It was a surprisingly quiet day in Bonesborough. No recent reports of covenless witches, no grief from underlings or that ball-of-rot Kikimora, Belos didn't have a flair-up in a while, and he was able to get through his duties pretty quickly without incident! Even Lil' Rascal was behaving by just quietly resting in his hood. It was a rather pleasant day for Hunter, and he still had a lot of daylight to burn.
It was days like this that made the teen feel accomplished in his role, and he was more than happy to use the extra time to do something he wanted. That is what was leading him to sneaking out of city limits, to the forest that lays just outside the edge of Hexside. It has been a few weeks since was last able to go to his 'private training area', which was really just a semi-large outcropping of trees he stumbled across one day.'
No one knew of the place, so it seemed, even with its close proximity to Hexside. The outcropping was left alone save for his occasional visits, just how he preferred it. He was not much of a people person after all, and the last thing he wanted was kids coming around and trying to bother him while he trained.
As Hunter landed in the outcropping, he let out a sigh of relief, pulling his hood down and quickly looking around before taking his mask off. Lil' Rascal let out a chirp as they bounced up, looking around as well before flying to one of the balanced rock statues Hunter had left from his previous session. The teen followed his palisman, taking his cloak off to set on the rocks before pausing. Plants had grown up and entangled the rock formation, making it more stable and adding a rather delightful charm with large blooms of purple, pink, and orange flowers.
For a moment Hunter pondered if he had been gone longer than he thought, looking around at the rest of the outcropping and seeing similar balanced rock towers were also overgrown. But as he looked back, he remembered it was just yesterday that they had a Boiling Rain...these flowers would have been damaged unless someone was coming to take care of them?
"Oh...great…" Hunter muttered, feeling his ears flatten in disappointment. There goes his secret training ground! It will only be a matter of time before the person comes and finds -him- at some point, or worse they will bring friends around and he will have to deal with a posey of people. "Welp...guess it's time to find a new training area, Lil' Rascal."
Hunter picked up his cloak to put it back on, before moving to offer his hand out to his cardinal. Usually, the palisman would just jump onto his hand with a delightful little chirp, but this time they just stared up at him. "... Rascal, come on." Hunter made another motion with his hand, trying to ensight the bird to come along on their own free will, but this time Lil' Rascal flew up and over to another statue before letting out a few song notes. Hunter let out a sigh, lowering his hand before taking his cloak off again. " I see what you're getting at...Fine, I will train but next time we are going to find a new place."
Hunter took up his Golden-Staff, swinging it around a few times in practice as he walked to the middle of the outcropping. He didn't want to practice his skills with Lil' Rascal's staff just yet...he was too nervous of accidentally hurting his friend if he hit something too hard or even breaking the wood. He couldn't bear the thought of it, really.
After an hour of his usual training, practicing swings and counters, teleporting around the balanced rocks, and even using some of the near-by trees to practice his free-running skills, he began walking the edge of the outcropping for larger rocks. When he found one he liked, he would pick it up with his staff's magic, and toss it to the center of the field to use later. Balancing rocks was how he relaxed after training, and it was a good way not only to exercise his precision but see if the Golden-Staff needed some tinkering.
Now as he stood carefully balancing his fifth rock on the pile, he couldn't help but glance around at his other rock formations. Now covered in plant-life, it was like they truly belonged where he had set them to stand. Whoever was covering them, as well, obviously took a lot of time to plan how to wrap the vines and add the flowers to the rocks, even to the point that there was no repeat in which fauna was used. They had to be an extremely skilled witch to be commanding the growth in such a way.
Hunter lowered his staff after he was done balancing the rock, looking the out-crop over slowly this time. The ground had fogged over, wisps of which floated up and around the statues. A thick cloud cover had formed as well, but rays of sunlight burned their way through to occasionally draw lines through the field. Hunter blinked a few times as he looked back around slowly again, soon finding his eyes meeting with Lil' Rascal who had rested onto one of the blue-flowered rocks.
"...Ok...ok…" Hunter sighed as he walked over to the bird, offering his hand out to them again, this time the cardinal jumping gleefully onto his hand. " It is...nice here…" Hunter said to his friend, before turning to look back around. " I… I helped create this. And whoever grew the plants here helped...since the plants are tended to I assume they care a lot about this place." Hunter looked over to his new statue, flicking his ears before going to set Lil' Rascal on his shoulder.
The teen quickly looked around for smaller pebbles, and soon found enough to sit down in front of the new balanced rocks, " We will see how they do with a new addition, hmm? Maybe next time we come, we might meet them." Hunter lightly scratched the top of Lil' Rascal's head before turning to put his mask and cloak back on. He glanced at the message he wrote in pebbles before smiling to himself, and mounting his staff to head back to the castle.
'Thanks'