Early Afternoon - Late Spring : Home

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Quickly making my way down the mountain with Ilios in tow, I idly started thinking about what exactly I needed to work on. -My movement is the issue, but how do I want to go about training it…-

As mundane as it sounded, my movement and general agility in my dragon form were horribly inefficient without magic.

Sure, I could fly ridiculously fast and control my momentum with thrusters giving me at least above-average agility and speed in a fight, but there were many obvious downsides to making a habit of using them.

-It's just a bad habit to depend on any one thing too much...- Currently, I was relying a bit too much on my thruster magic in fights, whether using it for speed or power, making it my top priority. -But I can do strength-related training later…-

*Thump* Finally landing at the edge of the field, I glanced over my shoulder at the dense treeline. “Hooh…” -I hope there’s enough room…- Finally turning to Ilios, I saw him eagerly wagging his tail with a smile on his face. “Alright, Ilios. I want you to attack me like when we roughhouse, but focus entirely on your speed and don’t hold back!”

Ilios nodded immediately before taking an agile stance.

“Alright, for how to pla-”

But before I could even start explaining, Ilios appeared in front of me and slammed his head into my chest.

*WHAM-CR-CR-CRACK* The hit hurled me into the forest, plowing me through several trees before I could stop myself.

*Craaackle* *THUMP* With a large tree falling over me, I slowly stood up and looked at Ilios with a fiery excitement welling up in me. -So you wanna play like that?!-

Throwing the idea that we were going to play tag out the window, I spread my wings and closed the distance between us in an instant.

Ilios did the same but was simply faster.

Immediately darting up to my side, he threw his tail out in front of my leg, swiping my legs out from under me in an instant.

*THUD* I felt embarrassed slamming my face into the dirt, but along with it came a wave of determination. -He’s fast.. but not uncatchable…-

Hastily using my wings to reorient myself, I landed and immediately lunged back toward Ilios with a new technique in mind.

But Ilios was still immensely faster. The moment I got close, he simply darted through my legs as if I was standing still, tripping me up and making me fall over again.

But I didn’t give up there, I kept getting up, and going back at it even though it felt like he was toying with me.

Each and every time, I would just get destroyed, yet slowly but surely, I was closing the gap.

-It’s possible!- Each time I got up, I would change something about my footwork, and go at it again.

It was a truly humbling experience, but as the day progressed, I continued to improve and continued to get faster and faster.

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-But…- “Hah.. hah.. hah…” -The gap is bigger than I thought…- I was breathing quite heavily as I looked over at Ilios and saw his tail still wagging. -Just how fast is he…-

But before I could try to think of what to change in my technique, a booming voice came from behind us. “What are you two doing?!” It was Father.

Ilios and I both paused the fight to look over at him. “Hah.. hah… What’s wrong, Father?”

"What do you mean ‘what's wrong’?! Look at the mess you made!"

-Huh?- Finally taking a moment to look at my surroundings, I noticed we were standing in the middle of a newly cleared section of forest, a couple kilometers wide. -Damn.. I really got absorbed in that...-

I was so tunnel-visioned on Ilios for the past several hours, I not only failed to watch the time, I didn't even notice that we were deforesting the area. "Sorry, Father… I got a little too into our game."

He paused before finally letting out a sigh and continuing in a softer tone. "Haah... What were you even doing?" He gave Ilios and I a look of curiosity seeing us bother breathing quite heavily.

"Well, it was going to be a game of tag, but it turned into an agility spar where I couldn't use magic."

His face quickly morphed with confusion. "W..why?"

"Well.. my agility in my dragon form was lacking without magic, so..."

"Haah…" He let out a sigh as he face-palmed with his wing. "Have you managed to improve at all yet?"

"Of course I have!" Giving an excited smile, I dashed up to him.

*BANG* The ground shattered under Father from my abrupt stop right in front of him.

"See? It's far from perfect but it should be a bit closer to average." Not stopping there, I decided to dart around the area to show off a little more before finally coming to a stop next to him again.

He just looked at me like I was some alien though. "You polished your footwork that much in a few hours?"

"Hm?" I gave a naïve smile, not understanding what he meant. -Shouldn’t normal dragons be able to do that?-

"Haah... I really need to stop trying to apply logic to you…” His smile turned warm for a moment before he continued. “In any case, I'm going to go swap places with your mother so you can go watch the sunset with her."

-Huh?- Looking up the mountainside, I immediately noticed it wasn’t the clouds that made the ground shaded. -Good lord, it's that time already?!- "Alright. Ilios and I will uh.. clean ourselves up then."

“Haha, alright. I’ll tell her about-”

“N-no! Just don’t say anything, I'll try to explain it.” -Sh*t…-

His smile immediately turned sly. “Suit yourself!” *Clunk*

The moment he walked back inside, I cleaned off Ilios and I with magic and turned to the field of trees and debris. -Do I just burn it?-

But I couldn’t even consider doing it before the door opened again. *Clunk*

-Oh boy…- I slowly turned around with a nervous smile only to see Mother staring at me with wide eyes.

“W..what did I miss?” She looked more confused than upset. “How did you even do this?”

“Haha…” I let out an awkward laugh as I sat myself down and braced myself for a punishment. “I got a bit too into my agility training with Ilios…”

“Agility training? What do you need that for?”

I paused for a moment seeing that she wasn’t upset. “I just felt like my agility in my dragon form was a bit sluggish without magic, so that's what I wanted to work on with Ilios. I don’t want to get too dependent on my magic.”

Mother paused for a moment as her smile grew. "Pfft-Hahaha! I guess no matter how much you grew on your trip, you're still you." Her warm smile immediately dispelled my worries and brought a smile to my face as well.

"Haha, what's that supposed to mean?"

Quickly walking up to me, she gently rubbed her cheek against mine. "Hmm~, let's just say that your Mother is very~ proud of you."

Before I knew it, a childish smile had come to my face. "Hehe..."

Finally pulling herself away, she looked me in the eyes with an excited expression. "Well, how about we head up the mountain. We don't want to miss the sunset after all."

With a strong nod and a joyful smile, I quickly followed after her, taking to the air shortly after with the repercussions of the mess I made being nowhere on my mind.