Alex stood in his room that night, his eyes shut. For some reason, he could get a good grasp on getting the Arcanic Energy to pulsate throughout his body, but the moment he so much as shifted a foot, twitched a finger, or even seemingly so much as opened his eyes, he'd lose it and be back to square one immediately. He let out a frustrated growl as he slammed his fist on the desk as the quill bounced out of the inkwell, staining the desk black beneath the calamus. He gave the quill an embittered glare as he reached over and placed it back inside of the inkwell.
Alex placed both hands on the desk and hung his head, pensively pondering what Azerael had mentioned at the end of the day.
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Azerael stood before them with folded arms in the brisk evening air. Speaking in the same sage-like tone, he stated, "Even if it comes from a positive place, arrogance is best avoided. Especially in the realm of things in which you have little experience. An ant dares not target a spider after defeating a grasshopper. Not to call you ants, for you aren't so feeble, but you can't assume you can take on a complex task after just barely learning the most basic one."
Alex rested his hands on his knees as he panted, exhausted from the overexertion of Arcanic Energy. Taber let out a discouraged sigh as Emily's eyes drifted to the ground. They had found out an hour in that this wouldn't be as easy as they'd hoped, but after ten hours of merciless attempts to figure it out, they realized that even this supposedly 'basic' ability would take a week to figure out. Even Azerael's advice of visualizing their Energy as if flowing through 'magic arteries' didn't seem to help them. And despite the rush of motivation he'd taken on ten minutes into training, Alex's demeanor reverted back to how it was the night prior. Doubts swirling and fears doubling.
As Azerael dismissed them for the evening, Taber and Emily made their way inside. The only one who was left was Alex, his head hung in defeat. Azerael took note of this. "What's eating at you, young Alexander?" His voice resembled that which he'd used with Emily earlier that morning. Soothing and welcoming. As if he were a doting father one could confide in. A father. That word rang through Alex's mind.
"Az- Master Azerael." Alex struggled to find the right words, but after a moment, he found a close resemblance to such words. "If I'm truly of this world... and my true father is this Anxor guy, then..." He raised his eyes to meet Azerael as he felt a tear begin to jerk its way through the emotional barrier he'd tried so hard to construct and fortify all day. "Does that mean that my entire life up to now has been just one huge lie? Some sick joke?"
Azerael let out a pensive sigh, then turned around. "Walk with me." Alex hesitated for a moment, but set aside his apprehension. He was unclear as to why he had this apprehension, it wasn't like Azerael had done anything to spite him in particular. Especially not since he'd met him. Perhaps, then, it was because Alex remembered, even if subconsciously, that it was Azerael who had sent him away in the first place.
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They walked through the forest, the occasional breeze sending shivers throughout Alex's body. Since the sun was hidden behind the canopy of the leaves, the only source of visibility came from Azerael's palm, a small orb radiating light from just above it. Alex caught up until he was beside Azerael. "Master, why exactly are we out here?"
"Roughly four-thousand-one-hundred-and-thirty-six years ago, my first child was born," Azerael began, his voice soft, yet resinating loudly in the night. "Seeing that for the first time, I was overcome with joy, with a newfound love and appreciation toward my then-wife." Alex looked over as he studied Azerael's face, a soft and gentle smile painted on it. "Unfortunately, I can't remember her face. Hardly even remember her name. However I remember, in a sense, the feeling.
"Through the years, I devoted as much time to him as any father should. But with my son being killed in battle at the age of seventeen, I was never blessed enough to have grandchildren. And after my first wife had passed on, I was alone, for the first time in eighty-nine years." Alex's eyes dropped to the dirt path below, sympathy embedded within them.
"After a couple of decades," Azerael continued, "I tried all I could to join them in the afterlife. However, this damned Curse wouldn't let me take my own life. After a century of attempts, I felt empty. Until I met Mary, my first apprentice. I had met her when she was only five, having lost her parents to yet another war. But, I took her in and raised her as my own. Even after fifty years, she still would come by and visit, addressing me as her father."
Alex's eyes traced the ground, his vision moving up Azerael's cloak, pitch black in the darkness, until their gazes met, Azerael's morose expression revealed by the waning light of the orb. He shifted his gaze back to the path ahead of them. "I know you feel confused," he continued. "Perhaps lost is the better word. Hell, maybe you even feel betrayed by Fate. However, none of that matters. Anxor may be your biological father, however the man who fed you, supported you, and watched you grow, will always be your father. Regardless of whose seed you grew from."
Azerael slowed to a halt as Alex turned to face him. Azerael then took a knee and looked Alex in the eyes from his crouched position, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Young Alexander," Azerael spoke in a soft, yet deliberate tone. "Never forsake your past solely because the present reveals a difficult past. Stay true to yourself and the ones who made you who you are. For that is the essence of your character, who is the essence of your life."
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Alexander's grip on the desk loosened as he finally came to terms with Azerael's advice. He straightened up his stance as he pushed gently off the table, peering out the window as the moon revealed itself from behind the clouds. He closed his eyes and exhaled as he felt some of the distress leave his body.
He then reset his stance and tried to imagine the Energy within his Origin pulsating through his body. However, once he tried to move, the feeling left him yet again as he let out a sigh of grief. Alex then gave up for the night, letting his back hit the mattress as he finally drifted off to sleep.
To his surprise that next morning, he didn't remember having any dreams.
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In the early hours of the morning, before the sun had risen, Emily rose from her bed, yawning and stretching with a heavy weight in her heart. The disappointment from the day prior hadn't yet faded, nor did she suspect it would anytime soon. She regretted setting her feet onto the wooden floorboards as her outlook on the coming day seemed to shrivel up into a pessimistic husk of what had once been hopeful optimism, initially spawned from the hand on her chest.
At this point, her only driving force was that she seemingly had no way out of this. This fact brought about more despair than anything. In any case, though the situation was helpless, it was better than home.
Anywhere was better than home.
She dressed herself, then put her shoes on and meandered out as the bedroom door opened with a slow creak. As she stepped out into the dining room toward the cabinet, she grabbed a cup, and reached for a kettle. Shortly after filling it with water and placing it down onto the counter, she quickly became distraught. There was no stove.
Emily had wanted to make some tea to help ease her mind, but now she was caught up on this dilemma. She buried her face in her hands, dread filling her chest, adding more and more to the already unbearable weight.
Suddenly, a voice spoke softly from behind, startling her. "Let me help you with that." She watched as Azerael grabbed the kettle and moved to a small opening in the wall. As he raised his hand, a small flame sparked to life and ignited the coal resting within. He placed the kettle on top of a small metal rack inside.
"Thank you, Master Azerael..." Emily said, her voice hushed in the silent cabin.
Azerael waved a hand. "No need to thank me." He moved silently toward the cabin's front door, opening it silently and closing it behind him with a soft thud. Emily stood, waiting for the tea to finish. If nothing else, Azerael's calm and caring demeanor eased her pensiveness. In a sense, in just the couple of days they had been there, he already felt like the father she never had.
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Alexander cursed, stomping his foot on the packed sand beside a training dummy. "How the hell are we supposed to get this?!"
Azerael walked toward him. "Try to keep a sound mind, Alexander."
Alex sighed, gently kicking a rock just a foot away from him. "I'm trying, Master Azerael. But this is impossible!"
"Not impossible. If it were, nobody would be able to use Magic at all. It's just difficult since you're not as accustomed to this." After finishing his sentence, Azerael turned around to observe Taber and Emily, both of whom were having similar issues. Azerael sighed. "It's almost noon. Go ahead and take a break. We'll continue in an hour." As Azerael headed off in the direction of the treeline, the three sat down at the picnic table.
They sat in silence for a few moments, trying to figure out just what they were doing wrong. "Why?" Alex asked, anguish coating his voice. "What the hell are we doing wrong here?"
"I don't know," Taber answered, contemplating. More than anything, while he wasn't as agitated as Alex or as hopeless as Emily, he was trying to analyze what exactly Azerael had been saying to them the past couple of days. "Let's review. What kind of feeling are you guys getting when you do it?"
Alex looked down at his right palm as the energy pulsed through it. "It's a pulse. Almost like a heartbeat." Emily agreed with his statement.
"Yeah, same here." Taber placed his chin on top of his palm, scratching at the wooden tabletop with his free hand.
"Do you think... that's the problem?" Emily's soft voice was quieter than usual. Alex could barely hear her, though Taber, sitting right next to her, did.
"What do you mean?" He inquired.
"Although we feel the same thing when we do it, we aren't getting anywhere... But thinking back on Azerael's words, maybe we misheard something?"
Alex and Taber thought everything over from the beginning. And then something clicked in Alexander's mind. Azerael had told them one important word that all of them had somehow glossed over. "Circulation!"
The other two removed themselves from their contemplation as they looked his way. "Circulation?" Emily asked.
"At first," Alex continued, "I thought of it like the circulatory system. The heart is at the center and pumps the blood back and forth rhythmically."
Taber interjected, the proverbial light in his head activating. "But the more efficient way would be to treat it like a closed circuit! Instead of putting focus into pumping it back and forth, just have it constantly moving. Focusing on making it flow in one consistent direction would demand less focus than moving it from the core to each limb and back over and over again."
"Exactly!" Alex and Taber bumped fists. "Let's do this!"
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Azerael made his way out of the bushes roughly an hour later. As he made his way to the training area, he noticed all three of them were there, standing in the ready position, focusing on their training.
"You know," he began. "You didn't have to get back to it so early."
Alexander broke out of his stance and took one step toward Azerael. Then two. Azerael's eyes widened slightly as he noticed that the boy's aura, while faint, wasn't disappearing. They widened more, however, when he noticed the same thing happening with the other two. Azerael chuckled. "And to think, just an hour ago you three were absolutely muddled."
Taber grinned. "Nah, we just misheard you before!"
Azerael smiled and nodded to him. "I'm glad the three of you got the hang of it." Azerael meandered past the field and headed toward the cabin, before looking back to them.
"Grab your vests and your swords. Now the real training begins..."