Chapter Six - His first weapons

[Author's Note: Due to the amount of negativity of the part(s) where Hywel shows interest as he adapts to his new body, I decided to upload two chapters this time since there's... a few blushing and confused scenes.]

"Such talkative person,"

Hywel said to his teacher. They were in his room now in the same place as every night; Hwel on the windowsill and Hildes on the chair.

"Fabre? yes he certainly can be."

Hildes replied in passing, his head bowed in reading the parchment of the past day’s homework in his hand.

“I saw his duelling also. I wonder how much training he has done? The way they lunged at each other and the way he smiled…”

Hywel’s words trailed off, noticing the lack of attention his teacher was giving. He frowned and looked at Hildes. After a moment of silence, the scholar placed the parchments down and looked up.

"Can we please go on with tonight's studies now?"

"Yes, I'm not stopping you."

"Master Hywel,"

He snapped at the boy.

"All you have been talking about since I entered this room is Fabre this, Fabre that; you're not concentrating to the lesson at all!"

He blinked, then looked away back to the outside scenery through the window when he realized Hildes was right. There was a sigh from the scholar.

"Have I not told you to be weary of that man? He only sees you as an obstacle to his glory, an opponent to slay. And yet after spending a day with him you are completely awed by him. No... charmed, perhaps? You are sounding like a maiden admiring every single detail of a man she fell in love at first sight than anything."

Hywel's face lit up with red at that comment, seeing the truth of his words once more. They both went silent again. Hywel looked back at the scholar when he felt the colour of his cheeks had died down a little but saw that he was no longer in the room.

"Teacher?"

He called out to make sure he wasn't imagining. ‘Did he really leave during that short time?’ The young master thought as he got up from the windowsill. The seat was still lingering with warmth. With a sigh, he threw himself in bed with an arm covering his eyes.

How long has it been? Hywel wasn’t sure of the exact time spacing out, but there weren’t any light coming from the outside save for the serene moonlight. Slowly he got up and sat on the windowsill, gazing at the distant stars. He rarely saw the stars during his past life, always unbearably tired after work and going to sleep straight away. How different it was, not to feel tired and to be able to gaze at the stars every night. His mind went back to what had happened today, about Fabre, Hildes’ warning and actions... Why had he acted that way towards Fabre, keeping in tradition and minding manners? No, that wasn’t enough of an explain the obvious attachment to his ’cousin’.  Then because of his looks? That was slightly off too, as it was only when Fabre was smiling that he felt engrossed in his cousin... Perhaps it was due to his skill as a Summoner? Hywel closed his eyes at that thought, and tried to ‘feel’ the element once again. Having said that he wasn’t sure just what he was trying to feel.

He shook his head, then sighed. He proceeded to hug his legs to his chest, resting his chin on his knees.

“I wonder how long I have left...”

He muttered to himself. Closing his eyes once more, he pictured the Salamander he had seen earlier; such magical creatures who are said to be able to lengthen one’s life...

“By the Mana within me,”

He muttered.

“Bind the Mana for eyes to see.”

Silence ensued, and the boy gave a bitter smile; he was afraid this would happen, partly why he didn’t say the actual words when Fabre was so focused on him. He got up after a bit then nearly fell over, suddenly feeling weak. He managed to catch himself before tumbling to the floor though, and before his eyes something shimmered against the moonlight reflecting from the window. It took him precious moments to recover from the sudden weakness, and during that time his eyes were fixed on the space slightly above his eye level, where the shimmering was happening. As he observed, the light seem to twirl into a spiral as if the space was being distorted, then something round and tiny fell from that very place with a hard ‘plop’. The weakness Hywel felt went away as the distorted space dispersed but he was weary for quite a bit after it.

“What...”

He spoke as he tested his own weight again; there was no difference now. He proceeded to light up a candle, being careful of where he was stepping. After a moment of searching the room’s floor, he found something which seemed like the object that fell from that distorted space; it had rolled to the corner of the room. He shone the candle at it, but there were no response as if it wasn’t a living thing. As a precaution Hywel kept clear of it while observing with the light for a time, yet there were no difference. After a time the young master risked poking at it.

No response.

With gritted teeth from the tension, this time he risked picking it up. There were no painful jolts or anything to his relief. The object was quite hard in his hands and round. It was the size of a pea and held a dark layer. He wasn’t exactly sure of the colour due to the limited details a candlelight can give, but he assumed it was black or dark brown. Upon rolling it in his hand, he noticed there was one side that wasn’t dark. A lighter surface shaped like a heart. Hywel slid a tip of finger over it but there were no noticeable grooves or edges on the object. He could try splitting it, but there was no telling what could happen.

Then the question hit him; ‘What happened, and why had this appeared?’ The most probable reason that Hywel could think up was the chant for summoning a familiar. He was pretty sure that was the reason the more he thought of it. That gave birth to a new question; ‘What is this? It doesn’t feel right calling it a familiar… Perhaps it’s an egg? ...Do familiars hatch from an egg?’ 

He came to a simple conclusion that he had no definite information to make any conclusions. For now however, he simply decided to call it a ‘Heartseed’ for it reminded him more of a pea than an egg, plus it had a heart-shaped surface. With that, he left it at the desk to observe it in the morning; perhaps the daylight would give him more clues.

When the candlelight shone the desk, he realized that while the scholar left without warning, he left new sheets of homework on the desk. Smiling a little to himself, he sat down and spent the rest of the night with the homework as well as some reading, like he had done every night before.

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“Come in,”

Hywel absently replied to the knock on the door the next morning. The door creaked open, then the room fell to silence save for the sound of pages flipping as Hywel sped through the book he was on. feeling something was amiss, he looked up and nearly fell off his chair. Luteia, who usually came to wake him up on the days he was too occupied to call beforehand was nowhere to be seen; Fabre stood with a hand on the doorknob instead. Hastily Hywel stood up, laying the book down at the desk and bowed in greeting.

“I apologize for my rudeness, I didn’t expect anyone this early,”

He said with his head down.

“Hm...”

Fabre hmmed before continuing.

“The Head Guard asked for your presence down at the training ground.”

He sounded formal and emotionless, much like the time he was talking to Valce.

“And to inform you that the Inmos Ceremony is scheduled to start tomorrow when the sun is at its highest.”

The Inmos Ceremony... So it was that time already.

“Er... oh, Thank you for the news, um... I’ll-”

“I’ll be looking forward to your talents, Hywel.”

Fabre cut his words short, back to his cheery voice. He could virtually see the magnificent smile he would have as he spoke in his mind, and only when Fabre left did he relax enough to lift his head.

“Why am I so tensed around him...”

He muttered and shook his head when he realized he spoke out loud, making a mental note to stop talking to himself as he got ready for the morning practice.

“A... real sword?”

“And a real shield.”

Valce was grim today, in continuation with the look from the day before. He was also barehanded unlike other days.

Hywel looked down at his hands. On his right was a sword of a simple design, if any; the hilt was long enough to barely fit both his hands if needed, but holding it one hand proved little discomfort. This sword had a horizontal bar to separate the blade and the hilt, but unlike Fabre’s sword it was merely a straight piece of metal. The blade itself was just long enough not to give too much trouble for Hywel to unsheath it from his waist and it was double-edged so it did not matter which side Hywel used to attack.

The shield on his left was mainly made out of wood with metal casing around the edges. There were no particular design on the shield either save a strip of metal diving the shield into four quarters and a round bump on the center. Having said that, it was large enough to cover his entire body when crouching. It was rectangular in shape with the metal edges bent towards the wielder which oddly reminded Hywel of a coffin lid minus the shape. All in all, it was quite heavy but not so heavy that he would have trouble fighting, given time to adjust. If he go tired, it seemed like he could just put it on the ground to make a temporary one-sided bunker.

“Get used to using a shield and sword by tomorrow. You have no chance to beat Fabre on a duel, but might as well try to last as long as you can.”

Hywel had no reply, for he agreed after seeing the duel yesterday. Instead he tested out the shield and sword heavy in his hands, giving a few swings and holding the shield up in front of him.

“Now, don’t get hit.”

Valce said without prior warning, closing in within moments and sending a lightning fast jab to his chest. Surprised at the sudden attack, Hywel backed away a little and held up the shield. The jab was blocked by the shield narrowly but a second punch followed. This one was harder and stronger than the first, and with his uncomposed stance, his legs gave way and fell on his back with the shield weighing on top of him. In matter of seconds, the head guard’s foot was on the shield, effectively pinning Hywel to the ground.

“Again.”

He barked as he moved his feet away and took a few steps back. He got up as fast as he can and held the sword and shield right, eyeing Valce. More punches came at his way, but this time he managed to block twice as many punches but the kick that followed was too much for the boy to hold ground to. Within moments he was on the ground again with his hands empty, the guard’s foot on his stomach.

Who knew how many tries it long it had been but after a while Hywel started to get the hang of it long enough to fend himself. The punches were erratic, but within time Hywel realized that if he focused solely on defending and having his eyes on the look out for even the tiniest movement, there wasn’t a need to try and locate the punches all the time. The problem was when he attempted to retaliate; Valce easily deflected his sword by making a slapping motion as the blade closed in and sending in a follow-up punch. Around this time Valce shouted at the boy.

“If you can’t even hit me with your sword, use the damn shield!”

Hywel gritted his teeth; fending off the punches and kicks were hard enough for him, how was he to utilize the shield offensively? There wasn’t much time to think though as Valce’s attacks were continuing. Hywel hid behind the shield to protect himself for a few more seconds until he decided to push his shield to Valce like a shield-punch. With a short burst of shout, he struck the incoming punch with the shield; the result left a sting on his arm, but there was also slight frown of pain on the head guard’s face. Taking this as a chance, he swung his blade at the guard who managed to evade the blade yet again.

As Hywel’s face crumpled in concentration, a small smile crept up on the head guard's face as Hywel managed to get used to combat little by little.

Their training lasted until sunset as usual. Valce gave him the shield and sword to keep, saying he’ll need them for tomorrow. Hywel accepted them wordlessly, but his heart felt heavy at the real blade. This was capable of slicing open a person in a crude and dangerous manner that he wasn’t used to. If he was up against someone like Valce who, despite his attitude and ways, kept them both safe then it would be fine, but Fabre...

‘Surely the ceremony wouldn’t allow killing one another, but would they forbid cutting off a limb or two?’ He shook his head at the images following at that thought, as well as the growing question of 'will this unnatural body of mine be capable of attaching or regrowing limbs?' then made his way to his room.