"So, you're the children I've been hearing about."
Both Bergan and Venka were standing as straight as possible, as politely as they thought possible. Bergan and Venka kneeled before the figure in front of them, as she hadn't given them permission to rise yet. The woman looked at the two, her eyes resting on Venka, then Faris, then back to Venka.
"The girl with magic like a dragon's, and the boy trained by Angela. And the two of you defeated one of the most skilled remnants of Galbatorix's original Black hand mage-assassin groupe." Nasuada shook her head in mirth. "This is an interesting year." She regarded them for some more time before speaking to Bergan to get up. As he and Ismira rose Nasuada asked, "So, where would you recommend them?"
Bergan thought for a moment, before answering, "I would put them at Pearl."
Trianna, who Faris recognized from Anya's memories, stood up along with several other people wearing similar robes. "Pearl!? That's the highest rank for students. I'd understand wanting to put them at the Silver or even Gold level, but Pearl?!" The other mages began to shout, with Nasuada opening her hand. As they quieted down she began to speak.
"This isn't the first time a mage has started in pearl, in fact, this year 6 apprentices are starting in that level due to, and if I'm correct in remembering, overwhelming talent." Several of the mages looked down embarrassedly from her scrutiny.
"My queen," Trianna began politely, "they are entering unannounced, this year's session is about to begin and the testing is over, even if they were truly as skilled as Bergan says, they cannot be given special treatment. The six apprentices did take their tests, and did better than a majority of the first years, and even better than many second and third years.
"Then maybe these two should be tested." Bergan retorted.
Trianna looked at him hard, "True, fine, but the proctor returned to his post by Surda, it would take him weeks to return."
"Then perhaps you all could witness the test." Nasuada said curtly, turning to Faris and Venka. "If these two are half as skilled as I've been told, then they do deserve to be tested, they were intercepted by the Black Hand not once, but thrice, it had been our duty to wipe out the remnants of Galbatorix, but we've failed in that regard, have we not?" The mages could only stare back in silence. "I thought as much. They will take the test tomorrow." Trianna nodded with acceptance, a few other mages followed suit but a few couldn't hide the distaste on their faces at the idea of having to judge the student exams.
As one mage passed by Faris could hear him mutter, "how much magic could a pair of kids even produce anyway…"
After all the mages Bergan left, Nasuada sighed in discontent. "They're getting on my nerves, I approved this group in order to regulate magic users and protect the people, they're too busy vying for ridiculous powerplays." She clutched a necklace of gold with three beautiful rubies adorned in the middle in a triangle formation.
Faris felt surprised, while Nasuada had in the book shown a dislike for political talk, she only let herself go when in the presence of her maid, or any other close friends. This meant she wasn't wary of Faris or Venka, and that Bergan was one of the few people in her friend circle.
"They are in fact truly tiring to deal with. You look like you've been through another war." Bergan laughed.
"You don't look too good yourself, you were only seven when the war ended, its only been 15 years but your hairs all gray and you haven't bothered to remove the stubble."
Faris nearly double taked. Which caused Nasuada to smile as Bergan looked upset.
"What! So I'm only twenty-two! You'd get these gray hairs if you had to deal with everything I go through! And shaving is a tiresome endeavor!"
Now that Faris looked, Bergan did look younger than he had pegged him, but his style and hair had made him look more like a middle-aged man. Which Faris now realized would have meant he should have heard of him during the War with Galbatorix, especially a human mage so powerful. But still…
"So you're not a geezer?" Venka asked.
Nasuada laughed as Bergan began his lengthy tirade over respect to elders, no matter how young those elders were, and how the children of the day had no sense of propriety. This tirade continued for a while until Bergan regained his composure, turned to a smiling Nasuada, embarrassedly scratched his head, and turned to leave.
Nasuada watched him go before turning her attention back to Faris and Venka, the trace of a smile still on her lips. "My maid shall lead you two to the room you will be staying in, Bergan told me explicitly due to the trauma of your experiences, that you two shouldn't be separated, especially at night. He also mentioned something about half a forest being drenched in water during what should have been a dry spell."
Venka turned red as she remembered the first night in which she had slept in the campground alone. She had woken up in the middle of the night from her recurring nightmares, not seeing Faris or anyone she knew she panicked and began utilizing her magic, doing the thing she remembered the most as she gathered the water from a nearby lake and drenched the entire campground with the lake. Since then Faris has had too hold her hand every time they slept, she was embarrassed, but he was gracious about it, and never seemed to make too much comment on her habit to drool in her sleep. Faris was a good deal more concerned about his hygiene than she was, so much so she sometimes wondered who was the boy and who was the girl. Though his habits had begun to rub off on her, and she began to take a bit better care of herself. She had always been forced to do it by her parents, and Faris' adamant demands that she took a bath before bedtime had begun to finally get to her, especially after he taught her the way to remove dirt and grime through a spell, and heat up a bit of the river. Lost in thought she didn't notice that Nasuada had finished speaking and that they were outside now, a maid leading them out of them to a room.
As Venka got into the room she saw the bed, tears streamed her face as she ran and tacked the bed, feeling the softness of the down and silken fabric of the pillows and sheets. She squirmed and writhed over the bed like a cat who found a warm patch of carpet, just happy to lie there for all of eternity. Faris for his part sat down on a chair with a bit of padding, opening his pack to remove one of his quartz stones, he had been dumping excess energy in to it, whenever he could spare, the travel was grueling and he hadn't had much spare energy, but it had been somewhat enough to equal that of one of the Black Hand Mages he fought, it was still less than either of the investigators, but it would have to do. He poured nearly all his remaining energy in it, shuddering a bit as the wave of fatigue hit him, Venka noticed, walking over she placed her hand on the stone, and pumped in a tiny bit of her energy. Faris gave nearly a double take as the quartz began to glow, before fading, watching in surprise as what was about equal to a year's supply of his stored magic was just refilled.
"Thanks" He said. Feeling a bit self-conscious over how weak his magical ability was still. Despite the improvements from the training, he was still a bit weaker by himself than a single one of those Mages who had attempted to kidnap Venka. Venka it seemed though gained the most out of the training, her physical stamina had improved quite a bit, and a bit of the chubbiness she had had went away, she looked like one of those child gymnasts now. And her sword skills dramatically improved. Though she was still worse than even him, but he had improved as well over the two weeks, dramatically more than she did in that regard.
"Don't mention it." She replied. Their short mental bond hadn't just helped them overcome Bergan, it seemed Venka had learned some of Faris's "strange" manners of speaking and phrases. Which meant that he'd have at least one person laughing at his jokes, but he couldn't be passive aggressive any more with her nearby. "It's the least I can do after everything you've been teaching me." She admitted. "I know you have less magic than the average mage, but you've made it up by being pretty dang skilled. I don't think I could remember that many words in the ancient language, while knowing all those other languages, even now only a few ones remain in my head, the others sort of just slipped out."
"You aren't going to make fun of me for being so weak?" Faris asked, raising an eyebrow.
"What would be the point?" Venka replied, sighing as she lay back unto the bed. "Maybe I would have done that 6 weeks ago. But that's unfair and stupid. Besides, the me back then would have definitely lost any fight to the you back then."
"True, but things may be different now." Faris continued.
"No… they wouldn't you'd win the mental battle hands down, and you'd stop me from casting any spells, I'm not skilled enough to stop that."
"Are… are you okay?" Faris asked, a bit concerned with Venka's somber demeanor.
"I just feel bad for those other apprentices, someone as weak as you is going to go kick their butts and show them up, it's just unfair."
"There it is." Faris muttered, "Venka with the smart mouth. I was beginning to miss it."
"You know you couldn't do anything without it." Venka laughed.
Faris shared her mirth, their conversation deepened into silly and inconsequential things, and even then, that felt precious to Faris. Eventually, the conversation drifted to the training with Bergan and Ismira. And Venka laughed as she remembered Bergan's face after they pulled their stunt.
"But I want to give him a good wack by myself, with no help."
Faris nodded in agreement. "I do want to get back at them one day."
"Faris?" Venka began.
"Yeah?"
"You know more than just fighting with the knife and sword, right?"
"Well yeah, I observed it while training under Angela, and I practiced what I remembered."
"Not just that, there are a few things you know that Angela didn't teach you."
"…"
"I don't want to know where you learned them, I just wanted to know if you could… maybe teach me?"
"Really?" Faris looked at Venka in surprise. She had despised having to do the physical training. It was because of how difficult it was for her to get used to it. He was surprised she would bring up learning another physically tasking skill.
"I noticed the way you punch and kick is different, it's weird kind of, but the way you stand and move and, even the way you breathe when fighting is… explosive, and fast, and, graceful? I guess that's the word? But because of that, even though Bergan and Ismira were better swords people, you were able to do some surprising things. And they didn't know how to react to some movements you made.
"Oh!" Faris had been practicing martial arts for nearly 12 years as Damien, and when he turned 4, he had begun doing the practical drills he had learned back on earth. His parents had allowed him to take the class, and he devoted himself to it after an encounter with some older kids when he turned 8, that mixed with his gymnastics training and early love for parkour molded his physical skills, and while he had a different body, his mind remembered the movements, and he was quickly catching up to his old skill level. Though he needed a training partner definitely. "All right, I have to tell you though, it's not going to be fun at first."
Venka smiled, "I'll be a good student."
"Alright then, then I'll teach you, but only one at a time, it's confusing otherwise, so… what matters the most to you? Attacking the opponent, or stopping them from attacking…."
They spent longer than they would have though training. Venka it seemed was actually very well attuned to the more flowing style of Kung Fu than anything else Faris had tried introducing her to. Faris was humorously thrilled to find that Northern Shaolin style and Tai Chi were both skills Venka acclimated to quickly, she was certainly better than he had been when he had first tried either. Solumbum had taught him memorization techniques when they first met, and through that he had perfect recall of his life before he died. This gave the added benefit of being able to remember feelings and impressions during any moment of his life, even miniscule things like the smell, or background noise. This was extremely important when he began to relearn his martial arts, and he ended up getting the basics back in a few short years.
He shook his head as Venka 's movements showed a level of competency that his kung fu instructor would have given pause to, especially for a new comer.
"I can't believe you've gotten this far already, I guess the physical training paid off more than I thought."
"Maybe I'm just a secret super genius talent!" Venka smiled, excited, practicing the punching and flowing kicks. Her body was very flexible, so the techniques were easily replicated by her, sometimes to an even better extent than Faris's demonstrations. "But some of them feel really weird," she muttered, "especially punching, I extend my arm then twist it before it fully extends, and the way I sweep my hand when I open my palm, and the swiping motion. I like the other punch better, it feels more natural."
"Those techniques come with practice, repetition, and developing of muscle strength and endurance in the right places. Don't forget to breath, that's important." Faris commented, making slight adjustments to her poses whenever needed. He was gaining a lot of insight just training her, seeing where he had issues as well due to their relatively similar sizes. "Don't forget that core exercises are extremely important for any discipline."
Venka made a face. "Those gave me terrible cramps the first two times."
"But you feel a lot better now." Faris commented, smiling.
"True… alright." Venka stuck her tongue out. "I always wondered why you didn't play with the rest of us, so you were cheating and learning all this stuff huh?"
Faris shrugged, "I wasn't strong enough to keep up when we were kids, my body was a bit weaker than the rest of the kids. It wasn't until recently that all these drills and internal training began to show."
Venka snorted. "You're dedicated, but all the well, I guess. Hey, why is it so bright now?"
Faris looked outside, eyes widening to the sunrise. "oops…"
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Afterword: Oops is correct hah! Anyways thanks for reading this chapter guys! Another one is heading in later today/tonight/ early in the morning depending on your time zone. To respond to a review I got saying I mixed up Venka's and Ismira's name last chapter: I for the life of me cannot find where I made the mistake, if you could point it out, the next time I post a chapter I'll add a response to the afterword acknowledging the mistake and thanking you for pointing it out.
Also, martial arts, I know some of you might be like: "Brah… that's too much". But my response to that is:
"chill fam"
Peace out y'all, till next time!
:3