elves is so different compared to living with humans. Excluding the obvious differences such as the places in which they lived, elves had longer lives and perceived time differently from other creatures. Apparently, time passes slower for them and they enjoy sitting around and doing nothing but watch nature. Unlike humans, elves are patient and much more forgiving. "Well, sorry anyway."
The elf pinched the bridge of his nose, not understanding the point in her apologizing again when he said it was fine. "Well, if you're sorry, then why don't you make it up by starting the lesson," he tells her.
"Oh right." Nina looked around confused for a few seconds before turning back to the elf and asking, "Umm... What am I teaching them again?"
"They have the basics down. I want you to show them a couple of spells."
"But I don't know that many spells," Nina tells him. She only knew a handful of spells since she used mostly chantless magic, most of which was taught to her by Autumn and Elder Gildor. Other than those few spells, she knew nothing else.
"A few small and easy ones will do. Nothing too fancy."
"Will Water Bolt and Restraining Sphere do?"
"Yes, those two are fine. They know the chants to them already. Just show them how it's used," the elf pointed at a row of wooden training dummies.
"Got it." Nina raised her hand and chanted in Elvish the spell Water Bolt. A short watery arrow shot out of her hand and hit a training dummy. The water splashed and dispersed, falling onto the ground, dealing no damage at all to the dummy. Even though it was rather disappointing and weak for an offensive spell, the children clapped their hands and cheered for Nina.
"Hmm... Can you try putting a bit more power into it?" the teacher asked Nina.
"More power?" Since Nina was not adept at speaking Elvish, her spells were weaker. If she wanted a stronger Water Bolt, she would have to chant the spell in Centrolio. Nina explained this to the elf.
"Yeah, that's okay," the elf told her. It didn't matter what language the spell was chanted in. In the end, it would be the same spell with a very slight difference.
After receiving an okay from the elf, Nina put her hands together and chanted Water Bolt in the language that she is more fluent in. "Oh waters, take down my foe before me." It was a short and simple chant. A beam of water much bigger and faster than the previous one shot out of Nina's hands and knocked the training dummy over. The children clapped their hands again after seeing the demonstration.
"Not bad," the teacher said. The spell was far from being powerful enough to do any harm to the target, but it was enough to push them over. This wasn't Nina's fault as water magic isn't made for killing. It is primarily for support and healing others.
"Thank you." Nina then continued and chanted Restraining Sphere in Centrolio as well. "Oh waters, surround my foe and drag them behind the waves." Water appeared from underneath the training dummy she targeted and wrapped around it until it formed a big sphere just like its name suggested. The training dummy was then lifted off the ground a few inches into the air before the bubble popped and it fell back onto the ground. Once again, the children clapped and cheered loudly.
The teacher scratched his chin and asked Nina, "By any chance, do you know how to use ice magic?" Ice magic is a variant of water magic and unlike water magic, it's much more deadly and lacks supporting capabilities.
"No," Nina replied. She tried learning it before but it didn't work well for her as she couldn't get the water to freeze completely. The most she can do is freeze part of the water and launch it at the enemy, and it didn't really do much other than making them shiver for a few seconds.
"Oh. Well, if you ever want to learn it, you could try asking Elder Aragon about it. But if he's too busy, I guess Idril will also do. She's free on most days," he recommended to Nina.
"I'll keep that in mind, thank you."
"Anyway," the elf turned to the four students. "It's your turn now. Show me what you can do. And as for you," he turned back to Nina. "I need you to watch and help them cast their spells."
"Okay."
Nina did as the elf said and helped the four children with their Water Bolt and Restraining Sphere spell. After an hour or so of practice, the session was over and the teacher and students thanked her. She left and went home which was in a little cabin not too far away from the grove. The reason why she didn't live in the grove with the other elves is not that they didn't want her there. Although it was like that in the beginning, they were now fine with her living in the grove with them and didn't mind, but Nina chose to stay at her current spot because it was a lot easier to live on the ground than high up in the trees.
Using their nature magic, the elves managed to supersize the trees in the grove and use them as homes. Most of them hated living on the ground and chose to live up high in the branches where everything was intertwined with each other and they could travel across the grove without ever having to touch the ground if they chose to.
The first time that Nina walked on the branches up there, she kept worrying about slipping and falling off and still worried about it now. If possible, she didn't want to be anywhere up there since it is too dangerous.
Nina opened the door to her cabin and a strong scent of flowers exploded out of her room, flooding her nose with the powerful aroma and making her cough. "Ugh..." Nina went into the room and spotted a huge bouquet of flowers sitting on her table. They were all freshly picked and also had a lot stronger smell than she liked. It took her a moment to realize what it was doing in her cabin. "Oh yeah..." She had forgotten all about it. She made a request sometime last week for some flowers since she had no idea which flowers were okay to pick and which ones weren't. It looked like her delivery had come.
Nina took the flowers and brought them outside to the back of her cabin where there were a couple of stone graves sticking out of the ground. There were three in total and from left to right, the names, Rene, Marra, and Kies were written on them. They were the graves for her family. After escaping from Silverfield, she did some investigating to find out that her parents weren't in any of the records in Otane. This led her to believe the worse happened to them and that they didn't make it out.
Nina went over to the gravestones one by one and cleaned off the rotting flowers and discarded them around her yard so that they could return to the earth before replacing them with the fresh ones she just received. She tried her best to distribute them as evenly as she could. Lastly, she wiped off the dirt and moss on them.
She stopped at Kies gravestone which was the last one and stared solemnly at it for a moment. She wanted to believe that he was out there somewhere still alive and living well, but she knew that the chances were almost nonexistent. He got taken by the demons and they likely tortured him to get information from him before killing him. Just thinking about it made her blood boil. Even though she knew that it was the humans who started it, she couldn't forgive the demons for what they did.
All the races have joined forces again despite what the humans did with the sole intention of wiping out the demons once again. A message has been sent to their village asking for elves to join the war. Maybe she should join...
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