As usual, Lex walks over to Nathan’s training grounds to give him his breakfast, a bunch of bread, a few cracked walnuts, as well as a leather bottle filled with milk. And as usual, Nathan is busy training by blowing up rocks. The spot where small droplets of molten rock landed has formed a small spiky structure by now.

“Hey, so, what are you doing?”. The akwardness in the way she said that doesn’t even get past Mr. Blank.

“I am not interested in small talk. I would appreciate if you got to the point straight away.”

She sits down right next to him on the same boulder, making Nathan scoot away from her a bit, visibly annoyed.

“Yeah, I know. But seriously, what are you doing? I mean, training, obviously, but I’m curious as to what you hope to achieve by doing this every single day.”

Ughhh. “Will you leave sooner if I answer you?”

“Probably.”

“I am training continuous output of Chi.”, he answers without skipping a beat.

“Wow, that hurt my feelings.” She does an overexxagerated gesture of offendedly backing away, but receives no response. “No? Okay. So you’re training continuous output of Chi, huh? What you’ve done in the village seemed pretty continuous to me.”

“I am blasting out huge amounts of Chi at times when it often is not necessary or even harmful, so I amm trying to learn to regulate that more.”

“Oh, wow, the chosen one still doesn’t have perfect Chi control?”

“I thought you would leave faster.”

“You really don’t want to spend any time with me, huh?”

He doesn’t answer.

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“Is it because of what I said?”

“It is because of everything you say, actually.”

She punches him against the shoulder, with no reaction. “You know, you really are rude.” Sigh. “But I guess I’m not really better, am I? I’m not saying that you had any right to behave the way you did when I asked you for help, but I still said some pretty awful stuff to you, too.” She piereces his eyes with her emerald green ones and makes him flinch just a little. “I’m sorry, I mean it. And thank you, who knows how many more would have died without you.” She waits for an answer, but is only met with silence, longer than usual. Just as she’s about to open her mouth, he answers.

“Are you done now?”

“You want me gone that bad?”

‘That is not why I am asking..’, he thinks to himself, and once again, Lex is met with silence.

“There’s still one thing I’ve got to ask you before I leave you alone.”

Nathan’s gaze tilts just a tad downwards. ‘Obviously.’ “What do you need?”

“We’ve got a proposal for you. You don’t intend to go back to the king, right?”

“That is correct, I do not.”

“All of us have realized that we need to grow stronger, especially with the future we’ve got ahead of us. So, if you are willing to train us daily, we would let you live the way you used to until now. Why don’t you stay here a bit longer? You don’t have any other plans, do you?”

Nathan looks.. surprised. It’s an offer he really had not expected when thinking about where to go next.

“So you do not mind having a monster around?”

Lex put her arms around him all of a sudden. Nathan is confused. It doesn’t seem like she wants to hit him. What is she up to? As her arms reach behind his back, she squeezes him tightly. She hugs him. Nathan is flustered, he has no idea how to react.

“I’m sorry. I really meant that. I don’t really think you’re a monster.” Nathan slowly eases up the tension in his body, but still slumps his arms down like a ragdoll. They stay like this for quite some time, but he doesn’t resist, nor does he say anything. That said, he doesn’t show anything either. “I don’t know what has happened to you in your past. But whatever it was, it must have been incredibly lonely.” She hugs him even more tightly. “One day I will help you melt that shell of ice around you. Maybe then you’ll find who it is you want to protect, so that you can choose for yourself.”

A ray of sun falls on them through the cloudy sky. For some reason, Marc doesn’t feel like that beautiful sight is all that pleasant.

“Actually, there is one thing I’d like to add to the proposal.” Nathan is startled, and draws back a little. “I want you to answer me one question per day truthfully.” He eases up again.

“Demanding more things is not making it likelier for me to accept your deal.”

She chuckles a little. “I guess it isn’t. But I’ve got a feeling you’ll still accept it.”

Even though she doesn’t have anything more to say, Lex keeps holding on to him. And he keeps quiet.