Days four of working with Aria started with torrents of rain, with the sound of raindrops pounding against the leaves and ground creating a rhythmic symphony. The air was thick with humidity, and the earthy scent of wet soil. Aria did not want to go out and hunt, having just gotten dry from the incident in the river. Not wanting to hunt in the torrents of rain either, Axel agreed. With that, the pair began going through the morning chores first, then Axel, now having mostly recovered, began to do as of his morning training as he could in the cave.
This started with an exercise in the way his father taught him, along with what the training with the Storm expanded on. The cave was dimly lit, the flickering light from the fire casting dancing shadows on the walls. The cool, damp air was a stark contrast to the warmth of the fire. After working up a sweat, Axel took a pole that broke down into three pieces and worked on his halberd movements. The sound of the pole slicing through the air and the occasional grunt of effort echoed in the confined space. Aria, watching Axel practice, started trying to compress air and shoot out balls but was still struggling with control, blasting both of them with dirt and making it so that they needed to clean for a while to get things back in order.
Since that happened, Axel used a time when the rain waned to clean off and make targets outside the cave that Aria could shoot while staying dry and not dust bombing them in the process. The rain had left the ground muddy, and the scent of wet leaves and earth was strong. As Aria was blasting away at the targets, training her control, power, and power supply, it took time and effort to expand the core’s power storage in each cycle to full maturity.
As Axel had maxed out the capacity of his proto core years ago, he sat down and started to meditate. This was a training method that had fallen out of style for years as it was unknown to help, but Axel found it helpful. The theory is that you concentrate on your blessing and, as it is part of your body, it would respond to your wishes. Say that you wanted your muscles to build more compactly and not in more bulky muscle groups; using this, you can do it very slowly, it had taken him the last five years to compact his muscles in a way that maximized and lowered their injury susceptibility. This was part of the reason why Cade had issues with his fast, light cuts.
The way people went about it now would be multiple, very expensive sessions with a Goddess Blessed healer to control your gifts to model your body how you wanted. This works best in the growth phases before the age of majority and at the start of any tier as the body is more malleable at those times, and it gets harder to change the foundation of the body after that. Axel was lucky that he grew up with a budding healer and with all the damage he caused himself, Lyra had plenty of practice to help his body build in the way he wanted. Even with this shortcut, Axel still followed the old ways as this also helped him calm the rage that always churned in his stomach looking for a way out.
Axel was brought out of his meditation with a light tug on his hair. He sighed inwardly, wondering what Aria was up to now. Despite her quirks, he found her presence oddly comforting, if not a test of patience.
“Aria, what are you doing?” Axel asked.
“Braiding the hero’s hair as Aria noticed in his weapon practice that it kept getting in the way,” Aria replied in a voice of concentration. “What was the hero concentrating on so hard that he only noticed now that Aria was braiding? Aria even asked if it would be alright and the hero grunted, Aria took this as permission.”
“Meditation on controlling my Blessing so that when my body begins to build up it does it in a way that I would prefer,” Axel replied, giving up on arguing with Aria. At least she asked permission. He would take the small win.
“Oh, Aria heard of that from the trainer for the Storm. The trainer told another trainee that it was a waste of their time and effort that they could be using to learn their chosen weapon. Isn’t it long, boring, and you don’t see results?” Aria replied and tied off the end of the braid.
“It can be, but it helps me in other ways also. I don’t mind using the long road if it will lead me to a smoother road later in life. I have been told by people I trust and have monitored my health for most of my life that it seems to be helping,” Axel stated while shaking his new unasked-for braid.
“Aria does not think that kind of training would work for Aria. Would not be able to concentrate on that kind of bodywork. Aria would just save money and work with a healer to make the changes needed with how Aria’s body is structured. Aria already must keep track of herbal portions for proper feather growth and metal feather to soft feather rations, otherwise, Aria’s wings are sharp and don’t give good hugs. This is causing Aria headaches even with the Goddess helping with quest reminders!” Aria said in a heated and aggrieved way.
“Wait, you get the Goddess to give you quests to remember your food supplements?” Axel asked in a shocked voice.
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“Yes, the Goddess is an amazing omnipresent authority figure in Aria’s life. Aria would be lost without the Goddess.” Aria’s voice was full of praise and reverence. She then gave her head a proud nod like that did not sound a little insane to Axel’s perspective.
“Alright, I have nothing for that, can’t even wrap my head around what you just told me, to be honest. Also, why do you keep calling me Hero by the way?” Axel said, wanting to know why she kept calling him that.
“Hero is Hero. What else would Aria call him?” Aria asked with a slight tilt of her head.
“My name is Axel Thunderstrider,” Axel said.
“Ahhh, it is great to be formally introduced to you, Hero Axel Thunderstrider. Aria is called Aria Windchime, from Greenhaven. Aria is glad we are formally introduced at last! Aria was so scared that in everything that happened, Aria had forgotten the Hero’s name and was too embarrassed to ask,” Aria greeted formally to Axel.
“Can you just please call me Axel? It is more than a little embarrassing to be called Hero all the time,” Axel added.
“Hummm, don’t know. Aria has grown attached to calling you Hero. But tell you what, if you can entertain and beat Aria in some games, Aria will call you Axel and not Hero,” Aria said with a brilliant smile. Axel agreed, thinking about what would the harm be.
Aria then opened her pack pulling out cards and tried to teach Axel some games, with rules that seemed to change every time they were explained. The pair ended up laughing and bonding over the games, finding joy in the small moments despite the challenges they faced. Axel lost every game, and Aria decided to take pity and stop calling him Hero.
Day five started with yet more rain, that fell in sheets, as the spring season started, and Axel was forced to find a training method that Aria could do and that would keep her out of his hair, quite literally in the case of his meditation time. Axel started trying to teach Aria a more advanced trick his mother uses to compress air into compressed spheres to throw at someone to knock them off balance. Not as effective without wind power to keep the air together and focused, but it kept her focused on something to do.
Axel also stumbled on a way of using his memory trick to see the errors in his fighting ability. Having made large mistakes in recent fights, Axel was struggling to try and fix them without a trainer to point out his weak spots to improve on. It was a question from Aria asking why he had froze up now and then when conversing about his mother’s training method. After explaining what these were, him reliving the memories for a moment, Aria exclaimed that it was amazing and asked if he could do it with his fights to see if he could find what he did wrong.
Axel was not too proud to not take the advice and ran with it. He began to go through the hunt of the Gan and noticed how the feel of the knives in his fingers was off and began to work on fixing this issue. Axel knew that this was only the beginning of these new training methods and that it would not solve all his training problems, as you honestly just needed an outside observer to see what you could not. It would help him fix issues that he knew he was making.
Aria also suggested that they spar to keep sharp. Axel was very sure she was just bored and antsy to do something after being trapped in the cave for two days. With that, they moved to the back of the cave and added some light with the low-smoke torches they had. They sparred for an hour, and it was a series of hard fights for both. Axel had the reach, but in these confined conditions, Aria’s agile daggers could find openings that he presented. Aria had the issue that a lot of her fighting style was built around the use of her wings, but those were as restrained in this as Axel’s reach was.
The pair learned a lot in the spars and helped reduce weaknesses the other saw. The sparring also reduced a lot of the awkwardness that Axel was having with Aria’s presence in his life. It was a great moment for Axel too, and he appreciated Aria’s skill and knowledge of her chosen tools. While she did not have the raw speed Cade had shown to Axel, the memories of that thought almost overwhelmed him for a time, but Axel pushed them back down, she had such a sense of three dimensions and came from angles that Axel never thought of.
Aria’s dynamic visual acuity was at a level that Axel was amazed by. The spar should have only been a few rounds extended onto that whole hour. After they were done, they both were soaked in sweat. The air in the cave was thick with the smell of exertion and the lingering scent of rain. Using the rain to his advantage, Axel took an impromptu shower outside, feeling the cool water wash away the sweat and grime. Aria, meanwhile, gave herself a sponge bath and changed clothing, the sound of water splashing and her quiet humming filling the cave.
As they finished, they cooked the last of the Gin from the previous hunt. The aroma of roasting meat mingled with the earthy scent of the cave, making Axel’s stomach growl in anticipation. They sat by the fire, the warmth seeping into their tired muscles, and shared a quiet meal. Axel relaxed against the wall, feeling a sense of contentment he hadn’t felt in a long time. The last thing Axel did before going to bed was to make a journal entry detailing what he learned the last day and to thank the Goddess for leading him to Aria.
The pair learned a lot in the spars and helped reduce weaknesses the other saw. It was a great moment for Axel and he appreciated Aria’s skill and knowledge of her chosen tools. While she did not have the raw speed Cade had shown to Axel, the memories of that thought almost overwhelmed him for a bit when it hit him. She used her space much more effectively, which made sense to Axel as Aria was likely used to thinking in multiple dimensions of space all the time with her flight.
As the rain fell in sheets outside Axel forgot for a time all the troubles that had built up over the time since the dual. While his dreams were still troubled, they were not the nightmares he had been suffering from before this point. During Axel's night watch, Axel added journal entries for the day and thanked the Goddess for the first time for leading him in the direction of Aria.